Melita Norwood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Melita Norwood

Melita Norwood, née Sirnis, (25 March 1912 – 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant who, for a period of about 40 years following her recruitment in 1937, supplied the KGB (and its predecessor agencies) with state secrets from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association (a cover for nuclear research), including the schematics for the British atomic bomb in 1945, which the Soviet Union successfully duplicated in one year. Her KGB handlers gave her the codename "Hola".

Norwood was born to a Latvian father and a British mother in Pokesdown, Dorset. A convinced communist, she apparently gained no material profit from her actions. When asked abouth her motives, she explained: "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, a good education and a health service." [1] Her espionage activities were first revealed to the public by Vasili Mitrokhin in 1999. At that time, it was also revealed that the British authorities had known about her status for some time, but had decided not to act to avoid tipping their hand.