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 . 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. Wikimedia CommonsOleg Penkovskys father died in the Russian Revolution. For those who are betrayed, the damage persists long after the initial shock passes. In spying for Moscow on and off over 22 years, Hanssen revealed dozens of secrets, including the eavesdropping tunnel the FBI had dug under the Soviet Embassy in Washington and the identities of two FBI sources within the embassy, who were also executed. Your Privacy Rights 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. Its OK. To be dead or to be alive was the question for my dad. In 1965 his journal, The Penkovskiy Papers, was published in the United States, though the books authenticity has been questioned by some. I was 18 years old. He sees that episode differently now. Penkovsky-wynne spy trial, May 1963, a Sanyo portable transistor radio . As soon as I realized what this was, I closed everything up andstarted looking for an exterminator who could help me out. According to an official Soviet announcement, he was executed on May 16, 1963, though other reports have him committing suicide while in a Soviet camp. Gordievsky was served sandwiches and Armenian brandy. The President of the Court declared Greville Wynne, aged 44, would serve three years in prison and five in a labour camp. In 1955 Penkovsky was appointed military attach in Ankara, Turkey, but was recalled after he had reported his superior officer, and later other GRU personnel for a breach of regulations, which made him unpopular in the department. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. 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]. For months, Andrei had been hoping his father would find him an apartment. Stuzhin & Cheredintzev/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. [2] On Varentsov's recommendation, he studied at the Frunze Military Academy in 1945-48, then worked as a staff officer. This paper is about Oleg Penkovsky and his profound contributions to the UK and US military intelligence. May 11, 1963. The CIA delayed in contacting him. The Soviet authorities rejected appeals by Greville Wynne's lawyer but 17 months into his sentence, they agreed to exchange Wynne for Soviet spy . By 1939 he had graduated from a Soviet military school and had been part of a group called Komosomol, meaning "young communists. Examining this moment in Cold War Era history, the film does a good job of remaining historically accurate with a . 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. Joe had become very close to my father and worried that some action by him, some error, had led to his betrayal.. He was later traded in an exchange after the British had a Russian spy, Konon Molody in their custody. Bokhan assumed that both the KGB and the GRU were watching him. He is known as one of the greatest spies in the world. 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. Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty ImagesGreville Wynne being escorted by police after arriving back home from Russia. Lt. Col. Oleg Penkovsky, born the same year as Wynne in 1919, was the man on the inside, the Russian GRU spy who smuggled out military documents, photos, and human intelligence - including gossip he'd pick up at parties - which he passed to Wynne during business meetings. He had planned to write a memoir but died of malaria before he could begin. By 1993 their marriage was over. Milton Bearden, who held several senior posts is his 30-year career at the CIA, is convinced there was a traitor, as yet undetected. Many Animals, Including the Platypus, Lost Their Stomachs. The mere belief that theres another mole, whether correct or not, can cause chaos inside an intelligence agency. CIA data collection and analysis was important for arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War and for determining U.S . In April 1961, through Greville M. Wynne, a British businessman, he offered his services to British intelligence. [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. Also, we have no idea about his brother and sister, and we dont know their names either. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. The CIA would want to debrief him at length to try to determine the full extent of his treachery. Oleg Penkovsky was executed by firing squad one week after the trial. I just saw The Courier The true story about two men who helped prevent nuclear war between the US and Russia in 1962. But we are sure that it is not available and his spouses name is not available. He graduated from the strenuous academy in 1948 and promptly joined the GRU. Penkovsky approached American students on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow in July 1960 and gave them a package in which he offered to spy for the United States. 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. Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. After they drove home, he packed a gym bag and announced that he was going for a jog. With Vladimir Chuprikov, Merab Ninidze, James Schofield, Fred Haig. Keke Wyatt Wiki, Biography, Age, Spouse, Net Worth, Fast Facts. He later worked at the Soviet Committee for Scientific Research. It was surreal, like a bad nightmare, Andrei told me. He didnt have a choice. Today, Sergei and Alla live quietly in the Sun Belt under his new identity. PG-13 I remember Oleg Penkovsky (a scintillating Merab Nididze) very well. In simple terms, the GRU was Soviet army intelligence. 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. April 22, 1964. 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. The KGB men searched the apartment all night. Born deep in the heart of Russia, Penkovsky soon found himself fighting against Germany as an artillery officer during World War II. During the 1960s, a corrosive mole hunt led by James J. Angleton, the CIAs counterintelligence chief, led to institutional paranoia, paralyzed operations aimed at the Soviet Union, and disrupted the lives of many innocent CIA officers who were fired or sidetracked in their careers. 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. The reply came in Russian: "Bratskaya mogila" -- a common, unmarked grave. Cookie Policy They drove through several checkpoints with no trouble, but they had to stop at Soviet customs when they reached the border. 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. Cold fear started to run down my back, he told me. Your fathers been arrested, the man said. 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. Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. 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. So the discrepancy between Ames timeline and the exposure of Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk remains unexplained. Penkovsky was portrayed by Eduard Bezrodniy in the 2014 Polish thriller Jack Strong, about Ryszard Kukliski, another Cold War spy. Their caution in this matter may have led to the missiles being discovered earlier than the Soviets would have preferred. The mothers name is Not Available. Soon after they arrived in the United States, there was a ceremony honoring his father at a Russian Orthodox church in Washington. The film sees him arrested on a plane leaving. Cookie Settings, FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, John Hallisey / FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12. In 1949 Penkovsky transferred from the regular army to the Soviet army intelligence directorate (GRU). Subsequently, a trade was exchanged after the British had a Russian government agent, Konon Molody, under his tutelage. 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. 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. Gordievsky decided to risk his life and go. [11] Former GRU captain Viktor Suvorov, who defected to the UK in 1978, later wrote in his book on Soviet intelligence, "historians will remember with gratitude the name of the GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky. At Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland he looked out the window and saw several black cars and people on the tarmac. Oleg Penkovsky married (wife played by Maria Mironova, actress and here's a brunette), he has a daughter. He was most popular as the messenger who could give highly confidential information about the Soviets. Had the Russians examined the car, they would have seen the hump on the floor where the driveshaft would normally be. I will never forget the day when I got home and she was singing songs, melodies, no words, and looking insane. 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 underwent a debriefing by MI6 and cooperated with it and other Western intelligence services. He had been drugged. After a West German agent overheard a remark at Stasi headquarters, paraphrased as "I wonder how things are going in Cuba" he passed it on to the CIA. Years later, Penkovsky himself would try to halt the Soviet spread of communism. He did so, but nothing happened. The future double agents father died that same year fighting against the communists in the Russian Revolution. Now, he feared, the KGBs counterspies had become suspicious and were recalling him to confront him. A Russian TV documentary shows a shadowy figure picking it up, but Andrei said it is an actor, not his father. When Bokhan escaped from Athens, the KGB hustled his wife back to Moscow, searched her apartment and began a series of interrogations. Penkovsky's fate is also mentioned in the Nelson DeMille spy novel The Charm School (1988). What happened next is unclear. As they walked on the beach that Saturday, he said his career was in trouble. Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky redirected the virus war. KGB interrogator Alexander Zagvozdin said Penkovsky was "questioned" roughly 100 times and then shot. He was probably the Wests most valuable double agent during the Cold War. 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. He was convicted of spying on 11 May 1963 and sentenced to eight years in prison; Penkovsky was sentenced to death and executed (although Wynne himself in his book "The man from Odessa' claimed that Penkovsky committed suicide in prison). 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