Posted on 06/28/2005 12:32:48 PM PDT by Borges
LONDON (AFP) - Melita Norwood, who passed on secrets to the Soviet Union believed to have helped them speed up development of the atomic bomb, died earlier this month at the age of 93, her daughter said.
Anita Ferguson said her mother died on June 2 but declined to comment further.
Described as the most important British female agent recruited by the KGB intelligence service, Norwood spied under the codename "Hola" and passed British nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in the years after World War II.
Norwood's activities were finally exposed when KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin defected to Britain in 1992, bringing thousands of files he had meticulously copied.
The supporter of Soviet-style communism spied for almost 40 years while a secretary at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, handing over details of the project to build Britain's first atomic bomb.
She took top secret documents from the Tube Alloys project -- the cover name for the nuclear weapons programme -- copied them and passed them to her KGB handlers.
The information she passed to Stalin's government is said to have helped the Soviets build an atomic bomb two or three years earlier than they otherwise would.
Her security clearance was revoked in 1951 because of concerns that she might be a spy.
But after she was publicly unmasked in 1999 she said idealism, not money, had inspired her.
After she was exposed as a spy, Britain's Security Service MI5 was strongly criticized by the parliamentary committee overseeing the intelligence agencies over the failure to prosecute her.
My thoughts exactly.
She'll find plenty of room in hell with people like Julius Rosenberg, Kim Philby, etc.
I hope her existence is hell is a prolonged and painful one.
Even if she was 120, hey even if she was dead, she should have been prosecuted and punishment rendered on her bloated corpse.
Proud holder of the Order of the Red Banner, awarded by the KGB, enjoyed her Government retirement for decades!
And I believe her. Normally, spies are blackmailed sodomites, people with deep personal vices, resentful failures and assorted scum. During the Popular Front era, the NKVD was able to attract highly educated, highly placed people throughout the ruling classes of Europe and America who genuinely, sincerely believed that serving the cause of Stalin was the right thing to do. No espionage service in human history has ever been as well served as Stalin's.
We know what the Perky One will be wearing tomorrow---mourning black.
UK Security Service notes on case:
http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm47/4764/4764-axg.htm
"To pursue her now that the Cold War was over might open the Service up to criticism for having harassed an old lady." Aaaaarrrgghhh!
She should have sat on Julius and Ethyl's lap on the electric chair.
In any reality based society, you would have expected a large crowd to at least try to beat this vile pig to death. She risked the deaths of 100's of millions of innocent people, and gave a brutal dictatorship the carte blanche to imprison 100's of millions and to kill 10's of millions of human beings. And this was done for the "idealism" of this satanic creature. I'm sure many idiots are thinking wasn't she quaint.
She should have been toast a half century ago.
Hell, I'd hock something to buy a plane ticket for the express purpose of visiting her grave ... and deposit coffee that had been filtered through my kidneys.
Note to the departed commie moonbat, have fun listening for eternity to screams of those who the Soviets murdered, bitch.
Should have gotten the same fate as the Rosenbergs. Shame on the Brits.
Using information from Anthony Blunt:his lives. Author. Miranda Carter (Farrah, Straus and Giroux NY 2001) I found this. The traitors, Philby, McClean, Burgess and Blake all had to flee to the Soviet Union. All, inspite of their protests lived/still live a rotten life in that country. Philby drank himself to death at 53 years. He cried in his dingy apartment, which was bugged. "I hate Moscow, I hate Russia, I am a British Communist....."
Alas, the dictum that should be applied to all like Norwood, is impractical. Ship the sods off to Russia- no chance though. LOL.
That would make for an interesting conversation whilst clearing customs ...
Burn baby burn!
If I were satan, I'd start locking up all of Hell's secrets in a big hurry.
F**kin' reds. [spit]
Prosecute her? They should have shot her.
...ditto...
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