Jeremy John Le Mesurier Wolfenden (26 June 1934, England – 28 December 1965) was a foreign correspondent and British spy at the height of the Cold War.
He won a scholarship to Eton where he was known as 'cleverest boy in England', then to his father's alma mater Magdalen College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
[1][4] Wolfenden was recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) before becoming The Daily Telegraph's foreign correspondent in Moscow (in 1961)[4] where he indulged in his twin passions for sex and alcohol and was eventually compromised by the KGB.
[1] He struck up friendships with Guy Burgess, the British defector, and Martina Browne, the nanny employed by Ruari and Janet Chisholm, who were working for SIS and were instrumental in the defection of Oleg Penkovsky – a colonel in Soviet military intelligence – who was responsible for disabusing the Kennedy administration of the myth that the "missile gap" was in the Soviet's favour.
For instance, in a letter to Michael Parsons, an Oxford friend, from Paris, January 1961: "There is just no such thing as anyone’s real personality.