How the traitor Oleg Penkovsky was 7 7.The Courier vs. the True Story of British Spy Greville Wynne 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. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. And the intelligence culture is not going to let that go. He was about to be married, and his debts were mounting. The most controversial claim in the book was that he and Penkovsky were smuggled into the White House and lauded by President Kennedy. When I came to Moscow, she left, he says, taking the children with her on a vacation. He would not say why. Bokhan assumed that both the KGB and the GRU were watching him. (Howard, Russian authorities reported in 2002, died of a fall in his KGB dacha near Moscow. The results you delivered are amazing! 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. The year 1985 was a catastrophe for U.S. and British intelligence agencies. His character's execution was the opening scene for the movie. He provided the CIA and MI6 with extensive debriefing sessions totaling up to 140 hours, delivered invaluable documents, and over 5,000 Soviet photos. Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty ImagesGreville Wynne being escorted by police after arriving back home from Russia. Advertising Notice 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. It was surreal, like a bad nightmare, Andrei told me. He did so, he said, to prove his bona fides as a potential KGB mole. Mr. Wint: Very moving. 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. May 11, 1963. He played a role in both the Berlin Crisis in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year. You have the wrong number, he was told. He knew instantly that the cable was a ruse. He walked down the steps and shook hands with the waiting CIA officers. Kennedy was deprived of information from a potentially important intelligence agent, such as reporting that Khrushchev was already looking for ways to defuse the situation, which might have lessened the tension during the ensuing 13-day stand-off. May 11, 1963. After many years, I understood him. 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. Your Privacy Rights As soon as Gordievsky landed in Moscow, he picked up signs that he had gambled wrong. "Maybe we're only two people but this is how things change." The Courier is an intriguing spy drama. 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 is perhaps the best known of Soviet double agents. The Courier is currently lived by his son, Andrew, as he died in 1990 at the age of 70. The MI6 specialist experienced post-arrest sadness and torment. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine His real job was as a senior officer in the GRU, Soviet . 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. He was born to his first wife, Sheila. Wikimedia CommonsOleg Penkovskys father died in the Russian Revolution. These were routinely smuggled through contacts like Wynne and given the CIA codename Ironbark.. He dropped it, sensing that he was getting into dangerous territory. That's about all I knew until this film. After taking part in the Winter War against Finland and in World War II, he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. 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 . In June he was expelled from the Central Committee for 'having relaxed his political vigilance.' Oleg Penkovsky Born: April 23, 1919 Birthplace: Vladikavkaz, Russia Death: May 16, 1963, Moscow, USSR (executed by Soviet Union) Jessie Buckley Born: December 28, 1989 Birthplace: Killarney, Ireland Sheila Wynne Keir Hills Andrew Wynne Angus Wright Born: November 11, 1964 Birthplace: Washington, D.C., USA Sir Arthur Temple 'Dickie' Franks Alexander Zagvozdin, ngi ng u b phn thm vn ca KGB, cho bit Penkovsky "c l b tra hi hng trm ln" trc khi b bn. What makes Hunting Pest Services stand out from any other pest services provider is not only the quality of the results we deliver but also our versatility. 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. This story is a selection from the November issue of Smithsonian magazine. They married in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he worked for an independent newspaper in Moscow for a time. Penkovsky, who was tried with him, was sentenced to death for treason. After Ames, there was FBI agent Robert P. Hanssen, who was arrested in 2001. Soon there was a plan for an exfiltration, the CIAs term for spiriting an agent in danger out of a foreign country. There were certain anomalies that took place that we just couldnt put our finger on., And Bearden says, I remain convinced there is a fourth man. But before the two years were up, a KGB agent caught him passing secrets. 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. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Penkovsky joined the GRU as an officer, in 1953. 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. Updates? He was most popular as the messenger who could give highly confidential information about the Soviets. 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. INTERVIEW WITH JOE BULIK - 31.1.98. At the same time, the enormous risks for the spy himself became evident in the fate of Penkovsky . Rookie Cops Episode 9 Release Date and Time, Countdown, When Is It Coming Out? troops.[15]. Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. She did, in 1991, but the strain caused by six years of separation proved too much to repair. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, they sentenced Wynne to eight years in prison. He later died of a throat disease in London. pic.twitter.com/EbShcFsWv2, Kenneth MacRae (@kmacraeplockton) February 19, 2022. If so, Hunting Pest Services is definitely the one for you. Just the day before, Moscow had announced that a Soviet defense researcher named Adolf G. Tolkachev had been arrested as a CIA spy. The Soviet authorities rejected appeals by Greville Wynne's lawyer but 17 months into his sentence, they agreed to exchange Wynne for Soviet spy . Wars don't last forever, though, and after the shots quit ringing out, Penkovsky would go on to enter the Soviet version of the CIA the GRU. I will never forget the day when I got home and she was singing songs, melodies, no words, and looking insane. The next thing he knew, he woke up half-dressed in one of the dachas bedrooms. Like Popov, Penkovsky volunteered his services and Kissevalter was called in to handle the spy, in league with two counterparts from the British Secret . That the KGB ran a fourth mole is undeniable, Victor Cherkashin, a wily KGB counterintelligence officer, has written. The case of Oleg Penkovsky, . Wynne served 18 months in Moscow's Lubyanka Prison. In 1944, he was assigned to the headquarters of Colonel-General Sergei Varentsov, commander of artillery on the 1st Ukrainian front, who became his patron. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oleg-Vladimirovich-Penkovsky, Public Broadcasting Service - Biography of Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Oleg Penkovsky. In simple terms, the GRU was Soviet army intelligence. 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. In this role, he amassed and assessed technical and scientific intel on the West while growing increasingly disillusioned with his own country. The Spy Who Saved the World: Explores how information provided by Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky aided the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After they chatted for a while, the rezident said, By the way, Sergei, this cable came in and tossed it over. He was arrested for espionage in Budapest on Nov. 16, 1962. A colonel in Soviet military intelligence, Oleg Penkovsky, was working for them as an agent-in-place, photographing thousands of top-secret documents with a miniature camera, and delivering the. Northolt Airport, England. In either scenario, the double agent died on May 16, 1963. Now, his relationship is perfect. Wynne had founded an export business of industrial engineering products years earlier, and the international travel involved provided excellent cover for espionage. I went into the bathroom, locked the door and stared at myself in the mirror.. A member of the Communist Party, he took part in the invasion of Finland and by the end of the Second World War had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He worked as a double agent for the British secret service during the Cold War, between 1974 and 1985. 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. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, Wynne was sentenced to eight years in prison. His Girlfriend/boyfriends name is Not Available. The same can be said about arriving at your workplaceand finding out that it has been overrun by a variety of pests. Oleg Penkovsky was a Soviet military intelligence colonel during the late Fifties and early Sixties responsible for informing the UK about the Soviet emplacement of missiles in Cuba, to help build . Oleg Penkovskys father died in the Russian Revolution. Thanks to Penkovskys Ironbark files, CIA analysts were able to accurately identify the Soviet missiles that had been photographed in Cuba and give President Kennedy precise reports on the range and strength of those weapons. During one of Wynnes trips to London in April 1961, Penkovsky handed him a hefty package of documents and film he passed along to MI6. In Athens, Bokhan called an emergency telephone number that rang in the CIA station inside the American Embassy. The first meeting between Penkovsky and two American and two British intelligence officers occurred during a visit by Penkovsky to London in April 1961. CIA data collection and analysis was important for arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War and for determining U.S . He was arrested by the Soviets in October 1962, and then tried and executed the following year. This for the spy masters is an exercise in . London, May 17, 1985: Oleg Gordievsky was at the pinnacle of his career. Some of it just didnt add up, he says. Years later, Penkovsky himself would try to halt the Soviet spread of communism. Everything to know about their son and. Andrei Poleshchuk told me his fathers arrest was a disaster for his mother. 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. Together they stopped the Cuban Missle Crisis and prevented a nuclear catastrophe. By 1939 he had graduated from a Soviet military school and had been part of a group called Komosomol, meaning "young communists. A large man let him in and flashed a badge. Dunlap was just another source they had to protect. After a show trial, Penkovsky, who had been hoping to defect to the West with his family, was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad; Wynne, meanwhile, ended up serving 18 months in the . The Courier (9/10) by Tony Medley 105 minutes. It was broadcast on 15 January 2007.[22]. He was the real deal. 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. Some of the documents provided were originals, which Wright thought could not have been easily taken from their sources. Bokhan froze. The film sees him arrested on a plane leaving. Was there a fourth mole in the U.S. intelligence system that blew these secret agents covers? After reading about how Soviet spy Oleg Penkovsky staved off nuclear war, learn about Vasili Arkhipov, another unsung hero of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. [4], Greville Wynne, a British salesman of industrial equipment to countries behind the Iron Curtain, was recruited by MI6 to communicate with Penkovksy. Through the windows of the ground-floor apartment he shared with his parents, he could see strangers moving about. Brought up in the North Caucasus, Penkovsky graduated from the Kiev Artillery Academy with the rank of lieutenant in 1939. 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. 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. 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. Clearly the KGB had searched his flat. April 22, 1964. Henceforth, the ranks of your armed forces are increased by one man.. The mole isnt just some guy who stole a few secrets. The coded exchange triggered a meeting that night with his CIA case officer, Dick Reiser, who cabled headquarters in Langley that BLIZZARD was in trouble. In 1949 Penkovsky transferred from the regular army to the Soviet army intelligence directorate (GRU). I dont want to live in a tent, she said. He asked for a fictitious Greek employee. 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