Chisholm, Janet (1929–2004)

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Chisholm, Janet (1929–2004)

British spy. Born Janet Anne Deane, May 7, 1929, at Kasuali, near Simla, India; died July 23, 2004; one of 4 daughters of a Royal Engineers officer; attended Wycombe Abbey School and Queen Anne's, Caversham; studied Russian and French; m. Ruari Chisholm (head of M16 station at the Moscow embassy working under diplomatic cover); children: 2 sons, 2 daughters.

Joined British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or M16) at the Allied Control Commission in West Germany; as a British mother in Moscow who spoke Russian (as well as an officer in M16), worked as a go-between with the Soviet military intelligence agent Colonel Oleg Penkovsky and US and British intelligence, meeting up with Penkovsky while walking her children in the park (the Penkovsky papers were considered one of the greatest Western intelligence coup since WWII).