26 Facts About Dieter Gerhardt

Dieter Felix Gerhardt was born on 1 November 1935 and is a former commodore in the South African Navy and commander of the strategic Simon's Town naval dockyard.

Dieter Gerhardt was arrested by the FBI in New York City in 1983 following information obtained from a Soviet defector.

Dieter Gerhardt was convicted of high treason as a spy for the Soviets for a period of twenty years in South Africa together with his second wife, Ruth, who had acted as his courier.

Dieter Gerhardt joined the South African Navy after his father successfully persuaded naval chief Hugo Biermann to take the troubled teenager under his wing to try to instill discipline in him; he graduated from the Naval Academy in Saldanha Bay in 1956, winning the Sword of Honour.

Dieter Gerhardt started his spying career in his late twenties, while still a junior naval officer, by offering his services to the South African Communist Party.

Dieter Gerhardt was responsible for passing the first intelligence information about the French Exocet missile to the Soviets.

British journalist and security services specialist Chapman Pincher maintained that, while in London in the late 1960s, Dieter Gerhardt was able to interview Royal Navy Polaris submarine crews for potential candidates that the Soviets could approach.

Dieter Gerhardt says Gerhardt eventually gave her an ultimatum to become a spy too, which she declined, forcing the couple's separation.

Dieter Gerhardt divorced him in 1966 and moved to Ireland with her children, claiming that she lived in constant fear of the Soviet security services.

Dieter Gerhardt subsequently published a book in 1999 about her experiences called The Spy's Wife.

In 1973, Dieter Gerhardt married his second wife, Ruth Johr, a Swiss citizen who author Chapman Pincher claims was already a spy for the German Democratic Republic.

Dieter Gerhardt rose through the ranks of the naval establishment as his career progressed.

Dieter Gerhardt reportedly revealed to the Soviets most of the Western naval surveillance techniques for the South Atlantic.

Dieter Gerhardt visited the USSR five times during his career, while his wife travelled with him twice in 1972 and 1976.

Dieter Gerhardt was reportedly paid 800,000 Swiss francs by the GRU for his spying activities; his contact in the GRU said that money was not the motive for Gerhardt.

Dieter Gerhardt's cover was finally blown by Soviet double agent Vladimir Vetrov He was arrested at his hotel in New York City in January 1983 in a sting operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation while he was taking a degree in mathematics at Syracuse University.

Dieter Gerhardt had in his possession $100,000 in cash that he intended to pay her; he did not disclose his real identity to Swiss authorities, and was sentenced to three years imprisonment for spying.

Ruth Dieter Gerhardt claimed in her defence that she thought he was a double agent working for South Africa.

Ruth Dieter Gerhardt served her sentence together with Barbara Hogan and other anti-apartheid dissidents.

Dieter Gerhardt was one of the imprisoned spies who was mooted for inclusion in a 1989 East-West prisoner exchange amongst a number of countries that did not materialise.

In 1990 when FW de Klerk unbanned organisations such as the ANC and released political prisoners like Nelson Mandela, Dieter Gerhardt was not one of those who was freed.

Dieter Gerhardt was visited in prison on 22 January 1992 by a delegation from the ANC, who were seeking information regarding the SADF that might have assisted them in CODESA negotiations with the National Party government.

Dieter Gerhardt was released in August 1992 following his application for release, political pressure in South Africa and an appeal by Russian premier Boris Yeltsin to South African President FW de Klerk when the latter visited Moscow after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Dieter Gerhardt moved to Basel, Switzerland, following in the footsteps of his Swiss wife Ruth Dieter Gerhardt, who was released in 1990 following a request from the Swiss government.

Dieter Gerhardt claimed that the United States and the Soviet Union met in 1976 to discuss South Africa's nuclear weapons programme, and that the Soviets proposed a pre-emptive strike on the Pelindaba plant.

Dieter Gerhardt stated that he had no official knowledge of the alleged test, but was not ready to provide further details.