Janet Chisholm (6 May 1929 – 23 July 2004), born Janet Anne Deane, was a British

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...

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 ...

Early life

She was born in

Kasauli Kasauli is a town and cantonment, located in the Solan district of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The cantonment was established by the British Raj in 1842 as a Colonial hill station,Sharma, Ambika"Architecture of Kasauli churches" ''The ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

to a Royal Engineers officer. She was educated

Queen Anne's School Queen Anne's School is a private boarding and day school for girls aged 11 to 18, situated in the suburb of Caversham just north of the River Thames and Reading town centre and occupying a campus. There are around 450 pupils. Nearly half are ...

, Caversham, in

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

, where she learnt Russian. She then studied

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

Grenoble University The (, ''Grenoble Alps University'', abbr. UGA) is a ''grand établissement'' in Grenoble, France. Founded in 1339, it is the third largest university in France with about 60,000 students and over 3,000 researchers. Established as the Univer ...

. After school, she worked in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

as a secretary before joining the

Allied Control Commission Following the termination of hostilities in World War II, the Allies were in control of the defeated Axis countries. Anticipating the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan, they had already set up the European Advisory Commission and a proposed Far ...

and moving to

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. There she met her future husband, Ruari Chisholm, and began working for British Intelligence. Her husband was a spy who headed the MI6 station in Moscow but worked under the guise of a visa officer. When

Oleg Penkovsky Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky (; 23 April 1919 – 16 May 1963), codenamed Hero (by the CIA) and Yoga (by MI6) was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the U ...

offered

Soviet 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 ...

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 weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...

s arsenal. Their cover was eventually blown by another British agent,

George Blake George Blake ( Behar; 11 November 1922 – 26 December 2020) was a Espionage, spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the Minist ...

, who defected to the Soviets. Penkovsky was quickly arrested and later

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

, while the Chisholms were deported. Controversy surrounds Penkovsky's death, with many believing that MI6 put him in danger after Blake confessed all to the Soviet officials. For their part, MI6 maintained that he insisted on continuing to feed the British information even after his life was threatened. The Chisholms went on to work in

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

and twice in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

until Ruari's retirement. He had planned to write a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

but died of

malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...

before he could begin. 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 BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

Nuclear Secrets ''Nuclear Secrets'', aka ''Spies, Lies and the Superbomb'', is a 2007 BBC Television docudrama series which looks at the race for nuclear supremacy from the Manhattan Project through to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. Production The seri ...

''. The programme included covert KGB photographs showing Janet Chisholm meeting

External links

BBC Obituary

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chisholm, Janet 1929 births 2004 deaths Cold War spies MI6 personnel British expatriates in the Soviet Union British spies against the Soviet Union People educated at Queen Anne's School People from Kasauli