Norwood, Melita, 1912-2005

Soviet espionage agent in Great Britain.

From the description of Melita Norwood papers, 1903-2003. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 754865102

Biographical Note

Melita Norwood was a Soviet spy in England for nearly forty years; her role as an atomic spy was especially important during the cold war years.

Originally a labor organizer and later secretary to the director of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, her assistance is believed to have hastened the Soviet Union's entry into the nuclear club by at least five years. Although identified as an agent in 1999, Norwood was never prosecuted by the British government. She died in 2005.

Norwood was born and raised among revolutionary émigrés from tsarist Russia, where she acquired the leftist leanings that brought her and her husband, educator Hillary Norwood, into the Independent Labour Party and the British Communist Party in the 1930s. She was recruited as a spy by the NKVD in 1934. For some four decades, Melita Norwood (likely with the knowledge and assistance of her husband) passed secret information on Britain's atomic project to the Soviets.

From the guide to the Melita Norwood papers, 1903-2003, (Hoover Institution Archives)