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RUSSIAN SPY WHO 'SAVED' CHURCHILL, STALIN AND ROOSEVELT FROM ASSASSINATION DIES, AGED 87
By Will Stewart
Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2085371/Russian-spy-saved-Churchill-Stalin-Roosevelt-assassination-dies-aged-87.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Jan 11 2012
UK
Soviet WWII spy Gevork Vartanyan has died at the age of 87
A legendary Russian spy who foiled a Nazi plot to assassinate Winston
Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt has died aged 87,
the former KGB announced yesterday.
Gevork Andreyevich Vartanyan, codenamed Amir, ensured the safety of
the three leaders by exposing a plot to kill them at the historic
1943 Tehran conference of the 'Big Three' Allies.
He was just 19 at the time but he led a group of young Soviet agents
to disrupt a German plot codenamed Operation Long Jump to wipe out
the leaders of Britain, the USSR and the US.
As his death was announced he received an immediate accolade from
the Kremlin signifying his standing as one of Moscow's greatest-ever
agents.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev lauded Vartanyan as a 'legendary spy,
a true patriot of his country and an extraordinary personality.'
In a letter of condolence to the agent's family, he said of Vartanyan
- some of whose espionage achievements remain secret to this day:
'He participated in stunning special operations which have gone down
in the history of our foreign intelligence.'
'Everyone in foreign intelligence will remember Gevork Andreyevich
for his overwhelming love for the motherland and his fidelity to his
duty,' added a spokesman for the SVR, Russian foreign intelligence.
Despite saving Churchill, one of his most famous operations was to
infiltrate a British spy academy for Russian-speaking agents in Iran
in 1942, learning the identities of agents who London planned to send
undercover to the Soviet Union, and exposing the network.
After the war, the agent - whose father was also a Moscow intelligence
operative - and his wife Goar, herself a noted spy, worked undercover
for three decades in many countries engaged in crucial work for
the KGB.
Even today the SVR refuses to divulge his role, admitting merely that
he worked in 'extreme conditions' and 'complicated circumstances'.
'Everything we did was important for the motherland.
But the most important things cannot be discussed at the moment,'
he said shortly before his death.
When Vartanyan finally came in from the cold he held an emotional
meeting with Celia Sandys, Churchill's granddaughter, in Moscow
in 2007.
The pair toasted 'the great troika - Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt'
with Armenian brandy.
'It is thanks to them that we live in peace today,' he told her,
adding that Stalin 'was sending Armenian brandy to Churchill by the
case' and that the British wartime leader 'was very fond of it.'
The legendary Russian-born spy was the son of an Iranian factory
owner of Armenian origin. His father took the family back to Iran in
the 1930s as part of a mission decreed by Stalin.
He enlisted his son who was working undercover by the age of 16.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
By Will Stewart
Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2085371/Russian-spy-saved-Churchill-Stalin-Roosevelt-assassination-dies-aged-87.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Jan 11 2012
UK
Soviet WWII spy Gevork Vartanyan has died at the age of 87
A legendary Russian spy who foiled a Nazi plot to assassinate Winston
Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt has died aged 87,
the former KGB announced yesterday.
Gevork Andreyevich Vartanyan, codenamed Amir, ensured the safety of
the three leaders by exposing a plot to kill them at the historic
1943 Tehran conference of the 'Big Three' Allies.
He was just 19 at the time but he led a group of young Soviet agents
to disrupt a German plot codenamed Operation Long Jump to wipe out
the leaders of Britain, the USSR and the US.
As his death was announced he received an immediate accolade from
the Kremlin signifying his standing as one of Moscow's greatest-ever
agents.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev lauded Vartanyan as a 'legendary spy,
a true patriot of his country and an extraordinary personality.'
In a letter of condolence to the agent's family, he said of Vartanyan
- some of whose espionage achievements remain secret to this day:
'He participated in stunning special operations which have gone down
in the history of our foreign intelligence.'
'Everyone in foreign intelligence will remember Gevork Andreyevich
for his overwhelming love for the motherland and his fidelity to his
duty,' added a spokesman for the SVR, Russian foreign intelligence.
Despite saving Churchill, one of his most famous operations was to
infiltrate a British spy academy for Russian-speaking agents in Iran
in 1942, learning the identities of agents who London planned to send
undercover to the Soviet Union, and exposing the network.
After the war, the agent - whose father was also a Moscow intelligence
operative - and his wife Goar, herself a noted spy, worked undercover
for three decades in many countries engaged in crucial work for
the KGB.
Even today the SVR refuses to divulge his role, admitting merely that
he worked in 'extreme conditions' and 'complicated circumstances'.
'Everything we did was important for the motherland.
But the most important things cannot be discussed at the moment,'
he said shortly before his death.
When Vartanyan finally came in from the cold he held an emotional
meeting with Celia Sandys, Churchill's granddaughter, in Moscow
in 2007.
The pair toasted 'the great troika - Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt'
with Armenian brandy.
'It is thanks to them that we live in peace today,' he told her,
adding that Stalin 'was sending Armenian brandy to Churchill by the
case' and that the British wartime leader 'was very fond of it.'
The legendary Russian-born spy was the son of an Iranian factory
owner of Armenian origin. His father took the family back to Iran in
the 1930s as part of a mission decreed by Stalin.
He enlisted his son who was working undercover by the age of 16.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress