The future defector entered the KGB's First Chief Directorate in 1962, at the. He declined to say precisely what happened. A queue of seven cars had formed at the last barrier, a belt of barbed wire, with two look-out posts, and guards armed with machine guns. Leyla Gordievsky holding up large bottle of| champagne, daughters Maria and Anna on her lap| as Maria takes swig from bottle and woman sitting| beside them takes photograph| CMS Another bottle of. Mrs. Gordievsky, speaking in English, said as long as the KGB followed her she knew he was alive. In 1985, the KGB grew suspicious and summoned him home. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB was divided into the SVR and FSB, Russia's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies. Code name for Oleg Gordievsky's escape plan. Should he make it to the West, he hoped that she and the girls would be able to join him there in time. Surprisingly, the plan worked. Shortly after 8am, they crossed into the complete safety of Norway, a Nato country. How many Russians do we expel? Upon returning to the USSRs capital, Gordievsky faced interrogation from his superior, General Grushko. Gordievsky said he was convinced that Putin was behind the 2006 assassination of his friend Alexander Litvinenko, who had defected to Britain in 2000. The spy and the people sent to rescue him stared at one another in disbelief. After more than a decade as a double agent, codename Sunbeam, secretly working for Britains MI6 intelligence service, he had been rumbled by his KGB masters and his every move was being watched. The book is every bit as exciting as my favorite spy novels. He added: "You only need one spy to be effective.". It slunk off. The tactic had paid off. Join the Gates Notes community to get regular updates from Bill on key topics like global health and climate change, to access exclusive content, comment on stories, participate in giveaways, and more. After three hours of waiting in the forest, the escapee saw two cars with diplomatic plates. Its destination was the border town of Vyborg, 50 miles away, but he would get off 16 miles short at marker 836 (denoting the number of kilometres from Moscow) for the rendezvous with his MI6 minders. Communism eventually collapsed, but the Russian intelligence services have never forgiven the man who comprehensively deceived them, and helped to bring about the end of the Cold War. 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She was presented with a memorandum, rated top secret and strictly personal, by Charles Powell, her foreign affairs adviser. He made no farewell calls to his mother or sister, although he knew he would probably never see either of them again. (Gordievsky speaks fluent German, as well as Swedish, Danish and English, which he learned last.) In London he warned that the politburo erroneously believed the west was planning a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. They surrounded the English: 'Right, that's it, now they're going to arrest us,' they thought. Macintyre, who has a keen eye for detail, does a great job narrating the escape scene and all the ways it almost fails. But something snapped inside Gordievsky when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, in 1968. Photograph: News (UK) Ltd/Rex Features, Downing Street files reveal how Oliver Letwin kept poll tax plans alive, Thatcher considered UK chemical weapons programme, documents show, Home Office dismissed nuclear winter threat as scaremongering, files show, TheGuardian view of the poll tax papers: judgment on Oliver Letwin, Archive files show how Thatcher vetoes shaped 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement, National Archives: revelations from the released documents, Cabinet papers show Thatcher advisers struggle with Heseltine over Westland. AN ALLEGED attempt to kill a former Russian spy who defected to Britain was being investigated by police last night. But the Gordievsky case shows that the payoff can be enormousmaybe even world saving. Do not sell or share my personal information. Gordievsky, 53, was not at the airport to greet them, saying he preferred to meet them in private. Then his phone rang and he returned to the kiosk. Sorry, we were unable to unsubscribe you at this time. Gordievsky gave him what he hoped was a conspiratorial look. Doris Kearns Goodwins brilliant biography of Abraham Lincoln is more relevant than ever. They. Gorbachev was uneducated and not especially intelligent," he sniffed. I could see us turning into the lay-by and meeting a reception committee of uniformed people coming out of the bushes.. 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!' It was a hair-raising journey featuring a KGB pursuit, a smelly nappy and a bag of crisps. No one has passed,' [they answered]. Hetman the codename under which Gordievsky operated had disclosed that at least 25 Russian and east European diplomats based in London were spies. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. He came to with a jolt. They poured me some cognac and I felt like someone else. The breaking of the Enigma code shortened the Second World War by at least a year. Please allow for 24 hours for the deactivation to fully process. Are you sure you want to deactivate your account? He liked their traditions and independence.". The former POTUS has shared hundreds of his favourite books over the last decade. (modern), Oleg Gordievsky says he is the only agent to defect from the KGB in the 1980s to survive. Documents released by National Archives show British officials saw efforts to free Oleg Gordievskys family as a lost cause, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Oleg Gordievsky the KGB Colonel turned British spy. Posing as tourists, his MI6 handlers from London had come to meet him and made a phone call to headquarters with a coded message: The fishing has been very good here. Documents released to the National Archives in Kew expose the complex calculations shaping cold war espionage, while politicians cultivated a thaw in personal relationships with Mikhail Gorbachev. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2023 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 776 pp. Gordievsky should have remained hidden in the undergrowth. Here, her daughter Helen reflects on what we can learn from her indomitable spirit. So far he was in the clear. In the USSR, he was sentenced to death in absentia for treason. Spy in London, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/07/world/soviet-turmoil-family-joins-kgb-spy-in-london.html. Gordievsky on the Baltic coast with Mikhail Lyubimov, a Russian novelist and retired colonel in the KGB. In an act of monumental bravery, he decided to return with catastrophic consequences. 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. All; Titles; TV Episodes; Celebs; In these days of capitalism, however, they also want sensitive commercial information of use to Moscow. Crammed into the boiling boot, fleeing for his life, this lover of Bach and Handel was irritated by such low-brow, pop. 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. and defected to Britain. When he got to Leningrad station, it was awash with people. But the relationship broke up in 1993, unable to cope with the pressure placed on it. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Join the Gates Notes community to access exclusive content, comment on stories, participate in giveaways, and more. You can sign back in at any time to reactivate your account and restore its content. Controversially, the foreign secretary, William Hague, wants to keep the government's Litvinenko files secret to appease Moscow, according to critics. Thank you for being a Gates Notes Insider. As they clambered out, they heard Lada engines screaming past on the other side of the trees. From the very beginning of his work for the KGB, Gordievsky found himself entangled in the spy games. Bromhead knew that Gordievsky was a KGB agent but knew nothing of his growing antipathy toward the Soviet Union. A bright pupil, with a flair for languages, Gordievsky joined the KGB because it offered a rare chance to live abroad. Theoretically, he suggested, he might return to Moscow if there were a democratic government but there is little prospect of that. He concluded that he withstood the questioning, but also realized his position was as precarious as ever. Ben Macintyre 2018. Even a KGB truth serum couldn't breakColonel Oleg Gordievsky. Litvinenko inquest coroner agrees to keep crucial evidence secret, Russia delays trial of dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Litvinenko inquest close to collapse after coroner rules crucial evidence secret, Bolshoi ballet acid attack: theatre members support dancer, Betrayed by British justice: Marina Litvinenko's tale, Boris Berezovsky's death leaves friends suspecting foul play, Suspect in Alexander Litvinenko killing pulls out of inquest citing bias, UKfiles on murdered spy Litvinenko must stay secret, rules coroner, he passed to the British vital details of Moscow's espionage operation in London. Penkovsky was portrayed by Eduard Bezrodniy in the 2014 Polish thriller Jack Strong, about Ryszard Kukliski, another Cold War spy. After Denmark Gordievsky was sent to Britain, to the delight of MI5. How did he know? Spies tend to make extravagant claims for their craft, but the reality of espionage is that it frequently makes little lasting difference. The marriage did not survive this long separation. The comments below have not been moderated. Actually, no. A Ukranian. He reasoned: "Nobody would dare to carry out an assassination abroad in an important country like Britain without authorisation." Rachel turned up the music: a compilation disc of Dr Hooks Greatest Hits, including When Youre In Love With A Beautiful Woman and Sylvias Mother. If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The intelligence he provided was so important it was being passed all the way to the Oval Office, but without MI6 ever revealing where it came from. Gordievsky said the operation to slip radioactive polonium-210 into Litvinenko's teacup was approved from the top. Oleg Gordievsky worked as a double agent for at least a decade until July 1985, passing information to Britain's intelligence service. A double agent for MI6, Oleg Gordievsky helped avert a nuclear confrontation and bring about the end of the Cold War. The plan was backed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: if uncovered it would spark a major diplomatic incident; for Gordiyevsky it would mean certain death. Gordievsky became MI6's most valuable agent within the KGB, providing a torrent of useful intelligence at incredible risk to himselfnot to mention his wife and two daughters, who knew nothing of his life as an informant. Although Gordievsky suspected he could have been exposed as a double agent, he, nonetheless, complied with the order and returned to Moscow. "I was surrounded by woodland where I laid down waiting for the diplomatic car of the [British] embassy. But I still decided to go to show that I'm not scared," he said. According to Gordievsky, Putin's foreign intelligence field officers fulfil similar roles to their KGB predecessors. Oleg Penkovsky Russian spying for the UK and the US Fate: Quietly executed after a public trial Penkovsky was a colonel in the Soviet military intelligence organisation, the GRU. Gordievsky has little contact with his two grown-up daughters, Maria and Anna, or his ex-wife Leila. I had to procure documents of deceased people or those who left [the country], so that [KGBs] Directorate C [illegal intelligence] could use them. Rachel turned up the music, and Only Sixteen by Dr Hook echoed incongruously around the Soviet border post. The KGB surveillance team at his flat had not reported him missing. Given the pure cost (in dollars and lives) of running intelligence operations, it can be tempting to wonder whether the benefits are worth it. The turncoat agent said he grew disillusioned by the Soviet system after Khrushchev launched the denunciation of Stalin and Berlin got divided by a wall. And then our cars appeared. At 5.30pm precisely the train pulled out. As far as he could tell, no one was following him. Covert surveillance photographs of Oleg Gordievsky taken by the Danish intelligence service PET during his postings to Copenhagen. But the KGB were also tired. At a town called Zelenogorsk, 30 miles from Leningrad, Gordievsky climbed off the train and took a bus for the next leg of his journey. Gordievsky, however, said it would be unwise to be complacent about Moscow's intelligence activities. Tonight the great and the woke will honor Karl Lagerfeld at the Met show-off-athon, even though he was a major sexist, fatphobe and callous racist. . In 1974, we began to meet, first in a small brasserie and, later, he invited me to a safe-house where we would work, said Gordievsky. The plan sketched out a risky rendezvous with two British diplomatic cars at the bend of a road near Finland. He is known as one of the greatest spies in the world. "Our pursuers, having reached a traffic police post, asked the police: 'Where are the English cars? Five years later, an undercover officer in MI6Britains equivalent of the CIAnamed Richard Bromhead met Gordievsky at an art exhibit in Copenhagen. These were his British rescue team. ', Six people are killed and at least 30 hospitalized after massive 40-car pile-up on Illinois Interstate 55 during dust storm, REVEALED: Bud Light owners hired ex-GOP staffers as Capitol Hill lobbyists on the SAME DAY the brewer released Dylan Mulvaney partnership that caused sales and stocks to plummet, Is a 'cryptic' COVID strain lurking in YOUR area? Then a distinctive gush, as he decanted his lunchtime beers into the bottle. Please verify email address. He walks with a stick and is stooped, following an episode five years ago in which he says he was poisoned. Mrs Leyca Gordievsky (centre) with her children Maria and Annia she is the wife of former KGB defector Oleg Geordievsky. Gordievsky was raised from birth to be a top KGB spy. [After Grushkos questioning], two well-built fellows entered the room and offered to drink with them. 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. She then dropped the soiled nappy next to the inquisitive Alsatian. Born Today Most Popular Celebs Most Popular Celebs Celebrity News. Reagan recorded the following entry in his diary after the meeting: "Forgotthis morning had a. The spy who really DID come in from the cold: How a KGB After his arrival in Britain, Gordievsky spent four months at Fort Monckton, a training base near Gosport, Hants, for one of the most extensive intelligence gathering and distributing exercises undertaken by MI6. This website uses cookies. I decided to try something different for my list of holiday books this year. Equally horrible to Rachel was the smell coming from the boot a mixture of sweat, cheap soap, tobacco and beer. Macintyres dramatic retelling of their stories comes not only from Western sources (including Gordievsky himself, who is now 82 and living under witness protection in the UK) but also from the Russian perspective. And now we know why: A double agent embedded high in the KGBs outpost in London got word to his British handlers that the Soviets had mistaken NATOs war games as war preparation. The final hurdle was passport control itself. MI6s agent, however, eventually fell under suspicion, and was ordered back to Moscow and interrogated by the KGB. A strident figure of a man, Alexander Litvinenko widow accuses William Hague of sabotaging inquest. Aleksander: Here was a perfect circle of espionage. By now, the men had returned with the completed paperwork. There are some dachas in the woods. Already, as they sped on the highway out of Moscow, KGB surveillance cars routinely tucked in behind them. At 2:20 a.m. two cars with two drivers arrived. Ursula : The keeper of MI6. Thirty Years Later, Soviet-Era MI6 Double Agent Describes Escape From KGB. The defection of Gordievsky was one of the UKs greatest security coups, delivering a stream of high-grade information. He cut his speed from 70mph to 30mph and then 25mph. We'd like your feedback. It was half past five, Saturday, end of the working day. Their note added that it was recognised that this would be hard for Hetman to accept. My soul was aching. He began to question all the Soviet dogma that he had been learning since birth. By clicking "Continue" you agree to the Gates Notes. He read it with growing apprehension. Anyone can read what you share. Fear and adrenaline can have a strange effect on the mind and the appetite. But his autobiography still surprised me. KGB Chairman Vadim Bakatin said that Gordievskys wife, Leila, and their two daughters had been barred from leaving the country by the secret police agency he took over after last weeks failed coup. The options are a) 25, b) 9 with 16 others required to leave, c) 9 (foreign secretarys preference). Thatchers blue pen had circled 25. This email is already registered. The new head of the K.G.B., Vadim Bakatin, who replaced a hard-liner after a conservative coup failed last month, agreed last week to allow the Gordievsky family to leave the Soviet Union. Then I realized: we were on Finnish land, said Gordievsky. I have written inAgent Zigzag,Operation MincemeatandDouble Crossof the successful espionage and strategic deceptions that underpinned the Allied invasion of Sicily and the D-Day landings. From the trunk of the car, all Gordiyevsky could hear was the driver turn on a piece of music by Sibelius called Finlandia. During an interview Thursday on Britain's Independent Television News, the former KGB officer watched footage from Moscow of his wife, and saw pictures of his daughters, Maria and Anna. The meeting place was somewhere along the way, but he had only a description of the meeting place and no precise location. He would talk and talk. Our separation has been so long, dramatic and sad that I did not want to go and spoil it, he said. It was years later that Western intelligence and Gordievsky learned. The KGB driver in front did not like it. THE man in old trousers and sweatshirt closed the door to his Moscow apartment, flipped . Gordievsky noted wryly: "I'm the only KGB defector from the 1980s who has survived. The daughter of a Russian. Airport officials said the British. He was interrogated, drugged and accused of being a traitor. 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. A few days after Oleg Gordievsky was recalled to Moscow, the KGB flew his wife, Leila, and their two daughters there, and he broke the unwelcome news that they would not be posted back to London. Please complete your account verification. Get the week's best stories straight to your inbox. Nothing was done to look for him or raise the alarm. Help Center Contributor Zone Polls. The Soviet penetration of Western intelligence in the 1930s and 1940s gave Stalin a crucial advantage in his dealings with the West. Your request may take a few days to process; we want to double check things before hitting the big red button. All he had to do was inform the British of the proposed date of his extraction. Unsure exactly where to get off but having passed a big bend in the road that resembled the meeting place, he feigned sickness and nausea to convince the driver to let him off, and walked back along the road until he found the designated meeting place. An army column was crossing the road and traffic had halted. The issue was put bluntly: Do we continue to try to secure the release of his family? The office of British Prime Minister John Major said earlier today that he would ask Soviet officials when he visits Moscow on Sunday to allow the Gordievsky family to leave. Gates Notes may send a welcome note or other exclusive Insider mail from time to time. I lay there three hours waiting for the moment when the car was meant to come. SOVIET TURMOIL; Family Joins K.G.B. Send me the weekly Top of Mind newsletter. Fast asleep on sedatives, hed apparently fallen out of his bunk. The reason two cars were making the journey was that MI6 believed Gordievsky was bringing his wife, Leila, and their two small daughters with him. In 1966 Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison and defected to the Soviet Union. MI6 bought him a house in the London suburbs, where he lived under a false name. From there, Gordiyevsky would be smuggled across the border in the trunk of a car right under the nose of Soviet guards. In 1968, when he was working as a KGB spy in Copenhagen, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. The British ambassador in Moscow sent a strongly worded telegram opposing further efforts being made to secure Hetmans family. He had sent her and the children on a months holiday, to the dacha belonging to her father, an elderly KGB general, in Azerbaijan. They were 100 yards ahead before the KGB cars had even re-started their engines. He woke at 3.30am on the train, on the compartment floor and covered in blood. In The Spy and the Traitor, a Soviet double agent helps prevent a nuclear warand nearly dies for it. Click the link below to begin the account deactivation process. A strident figure of a man, he passed to the British vital details of Moscow's espionage operation in London. My driver turned on loud music which took my mind off of sad thoughts, said Gordievsky. Using sophisticated spycraft I enjoyed learning about, Bromhead spent the next year probing Gordievskys loyalties. 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. Requesting an account deletion will permanently remove all of your profile content. Gordievsky has little contact with his two grown-up daughters, Maria and Anna, or his ex-wife Leila.
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