- Title: UK/GERMANY: BRITISH GREAT GRANDMOTHER MELITA NORWOOD UNMASKED AS A RUSSIAN SPY
- Date: 11th September 1999
- Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (SEPTEMBER 11, 1999) (REUTERS) EXT/PAN EXTERIOR ALLIED MUSEUM, FORMER CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) LISTENING POST, WITH PART OF BERLIN WALL ON DISPLAY SV CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS ARRIVING (2 SHOTS) SV FORMER CHECKPOINT CHARLY BORDER CROSSING (MANNED BY U.S.A.) BETWEEN WEST- AND EAST-BERLIN SV PEOPLE LOOKING AT EXHIBIT (2 SHOTS) SV SOUNDBITE (English) RUPERT ALLASON, SPY WRITER "It is not for me to say what is and what is not in the public interest. She is an old lady but I personally take the view that war crimes and murder are crimes must for the benefit of deterrence always be opened to prosecution, however old the person is. I don't think you can say the moment you get seventy-five or eighty-five a murder does not matter. I suspect betraying your country is in the same category." SCU BLACK AND WHITE POSTER OF SOLDIERS AT GERMAN-GERMAN BORDER SV SOUNDBITE (English) CHRISTOPHER ANDREW (AUTHOR AND CAMBRIDGE ACADEMIC)"I think that anyone who spied for Joesph Stalin, how ever many years ago, cannot say it's unfair that my story be told. People who spied for Stalin deserve to have their story told. On the other hand, at the age of eighty-seven the idea that she (Melita Norwood) will end her years in jail I think is deeply inprobable." SV POSTERS SV SOUNDBITE (English) CHRISTOPHER ANDREW: "What she seems to have attained throughout her career is the belief in a Soviet Union that never existed, in the Soviet Union of her dreams rather than the depraved reality of Stalin's Russia." SV BERLIN MAP
- Embargoed: 26th September 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BEXLEYHEATH SUBURB, LONDON, ENGLAND; UNITED KINGDOM/BERLIN, GERMANY
- City:
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Crime,General,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAD87T679DF15GFI1E7S1RW6FGX
- Story Text: A British great-grandmother unmasked as one of the Soviet Union's top Cold War spies has said she had no regrets and just wanted to help Moscow in the nuclear arms race.
Melita Norwood, given the codename "Hola" by her spymasters, passed atomic secrets to Moscow for more than 40 years from 1937, helping to give the Soviet Union a vital edge in the arms race.
She was employed at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association in London, the work of which was critical in developing Britain's nuclear weapons.
Appearing outside her home in the leafy southeast London suburb of Bexleyheath on Saturday (September 11), Melita Norwood looked frail as, with failing eyesight, she read out a prepared statement.
"I am 87 and unfortunately my memory is not what it was,"
she read.
"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, good education and a health service."
The British government has ruled out pressing any charges against her because of her advanced age.
But opposition Conservative politicians called for an immediate inquiry.
Revelation of the top-level spy was made by dissident KGB officer Vasili Mitrokhin who smuggled out classified files from Russian foreign intelligence archives.
His revelations emerged in "The Mitrokhin Archive" a book by Cambridge academic Christopher Andrew, which was serialised in Saturday's Times of London newspaper.
Stalin was said to have been better briefed on the development of Britain's bomb than ministers in the government of British Prime Minister Clement Attlee in the late 1940s and early 1950s because of the top-level secrets Norwood passed on.
Norwood said in her statement: "I only worked in the general office and am not technical."
With a fine sense of understatement, she said: "I thought that perhaps some of what I had access to might be useful in helping Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany."
"In general I do not agree with spying against one's country.My late husband did not agree with what I did."
Asked if she had any regrets, she said: "No."
Meanwhile, Spies from across the Cold War divide met this weekend in a in Berlin to compare notes on exactly who knew exactly what about whom.
Former deadly rivals from both sides of Iron Curtain attend "The Intelligence War in Berlin 1946-61" conference in the German capital, which used to be known as the "hottest spot in the Cold War".
Spy writer Rupert Allason, assessing Norwood's spying successes, said he thought people who commit war crimes should be open to prosecution - not matter what their age, adding that betraying your country was probably in the same category.
Cambridge historian Christopher Andrew, who wrote the book which broke the story about Norwood's spying, said he thought it deeply improbable that Norwood would end her days in prison. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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