He was arrested for espionage in Budapest on Nov. 16, 1962. He was most popular as the messenger who could give highly confidential information about the Soviets. Your business came highly recommended, and I am glad that I found you! 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. 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 . Then he kissed his wife and daughter goodbye. In the back seat were a jacket, hat and sunglasses. 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. 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. As they walked on the beach that Saturday, he said his career was in trouble. He is considered one of the most valuable double agents during the Cold War because the information he provided was critical to the United States throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis 1.The political race of the Soviet Union and the United States began after the end of the . Brought up in the North Caucasus, Penkovsky graduated from the Kiev Artillery Academy with the rank of lieutenant in 1939. The "cremated alive" hypothesis appears in several Clancy novels, though Clancy never identified Penkovsky as the executed spy. He was like a walking dead man. He later died of a throat disease in London. We are a Claremont, CA situated business that delivers the leading pest control service in the area. They had a sumptuous lunchBokhan knew it might be his last meal with his familyand Maria bought a stuffed Greek doll called a patatuff. Penkovsky (right) during his trial. It was the KGBs way of saying my father worked for the CIA, Andrei said. John Turner. 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. The women fed the dogs potato chips to distract them. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. In June he was expelled from the Central Committee for 'having relaxed his political vigilance.' He was probably the Wests most valuable double agent during the Cold War. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. Penkovsky-wynne spy trial, May 1963, a Sanyo portable transistor radio . In 1965 his journal, The Penkovskiy Papers, was published in the United States, though the books authenticity has been questioned by some. Penkovsky at his public trial in Moscow. Like Popov, Penkovsky volunteered his services and Kissevalter was called in to handle the spy, in league with two counterparts from the British Secret . What happened next is unclear. Relying once again on Varentsov's patronage, he spent nine months studying rocket artillery at Dzerzhinsky Military Academy. It was apparent that Soviet counterintelligence agents did not yet have enough evidence to arrest him. Andrei was allowed to visit him in prison only once, after he was sentenced to death. 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. U.S. counterintelligence agents have established that neither Howard nor Hanssen had access to the identities of all the American intelligence sources who were betrayed in 1985. After they chatted for a while, the rezident said, By the way, Sergei, this cable came in and tossed it over. He might be dead, or hes living in his dacha now. If he refused the summons, he would destroy his career. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, they sentenced Wynne to eight years in prison. 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. Some days passed before his boss, Viktor Grushko, drove him to a KGB dacha, saying some people wanted to talk to him. It is also a tragedy: The KGB caught Penkovsky . Oleg Penkovsky. 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. [18] In a 2010 interview, Suvorov denied that the man in the film[clarification needed] was Penkovsky and said that he had been shot. The results you delivered are amazing! 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. harvp error: no target: CITEREFSchecterDeriabinPenkovskij1992 (. What happened to wife of Oleg Penkovsky? Confess again! the general roared. [7], Former KGB major-general Oleg Kalugin does not mention Penkovsky in his comprehensive memoir about his career in intelligence against the West. 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.. However, Penkovsky would grow up to join the Red Army in 1937. It is possible that Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk fell under KGB suspicion through some operational error or communications intercept. Wynne who was also arrested for espionage would claim that Penkovsky committed suicide in prison. In August 1960, a Soviet colonel called Oleg Penkovsky contacted the West to offer to work as a 'soldier warrior for the free world. His Girlfriend/boyfriends name is Not Available. Your Privacy Rights In the Jack Ryan universe, he is described as the agent who recruited Colonel Mikhail Filitov as a CIA agent (code-name CARDINAL) and had urged Filitov to betray him to solidify his position as the West's top spy in the Soviet hierarchy. He was later traded in an exchange after the British had a Russian spy, Konon Molody in their custody. Positive Elements. Now, he feared, the KGBs counterspies had become suspicious and were recalling him to confront him. Oleg Penkovsky saved the world from mushroom clouds and untold deaths in the fall of 1962. Some of it just didnt add up, he says. In addition to Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk, more than a dozen other sources were exposed. His real job was as a senior officer in the GRU, Soviet . A few days after Oleg Gordievsky was recalled to Moscow, the KGB flew his wife, Leila, and their two daughters there, and he broke the unwelcome news that they would not be posted back to London. And the intelligence culture is not going to let that go. Wynne was arrested and jailed as a spy The moonlighting spy was arrested on a business trip to Budapest in November 1962 and taken to the Soviet Union. I could sense he had been tortured. Leonid was executed on July 30. It was broadcast on 15 January 2007.[22]. The papers show that. It was surreal, like a bad nightmare, Andrei told me. Wright was bitter towards British intelligence, reportedly believing that it should have adopted his proposed methods to identify British/Soviet double agents. 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. 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. The mole isnt just some guy who stole a few secrets. Penkovsky was portrayed by Christopher Rozycki in the 1985 BBC Television serial Wynne and Penkovsky. This for the spy masters is an exercise in . He decided to leave Athensbut not for Moscow. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. 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. Afterward, we drove to a home in Virginia for a reception, where I met Joe, Andrei told me in a conversation over lunch at a restaurant tucked away on a side street in Washington. In Athens, Bokhan called an emergency telephone number that rang in the CIA station inside the American Embassy. IN their own highly bizarre fashion, these two books represent what seems to be the first public encounter, via the literary confrontation of its agents, between the Soviet KGB and the Ameri- can CIA: the British, as spies and the spied-upon, occupy a hazy middle ground. He walked down the steps and shook hands with the waiting CIA officers. That's about all I knew until this film. I was 18 years old. He sees that episode differently now. The stories of Oleg Gordievsky, Sergei Bokhan and Leonid Poleshchukreported here in extensive new detail and based on interviews with Gordievsky, Bokhan and Andrei Poleshchuk, as well as former FBI and CIA officialssuggest the damage a mole can do. That Friday, Gordievsky received a cable ordering him to report to Moscow urgently to confirm his promotion and meet with the KGBs two highest officials. 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.'. 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. Maria, then 16, was carrying the patatuff. 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. The 23-year-old journalist had been working late for Novosti, the Soviet press agency. (1) BBC Broadcast (11th May, 1963) A British businessman accused of spying for the West has been sentenced to eight years' detention by a Moscow tribunal. Penkovsky was run jointly by a team of CIA and MI6 officers with the initial meetings taking place at a London hotel, but contacting him in Moscow and passing information proved hard, dangerous work. Andrei Poleshchuk told me his fathers arrest was a disaster for his mother. 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 These things have to be run to ground.. When Bokhan escaped from Athens, the KGB hustled his wife back to Moscow, searched her apartment and began a series of interrogations. Your fathers been arrested, the man said. That fall, the KGB rolled up all of the CIAs assets in the Soviet Union in a lightning strike that sent the agency reeling. This jump from the army to the GRU set the course for the rest of Penkovskys life. When I found a job, the KGB called and they fired me. Besides Wynne, Penkovsky had another contact, Janet Chisholm the wife of Rauri Chisholm, a British MI6 officer stationed in the Moscow embassy. In either scenario, the double agent died on May 16, 1963. He did so, he said, to prove his bona fides as a potential KGB mole. Wynne had worked as both Penkovsky's contact and courier; both men were arrested by the Soviets in October 1962. The CIA delayed in contacting him. Do you urgently need a company that can help you out? Stuzhin & Cheredintzev/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesSome believe Penkovsky was burned alive as Soviet punishment for his treasonous espionage. KGB interrogator Alexander Zagvozdin said Penkovsky was "questioned" roughly 100 times and then shot. Corrections? When I came to Moscow, she left, he says, taking the children with her on a vacation. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, they sentenced Wynne to eight years in prison. They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. It said his parents had unexpectedly heard of an apartment they could buy for him; his father decided to take his vacation early and come home to close the deal. The Spy Who Saved the World: Explores how information provided by Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky aided the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cookie Policy Stay calm, he recalls telling himself. 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. As MacIntyre reminds us, the rumor has always been that MI6-CIA agent Oleg Penkovsky, betrayed by British-spy-turned-Soviet-agent George Blake, had been cremated alive in 1963 by the KGB after . Then the car started up again, and the radio, which had been playing pop music, suddenly boomed out SibeliusFinlandia. The agents he betrayed that day, he has said, included Oleg Gordievsky, whose CIA code name was GTTICKLE; Sergei Bokhan, or GTBLIZZARD; and Leonid Poleshchuk, or GTWEIGH. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). In 1985 he was portrayed by actor David Calder in the BBC series Wynne and Penkovsky, and in 2007 by Peter Lindford for BBC drama Nuclear Secrets. You can be sure that our Claremont, CA business will provide you with the quality and long-lasting results you are looking for! Penkovsky was the highest-ranking Soviet official to provide intelligence for the West up until that time, and is one of several individuals credited with altering the course of the Cold War. But if he returned home, he could be shot. He asked it be given to Joe, with a message, Here is something from Leo. By the time Joe learned of the gift, Andrei said, his father had been arrested. Terms of Use But unlike other famous characters, his personality, the role he played and what . 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. After his release, Wynne struggled with . 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. Assisting him in his role as "courier" is Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), a far more experienced Russian agent. In 1945, Penkovsky married the teenage daughter of Lieutenant-General Dmitri Gapanovich, thus acquiring another high-ranking patron. I could not believe what was happening. 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. With the arrest of Aldrich Ames in 1994, it seemed that the mole hunters had found their quarry. 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.. On April 23, 1919, Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky was born in Vladikavkaz, Russia. 276 to 280, "A Spy Story: Sergei Skripal Was a LIttle Fish. Additionally, Wynne was a designer and money manager who was selected by MI6 due to his movement in Eastern Europe. Would she ever live in the West? Janet continued to travel around the world until well into her 70s. Now, his relationship is perfect. Were they executed? [4], Greville Wynne, a British salesman of industrial equipment to countries behind the Iron Curtain, was recruited by MI6 to communicate with Penkovksy. The recruitment of a well-placed spy, in this case a high-ranking Soviet military intelligence officer, lessened the tensions of the Cold War by providing information on the intentions, strength, and technological advancement of the Soviet Union. He met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, wrote a memoir and co-wrote a book on the KGB. Finding roaches in your home every time you wake up is never a good thing. 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. 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. 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. These were routinely smuggled through contacts like Wynne and given the CIA codename Ironbark.. Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty ImagesGreville Wynne being escorted by police after arriving back home from Russia. 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. We cant say their name. In passing along the information stolen by Penkovsky, the two men played a role in deterring an all-out nuclear war. Had the Russians examined the car, they would have seen the hump on the floor where the driveshaft would normally be. Bokhan put them on as Reiser drove to a safe house. Continuing the family, Greville Wynne had a son named Andrew Wynne. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine 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. I was angry because I was dropped from military school and sent to the Army, far off, near Vladivostok, he said. Oleg Penkovsky was executed by firing squad one week after the trial. Penkovsky was decorated four times during his 1939-1940 tour of duty. Inside the CIA, Howard was blamed for Tolkachevs unmasking and subsequent execution, although Ames, too, had betrayed the researchers identity. 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. 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