Soviet intelligence agents and suspected agents: Nerses Ovsepian

Nerses Ovsepian

File ref KV 2/2398-2399

Ovsepian (whose working pseudonym was George Agebakov) was a Russian OGPU agent who deserted to the west, seemingly at the instigation of his British fiancée.

His intriguing story is mostly revealed in KV 2/2398 (1927-1942), which shows that he first approached the British authorities in Turkey in April 1930 with an offer to reveal to them how Foreign Office communications were being intercepted by the Russians. He defected in July of that year, and by this time was engaged to an Englishwoman, Miss Streater. The file records Ovsepian's story that having fallen in love with Streater, she had encouraged him to give up espionage as a condition of marriage, to which he agreed. The Security Service nevertheless suspected him of being an agent provocateur, and initiated a warrant to intercept correspondence to his Paris address.

Ovsepian published his memoirs of his OGPU career later in 1930, and he became a well known figure (for instance, being interviewed by the Daily Sketch in 1932, in which article he claimed to have been a witness to the assassination of the Romanovs in Ekaterinberg. The file gives details of a suspected kidnapping attempt on Ovsepian in Romania (Serial 82A), and subsequently on his mysterious disappearance form Paris in 1938. It is assumed that this was down to OGPU taking its revenge on him. Most of the rest of the file, and of KV 2/2399 (1942-1955) concerns his wife's attempts to locate him after 1938, and Security Service traces following up his contacts over the years. There are numerous photographs of Ovsepian in KV 2/2398.