He acted as a courier to transport top-secret information to London from Soviet agent Oleg Penkovsky. Single use in context. Strange" to Sherlock Holmes. But the chummy interactions between the agents and Penkovskys prolific, even reckless, acquisition of materials grew increasingly perilousand finally caught the KGBs attention. "And Greville played a big part in that.". Theres a fair amount of source material from all different kinds of authors, so by reading everybodynot just Wynnes books, but other historians, and the official history put out by the American side and the Soviet side I was able to try and work out what made the most sense and what seemed liked disinformation, says OConnor. Greville Wynne's former partners: . Wynne was a businessman at this point in his life and, during this month, he sat down for lunch not knowing that it would significantly change his life. But historians believe he fabricated much of them one pointing out that he was never a trained spy. Greville Wynne had a wife, Sheila, and a son, Andrew. The engineer-turned-business man Greville Wynne was, in fact, recruited by the MI6 in November of 1960. Greville Wynne's former father in law was, Greville Wynne's former mother in law was. "Greville Wynne was anordinary mandoing an extraordinary thing," Cumberbatch says. Penkovsky was arrested first, and after his interrogation, Wynne was apprehended. [4], After the Second World War, he traded in electrical equipment, travelling often through Europe and India. While this was truly harrowing punishment, his Russian colleague Penkovsky paid the ultimate price with his life. The film mentions a previous affair, which is part of the reason Sheila is suspicious this time. -The New York Times. 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 pair first met in December 1960 and became close acquaintances, meeting up in London and Eastern Europe up until 1962. This true story is a very interesting, skewed way to telling a ticking time-bomb, spy-thriller.. Daniel's 5th outing as Bond gets bums back on seats in the cinema. The almost universally accepted version of events is that Oleg Penkovsky was executed in 1963 for providing top-secret information to the United Kingdom. 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He said he was motivated by patriotism and a dislike of the Soviet system. It quoted unidentified close friends. Wynne would later relate that as he walked down the steps of an exhibition pavilion, four men suddenly appeared as a car pulled up and Wynne was pushed inside. CU.SIGN "LONDON AIRPORT". During an interview at Sundance, Brosnahan told The Davis Clipper's Tom Haraldsen, "Emily is a combination of several true-life figures who worked with Benedict's character (Greville Wynne) to help the CIA penetrate the Soviet nuclear program.". Under the guise of a sales trip, he made his first contact with high-ranking Soviet intelligence colonel Oleg Penkovsky in Moscow.The Courier true story reveals that Wynne met Penkovsky eight months after the Soviet double agent had first tried to get in touch with the CIA by handing a bulky envelope of documents to two wary American students in Moscow. "Think about going back to life after that intense drama," Cooke says. [9][10][11], Wynne was held at the Lubyanka. The Courier is also not the first time that Greville Wynnes story has attracted attention over the years. Our listening devices are concealed within items that won't raise suspicion, from car keys to bear toys. But his leaked information on Soviet missile capabilities and played a key role in President Kennedy'sstrong, successful stance duringthe Cuban Missile Crisis. In this edition, we will be focusing on the remarkable life and story of British spy, Greville Wynne. Wynne was then hit over the head and knocked out, bundled into a car and taken to prison where interrogators played out a guessing game to establish the links between him and Penkovsky. The information that Penkovsky was able to obtain and the position of Wynne enabled the British and Americans to receive crucial information about the Soviet Union. It led to him and a Soviet double agent, Oleg Penkovsky, becoming firm friends, involved in smuggling thousands of documents and photographs across enemy lines. The affair developed into the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Both economy and specialist counter surveillance devices. Ameeting between theRussian prisoners, in which Wynne tellsPenkovsky of the import of his information, asdepicted in the film, is drama. Explore how the celebrity world connects. Wynne wrote about his time as a spy in a book entitled The Man from Odessa, first published in 1981. He was put on trial in Moscow on May 1963 for spying and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. Wynne died of throat cancer in Londons Cromwell Hospital on Wednesday, the British domestic news agency Press Association reported. In 1961 and 1962, at the height of the Cold War, disgruntled colonel Oleg Penkovsky (portrayed by Merab Ninidze) became the highest-ranking Soviet military official to spy for the United Kingdom up until that time. Keir told the Daily Mail: My mum chatted to the casting director and said I look a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch, so they asked me for a video of myself, which I did in a cloakroom, and they eventually asked me in for a recall in person and I got the role.. The 12-year-old bears an uncanny resemblance to Benedict Cumberbatch, which caught the eye of the casting director on the Hollywood stars latest film. Andrew and Sheila lived in Britain whilst Greville served his prison sentence in Moscow. Not only was this account widely denied shortly after publication by members of the CIA and Kennedys staff, but it would have been against the way espionage is runkeeping heads of state a safe distance from the details of intelligence work. Discover our latest products. [3] His father was a foreman in an engineering workshop. Our collection of landline recorders and mobile phone monitoring devices. 'The Courier' is currently lived by his son, Andrew, as he died in 1990 at the age of 70. Penkovskys dynamism and enthusiasm, his wide-ranging and passionate denunciations of the Soviet system and its leaders illustrated with anecdotes, fascinated and captivated the American and British teams, write Schecter and Deriabin. Get a daily dose of showbiz gossip direct to your inbox. Recalling his first day on set, he said: At first I was really nervous, but the cast were all so nice, and I managed to sit next to Benedict for the read-through of the script. Penkovsky felt stunted in his career with GRU and expected that by helping the West for a year or two, he and his family could be relocated and build a better life, and that he would personally be showered with recognition and honor. He later appeared as himself on the May 23, 1967 episode of the American game show To Tell the Truth. | READ MORE. Yes. Then after your service, when you havent even told your family or friends about this, youre told, thank you very much, indeed. It was during one of these meetings that Wynne met Oleg Penkovsky, a lieutenant colonel in the GRU, which was the Soviet Unions foreign-intelligence agency. Cumberbatch also gives an update on the Dr. The burden of that is hard to imagine.. Yes. Like in The Courier movie, a fact-check confirms that KGB surveillance resulted in Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky both being arrested in October 1962, the same month the Cuban Missile Crisis was unfolding. Seeking ways to parlay the notoriety he received, he became what Duns calls a rent-a-spokesperson for all kinds of espionage stuff, making appearances in the media about anything related to spycraft, whether or not it was anything he had experience with. This Cold War story centers around the spying in the 1960s and, in particular, tensions between Britain/America and Soviet Union. The loosely allied forces that made up the White Army favored capitalism and social democracy, which stood in contrast to the communist ideologies of the Red Army. The UK's supply crisis puts extra pressure on Prime Minister Boris. Some of the most advanced and very best spy cameras on the market. It was on this day that Wynne was captured by the Soviets and flown over to Moscow for sentencing. The Ruislip Home That Contained A Soviet Spy Ring, Spy Histories: North Vietnams Defence Against America. They were convicted of espionage. In one of his biggest whoppers, Wynne explains that he and Penkovsky took a trip together in a private military jet from the U.K. to Washington, D.C. The film received rave reviews and, having seen it ourselves, we certainly recommend giving it a watch. 22:00 GMT 13 Aug 2021 Here's what to know about Wynne's real history. They were alone in the world with this incredible burden except for the other man.. Officials in London had also been aware of Penkovsky since he had approached two British businessmen and gave them his business card in hopes it would reach MI6. Wynne was a British businessman who, from 1960 and 1962, smuggled thousands of pieces of intel out of Russia before he was captured, imprisoned, and tortured for two years by the KGB. After months of negotiations, the British government was eventually able to arrange a trade of Wynne for the Soviet spy Gordon Lonsdale, whod been arrested the year before and was serving a 25-year sentence in England. It required plenty of foreign travel, including to Soviet bloc countries. It isnt common knowledge as to whether Andrew and Greville retained a relationship following the divorce. His first wife, Sheila, was present throughout his Moscow trial but divorced him after his release. The Courier director Dominic Cooke says: Think about going back to a normal life after that intense drama. -The New York Times. After the initial meeting in December 1960, Penkovsky provided Wynne with film of Soviet military documents and later promised more information if an arrangement with British or American intelligence could be made. Wynne died of throat cancer in London's Cromwell Hospital on Wednesday, the British domestic news agency Press Association reported. The Courier fact-check reveals that, like his father, Penkovsky had become disillusioned with the Soviet system. Penkovsky's career in the Soviet military had been hindered by the fact that his father had died fighting as an officer for the White Army against the Bolsheviks (Red Army) during the Russian Civil War (1917 1923) and Penkovsky didn't denounce this legacy. Benedict Cumberbatch: Battled mystery flu, fake crew cut facing Jodie Foster in 'The Mauritanian'. He and his wife Sheila divorced not long after his release. "(Chisholm)played a very important role in the story that we couldn't get into, because it's a whole other movie," Cooke says. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. In November 1960, Greville Wynne, a 41-year-old British businessman, sat down for a lunch that would change his life. "But you have a responsibility to honor the essence of what happened," says director Dominic Cooke. In the movie, he only seeks assurances that he will be able to defect with his family. On 29th October 1962, Wynne travelled to Soviet-occupied Budapest just hours after the Soviets stood down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, going against the advice of MI6. The way they put it, I felt there was no possibility and then I suddenly found myself in an aeroplane and I arrived at East Berlin.. The businessman released from a Soviet labour camp was Greville Wynne, a figure portrayed in the media, and in British government protests, as an innocent engineer who had been incarcerated while attending a trade fair in Budapest in November 1962. . Mr Andrew Greville Wynne. Watch an interview with British spy Greville Wynne upon his release from the Soviet prison. He was released in a swap at a checkpoint in Berlin in April, 1964, in exchange for Soviet spy Konon Molody, known in Britain as Gordon Lonsdale. Among the materials Penkovsky provided to Wynne were four photocopies of plans for construction sites of missile-launching installations in Cuba. He and his wife Sheila divorced not long after his release. At the time, they were largely accepted at face value and sold well. The MI6 agent suffered from depression after imprisonment and torture. This led to the publication of his dubious memoirs. 113.23.219.119 PC monitoring devices to assist in uncovering the truth. Greville Maynard Wynne (19 March 1919[2] 28 February 1990) was a British engineer and businessman recruited by MI6 because of his frequent travel to Eastern Europe. If you have any questions for our team about our spy histories articles, the spy industry in general, or any of the spy equipment that is available through our website, please contact us today. Wynne was born in Shropshire, England, and raised in Ystrad Mynach, South Wales. In declining health, he was released roughly two years later on April 22, 1964 in exchange for Soviet spy Konon Molody, who had called himself Gordon Lonsdale while operating in Britain. Terms of Use He was 71. Never formally acknowledged by the British government, Wynnewrote about his experiences in two self-aggrandizingbooks, "The Man From Moscow" (1967) and "The Man From Odessa" (1981). The moonlighting spy was arrested on a business trip to Budapest in November 1962 and taken to the Soviet Union. 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