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Olga Isabel Gray (28 November 1906 – 19 July 1990) was an English secretary and typist who acted as a double agent in the 1930s after being recruited by MI5 to infiltrate British communist groups.
This plan met with success in 1934. Then, after a period of working for the Anti-War Movement, she was approached by Harry Pollitt and asked to undertake a 'special mission', on behalf of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Having accepted the request, Gray was sent to Paris on 6 June 1934; she was to rendezvous with Percy Glading, an officer of League Against Anti-Imperialism and a founding member of the CPGB.
Following the meeting, Gray was instructed by Glading to go to India to deliver money and messages to insurgent elements. However, the cover story provided to Gray by the CPGB was so flimsy for a woman travelling alone during the monsoon season to India that she would easily rouse the suspicion of the authorities. Knight's B5(b) section, therefore, stepped in to concoct a plausible cover story to enable her to continue to gain evidence of CPGB espionage.Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 180.
On her return from India, Gray worked as Pollitt's personal secretary until she dropped all work with the communists in 1935 because of the strain of maintaining a double life.
Gray then rented an apartment at 82 Holland Road, Kensington. Glading then visited the flat on 21 April 1937, with a man whom he referred to as 'Mr. Peters'. 'Peters' was really Theodore Maly, a Soviet spy and a principal agent in Britain. A few months later, Glading visited the flat with a foreign couple, 'Mr and Mrs Stevens' (their real names were William and Mary Brandes), agents of the NKVD who had just escaped from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police having obtained fraudulent Canadian passports.Curtis B. Robinson, Caught Red Starred: The Woolwich Spy-Ring and Stalin's Naval Rearmament on the Eve of War (Bloomington IN, 2011), p. 66. The Brandes then proceeded to bring stolen secret documents, largely from the Royal Arsenal, and maps to the apartment to be photographed and developed. They did not return to London after November 1937, and Glading took over the photography of documents.
On 21 January Gray rang the authorities to report that Glading was to meet a man at Charing Cross station at 8.15 pm to receive still more classified documents.Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 181. The information provided by Gray, who testified under the code name "Miss X", led to the apprehension of Glading, Albert Williams, a hitherto-unidentified spy in the Woolwich Arsenal, and two other contacts within the arsenal: George Whomack and Charles Munday.Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, pp. 181–182.
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