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.
Biography
The son of John Wolfenden, headmaster of Uppingham School, and, later, chairman of the Wolfenden Report which recommended the legalisation of male homosexual acts in Britain, Jeremy Wolfenden was himself homosexual. He was regarded by others of his generation as a leader and a man of distinct individualism. 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. He subsequently became a Prize Fellow of All Souls. His Finals examiner at Oxford, after giving him eight alphas, wrote: "He wrote as though it were all beneath him; he wrote as though it were all such a waste of his time."
He became night news editor of The Times in 1959 and the newspaper's Paris correspondent the following year. Wolfenden was recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) before becoming The Daily Telegraphs foreign correspondent in Moscow (in 1961) He had been photographed by the KGB having sex with another man, while MI6 tried to turn him into a double agent. In 1964,</blockquote>
A short biography of Wolfenden appears in the book The Fatal Englishman by Sebastian Faulks. Julian Mitchell's play Consenting Adults (2007), screened by BBC Four, is based on the relationship of father and son, played by Charles Dance and Sean Biggerstaff respectively. Biggerstaff won a BAFTA Scotland award for Best Television Actor for his performance.