For 11 years, he spied for MI6. Extraordinary., Oleg Gordievsky in his KGB uniform (left); his wife Leila (right), Gordievsky had been brought up a loyalist, the son of a KGB agent, but his stomach was turned by the sight of the Berlin Wall going up while he was stationed there. Oleg was assigned to the Soviet Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark, with the job of supporting "illegals" in the . In contrast to Gordievskys wife, Yelena, she was shy and unworldly, but when she relaxed her laugh was loud and infectious. He had a pretty South American wife that constantly asked for more money and he had to get it somehow to please her. He knows all too well the KGBs view of treachery, and that his enemies play a long game. and other data for a number of reasons, such as keeping FT Sites reliable and secure, [34], Media related to Oleg Gordievsky at Wikimedia Commons, "Gordievsky" redirects here. He raised the alarm with his supermarket bag and gave his minders the slip. After a long period of no contact MI6 was delighted when Moscow sent Gordievsky to London. By then, he had been made the chief of KGB at the London embassy. On July 16, 1985, a man could be seen standing outsidea bread shop on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, the wide avenue running from the centre of Moscow, at 7.30pm. The MI6 had to share Gordievskys whereabouts with the Americans. In 1985 the KGB circulated a top secret personality questionnaire. [2], On completion of his studies, Gordievsky joined the foreign service and was posted to East Berlin in August 1961, just before the erection of the Berlin Wall. He went on to be lauded as Britains most valuable Cold War spy and eventually became the head of the KGBs London station while actually undermining their efforts. He was trained thoroughly in every aspect of intelligence service, including, intelligence, counter-intelligence, surveillance, and combat. At 7.30pm on Tuesdays British officers would watch a bread shop next to Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a diplomatic complex. Gordievsky (pictured in 1976) continues to defy Moscow from a safehouse in Britain. He was promoted while in Moscow, but all he could think about was how he could go abroad. That creates an atmosphere in which its very hard to govern., How did the British secret services react when they found out Macintyre was talking to Gordievsky, putting together a detailed account of his spy work and escape? [2] A 1994 report by the Washington Post, however, stated that "After six weeks of questioning Ames the FBI and CIA remain baffled about whether Ames or someone else first warned the Soviets about Gordievsky". Menu. Oleg Gordievsky was raised in a KGB family. But attempts to get his family out of Moscow by diplomatic means failed. Hes estranged from his children. Aldrich Ames, a former CIA agent who became a mole for the KGB. IMDbPro. Gordievsky was sentenced to death by the Soviet Union after his escape from his country, a sentence which was never rescinded by post-Soviet Russian authorities. But intelligence is more important than its ever been. His first tentative step was to call his then wife Yelena from an embassy phone bugged by the Danes, and to declare: Theyve done it! First he shook off his KGB tails, then made for the border with Finland, hiding in remote undergrowth until he was picked up by a rescue car driven by two British agents who, astonishingly, had brought along their baby. In an interview with Seve Novgorodsev, sentenced in absentia at home to death, the traitor Gordievsky said first property from remaining in Moscow, his wife Leila (she is from a family of KGB) and two daughters wanted to confiscate it, but then the decision was canceled. Work in recent years included being a consultant editor for the journal of National Security, co-hosting a TV show titled Wanted in the Nineties and writing content for Literary Review. It was reported in 2013 that Gordievsky was in a long-term relationship with a British woman he had met in the 1990s. During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages. It reveals the dramatic role played by MI6 in recruiting and cultivating a serving KGB insider and keeping him alive against the odds. He left them on the swings, went behind the hedge and dropped a brick with the notes, wrapped in a plastic bag., But, of course, Gordievsky had told the British too. At one end of the path was an agent disguised as a cyclist, at the other was another with a pram and a camera, so she could snap whoever came to pick up the brick.. He was fascinated by subjects such as language and history, since a young age. Oleg Gordievsky was successfully smuggled across Russias border with Finland in July 1985 after hiding in the car boot of an MI6 boss, who was travelling across the border with his deputy and their families in separate vehicles. London decided not to make contact with Gordievsky once he was home too risky but to have a procedure in place if he raised the alarm. The Spy And The Traitor is published in paperback, with a new afterword, on May 30 (Penguin), 8.99. Since settling here, he has worked as a security adviser and has often appeared on TV as an expert on Russian espionage. In 1975, after a year of passing valuable information the West, he was called back to Moscow. It was the only time that the spooks managed to exfiltrate a penetration agent from the USSR, outwitting their Russian adversaries. He became outraged by the USSR's cruel crushing of the Prague Spring reform movement in Czechoslovakia in August 1968, and began sending covert signals to Danish and British intelligence agents and agencies that he might be willing to cooperate with them. He brought his kids as cover. There has been only one sinister episode during this gilded life in the stockbroker belt. One opened a bag of cheese-and-onion crisps while another dropped her child's dirty nappy under the boot to disguise Gordievsky. In the summer of 1982 Gordievsky moved to London and began regular meetings at a Bayswater safe house with his MI6 handlers. [9][2] MI6 subsequently made contact with Gordievsky, and began running him as a double agent in 1974. [2], The value of MI6's recruitment of such a highly placed and valuable intelligence asset increased dramatically when, in 1982, the KGB posted Gordievsky to London, and he rose through the ranks there, gaining the ability to access higher and higher levels of Soviet secrets, which he passed easily to MI6 via a London safe house. In a way, Oleg lost everything. Former intelligence officers had to go back and ask permission to talk to me, but I was given total access. Gordievsky has told the story of his own improbable survival in a gripping 1995 memoir, Next Stop Execution. personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to When a 90-year-old retired Foreign Office secretary died recently the secrets of her Cold War past could finally be revealed. Discover the stars who skyrocketed on IMDb's STARmeter chart this year, and explore more of the Best of 2022; including top trailers, posters, and photos. Gordievsky was stuck at a desk job in Moscow, and she wanted to escape the mundane life she was living in a small house with her parents and five siblings. Edit. For 11 years, he spied for MI6. That he managed to deceive his KGB colleagues during this time was remarkable. 00:00:26. MI6s top spy within the KGB made an amazing escape to the west thanks to the quick-thinking wives of British agents sent to protect him, a new book has revealed. [2] He was suddenly summoned back to Moscow via a telegram on 16 May 1985. gordievsky said he did not meet Mrs Thatcher until several months after the attempt to get his family released. or He claimed he was the victim of a Kremlin-inspired assassination plot. Gordievskys brother, Vasili, who was training to be an illegal spy, told the officials that his brother would be interested in the service. [2], He studied at a prestigious Moscow University Moscow State Institute of International Relations and later undertook NKVD training, where in addition to espionage skills he mastered German and also learned to speak Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian. Macintrye had no access to MI6s archives, which remain secret. He felt sure that if she discovered the truth, as a loyal KGB officer herself, she would shop him. offers FT membership to read for free. An FBI report later stated that Ames had not advised the Soviets about Gordievsky until 13 June 1985; by that time, Gordievsky was under KGB surveillance but he had not yet been charged with treason as of 19 July 1985 when MI6 agents began the process of his escape. Newly released National Archives documents reveal Mr Gordievsky's anxiety in the immediate days after his defection when British entreaties failed to persuade the Kremlin to allow his wife,. All rights reserved. He arrived just as the Berlin Wall went up, and woke one morning to the sound of tanks rumbling past the Soviet embassy. Macintyre's book claims he was also the source of the information that alleged former Labour leader Michael Foot was giving information to the Russians in the late 1980s. [13], An elaborate escape plan from the USSR had been already devised for Gordievsky by MI6 in 1978, when the KGB called him back to Moscow for a few years after his second three-year stint in Copenhagen. Soon afterwards, the Soviet government invited a prominent American, Donald Trump, to visit Moscow. He was briefed on RYAN before he left Moscow, but by the time he reached London, the operation was well on its way. ", "How Britain's best Cold War spy was smuggled out of the Soviet Union", "Double agent Gordievsky claims he was poisoned by the Kremlin", "Former KGB defector claims he was poisoned by Russians", "SMITHSONIAN CHANNEL ENTERS THE WORLD OF GLOBAL ESPIONAGE IN SPY WARS WITH DAMIAN LEWIS", Biographer Ben Macintyre summarizes Gordievsky's life, career, and escape from the USSR, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oleg_Gordievsky&oldid=1150970448. Fake news there was plenty of that sloshing around. It was obvious to me that I had been poisoned.. Oleg Gordievsky, Soviet spy and double agent. Moscow orders all over-65s to stay at home then adds the A million Britons abroad are told to come home NOW with more Saboteurs wreck Russian train cut power cables 37mi from Ukraine, Unseen footage of Meghan Markle during her teenage years, 'We're not your enemies!' Pettit (second right) stood next toGordievsky (left) as they stopped for a photograph on their way through Finland during the daring escape, Russian spy Gordievsky, widely acknowledged to be the most valuable secret service mole at the heart of the KGB, with his ex-wife Mrs Leyla Gordievsky. Gordievsky got disenchanted with the KGB and by Russia after their invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Whenever the churchgoer was asked what she did during her career she answered that she was a Foreign Office secretary and then moved the conversation on. [5] The CIA told of MI6's high-level informant but not his name or position gave him the codename TICKLE. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. In 2007, Gordievsky was made a Companion to the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for services to the security of the UK. The babys mother dropped cheese and onion crisps to distract them, then got out and changed her daughters nappy on the boot, letting the stinky results fall to the floor. However, there was no need to execute the plan at the time. However, the marriage was effectively dead by then and eventually it foundered completely. Once the car reached safety the officer who was driving put Sibelius's Finlandia into the cassette player, and turned it up to full volume. "I realised they wanted to hush up the crime," he remarked. They underestimated just how furious the KGB was. Godievsky was summoned back to Moscow (pictured) in 1985 under the guise of being made the head of the KGB in Britain. 05:57 EDT 17 Sep 2018 It comes as the book The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre - revealed the daring Operation Pimlico plan was almost scuppered when British officials struggled to get then prime minister Margaret Thatchers approval while she was visiting The Queen at Balmoral because the phone line was engaged for 20 minutes while the monarch tried to borrow her mothers video recorder to watch Dads Army. Oleg A. Gordievsky: A secret agent. The result is a dazzling non-fiction thriller and an intimate portrait of high-stakes espionage. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the Settings & Account section. Gordievsky was almost discovered at a checkpoint after sniffer dogs were used to inspect the vehicles, only for the diplomats wives to put off the hounds with the distinctive smells of a bag of cheese and onion crisps and a babys soiled nappy. It was a hair-raising journey featuring a KGB pursuit, a smelly nappy and a bag of crisps. The two officers' wives were forced to deploy tactics of distraction. Oleg Gordievsky, writes Ben Macintyre, is a brave man, and a lonely one. Gordievsky had been recruited by the West in the late 1960s while stationed with the KGB in Denmark and had been persuaded to become a double agent during a game of badminton. She was interrogated and detained for some six years, the Soviets presuming (wrongly) that she had been complicit in Gordievsky's activities. Leila Aliyeva, his second wife. For the Russian chess grandmaster, see, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, "The Spy and the Traitor review a gripping tale of escape from the USSR", "In 'The Spy and the Traitor,' a tale of Cold War espionage that's both thrilling and true", "Thirty years later, we still don't know who betrayed these Cold War spies", "The truth about Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB spy who changed the course of the Cold War", "KGB MAN TURNED BRITISH SPY CAN'T PINPOINT HIS BETRAYER", "Miss Marple mastermind of Cold War spy's escape", "The secret lives of MI6's top female spies", "Gordievsky: Russia has as many spies in Britain now as the USSR ever did", "'Sunday Times' pays Foot damages over KGB claim", "Literary world applauds Rushdie knighthood", "Was Foot a national treasure or the KGBs useful idiot? He read German and learnt about foreign lands during his school days. They have a duty of care to her as they do to Oleg. An MI6 agent walked past carrying a Harrods bag, eating a Mars bar, and the two made eye contact. Gordievsky was forced to leave his second wife Leila and their two children behind in the USSR. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Unlike his brother, Gordievsky was assigned a desk job in Moscow and was required to create documentation for other spies to mask their true identities. But he has interviewed all of the former officers involved in the case, who tell their stories for the first time. As soon as he arrived he realised he had been rumbled. And when former spies think of spilling their secrets and telling their amazing stories at last, Ben Macintyre is clearly the man they trust. Gordievsky's second wife, Leiladaughter of a KGB generaland their two daughters were sent back to Moscow, causing panic in MI6. [2] After spending a year in Berlin, he returned to Moscow. Its an old Stalinist technique called maskirovka, little masquerade, which means confusing everybody so that nobody knows what is real and what isnt. He said he was poisoned with thallium, a highly toxic metal used in insecticides which was favoured by the KGB in assassinations during the Cold War. [2], Unbeknownst to him, Gordievsky had been betrayed in early May (or early June 1985 at the latest) by CIA officer Aldrich Ames. Haydn : One of the composers. [21] In 1995, the former British Labour Party leader Michael Foot received an out-of-court settlement (said to be "substantial") from The Sunday Times after the newspaper alleged, in articles derived from claims in the original manuscript of Gordievsky's book Next Stop Execution (1995), that Foot was a KGB "agent of influence" with the codename 'Boot'. He was put through grueling questioning for hours, but he did not divulge any information. Following the norm for teenagers at the time, Gordievsky joined the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League.. Moment commuter blasts eco-zealots, Royal superfans camping on The Mall ahead of King's Coronation, Women's rights activists and pro-trans campaigners separated, Cambridge students party in the park during annual celebrations, Russian freight train derails and bursts into flames after explosion, Historic chairs to be reused by the King for the coronation service, Hundreds of Household Division members rehearse for coronation, Braverman: People crossing Channel are 'at odds with British values', 'You motherf***ers don't understand': Bam Margera details 'turmoil', Ukraine drone strike hits major fuel depot in port Sevastopol. Women played a crucial part. Oleg was called back to USSR and his family was later too. They didnt interfere, but they didnt stop me. The execution order on him has never been rescinded., Mikhail Gorbachev meets Margaret Thatcher at Chequers in 1984; Gordievsky had briefed them both, Macintyre believes Putin and the other former KGB officers who run Russia now are still up to their old tricks. Oleg resented the strict discipline, the endless paperwork, the malevolent atmosphere. Whatever little sense of belonging he had toward his country or his fathers beloved KGB, quickly changed into rage and anguish. We support credit card, debit card and PayPal payments. One of his great pleasures, he says, is feeding the foxes who visit his garden. There is, he insists, nothing in Russia that he misses. After his short test in Berlin, Gordievsky was sent to the KGB covert training centre called School 101, deep into the woods in North Moscow, along with 120 other trainees. Though both the Gordievsky brothers were stationed together in East Germany, for a short period of time in 1961, they had no idea about the nature of each others work, maintaining the same kind of secrecy that was the norm in their family. Paul Bracchi for the Daily Mail
He didnt do it for money; he did it purely for ideological reasons., All this is laid out in The Spy And The Traitor, which is about to be released in paperback. Summoned back to Moscow, he survived a KGB interrogation, despite being drugged. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, Oleg lost everything. Registered in England No. Gordievsky, now 79, continues to defy Moscow but has escaped the fate of subsequent turncoat and defector Sergei Skripal, a victim of the Salisbury Novichok poison attack. [11], Gordievsky was suddenly ordered back to Moscow in mid May 1985, a few weeks after he had been promoted to KGB station chief in London. His wife, Leila (an Azeri) was the daughter of a KGB officer and was unaware of her husband's defection. Joseph Curtis For Mailonline
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Check if your He lost his family. [8], Following his exfiltration from the USSR to the UK in 1985, he became of even greater use to the West, in that the information he disclosed (and had previously disclosed) could be immediately acted upon and shared without endangering his life, identity, or position. I just dont know what to do. He expected an approach from western intelligence. Gordievskys double life started after a junior MI6 officer saw his name while leafing through a personnel file. An MI6 officer would acknowledge the call for help by walking close by with a green Harrods bag while eating a British chocolate bar - a KitKat or Mars Bar. Yelena Akopian, his first wife. Premium Digital includes access to our premier business column, Lex, as well as 15 curated newsletters covering key business themes with original, in-depth reporting. According to The Times, Mrs Gee produced the Golden Wonder cheese and onion crisps as the border guards inspected the vehicles and even fed one of the sniffer dogs with them. Just minutes later the cars parked up in a clearing in a forest where Pettit was waiting. Gordievsky was forced to leave his second wife Leila and their two children behind in the USSR. Hes paid an enormous cost. After defecting to the UK in 1985, Gordievsky did not meet his family for 6 years, till they were allowed to leave Moscow in 1991, and join the spy. Leila and the girls were called back to Moscow, unaware he was a double agent.
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