Penkovsky's fate is also mentioned in the Nelson DeMille spy novel The Charm School (1988). Among the explanations are a desire for money or fame, a ruinous case of alcoholism, or perhaps even psychological scars left by his time in Soviet prison or the shame he felt for publicly turning against British intelligence during the trial. But the CIA and FBI debriefers soon recognized a glaring anomaly in Ames account: It was clear that those three agents had fallen under suspicion in May 1985before Ames insists he handed over the documents. Reiser was waiting in a car at the other end. Was there a fourth mole in the U.S. intelligence system that blew these secret agents covers? This time it's a true story:Wynne served as an unassuming go-between for British intelligence MI-6 and Russian spyOleg Penkovsky atthe height of the Cold War. Leonid and his wife, Lyudmila, had been back two weeks when the KGB showed up at their door. He stayed in safe houses in Virginia at first, then lived half a year in California to learn English, moved back East and consulted for the CIA and some U.S. companies. Had the Russians examined the car, they would have seen the hump on the floor where the driveshaft would normally be. 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. 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. Wright noted that, unlike Igor Gouzenko and other earlier defectors, Penkovsky did not reveal the names of any Soviet agents in the West but only provided organisational detail, much of which was known already. Through the windows of the ground-floor apartment he shared with his parents, he could see strangers moving about. This both kills the victim and disposes of the body in one fell swoop. In June 1986, Leonid was tried and, predictably, convicted. what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and child. Advertising Notice Russia was building missile bases in Cuba, armed with nuclear . In 1949 Penkovsky transferred from the regular army to the Soviet army intelligence directorate (GRU). But, he adds, I would never, ever see her smile again. She died three years later, in 1988. Cookie Settings, FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, John Hallisey / FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds, 5,000-Year-Old Tavern With Food Still Inside Discovered in Iraq, The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars. It's athank you from the West for what he sacrificed.". [6] This information was invaluable to President John F. Kennedy in negotiating with Nikita Khrushchev for the removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba. You, in your own mind, have developed this sense of self-importance, says West. 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. Though a former colonel of the 'KGB' by designation, who was appointed "resident-designate" at the . He asked them to deliver it to an intelligence officer at the US Embassy. He created his own computer consulting firm and dabbled in film production. Gordievsky decided to risk his life and go. He was senior enough that you could sit down with the agents for hours and explain the entire context of how Soviet intelligence worked.. But Ames always insisted to the FBI, the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee that he revealed no significant sources before his meeting at Chadwicks. He met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, wrote a memoir and co-wrote a book on the KGB. Cookie Settings, Liam Daniel, Courtesy of Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions, The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds, 5,000-Year-Old Tavern With Food Still Inside Discovered in Iraq, The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Penkovsky's American contacts received a letter from him notifying them that a Moscow dead drop had been loaded. Updates? Leonids original case officer blamed himself for years for letting my father down. Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. Wynne had worked as both Penkovsky's contact and courier; both men were arrested by the Soviets in October 1962. In November 1960, Greville Wynne, a 41-year-old British businessman, sat down for a lunch that would change his life. She did, in 1991, but the strain caused by six years of separation proved too much to repair. 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 was detained at Lubyanka prison. Terms of Use A somewhat baroque means of murder, the killer shuts their victim in a coffin (knocking them out first is optional) and feeds the coffin into a crematorium oven. In July 1994, Leslie Wiser, the FBI agent who unmasked Ames, flew to London to interview Gordievsky. A drink-lovingbon vivante as portrayed onscreen, Wynne'sreal-life salesmanship and genuine naivet made him perfect for throwing off serious suspicion. Oleg Penkovsky saved the world from mushroom clouds and untold deaths in the fall of 1962. During their visits, Penkovsky and Wynne would get out on the town, visiting restaurants, nightclubs and shops under the cover of talking business, with each man proudly showing the other around his home country. It was pathological with him.. In the morning, they took usmy mother, my grandmother and meand put us in separate black Volgas, Andrei said. When I came to Moscow, she left, he says, taking the children with her on a vacation. 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. what happened to penkovsky wifemostar bridge jump injuries. Sooner or later they would arrest me.. After some months, she was released. Wynne died of throat cancer in 1990 at a London hospital. Some of the documents provided were originals, which Wright thought could not have been easily taken from their sources. Oleg Penkovsky was a Soviet military intelligence colonel during the late Fifties and early Sixties responsible for informing the UK about the Kremlin's emplacement of missiles in Cuba. Wynne was a middle-classBritish businessman whose frequenttravelto Eastern Europe attracted recruitmentby MI-6 to serve as a liaison to high-ranking Soviet official Penkovsky. Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky born 23 April 1919 died 16 May 1963, USSR codenamed HERO, was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence (GRU) during the late . Dun s denouement is both startling and convincing a fitting climax to this irresistible real life thriller Francis Wheen, Mail on Sunday 'This excellent book contains lessons that are still valid in the 21st century' --Oleg Gordievsky, Literary Review 'This excellent book contains lessons that are still valid in the 21st . Inside was an offer to work as a 'soldier-warrior' for the free world. He had champagne and flowers waiting, a big basket of fruit, chocolates and a balloon. Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. But over time, intelligence experts and those involved in the case, though reluctant to share sensitive information, cast doubt on much of what Wynne laid out in his books. Considerado como el doble agente ms valioso que tuvo Occidente durante la Guerra Fra, Penkovsky ofreci informacin que le dio al gobierno de Kennedy una ventaja clave durante la Crisis de . There were embraces, and everyone cried. After Penkovsky and Wynne were captured by the KGB, which happened very similar to how their capture is depicted in the film, the GRU lieutenant colonel been convicted of treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. When Wynne visited Moscow in July 1962, his hotel room and luggage were searched, and he was tailed during his travels. These guys were in the foxhole togetherthey each had a secret that only the other man knew, says OConnor. In all, Penkovsky had provided Western intelligence with about 140 hours of interviews and 111 exposed rolls of film, contributing to some 10,000 pages of intelligence reports. They expected I would do something stupid, he told me. I dont want to live in a tent, she said. He succeeded in transferring to the West 111 Minox films with 5,500 top-secret military documents, totaling 7,650 pages, as well as revealing the identities of hundreds of Soviet agents in the West. 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. Since Oleg Penkovsky offered his services to both the Americans and the British, the CIA and MI6 developed him jointly. After a meeting in Paris in September 1961, Penkovskys next trips were mysteriously cancelled at the last minute. In October 1962, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were on the brink of nuclear war after Soviet nuclear missiles were spotted in Cuba. Some of it just didnt add up, he says. Brought up in the North Caucasus, Penkovsky graduated from the Kiev Artillery Academy with the rank of lieutenant in 1939. The mole isnt just some guy who stole a few secrets. Penkovsky never knew his father, who was killed fighting as an officer in the White Army in the Russian Civil War when he was a baby. Because his father opposed the Communist revolution, Penkovsky was routinely denied promotions. Penkovsky's espionage about Soviet missiles . Finally, in 1991, with the KGB in disarray after its chief led the failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the authorities let Alla and her daughter leave. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. He worked as a double agent for the British secret service during the Cold War, between 1974 and 1985. They were alone in the world with this incredible burden except for the other man.. After taking part in the Winter War against Finland and in World War II, he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Alexander Zagvozdin, chief KGB interrogator for the investigation, stated that Penkovsky had been "questioned perhaps a hundred times" and that he had been shot and cremated. Make way for his amateur,everyman spy Greville Wynne in "The Courier," now on premium VOD6. He dropped it, sensing that he was getting into dangerous territory. It also helped Americans to understand how limited the Soviets capabilities actually were in the area, so as tensions grew during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy knew how much rope he could give [Soviet Premier Nikita] Khrushchev, as Duns puts it. An industrial sales consultant who regularly traveled through Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union representing British electrical and steel companies, Wynne was told it would be helpful if on his next trip, he could arrange for a meeting with a state committee in Moscow dedicated to developing opportunities with foreigners in science and technology, and report back on his conversations. They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. The film seeshim arrested on a plane leaving Moscow and does not delve into his show trial for spying alongside PenkovskyinMay 1963. Penkovsky was executed but there are conflicting reports about the manner of his death. Oleg Gordievsky is a Russian-born former British secret agent. The career of Oleg Penkovsky reads like a story by John le Carre. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war. It was broadcast on 15 January 2007.[22]. The timeline just didnt work to explain Gordievskys recall to Moscow, FBI Special Agent Leslie Wiser, who ran the Ames case, told me. Janet continued to travel around the world until well into her 70s. The two then visited the White House where President John F. Kennedy personally thanked them for their servicethen the two returned to the U.K. just 18 hours later. Gordievsky believes they were waiting to catch him contacting British intelligence. He just couldnt tell the truth. 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. It was scary.. He was transferred to MI6 and assisted with the 1959 defection of the Soviet intelligence officer, Major Kuznov. In Athens, Bokhan called an emergency telephone number that rang in the CIA station inside the American Embassy. Penkovsky's reporting of thirty years ago demonstrates that political and Economic failures were already eroding the foundations of the Soviet empire. That raised a possibility that remains, even today, a subject of deep concern among counterintelligence agents, a problem privately acknowledged but little discussed publicly: That the three agents may have been betrayed by a mole inside U.S. intelligence whose identity is still unknown. From the day they talked, Wiser told me, we believed it was important for us to consider the strong possibility that Gordievsky was compromised by someone within the U.S. intelligence community., Wiser acknowledges that Ames may have lied or been mistaken about the dateAmes has conceded that he drank heavily before his meetings with the KGB. He divorced his first wife Sheila after his return before entering a second failed marriage. It is possible that Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk fell under KGB suspicion through some operational error or communications intercept. Privacy Statement 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. He didnt have a choice. Today, Sergei and Alla live quietly in the Sun Belt under his new identity. I had no job. Greville Wynne, a British spy who told in his celebrated memoirs how he pried loose some of Moscow's best-kept secrets and who served 18 months in a Soviet prison for What neither the CIA nor Poleshchuk knew was that the apartment was a KGB operation. As they walked on the beach that Saturday, he said his career was in trouble. (Howard, Russian authorities reported in 2002, died of a fall in his KGB dacha near Moscow. Penkovsky joined the GRU as an officer, in 1953. Penkovsky felt stunted in his career with GRU and expected that by helping the West for a year or two, he and his family could be relocated and build a better life, and that he would personally be showered with recognition and honor. Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) and Greville Wynne (Benjamin Cumberbatch) in The Courier. Among the materials Penkovsky provided to Wynne were four photocopies of plans for construction sites of missile-launching installations in Cuba. 41 ratings1 review. 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. 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. He drove around Athens in his BMW for close to an hour to make certain he wasnt being followed, then walked into a 100-foot pedestrian tunnel under a highway. With the arrest of Aldrich Ames in 1994, it seemed that the mole hunters had found their quarry. A new spy thriller draws on the fascinating lifeand whopping liesof one of the U.K.s most famous intelligence agents. A large man let him in and flashed a badge. Gordievsky was served sandwiches and Armenian brandy. He was probably the West's most valuable double agent during the Cold War. This information allowed the West to identify the missile sites from the low-resolution pictures provided by US U-2 spy planes. They made an odd contrastthe short, energetic, and thinly mustachioed Wynne alongside the military bearing of Penkovskybut there seemed to be genuine affection between the two, and this friendship is a central focus of The Courier. 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. Bokhan put them on as Reiser drove to a safe house. Some days passed before his boss, Viktor Grushko, drove him to a KGB dacha, saying some people wanted to talk to him. In a Moscow park, Penkovsky also passed packets of sweets (with camera film hidden inside) to the wife of a British MI6 officer while she was pushing her children in a pram. Inside the CIA, Howard was blamed for Tolkachevs unmasking and subsequent execution, although Ames, too, had betrayed the researchers identity. At least the timeline based on what Ames said when he was debriefed.If it wasnt Ames, then it was someone else, so we began to search for the source of the compromise, Wiser said. Wynnes fabrications range from small to huge. Its OK. To be dead or to be alive was the question for my dad. That day was June 13, 1985, by Ames account. 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. It doesnt matter, he said, and quoted a Russian proverb: S milym rai i v shalashe. If you love somebody, you will have heaven even in a tent. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. The unlikely British spy was freed in 1964 in exchange forSoviet spy Konon Molody. That the KGB ran a fourth mole is undeniable, Victor Cherkashin, a wily KGB counterintelligence officer, has written.