He did so, but nothing happened. Ten agents were executed and countless others imprisoned. 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. troops.[15]. Now, he feared, the KGBs counterspies had become suspicious and were recalling him to confront him. Penkovsky was wounded in action in 1944, at about the same time as Varentsov, who appointed him his Liaison Officer. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. 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. Penkovsky was put on trial for treason in May 1963 and was found guilty and sentenced to death. Penkovsky never knew his father, who was killed fighting as an officer in the White Army in the Russian Civil War when he was a baby. Penkovsky supplied the West with information on Soviet deployment of missiles to Cuba and has been dubbed the spy of the century. Penkovsky delivered crucial information, including about the Soviet Union's new Cuban missiles. 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. April 22, 1964. However, the two were captured by the KGB after the Russians discovered that they were being neutralized. 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. London, May 17, 1985: Oleg Gordievsky was at the pinnacle of his career. He was free. They married in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he worked for an independent newspaper in Moscow for a time. 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. A 2020 film, The Courier, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, follows his story. Moscow, August 3, 1985: It was 2 a.m. when Andrei Poleshchuk got home. He had been drugged. They know.. Greville Wynne And Oleg Penkovsky were two people who had a significant role in containing the cold war. Peter Wright, a former British MI5 officer known for his scathing condemnation of the leadership of British intelligence during most of the Cold War, believed that Penkovsky was a fake defection. After school, she worked in London as a secretary before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany. So the discrepancy between Ames timeline and the exposure of Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk remains unexplained. His escape plan was bound under the flyleaf of a novel; he had to slit the cover open to read the instructions. I always thought there was another one, he told me. He asked them to deliver it to an intelligence officer at the US Embassy. Also, we have no idea about his brother and sister, and we dont know their names either. 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. secret papers written by Oleg Penkovsky, the Soviet official sentenced to death after the Greville Wynne trial. Because I knew it was a death sentence.. It is a collec- tion of. In 1962, Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky defied his country to save the world from nuclear war then paid for his heroism with his life. Updates? Long after the massive losses in 1985, the lingering questions still gnaw at their counterintelligence experts. What neither the CIA nor Poleshchuk knew was that the apartment was a KGB operation. 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 . Then the car started up again, and the radio, which had been playing pop music, suddenly boomed out SibeliusFinlandia. It looked outward for any external threats, and employed people capable of subterfuge and turning potential pawns into assets. Would she ever live in the West? The courier was Greville Wynne [] The mole isnt just some guy who stole a few secrets. Penkovsky, far from being the decadent playboy.portrayed by the Soviet prosecutor, was probably The most highly placed Western agent ever to fall into the hands of'the Soviet security . Omissions? While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. I had no job. [13], Penkovsky was arrested on 22 October 1962. His ashes were allegedly dumped in a mass grave in Moscow. Had the Russians examined the car, they would have seen the hump on the floor where the driveshaft would normally be. He was reputedly on friendly terms with Penkovsky,[21] which is very likely to have been a cause of his fall. I knew many heads in the KGB had rolled again, as they had after Stalin". Everything to know about their son and. He was the real deal. His father, Leonid Poleshchuk, was a senior KGB counterintelligence officer, most recently the deputy rezident for counterintelligence in Lagos, Nigeria. 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. 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. When I came to Moscow, she left, he says, taking the children with her on a vacation. Houses, offices, and agricultural areas will become pest-free with our services. They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. That day was June 13, 1985, by Ames account. Officially, he was shot to death. I could sense he had been tortured. Leonid was executed on July 30. 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 attended the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in 194548. We are a Claremont, CA situated business that delivers the leading pest control service in the area. 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. His character's execution was the opening scene for the movie. By all appearances Oleg and Vera have a happy marriage and are loving parents to Nina. 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. We know very well that youve been deceiving us for years, he said. Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty ImagesGreville Wynne being escorted by police after arriving back home from Russia. The first meeting between Penkovsky and two American and two British intelligence officers occurred during a visit by Penkovsky to London in April 1961. As Penkovskys position necessitated travel to Britain, the Russians initially didnt suspect him of espionage. 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 The year 1985 was a catastrophe for U.S. and British intelligence agencies. Gordievsky was taken home, but Grushko confronted him at the KGB the next day. While Oleg was tried and executed by the Soviets, Wynne was sentenced to eight years in prison. For two years I went to Lefortovo two, three times a week, Alla Bokhan told me. After attending the Military Diplomatic Academy (194953), he became an intelligence officer, serving primarily in Moscow. After his father was executed, Andrei kept working for Novosti. 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. The President of the Court declared Greville Wynne, aged 44, would serve three years in prison and five in a labour camp. Relying once again on Varentsov's patronage, he spent nine months studying rocket artillery at Dzerzhinsky Military Academy. Penkovsky provided plans and descriptions of the nuclear rocket launch sites in Cuba to the West. The future double agents father died that same year fighting against the communists in the Russian Revolution. He later worked at the Soviet Committee for Scientific Research. GRU . Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky redirected the virus war. Joe had become very close to my father and worried that some action by him, some error, had led to his betrayal.. Years later, Penkovsky himself would try to halt the Soviet spread of communism. 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. He was thin, pale and obviously sick. Soon there was a plan for an exfiltration, the CIAs term for spiriting an agent in danger out of a foreign country. He was later traded in an exchange after the British had a Russian spy, Konon Molody in their custody. After they drove home, he packed a gym bag and announced that he was going for a jog. He worked as a double agent for the British secret service during the Cold War, between 1974 and 1985. Oleg Penkovsky saved the world from mushroom clouds and untold deaths in the fall of 1962. Henceforth, the ranks of your armed forces are increased by one man.. He traveled frequently, to the United States, Germany, France, New Zealand, Australia, South America and the Middle East. David Wise is a journalist and author, best known for his expertise in espionage and intelligence. I was angry because I was dropped from military school and sent to the Army, far off, near Vladivostok, he said. Her husband was a spy who headed the MI6 station in Moscow but worked under the guise of a visa officer. Brought up in the North Caucasus, Penkovsky graduated from the Kiev Artillery Academy with the rank of lieutenant in 1939. After Ames, there was FBI agent Robert P. Hanssen, who was arrested in 2001. He met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, wrote a memoir and co-wrote a book on the KGB. After reading about how Soviet spy Oleg Penkovsky staved off nuclear war, learn about Vasili Arkhipov, another unsung hero of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Corrections? They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. How Soviet Spy Oleg Penkovsky Single-Handedly Prevented Nuclear War During The Cuban Missile Crisis. Penkovsky was actually a real proper hero before beginning of the film. No, he was told, theyre here for you.. He was most popular as the messenger who could give highly confidential information about the Soviets. Penkovsky was executed but there are conflicting reports about the manner of his death. He drove across the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. and entered Chadwicks, a popular Georgetown restaurant, where he handed the documents to a Soviet Embassy official named Sergei Chuvakhin. 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. This for the spy masters is an exercise in . 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. The KGB men searched the apartment all night. He was arrested by the Soviets in 1962 and executed the next. Chief KGB interrogator Alexander Zagvozdin said Penkosvky was questioned perhaps a hundred times and then shot. The next thing he knew, he woke up half-dressed in one of the dachas bedrooms. Just the day before, Moscow had announced that a Soviet defense researcher named Adolf G. Tolkachev had been arrested as a CIA spy. [19] Greville Wynne, in his book The Man from Odessa, claimed that Penkovsky killed himself. Without the senior Soviet military intelligence officer or his active role as a double agent during that time the Cold War could have gotten very hot. Your Privacy Rights Penkovsky was portrayed by Eduard Bezrodniy in the 2014 Polish thriller Jack Strong, about Ryszard Kukliski, another Cold War spy. Greville Wynnes cause of death: Where is his family? Leonid and his wife, Lyudmila, had been back two weeks when the KGB showed up at their door. A Russian TV documentary shows a shadowy figure picking it up, but Andrei said it is an actor, not his father. He joined the Kiev Artillery School and became a lieutenant in 1939. He was later traded in an exchange after the British had a Russian spy, Konon Molody in their custody. With the arrest of Aldrich Ames in 1994, it seemed that the mole hunters had found their quarry. They expected I would do something stupid, he told me. Cookie Settings, FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, John Hallisey / FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12. Wynne had worked as both Penkovsky's contact and courier; both men were arrested by the Soviets in October 1962. Penkovsky and Greville smuggled more than 5000 top-secret military documents out of the USSR. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Additionally, the files revealed that Soviet guidance systems werent yet functional, nor were their fueling systems operational. 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. Mr. Wint: Very moving. Positive Elements. In the history of U.S. intelligence, only three major molesmen whose betrayals had lethal resultshave been identified. After Penkovsky urged Wynne to arrange a meeting with the entities in question, he officially became a Western spy with the codename Hero..