Greville Wynne

Greville Wynne

Greville Maynard Wynne (1919 - 1990) was a British spy famous for his involvement with, and imprisonment as a result of, the espionage activities of Oleg Penkovsky.

Life

Wynne was an electrical engineer, trained at the University of Nottingham, and a businessman. He was recruited to MI5 during World War II. He was transferred to MI6 and assisted with the 1959 defection of the Soviet intelligence officer, Major Kuznov.

He was an intermediary for the important Russian spy Oleg Penkovsky, who was engaged in selling arms and weapons secrets to British intelligence. Unfortunately, Penkovsky's activities were revealed by Jack Dunlap, a double-agent working for the KGB. The KGB swiftly drew the conclusion that there was a mole in their ranks and set about uncovering him.

The Soviets concluded that one of the likely conduits of information would be a British diplomat in Moscow. George Blake, a Soviet mole inside MI6, had already pointed out Ruari and Janet Chisholm as MI6 operators in the British embassy in Moscow.

Penkovsky's visits to an adjacent building identified him as a likely source of the leaks. He was arrested, giving up Wynne's name. The Chisholms were expelled from Moscow for behaviour incompatible with their diplomatic status. Wynne was arrested in Budapest and smuggled to the Soviet Union. He was convicted of spying on 11 May 1963 and sentenced to eight years in prison; Penkovsky was sentenced to death and executed. Wynne was released in exchange for the spy Gordon Lonsdale in 1964.

Wynne wrote about his time as a spy in a book entitled "The Man from Odessa". This was one of the early examples of a book being published about secret work that the government never expected to be made public.

Portrayal in popular culture

Wynne was portrated by Peter Lindford in the 2007 BBC Television docudrama "Nuclear Secrets".

References

* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSwynne.htm Picture of Greville Wynne]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/11/newsid_2524000/2524239.stm BBC: Account of Wynne's trial]

Further reading

*Nigel West, "Seven Spies Who Changed the World". London: Secker & Warburg, 1991 (hard cover). London: Mandarin, 1992 (paperback).


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