Video: The declassified history of Tehran-43: How a family of Soviet intelligence officers thwarted the assassination attempt on Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
A year ago, on November 25, 2019, the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Gohar Vartanyan passed away. In 2000, the secrecy label was removed from part of her work, although we will probably not know much about it soon. At least, it is reliably known that in her youth she, together with her husband, Gevorg Vartanyan, participated in ensuring the safety of the leaders of the "Big Three" during the Tehran conference in 1943. And the main characters of the film "Tehran-43" had real prototypes, no less charismatic than famous actors!
Gohar Pakhlevanyan was born in 1926 in Leninakan. When she was 6 years old, the family moved to Iran. Two years earlier, another Armenian family settled in Tehran, in which the 6-year-old son Gevork grew up. His father was an illegal Soviet intelligence agent sent to Iran on assignment. Gevork continued his work and at the age of 16, in 1940, he established contact with the Tehran station. His first assignment was to recruit a group of peers to help the “older comrades”. In 1942, Gevork was trained in an English intelligence school.
They were called "Light cavalry" - they rushed around the city on bicycles, not arousing suspicion in anyone due to their young age and completely harmless appearance. In the meantime, they conducted external surveillance and penetrated the German environment. During the first 2 years of operation, the "cavalrymen" identified about 400 people associated with the German intelligence services. Gohar also joined Vartanyan's anti-fascist group. Gevork later told about their meeting: “”.
In 1943, a meeting of the leaders of the "Big Three" - Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill was planned in Tehran, who were going to discuss the opening of the Second Front in Europe. To ensure their safety, the Tehran station was involved. These plans became known to German intelligence, and the Germans prepared Operation Long Jump, the purpose of which was to kidnap or destroy the negotiators, which could turn the tide of the war.
The main task of the "Light Cavalry" was to prevent the assassination of the heads of the allied countries. The counter-control was headed by Ivan Agayants, who led the "bicycle brigade". Upon learning that a German landing party had landed in the vicinity of Tehran, the young scouts divided into groups and circled the city on bicycles around the clock in search of saboteurs, tracked the movements of German agents and tracked the working German radios. Gohar, along with her group, discovered a secret villa and a radio station on the outskirts of Tehran. The forces of the NKVD carried out a further capture of the Nazis, and Operation Long Jump was thwarted.
Although the feature film Tehran-43, which was released in 1981, was devoted to these historical events, in fact, its plot was largely fictional. Gevorka and Gohar Vartanyanov are called prototypes of the main characters, scout and translator performed by Igor Kostolevsky and Natalia Belokhvostikova, but their story has nothing to do with real facts. Gevork himself liked the film, except that the scout, whose role was played by Kostolevsky, often used weapons. Vartanyan said: ""
Gevorg Vartanyan said about the Tehran-43 film: “”. And when asked how the heroes of Igor Kostolevsky and Natalya Belokhvostikova resemble him and his wife, Gevork answered with a smile: “”.
However, nowadays, versions are being put forward that in fact not only the film "Tehren-43" became "a set of heroic legends for the masses", but also the story itself with an attempt on the life of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill and its prevention by Soviet intelligence - nothing more than a myth that worked for the image of the USSR.
Be that as it may, after that the illegal scouts remained for some time in Tehran, where they got married in 1946, and then for 40 years carried out assignments in different countries of the world. Only in 2000 the names of Gohar and Gevork were declassified, and some details of the operation in Tehran became known. However, information about their future activities has not yet been disclosed. The couple lived together for 65 years, all their lives, and the composition with the symbolic name "Eternal Love", written by Charles Aznavour and Georges Harvarents for the film "Tehran-43", was obviously the biggest and most real truth about their lives. And at the moment, this is the only thing that can be doubted!
There are still many interesting moments behind the scenes of the film "Tehran-43": How Natalia Belokhvostikova inspired Charles Aznavour to "Eternal Love".
Recommended:
Why the great Russian wrestler named his cat Raul: the story of the assassination attempt on Ivan Poddubny
Everyone knows Ivan Poddubny as a famous professional athlete and wrestler who performed in the first half of the 20th century. His name has become a household name. Poddubny participated in a huge number of fights, and almost always won. However, he also had an adversary with whom many torments and disappointments are associated. Read in the material how Poddubny fought with Le Boucher, why the Frenchman won, how he wanted to squeeze the Russian athlete out of the world, but as a result he himself went into another world
How a Soviet intelligence poetess organized an assassination attempt on Wrangel and rammed a White Guard yacht
Russian poetess Elena Ferrari (Olga Fedorovna Golubeva, nee Revzina) - a diminutive and graceful beauty, also turned out to be a staff member of the intelligence department of the Red Army. It was she who was entrusted with organizing and executing the assassination attempt on Baron Wrangel in 1921. The physical destruction of the commander-in-chief failed, but to cause serious damage to his deeds and plans is quite
6 Soviet intelligence officers and officers who escaped from the USSR
Soviet citizens who decided to stay in the West were usually called defectors and defectors. Among them were many scientists and representatives of the creative intelligentsia. But the most painful for the Soviet Union were the escapes of representatives of power structures, intelligence officers and diplomats. Each of them had their own reasons for fleeing, and life abroad sometimes turned out quite differently from what they dreamed of
9 fatal Soviet intelligence officers, before the cunning and charm of which Einstein, Hitler and other powerful of this world could not resist
Beautiful, intelligent, selfless - these were the women who, by the will of fate, embarked on the path of espionage. Each of them led their own arranged life until the moment when the state made it clear that it needed their work. Spy women are a combination of cold prudence, courage, willpower, visual appeal and seductiveness. Scouts do not have the right to fame, their names and deeds become known only after they officially cease to fulfill their duties
The failed assassination attempt on Fidel Castro, the child of the dictator and the conspiracy against John F. Kennedy: Super Agent Marita Lorenz
The whole life of this woman was like an adventure novel: in her youth, Marita Lorenz met Fidel Castro. She had real feelings for him, but later tried to take his life on the instructions of the CIA. However, she was familiar with another dictator who became the father of her child. Marita Lorenz testified before the Special Committee on the attempted assassination of John F. Kennedy. No wonder the tabloids called her Jane Bond of the twentieth century