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. In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Unions longest-serving British spy. 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. It was directed by Trevor Nunn, [10] and produced by David Parfitt, with a screenplay by Lindsay Shapero. "I must have thought if any of the work the BN-FMRA was doing, not secret stuff, might be useful," she explained. Akce tdne. In 2000, Joan is arrested and charged with espionage. "It was a complete shock at the time. 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 (everyone called her Lette) had joined the company as a clerk in 1937. She retired in 1972, and remained in her Bexleyheath home until her death in 2005. 93-year-old spy still keeping war secrets - BBC News 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). 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Her daughter, Anita Ferguson, said she died on June 2. ''I thought, 'Who is this nutter?' Although her father died when she was six, the family still held Left-wing views which the bright child absorbed from an early age. Close. In many other countries, the grey-haired great-grandmother would have ended her days in prison, or even been shot. The government decided against prosecuting her. Her mother, too, was a suffragette with far-Left sympathies. Grow your brand authentically by sharing brand content with the internets creators. The public were shocked when elderly woman Melita Norwood was uncovered as a KGB spy. Even after she was publicly exposed in 1999 as having worked for the KGB, neighbours found it very hard to condemn the nice old girl whod been such a good neighbour for decades. Boards are the best place to save images and video clips. 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. only confirmed she was a spy in the 1990s. Newly released files from the Mitrokhin archive make clear how vital a KGB source Norwood . In 1949 they detonated their first atomic bomb four years earlier than expected. Posted on January 17, 2022 | by . Spy Melita Norwood (far left) pictured with her mother Gertrude, sister Gerty and half-brother Alfred Brandt. 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. The reality is that Norwood was devoted to her husband, who she nursed through liver cancer up to his death in 1986. Home Secretary Jack Straw has asked Britain's internal Security Service, M.I.5, for a full report on the case, but a Home Office spokeswoman said today that the Government would have no comment on the other names emerging. Then in 1932, Norwood, now 20, began work in the clerical department of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association (BN-FMRA). Pendant prs de 35 ans, Mme Norwood a copi et transfr vers l'Union sovitique des centaines de documents secrets sur le programme nuclaire . Melita Norwood. Indeed, so trusted was Lette that she had access to Baileys two safes. A writer, journalism and follower of Lenin - who formed the Communist Party in Great Britain - they were acquainted. 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. Image of spy Melita Norwood opening Norwood Labs at Greenwich University in 1993. Burke still believes Norwood was the naive character Joan protrays. Joan Staley, the film, TV and stage actress died 24 November at the age of 79. She worked as a secretary at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, the home of the Tube Alloys project. 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. Norwood admitted she'd sometimes be typing up notes from meetings and then "typed an extra copy" to send on. When she was finally unmasked, confessing in her garden, the public called for her to be prosecuted but Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled that dragging such an old woman into court would be inappropriate. At first she's unsure, but then we see her give in because she wants an even playing field between Russian and the USA. Sat 2 Jul 2005 21.01 EDT. 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 she always felt she did the right thing. Only in 1965 did MI5 get wise to the risk she posed. Members of her family didnt know what was going on at all. It is based on the six trunkloads of documents brought to the West by Vasily Mitrokhin, 77, the former chief archivist of the K.G.B. Organize, control, distribute and measure all of your digital content. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Related To Thomas Ferguson, John Ferguson, Jacob Ferguson. He too was a member of the Communist Party. Norwood would make copies then deliver them to her KGB handlers. She did say she spied, but what? I made the approach.". Intriguingly, it included profiles of 200 British KGB collaborators written by their Kremlin handlers. 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. Paperwork about how to safely enrich uranium, which would be used in bombs, passed across his desk and was put in his safe. 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. 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 . "Whatever she may have done, I loved her. 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. She says he disapproved of her spying, but "never tried to stop me". She was born in Bournemouth to Alexander Sirnis, a Latvian immigrant with strong Communist ties. 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. Melita Stedman Norwood (ne Sirnis; 25 March 1912 - 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant, Communist Party of Great Britain member and KGB spy.. 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 . Resides in Monticello, AR. In 1967, she recruited a British civil servant 'Hunt' who passed on secrets about arms sales for nearly 15 years. Anita Ferguson, 75, who lives in a small house in the West Midlands, told The Sun: She did it to help the Russian people. 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. Melita Norwood: The Soviet Union's Longest-Serving British Spy 220,739 views Mar 20, 2020 7K Dislike Share Save Biographics 2.08M subscribers Check out Business Blaze:. We see Joan struggle with the Communist Party she is dropped into thanks to the company she keeps. The Sun website is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), New film Red Joan tells the tale of Melita Norwood - a KGB 'man on the inside' who went undetected in Britain for almost 40 years, Melita Norwood, aka Hola, was Russia's most effective spy and wasn't unmasked until 1999, Described as 'the most important female agent ever recruited by the USSR', she is now the inspiration behind Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson's character with the pair playing her at different stages in her life, Her daughter, Anita Ferguson, defends her mother's career as a spy saying 'she did it to help the Russian people', Anita says Norwood was trying to help people and 'wasn't selfish', After joining the Communist Party, Norwood was recruited as a Russian agent by journalist Andrew Rothstein when she was just 22, The film is a glamorised version of events but there is no doubt it is based on unlikely operative Norwood, She never revealed her true identity, not even to her devoted husband Hilary (right), Despite having put millions of lives at risk, Norwood was never prosecuted for her treachery and she never expressed regret for her actions, Norwood leaked highly-classified documents that she came into contact with through her work as a secretary to the director of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, Dr Burke says that it was only when she gave the Russians information on how to safely enrich uranium that they were able to test a bomb in 1949, Dr Burke believes Norwood enjoyed her moment of notoriety, noting the moment she dressed up to address the press outside her home, Asked if the story was true, Norwood replied 'Ive been a rather naughty little girl', Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). 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. Who would have thought she was a spy? Norwood wasn't a physicist she was a drop out from Southampton University, where she only studied Latin and Logic for a year. 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 early as 1938, she was. "She handed over a very large number of documents of a scientific and technical nature, and these found practical application.". She thought what she was doing was for the benefit of the entire world. He suspected she had been meeting KGB agents when she arrived back late from work, but did not know the extent of her crimes. Her work continued after the war and there's no question what she handed over was useful to the Soviets. 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. Melita Norwood 13:54, 18 APR 2019. Anita Ferguson, a school laboratory technician from Wombourne, Staffordshire, speaks to the media following the news that her 87-year-old mother. These documents revealed Norwoods espionage, but British officials kept it secret because they didnt think there was enough evidence to prosecute. In the interview with The Times of London, she said that her husband, Hilary, a mathematics teacher who died in 1986, shared her Communist ideology but disapproved of her actively aiding the Russians. 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 . FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Hilary Norwood The couple's daughter, Anita Ferguson, 56, a biologist living in Staffordshire, said she learned of her mother's activity from the newspaper report Saturday. Required fields are marked *. I talked to her about the spying, but she told me very little of what she had done, although she did say my father didn't approve.". 87years (December 9, 1934) Year old great-grandmother Melita Norwood stands outside her home in Bexleyheath, where she reads a statement to the press concerning her involment. Collect, curate and comment on your files. Anita FergusonMelita Norwood / Daughter. 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