I just saw The Courier The true story about two men who helped prevent nuclear war between the US and Russia in 1962. British spy Greville Wynne was Penkovskys contact and intermediate to MI6. harvp error: no target: CITEREFSchecterDeriabinPenkovskij1992 (. This story is a selection from the November issue of Smithsonian magazine. Penkovsky joined the Soviet Red Army in 1937 and served as an artillery officer in World War II, being severely wounded in 1944. His father, Leonid Poleshchuk, was a senior KGB counterintelligence officer, most recently the deputy rezident for counterintelligence in Lagos, Nigeria. [2] On Varentsov's recommendation, he studied at the Frunze Military Academy in 1945-48, then worked as a staff officer. As the deputy chief, Bokhan was privy to all GRU spy operations aimed at Greece, the United States and the other NATO countries. Finding roaches in your home every time you wake up is never a good thing. On April 23, 1919, Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky was born in Vladikavkaz, Russia. Toasty. But this Land Rovers driveshaft had been rerouted through one of the vehicles doors, the former CIA officer says, so that Gordievsky could fold himself into the hump, in effect hiding in plain sight. We have no information about his girlfriend/boyfriend. At Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland he looked out the window and saw several black cars and people on the tarmac. He was a highly placed Soviet official in Moscow who fed secrets to the West before and during the Cuban Missile crisis. Leonids original case officer blamed himself for years for letting my father down. He tried again, following the fallback plan, and this time a man carrying a dark-green bag from Harrods, the upscale London department store, walked by eating a candy bar. That the KGB ran a fourth mole is undeniable, Victor Cherkashin, a wily KGB counterintelligence officer, has written. He asked them to deliver it to an intelligence officer at the US Embassy. Mr. Wynne served 18 months in Lubyanka Prison in Moscow. 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. GRU . Compared to the KGB, which focused squarely on crushing internal dissent, the GRU had more of a geopolitical impact. Penkovsky (right) during his trial. Upon his return, Greville married his secretary and narrator, Herma Van Burren. It was broadcast on 15 January 2007.[22]. In 1965 his journal, The Penkovskiy Papers, was published in the United States, though the books authenticity has been questioned by some. CIA data collection and analysis was important for arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War and for determining U.S . There were embraces, and everyone cried. I could sense he had been tortured. Leonid was executed on July 30. After attending the Military Diplomatic Academy (194953), he became an intelligence officer, serving primarily in Moscow. In his memoir Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (1987), written with journalist Paul Greengrass, Wright says: When I first wrote my Penkovsky analysis Maurice Oldfield (later Chief of MI6 in the 1970s), who played a key role in the Penkovsky case as Chief of Station in Washington, told me: 'You've got a long row to hoe with this one, Peter, there's a lot of K's [knighthoods] and Gongs [medals] riding high on the back of Penkovsky' he said, referring to the honours heaped on those involved in the Penkovsky operation. Wright was bitter towards British intelligence, reportedly believing that it should have adopted his proposed methods to identify British/Soviet double agents. Gophers and other rodents can prove to be a real nuisance for open sporting fields, and if you want to have an undisturbed game or event, our specialists will make sure that everything is OK. What happened to the family of Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky? 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 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. Its OK. To be dead or to be alive was the question for my dad. Penkovsky and Greville smuggled more than 5000 top-secret military documents out of the USSR. After some months, she was released. We cant say their name. 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. We have no more Information about his Father; we will try to collect information and update soon. They are in relation from previous few years of a strong relationship. He played a role in both the Berlin Crisis in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year. Stansfield. Penkovsky was in fact arrested by the Soviets on Oct. 22, 1962, at the height of that crisis, after they realized that highly classified information was leaking to the West. Additionally, the files revealed that Soviet guidance systems werent yet functional, nor were their fueling systems operational. At first I couldnt even recognize him, Andrei said. 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). [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. After stops in Madrid and Frankfurt, a military jet flew him across the Atlantic. 276 to 280, "A Spy Story: Sergei Skripal Was a LIttle Fish. 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. In the back seat were a jacket, hat and sunglasses. For two years I went to Lefortovo two, three times a week, Alla Bokhan told me. Then the car started up again, and the radio, which had been playing pop music, suddenly boomed out SibeliusFinlandia. 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. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. We know very well that youve been deceiving us for years, he said. [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. That day was June 13, 1985, by Ames account. After reading about how Soviet spy Oleg Penkovsky staved off nuclear war, learn about Vasili Arkhipov, another unsung hero of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Born deep in the heart of Russia, Penkovsky soon found himself fighting against Germany as an artillery officer during World War II. Relying once again on Varentsov's patronage, he spent nine months studying rocket artillery at Dzerzhinsky Military Academy. This information allowed the West to identify the missile sites from the low-resolution pictures provided by US U-2 spy planes. More than a year before the crisis, they had recruited a civilian, British businessman Greville Wynne, to do so. [9] While the weight of opinion seems to be that Penkovsky was genuine, the debate underscores the difficulty faced by all intelligence agencies of determining information offered from the enemy. However, Penkovsky would grow up to join the Red Army in 1937. With Vladimir Chuprikov, Merab Ninidze, James Schofield, Fred Haig. 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 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Everything to know about their son and. We are a Claremont, CA situated business that delivers the leading pest control service in the area. Penkovsky had in the meantime become increasingly disillusioned with the Soviet system, particularly with the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. This is quite shocking, since their countries are nearly at war. Your business came highly recommended, and I am glad that I found you! This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. There is no statute of limitations for espionage. And yet to an intelligence agency, ignoring the possibility of a mole isnt really an option, either. Documents released by National Archives show British officials saw efforts to free Oleg Gordievsky's family as a lost cause Owen Bowcott and Richard Norton-Taylor Mon 29 Dec 2014 19.01 EST Last . In passing along the information stolen by Penkovsky, the two men played a role in deterring an all-out nuclear war. Hanssen, who was convicted of espionage, is serving a life sentence in the supermax federal prison in Florence, Colorado. The British intelligence agency MI6 (then known as SIS) had already been hard at work to infiltrate the Soviet Unions State Committee for Science and Technology, however. One theory links his arrest to the spouse of a contact. He might be dead, or hes living in his dacha now. 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. 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. Some of it just didnt add up, he says. Then he kissed his wife and daughter goodbye. It is possible that Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk fell under KGB suspicion through some operational error or communications intercept. 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. Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty ImagesGreville Wynne being escorted by police after arriving back home from Russia. 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. Soon after his arrest she collapsed psychologically. He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Pace University and a master's degree from New York University. Intelligence agencies cannot tolerate unsolved mysteries and loose ends. He didnt have a choice. Today, Sergei and Alla live quietly in the Sun Belt under his new identity. Reiser was waiting in a car at the other end. 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 had no job. The CIA would want to debrief him at length to try to determine the full extent of his treachery. He provided the CIA and MI6 with extensive debriefing sessions totaling up to 140 hours, delivered invaluable documents, and over 5,000 Soviet photos. In July 1994, Leslie Wiser, the FBI agent who unmasked Ames, flew to London to interview Gordievsky. 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. 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. On September 21, 1985, Howard eluded FBI surveillance and escaped into the New Mexico desert with the help of his wife, Mary, and a pop-up dummy in his cars passenger seat (a technique he had learned in CIA training). The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. Sooner or later they would arrest me.. I was angry because I was dropped from military school and sent to the Army, far off, near Vladivostok, he said. Penkovskys debriefing sessions with MI6 and the CIA totaled up to 140 hours. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, they sentenced Wynne to eight years in prison. In his fourth-floor office at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, he wrapped up five to seven pounds of secret documents and walked out of the building. When he began spying for the Russians almost a decade earlier, Ames was chief of the CIAs Soviet counterintelligence branch, entrusted with secrets that would be of incalculable value to the KGB. On the appointed day he startedproverka, or dry-cleaningwalking an elaborate route to throw off anyone who might be watching him. Ti Lin X, gin ip l mt trng ti. For a long time he resented the impact of his fathers CIA spying on his own life. April 22, 1964. Terms of Use That happened several times.. 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. 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. No, he was told, theyre here for you.. They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. His dining companion, Dickie Franks, revealed himself to be an officer of the. Penkovsky had been trying to offer his services to the west for some years, blatantly buttonholing diplomats and businessmen at receptions and approaching tourists in the street. The CIA. John Turner. Your Privacy Rights MI6 was in disbelief as were the Americans they gave it to. Soon there was a plan for an exfiltration, the CIAs term for spiriting an agent in danger out of a foreign country. 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. View Source Suggest Edits Memorial Photos Flowers Memorials Region He was arrested for espionage in Budapest on Nov. 16, 1962. Maybe a fifth. Penkovsky at his public trial in Moscow. Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. 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's American contacts received a letter from him notifying them that a Moscow dead drop had been loaded. 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. His escape plan was bound under the flyleaf of a novel; he had to slit the cover open to read the instructions. Northolt Airport, England. Officially, he was shot to death. They know.. Corrections? [17] A similar description was later included in Ernest Volkman's popular history book about spies, Tom Clancy's novel Red Rabbit and in Viktor Suvorov's book Aquarium. 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. We have no more information about his spouse. I dont want to live in a tent, she said. 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. Introduction. Penkovsky supplied the West with information on Soviet deployment of missiles to Cuba and has been dubbed the spy of the century. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. Now, he feared, the KGBs counterspies had become suspicious and were recalling him to confront him. After many years, I understood him. 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. Son And Daughter Now Greville Wynne And Oleg Penkovsky were both arrested by the Soviets in 1962. You can be sure that our Claremont, CA business will provide you with the quality and long-lasting results you are looking for! I knew many heads in the KGB had rolled again, as they had after Stalin". In April 1961, through Greville M. Wynne, a British businessman, he offered his services to British intelligence. He met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, wrote a memoir and co-wrote a book on the KGB. 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 . He was reputedly on friendly terms with Penkovsky,[21] which is very likely to have been a cause of his fall. He later worked at the Soviet Committee for Scientific Research. The Estimated Net worth is $80K USD $85k. 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. Oleg Penkovsky was executed by firing squad one week after the trial. This both kills the victim and disposes of the body in one fell swoop. After months of interrogation at Lefortovo, Andrei Poleshchuk told his captors he wouldnt answer any more questions unless they told him who his father worked for. JB: In the 1960s, TWA used to take a Polaroid pictures of some of its passengers and this one was taken actually while I was on my first trip to London in April 1961. The mothers name is Not Available. Penkovsky's true story is one of bravery, passing MI6 and CIA valuable information from inside Soviet intelligence. Minutes passed. The mere belief that theres another mole, whether correct or not, can cause chaos inside an intelligence agency. [7], Former KGB major-general Oleg Kalugin does not mention Penkovsky in his comprehensive memoir about his career in intelligence against the West. 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. 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. Mr. Wint: Very moving. 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