He had a massive ego, incredibly thwarted by the system he grew up in with all sorts of hang-ups. He was born to his first wife, Sheila. The daughter of a Russian mother . He underwent a debriefing by MI6 and cooperated with it and other Western intelligence services. Bettmann/Getty ImagesPenkovskys debriefing sessions with MI6 and the CIA totaled up to 140 hours. We cant say their name. 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. That fall, the KGB rolled up all of the CIAs assets in the Soviet Union in a lightning strike that sent the agency reeling. Three other officers were also disciplined. They flew to New York and, with help from the CIA and the FBI, were reunited with Sergei at a motel near John F. Kennedy International Airport. All our insect andgopher control solutions we deliver are delivered with the help of top gradeequipment and products. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, Wynne was sentenced to eight years in prison. PG-13 I remember Oleg Penkovsky (a scintillating Merab Nididze) very well. Milton Bearden, who held several senior posts is his 30-year career at the CIA, is convinced there was a traitor, as yet undetected. Now, his relationship is perfect. Their caution in this matter may have led to the missiles being discovered earlier than the Soviets would have preferred. For two years I went to Lefortovo two, three times a week, Alla Bokhan told me. [8] The KGB defector Vladimir N. Sakharov suggests Penkovsky was genuine, saying: "I knew about the ongoing KGB reorganisation precipitated by Oleg Penkovsky's case and Yuri Nosenko's defection. Then, learn about Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet military man who saved the world from nuclear war in 1983. Clearly the KGB had searched his flat. Oleg Gordievsky and Leila Alieva met in Copenhagen: she was a typist for the World Health Organization; he was an unhappily married KGB officer, and a spy for MI6. Its OK. To be dead or to be alive was the question for my dad. When Bokhan escaped from Athens, the KGB hustled his wife back to Moscow, searched her apartment and began a series of interrogations. Oleg and Vera are both even-tempered and have mutual respect for each other. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine This information allowed the West to identify the missile sites from the low-resolution pictures provided by US U-2 spy planes. Penkovsky was referred to in four of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan espionage novels: The Hunt for Red October (1984), The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988), The Bear and the Dragon (2000) and Red Rabbit (2002). The CIA. He sort of fought the Nazis off in Kiev, and was leading that and was decorated 13 times. Wikimedia CommonsOleg Penkovskys father died in the Russian Revolution. Wynne had a notorious track record for fabrications, however. Wynne had founded an export business of industrial engineering products years earlier, and the international travel involved provided excellent cover for espionage. But, he adds, I would never, ever see her smile again. She died three years later, in 1988. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. The most controversial claim in the book was that he and Penkovsky were smuggled into the White House and lauded by President Kennedy. For a long time he resented the impact of his fathers CIA spying on his own life. 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. If so, Hunting Pest Services is definitely the one for you. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, they sentenced Wynne to eight years in prison. 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. 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. 3 3.Oleg Penkovsky - Your Resource for Espionage on the Web; 4 4.What Happened To Greville Wynne And Oleg - Showbizcorner; 5 5.The True Story Behind 'The Courier' | History| Smithsonian Magazine; 6 6.Spy Penkovsky biography. Together they stopped the Cuban Missle Crisis and prevented a nuclear catastrophe. Over the course of his espionage, he delivered rolls of film, classified documents, and over 5,000 photos. Joe had become very close to my father and worried that some action by him, some error, had led to his betrayal.. And he really was a hero by anyone's standards, and incredibly thwarted. 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. Faced with these unexplained losses, the CIA in October 1986 set up a small, highly secret mole-hunting unit to uncover the cause of this disaster. Murder by Cremation. Your business came highly recommended, and I am glad that I found you! In a letter to me from the federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where he is serving a life sentence, Ames wrote: Im quite sure of my recollection that I gave the KGB no names of any other than the two or three double agents/dangles I provided in April 85, until June 13th.. I dont want to live in a tent, she said. They drove through several checkpoints with no trouble, but they had to stop at Soviet customs when they reached the border. He joined the Kiev Artillery School and became a lieutenant in 1939. Janet continued to travel around the world until well into her 70s. 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. He met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, wrote a memoir and co-wrote a book on the KGB. Moscow, August 3, 1985: It was 2 a.m. when Andrei Poleshchuk got home. On April 23, 1919, Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky was born in Vladikavkaz, Russia. For Oleg Penkovsky, however, his world-altering espionage work hastened his death. I just saw The Courier The true story about two men who helped prevent nuclear war between the US and Russia in 1962. As the deputy chief, Bokhan was privy to all GRU spy operations aimed at Greece, the United States and the other NATO countries. After taking part in the Winter War against Finland and in World War II, he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Penkovskys stolen files showed that the Soviet arsenal was smaller and weaker than the Americans had previously thought. His real job was as a senior officer in the GRU, Soviet . Compared to the KGB, which focused squarely on crushing internal dissent, the GRU had more of a geopolitical impact. John F. Lewis Jr., a former FBI counterintelligence agent who was chief of the national security division, believes there is a fourth mole. Soon there was a plan for an exfiltration, the CIAs term for spiriting an agent in danger out of a foreign country. 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. " He also went to war serving as a unit commander of an artillery unit. Penkovsky's father might have fled to the West rather than have died of typhus as Penkovsky had previously reported, the KGB prohibited Penkovsky from assuming his post in New Delhi but permitted him to remain in the GRU after his mother submitted a statement detailing her family's ignorance of her husband's fate.28 Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. Be that as it may, the British intelligence official returned in 1964 after spending two years in Soviet prison. 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. Oleg Penkovsky. Dunlap was just another source they had to protect. Wynne's role as a salesman who works his . 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. 445 & 35. 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. Penkovsky at his public trial in Moscow. I had no job. These produced around 1,200 pages of transcripts which the CIA and MI6 delegated 30 translators and analysts to focus on. Oleg Penkovsky was executed by firing squad one week after the trial. Only a few days earlier he had called his brother-in-law in Kiev, where Alex was studying, and been assured his son was doing well. After some months, she was released. Before Ames, there was Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer who had been slated to go to Moscow but was fired instead for drug use and petty theft. His work helped American intelligence confirm that Soviet nuclear capabilities were vastly inferior to Americas arsenal information that would prove vital in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. Years later, Penkovsky himself would try to halt the Soviet spread of communism. The Case of Oleg Penkovsky. Now a legitimate double agent, Oleg Penkovsky spent the next two years providing his Western contacts with stolen top-secret documents, war plans, military manuals and nuclear missile diagrams. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In 1962, Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky defied his country to save the world from nuclear war then paid for his heroism with his life. The CIA would want to debrief him at length to try to determine the full extent of his treachery. Positive Elements. He was a highly placed Soviet official in Moscow who fed secrets to the West before and during the Cuban Missile crisis. That happened several times.. 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]. In June he was expelled from the Central Committee for 'having relaxed his political vigilance.' They expected I would do something stupid, he told me. Reiser was waiting in a car at the other end. 276 to 280, "A Spy Story: Sergei Skripal Was a LIttle Fish. [20] The head of the GRU, Ivan Serov was sacked during the same period. The Courier tells the story with legitimate subtleties and an excellent cast that includes Benedict Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne. It shortened her life, he said. Subsequently, a trade was exchanged after the British had a Russian government agent, Konon Molody, under his tutelage. 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. Oleg Penkovsky saved the world from mushroom clouds and untold deaths in the fall of 1962. Oleg Penkovsky married (wife played by Maria Mironova, actress and here's a brunette), he has a daughter. April 22, 1964. AFP/Getty ImagesPenkovsky at his public trial in Moscow. The Cuban Missile Crisis began on Oct. 14, 1962, when a U-2 spy plane photographed missile installations in Cuba confirming the Soviets were gearing up with capabilities of their own. Stay calm, he recalls telling himself. After school, she worked in London as a secretary before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany. MI6 was in disbelief as were the Americans they gave it to. After many years, I understood him. Was there a fourth mole in the U.S. intelligence system that blew these secret agents covers? For the following 18 months, Penkovsky supplied a tremendous amount of information to the CIAMI6 team of handlers, including documents demonstrating that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was much smaller than Nikita Khrushchev claimed or the CIA had thought and that the Soviets were not yet capable of producing a large number of ICBMs. Impossible. Gordievsky was served sandwiches and Armenian brandy. They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. 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. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. Greville Wynnes cause of death: Where is his family? As Penkovskys position necessitated travel to Britain, the Russians initially didnt suspect him of espionage. Leonids original case officer blamed himself for years for letting my father down. Penkovsky (right) during his trial. The Courier (9/10) by Tony Medley 105 minutes. But before the two years were up, a KGB agent caught him passing secrets. Trong khi , mt ip vin ca GRU tn . Were they executed? This jump from the army to the GRU set the course for the rest of Penkovskys life. John Turner. The courier was Greville Wynne [] Hed been back at headquarters only four months earlier, and all seemed well. Janet Chisholms husband, Rauri Chisholm, worked with a man named George Blake who happened to be a KGB agent. Also, we have no idea about his brother and sister, and we dont know their names either. Besides Wynne, Penkovsky had another contact, Janet Chisholm the wife of Rauri Chisholm, a British MI6 officer stationed in the Moscow embassy. This is quite shocking, since their countries are nearly at war. It was broadcast on 15 January 2007.[22]. A large man let him in and flashed a badge. The Estimated Net worth is $80K USD $85k. Leonid and his wife, Lyudmila, had been back two weeks when the KGB showed up at their door. That year, Oleg Penkovsky passed a message to the CIA via a pair of American tourists that read, in part, I ask you to consider me as your soldier. David Wise is a journalist and author, best known for his expertise in espionage and intelligence. Penkovsky was actually a real proper hero before beginning of the film. He Had a Big Enemy", : , "Book I: Foreign and Military Intelligence: X. The Wynne-Penkovsky case came at the height of the Cold War when relations between the superpowers were particularly strained. Oleg Penkovsky had his sights set on moving to the West and building a better life with his family and, therefore, he was keen to expose some of the Soviet's most valuable military secrets. Didnt suspect him of espionage in disbelief as were the Americans they gave it to who helped nuclear! 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