Russian Spy Says Work In U.S. ‘All So Easy"

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30682, 23 February 1965, Page 14

Russian Spy Says Work In U.S. ‘All So Easy"

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) LONDON, February 22. The Russian spy, Gordon Lonsdale, given a 25year gaol term in Britain in 1961 for espionage, worked as an agent in the United States for five years, according to a London newspaper. The disclosure was made by Lonsdale to a reporter of “The People” newspaper who met him “somewhere behind the Iron Curtain.” Lonsdale was released from prison last April in exchange for the British businessman Greville Wynne, gaoled by the Russians for espionage.

In his interview with "The People,” Lonsdale said: “You people (British counterintelligence) don’t know the half of it, nor the Americans either.

‘Tve got the laugh on them all right. Do you know I spent five years in the States as a spy.

“I got away with dozens of their secrets. It was all so easy. It was because I was so successful there that I was sent to Britain—as the top Soviet agent."

Lonsdale was arrested in London in April, 1961, with Harry Houghton and Cecil Gee (British) and John and Helen Kroger (Americans).

At the trial, the prosecution said Lonsdale had organised a spy network directed at getting secrets from a topsecret underwater weapons establishment at Portland, southern England. All received long sentences.

At the time of the trial it was believed that Lonsdale came straight to Britain from Russia by way of Canada.

Last year, a man who shared a cell with him in a British prison said Lonsdale told him that he had travelled extensively in the United States, living in New York, San Francisco. California and Florida, before moving on to Canada in the early 1950’5.

During this time, according to the man, he adopted the name Molody. He assumed the name of Lonsdale after he arrived in Canada. His Russian name is Oleg Penovsky.