Melita norwood family

Biography of Melita Norwood

Melita Norwood, also known as the "Grandmother of Soviet Espionage," was a British citizen who spied for the Soviet Union for over five decades. Born in 1912, Norwood began her career at the Association of Scientific Research in London in 1932. Just two years later, she was recruited by Soviet intelligence and given the codename "Hola."

Norwood was connected to a spy ring operating at the Woolwich Arsenal, a British military plant. In 1938, three members of the ring were arrested by MI5, but Norwood managed to evade suspicion as British codebreakers were unable to decipher the code used in the notebook of the ring's leader, Percy Glading, a communist. Following this, Norwood supplied the Soviet Union with classified information for forty years, which significantly enhanced their nuclear program.

Norwood firmly believed in the ideals of the Soviet Union, viewing it as a paradise on earth where workers and peasants had equal rights, free education, healthcare, and housing. In 1999, she confessed her espionage activities to journalists from "The Times," stating that she helped the Soviets because they invested heavily in improving the lives of ordinary people and because it was in Russia's interest to ensure its own security.

In recognition of her contributions, Norwood was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1958 and received a lifelong pension of £20 per month from the Soviet Union. She visited the USSR twice during her time as a spy. However, Norwood's spying activities were exposed in 1992 when Russian citizen Vasily Mitrokhin offered British intelligence secret documents he had copied. Mitrokhin and the documents were promptly brought to England, where he wrote a book exposing some Soviet agents. Despite this, Norwood was neither prosecuted nor interrogated due to her advanced age.

Shortly before her death in London in 2005 at the age of 93, Norwood declared, "I have no regrets! If I had the chance to live my life again, I would do everything exactly the same."