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Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, (born April 23, 1919, Vladikavkaz, Russiadied May 1963?, U.S.S.R.), senior Soviet military intelligence officer who was convicted of spying for the United Kingdom and the United States. April 22, 1964. What happened to the family of Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky? This was prior to President Kennedy's address to the US revealing that U-2 spy plane photographs had confirmed intelligence reports that the Soviets were installing medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, in what was known as Operation Anadyr. After Ames was arrested and charged with espionage, his attorney, Plato Cacheris, negotiated a plea bargain with prosecutors: Ames wife, Rosario, an accomplice in his spying, would be spared a long prison sentence if he cooperated fully with the authorities. British spy Greville Wynne was Penkovskys contact and intermediate to MI6. Penkovsky and Wynne's motivation to steal top-secret intel from the USSR is driven by their desire to protect their loved ones from a nuclear holocaust. Penkovsky was actually a real proper hero before beginning of the film. Oleg Gordievsky is a Russian-born former British secret agent. Its thought that once Blake implicated Penkovsky, the KGB began watching him from apartments across the river from his home and confirmed he was meeting with Western intelligence. Of course Cherkashin, who worked in the Soviet Embassy in Washington and handled Ames, may have been unable to resist a chance to taunt the FBI and the CIA. How Penkovsky and Wynne did it, how they were caught, and what happened to them next is the focus of The Courier. Maria, then 16, was carrying the patatuff. The women fed the dogs potato chips to distract them. It was broadcast on 15 January 2007.[22]. JB: The first meeting with Oleg Penkovsky was about seven p.m. April twenty first 1961 and he was told what room to go to at the Mount Royal Hotel in London and thanks to my MI6 friends, they permitted me, since he first wanted to meet the Americans, to be the one to answer the door and meet him. Hed been back at headquarters only four months earlier, and all seemed well. GRU . Trong khi , mt ip vin ca GRU tn . His arrest was followed by a public trial in May 1963. After his release, Wynne struggled with . A skilled intelligence officer, he had been promoted a few months before to rezident, or chief, of the KGB station in the. "Deca que Penkovsky tena dos vas para contactar a los estadounidenses y que una de ellas, 'en caso de un peligro inesperado', implicaba soplar tres veces en el micrfono del telfono. He asked if they were there to greet an important diplomat. Wynne was a British businessman who, from 1960 and 1962, smuggled thousands of pieces of intel out of Russia before he was captured, imprisoned, and tortured for two years by the KGB. I had not opened my garage for more than two months, and when I finally decided to completely clean it, I found out that a swarm of wasps had comfortably settled in it. I always thought there was another one, he told me. Over the course of his espionage, he delivered rolls of film, classified documents, and over 5,000 photos. The first meeting between Penkovsky and two American and two British intelligence officers occurred during a visit by Penkovsky to London in April 1961. Penkovsky was portrayed by Merab Ninidze in the 2020 British film The Courier, in which Benedict Cumberbatch played Greville Wynne. Greville Wynne And Oleg Penkovsky were two people who had a significant role in containing the cold war. After they chatted for a while, the rezident said, By the way, Sergei, this cable came in and tossed it over. Toasty. This is quite shocking, since their countries are nearly at war. Between the information from Oleg Penkovsky and the U-2 pilots photos, America now knew the exact location of the Soviet launch sites, and most importantly, their weak long-range capabilities. In May 1963, after his trial, Izvestya reported that Varentsov, who had since achieved the rank of Chief Marshal of Artillery and Commander in Chief of Rocket Forces and candidate member of the Central Committee had been demoted to the rank of Major General. 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. Peter Wright, a former British MI5 officer known for his scathing condemnation of the leadership of British intelligence during most of the Cold War, believed that Penkovsky was a fake defection. From a Moscow railroad station, he made his way by train, bus and taxi to a point near the Finnish-Soviet border, where he hid in some grass by the roadside until two cars stopped. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine (Howard, Russian authorities reported in 2002, died of a fall in his KGB dacha near Moscow. The mothers name is Not Available. Wynne's role as a salesman who works his . The CIA. For those who are betrayed, the damage persists long after the initial shock passes. By that time, the armys main concern was crushing Nazi Germany, and during World War II, Penkovsky fought as an artillery officer. I went into the bathroom, locked the door and stared at myself in the mirror.. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oleg-Vladimirovich-Penkovsky, Public Broadcasting Service - Biography of Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Oleg Penkovsky. He played a role in both the Berlin Crisis in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year. Henceforth, the ranks of your armed forces are increased by one man.. Stuzhin & Cheredintzev/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesSome believe Penkovsky was burned alive as Soviet punishment for his treasonous espionage. As Penkovskys position necessitated travel to Britain, the Russians initially didnt suspect him of espionage. Penkovsky was executed but there are conflicting reports about the manner of his death. Ten agents were executed and countless others imprisoned. Sooner or later they would arrest me.. As his tasks were classified, neither his son nor his partner were injured after his capture. They worked hard, shadowing British diplomats, to build up a "discovery case" against Penkovsky so that they could arrest him without throwing suspicion on their own moles. This is a picture of Oleg Penkovsky in his uniform and all of his medals, which he earned during World War Two. Our professional rodent controlwill surely provide you with the results you are looking for. Either one of ours or theirs., When the FBI Spent Decades Hunting for a Soviet Spy on Its Staff, Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America, David Wise These were routinely smuggled through contacts like Wynne and given the CIA codename Ironbark.. The mole isnt just some guy who stole a few secrets. We know very well that youve been deceiving us for years, he said. John Turner. There were embraces, and everyone cried. A Russian TV documentary shows a shadowy figure picking it up, but Andrei said it is an actor, not his father. They urged him to go to Moscow, but they also provided him with an escape plan in case he signaled that he was in danger. Long after the massive losses in 1985, the lingering questions still gnaw at their counterintelligence experts. Penkovskys debriefing sessions with MI6 and the CIA totaled up to 140 hours. In 1988, he took a Moscow river cruise and met a blond, blue-eyed and very beautiful woman named Svetlana, who worked for an automotive magazine. The information shared above about the question, TOP 9 what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and daughter BEST and NEWEST, TOP 8 what happened to officer tommy norman daughter BEST and NEWEST, TOP 9 what happened to ocelo sponges BEST and NEWEST, TOP 10 what happened to notre dame coach BEST and NEWEST, TOP 9 what happened to noahs ark BEST and NEWEST, TOP 9 what happened to noahs ark in the bible BEST and NEWEST, TOP 10 what happened to nle choppa BEST and NEWEST, TOP 9 what happened to nina in promising young woman BEST and NEWEST. In a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the head of Russia's foreign intelligence service, Mikhail Fradkov, named Penkovsky as Russia's biggest intelligence failure. Poleshchuk was lured back to his fate. He was the real deal. On the front door of his apartment, someone had locked a third lock he never used because he had lost the key; he had to break in. He was arrested by the Soviets in October 1962, and then tried and executed the following year. Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky redirected the virus war. GRU agent Vladimir Rezun, however, claimed in his memoir that he saw footage of Penkovsky being strapped to a stretcher inside of a crematorium and burned alive. By 1939 he had graduated from a Soviet military school and had been part of a group called Komosomol, meaning "young communists. Brought up in the North Caucasus, Penkovsky graduated from the Kiev Artillery Academy with the rank of lieutenant in 1939. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. A 2020 film, The Courier, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, follows his story. Penkovsky is perhaps the best known of Soviet double agents. Oleg Penkovsky saved the world from mushroom clouds and untold deaths in the fall of 1962. The KGB men searched the apartment all night. 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]. between this and #ThePowerOfDog lately, he might as well be the best actor in the world right now. I will never forget the day when I got home and she was singing songs, melodies, no words, and looking insane. He was arrested for espionage in Budapest on Nov. 16, 1962. He would not say why. Because I knew it was a death sentence.. Although Gordievsky has written that he climbed into the trunk of one of the cars, a former CIA officer says he actually crawled into a space in a specially modified Land Rover. They have two children, and he works as an independent research analyst for business and government contractors in Northern Virginia. Thanks to his priceless information the Cuban crisis was not transformed into a last World War". Now, his relationship is perfect. If I was waiting for the elevator, they went down the stairs. MI6 and the CIA ran Pen. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [10], The Soviet leadership began the deployment of nuclear missiles, in the belief that Washington would not detect the Cuban missile sites until it was too late to do anything about them. [7], Former KGB major-general Oleg Kalugin does not mention Penkovsky in his comprehensive memoir about his career in intelligence against the West. For months, Andrei had been hoping his father would find him an apartment. The Courier is currently lived by his son, Andrew, as he died in 1990 at the age of 70. The programme featured original covert KGB footage showing Penkovsky photographing classified information and meeting up with Janet Chisholm, a British MI6 agent stationed in Moscow. The Soviets had arranged for the apparent good news to reach his wife through a friend and former co-worker in Moscow, who wrote to her in Lagos. The case of Oleg Penkovsky, . But before the two years were up, a KGB agent caught him passing secrets. No, he was told, theyre here for you.. Greville Wynne being escorted by police after arriving back home from Russia. 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 . Penkovsky's true story is one of bravery, passing MI6 and CIA valuable information from inside Soviet intelligence. He was about to be married, and his debts were mounting. The CIA would want to debrief him at length to try to determine the full extent of his treachery. Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, most importantly, the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile program. On that first day, Andrei pressed his questioners to explain why his father had been arrested. The agency cautioned that it would be too risky for him to bring that much cash through the airport and told him the money would be in Moscow, stashed inside a fake rock. But some highly experienced U.S. counterintelligence experts doubt it. Introduction. His fear mounted. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. After reading about how Soviet spy Oleg Penkovsky staved off nuclear war, learn about Vasili Arkhipov, another unsung hero of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ti Lin X, gin ip l mt trng ti. He sort of fought the Nazis off in Kiev, and was leading that and was decorated 13 times. Leonid and his wife, Lyudmila, had been back two weeks when the KGB showed up at their door. Stay calm, he recalls telling himself. Outwardly, Janet was an ordinary mother of four children. Though a former colonel of the 'KGB' by designation, who was appointed "resident-designate" at the London . He was later traded in an exchange after the British had a Russian spy, Konon Molody in their custody. While President Kennedy and Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Kruschev dared each other to launch nuclear weapons on TV, one largely-forgotten Soviet spy changed the course of history from the shadows. He was probably the Wests most valuable double agent during the Cold War. 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. However, Penkovsky would grow up to join the Red Army in 1937. Penkovsky was portrayed by Eduard Bezrodniy in the 2014 Polish thriller Jack Strong, about Ryszard Kukliski, another Cold War spy. After 14 days of strained negotiations, on October 28 Khruschev agreed to withdraw Soviet weapons from Cuba and the world breathed a sigh of relief. The KGB took her to a sanitarium, where she was drugged and interrogated further. But, he adds, I would never, ever see her smile again. She died three years later, in 1988. In April 1985, he has said, he told a Soviet contact in Washington the names of two or three double agents who had approached the CIA but who were actually working for the KGBdangles, in intelligence parlance. Also, we have no information about his son and daughter. Penkovsky joined the GRU as an officer, in 1953. The information he provided on the Soviets relatively weak capability in long-range missiles proved invaluable to the United States before and during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. Before Leonid Poleshchuk left Lagos, he had asked the CIA for $20,000 to buy the apartment that was supposedly waiting for him. The resettled spy told Wiser he was convinced Ames had betrayed him, but he confirmed that he had been abruptly summoned back to Moscow on May 17, 1985almost four weeks before Ames said he named him to the KGB. If it should turn out that the mole is no longer alive, the intelligence agencies would still run a damage assessment to try to reconstruct what and whom he might have betrayed. This both kills the victim and disposes of the body in one fell swoop. This paper is about Oleg Penkovsky and his profound contributions to the UK and US military intelligence. 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. In November 1960, Greville Wynne, a 41-year-old British businessman, sat down for a lunch that would change his life. Your Privacy Rights They married in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he worked for an independent newspaper in Moscow for a time. Oleg Penkovsky was born in Russia in 1919. In Wright's view, the failure of British intelligence leaders to listen to him caused them to become paralysed when such agents defected to the Soviet Union; in his book, Spycatcher, he suggests that his hypothesis had to be true, and that the Soviets were aware of this paralysis and planted Penkovsky. [13], Penkovsky was arrested on 22 October 1962. secret papers written by Oleg Penkovsky, the Soviet official sentenced to death after the Greville Wynne trial. Chief KGB interrogator Alexander Zagvozdin said Penkosvky was questioned perhaps a hundred times and then shot. The CIA delayed in contacting him. He did so, but nothing happened. We cant say their name. He walked down the steps and shook hands with the waiting CIA officers. He Had a Big Enemy", : , "Book I: Foreign and Military Intelligence: X. At Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland he looked out the window and saw several black cars and people on the tarmac. If you know some information, please comment below. Penkovsky, far from being the decadent playboy.portrayed by the Soviet prosecutor, was probably The most highly placed Western agent ever to fall into the hands of'the Soviet security . Were they executed? The most controversial claim in the book was that he and Penkovsky were smuggled into the White House and lauded by President Kennedy. Andrei was allowed to visit him in prison only once, after he was sentenced to death. Bokhan assumed that both the KGB and the GRU were watching him. Penkovsky and Greville smuggled more than 5000 top-secret military documents out of the USSR. He dropped it, sensing that he was getting into dangerous territory. We have no information about his girlfriend/boyfriend. The Soviet public was first told of Penkovsky's arrest more than seven weeks later, when Pravda named Wynne and Jacobs[clarification needed] as his contacts, without naming anyone else. I had no job. He met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, wrote a memoir and co-wrote a book on the KGB. It looked outward for any external threats, and employed people capable of subterfuge and turning potential pawns into assets. Did an Ancient Magnetic Field Reversal Cause Chaos for Life on Earth 42,000 Years Ago? 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. Espionage charges in a Soviet court were not to be taken lightly and Penkovsky was sentenced to death. In June he was expelled from the Central Committee for 'having relaxed his political vigilance.' In extended CIA and FBI debriefings, he talked about his nine years of spying for Moscowincluding the day when he turned over, in his words, the identities of virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other American and foreign services known to me.. Many Animals, Including the Platypus, Lost Their Stomachs. Housing in Moscow was nearly impossible to find, even for a KGB officer, but sometime that May, hed received a seemingly miraculous letter from his father. Officially, he was shot to death. In passing along the information stolen by Penkovsky, the two men played a role in deterring an all-out nuclear war. On April 23, 1919, Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky was born in Vladikavkaz, Russia. Moscow, August 3, 1985: It was 2 a.m. when Andrei Poleshchuk got home. Five days after Bokhan received the cable about his son, he took his wife, Alla, and their 10-year-old daughter, Maria, to the beach. Just the day before, Moscow had announced that a Soviet defense researcher named Adolf G. Tolkachev had been arrested as a CIA spy. In either scenario, the double agent died on May 16, 1963. Penkovsky was portrayed by Christopher Rozycki in the 1985 BBC Television serial Wynne and Penkovsky. As important as Popov was to the United States and the West, it was Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, another Soviet GRU officer, who has earned the sobriquet, the "spy who saved the world.'. Boy and daughter now Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky were captured by the Soviets in 1962. He asked if they were there to greet an important diplomat Missile Crisis the following year melodies, no,... Delivered rolls of film, classified documents, and he works as an officer in... A KGB agent caught him passing secrets Penkovskys position necessitated travel to,! You are looking for, had been arrested as a CIA spy is quite shocking since! Arrested as a salesman who works his stole a few secrets, 1963 World mushroom... Taken lightly and Penkovsky was sentenced to death as an officer, in 1953 documents. 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