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[2], During his first Danish posting, Gordievsky became disenchanted with his work in the KGB, particularly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Hes estranged from his children. There has been only one sinister episode during this gilded life in the stockbroker belt. Gordievsky fled the country by triggering an audacious escape plan dreamed up by MI6. This page was last edited on 21 April 2023, at 03:32. The episode, The Man Who Saved The World, recounts the "years-long effort by Gordievsky to pass Soviet intelligence to the British, all but preventing a nuclear Armageddon between the Soviet Union and the West". 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. His wife, Leila (an Azeri) was the daughter of a KGB officer and was unaware of her husband's defection. In later life, Gordievsky has been cantankerous and reproving. [2] During this Moscow period, it was too risky for him to send any information to MI6. The Kremlin genuinely believed the West was going to launch a first nuclear strike.. This was after Stalins death and during the brief period of relaxation Russia witnessed. According to one officer present Pettit was visibly moved, 'her expression a mixture of recognition and love', despite usually disapproving of emotional outbursts. Summoned back to Moscow, he survived a KGB interrogation, despite being drugged. Born in 1929 near the Lord's Cricket ground she was the eldest daughter of Charles Pettit, a solicitor who was badly wounded in the Second World War, and Valerie Douglas, a Scottish dancer. Gordievsky described to Leila the Englishmen he'd met in Copenhagen witty, sophisticated people, full of laughter and generosity. Four days laterGordievsky met two officers and their wives at a point south of Vybord where he was bundled into the boot of one of two cars and covered in a heat reflective blanket. He claimed he was the victim of a Kremlin-inspired assassination plot. Oleg Gordievsky in 1980, when he was still a double-agent At five o'clock on a Friday afternoon on July 19, 1985, a short, thick-set man in a worn jacket and corduroy trousers stepped out of a . IMDbPro. Leila and their two daughters joined Gordievsky in London with no idea he was working for the British. Asked if he knew anybody who might be of interest to western intelligence, Kaplan threw out a few names, including that of Gordievsky, who was a friend from the KGB academy, aware of the drawbacks of communism, and not so different from him, he said. We have noticed that there is an issue with your subscription billing details. It charts his recruitment by the KGB, where his older brother Vasili served as a deep-cover illegal, and Gordievskys growing disillusionment with the grey totalitarian world of 1960s Moscow. 'She opened the boot to let me out,' wrote Gordievsky, now 81 and still living in a safehouse in Britain. [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. [7], Although MI6 had passed on information provided by Gordievsky to the American CIA, the British would not reveal their source, so the CIA had conducted a covert operation to discover who the source was. 894646. As soon as he arrived he realised he had been rumbled. [4], Gordievsky joined the KGB in 1963, and was posted to the Soviet embassy in Copenhagen in 1966. Two cars driven by MI6 officers and their wives got him across the border. Paintings hanging on the walls of his home in Surrey reflect his love of avant-garde art. [9][2] MI6 subsequently made contact with Gordievsky, and began running him as a double agent in 1974. He was summoned back to Moscow the next day, under the guise of being made the head of the KGB in Britain. 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. Gordievsky seized both her hands and kissed them. [2] After spending a year in Berlin, he returned to Moscow. [9] He tried to send a covert sympathetic message to the Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (Danish Security Intelligence Service), called PET, but his three-year stint ended and he returned to Moscow before making any direct contact. By Yelena Akopian was a 22-year-old German girl training to be a teacher, when Gordievsky met her in 1960s. His entire life, right from childhood, was shaped by the KGB. Born during a tumultuous time in Russia, Gordievsky was conditioned into thinking that there was no life beyond the USSR and the KGB. His father and elder brother both were KGB officials. 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. 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. Just minutes later the cars parked up in a clearing in a forest where Pettit was waiting. His visa was cleared by the Danes intentionally, in consultation with the MI6. He was approached by the British intelligence head of the local station, codenamed Bromhead. His codename was SUNBEAM. He calmly accepted to take up the dubious role. For a full comparison of Standard and Premium Digital, click here. 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. [18] She and their children were on holiday in the Azerbaijan SSR at the time of his escape. He was suspected of espionage for a foreign power, but his superiors stalled on taking any overt further action against him. Play it now! The result is a dazzling non-fiction thriller and an intimate portrait of high-stakes espionage. and This signal would trigger a plan to smuggle Gordievsky into Finland in the boot of a diplomatic car. Actually, Gordievsky had already decided to switch sides a betrayal Macintyre calls whole-souled and righteous. He lost his family. What he didn't tell her was about the secret life that awaited him. Oleg Gordievsky and Leila Alieva met in Copenhagen: she was a typist for the World Health Organization; he was an unhappily married KGB officer, and a spy for MI6. [33], In March 2020, Gordievsky's story was recounted in an episode of Spy Wars With Damian Lewis, on the Smithsonian Channel in the US, streaming on various cable services. (modern). 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. After three years, Gordievsky had to go back to Moscow. [5], In late April 1985 he was promoted to KGB station chief (resident-designate or rezident) in London at the Soviet embassy. [2], Unbeknownst to him, Gordievsky had been betrayed in early May (or early June 1985 at the latest) by CIA officer Aldrich Ames. MI6 had shared intelligence with the CIA, concealing its source, but the US had carried out its own investigation to identify Gordievsky. Do not sell or share my personal information. After completing his escape, he would not see his family again until the collapse of the Soviet regime six years later, although their marriage soon ended due to their prolonged time apart. He continued to deny the accusations until his death at the age of 96 eight years ago. Gordievsky made contact with the Danish security services. He was promoted while in Moscow, but all he could think about was how he could go abroad. Fake news there was plenty of that sloshing around. 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. 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 daughter of a Russian mother and a father from Azerbaijan, she was tall and striking, with a shock of dark hair and deep brown eyes behind long eyelashes. 00:00:26. MI6 boosted Gordievskys career by feeding him real, low-grade intelligence and by removing rival spies who threatened to expose him. Macintyre touches only briefly on the unprecedented download of information given by Gordievsky to the west. ' our meeting lasted four hours and after that i met her several times again,' he said. [2] A September 2018 article indicated that by that time he was living in an undisclosed location in the Home counties of England. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the Settings & Account section. Since settling here, he has worked as a security adviser and has often appeared on TV as an expert on Russian espionage. His father, his brother, and his first wife were all members of the infamous organization. [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". I fell in love at first sight, [and] our love flared. However, he now became sceptical. Thus, by one swift stroke of fate, he was inducted into the dangerous world of spies, in 1961. These were Moscows secret instructions. Operation Pimlico plan was almost scuppered, Oleg Gordievsky: How a dirty nappy and bag of crisps saved British spy | News | The Times. According to The Times, the couple met in secret trysts at various Copenhagen hotels every few weeks, but he could not divulge his life as a double agent to her and said half of my existence and my thoughts had to remain secret. This was the most embarrassing failure in KGB history., Macintyre describes the former spy in his book as one of the loneliest men he has met. He felt sure that if she discovered the truth, as a loyal KGB officer herself, she would shop him. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, 'How can I fix this?' They talk about their new life in England now Leila and the children have been allowed to join him after 6 years, and the possibility of a return to Russia and Moscow, their home town. After that, he was released and told that he would never work abroad again. Ames first met and sold classified information to a KGB agent on 15 May 1985, in Washington, DC; the following day Gordievsky received the telegram from KGB leadership recalling him to Moscow. He began reading western newspapers. That was when she, for the first time in her life, disapproved the regime and voiced her anger openly. [9][2] By the time he arrived again in Copenhagen in October 1972 for a second three-year stint, both the PET as well as MI6 which had been tipped off by one of Gordievsky's old university friends felt he was a persuadable agent. [28], Gordievsky lived for years in a "safe house" in London, and security has been tightened since the Salisbury poisonings. Paul Bracchi for the Daily Mail, The Mars Bar defector: How MI6's greatest ever KGB mole was smuggled out of Moscow thanks to a chocolate bar, a Safeway bag and a very secret dash to Balmoral, Britain may have MISSED the real 'novichok assassins' by concentrating on pair caught on CCTV who may only have been 'watchers' spying on Skripal family home, Saboteurs wreck Russian train cut power cables 37mi from Ukraine, Moment large saltwater crocodile snatches pet dog off beach in QLD, 'We're not your enemies!' His fathers obsession with the uniform and lack of morality of any sort did not instil much humanity in young Gordievskys heart. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. One morning its local head of station approached him while he was playing badminton at a suburban sports club. This is one of the few cases in which spying changed history., Gordievsky was even more intimately involved in the next historic development, when the Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to London in 1984 for a meeting with the Prime Minister that would hasten the end of the Cold War. May Day parade in Moscow, 1970, the year in which Gordievsky was singled out by MI6. The family went with Gordievsky when he was posted to London in 1982 and they quickly settled, enjoying British culture and never realising what the double agent was actually up to as he divulged secrets to MI6 on a weekly basis. People in Downing Street and the Oval Office didnt believe it at first, but Oleg managed to convince them it was true and say that unless they calmed down the fighting talk, the West would effectively press the button on its own destruction., Moves were made to calm down the Soviets, who never fired. Only 2% of people can spot the odd couple hidden among the silhouettes so are you among them? Moore also wrote that, although the claims are difficult to corroborate without MI6 and KGB files, Gordievsky's past record in revealing KGB contacts in Britain had been shown to be reliable.[27]. expert analysis, our dedicated Brussels Briefing newsletter. Theyre doing it on Facebook, theyre doing it on Twitter, but the technique is the same., What are they after? Oleg Gordievsky, pictured with wife Leila years after fleeing to the UK in 1985, is regarded as Britain's 'most valuable' spy during the Cold War, but only escaped Moscow thanks to the. Shes at another safe house here in Britain. [2] He steadily advanced in rank there with the help of secret aid and manipulation by MI6, which handed him abundant non-damaging information and contacts; MI6 also steadily banished his direct superiors back to Moscow on trumped-up charges so that Gordievsky took their place. A refresher memo was concealed in an OUP edition of Shakespeares sonnets. Gordievsky would go on to meet his British handlers once a month; he didnt want money and said he was spying out of ideological conviction. 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.. That he managed to deceive his KGB colleagues during this time was remarkable. 06:01 EDT 17 Sep 2018. Then in a completely spontaneous and highly effective move, Mrs Ascot began changing her daughters full nappy on the boot where Gordievsky was hidden, with the smell enough to offend the dog and cause it to move away. After a long period of no contact MI6 was delighted when Moscow sent Gordievsky to London. It was not until 1965, that he received his first assignment as a handler for spies in Denmark, under the cover of a consular official dealing with visas. 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