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. Assisting him in his role as "courier" is Oleg Penkovsky ( Merab Ninidze ), a far more experienced Russian agent. Welcome to the United States, one of them said. A new spy thriller draws on the fascinating lifeand whopping liesof one of the U.K.s most famous intelligence agents. In June he was expelled from the Central Committee for 'having relaxed his political vigilance.' The Courier: Directed by Dominic Cooke. Gordievsky believes they were waiting to catch him contacting British intelligence. | Wynne and Penkovsky were both arrested by the KGB in November 1962, when some of the information their endeavours produced was of assistance to the West during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Occasionally the killer will opt to dispense with the coffin . In addition to Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk, more than a dozen other sources were exposed. [Wynne], bless him, for all his wonderful work, was a menace and a fabricator, says Nigel West, who has written numerous books on British and American intelligence organizations, including two books specifically about fabricators in the intelligence arena. It's athank you from the West for what he sacrificed.". He created his own computer consulting firm and dabbled in film production. Bokhan put them on as Reiser drove to a safe house. Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. Wynne agreed, and during his visit to Moscow the following month he wound up connecting with Oleg Penkovsky, a lieutenant colonel in the GRU (the Soviet Unions foreign-intelligence agency) who was eager to leak high-level military information to Western powers. The FBI declined to comment on whether the search Wiser began is continuing. But the chummy interactions between the agents and Penkovskys prolific, even reckless, acquisition of materials grew increasingly perilousand finally caught the KGBs attention. Impossible. Though nobody knows how the leak was traced back to Penkovsky, he was arrested by the Soviets on October 22, 1962. He was arrested on October 22nd. 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 timeline just didnt work to explain Gordievskys recall to Moscow, FBI Special Agent Leslie Wiser, who ran the Ames case, told me. He started having trouble breathing. Here's what to know about Wynne's real history. Leonid never made it to the rock, his son said. pictures of the galvin family; springfield, ma city council candidates; what happened to penkovsky wife Because I knew it was a death sentence.. After attending the Military Diplomatic Academy (194953), he became an intelligence officer, serving primarily in Moscow. Some days passed before his boss, Viktor Grushko, drove him to a KGB dacha, saying some people wanted to talk to him. [18] In a 2010 interview, Suvorov denied that the man in the film[clarification needed] was Penkovsky and said that he had been 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. Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. He might be dead, or hes living in his dacha now. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine 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 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. Penkovsky is perhaps the best known of Soviet double agents. [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. 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. 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. 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. Subsequently, a trade was exchanged after the British had a Russian government agent, Konon Molody, under his tutelage. Even the official accounts put out by American and Russian authorities regarding the Penkovsky affair include disinformation and spin that he, or any historian, has to navigate through. 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. What happened to wife of Oleg Penkovsky? Your fathers been arrested, the man said. After Penkovsky and Wynne were captured by the KGB, which happened very similar to how their capture is depicted in the film, the GRU lieutenant colonel been convicted of treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. 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. Murder by Cremation. You are wondering about the question what happened to oleg penkovsky wife and daughter but currently there is no answer, so let kienthuctudonghoa.com summarize and list the top articles with the question. Thanks to his priceless information the Cuban crisis was not transformed into a last World War". 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. He is the author of The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York. In June 1986, Leonid was tried and, predictably, convicted. 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. But over time, intelligence experts and those involved in the case, though reluctant to share sensitive information, cast doubt on much of what Wynne laid out in his books. They made an odd contrastthe short, energetic, and thinly mustachioed Wynne alongside the military bearing of Penkovskybut there seemed to be genuine affection between the two, and this friendship is a central focus of The Courier. In 1945, Penkovsky married the teenage daughter of Lieutenant-General Dmitri Gapanovich, thus acquiring another high-ranking patron. Hed been back at headquarters only four months earlier, and all seemed well. Posted on . In 1955 Penkovsky was appointed military attach in Ankara. Omissions? Arrested? After school, she worked in London as a secretary before joining the Allied Control Commission and moving to West Germany. Andrei Poleshchuk told me his fathers arrest was a disaster for his mother. troops.[15]. In 1961, jet travel did not allow someone to fly from the U.K. to the U.S. and back again in 24 hours, says West. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). OConnor makes clear that The Courier is not a documentary, even as he explains that he took pains to stick to the facts as much as they could be ascertaineddrawing on works such as Jerrold L. Shecter and Peter S. Deriabins The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War and other accounts that could be trusted more than Wynnes own inventions. But some highly experienced U.S. counterintelligence experts doubt it. After Ames was arrested and charged with espionage, his attorney, Plato Cacheris, negotiated a plea bargain with prosecutors: Ames wife, Rosario, an accomplice in his spying, would be spared a long prison sentence if he cooperated fully with the authorities. He was senior enough that you could sit down with the agents for hours and explain the entire context of how Soviet intelligence worked.. They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. | READ MORE. When I came to Moscow, she left, he says, taking the children with her on a vacation. Between April 1961 and August 1962 Penkovsky passed more than 5,000 photographs of classified military, political, and economic documents to British and U.S. intelligence forces. London, May 17, 1985: Oleg Gordievsky was at the pinnacle of his career. Bokhans son, Alex, also made it to the U.S., in 1995. 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. 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. Dunlap was just another source they had to protect. 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. But Ames always insisted to the FBI, the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee that he revealed no significant sources before his meeting at Chadwicks. After Gordievsky escaped, a Soviet military tribunal sentenced him to death in absentia. 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. He asked if they were there to greet an important diplomat. These things have to be run to ground.. Penkovsky either was shot or killed himself in prisonthere are disputing accounts. Penkovsky was ultimately undone by a mole within the British government. 41 ratings1 review. His father, Leonid Poleshchuk, was a senior KGB counterintelligence officer, most recently the deputy rezident for counterintelligence in Lagos, Nigeria. The daughter of a Russian mother . Among the explanations are a desire for money or fame, a ruinous case of alcoholism, or perhaps even psychological scars left by his time in Soviet prison or the shame he felt for publicly turning against British intelligence during the trial. Moscow seemed to have no clue hed been secretly working for MI6, the British secret intelligence service, for 11 years. He dropped it, sensing that he was getting into dangerous territory. 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. In 1962, Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky defied his country to save the world from nuclear war then paid for his heroism with his life. We had neighbors that were very close. On this trip, Penkovsky submitted to hours of interviews with British and American intelligence officials about the Soviet Unions military and political developments. Dun s denouement is both startling and convincing a fitting climax to this irresistible real life thriller Francis Wheen, Mail on Sunday 'This excellent book contains lessons that are still valid in the 21st century' --Oleg Gordievsky, Literary Review 'This excellent book contains lessons that are still valid in the 21st . But it was only a matter of time. They had a sumptuous lunchBokhan knew it might be his last meal with his familyand Maria bought a stuffed Greek doll called a patatuff. The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, pp. He asked for a fictitious Greek employee. Penkovsky's father might have fled to the West rather than have died of typhus as Penkovsky had previously reported, the KGB prohibited Penkovsky from assuming his post in New Delhi but permitted him to remain in the GRU after his mother submitted a statement detailing her family's ignorance of her husband's fate.28 MI6 sees him and his international dealings as a perfect cover for. 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 CIA would want to debrief him at length to try to determine the full extent of his treachery. 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. She did, in 1991, but the strain caused by six years of separation proved too much to repair. Dont call us, well call you in a couple years. When Greville got out of prison, he was not prepared, as people obviously are not in those circumstances, to be ignored.. There were embraces, and everyone cried. 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 .