81. The Man Who Saved The World: Abandoning Communism (Ep 2)

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The poison of European life had entered my system.

Back in Moscow, I was shocked to find how shabby everything seemed.

It was impossible to forget that over there, another life was going on, better than ours in every respect.

Not just more colorful and attractive in material terms, but full of intellectual vigor and fired by the twin flames of freedom and democracy.

When, once again, I saw the cues, the shortages, the filthiness of public lavatories, the bureaucracy, the corruption, the red tape, the rudeness of officials, the impossibility of obtaining redress when one had a complaint, when I saw all this, I felt physically ill.

Well, welcome to the Rest is Classified.

I'm David McCloskey.

And I'm Gordon Carrera.

And that is the writing of Oleg Gordievsky, KGB officer, spy for Britain's MI6, that is coming from his autobiography, the wonderful title Next Stop Execution.

And he is describing the sort of inner turmoil that he feels as he has returned to Moscow from his time in Denmark.

He's gotten a taste, a taste of freedom and openness in the West.

And he is now secretly, completely disillusioned with the Soviet regime that he is officially serving.

Now, when we last left him, Gordon, he had really, I think, tried to send a very delicate signal to the Danes that he might be interested in someone making contact with him.

But of course, it went nowhere and he is back in Moscow in an unhappy marriage, unhappy with the politics around him.

But...

But he has now come to the attention of none other than your secret intelligence service, Gordon, SIS or MI6.

That's right.

And so he is back in Moscow.

He doesn't know that he's come to the attention of MI6.

And he's wondering how long he's going to be stuck there for, you know, what his options might be.

And then I think we'll see in this story, there are a few kind of lucky breaks, some big and some small.

And this is one of them, because in 1971, something's going to happen in British-Soviet relations, which will have kind of ripple effects into Gordievsky's story.

That year, a KGB officer called Oleg Lealin defects.

There's a very good book coming out now by Richard Kabarge, which is on this case of this defector.

We should do it as a story sometime because it's a slightly crazy story of a defector who's ostensibly a knitwear representative for the Soviet trade delegation in Britain, which is such a good cover.

The knitwear guys are always, it's always a cover slot, isn't it?

The knitwear guys always spies.

Especially when he's really a KGB officer who's been trained in the deadly arts of sabotage and assassination.

It's almost like deliberately a joke.

I'm part of a department which deals with things like sabotaging British infrastructure.

So things like blowing up and flooding the underground and assassinating defectors.

So anyone who thought that kind of Russian activity was new, Lee Allen was kind of revealing back in 1971 when he defects to the British that they've got all these plans for it.

So it was a big deal at the time, I think.

They were going to blow up the underground?

I guess this is a contingency plan, right?

This isn't like.

Exactly.

This isn't a day-to-day.

Let's just blow it up no it was more in the event of conflict they had a set of plans of what to blow up who to assassinate and they were hunting down defectors and things like that he passes oleglian and all this stuff to mi5 about it and as a result you get a massive expulsion of Soviet intelligence officers, something called Operation Foot.

105

are expelled in one go.

And at that time, it is the biggest expulsion of any time ever in history of Soviet intelligence officers.

MI5 have been struggling to cope with the sheer volume of Soviet intelligence activity in Britain.

But now they've got their expulsion.

They'll be able to get a bit more of a handle on it.

It's a disaster, obviously, for the KGB,

but not for Gordievsky, because we'll remember the close links between Denmark and Britain.

And the Danes, as part of the wave of expulsions, also expelled three diplomats.

from the Soviet embassy in Copenhagen.

And so suddenly, in late 1971, much quicker than might have been expected, there's this possibility of Oleg returning to fill one of these gaps created by the expulsion.

Now, the problem here is that he needs to get transferred to a different department of the KGB out of the illegals directorate, which isn't easy.

And here, sadly, a kind of family tragedy helps him because his KGB officer brother, older brother, dies.

And he dies of alcohol-related poisoning, aged just 39.

Wow.

I mean, I think he'd done quite a few interesting, quite deep cover missions for the KGB, but he'd also been an alcoholic wreck.

He dies young.

There's a big military funeral ending with a cremation.

At the end of it, a party boss says, Now let us say farewell to Oleg Antonovich.

Oh, and then he realizes he's got the wrong brother, Vasily Antonovich Gordievsky.

Oleg snaps to attention right there, thinking they've got me.

They've heard about my gay porn mags in Denmark.

So the floor opens up, the coffins go down, the shots are fired over the cremation, and the national anthem is played.

Some of the family didn't even know he'd work for the KGB.

So it's a shock for Oleg, but crucially, it gets Oleg some sympathy from the bosses because he's been arguing about trying to shift departments so he can get into that Danish embassy position.

And I think his brother's death helps with that.

So he's able to move into what's called Line PR, which is political reporting, which is the slot open in Copenhagen.

So he's got the chance to go back.

This time he's undercover as a press attaché, developing contacts, trying to spread Soviet messages, talk to people in politics.

Yelena is still his wife.

You know, we heard last time, not an easy marriage, quite cool.

Are they not faithful to one another?

Not clear that

unfaithful.

We don't know, actually.

I mean, it's interesting.

I think Oleg definitely, you get the sense he has an...

eye for women, but you also don't get a sense he's one of those people who's constantly philandering.

I think it is possibly back to his quite focused and disciplined nature.

So, you know, their marriage is a bit difficult, but she's going to go out as well.

She's going to be a transcriber for the KGB.

Interestingly enough, also out there is going to be his old friend, Mikhail Lubimov, Smiley Mike as MI5.

Smiley Mike.

He's going to be the resident.

He's going to be the top KGB official in Denmark.

Yeah.

So he's going to come out soon after, not immediately, but soon after, as, yeah, the top KGB official in Denmark.

And so the two men are going to resume their friendship, long walks in the Danish woods.

Lou Bimov has his own office where he hangs portraits of his twin heroes who are Lenin and Kim Philby.

Okay,

because he's good friends with Kim Philby, because, you know, who wouldn't be if you're a KGB officer who loves Britain?

And he's often sending little gifts back to Philby, jars of marmalade, whiskey.

He sends a book of 19th-century erotic pictures to Philby.

As you do.

So Gordievsky is Lou Bimov's right-hand man, you know, looks entirely loyal, respectful, tells him what he's up to when he goes off to play badminton, which is the new sport he's into.

Lubimov has no idea that, you know, his close friend is also desperate to do something about his hatred for the KGB.

So he's become convinced, as we've talked about, that the Soviet system is a lie.

It's a danger to the world.

He's come to genuinely believe in that kind of democracy and freedom of the West and that the Soviet Union is a threat to that and that the KGB in particular is a threat to it.

And he wants to help the KGB's enemies to basically stop it.

So he's got this desire to do it.

But how do you do it?

You know, how do you get in touch with the other side?

I think he's smart enough to know just walking up to one of their embassies and being a walk-in is a little risky.

It's risky, it might be spotted.

He's a KGB officer himself.

He understands the game and how difficult it is to play it.

So he's not going to make some kind of rash move.

He sees British and American diplomats at embassy parties and he kind of wonders, you know, maybe I could approach them.

But at this stage, he doesn't speak great English.

And I think that's one of the problems because he's not sure how easy it will be to communicate with them.

He's a little bit stuck.

But then, fortunately for him, the other side makes his move because MI6 had been aware of him, as we heard last time, because of traces from another defector.

because of the gay porn mags the Danes have told him about.

And so they're aware of his return and they decide they're going to team up with the danes what is the relationship between the danes and british intelligence in this period because obviously they're they're they're talking they seem to be sharing a good amount of information to kind of help each other target russians but i'm just it seems close it seems like a very close and friendly relationship i think they are sharing a lot of information i think the danes also know they don't necessarily have the experience to recruit and run kgb officers i think you know that that is the top of the game, isn't it, in the intelligence world, is to do something like that.

Why didn't they call the CIA then, Gordon?

Well, David, I think it's...

Here's the first chance to discuss the CIA.

If one was to read the accounts of this period, it would suggest that the Danes find MI6 a lot easier to work with than the CIA.

I can't imagine why.

There is a view from certain European services that the CIA, the big guns, think of themselves as the big beasts, you know, with their big Stetson hats.

Anyway, the CIA, the chief of station in Copenhagen is wearing a Stetson around

swaggering around.

Yeah.

I don't think he really was.

I'm sorry if

you were CIA standards.

We've besmirched the

CIS.

That is CIS Copenhagen from the late 19th century.

That's how.

It's slightly seen by some of the European services, which is that the Americans are the big guys and they will ride a bit roughshod over some of the local services.

So in other words, if you tell the Americans, hey, we've got a potential interesting guy who's coming to town, they'll be like, great, he's ours.

Off you go, you know,

and lock them out.

Now, that may be unfair.

May not be true now.

I think that's unfair.

I think that's unfair.

Unbiased, but I feel it's deeply unfair.

And merely reflect the accounts of the time, which suggests that was the view of some European services.

So don't blame the messenger.

So MI6 have worked out.

He's back.

They're in touch with the Danes.

You know, an MI6 officer talks to Gordievsky at the party, but doesn't seem to lead anything.

They try and put someone to his path who also plays badminton at a party to see if that's going to work and he's going to want to play a game that doesn't work.

Then the next move is interesting.

Gordievsky gets a knock at his door.

And who is it?

It's his Czech friend, the runner.

Who would defect it?

Yeah.

This is a frightening guy to appear on your...

Yeah.

doorstep, right?

That seems a little risky.

Yeah.

It's pretty forward-leaning, isn't it?

It is pretty forward-leaning.

I mean, obviously, if Gordievsky is being watched at that moment, which he would have to assume he is, I suppose he can explain this guy showing up.

And he, of course, doesn't have any foreknowledge of it, but the Russians would know that this guy had defected, right?

So there could be real questions put to Gordievsky about why this guy showed up.

Yeah, and he's got a cover story.

So he's not.

overtly pitching him.

He's saying he now works for an insurance company.

You know, he comes up with a roundabout story to explain why he happens to be in Denmark and chooses chooses to drop by.

You know, I mean, it all seems a little bit, you know, Gordievsky can tell this is not chance or a social call, but it's not clear to him who's sounding him out or what's going on.

And it's clear that it's pretty dangerous because what if a colleague spots him?

MI6 are just kind of tapping him a little bit and seeing what happens.

And so the two of them, the Czech guy and Gordievsky, agree to have lunch the next day.

At the lunch, Gordievsky is still very careful.

He's kind of non-committal.

So it's still a bit of a dance.

No one's showing their hand.

Non-committal about what, though?

I think about his politics and his views.

So I think he's still pretty...

He's got that barrier, that kind of, you know, double thig barrier, which I think it's pretty hard to let down until you're sure.

So then the next move, which is going to be a crucial one, is MI6 make their move at one of Gordievsky's regular badminton games.

So he plays regularly, middle of the game, this guy appears at the side of the court in an overcoat, and Gordievsky recognises him as a British diplomat and he probably suspects an MI6 man.

And it's pretty brazen, isn't it?

What it tells you is partly MI6 were kind of interested in him.

They were wondering what he was.

They were tapping him up a little bit.

But I don't think they were going

really covert, really careful, because I think they're just kind of, he might be interesting.

Let's see what we can get out of him.

Because the MI6 guy says, I'd like to have a private conversation with you, you know somewhere where we wouldn't be overheard now that's a pretty it's not quite saying i'm a spy but it's it's starting to get there isn't it i think this is a fascinating contrast with the dance between oleg gorievsky and

british intelligence and the dance between adolf tolkachev and the cia because remember tolkachev is a he's an engineer in moscow he has absolutely no reason to interact with any americans period so he's got to do some really

I mean, he has to do some things that are subtle, but also quite brazen on the street to alert the Americans to his interest in working with them, right?

Whereas here with Oleg,

he actually has natural cover to interact with

the Brits because

presumably Oleg's whole job in Copenhagen is to try to recruit intelligence officers.

I mean, not just Danes, but I mean, if Oleg could recruit a British intelligence officer,

that would be brilliant, right?

So in a way, the MI6 man showing up in the overcoat and saying, let's have a private conversation.

I mean, Oleg can then go back to the KGB and say, this guy wants to meet discreetly and frame it as Oleg himself trying to recruit this guy, right?

So he's got natural cover for, I mean, probably.

a number of conversations right there with British intelligence.

You know, it's natural, but it's also well played on Oleg's part, I think.

It's a really, really good good point, I think.

They're going to agree on lunch, and Oleg is going to tell the KGB.

You're right.

You know, he's going to tell his colleagues and ask for permission to see them.

And it is a kind of classic play, isn't it?

Because it means you can make sanctioned contact on the basis that you're going to maybe recruit him.

And it's quite interesting because the MI6 guy is going to think, maybe Oleg is trying to recruit me.

Sure, maybe, you know,

maybe, maybe I've got this wrong and he's not interested in becoming a spy for us.

He thinks I'm...

So, you know, there's this really interesting dance between the two of them because over lunch they meet they talk but kind of again very warily and the mi6 officer says you know of course you'll write a report about our meeting and gordievsky says yes i will but i'll write it in such a way that nothing serious will be said in it now that again is just that hint so he's saying yeah i'm going to tell my bosses at the KGB about it, but I'm not going to,

you know, I'm going to make it sound very low-key as if nothing happened.

Neither side has showed their hand properly, but they're making it clear they want to keep talking.

But it goes on for a year.

And this is the bit, you know, when you talk to people, is crazy.

So they've nearly reeled in their catch.

Gordievsky is there wanting to do it.

And he gets nothing from them for nearly a year from British intelligence.

He says they were quite timid, his O legs.

But one person I spoke to who knew the case very well told me he finds it actually pretty astonishing and a bit of a screw-up that they didn't follow follow up.

MI6 kind of just, you know, lose track of it and don't kind of make that final pitch to him.

To be fair, we're looking at this with all of the advantages of like how the case played out and understanding Oleg Gordievsky's psychology to a degree that was absolutely unknowable at the time, perhaps even to Oleg himself.

So, on the one hand, you think this is a KGB staff officer, and maybe you just take your swing, right?

Because you've got him in private conversations.

You know that he's willing to do that, right?

He's willing to kind of meet with you discreetly, that he's maybe not communicating everything that's said to his superiors.

So you think maybe you just take your pitch.

On the other hand, he's part of a large pool of potential recruits that are out there globally at this point for MI6.

I guess

you have to kind of look at it through both lenses.

But it does seem.

It does seem surprising that there wasn't a little bit more

behind it.

Yeah.

And I guess the other bit, which is context, is they did worry he was a dangle.

Classic.

You know, it's a classic thing, isn't it?

And a dangle, we should say, is when, you know, one service dangles someone in front of the other to make them think that this person is offering themselves up to be recruited, is actually loyal to their own service.

And it's just basically being used to run rings around them, identify their officers, you know, waste time.

And this is the period after the kind of great mole hunts.

MI6 has been played pretty badly.

There's been mole hunts through the 60s and, you know, into the early 70s and MI6.

There's quite a lot of distrust.

There's kind of a lot of caution about how do you run Soviet cases?

Are they just dangling in us?

Can we do it?

And I think there is also that element where MI6 maybe just lacks the sight confidence to kind of really follow this through and the slight fear that, okay, we might be being played.

So I think that it's that legacy of Kim Philby and others, which is still, I think, hanging over MI6 in this period.

But yeah, there's this long break.

Then October 1974, the same MI6 man appears at the Badminton Court again.

And it turns out he's soon to be leaving Copenhagen.

And I think it's just a question of him thinking, I'll just check in again on that Russian.

And that conversation was, you know, went a bit nowhere last time.

But just in case, I'll go have one more go at him.

Finally.

They start to meet in a bar at an upmarket hotel and they begin to just open up that bit more.

Gordievsky, I think probably that delay has made him more sure that he wants to do it and that he's got to kind of be a bit more forward-leaning.

And, you know, the MI6 man says, now, Mr.

Gordievsky, it's dangerous to meet here.

Gordievsky's kind of understanding.

This is becoming more clandestine.

And Gordievsky says, well, the Russians don't come here.

Now, the fact he's saying that, you know, that's a, you're starting to cross the line, aren't you?

It's so subtle, though, isn't it?

I mean, it's, he's crossed a line.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely has.

Because the resident, I mean, even if it's his friend, Lubimov, they're going to wonder, if you wrote this up down to last detail, you would ask, why are you meeting in this bar?

This isn't a, you know, so it's very subtle, but it's, I think, a way for him to signal that he's ready to cross a line.

And the MI6 man at one point says, you know, in these early conversations, you're KGB.

And then he says, to Olog, you know, tell me then, who's the PR line deputy in the station?

And Gordievsky just stares and goes, I am.

You know, it's me.

You clearly didn't know that.

So they start to meet, you know, a restaurant now on the outskirts of Copenhagen.

And Oleg will now pass the point of no return because he'll say he's not telling the KGB about these meetings.

So clearly now they are moving to the fully clandestine as he starts to meet next in a series of meetings in flats and begins to talk.

And, you know, this is the moment he'll tell me this later when I speak to him about it.

This is the moment he now knows he has crossed the line line into being an agent.

It's moved in this kind of brief period.

And then there's a kind of, you know, one of those weird obstacles.

That MI6 officer is leaving.

So he introduces the new MI6 officer who's going to be, you know, looking after him.

And the meeting is a disaster.

It's so interesting because, you know, here you go.

Again, you think MI6 have got this guy reeled in, a KGB officer.

They don't understand.

They've actually got someone who's going to be one of their greatest agents ever.

And this guy is pushy.

He seems vain.

Gordievsky's English isn't great.

So they're speaking together in German.

And Gordievsky is also kind of probably thinking to himself, why didn't they send a Russian speaker?

You know, this is a bit weird.

He's hostile.

He's pushing Gordievsky with kind of question after question about KGB operations.

And Oleg is just thinking, why is this guy so aggressive?

I came with an open soul is how he thinks about it.

You know, he's desperate to do damage to the KGB and Spy for the West.

And all he's getting is, you know, a kind of a hostile interrogation, it feels.

And he feels really disappointed at that.

It's really,

really bad, actually.

Is this a bad cop approach to see if Gordievsky is the real deal?

Or is it just a brash case officer who doesn't understand how to work this Russian?

I don't think it's great handling.

And it's only, I think, decades later Gordievsky will learn the reasons for the aggression.

He meets this case officer years later, and this case officer actually confesses that he thought Gordievsky was a double agent.

He thinks he's a dangle, he's a plant.

He was filing reports saying that.

And from the start to the finish, I thought you were an agent provocateur.

You know, he's going to later tell Gordievsky.

So he's basically just can't believe this guy is...

is the real deal.

And so he's just pushing him and interrogating him to see if he can expose that.

I mean, this is one of MI6's greatest cases, but they do nearly blow it at the start.

Seems to be a theme of great cases, though, is that the intelligence services, it was the same with Torkachev, right?

I mean, the agency, agency, I mean, basically nearly sent him away or tried to send him away, like on multiple occasions.

So it's mad, isn't it?

These services are not so great at just accepting volunteers, essentially.

They're so attuned to the dangle and to the kind of plant and the game, aren't they?

That they can't sometimes believe that when they get the real deal, that it's the real deal.

Oleg has, you know, he's so committed personally.

He's going to keep going.

And he says he's got three conditions.

He doesn't want to hurt his colleagues in the KGB station in Copenhagen.

It's kind of an interesting condition.

I mean, you think of Lubimov, you know, he's his friend.

Yeah.

He doesn't want to be photographed and recorded, and he doesn't want any money.

And that actually kind of slightly worries the MI6 guy because money, you know, if you're running an agent, money is good, isn't it?

You know, you want to be giving it money on the whole.

Gives you some control, right?

I mean, gives you a...

a connection that will immediately bind you to them and them to you.

You would want some transaction as part of this.

Yeah.

And frankly, it seems a little odd that

he doesn't want some money as a demonstration of his value at all, even a kind of modest amount.

What do you think is behind that?

It is the fact that he is ideological.

The classic thing about why someone becomes an agent is, you know, mice, money, ideology, compromise, ego.

He doesn't want the money.

It's not compromised.

Got a bit of an ego, but not that much.

It really is, and I think that's why Gordievsky is interesting.

It really is ideology.

He wants people to know that.

That's why I think he's setting out these conditions.

He's desperate to show it and to prove it to them, which is why he wants to set it out as in terms of conditions.

We'll be there, Gordon, with Oleg Gordievsky in the pillowy embrace of British intelligence.

Let's take a break.

When we come back, we'll see how he gets on as a spy.

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Cono ju las crucientes and

lo niños les encanta.

As más delicios es trosos de grandola, nuces

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Well, welcome back.

Oleg Gordievsky has been recruited by British intelligence, SIS MI6.

And now, Gordon, I guess we're in the part of the dance where both sides are trying to work out how this relationship will actually function.

MI6, you know, they've got their man and they're going to fly someone out to Copenhagen once a month.

They're going to meet in a safe flat over a weekend, fairly basic flat.

They're working with the Danes again, who've wired the place for sound.

And also, that's going to help in case, you know, stop the Danes accidentally putting him under surveillance and blowing him.

They've already broken one of his conditions, though.

He doesn't want to be photographed or recorded, right?

And they're like, well, okay, we'll meet you in this flat and you will be photographed and recorded.

I wonder if he really expected that.

I mean, he's going to end up breaking all three of its conditions ultimately.

But I guess he wanted to set them out, but they broke one straight away.

He would have to assume that they're going to record him.

Yeah.

But the intelligence starts to flow.

And once MI6 in London start to see what's coming back and the volume and the quality of it, they change their mind about the idea maybe he's a dangle or, you know, playing a game with them.

You know, it's just too good.

Particularly, he's got lots of real insights into illegals and how how the KGB created these false identities because, of course, that was his job.

It is interesting, but they still seem to fail to understand the depth of his ideological conversion.

And so, you know, the case officer still brings out newspaper cuttings about how bad the Soviet Union is.

He's like, I get it, man.

I live there.

Yeah.

He's like, I understand.

There's no toilet paper.

Yeah, they're bad.

I know it.

And, you know, they don't seem to appreciate how deep-seated his beliefs are.

His view that the Soviet system has stifled freedom and is kind of cruel to its own people.

And he wants to bring it down.

There's a really interesting letter which he actually writes to the chief of MI6 and he gives to one of his case officers, and there'll be a couple in this period, to take back to the chief to see.

I mean, I'll just read from it.

He says, My decision is not the result of irresponsibility or instability of character.

It's been preceded by a long spiritual struggle and by agonizing emotion.

But even deeper disappointments at developments in my country and my own experiences have brought me to the belief that democracy and the tolerance and humanity which follow it represent the only road for my country.

If a man realizes this, he must show the courage of his convictions and do something himself.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Wow.

You know, he's trying to say basically, I've been through this struggle and I want to do it.

There's going to be a softening of his relationship with that case officer who he clearly didn't get on with very well at the first one.

And then two years later, he's replaced by actually an officer who was involved in a case from the very start and spotting him and who's a kind of real Russia specialist.

He's going to be passing microfilm messages from Moscow, which can be copied.

He goes into telephone kiosks, you know, appears to be making a call.

Someone comes by and stops and asks for directions and in that moment passes them a film.

He'll start to identify people in the KGB station.

So again, he's now breaking his own rule.

You know, he's reporting on his colleagues.

And he takes a little bit of money, not a huge amount, but into a UK bank account.

So I guess he's now on the path.

You know, this is what's involved.

And it's interesting, there's not that many agents that the KGB are running in Denmark.

There are some in Norway.

There's one rising star in politics who he says is working for the KGB.

There's another lesser one, a lesser agent who gets arrested.

And that causes him a bit of anxiety.

But back at the embassy, you know, old friend Smiley Mike Lubimov doesn't suspect a thing.

I have a bit of sympathy for Smiley Mike, but you know.

Yeah, I do too.

Mostly just because he seems so affable and smiley.

Yeah, and an anglophile.

And an anglophile, yeah, to boot.

I get the sense, though, that the way that he's being run in this period is really patient and ultimately very smart, because it does seem like SIS is

trying to ensure that he can actually remain kind of in harness for a long period of time, right?

Yeah.

That they don't want want him to just, I guess, give names and then have people rolled up.

I mean, that does happen a bit here, but it doesn't seem like there's sort of a haste to the way that MI6 is running the case.

And maybe part of that is that he actually doesn't have a list of 25 agents that are all high profile, you know, operating throughout Scandinavia that the Brits can collect and then pass to local services to make arrests.

Maybe some of it is that the KGB seems to not have that much going on in Denmark, but it is, it's smart, right?

It's very patient.

Yeah, it's smart.

I guess there's two sides to that.

One is Gordievsky himself, I guess, is really disciplined.

He is a kind of very disciplined KGB officer, so he knows how to run this carefully and how to deal with it.

I also think MI6 are learning how to run KGB officers.

They've had a pretty rough period at MI6.

I'll say.

That's pretty mild.

It's British understatements.

In the 60s, you know, you've had Phil be aware of it.

We had a rough go at our entire service being turned inside out by the Russians.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they, I mean, fair point.

We've come back.

Fair point.

You had Kim Philby and George Blake exposed in the 60s as two, you know, senior MI6 officers who'd basically blown the organization.

And so I think if you look at the 60s, there is this view, which is, can we actually do this?

This is hard to run Soviet agents and really difficult.

And actually, I mean, we might come back to him later, but there's a very important character in the history of MI6 called Harold Shergold.

And Sherge, as he's known, who is a legendary within MI6.

And he is a guy who, through the 60s, will, I mean, he's involved in some cases, and we might come to them, which show that you can do it, but you have to be really disciplined.

And he, through the 60s, will be trying to rebuild MI6's capacity.

to run agents against the Soviet Union after the disasters, after the moles, after the mole hunts for non-existent moles inside the service.

And so I think that's one of the reasons Gordievsky is so important to MI6

is because it's going to show they can do it.

Get your mojo back.

Yeah, you've got your mojo back, you know, as a service.

For a while, I think they'd lost it.

I really think they'd lost it.

And Shergi and others have patiently rebuilt the service to be able to do it.

And Gordievsky is kind of the test case.

Speaking of mojo, Gordon, he meets a woman in 1977, Layla.

While still technically married to Yelena, he meets Layla.

She is half Russian, half Azeri.

Her father, now this is important, was a senior KGB officer.

Uh-oh.

She's a kind of journalist secretary, and she's come to Copenhagen with the World Health Organization.

They're introduced.

She's quite a bit younger, but they immediately fall for each other.

Interestingly enough, he does give us some kind of dissident literature to read, which suggests he's trying to work out, you know, what a public.

He's got questionable tastes when passing materials to his love interests.

First week we had the gay porn that he gave to his wife, and now he's giving dissident literature to his mistress.

Copy of the Gulag Archipelago.

Yeah, exactly.

That's actually odd, isn't it?

Oleg needs to censor himself in what he's giving to his paramours.

Give him some pushkin or, you know, Dostoevsky or something a bit more normal.

Give them anything.

Give them jewels and shoes.

Come on.

So he's still technically with Yelena, and that's the problem.

And of course, as we said, divorce is bad within the KGB.

So now...

This is also interesting.

He's leading this crazy life of two betrayals.

Because, you know, he's betraying the KGB working for MI6 and he's betraying Yelena to be with Leila.

You are correct.

But, but his marriage was already over, right?

It wasn't like they had like he and Yelena in the same way that he's a defector in place to the Soviet system.

He was sort of a defector in place to his marriage at that point as well.

But you're right.

Your point on double betrayal does stand because this guy's he's gotten himself in all kinds of pickles here by the mid-1970s.

Because I think Yelena is going to work out what's happening and there's another woman and they're arguing.

And, you know, and of course, course, the Brits are listening to them arguing because the flat is bugged.

And so they're going to go, is everything okay?

You know, is your, you know, he's leading a complicated life at this point.

I think it's, it's fair to say.

Does everyone have that flat bugged?

This is one of the interesting things I think that may have helped him in Denmark was that the Residentura, the KGB station in Denmark is not that large.

And it feels like it's a little bit, it's collegial.

It's not like a nest of vipers with everyone sort of spying on each other.

So it feels like he's not being monitored closely by the KGB when he's there, which obviously

makes it a lot easier for him to strike up a relationship with British intelligence.

But is the KGB listening to this too?

Or is it just the Brits who are listening to he and his wife arguing?

I think it's just the Brits and the Danes, yeah.

It's a complicated period, but eventually...

The tour is up and it's time to go back to Moscow.

And one of the problems as this is approaching is the possibility of divorce and what to do about the relationship.

As we said earlier, this is awkward in KGB circles.

Now, Lubimov, his good friend, his mate, Smiley Mike, is going to kind of try and help him.

And he's going to say, look, you know, this could be trouble.

And Lubimov has had his own marital.

issues.

And Lubimov is going to say, you know, be careful about this.

But I'll send reports back to Moscow saying you're a good candidate for promotion.

You're doing really good work.

There's a job coming up, which is a really good job, which is deputy head of the third department of the first chief directorate.

Now, what that bit of jargon means is first chief directorate is the KGB bit that spies abroad.

Third department is the bit that does kind of Britain and Scandinavia.

Deputy head, pretty good job.

So it's a pretty good prize, number two in the department, which does Britain and Scandinavia.

But there's rivals.

There's always rivals in the KGB.

It does sound like a particularly brutal, bureaucratic place.

And, you know, Nolig is seen as a bit young, a bit superior to get it.

But that's his hope.

But he goes back.

But the problem is the divorce.

So he's in the doghouse.

The wife he's divorcing works for the KGB.

That doesn't look good.

It's going to mean he's in trouble.

As I'm afraid for Lubimov as well.

Yeah, because you kind of previewed that Smiley Mike.

Smiley Mike had his own marital issues in this period.

Yeah, Smiley Mike, sadly, is himself going to get pushed out of the KGB because I think his second marriage has gone wrong because of an affair.

So I think Smiley Mike is too smiley.

And at this point, he's actually going to leave the KGB.

But what does he want to do on leaving the KGB?

What does a former intelligence officer decide they want to do when they've been pushed out of the intelligence service?

He decides he wants to be a novelist.

I mean, sound familiar?

I knew I liked Smiley Mike.

He's going to be a novelist.

He's going to use those great experiences.

I mean, who'd have thought you could do that?

Shocking.

It's shocking, Gordon.

But it's not the last time we'll hear from Lou B Mob and Smiley Mike.

He's not finished yet in this story.

He's going to come back, but he's out writing his novels, publisher on his back, saying, where's the next one?

Was he also doing a podcast?

I love my idea.

He'd probably have been great.

He'd be good.

I think it'd be good.

But Gorda Yevsky, he doesn't get the deputy job.

No, because of the divorce.

He's given a dull job in personnel.

Gets to marry Layla.

1979.

One daughter born in 1981, another a few years later.

He's learning English at this time, obviously, for obvious reason.

There is a scary moment where he's summoned to a meeting and he's told that Kim Philby, no less, has been looking at why a recent case in Norway was compromised.

And of course, it's one of the agents that he'd given away, Oleg.

And Philby comes to the conclusion there must have been a leak within the KGB.

And when he hears this in the meeting, Oleg is literally kind of pinching himself to stop himself.

blushing and he's feeling sick.

He knows it's one he gave away, but he gets away with it.

But here's what's interesting, I think, is what he's not doing in moscow is spying for the brits there are no meetings in moscow during the three or four years that he's back from copenhagen it's really interesting i think and it is basically you know we we talked a bit about how mi6 is being patient and had been scarred by the past i think that's why you know i think they are incredibly cautious about the risks to their prize agent by trying to run him in moscow what i do find interesting about this though, is that in the same period, the agency is starting to run Tolkachev in Moscow, inside.

Now, different cases.

Tolkachev, presumably as an engineer, would have had a little bit more maybe freedom of maneuver, less concern about being monitored internally, I suppose.

But it is interesting

that the Brits

don't even really, I mean, I'm sure they talked about it, but

it's not really seriously considered.

It's just kind of like, no, it's off the table.

We're not going to run him inside.

So I think the scars are there from the Penkovsky case.

Now, we should just briefly, we'll do Penkovsky definitely as a podcast.

For sure.

But he was a GRU, so a Russian military intelligence colonel, early 60s.

Offers himself up first to the Americans, who miss him,

and then the Brits.

And then the Brits and the Americans.

You have so much ammunition in these episodes, Gordon.

It's not even fair.

I just dropped it in.

It's a factual statement.

Jordan gets to speedbag me with various successes of

fish intelligence.

Yeah, exactly.

And then they run him jointly with a little bit of tension, Pankovsky, and he comes to London and Paris for meetings.

But when he goes back to Moscow, they try and run him in Moscow.

And there's actually quite a lot of tension between the CIA and MI6 about how to run him, how hard to push him.

Brilliant agent.

But he gets caught.

And he gets caught partly because he's meeting the wife of one of the MI6 officers for a kind of brush contact part.

And he's killed.

You know, he's executed.

I think it's the scars of that are still with MI6, which is running an agent in Moscow, and especially maybe one as sensitive as one inside the KGB.

You just don't want to get them killed.

That is what you're talking about.

I mean, you're talking about a death sentence if he's caught.

And so I do think they are playing the long game.

And maybe, I guess, thinking about it, your point about Tolkachev is Tolkachev, you've got to run him in Moscow because that's where he lives.

You know, know, that's your only option.

It's your only option.

He's never going overseas.

He's never going overseas.

Whereas with Gordievsky, you kind of know he's been overseas.

He'll probably get another posting at some point.

You can resume contact then.

So you've at least got that option, which you didn't have with Tolkachev.

So, yeah, I guess that explains it.

But, you know, I find it fascinating that you could just sit on a case for three years.

You let it go dormant for three years.

Three years.

Three years where there's no contact.

I mean, that's patience, isn't it?

You've got someone in the KGB and you're like, nope, not going to talk to him.

And I guess in this case, to add to the point on, you know, you know, he's going to come out at some point and be posted outside of the Soviet Union, because he works in the third department,

you have to wonder, obviously there's no certainty, but you have to wonder if SIS is kind of hoping this guy will end up in London, right, at some point, which would be a major.

major prize.

A major prize, yeah.

That's clearly what he wants.

He's learning English.

He wants to go for a post in Britain.

and he kind of starting to play the office politics you know he's buttering up the head of the british section who's a nasty character it sounds who gets kind of cigarettes and pornographic mags imported from the uk and diplomatic bags more porno mags kind of weird anyway weird kgb thing um oleg's also starting to read somerset maugh novels you know the ashendon series and others they're a bit out of fashion but they are actually kind of early 20th century spy novels.

He's translating reports from Kim Philby.

Never meets him though.

Philmby's spending his time helping the KGB and, you know, writing these reports.

KGB trying to keep Tim useful.

And then one of those strokes of luck, a vacancy opens up in London.

And news of this is in late 1981.

And Oleg realizes this is, you know, this is the prize.

This is the opportunity.

One person ahead of him is tapped up first to go there.

But when the Soviet foreign ministry apply for that person's visa, it's turned down.

The reason is the Brits know he's a spy.

That puts Oleg next in line.

But the question is, would he get a visa?

I think he might be able to, Gordon.

Spoiler alert.

Spoiler alert.

The Brits are going to give him a visa.

So, you know, of course, a visa application comes into Britain in the name of Oleg Gordievsky to join the Soviet mission in London.

And they're like, oh, you know, this is...

It's Christmas morning.

The party poppers go off at Russia House in SIS.

Although, interesting enough, again, they nearly screw it up because having been too cautious early on, now they're almost too eager because because they grant the visa in 22 days rather than the 30 which is the average because they're obviously so keen that seems like a mistake seems like

just wait a little bit longer just wait I mean it's you know again just a little mistake they have to pretend they don't know he's KGB because if they did he would be refused and it does raise some questions in Moscow because they're going like hmm oleg's got his visa fast and the Brits don't think he's KGB.

They've given him a visa.

Hmm, okay.

But, you know, anyway, there's a delay

before we can actually go out there.

It's just general British incompetence.

Yeah.

Basically.

Waiting on that, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So anyway, he's got to get his paperwork sorted.

He uses those months while he's preparing for the job, though, to study the files on Britain.

And this is, you know, this is great for him.

He's got the reason to go and say, oh, can I just go look at all the operational files or, you know, the ones he's allowed to see at least on British operations going back to understand it in preparation.

So he's reading there all about the kind of Cambridge spies, all about the agents that they've been running.

Finally, end of June, books his tickets.

Now, departure day is coming.

He's got his wife, he's got his two daughters who are two years old and six months.

So really young and too young to kind of really understand what's going on.

But at least for him and his wife, there's a degree of excitement.

His wife, of course,

his new wife has no idea.

that he's a spy for MI6 or he's done anything untoward, but he's kind of nervous and he's taught, you know, and he writes about this.

On the day he's leaving, he's making sandwiches for relatives for a kind of goodbye meal, and he cuts himself really deeply in his hand.

In his mind, this is just a sign of just how wired, how tense he is, because the reason is he knows he's going back into the ring when he goes back to Britain to spy.

Well, maybe there, Gordon, with Oleg Gordievsky bleeding from his hand with nervous energy and about to go back into the espionage game.

Let's end.

And when we come back next time, we will see how he starts spying again

in Great Britain.

But don't forget, if you want to get back in the ring straight away, you don't have to be cautious.

You don't have to wait three years to hear the end of this series, like MI6 playing the cautious game.

You can just go for it.

Just do it.

Join the Declassified Club at the restisclassified.com.

And you can hear the whole of this series on Oleg Gordievsky and get lots of other things as well.

But otherwise, we will see you next time.

We'll see you next time.