She was recruited as a Russian agent by journalist Andrew Rothstein in 1934, at the age of just 22. This was a woman who was seen pottering around tending to her vegetables and flowers. This was to be her big chance, as the association played a key part in our nuclear project, codenamed Tube Alloys when it began four years later. Access the best of Getty Images and iStock with our simple subscription plan. only confirmed she was a spy in the 1990s. BN-FRMA linked up with a to-secret project to develop a nuclear weapon called Tube Alloys. A . Widowed for 13 years, she was a keen gardener - surrounded by the fruits of her labour as she gave her statement - and was seen as bit of a dotty old woman by her neighbours. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. In 1999, an 87-year-old British woman held a press conference in front of her home to announce that for nearly four decades, shed worked as a spy for the Soviet Union. In the BBC interview for broadcast next Sunday, Mrs. Norwood explains that in addition to sympathizing with the social gains that the Soviet experiment promised, she thought that in the postwar era, the Soviet Union represented the only counterbalance to capitalism and that the West should not be allowed an advantage as great as sole possession of nuclear bombs. The couple had, Its just what you did she says. As early as 1938, she was nearly caught by the British. The comments below have not been moderated, By files complimented her as ''a committed, reliable and disciplined agent, striving to be of the utmost assistance.'' Norwood admitted she'd sometimes be typing up notes from meetings and then "typed an extra copy" to send on. Includes Address (9) Phone (3) Email (1) See Results. As early as 1938, she was. Her ability to understand technical material meant she was promoted to secretary to the director. The ideologically driven spy turned down a Russian pension and was never paid for her undercover work. Her name has been changed and the story sexed up, but there is no doubt it is based on unlikely operative Norwood. In Wombourne, South Staffordshire, 120 miles away, her daughter Anita, a school laboratory technician, was astonished at the revelations about her elderly mother, and described herself as being in a state of disbelief. All of this is shown in Red Joan, but what's missing is the other work Norwood did - she was also a recruiter. I certainly didn't.". Joan Staley, the film, TV and stage actress died 24 November at the age of 79. "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. Her daughter, Anita Ferguson, said she died on June 2. From World War II through the Cold War, she stole nuclear secrets from the office where she worked as a secretary and. She had links with a spy ring working for the Soviets in the Woolwich Arsenal, and three other agents were caught by MI5 and imprisoned. Who would have thought she was a spy? June 2, 2005 In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Unions longest-serving British spy. But the unremarkable but highly intelligent office worker would pass those secrets to Moscow via clandestine meetings with Russian agents. Melita Norwood akhirnya meninggal dunia pada tahun 2005 tetapi orang tetap terpesona dengan kisah hidupnya. When Leo is away, Joan begins to fall for co-worker Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore), the man who eventually becomes her husband and Nicks father. Kamala opts out of kneeling with Biden for Warriors photo op. The Russians knew how to build a bomb, but they didnt know how to build a nuclear reactor to extract the uranium. Age. They were a middle-aged professional couple with a fixed mortgage, presumably beyond reproach. Intriguingly, it included profiles of 200 British KGB collaborators written by their Kremlin handlers. Melita Norwood made her unrepentant confession Saturday in the well-tended garden of freesia and daisies in front of her two-story stucco home in Bexleyheath, southeast London. But what Melita exactly did is up for debate. in Europe and the West,'' by a Cambridge professor, Christopher Andrew. July 21, 2020 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review, Your email address will not be published. Incredibly, despite doubts about her extreme Left-wing sympathies and links, she was cleared. It was not that side I was interested in. Secrets of Bletchley Park: How codebreakers paved way for World War 2 victory, Ex-spy killing 'linked to unsolved murder of Brit family in the Alps', Novichok victim Charlie Rowley asks Putin's man 'did you kill my girlfriend? Hilary Norwood Melita Stedman Norwood ( ne Sirnis; 25 Maret 1912 - 2 Juni 2005) adalah seorang pegawai negeri Inggris dan sumber intelijensi KGB. She had been working for five years in the general office of the British Non Ferrous Metals Research Association in Euston, North London when her career in espionage first began. All Rights Reserved. In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Union's longest-serving British spy. Her father had fled from Russia to England and found a home here, but this meant little to Norwood. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. Tony Harris - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images. The great-grandmother of 87 still lives in the same, spartan south London house which she bought with her husband, a maths teacher, 50 years ago. "When she became politically active in the 1930s, Russia was seen by many people as the only nation capable of defeating the Nazis. Author David Burke, who wrote a book about Melita's extraordinary life, was told by Norwood herself that it was she that approached them not the other way around. These usually ended so late that she stayed overnight. His occupation was Yes. Resides in Fairfax Station, VA. Two weeks ago, nine years after her death, Melitas barely-known name unexpectedly re-emerged when the Mitrokhin Archive, a file of top secret Soviet documents, was made available to the public for the first time. In 1949 they detonated their first atomic bomb four years earlier than expected. British intelligence only confirmed she was a spy in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the former KGB officer Vasili Mitrokhin defected to the United Kingdom and turned over six trunks of archive information about Soviet spying. Indeed, so trusted was Lette that she had access to Baileys two safes. Like many nonagenarians, Melita Norwood did her best to keep her mind active. Born to a British mother and Latvian father, Norwood is most famous for supplying the Soviet Union with state secrets concerning the development of atomic weapons from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, where she . Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Streamline your workflow with our best-in-class digital asset management system. People in the neighborhood said they were aware that Mrs. Norwood, locally famed for the quality of her homemade chutney, held radical views for their largely Conservative-voting area. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. 1999, 22 April Mr Straw is told that the Attorney General had advised against prosecution as it would be "inappropriate". The government decided against prosecuting her. The last time she visited Russia was in 1979, with her husband, when she says she again rejected financial reward. The information helped the communist state catch up with Britain in the race to build the deadliest weapons ever seen. Includes Address (23) Phone (7) Email (7) See Results. Known as ''Letti'' to her friends, she was identified in K.G.B. When she was unmasked, she said: I did what I did not to make money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and health service. When the spy was eventually unmasked half a century later in 1999, the identity came as a huge shock. What is the disease caused by diplococci. After that, although she wasnt arrested, she found she was no longer getting access to confidential material.. / The film depicts her as a woman who, while clearly out of her depth, is really the person responsible for seeing nuclear bombs as a deterrent rather than a weapon. Anita said: She kept it from everyone. Dr Burke explains: At one time she was vetted again. In 1967, she recruited a British civil servant 'Hunt' who passed on secrets about arms sales for nearly 15 years. He founded the Southern Worker And Labour And Socialist Journal in Southampton. Anyone can read what you share. Her spying career began four years after Joseph Stalin had seized power, long before his atrocities had become known to the outside world. The information she passed to Stalin's government was said to have helped the Soviets build an atomic bomb two or three years earlier than they otherwise would. For the KGB, this was an unbelievable piece of good fortune, because Bailey happened to be a member of the advisory committee on the atom bomb project. If you want to learn more about this . (Photo by PA Images via Getty Images), 1268 x 1012 px (4.23 x 3.37 in) - 300 dpi - 357 KB. Jennie Rooneys book Red Joan is inspired by the story she found but isnt based on the true story, there are quite a few differences between the two. I did not want money. <br> <br>1. Get email updates with the day's biggest stories. She worked as a secretary at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, the home of the Tube Alloys project. in Aktuality. Melita Norwood was a woman in her eighties who had been a dutiful wife and mother, but she was also Russia's most effective spy - going undetected for nearly 40 years. ''I would not have liked to have kept such a secret.''. When everything she had done came out in the newspapers her neighbours were stunned. Filming of Red Joan in Cambridge City Centre (Image: Keith Jones) Red Joan is a film based, although highly romanticised, on the true story of spy Melita Norwood who stole . She was dressed in a wide collared lavender floral print blouse and gray tweed skirt and clutching a handwritten piece of paper with slightly trembling fingers. MI5 worked out who Hola was in 1992, soon after Soviet defector Mitrokhin arrived in Britain with his KGB file. Access the best of Getty Images and iStock with our simple subscription plan. Whatever she may have done, I love her, said the mother of two. Although her father died when she was six, the family still held Left-wing views which the bright child absorbed from an early age. Mentioned only by codenames, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, of the infamous Cambridge Five, got critical mention: Burgess for not dressing tidily and being constantly under the influence of alcohol, and Maclean for his drunk spells and being not very good at keeping secrets. She did say she spied, but what? In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Unions longest-serving British spy. During that time she had handed over the country's secrets - willingly - to Russia, among them crucial information about the atomic bomb and its development. Norwood died on June 2, 2005 never facing trial for her crimes. For 14 free days, you can have access to a world of in-depth analyses, investigative journalism, top opinions and a range of features. Despite being investigated by them TEN times, and not hiding her socialist sympathies, Norwood secured a job that gave her access to Britains nuclear secrets. Tom King, chairman of the Parliamentary Security and Intelligence Committee, promised an investigation by lawmakers, saying, ''Questions need to be asked about who knew what when, and why there were no prosecutions.''. "In general I do not agree with spying against one's country.". They had been married for 50 years when he died in 1986. It was a terrible shock. She was a traitor to her country and had got away with it for decades. Melita Norwood. And the sleepy South Staffordshire . The couple had one child, Anita, who was born in 1943. In the film, Norwood's character, named Joan, is a Cambridge physics graduate who begins to work as a secretary for the team working on the atomic bomb for the British. Joan and Max go to Australia, but return to Britain at some point. 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Daughter Anita tried to downplay the damage Norwood had done, saying: There are questions about whether it was really useful at all to the Russians. "It's just what you did" she says. '' he said. Norwood died in 2005, but people have remained fascinated with her story. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Nunn swiftly takes us back in time to 1938, when Joan (a gracefully convincing Sophie Cookson) was a green but genius physics student at Cambridge, grabbing onto new inspirations and expanding her political horizon while growing into her sexuality. Find family history information in a whole new way. She began her spying career in the 1930s while working as a secretary for the Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association in London. When she returned to the firm in 1944, she went to work for the director, Dr G. L. Bailey, who wanted Lette because he knew she could cope with the technical jargon. Selama sekitar 40 tahun sejak ia direkrut pada 1937, ia memberikan rahasia- rahasia negara kepada KGB (dan . Melita Norwood was a great-grandmother when her espionage was finally revealed. , updated Towards the end of the war, it was carrying out highly classified government research into the properties of uranium, as part of Britains atomic bomb project. Except for one thing she worked at the British NonFerrous Metals Research Association offices in Euston, central London. She was born Melita Sirnis in 1912 near Southampton, the daughter of an English mother and a Latvian father who was a follower of Leo Tolstoy. The next four decades saw her hand over secrets and files under the name of Agent Hola. Asked if she had ever been frightened of being caught, she said, ''I suppose so, but I can't remember pondering it.''. Her handler described her as a loyal, trustworthy, disciplined agent who passed to the KGB a large amount of vital data. Lived In Garland TX, Duncanville TX, Dallas TX, Desoto TX. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. After all, Norwood had actually been investigated no less than seven times, she'd even been identified as a security risk in 1965. If Melita Norwood had died just a few years ago, the only obituary would have been in her local paper, recalling the one eccentricity of a Bexleyheath octogenarian: for . Then in 1932, Norwood, now 20, began work in the clerical department of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association (BN-FMRA). From World War II through the Cold War, she stole nuclear secrets from the office where she worked as a secretary and passed them to Moscow. Through all those years, her husband, a fellow Communist Party member who died in 1985, knew she was spying for the KGB. Norwood, who admitted passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, was exposed by Vasili Mitrokhin, who defected to Britain with a trove of KGB documents in 1992. She ended her days in a cosy, third-floor rented flat in a sheltered housing complex. Spy Melita Norwood (far left) pictured with her mother Gertrude, sister Gerty and half-brother Alfred Brandt. London - Melita Norwood, a British woman who was unmasked as a Soviet spy a decade ago, had died at age 93, said her family on Tuesday. The KGBs man on the inside was in fact Melita Norwood, a grey-haired, tea-drinking woman in her eighties who enjoyed tending the roses at her semi-detached home in suburban South East London. Melita Norwood passed secrets to the Russians for decades after being recruited in 1935 by a former correspondent for the Soviet news agency TASS. It was a complete shock at the time, says Anita, now 71. By He suspected she had been meeting KGB agents when she arrived back late from work, but did not know the extent of her crimes. Thereafter you will be billed R75 per month. But while Norwood's intentions are still up for debate, what she did is not. 1998 In December, Mr Straw is informed for the first time heard about Melita Norwood's role and is told the Security Service was considering whether to prosecute. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Her KGB file gave her a glowing review calling her "committed, reliable and disciplined agent, striving to be of the utmost assistance. As always you can unsubscribe at any time. Where those men hid their activities behind their upper-class backgrounds, elite educations and urbanity, Mrs. Norwood disguised hers with her complete suburban unremarkableness. Judi Dench gives us the painful memories and rickety joints of the old Joan, tending a garden in the suburbs in 2000 when Special . I did what I did not to make money but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service, she told the press in front of her home. She was, in many ways, the perfect spy, living during most of her long years of treason in a pebble-dash semi in Bexleyheath, South-East London, with her maths and chemistry teacher husband Hilary, growing fresh vegetables in her back garden allotment and bringing up their daughter Anita. At the height of the war in 1943, she took time off to have a child, Anita. While three of the gang were uncovered, she escaped discovery and took up a job as a secretary at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association in the same year. 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