Janet Chisholm
This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2021) |
Janet Chisholm | |
---|---|
Born | Ruari Chisholm | 6 May 1929
Children | Two sons and two daughters |
Janet Chisholm (6 May 1929 – 23 July 2004), born Janet Anne Deane, was a British
Early life
She was born in
Her husband was a spy who headed the MI6 station in Moscow but worked under the guise of a visa officer. When Oleg Penkovsky offered Soviet military secrets to MI6, she became the go-between. Outwardly, Janet was an ordinary mother of four children. She would meet Penkovsky in a local park and he would offer what appeared to be sweets, but were actually disguised documents containing military secrets about the Soviet nuclear weapons arsenal.
Their cover was eventually blown by another British agent,
The Chisholms went on to work in Singapore and twice in South Africa until Ruari's retirement.[1] He had planned to write a memoir but died of malaria before he could begin.[1] Janet continued to travel around the world until well into her 70s. She refused to talk about her experiences in Russia and took all of the secrets she learned to the grave.
Portrayal in popular culture
Chisholm was portrayed by Lucy Liemann in the 2007 BBC Television docudrama Nuclear Secrets. The programme included covert KGB photographs showing Janet Chisholm meeting Oleg Penkovsky.