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Konon Trofimovich Molody (; 17 January 1922 – 11 October 1970) was a Soviet Union intelligence officer, known in the West as Gordon Arnold Lonsdale. Posing as a Canadian businessman during the Cold War, he was a Resident spy KGB spying and the mastermind of the Portland spy ring, which operated in Britain from 1953 until 1961.
The next part of his GRU work during WWII was spent with the renowned William Fisher (the famous illegal better known by his U.S. identity of Colonel Abel). In late 1939, Molody found himself in a hospital in Moscow where he began a short course in intelligence work. He was also given a course in radio communication that is, how to work as a radio operator, coding and decoding radio messages. In January 1940, Molody was parachuted surreptitiously in Belarus near Minsk. In 1943, he was unexpectedly picked up by the Abwehr (German intelligence) for having some discrepancy with his papers. He was soon interrogated by an Abwehr intelligence officer who turned out to be William Fisher. Fisher incredibly was a Soviet intelligence agent who managed to infiltrate German intelligence, that is, the Abwehr. Fisher's cover was named Alec. Alec selected Molody for an Abwehr operation behind Soviet lines. During the medical examination of Molody, Alec (Fisher) found a medical problem with Molody, noted it in the file and then released Molody. Thereafter, Molody served as Fisher's radio operator for Soviet intelligence. Fisher continued to serve in the Abwehr and through Molody sent information back to the Soviets about the Abwehr's agents behind Soviet lines. Molody noted that Fisher's coordinates for the Abwehr agents dropped behind Soviet lines were quite precise. Soviet forces were able to capture the German agents quickly. Molody wrote of Fisher (in the Lonsdale memoir), "This was my first introduction to one of the most remarkable men I have ever met in my life, who is also indeed one of the most astute intelligence officers of all time." Sometime in early 1944, Molody and Fisher's assignment in Minsk ended.
After the end of the war, from 1946 Molody enrolled as a war veteran into the Trade Law Department of the prestigious Institute of Foreign Trade, where he mastered the Chinese language.
In 1954, Konon Molody moved to London, where as a Canadian citizen he enrolled at the London University School of Oriental and African Studies and again studied Chinese. He had numerous female friends in London and Europe. Using business as a cover, Molody headed a London KGB front company manufacturing and trading in jukeboxes, bubble-gum and gambling machines. He may have recruited other agents and set up dead letter boxes while on his business trips to West Europe. Once a year he would spend time in Prague or Warsaw with his Russian wife Galina. She was led by the KGB to believe Konon was posted in Beijing as a member of the Soviet trade mission.
In 1959, Molody began receiving British military secrets from Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment clerk Harry Houghton. Molody clandestinely liaised with the Krogers in London as well during his European trips and ran other spies, including Melita Norwood. The Krogers acted as his technical support; he communicated with Moscow via their hidden radio transmitter.
MI5 officers have no power of arrest, so on 7 January 1961 a Metropolitan Police Special Branch team under Detective Superintendent George Gordon Smith arrested all five members of the Portland spy ring. Molody was arrested on the Waterloo Bridge the same moment he had received classified material from Harry Houghton. At Scotland Yard, he told Smith he would not disclose his real name or address or any other information. MI5, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigators' team had to resort to extensive enquiries. They were able to pinpoint his Russian origin, naval background, and use of false Canadian papers.
On 13 March 1961 at the Old Bailey, Molody was charged with spying, along with associates Harry Houghton, Ethel Gee and Morris and Lona Cohen (Peter and Helen Kroger). At the time of the trial, British authorities were still unsure of his true identity. In March 1961, the defendants were found guilty, and Molody received a 25-year sentence. He was to start his sentence at Winson Green Prison, Birmingham. From his single cell, he fraternised with some of the Great Train Robbers. In due course, the British and American security services managed to establish his true identity as Russian citizen Konon Molody.
On 22 April 1964, Кого и как обменивал Советский Союз // История вопроса Kommersant, 8 July 2010. he was exchanged in a spy-swap for Greville Wynne, a British businessman apprehended and convicted in Moscow for his contacts with Oleg Penkovsky. The prisoners were swapped at the Heerstraße Checkpoint in Berlin.Gordon Corera, The Art of Betrayal, London, Phoenix, 2012 pp. 230
Molody died from a stroke on a mushroom picking expedition in a suburban forest in September 1970; at the age of 48. Konon's youth friend and retired KGB intelligence agent Leonid Kolosov co-wrote The Dead Season: End of the Legend. He maintained that Konon was healthy upon his return from the UK but began complaining about KGB doctors giving him injections against Hypertension blood pressure. Konon had headaches he never had before but the doctors said he should expect to "feel worse before he felt better".
He is buried at the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow next to Vilyam Genrikovich Fisher (aka Colonel Rudolf Abel).
Career as a Soviet "illegal" in the INO (Foreign Department) of the MGB
In 1951 Molody was recruited by the MGB First Chief Directorate (Political intelligence wing) and trained as a MGB "illegal agent" (NOC) on foreign soil. During his intelligence training he married and had two children. In 1953, Molody travelled to Canada on a Soviet merchant ship, posing as a Canadian national named "Gordon Lonsdale" (the true Lonsdale having died in Finland in the early 1940s). The MGB foreign branch had taken possession of Finnish public records after the war and had frequently used them to establish new spy identities. From Canada, "Gordon Lonsdale" illegally travelled without a visa to the US, where he started his operations as an aid to atomic spy Rudolph Abel. He also first met the American communist couple Morris and Lona Cohen (UK cover names Peter and Helen Kroger).
UK conviction for espionage
Molody came under suspicion from MI5 in 1959 after a meeting with Houghton. At the request of MI5, the Treasury gave permission to search a private safe box at the Midland Bank on Great Portland Street. Concealed within a lighter was a London map for places to conceal or collect information.
Later life in Russia
A year after his return to the Soviet Union he published a book Spy: Memoirs of Gordon Lonsdale with the author still maintaining he was born in Canada. Issued with the approval of the Soviet authorities, he also claimed Peter and Helen Kroger, convicted as members of the Portland Ring, were innocent.
Popular culture
A 1968 film Dead Season was based on Molody's mission in the UK. Molody advised Donatas Banionis who played him, and believed that resemblance between him and the actor was significant.
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Categories: 1922 Births, 1970 Deaths, Soviet Spies, People Convicted Of Spying For The Soviet Union, Cold War Spies, Kgb Officers, Soviet People Imprisoned Abroad, Portland Spy Ring, Soviet Cold War Spymasters, 1961 In Military History, 1961 In Politics, Recipients Of British Royal Pardons, Burials At Donskoye Cemetery, Alumni Of Soas University Of London, Russian People Of Ukrainian Descent, Even People, People From Moscow
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