Greville Wynne

British spy (1919–1990)

Electrical engineer
businessman

Criminal chargeEspionageCriminal penalty8 years; served 18 monthsCriminal statusReleased in exchange deal.Spouse(s)Sheila M Beaton
(m. 1946; divorced)
Johanna Herma Van Buren (m.1970; separated)Children1 son - AndrewParent(s)Bert Wynne, Ada WynneEspionage activityCountry

United KingdomAgencySecret Intelligence Service (MI6)Service yearsNovember 1960 – October 1962

Greville Maynard Wynne (19 March 1919^[1] – 28 February 1990) was a British engineer and businessman recruited by MI6 because of his frequent travel to Eastern Europe. He acted as a courier to transport top-secret information to London from the Soviet agent Oleg Penkovsky.

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. They were convicted of espionage. Penkovsky was executed the following year and Wynne was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. He was detained at Lubyanka prison. Struggling with deteriorating health, he was released in 1964 in exchange for the Soviet spy Konon Molody.

Early life

Wynne was born in Wrockwardine Wood, Telford, Shropshire, England, only son (an elder brother had died at the age of one year in 1915; he had three elder sisters) of Ethelbert Wynne and Ada, née Pritchard. He was raised in Ystrad Mynach, South Wales, with a "modest background".^[2] His father was a foreman in an engineering workshop. He struggled with dyslexia and left school at 14 to work for an electrical contractor. He then worked at a telephone factory as an apprentice.^[3] Before the Second World War he studied engineering part-time at the University of Nottingham.^[4]^[5] After the war, he traded in electrical equipment, travelling often through Europe and India.^[3] Wynne married Sheila Beaton in 1946; the couple had a son, Andrew, born in 1952.^[6] His business extended into Eastern Bloc countries from 1955.^[3]

MI6 and later life

In November 1960, Wynne was recruited by MI6 and asked to make a sales trip to Moscow,^[7] where he made contact with Oleg Penkovsky, a high-ranking GRU officer. Penkovsky had made earlier offers to spy for the West.^[7] Wynne later became an intermediary and courier for Penkovsky, smuggling top-secret Soviet intelligence to London on return from his frequent trips to the USSR.^[8]

Wynne's and Penkovsky's espionage activities were discovered by the KGB. Both men were arrested in November 1962, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.^[7] Wynne and Penkovsky each pleaded guilty on 7 May 1963 and were sentenced four days later.^[9]^[10] Wynne was sentenced to eight years in prison. Penkovsky was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad, though Wynne believed he died by suicide in prison.^[10]^[11]

Wynne was held at the Lubyanka.^[12] In April 1964, amid British concerns for his deteriorating health,^[7] Wynne was released in exchange for the Soviet spy Konon Molody (also known as Gordon Lonsdale).^[13]

After his release, Wynne returned to his business career. He and his wife Sheila divorced and he became estranged from his son and only child, Andrew. In 1970, Wynne married Johanna Herma Van Buren. They separated a few years before his death but were still legally married when he died.

On 23 May 1966, he appeared as himself in an episode of the American television series To Tell the Truth, receiving two of four possible votes.^[14]

Wynne struggled with depression and alcoholism in the aftermath of imprisonment.^[13] He died of throat cancer at the Cromwell Hospital in London on 28 February 1990, aged 70.^[15]

Questions over pre-Penkovsky MI5 work

Later in life, Wynne wrote two books about his work for British intelligence: The Man from Moscow (1967) and The Man from Odessa (1981). In these books, Wynne claimed to have been recruited by MI5 as early as the Second World War, long before his work with Penkovsky. Historians question this account. The authors of The Spy Who Saved the World wrote that Wynne "had no previous intelligence experience or training."^[7] Others have made similar assessments, stating that Wynne was a civilian at the time of his recruitment by MI6 in 1960.^[8]^[13]

Portrayal in popular culture

Wynne was portrayed by David Calder in the 1985 BBC television serial Wynne and Penkovsky.^[16]
He was portrayed by Peter Lindford in the 2007 BBC Television docudrama Nuclear Secrets.^[17]
He was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2021 film The Courier.^[16]

References

^ ^a ^b "New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors".
^ Olsen, Catherine (13 November 1981). "From Interrogation in the Lubyanka to rose-growing in Majorca". The Evening Standard. p. 7. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
^ ^a ^b ^c Trahair, Richard (10 January 2012). Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. Enigma Books. pp. 432–433. ISBN 978-1-936274-26-0.
^ M. R. D. Foot (2004). "Wynne, Greville Maynard". Oxford Dictionary of national Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40700.
^ The Annual Obituary 1990, ed. Deborah Andrews, St James Press, 1991, p. 156
^ "Release was 'a complete surprise'". The Guardian. 23 April 1964. p. 1. Retrieved 12 December 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Schecter, Jerrold L; Deriabin, Peter S; Penkovskij, Oleg Vladimirovic (1992). The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War. New York: Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-19068-6. OCLC 909016158.
^ ^a ^b Brook-Shepherd, Gordon (1989). The Storm Birds. Grove Press. ISBN 1-555-84122-8.
^ "Wynne confesses to charges of spying for West". The Guardian. No. 36340. 8 May 1963. pp. 1, 10 – via Newspapers.com.
^ ^a ^b Frankland, Mark (12 May 1963). "Wynne sentenced to eight years". The Observer. No. 8967. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
^ "The Penkovsky Papers". The Observer. No. 9097. 7 November 1965. p. 21 – via Newspapers.com.
- Milne, Seumas (1 March 1990). "Spy Wynne dies aged 70". The Guardian. p. 20 – via Newspapers.com.
^ "Soviet blackmail over Mr. Brooke". The Guardian. No. 37218. 7 March 1966. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
^ ^a ^b ^c West, Nigel (1991). Seven Spies Who Changed the World. Martin Secker & Warburg Limited. ISBN 0-436-56603-6.
^ "To Tell the Truth". CBS. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 29 April 2020 – via YouTube.
^ "Greville Wynne, Spy for Britain In the Soviet Bloc, Is Dead at 71". The New York Times. 2 March 1990. Retrieved 31 January 2010.
^ ^a ^b Fordy, Tom (16 August 2021). "Gentleman, spy, fantasist? The strange post-Courier life of Greville Wynne". The Telegraph. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
^ Knox, Miranda (7 August 2021). "Travelling salesman prevented WW3 in incredible true story behind new Cumberbatch film". The Daily Mirror. Retrieved 27 August 2021.

External links

Greville Wynne at IMDb
Greville Wynne Picture
BBC: Account of Wynne's trial
"Soviet Propaganda Film 14 (53234)". PeriscopeFilm. Los Angeles: Periscope Film LLC. 1963. Retrieved 23 May 2021 – via Internet Archive. Highlights: 00:09 Criminal case against Penkovski O.V. and Wynne G.M. concerning unlawful acts described by Articles 64, Article 65 of the USSR's RSFSR Criminal code. Article 64 is Treason, Article 65 is Espionage. This is the 30th of November 1962.