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. And how had the mole managed to infiltrate our system? This week her daughter defended her mums decision to spy for the Soviets from 1934 to 1972. In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Union's longest-serving British spy. She wasnt like the Cambridge Five, who courted disaster. 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. Spy Melita Norwood (far left) pictured with her mother Gertrude, sister Gerty and half-brother Alfred Brandt. 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 . Now her double life has inspired the film Red Joan, with Dame Judi Dench co-starring in the title role. Her work continued after the war and there's no question what she handed over was useful to the Soviets. And the sleepy South Staffordshire . Norwood's father died when was six from tuberculosis and the family moved to Southampton. 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. In general, I do not agree with spying against ones country. 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. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Anita Ferguson, the daughter of Melita Norwood, "has spoken of her distress at discovering the double life led by her mother throughout her childhood." His occupation was Yes. The Getty Images design is a trademark of Getty Images. The reality is that Norwood was devoted to her husband, who she nursed through liver cancer up to his death in 1986. 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. Klaus Fuchs, Physicist Who Gave Atom Secrets to Soviet, Dies at 76 The New York Times. She thought he was the best. "It was a complete shock at the time. Her daughter, Anita Ferguson, said she died on June 2. Joan also comes up with the idea of enriching uranium in the film, which is part of the process of making atomic energy. A . But for the 40 years that she worked for Moscow, her bank balance rarely reflected the spoils of her labour. He kept sensitive documents in both, sometimes holding evening meetings at home at which Lette was expected to be on hand. In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Union's longest-serving British spy. Melita Norwood Melita grew up to become a bright young girl, which she proved in 1923 by winning a scholarship to attend Itchen School, a secondary school near Southampton, in Southern England. Image of spy Melita Norwood opening Norwood Labs at Greenwich University in 1993. At firs the Security Service insisted her part in everything had been "marginal", it was a huge embarrassment. 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. Melita Stedman Norwood (ne Sirnis) (25 March 1912 - 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant and KGB intelligence source who, for a period of about 40 years following her recruitment in 1937, supplied the KGB (and its predecessor agencies) with state secrets from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association . One resident, Robert Leck, 78, a former bomb disposal unit RAF corporal, recalls Lette doing the shopping at the Co-op for other elderly neighbours, visiting anyone she thought might be lonely or unwell. documents by the code name ''Hola.'' 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. She was an emotional Communist and quite naive. Tap into Getty Images' global scale, data-driven insights, and network of more than 340,000 creators to create content exclusively for your brand. Lived In Woodbridge VA, Cranberry Township PA, Mentor OH, Aurora IL. Journalism strengthens democracy. in Aktuality. Melita Norwood akhirnya meninggal dunia pada tahun 2005 tetapi orang tetap terpesona dengan kisah hidupnya. "I must have thought if any of the work the BN-FMRA was doing, not secret stuff, might be useful," she explained. Melita Norwood was a die-hard communist and unapologetic about her spying. 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. The Russians knew how to build a bomb, but they didnt know how to build a nuclear reactor to extract the uranium. If you want to learn more about this . We use your sign-up to provide content in the ways you've consented to and improve our understanding of you. 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. Norwood admitted she'd sometimes be typing up notes from meetings and then "typed an extra copy" to send on. ''It was a very big shock, I had no idea, no idea at all.'' 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. Norwood would make copies then deliver them to her KGB handlers. He said in the 1960s, the security services concluded that Norwood had been a spy, but felt they had no "usable evidence" to prosecute. Grow your brand authentically by sharing brand content with the internets creators. Asisten pribadi, mata-mata. 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. Mrs. Norwood had been obliged to confront the press gathered at her gate by disclosures of her past in The Times of London. At the age of 20, in . 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. ''But I suppose it's all right as long as you are getting paid for it. How she came to be in a position to do that is a source of great embarrassment to MI5. Related To Thomas Ferguson, John Ferguson, Jacob Ferguson. "I thought perhaps what I had access to might be useful in helping Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany. What is the disease caused by diplococci. She was perusing the archives of 20th-century intelligence under the guidance of Professor Chris Andrew, MI5s official chronicler. 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. Where those men hid their activities behind their upper-class backgrounds, elite educations and urbanity, Mrs. Norwood disguised hers with her complete suburban unremarkableness. On her retirement in 1972, K.G.B. 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But while Norwood's intentions are still up for debate, what she did is not. Which substance has the highest temperature? But she continued to send these secret files until the early 1970s, when she retired as a spy. Ironically, reporters found anti-nuclear CND signs in her kitchen, where she made chutney. Anita Ferguson, a school laboratory technician from Wombourne, Staffordshire, speaks to the media following the news that her 87-year-old mother Melita Norwood spied for the Russians for 40 years. She declined it her spying was, after all, a matter of principle. Still, she refuses to discuss the actual passing over of documents and refuses to say who wooed her to the KGB. She claims failing memory as a reason for not being able to recall the names of any of the people she dealt with. I made the approach.". Includes Address (23) Phone (7) Email (7) See Results. 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. in Europe and the West,'' by a Cambridge professor, Christopher Andrew. 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. 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. Your email address will not be published. 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. Rose, David. "I do not consider myself a spy," she told reporters. It also offered her a pension of 20 a month. I just wanted Russia to be on equal footing with the West, she told the media crowding at her front door in 1999 after being publicly exposed, before politely closing it. Her memorable film roles included The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, alongside Elvis Presley in Roustabout, and on TV in series including Perry Mason and 77 Sunset Strip. Prosecution was considered inappropriate due to ill health and advanced years. The cause of death was not disclosed. Norwood was the most important British female agent in the whole of the KGB's history as well as the longest-serving of all the Soviet spies in Britain. She thought he was the best. "Melita Norwood's relatives, friends and neighbours told [on 11 September 1999] of their shock on learning . July 21, 2020 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review, Your email address will not be published. Untroubled by the problems of the world, and with the added comfort of her married daughter Anita living nearby, Melita Norwood enjoyed the tranquillity of the small development ringed with flowering trees, and got on with her jam-making until her death, aged 93. Millions of high-quality images, video, and music options are waiting for you. Burke still believes Norwood was the naive character Joan protrays. ''When I first saw all the. Norwood's daughter, Anit As the news of Norwoods espionage broke in The Times, Norwood held a press conference to confirm that she was a spy and explain why shed done it. Where in Bexleyheath did Melita Norwood live? The KGB awarded her the prestigious military honour the Order of the Red Banner. She connects with her former Communist lover Leo who encourages her to hand over secrets to the Russians. Melitapassed away. 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. Except for one thing she worked at the British NonFerrous Metals Research Association offices in Euston, central London. Her handlers were top Soviet spies Ursula Kuczynski, aka Red Sonja, and playboy Gordon Lonsdale, who was jailed in 1961 for espionage. It became clear later, when Pavel Sudoplatov of the Russian Ministry of State Security admitted it was 'sources' from Great Britain that helped with such problems, that it was Norwood who gave them the final puzzle piece. Melita Norwood. <br> <br>'Red Joan': the film vs the facts. All Rights Reserved. Paperwork about how to safely enrich uranium, which would be used in bombs, passed across his desk and was put in his safe. Baru-baru ini filem Red Joan lakonan Judi Dench sebagai Joan Stanley telah dihasilkan dan ditayangkan. Along with the geraniums in her windows there are anti-war and nuclear disarmament stickers, and on a cupboard shelf visible through the kitchen window is a mug with Che Guevara's bearded face on it. The couple had, Its just what you did she says. We sent soldiers there to die against Hitler. Melita, suffering cancer and heart disease, died at . Akce tdne. In 1958 she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, which is given for heroism in combat or long service in the armed forces. It was not that side I was interested in. 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. Find family history information in a whole new way. ''I would not have liked to have kept such a secret.''. 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. Required fields are marked *. Resides in Fairfax Station, VA. Tony Harris - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images. Dr Burke explains: At one time she was vetted again. 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 revelations came as a total surprise to Norwood's daughter, Anita Ferguson, who didnt find out her mother was a spy until she read about it in the paper. It's quite a shock to be told that the sweet old lady round the corner has been a K.G.B. Melita turned down all the offers from newspapers, preferring to tell her story - for free - to her friend David Burke. ''I'm sorry to get you all out like this on a Sunday,'' she told the waiting journalists. As early as 1938, she was. So who was Hola? Cu MIX za . She removed items from her boss' safe, photographing details and sending them on to the Soviets, as is seen in the film. Resides in Monticello, AR. According to new book by Cambridge University professor Christopher Andrew and a Soviet KGB defector, a woman named Melita Norwood, now 87 years old, furnished the Soviet Union with research . This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. Her mother, too, was a suffragette with far-Left sympathies. Organize, control, distribute and measure all of your digital content. ''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 read in a firm voice. As early as 1938, she was nearly caught by the British. In real life, Norwood was a Communist from an early age. Melita Norwood, on the other hand codenamed Hola was a model of reliability. Access the best of Getty Images and iStock with our simple subscription plan. Described as the most important female agent ever recruited by the USSR, she was considered more valuable than infamous British Reds Kim Philby or Guy Burgess. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! As a member of the Independent Labour Party, and later the Communist Party, she had already been recruited as an agent at a meeting of the Friends of the Soviet Union. Related To Kenneth Ferguson, Cameron Ferguson, Curtis Ferguson, Separate Ferguson, Monica Ferguson. She had evaded detection by playing the dutiful housewife and mother. Kamala opts out of kneeling with Biden for Warriors photo op. Get email updates with the day's biggest stories. The intelligence and security committee said Norwood had escaped prosecution because a junior officer in the domestic secret service MI5 decided the case was not worth pursuing. On nights when she was delayed getting home by her appointments with her K.G.B. 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. Boards are the best place to save images and video clips. 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). '', Ray Simmons, 67, a retired chief technician at the University of Greenwich, who lives nearby, commented: ''I've known her for 20 years, and she never gave a hint of anything like that. Daughter of Alex Sirnis and Private Wife of . For her part, Lette Norwood didnt allow exposure of her treachery to ruin her Morning Star delivery routine, which continued uninterrupted. <br>Who would have thought she was a spy? Melita Norwood. 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 began her spying career in the 1930s while working as a secretary for the Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association in London. Widowed, Melita moved to Wombourne to be close to her daughter. She thought what she was doing was for the benefit of the entire world. Is it time Harry & Meghan accept Clarkson's apology and move on? Until her death in 2005 . 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. Anita Ferguson, 61, Mrs Norwood's only daughter, confirmed her mother's death, but . Judi Dench gives us the painful memories and rickety joints of the old Joan, tending a garden in the suburbs in 2000 when Special . But what Melita exactly did is up for debate. She told The Times of London that in the same circumstances, I know that I would do the same thing again.. Close. She worked as a secretary at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, the home of the Tube Alloys project. I thought perhaps what I had access to might be useful in helping Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany. She added that, in general, I do not agree with spying against one's country.. As always you can unsubscribe at any time. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); She married chemistry teacher Hilary Norwood (formerly named Nussbaum), also a Communist, in 1935, and two years later they bought the house on Garden Avenue where she would live for the next 65 years. Available for both RF and RM licensing. He founded the Southern Worker And Labour And Socialist Journal in Southampton. How fortunate she was. 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. [10] [9] It premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. He suspected she had been meeting KGB agents when she arrived back late from work, but did not know the extent of her crimes. Anita Ferguson, a school laboratory technician from Wombourne, Staffordshire, speaks to the media following the news that her 87-year-old mother. five years later, saying only, ''Somebody said that my work might be an interesting source of material.'' Get started Her husband Harry, died in 1986. In 2013, author Jennie Rooney published a novel, Red Joan, loosely based on Norwoods life. She said her purpose had been to keep Russia abreast.". In 1996, the government decided that the information in the Mitrokhin papers should be available to the public, and handed them over to the Cambridge professor Christopher Andrew so he could write a book about them. She was an emotional Communist and quite naive. Her KGB file gave her a glowing review calling her "committed, reliable and disciplined agent, striving to be of the utmost assistance. Find the perfect melita norwood stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. The grandmother was 87 and living in a semi-detached house in Garden Avenue when she was first unmasked in an . 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Melita Norwood, pictured here at age 87 in 1999, standing outside her home in Bexleyheath, where she reads a statement to the press concerning her involvement in passing over atomic secrets to the KGB. Melita Norwood death. She added, ''In general, I do not agree with spying against one's country.''. Thereafter you will be billed R75 per month. The information helped the communist state catch up with Britain in the race to build the deadliest weapons ever seen. Anita (l. 1943) Pekerjaan. Collect, curate and comment on your files. Anita Ferguson, the daughter of Melita Norwood, "has spoken of her distress at discovering the double life led by her mother throughout her childhood." Rose, David. Red Joan is a 2018 film very loosely inspired by Norwood's life, starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson. 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