When she visited Moscow with her husband in 1979, she was given an honor for her work, the Order of the Red Banner, which she accepted, and offered a financial reward, which she turned down. 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. It was incredibly valuable. Her KGB file gave her a glowing review calling her "committed, reliable and disciplined agent, striving to be of the utmost assistance. The spy who came in from the Co-op." Melita Norwood, the last of the atomic spies, hadfinally been run to ground, but at 87 she was deemed too old to prosecute. 1999, 22 April Mr Straw is told that the Attorney General had advised against prosecution as it would be "inappropriate". Her daughter, Anita Ferguson, said she died on June 2. Prosecution was considered inappropriate due to ill health and advanced years. She told me she would have been prepared to be tried as a war criminal and would have accepted a prison sentence.. Her motivations weren't as pure as the film suggests either. Geoffrey Levy for MailOnline Monday, 13 September, 1999, 17:35 GMT 18:35 UK, The BBC's Jon Silverman: "At the outbreak of war she was more highly valued than Kim Philby", Nigel West, Intelligence Expert: "Such individuals should be pursued", Journalist David Rose: "The people that she lives among have not a clue as to her past", ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------. Rose, David. A . I talked to her about the spying, but she told me very little of what she had done, though she did say my father didnt approve. She worked as a secretary at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, the home of the Tube Alloys project. <br>Who would have thought she was a spy? She connects with her former Communist lover Leo who encourages her to hand over secrets to the Russians. Where in Bexleyheath did Melita Norwood live? Melita Stedman Norwood (ne Sirnis; 25 March 1912 - 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant and treasonous KGB intelligence source who, for a period after her formal recruitment in 1937, supplied the KGB (and its predecessor agencies ) with state secrets from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association. Paperwork about how to safely enrich uranium, which would be used in bombs, passed across his desk and was put in his safe. Over a period of 35 years, she had been a spy for the KGB, passing on Britains nuclear secrets that enabled the Soviet Union to catch up in building the atomic bomb. Melita Norwood. In times of uncertainty you need journalism you can trust. Daughter of Alex Sirnis and Private Wife of . You can cancel anytime and if you cancel within 14 days you won't be billed. So who was Hola? Sir Winston Churchills wife started sending packages to support the Russians. All of this is shown in Red Joan, but what's missing is the other work Norwood did - she was also a recruiter. I remember her talking to me once about Karl Marx. Except for one thing she worked at the British NonFerrous Metals Research Association offices in Euston, central London. Melita Norwood aged 87 when she faced the cameras ( Image: PA) Sophie Cookson plays Joan Stanley, who is based on Norwood ( Image: Nick Wall/Lions Gate) Don't Miss Norwood wasn't a. The elderly woman exposed as the longest-serving Soviet spy in Britain was a fresh-faced 25-year-old when her political idealism first drove her into spying for the Soviet Union. Anita (l. 1943) Pekerjaan. Melita (everyone called her Lette) had joined the company as a clerk in 1937. The Getty Images design is a trademark of Getty Images. 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. In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Union's longest-serving British spy. 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. Mon 27 Jun 2005 20.03 EDT. Joan and Max go to Australia, but return to Britain at some point. "'I Gave Bomb Secrets to Russia So It Could Stand Up to the West.'" . spy. In 2000, a parliamentary committee that oversaw intelligence agencies criticised the government for failing to prosecute Norwood. Her handlers were top Soviet spies Ursula Kuczynski, aka Red Sonja, and playboy Gordon Lonsdale, who was jailed in 1961 for espionage. He kept sensitive documents in both, sometimes holding evening meetings at home at which Lette was expected to be on hand. 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 . This innocuous-sounding association was actually part of a secret nuclear weapons research project with the U.S. called Tube Alloy. When no one was looking, Norwood would sneak into her boss office, open his safe and take pictures of the secret documents inside. Streamline your workflow with our best-in-class digital asset management system. Also known as Anita A James, Ferguson Anita. The extent of Norwoods betrayal only became clear in 1999 after Russian defector Vasili Mitrokhin opened up his KGB files to MI5 and British journalists. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Cu MIX za . Had she seen for herself her KGB handlers description of her as loyal and trustworthy, it would have come as no surprise, for this is precisely how she saw herself in doing her bit to prevent the defeat of the Communist creed. In 2013, author Jennie Rooney published a novel, Red Joan, loosely based on Norwoods life. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. 87years (December 9, 1934) '', At Dillons Newsagents, Peter Dodd, the assistant manager, said he had been surprised years ago when he first saw her orders for Communist publications. Melita Stedman Norwood ( ne Sirnis; 25 Maret 1912 - 2 Juni 2005) adalah seorang pegawai negeri Inggris dan sumber intelijensi KGB. 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. She thought what she was doing was for the benefit of the entire world. There were several cries of ''traitor!'' Spy Melita Norwood (far left) pictured with her mother Gertrude, sister Gerty and half-brother Alfred Brandt. She's a very good person, very strong and totally unmaterialistic," she told The Daily Mail at the time. While his identity still remains unknown to the public, Norwood confessed later: "I am not going to deny itI take complete responsibility and blame.". The girl who had become bored with university life at Southampton after only a year was soon being promoted from clerk to secretary. It was directed by Trevor Nunn, [10] and produced by David Parfitt, with a screenplay by Lindsay Shapero. Today's newspapers predicted that the excerpts from Professor Andrew's book and an accompanying BBC documentary called ''The Spying Game'' would unmask up to a dozen more Britons who worked for Soviet intelligence, including a former Scotland Yard officer and a person described tantalizingly by the author as ''a prominent public figure who is now dead.''. But a male superior dismissed her tip because he didnt think women could be good spies (in 1940, he fired Maund for accusing him of incompetence). Norwood was survived by her daughter, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. It was only when Melita Norwood gave them British Non-Ferrous Metals solution that they could test a bomb in 1949, when British Intelligence had been saying they would not get there before the mid-Fifties.. Collect, curate and comment on your files. "I do not consider myself a spy," she told reporters. I certainly didn't.". Melita Norwood, nee Sirnis, was born in 1912, the English daughter of a Latvian father and a British mother, and grew up in unremarkable circumstances in the Home Counties. / This week her daughter defended her mums decision to spy for the Soviets from 1934 to 1972. But she had sexual predator Lonsdale ditched, says Dr Burke, as she didnt want to work with him because of his lack of professionalism. She was only a secretary.. Norwood worked tirelessly against Britain for four decades before she retired from her spy life in 1972. Mona Maund, one of the first female MI5 agents, actually identified Norwood as a possible spy back in the 1930s, when Norwood was at the beginning of her espionage career. Standing in her suburban front garden in 87-year-old pensioner Melita Norwood read from a crisp sheet of paper, intently looking down the lens of a camera as she confessed to being a top secret spy and betraying her country. It seemed that Britain was headed into another of the spy expose frenzies that have occurred periodically with the unmaskings of men like Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross who followed their Communist sympathies into espionage. 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. Norwood died in 2005, but people have remained fascinated with her story. This was a woman who was seen pottering around tending to her vegetables and flowers. Three years after being exposed, Lette sold the semi in Bexleyheath and moved to be near her daughter, renting a flat in the sheltered housing complex. Her father had fled from Russia to, Key to this was research into metallurgy and this is exactly what Melita Norwood had access to in her apparently lowly job. She is interrogated by two detectives from Scotland Yard, whom she accuses of misunderstanding her life, but gradually concedes that she did provide information to the Soviets. Age. 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. Red Joan is released in cinemas on April 19, 2019. Right to the end, Norwood maintained her belief in communism. Sat 2 Jul 2005 21.01 EDT. Then in 1999 an extensive archive of KGB material was uncovered by a defector. The film portrays Norwood as a doddering old woman that when unmasked struggles to understand what she did wrong and what is happening to her. The Russians knew how to build a bomb, but they didnt know how to build a nuclear reactor to extract the uranium. 09:22 GMT 28 Jun 2005, Bungling helicopter pilot blows over stadium roof injuring eight, Coles worker fights a woman allegedly trying to steal groceries, BBC Breakfast celebrates forty years of hilarious bloopers, Royal Family will find it 'impossible' to compromise with Sussexes, Ken Bruce will be joining the Greatest Hits Radio family in April, As it happened: UK Government blocks Scotland's new gender law, Russian pro-war fanatic warns Britain could be 'wiped off the map', Motorists slowly drive down snowy hill in treacherous conditions, Harrowing moment woman begs father not to kill himself, Shamima Begum never considered turning back during journey to ISIS. 2023 Getty Images. She was born in Bournemouth to Alexander Sirnis, a Latvian immigrant with strong Communist ties. The Soviet Union's bomb coincided with the onset of The Cold War, and threatened humankind with extinction. This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. When she was unmasked publicly as Hola seven years later, no action was taken against her because by then she was 87, and Jack Straw, then Labour Home Secretary, decided that at her age, nothing was to be gained from sending her to prison. Links to more UK stories are at the foot of the page. ''It was a very big shock, I had no idea, no idea at all.'' Find the perfect melita norwood stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. "I thought perhaps what I had access to might be useful in helping Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany. On September 11th 1999 The Times newspaper carried the front page article "Revealed: the quiet woman who betrayed Britain for 40 years. Her bookbinder father was a Latvian immigrant and Left-wing activist whose slogan was Down with everything thats up, and up with everything thats down. . She claims failing memory as a reason for not being able to recall the names of any of the people she dealt with. Image of spy Melita Norwood opening Norwood Labs at Greenwich University in 1993. In general, I do not agree with spying against ones country. Norwoods secret finally came out in September 1999, when The Times of London began to publish Andrews book serially. Akce tdne. "When she became politically active in the 1930s, Russia was seen by many people as the only nation capable of defeating the Nazis. "Melita Norwood's relatives, friends and neighbours told [on 11 September 1999] of their shock on learning . ''It's probably better I didn't know,'' she said. For Mrs Norwood was no ordinary granny. The British government decided nothing was to be gained from sending the "granny spy" to prison, and Mrs Norwood was left in peace at her home in Bexleyheath. Jennie Rooneys book Red Joan is inspired by the story she found but, When Leo is away, Joan begins to fall for co-worker. What is the disease caused by diplococci. But what Melita exactly did is up for debate. It was a complete shock at the time, says Anita, now 71. Melita Norwood 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. Stock photos, 360 images, vectors and videos The couple's daughter, Anita Ferguson, 56, a biologist living in Staffordshire, said she learned of her mother's activity from the newspaper report on Saturday. Norwood admitted she'd sometimes be typing up notes from meetings and then "typed an extra copy" to send on. anita ferguson daughter of melita norwood About; FAQ; Contacts; Location Year old great-grandmother Melita Norwood stands outside her home in Bexleyheath, where she reads a statement to the press concerning her involment. It was her refusal to get drawn into the glamorous side of being a mole, unlike Philby from the Cambridge University set, that allowed Norwood to evade detection. We didnt know what to think.. 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. Some believe, however, the real reason she was not put on trial was to avoid embarrassing details emerging about MI5s mistake in allowing her to work as a personal secretary at the very heart of Britains secret atomic research, even though she was known to have Communist sympathies. The newspaper will begin on Monday to serialize a book published in Britain as ''The Mitrokhin Archive: The K.G.B. 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. Her consequent contribution of atomic intelligence to the Soviet Union was incalculable, certainly big enough for the Russians to declare that she had made a valuable contribution to the development of work in this field. / TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Although her father died when she was six, the family still held Left-wing views which the bright child absorbed from an early age. Tap into Getty Images' global scale, data-driven insights, and network of more than 340,000 creators to create content exclusively for your brand. Red Joan is a 2018 film very loosely inspired by Norwood's life, starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson. Is it time Harry & Meghan accept Clarkson's apology and move on? How did Norwood get away with it for so long? Hilary Norwood I made the approach.". Norwood's father died when was six from tuberculosis and the family moved to Southampton. On nights when she was delayed getting home by her appointments with her K.G.B. Journalism strengthens democracy. 00:48 GMT 19 Jul 2014. The trick is to be able to do this efficiently enough, and respond quickly enough, to take on the game's content that you would like to experience while . 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. Collect, curate and comment on your files. "She handed over a very large number of documents of a scientific and technical nature, and these found practical application.". On her retirement in 1972, K.G.B. 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