Catalogue description Douglas Frank SPRINGHALL, aliases 'Springy', 'Peter', 'Zenoff/Zanoff', usually known as...

Douglas Frank SPRINGHALL, aliases 'Springy', 'Peter', 'Zenoff/Zanoff', usually known as 'Dave': British. SPRINGHALL was a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who attended the Lenin School in Moscow, and held party administrative positions at the highest levels including the Central Committee and, from 1940, was National Organiser. In 1943 he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for obtaining classified information for the Russians from Olive SHEEHAN, a clerk in the Air Ministry who was the leader of a secret Communist group there. Subsequent enquiries showed that SPRINGHALL had also exploited the Communist convictions of Captain Ormond Leyton UREN, a Staff Officer in SOE, to obtain classified information. UREN was court-martialled and also sentenced to seven years. Enquiries suggested that SPRINGHALL had been extensively involved in covert activities on behalf of the Party for many years. He died in Moscow in 1953