DEATH : British Spy Greville Wynne Dies

Greville Wynne, who spied on the Soviet Union for Britain during the Cold War and who spent 18 months in a Moscow prison after being caught, died of throat cancer Wednesday, hospital officials said today. He was 71.

The wealthy businessman, who described his exploits in two celebrated memoirs--”The Man from Moscow” and “The Man From Odessa”--worked for Britain’s MI6 Secret Intelligence Service. He said he acted as the intermediary for Soviet double agent Col. Oleg Penkovsky, a senior military intelligence officer who passed Moscow secrets to MI6 and the CIA.

Opposition Labor Party legislator Ted Leadbitter said of Wynne in a statement to reporters Wednesday night: “How many secrets has this man taken to his grave?”

Wynne set up his own business as an exporter of industrial engineering products in 1950, traveling often to Soviet Bloc countries.

He was arrested during a trip to Budapest, Hungary, in 1962 and put on trial in Moscow in 1963 for spying and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Penkovsky, who was tried with him, was sentenced to death for treason. He reportedly committed suicide in a Soviet labor camp.

Wynne served 18 months in Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison. He was freed in 1964 in exchange for Soviet spy Conon Molody, or Gordon Lonsdale as he called himself in Britain.