Greville Wynne

Greville Maynard Wynne (19 March 1919 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. Before the Second World War he studied engineering part-time at the University of Nottingham. After the war, he traded in electrical equipment, travelling often through Europe and India. His business extended into Eastern Bloc countries from 1955. where he made contact with Oleg Penkovsky, a high-ranking GRU officer. Penkovsky had made earlier offers to spy for the West.

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. 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.

Wynne was held at the Lubyanka. In April 1964, amid British concerns for his deteriorating health,

Later life and death 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.

Wynne struggled with depression and alcoholism in the aftermath of imprisonment.

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." He was portrayed by Peter Lindford in the 2007 BBC Television docudrama Nuclear Secrets. He was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2020 film The Courier.