Lugovois remark was, in a way, a backhanded compliment to the most successful undercover agent of modern times, a complex sort of hero, a spy and traitor. As Sam Mendes Oscar-tipped epic sparks fresh interest in the war to end all wars, author Lyn Macdonald recounts her time with soldiers who fought that year for real in the rubble of Ypres, and the unforgettable stories they told her. The wife and daughters of Oleg Gordievsky arrived today in London to be reunited with him six years after he quit the K.G.B. AreRussian killers on the streets of Britain? Surprisingly, the plan worked. Leyla Gordievsky, 42, flew into Heathrow Airport with her daughters Maria, 11, and Anna, 10, after being allowed to leave Moscow - six years after her husband defected to Britain while working as the KGB chief in London. He concluded that he withstood the questioning, but also realized his position was as precarious as ever. He woke at 3.30am on the train, on the compartment floor and covered in blood. In the boot, Gordievsky felt a judder as the Ford picked up speed. The foreign secretary [Sir Geoffrey Howe] wants to give up. They stared, open-mouthed, as the two British cars drove by, their faces registering a mixture of confusion and relief. Your password has been reset. Play it now! If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material. Send me the weekly Top of Mind newsletter. Aleksander: The pantheon of world-changing spies is small and select, and Oleg Gordievsky is in it: he opened up the inner workings of the KGB at a pivotal juncture in history, revealing not just what Soviet intelligence was doing (and not doing), but what the Kremlin was thinking and planning, and in so doing transformed the way the West thought about the Soviet Union. Ames knew he was issuing a death warrant for every person he named, but that, he reasoned, was the only way to ensure that he would be safe, and rich, Macintyre writes. Gordievsky met "Dick", a British agent. (modern), Oleg Gordievsky says he is the only agent to defect from the KGB in the 1980s to survive. Hetman the codename under which Gordievsky operated had disclosed that at least 25 Russian and east European diplomats based in London were spies. Oleg Gordievsky, Soviet spy and double agent. Already, as they sped on the highway out of Moscow, KGB surveillance cars routinely tucked in behind them. Gordievsky crawled into the undergrowth to wait. Airport officials said the British. "I was surrounded by woodland where I laid down waiting for the diplomatic car of the [British] embassy. He took with him a backup escape plan written by British spy John Scarlett, the man who went on to become "M," the head of MI6. If Gordievsky found himself in trouble he was told to arm himself with a Safeway shopping bag and stand at a certain central Moscow street corner at exactly 7.30pm on a Tuesday. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images Please check your email and click the link provided to verify your account. In the USSR, he was sentenced to death in absentia for treason. 32 never-before-seen variants have been detected in 13 states - and they are so mutated they could trigger 'concerning' outbreaks, Houston holds week-long NUCLEAR training exercise led by the FBI and the military to learn how best to deal with a nuke dropped on a US city, CBS 'was LOSING as much as $20 million a year on James Corden's The Late Late Show' where he earned up to $5M a year: 'The network couldn't afford him anymore', Scientists discover what happens seconds before you die - activity in the brain and heart RAMPS UP, Canceled? Enter a new email. She was presented with a memorandum, rated top secret and strictly personal, by Charles Powell, her foreign affairs adviser. This brutal attack on innocent people made me hate [my own country], he later wrote. Shortly after 8am, they crossed into the complete safety of Norway, a Nato country. The book focuses on Oleg Gordievsky, the double agent who helped prevent nuclear war, and Aldrich Ames, the American turncoat who likely betrayed him. Slipping into the crowd, he bought bread and sausage at a stall. At 2:20 a.m. two cars with two drivers arrived. He risked his life to betray his country, and helped to avert a full scale nuclear confrontation. Gordievsky was forced to leave his second wife Leila and their two children behind in the USSR. 776 pp. On May 16, 1985, Oleg Gordievsky, the K.G.B.'s top spy in London, opened a telegram from his bosses in Moscow. London, May 17, 1985: Oleg Gordievsky was at the pinnacle of his career. Click here to find out more. "Yeltsin enjoyed embarrassing the KGB," the former KGB man said. A double agent for MI6, Oleg Gordievsky helped avert a nuclear confrontation and bring about the end of the Cold War. Their relationship did not last their enforced separation. "It was all arranged ahead of time," Gordiyevsky said 30 years later in an interview with RFE/RL's Russian Service at his two-floor house in a town near London. Gates Notes will never share and distribute your information with external parties. He likens post-communist Russia under Putin to Mussolini's Italy. 2.30 passed. The future defector entered the KGBs First Chief Directorate in 1962, at the peak of the Cold War between the Western and Socialist blocks. The First Directorate was responsible for covert operations abroad, foreign intelligence and management of covert agents. Doris Kearns Goodwins brilliant biography of Abraham Lincoln is more relevant than ever. Oleg Gordievsky in 1980, when he was still a double-agent At five o'clock on a Friday afternoon on July 19, 1985, a short, thick-set man in a worn jacket and corduroy trousers stepped out of a . In 1991, Boris Yeltsin agreed to allow Gordievskys wife and daughters to join him in UK. In 2010, 10 Russian agents, including the glamorous Anna Chapman, were caught in the US, and swapped for a Russian scientist convicted of working for Washington. The job promised benefits other Soviet people did not get. Blake's and Gordievsky's careers mirror each other: Gordievsky lives on a civil service pension in the home counties; Blake on a KGB pension in Moscow. Deactivating your account will unsubscribe you from Gates Notes emails, and will remove your profile and account information from public view on the Gates Notes. He had been suspiciously summoned to Moscow. The KGB colonel knew his cover was almost blown. He was on the run. In 1991, Boris Yeltsin agreed to allow Gordievsky's wife and daughters to join him in UK. A strident figure of a man, Alexander Litvinenko widow accuses William Hague of sabotaging inquest. Passing multiple Soviet checkpoints, the British agents relied on the diplomatic plates for the cars not to be checked at the border crossings. As we described on Saturday, in the first part of a major new serialisation, KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky was recruited by Britain's MI6 as a double-agent while serving in the Soviet embassy in. Miraculously he had come in from the cold. "Leonid Brezhnev was nothing special. Yelena Akopian, his first wife. Tom Balmforth covers Russia and other former Soviet republics from his base in Moscow. Gates Notes may send a welcome note or other exclusive Insider mail from time to time. They include a famous oligarch. Oleg Gordievsky is widely recognized as one of the most damaging double agents in the history of Soviet espionage. If youve changed your mind about deleting your account, you can always hit cancel and deactivate instead. They sacked him from his job in London, but weve decided you may stay in the KGB, in a non-operational department. Instead, it was assumed that Gordievsky must have killed himself. "I wanted to work for British intelligence and was looking for a chance to do so.". Covert surveillance photographs of Oleg Gordievsky taken by the Danish intelligence service PET during his postings to Copenhagen. Gordievsky was bright, athletic, and adept at learning foreign languages, all of which helped him get into the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations, sometimes called the Russian Harvard. Even before graduation, he was recruited into the KGB and began his rise up the hierarchy. The last date is today's date the date you are citing the material. As well as career officers, the embassy runs a network of "informers", who are not officially employed, Gordievsky said, but regularly pass on useful information. My task was to outlast [the effect of drugs]. Thousands of young Leftists from 157 countries were pouring into Moscow for the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students. Gordievsky, a KGB Colonel became the highest ranking defector in the Cold War when he first started spying for and later escaped to Britain. When Mikhail Gorbachev visited Britain in 1984, Gordievsky was secretly briefing both sides: with the guidance of MI6, he was telling the Russians what to say to the British, and simultaneously warning the British what the Soviet delegation would say to them. It can only signal weakness to the Russians and encourage them to escalate their counter-threats.. If the enemy has spies in your camp, and you have spies in his, the world may be a little safer, but essentially you end up where you started, somewhere on the arcane and unquantifiable spectrum of I know that you know that I know. Read all Directors David O'Neill Gareth Lewis Writer The final hurdle was passport control itself. He took no souvenir photographs with him or other emotional mementoes. Goldplatz - German's code name for MI5. "It was an open secret in the Soviet embassy. They. He was appointed to the Soviet embassy in London. These were his British rescue team. Do not sell or share my personal information. KGB Colonel turned Double Agent Oleg Gordievsky has spent ten years spying for Britain's secret service, MI6. The breaking of the Enigma code shortened the Second World War by at least a year. In 1966 Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison and defected to the Soviet Union. Read today's latest news on the topic Oleg Gordievsky: Thatcher Lunched With Top Russian KGB Agent, Papers Reveal, (modern), Oleg Gordievsky in London in 1991. In the wake of the Skripal poisonings, Gordievskys security measures were reinforced. But somehow he sensed a recruitment opportunity. However, the arrest of a CIA turncoat cast a shadow on Gordievsky and made his superiors in Moscow suspicious of his true allegiance. Gordievsky on the Baltic coast with Mikhail Lyubimov, a Russian novelist and retired colonel in the KGB. I went to cemeteries where I looked for graves of newborns, visited priests to get books of birth and death registrations, said Gordievsky in one of many interviews he gave after his defection to Britain. Mrs Thatcher later described Gorbachev as a man one could do business with. The business breakthrough was made possible, in part, by Gordievsky. By now, the two British cars had reached the militarised border area and the first of three Russian checkpoints. Gordievsky has little contact with his two grown-up daughters, Maria and Anna, or his ex-wife Leila. Within an hour Gordiyevsky was at Moscow's Leningrad train station, where he bought tickets to Leningrad before travelling by suburban electric train to Zelenogorsk. THE two MI6 cars, a Saab and a Ford Sierra, had been followed all the way from Moscow. When British intelligence officer Michael Bethany contacted the KGB with an offer of cooperation and passed sensitive documents, the KGB resident in London dismissed the offer, thinking it was a trap set by MI5. Not seeing your comment? The couple divorced soon thereafter. Oleg Gordievsky is widely recognized as one of the most damaging double agents in the history of Soviet espionage. After he sobered up at home, Oleg Gordiyevsky turned to his last resort -- an emergency escape plan devised by the British intelligence services that was hidden in invisible ink in a collection of Shakespeare sonnets. Their wives, Caroline and Rachel, remained with the cars, trying to look casual. Gordievskys very brilliance was his undoing. He was interrogated, drugged and accused of being a traitor. The prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was informed about the impending crisis in UK/Russian relations. Ive got a nice lady waiting for me in one of them, he explained. He shot off, waited at the side of the road further on, and then joined the column at the back. Spy in London, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/07/world/soviet-turmoil-family-joins-kgb-spy-in-london.html. It was in Denmark that the British MI6 approached the young Soviet undercover intelligence officer, who, it turned out, was himself seeking an opportunity to serve the crown. Thirty Years Later, Soviet-Era MI6 Double Agent Describes Escape From KGB. All. He had exactly one-and-a-half hours to make the journey by foot to Moscows Leningrad Station, dry-cleaning as he went, slipping this way and that, breaking into a jog at times, all to throw off his KGB tail. From there, he jumped on a bus to Vyborg. This lasted for four hours while the interrogation went on, said Gordievsky. During an interview Thursday on Britains Independent Television News, the former KGB officer watched footage from Moscow of his wife, and saw pictures of his daughters, Maria and Anna. They surrounded the English: 'Right, that's it, now they're going to arrest us,' they thought. Movies. My soul was aching. He began to question all the Soviet dogma that he had been learning since birth. Bill may send you a welcome note or other exclusive Insider mail from time to time. What's more, Gordievsky had to make the heartbreaking choice of whether to leave behind his wife and two young daughters. For example, the officers of the First Directorate had a unique opportunity to live and work abroad in countries of the capitalist block. Ten miles along, they passed the Ladas by the side of the road, their drivers in conversation with five militiamen. Even though 1918 was a very different time from today,The Great Influenzais a good reminder that we're still dealing with many of the same challenges. Many felt Russia's blundering espionage ring was more of a joke than a threat to US security. "They were able to get out of the KGB escorts sight behind a curve for a mere minute. He walks with a stick and is stooped, following an episode five years ago in which he says he was poisoned. In 1982, Oleg Gordievsky started working in London under diplomatic cover. I was hardly able not to lose the remainder of my clear mind. Anyone can read what you share. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. 'I was supposed to die,' he says. Gordievsky began helping British intelligence in 1974. Then a distinctive gush, as he decanted his lunchtime beers into the bottle. Is it just a Western bias? Aldrich Ames, in contrast, was an insecure man who betrayed his country purely for money. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2023 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved. It would require only a phone call from the Soviet side to stop them even now. In 2008, however, Gordievsky claims he was poisoned in the UK. The options are a) 25, b) 9 with 16 others required to leave, c) 9 (foreign secretarys preference). Thatchers blue pen had circled 25. He cut his speed from 70mph to 30mph and then 25mph. Fast asleep on sedatives, hed apparently fallen out of his bunk. Reaching for a sip of his beer, Gordievsky described the treacherous Blake as "effective". He mentions George Blake a British spy who was a double agent for Moscow. Another 14 work for GRU [Russian military intelligence]," Gordievsky told the Guardian. Thank you for being a Gates Notes Insider. We'd like your feedback. Saboteurs wreck Russian train cut power cables 37mi from Ukraine, Woman dancing in the street films moment gunman opens fire, 'We're not your enemies!' Upon returning to the USSRs capital, Gordievsky faced interrogation from his superior, General Grushko. 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