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Red Joan is a film based, although highly romanticised, on the true story of spy Melita Norwood who stole British nuclear secrets for the Soviets.

Her story, told through the fictional character of Joan Stanley, is inextricably linked with the fate of the Cambridge spies, who were recruited by Soviet sympathisers at the university because they were likely to reach high positions in the British Government.

The real Melita Norwood, known as 'Hola' by the Russians was an Englishwoman who worked at the Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association in London. The association was actually conducting secret nuclear weapons research in a joint project with the Americans codenamed 'Tube Alloy'.

(Image: Sunday Mirror)

She worked as a secretary and would sneak into her boss's office and steal research papers from his safe. She would then take a photo using a spy camera which she'd pass on to her KGB handler, having returned the documents back to the safe. Norwood's spying is credited with bringing the Soviet nuclear weapons program ahead by two years. Ironically, she was allegedly highly critical of nuclear weapons, with nuclear disarmament stickers in her window on the day of her capture.

She did, however, escape capture several times; notably when another Soviet spy ring was discovered at Woolrich Arsenal in 1937. The ring had been run by Percy Glading, co-founder of the British Communist Party, who was caught by MI5 passing on naval secrets.

In Glading's notebook he noted Norwood's codename 'Hola' several times. M15 tried to find out the identity of Hola, but it wasn't successful until the 1990s. It was that arrest that connects Norwood to the Cambridge spies.

(Image: PA Wire)

Uncovering hundreds of Britons spying for Russia

Both Norwood and the Cambridge spies were caught because of the Mitrokhin archive. The collection was painstakingly compiled by Russian spy Vasili Mitrokhin, who worked as a senior archivist in the KGB’s foreign intelligence headquarters. The FBI described it as “the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source”.

Appalled by what he saw in the archives, Mitrokhin had decided to expose the KGB’s actions by compiling the papers.

Professor Christopher Andrew, a fellow at Corpus Christi college, is one of the few to have seen the actual papers when he collaborated on two books with Mitrokhin.

He said: “The only reason these papers are here is because of Vasili Mitrokhin’s courage. He was absolutely determined that this material should be available for the world to see.

“There are only two places where you can find KGB intelligence files like this – one is in the KGB archives and the other is here.”

(Image: University of Cambridge/PA Wire)

Over 12 years Mitrokhin smuggled handwritten copies of the files from the archive and hid them in his country house outside Moscow.

After the fall of the Soviet Union he travelled to Riga in 1992– dressed in scruffy clothes to avoid attention – with a small number of documents in a suitcase, hidden under a pile of dirty clothes.

Staff at the American embassy were not convinced by his story but he was able to meet with MI6 representatives at the British embassy, who were astonished to discover the material, detailing the innermost machinations of Soviet intelligence.

The documents, which were smuggled back to Britain by MI6, contain information about hundreds of Britons who were spying for Russia, including the notorious Cambridge spy ring.

(Image: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, John Cairncross, Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby were a group of disaffected undergraduates at Cambridge University who began spying for the Soviet Union during the Second World War.

The Mitrokhin papers paint detailed – and often critical – profiles of the five men, according to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova who has translated parts of the archive into English.

In the first six months of 1945, Burgess handed over 369 top secret files to the Russians but his record was blotted after the Second World War.

Ms Lokhova said: “It says Burgess was not taking care of his looks and was constantly under the influence of alcohol.

“Once on his way out of a pub he was seen dropping on the floor the file he had to hand over from the Foreign Office.”

The documents contain details of Burgess’ sex life, including a number of affairs he had while in America.

Maclean’s file said he was “not very good at keeping secrets” since he told his brother and a girlfriend about his intelligence work whilst drunk.

Kim Philby is often regarded as Britain’s most notorious double agent but these documents reveal the Russians valued a secretary from Bexleyheath named Melita Norwood far higher.

The file on the now-grandmother spy reveals she was awarded a lifetime pension in 1962 for “many years of excellent work”.

(Image: Sunday Mirror)

Prof Andrew said: “It’s interesting that in all that time, there is never a moment when the KGB lose contact with Melita Norwood but they completely drop Kim Philby.”

There are more than 30,000 files within the archive, which contain an array of material, including coded directions to secret weapon caches all over Europe.

Mitrokhin and his family were exfiltrated to the UK in 1992, where he lived until his death in 2004.

Red Joan film release

The 2018 spy drama, released in the UK on April 19, 2019, is based on the novel of the same name by Jennie Rooney. Dame Judi Dench stars as Joan Stanley with Sophie Cookson as young Joan Stanley.