Espionage

Moscow: The Courier

A fact-based thriller film has echoes today in geopolitics and led me to question the concept of courage

Last night I drank a little too much wine as I watched a fact-based film and questioned myself. ‘The Courier’, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, was eerie and took me back to my early days on this crazy planet. And brought me back full circle to today and events in Eastern Europe, with a mad dictator in charge of nuclear weapons.

I’d read the film’s ‘info’ on Netflix, and before I ran the reels, so to speak, I knew the story and I could name a few of the real life characters from memory.

Greville Wynne, Oleg Penkovsky and James Angleton.

If you plan to watch the film then be aware that this story could be a partial spoiler — the outcomes are not disclosed here. But hey, I knew the story anyway from my youth and still enjoyed the film.

Historical context

During my schooldays the ‘four minute warning’ was a fact of life. We were taught what to do in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack on the UK. Shut the doors and windows then hide under the stairs or table. It was a pointless exercise but people had to have hope. Revolving around this was ‘The War Game’, a film made by the BBC in 1965 and so horrifying that the Government of the day banned it from broadcast.

Later in life I worked for a couple of years in Moscow, living in an apartment there. Yes, the Soviet Union had imploded a couple of years before I arrived (they knew I was coming), but it was still a scary place.

I’d read some of Franz Kafkha’s books and although I was in the ‘new’ Russia by choice my occasional arrivals and departures from Sheremetyevo airport were stomach-wringing. Scenes in the film reminded me of those moments. The most dangerous aspect of my own time in Russia was probably driving in the gypsy taxis or flying on internal Aeroflot flights.

So, it’s the Cold War, 1961 and the Berlin Wall has just been erected.

Courage

Although I sail across oceans in my boat, I don’t consider myself a particularly ‘brave’ person. I understand the risks I take and they are manageable, although some people think otherwise.

But as I watched ‘The Courier’ I wondered if I could ever have done what Greville Wynne did. I very much doubt it.

Wynne was an industrial equipment sales consultant who made introductions for Western companies to state organisations behind the Iron Curtain. He was a skilled salesman. Just that. Not a professional spy, at first.

But Wynne’s courage was immense. After a few visits he knew that the KGB were ‘on to him’ but voluntarily returned to Russia one more time to arrange the extraction of Oleg Penkovsky. The Russian was a WWII intelligence veteran who later held a senior position in the Soviet government with access to the highest state secrets. He shared these secrets with the West, with Wynne acting as the courier.

Penkovsky, too, was a very brave man and I pondered the nature of courage as the tension built in ‘The Courier’ and the level of wine in my bottle went down.

A voluntary traitor

Penkovsky voluntarily became a traitor to his country. He was not ‘developed’ as a source by the CIA, he did not want money. His motivation for passing on Soviet secrets was that he considered Kruschev to be crazy and preparing for war against the West. He was concerned for the world.

There are limits to what electronic surveillance can achieve through phone and satellite intercepts, web traffic meta-data analysis, remote bugging and other means. ‘Elint’ is no substitute for ‘humint’ as the USA found out at the time of 9/11.

Humint remains important.

Was Penkovsky a double agent?

There is still controversy about this. First contact was when he approached the CIA in Moscow. He was not recruited.

Peter Wright, a former British MI5 officer known for his vitriolic condemnation of the leadership of British intelligence during most of the Cold War, believed that Penkovsky was a fake defection.

One of the arguments advanced for this was that Penkovsky did not reveal any details of Soviet agents in the West. In my view this could be explained either by the fact that he did not know any current names (at that time he worked at the Soviet Committee for Scientific Research, not the KGB or GRU); alternatively, he was a true patriot and would not betray a countryman if his motivation was ‘saving the world’. But who am I to know any of this?

The issue of double agency was not addressed in the film, and we’ll probably never know the truth.

Aside: Peter Wright’s autobiograhy ‘Spycatcher’ caused a huge international controversy when it was published in 1985 and is a fascinating deep dive into the murky, duplicitous world of Cold War espionage.

Did it matter?

The huge quantity of secret material that Penkovsky chanelled to the CIA through Wynne and the UK’s MI6 related to the size and capability of the Soviet nuclear arsenal that the Russians were significantly overstating.

In the poker game that became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, US President Kennedy ‘had sight’ of Kruschev’s hand. The crisis was resolved after thirteen nerve-jangling days. Russian ICBMs were withdrawn from Cuba and US Jupiter ICBMs from Turkey.

Today

With Putin running Russia as his own fiefdom, the geopolitical situation could be almost as dangerous as the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But in 1963 Kruschev was controlled by the Supreme Soviet and had much less autonomy of action than Putin has today. The 2023 Russian Duma is merely a rubber stamp for Putin.

If you are closely observing current events in Moscow, St Petersburg and Ukraine, then you may be aware of hints that Ukraine and the United States have highly placed sources within the Russian state apparatus.

I wonder who even now might be doing the same within Russia as Penkovsky did during the time of Kruschev, I wonder whether anyone there is brave enough to try. I certainly hope such people still exist.

More background:

If you follow me I guarantee variety in your inbox with some unusual perspectives! I write on a wide range of topics that interest me including humour, tech, space, geopolitics and travel. I also write about…

…extraordinary courage

If you appreciate stories like these and want to support me and other writers, please consider signing up to become a Medium member. It’s only $5 a month, giving you unlimited access to incredible stories on Medium. If you sign up using my link, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Or maybe just buy me a coffee? and tell me what you liked reading (or not)…

My novels are available at my Gumroad bookstore. Also at Amazon and Apple