Today is Soviet spying legend Gevork Vartanian's 100th aniversray
February 17 marks the 100th birthday anniversary of legendary Soviet spy of Armenian descent Gevork Vartanian.
Gevork Vartanian was famous for foiling a Nazi plot to kill the three Allied leaders – Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill – in Tehran during World War II.
Vartanian became an intelligence agent at the age of 16 when he headed a special group assigned to identify Nazi spies in Iran.
His group provided security for the three leaders during the Tehran summit held in November-December 1943 and carried out a successful operation to disrupt an assassination plot against them.
For more than 45 years, Vartanian and his wife conducted a large number of intelligence operations in various countries. The couple continued to work for Soviet intelligence till the early 1990s.
Gevork Vartanian died in Moscow in 2012 at the age of 87.