Sverre Ingebregt Selmer Nilsen (25 May 1931 – 18 June 1991) was a Norwegian fisherman spying for the

GRU Gru is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Despicable Me'' film series. Gru or GRU may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Gru (rapper), Serbian rapper * Gru, an antagonist in '' The Kine Saga'' Organizations Georgia (c ...

during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

Biography

He was active in Bodø from 1956 to 1963, and reported Bodø landings and take-offs of the American

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

plane

Lockheed U-2 The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed the "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-engine, high–altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since the 1950s. Designed for all- ...

to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. These operations culminated with the

U-2 Crisis of 1960 On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance inside Soviet territory. Flown by American pilot Francis Gary Powers, the aircraft had taken off ...

, when one of the U-2 planes was forced down over Soviet Union on 1 May 1960. Nilsen, originally from Bakfjord in

Måsøy Municipality Måsøy (; ) is a municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Havøysund. Other villages include Bakfjord, Gunnarnes, Ingøy, Måsøy, Slåtten, and Snefjord. The municipality i ...

Finnmark Finnmark (; ; ; ; ) is a counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland (Finland), Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norweg ...

, was recruited in 1948 after threats from Soviet agents towards his family. The 17-year-old boy was sent for training in the Soviet Union. He returned seven months later, with a radio transmitter and knowledge of telegraphy. After more than seventeen years as foreign agent he was arrested in 1967, and sentenced to seven and a half years imprisonment in a trial held behind closed doors in the court of Bodø. The conviction was eventually confirmed in the Supreme Court, in April–May 1968. He was however pardoned from further imprisonment after 3 years. The disclosure shocked Norway, as well as its

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

allies, as the espionage had been carried out through the peak of the Cold War. After the arrest, and the subsequent premature release, Nilsen spoke openly about his activities as an agent for the Soviet regime. A televised documentary about Nilsen, featuring himself as the main story-teller, was shot in 1971, but was not broadcast on Norwegian television until December 2007. The documentary was originally stopped following discussions in the press, as well as between representatives from the

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly known by its initialism NRK, is a Norwegian state-run, government-influenced radio and television public broadcasting company. The NRK broadcasts three national TV channels and thirteen nat ...

and the National Defense Administration.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nilsen, Selmer 1931 births 1991 deaths People from Måsøy Norwegian people convicted of spying for the Soviet Union 1967 in international relations