Patriotism

[j.sabourn]

I wonder how many can remember if they were approached by the man from the Ministry about 50 years ago, which should also be out of the realms of the Official secrets act by now. I was approached twice when trading with Russia to supply with particular information such as depth alongside the quay, gauge of railway tracks, gun emplacements in harbour area etc.etc. I told him the first time to get knotted. About 6 months later he approached again even offering a camera. I again told him to get lost. He then passed the remark that I was very unpatriotic, this has always stuck in my mind, especially when I see some of the politicians who came after this period. He no doubt went around the ship to others. At about this time the name Granville or Grenville comes to mind as one of the many busnessmen travelling to satellite countrys who was picked up for spying. I reckon he was just one of the many amateurs which the ministry tried to employ during this period. I dont think at the time they went out of their way to assist him. Nowadays with the satellites etc. all this sought after information is readily available. I remember I was vert affronted when I was called unpatriotic. Cheers John Sabourn.

[robpage]

lifted from Wikipedia

Greville Maynard Wynne
Wynne was an electrical engineer, trained at the University of Nottingham, and a businessman. He was recruited to MI5 just before World War II. He was transferred to MI6 and assisted with the 1959 defection of the Soviet intelligence officer, Major Kuznov.
He was an intermediary for the important Russian spy Oleg Penkovsky, who was engaged in selling arms and weapons secrets to British intelligence. Penkovsky's activities were revealed by Jack Dunlap, a double-agent working for the KGB. The KGB swiftly drew the conclusion that there was a mole in their ranks and set about uncovering him.
The Soviets concluded that one of the likely conduits of information would be a British diplomat in Moscow. George Blake, a Soviet mole inside MI6, had already pointed out Ruari and Janet Chisholm as MI6 operators in the British embassy in Moscow.
Penkovsky's visits to an adjacent building identified him as a likely source of the leaks. He was arrested, giving up Wynne's name. The Chisholms were expelled from Moscow for behaviour incompatible with their diplomatic status. Wynne was arrested in Budapest and extradited to the Soviet Union. He was convicted of spying on 11 May 1963 and sentenced to eight years in prison; Penkovsky was sentenced to death and executed. Wynne was released in exchange for the spy Gordon Lonsdale in 1964.
Wynne wrote about his time as a spy in a book entitled The Man from Odessa, first published in 1981. He preceded this book with The Man from Moscow: The Story Of Wynne and Penkovsky (1967) and published in the USA as Contact on Gorky Street: a British Agent's Own First-Hand Account of His Mission to Moscow (1968). This was one of the early examples of a book being published about secret work that the government never expected to be made public.
Wynne died of throat cancer at Cromwell Hospital in London on 28 February 1990, aged 71.^[2

[john sutton]

it may not be common knowledge that if you worked at new century house which was the headquarters of mi6 and on your way to work you met someone you knew you had to change your routine.Employees of mi6 were supposed to work for the foreign and commonwealth office and if the tube went passed the station for that address they had to de train and go to the foreign office ring their dept head and tell them that they had needed to divert.
It is typical of britain that if you caght the bus to new century house on arriving at the apprpriate stop the conducter would announce"spy corner"
john sutton