The KGB told Andrei his fathers remains were cremated and there would be no grave. They drove through several checkpoints with no trouble, but they had to stop at Soviet customs when they reached the border. May 11, 1963. His MI6 handlers assured him theyd picked up no sign anything was wrong. She did, in 1991, but the strain caused by six years of separation proved too much to repair. That fall, the KGB rolled up all of the CIAs assets in the Soviet Union in a lightning strike that sent the agency reeling. Their caution in this matter may have led to the missiles being discovered earlier than the Soviets would have preferred. One of them finally answered: For espionage.. He had been drugged. After Penkovsky urged Wynne to arrange a meeting with the entities in question, he officially became a Western spy with the codename Hero.. Relying once again on Varentsov's patronage, he spent nine months studying rocket artillery at Dzerzhinsky Military Academy. Cookie Settings, FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, John Hallisey / FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12. Penkovskys stolen files showed that the Soviet arsenal was smaller and weaker than the Americans had previously thought. It shortened her life, he said. After attending the Military Diplomatic Academy (194953), he became an intelligence officer, serving primarily in Moscow. PG-13 I remember Oleg Penkovsky (a scintillating Merab Nididze) very well. They are in relation from previous few years of a strong relationship. In his fourth-floor office at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, he wrapped up five to seven pounds of secret documents and walked out of the building. By 1960 he had become a colonel in the GRU and deputy chief of the foreign section of the State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific Research (196062), in which post his task was to collect scientific and technical intelligence on the United States, Britain, and other Western countries. Top KGB officers had known for more than a year that Penkovsky was a British agent, but they protected their source, a highly placed mole in MI6. In his autobiography, Wynne says that he was carefully developed by British intelligence over many years with the specific task of making contact with Penkovsky.[5]. 276 to 280, "A Spy Story: Sergei Skripal Was a LIttle Fish. These produced around 1,200 pages of transcripts which the CIA and MI6 delegated 30 translators and analysts to focus on. The documents provided by Penkovsky showed that the Soviet Union was not prepared for war in the area, which emboldened Kennedy to risk the operation in Cuba. Now, his relationship is perfect. After months of interrogation at Lefortovo, Andrei Poleshchuk told his captors he wouldnt answer any more questions unless they told him who his father worked for. He decided to leave Athensbut not for Moscow. He sort of fought the Nazis off in Kiev, and was leading that and was decorated 13 times. These things have to be run to ground.. After school, she worked in London as a secretary before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany. Impossible. Were they executed? The KGB men searched the apartment all night. Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky (Russian: ; 23 April 1919 16 May 1963), codenamed HERO,[1] was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Within two weeks after his flight to the United States, he had a new name, a fake background, a Social Security number and a 9-millimeter Beretta. For Oleg Penkovsky, however, his world-altering espionage work hastened his death. His boyhood nickname, back on a collective farm in Ukraine, was Mole. Now a stocky, powerfully built man of 43, he had been working for the GRU for 16 yearsand feeding Soviet secrets to the CIA for 10. Your fathers been arrested, the man said. In Athens, Bokhan called an emergency telephone number that rang in the CIA station inside the American Embassy. Penkovskys debriefing sessions with MI6 and the CIA totaled up to 140 hours. He had never told his wife that he was working for the CIAit would have put her in mortal dangerbut now he had to say something. He would not say why. Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton, with Henry R. Schlesinger, 'Fatal Encounter' BBC TV documentary 3 May 1991, KGB, MI6 and CIA officers involved with the Penkovsky reveal their stories, This page was last edited on 30 January 2023, at 08:39. He did so, he said, to prove his bona fides as a potential KGB mole. Penkovsky was portrayed by Christopher Rozycki in the 1985 BBC Television serial Wynne and Penkovsky. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. [18] In a 2010 interview, Suvorov denied that the man in the film[clarification needed] was Penkovsky and said that he had been shot. No, he was told, theyre here for you.. It said Bokhans son, Alex, 18, was having trouble in military school and suggested the deputy take his vacation now, three months early, and return to the Soviet Union to deal with him. He had champagne and flowers waiting, a big basket of fruit, chocolates and a balloon. In 1965 his journal, The Penkovskiy Papers, was published in the United States, though the books authenticity has been questioned by some. A Russian undercover agent and a cooperating MI6 had the opportunity to gain close access to a vast amount of information that prevented an atomic conflict at the time. He had lost a lot of weight. The mole isnt just some guy who stole a few secrets. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Wynne had worked as both Penkovsky's contact and courier; both men were arrested by the Soviets in October 1962. As the deputy chief, Bokhan was privy to all GRU spy operations aimed at Greece, the United States and the other NATO countries. For two years I went to Lefortovo two, three times a week, Alla Bokhan told me. He asked for a fictitious Greek employee. Penkovsky's true story is one of bravery, passing MI6 and CIA valuable information from inside Soviet intelligence. He always hoped Leila would join him in England. Janet continued to travel around the world until well into her 70s. Continue. Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) and Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) are players in the lesser known true life spy story of "The Courier." Benedict Cumberbatch film opens in cinemas UPDATED. Together with a turned KGB specialist, Oleg Penkovsky, he obtained important information about the Soviet attacks that somehow prevented the atomic conflict during the virus war. However, Penkovsky would grow up to join the Red Army in 1937. AFP/Getty ImagesPenkovsky at his public trial in Moscow. He drove across the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. and entered Chadwicks, a popular Georgetown restaurant, where he handed the documents to a Soviet Embassy official named Sergei Chuvakhin. This is quite shocking, since their countries are nearly at war. Documents released by National Archives show British officials saw efforts to free Oleg Gordievsky's family as a lost cause Owen Bowcott and Richard Norton-Taylor Mon 29 Dec 2014 19.01 EST Last . Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Oleg Penkovsky, then a colonel in Russia's military intelligence service known as the GRU, had already passed along intelligence about the shoot-down of American satellite planes in Soviet territory and information on his own GRU graduating class. Penkovsky had been trying to offer his services to the west for some years, blatantly buttonholing diplomats and businessmen at receptions and approaching tourists in the street. In July 1994, Leslie Wiser, the FBI agent who unmasked Ames, flew to London to interview Gordievsky. Wright was bitter towards British intelligence, reportedly believing that it should have adopted his proposed methods to identify British/Soviet double agents. Some believe Penkovsky was burned alive as Soviet punishment for his treasonous espionage. Penkovsky approached American students on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow in July 1960 and gave them a package in which he offered to spy for the United States. Additionally, Wynne was a designer and money manager who was selected by MI6 due to his movement in Eastern Europe. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, they sentenced Wynne to eight years in prison. More than a year before the crisis, they had recruited a civilian, British businessman Greville Wynne, to do so. Penkovsky (right) during his trial. A GRU colonel by 1960, he served as deputy chief of the foreign section of the State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific Research for the next two years. Then he kissed his wife and daughter goodbye. It remains unclear to this day exactly how Penkovsky was found out. Soon after they arrived in the United States, there was a ceremony honoring his father at a Russian Orthodox church in Washington. Oleg Penkovsky, a colonel of the USSR Central Intelligence Agency, a distinguished officer in the Second World War, who has a close relationship with many high-ranking military personnel, is also USA and Great Britain was a spy working for the intelligence agency. He is known as one of the greatest spies in the world. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Fathers name is Not Available. Leonid and his wife, Lyudmila, had been back two weeks when the KGB showed up at their door. We cant say their name. Introduction. His fear mounted. After they chatted for a while, the rezident said, By the way, Sergei, this cable came in and tossed it over. Penkovsky was decorated four times during his 1939-1940 tour of duty. Penkovsky provided plans and descriptions of the nuclear rocket launch sites in Cuba to the West. Do , ip vin "ba mang" phi nhn n t hnh. He graduated from the strenuous academy in 1948 and promptly joined the GRU. [20] The head of the GRU, Ivan Serov was sacked during the same period. CIA and FBI agents who knew the Russian agonized over . Stuzhin & Cheredintzev/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. The Courier tells the story with legitimate subtleties and an excellent cast that includes Benedict Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne. That the KGB ran a fourth mole is undeniable, Victor Cherkashin, a wily KGB counterintelligence officer, has written. The Spy Who Saved the World: Explores how information provided by Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky aided the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Corrections? On April 23, 1919, Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky was born in Vladikavkaz, Russia. Penkovsky-wynne spy trial, May 1963, a Sanyo portable transistor radio . Positive Elements. Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. In 1955 Penkovsky was appointed military attach in Ankara. 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