Norwood, Melia Stedman

(1912–2005)

   Probably the KGB’s most productive female agent, Norwood was run within the British scientific establishment for several decades. Norwood, who joined the British communist party in the 1930s, became a Soviet agent in 1937. For 45 years she provided scientific and technical intelligence to Moscow. Her code name was “Hola.” During World War II, she provided information on the Anglo-American nuclear weapons program, referred to as Enormoz by Soviet intelligence. In a wartime report to Moscow, Norwood was described by her case officer as a “committed, reliable, and disciplined agent.” Norwood’s five decades as a spy were revealed in 1999 in Vasili Mitrokhin’s The Sword and the Shield, an account of the Soviet intelligence service coauthored by a British academic. Confronted with the charge of espionage by the British press, Norwood cheerfully and proudly admitted her treachery.