The Finnish official examined them, handed them back and came out of his kiosk to raise the barrier. According to the plan, the busted double agent had to leave Moscow for Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), then take a bus north to Vyborg, a Russian town close to the border with Finland. "That's how I realized we were on Finnish territory. The cars funnelled towards the final barrier. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. At the first, a frontier guard gave the party a hard look but waved them through without even a document check. the "horrible, horrible music" (294), as Oleg Gordievsky described the Greatest Hits of Dr. Hook the defecting KGB colonel and devotee of classical music now heard from his hiding spot in the car trunk the enchanting notes of Jean Sibelius' Finlandia coming from the cassette deck. Surprisingly, the plan worked. The daughter of a Russian. 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. And, since she was from a KGB background, he had come to the heartbreaking conclusion that her loyalty could not be relied upon. "I used to like him a lot. They stared, open-mouthed, as the two British cars drove by, their faces registering a mixture of confusion and relief. However, Gordievsky soon separated. All rights reserved. We have been fighting for this for so long.. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material. What the CIA did not now, however, was that its own head of counter-intelligence was himself a KGB spy: the KGB was spying on the CIA, which was secretly spying on MI6, its own ally, which was spying on the KGB. Furious truckers slam California for banning sale of new big rigs and buses that run on diesel by 2036 to slash emissions - warning it'll drive businesses into bankruptcy, Warning, your tampon may cause cancer: Period product makers could be forced to state health risks on labels amid mounting fears about risks, The Met Gala begins! This is my personal blog, where I share about the people I meet, the books I'm reading, and what I'm learning. Prudence dictated that he must continue to deceive her or put his own life at risk. The plan was on. You can read our policy on moderating comments. When he got to Leningrad station, it was awash with people. Doris Kearns Goodwins brilliant biography of Abraham Lincoln is more relevant than ever. As they clambered out, they heard Lada engines screaming past on the other side of the trees. In 2021, 82-year-old Gordievsky lives on a civil service pension in Great Britain, gives interviews to mass media and according to former Russian intelligence officers makes a living by trading sensitive information about Soviet and Russian secret services. 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. He risked his life to betray his country, and helped to avert a full scale nuclear confrontation. He began to feel, not safe exactly, but oddly calm, and suddenly exhausted. Gordievsky, 74, claims a large number of Vladimir Putin's agents are based at the Russian embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens. SOVIET TURMOIL; Family Joins K.G.B. Ten miles along, they passed the Ladas by the side of the road, their drivers in conversation with five militiamen. The ugly truth behind the secretive spying world - New York Daily News "Shadow OPS" Escape from Moscow (TV Episode 2013) - IMDb "Our pursuers, having reached a traffic police post, asked the police: 'Where are the English cars? Photograph: Steve Pyke. 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. Following his latest summer reading list, heres a guide on where to start reading like a president. Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG ( ; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate ( rezident) and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1974 to 1985. The options are a) 25, b) 9 with 16 others required to leave, c) 9 (foreign secretarys preference). Thatchers blue pen had circled 25. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. He took no souvenir photographs with him or other emotional mementoes. 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. They had got him drunk on cognac while a KGB general grilled him for four hours. Mrs. Gordievsky, speaking in English, said as long as the KGB followed her she knew he was alive. We are done for., Gordievsky, a keen badminton player, and right in his KGB uniform, switched his loyalty from Moscow to the West and took on the dangerous role of a double agent. This brutal attack on innocent people made me hate [my own country], he later wrote. A strident figure of a man, Alexander Litvinenko widow accuses William Hague of sabotaging inquest. Thirty Years Later, We Still Don't Truly Know Who Betrayed These Spies Gee handed him water, a medical pack and an empty bottle to pee in. The entrance to the lay-by was 300 yards ahead, marked by a distinctive rock and with a screen of trees on the roadside. "I wanted to work for British intelligence and was looking for a chance to do so.". But even that proved hard. US tech billionaire's Matt Baszucki found the low-carb/high fat diet finally made the difference to his bipolar disorder - after being prescribed 29 drugs over five years, 'They're killing us!' $29.95. 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. Neighbours learn pensioner was really MI6 legend - Daily Mail The job promised benefits other Soviet people did not get. These days, Gordievsky is a shadow of his former self. Click here to find out more. No one has passed,' [they answered]. But the alleged incident has taken a visible toll on his health. The driver grinned in complicity and dropped him there ten minutes later with a lascivious wink. He had toyed with taking them, especially as MI6 had always included them in the escape plan. The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre review - The Guardian A bright pupil, with a flair for languages, Gordievsky joined the KGB because it offered a rare chance to live abroad. Oleg Gordievsky is widely recognized as one of the most damaging double agents in the history of Soviet espionage. He visited me at home seven times. 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. I hope that you'll join the conversation. 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. Enter the email you used to sign up and a reset password link will be sent to you. Help Center Contributor Zone Polls. Yeltsin enjoyed embarrassing the KGB, the former KGB man said. 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. The family were finally reunited in Britain on September 6, 1991, three months before the collapse of the Soviet Union. MOSCOW (AP) _ The new chairman of the KGB said today that the family of KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky will be allowed to join him in Britain. 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. He said he was wearing a disguise on camera; he appeared with a goatee, lightly tinted aviator glasses and wavy red hair. Oleg Gordievsky, Soviet spy and double agent. "I think the main reason he was killed was because he defended [the Putin critic Boris] Berezovsky," he says. It felt relevant and interesting not just as a historical study but also for understanding the professional culture in which Vladimir Putin was raised. ', 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?