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Intelligence Squared
Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two)
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- [00:00]
Sports Commentator
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- [00:46]
Mia Sorrenti
to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. In this episode we return for part two of our recent live event with co host of the Rest is Classified and former security correspondent for BBC News, Gordon Carrera. Carrera joined us recently at Conway hall to discuss life and death in the KGB with Sean Walker, central and Eastern Europe correspondent for the Guardian. If you haven't heard part one, do just jump back an episode to catch up. Now let's return to the conversation live at Conway hall in London.
- [01:18]
Sean Walker
The last question about how they deal with Metrokian. So I mean, there's this interesting moment where they get him to London and they realize the value of what he's bringing, but they realize they've got a bit of a problem paying him, right?
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Gordon Corera
Oh, yeah.
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Sean Walker
So what happens then?
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Gordon Corera
Well, because the Brits are like, great, we'll get him out, we'll get the files. And then, and this is very redolent of today, they turn to the treasury because they need money to resettle him. And this has to go through the Treasury. And the treasury says, no, I mean, we haven't got any money. And they say, you know, cold war's over. You don't want all this money to resettle him and his family. What's that all about? And so they then go back to the Americans. They say, remember that guy you turned away? Would you like to pay for him? And we'll give you all the access to the secrets. And so they actually do a deal for that. And it's quite interesting because one American who kind of dealt with it all said to me, maybe we actually got the best end of the deal because we had to pay a million dollars, but we didn't have to deal with him. And he was really hard to deal with him. The Brits had to deal with him. So I think there was a slight element where it was, you know, as I said, I mean, I've got a lot of sympathy for the man, but I don't think he was not easy.
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Sean Walker
Which is the case with many defectors.
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Audience Member / Interjector
Right.
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Gordon Corera
If not, I mean, they're driven people. They're driven people who are. Who've taken huge risks, you know, I mean, to do what he did. No normal person would do that, to take such risks because you believe in something. I mean, I think that's incredibly admirable, but it also makes you a driven person. And maybe sometimes in some cases, not all cases, that can make you difficult. And that will be the problem when he's out, because the idea is to publish this archive, but that's actually going to be a long and quite difficult journey, which is that he wants all the secrets of the KGB out in the raw. And MI6 will ask Christopher Andrew, the eminent Cambridge historian professor there, to work on the archive. And he wants to put context around it to explain these odd notes. And you've seen the archive. It's not easy to understand without context. And the two clash quite badly and the relationship breaks down. At one point, Matrokin actually discusses getting lawyers and saying, maybe I'm going to get my lawyers to argue I've got the copyright for the archive. And I think someone from MI6 thinks themselves, if anyone has the copyright to this archive, it's the kgb, and I don't think they're going to be coming and suing us in court for it. So that leads to the publication in 1999.
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Sean Walker
Yeah. And so, I mean, through the 90s, Brits, Americans, other services are running down the leads. And then, as you say, it's published in 99, and suddenly the world gets to know there was this defector who extraordinarily had way more access than you would normally imagine. So do these revelations shock the world?
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Anne Cormack
No.
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Gordon Corera
And this is what I think is important, and this is why I think the book is so important for the contemporary world that we live in now. And why it's not just about history, because the book will come out in 1999, September 1999, here in Britain. It's interesting because the focus of it all becomes about one thing, one story, which is the fact that there'd been an agent called Hola, but whose real name was Melita Norwood. I don't know if any of you remember the name, but who had been. Actually Mitrokin, in his archive reveals an incredibly important agent for the kgb. And its predecessors in Britain's atomic program in the early days. And she'd been able to get from the safes some of the deepest secrets and pass them on. She'd been one of a kind of collection of atomic spies. And people often ask, does spying really make a difference? And one of the answers of where it certainly did was giving the Soviet Union the atomic bomb much faster than it would have done otherwise, thanks to a group of atomic spies and the work of the KGB's predecessor. And, you know, she'd been one of those, maybe not the most important, there were others, Klaus Fuchs, famously, and, you know, other people. But she'd been important and MI5 had basically missed her, or at least had known a little bit about her and investigated her, but missed how important they were.
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Sports Commentator
She was.
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Gordon Corera
And so this becomes a huge scandal in 1999, because what worse for MI5 is she's still alive and she's living in Bexley Heath, South London, making jam. And one of the favorite stories is the journalists are trying to track her down. And the intrepid journalist goes to the local corner shop, the news agent, and he notices that they stock copies of the Morning Star, the communist newspaper, and they're like, oh, yeah, that's Melita's copy. She always gets that. And it's like, that'll be the communist spy. Still reading the. But the point is that what that does is that becomes the story. But also, everyone thinks, well, this book is very interesting about the secrets of the KGB, but the KGB's it's gone, isn't. Died in 1991 with the end of the Cold War. It's quite interesting because it tells you some stuff about the Cambridge Five, you know, the famous spies. We didn't know about other spying operations around the world, including in lots of interesting countries, but it's history, so what does it matter? And this, I think, is why the story of Matrokin is so interesting, because it is, on the one hand, it's a wonderful story about a man who does what he believes in, who works with British intelligence, whose secrets get out and get published. On the other side, I think it is actually a tragedy, because I think the truth is his material comes out at a moment where people think the Cold War is over, and yet, just a few weeks before that book comes out, in 1999, of the files of the archive, who gets elected or selected to be Prime Minister of Russia? Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer. And yet still people do not see the connection between the past and the present. They do not see. They think this is a man we can do business with. This is a man who's going to bring order after the chaos and humiliation of Russia in the 1990s. And he uses his KGB past quite cleverly as part of his myth making. And, you know, we can talk more about Putin and his KGB past, but it's. But Mitrokin can see that the past is not dead. He can see at this point that the kgb, this beast that he fought, that he believed was so evil and feeding on his country, is not dead. Everyone else thinks it's dead. Lots of people, even in, you know, Western capitals, even in spy services, think it's dead. But he can see it's just changed shape. It's shape shifted. It's kind of deformed and altered its appearance. But the same forces are still there. And it is a tragedy because in his last years, until he dies in 2004, he will be trying to warn people. If you look at his writings, and they were kind of barely read, some of these books he put out, almost self published. I mean, they were published with some help, but in which, if you read the notes he's writing in it, he is obsessed with this idea that the KGB is returning and is still there. And yet people at that point in the early 2000s, I think, just didn't
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Ed Conway
want to see it.
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Gordon Corera
And I put myself in that category, I should say, as a young journalist at the time, I don't think I saw it. So that's, you know, it's not. It's not criticism, just of others.
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Sean Walker
And then you had 9, 11, and the war on terror, when Russia and the intelligence services became a partner, right? And we're the, you know, the Bush administration wanted to work with Russia. And for a few years, even though I think in both the Russian and American services, there was massive skepticism that the order of the day was cooperation. So I guess Mitrokin dies in 2004, and I. I mean, I guess he's a bit broken, right? He's spent all those years putting this together and presumably expected there to be this, you know, sensation when his life Works published. No, totally.
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Gordon Corera
And I think. I think it's sad. I mean, I don't think he was. I think he was. He was content that he'd done what he could. So I don't think. I think. I wouldn't go too far on him being broken, but I think he was frustrated that what he was trying to tell people was not being listened to. And then I think it's only after that, you start to get the first signs that actually the KGB may have maybe come back in some ways. And of course, you know, 2006, we're coming up to the 20th anniversary of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko here in London. The former FSB officer, Russian security service officer, who was killed, an inquiry said, most likely on the orders of Vladimir Putin. And he'd had a direct kind of battle with Putin himself. They confronted each other, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Litvinenko, about corruption, about the fsb. Because I think Litvinenko was motivated by a kind of a similar desire to expose the, the dark side of what was happening. And yet even then, I think 2006, we didn't quite understand the KGB was coming back. I think we still didn't quite understand the persistence of that ideology and of the methods. And then I, you know, again, and I, you know, I'm self critical about this, rather than just blaming everyone else. Because you then, even if you fast forward a few years, you start to see things like the talk about, well, was Russia and Russian intelligence interfering in the US election in 2016, you know, the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in 2018, the use of propaganda operations, the financing of political players. All these things which we talk about now and we go, you know, shock, horror, you know, they're doing this. Well, it's all in the Matrokhin archive. You know, it is all in the archive that these are the kind of activities they were doing in the Cold War. And if you read the Mitrockian archive, you can see that, for instance, the KGB was deeply involved in political interference. And around the world, in India, in Italy, you know, in lots of countries in American politics, they were trying to undermine certain candidates, you know, support others, sometimes funneling cash. It's all there in the archives. Killing dissidents abroad, killing enemies abroad, the exiles, if you like. You know, again, we were shocked with Alexander Litvinenko and with Sergei Skripal, the attempt on his life. We shouldn't be, because it's all in the archive. The fact that they were using these methods, we'd forgotten. I mean, some of them are famous, like killing Trotsky in Mexico City, but there are many other cases which Mitrokin had dealt with. So I think in a sense we've had to relearn the lessons. And I think the tragedy for him is his book, his archive came out in 1999 at a moment when the world wasn't receptive, wasn't ready to listen. Whereas now I think we are more so. And So I think it's a moment to kind of bring attention to it and to what it tells us. And I guess just one more point on that is the persistence of that Czechist ideology I talked about at the start, because that is the through line. It was not always about protecting the Communist Party. It was about protecting a certain vision of Russia and a certain power structure and the ruthlessness and willing to do whatever it took to do that. That is the through line which explains Putin. Putin is a Chekist. The Czechi's day was reinstituted in Russia and I think finally as a kind of the perfect symbol of. That was about three years ago, I think it was 2023, outside the foreign intelligence headquarters of what had been the KGB and is now the svr, in the place where Mitrokin had moved the files physically from the Libyanka to this new headquarters. They put up statue of Dzerzhinsky. You know, they put up a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka. I mean we are. This is more than 100 years after the Bolshevik revolution. This is a Bolshevik revolutionary in modern Russia. You know, on one level, ideologically it shouldn't make sense, but what it tells you is that those people who work there believe there is a continuity between the past KGB and, and the present activities of Russian intelligence. And we should understand that too, I suppose.
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Sports Commentator
Right?
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Sean Walker
And it's not just Putin, right? I mean all of the top security people are the people who went through that same. They're old men in the 70s who,
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Gordon Corera
and even more so in a sense that in the Cold War the KGB was to some extent kept in balance by the Communist Party. Whereas now the hard line KGB ideology, the Czechist ideology has captured the whole state. State, you know, it's become a security state. I mean you've lived there and you know that. And that's, that's what's become more evident I think in some ways more even than certainly in some ways in Soviet times.
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- [18:48]
Sean Walker
For me, one of the most interesting things in the archive was when you look at the present day and all this sort of sabotage attacks that you see, particularly in Poland, where I live now, Baltic States, countries that are fiercely supporting Ukraine. And we saw the arson attacks on Kia Starmer linked cars, which the court case is going on now. And when you look in the Matrokhin, there's this really interesting files about something they call the special period, which is what the KGB defines as the period between a full war with the west, but where tensions are really high. And there's a list of all the things they would do in the special period, and that includes all of those sort of things like sabotage, like, you know, arson attacks, explosions. And I think that's kind of where the Russian elite think they are with the west in conflict with us, effectively,
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Gordon Corera
maybe not at war, but engage in a conflict one level down, in which they're using the playbook that was in the KGB archives.
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Sean Walker
Okay. So I want to bring it open to questions now before I do, there are. I've been told there are water jugs at the back of the hall if anyone needs them. So do you want to go first, sir?
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Audience Member
Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot. And I find. And also I'm really interested in the history of kgb. And what I find, this book is amazing, is that it studies an individual. It studies an individual. So that I'm really interested in how. Mr. Cora, you actually get sources to study this person, because it's extremely hard to get so many details like the checklist. And the personal thought is extremely hard to learn about the. This kind of stuff, even for a figure like him, who actually we. Who actually. Because he turns into the what into he just cross. Cross the border so that it's much easier to learn about him.
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Gordon Corera
Thank you.
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Sean Walker
Okay, so. And then is.
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Gordon Corera
Do we have.
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Audience Member
Yeah, up there.
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Sean Walker
One.
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Anne Cormack
Hello, Anne Cormack. My question is, I've read your book, and I know many people who have read your book. The exposition you just gave, which explains so much more than the story that's told in the book, is crucial. Now, today, this week in Scotland, we see evidence of interference. And the kind of subterfuge that you've been describing has been going on for more than 100 years. So my question is, how can we get that interpretation to a much broader audience to inform people to be alert to the fact that we are in hot war, effectively in cyberspace and below the radar. Thank you.
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Sean Walker
And then we'll do one more, and then, Gordon, you'll have a round of answers.
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Gordon Corera
Okay, thank you very much, Gordon. Thank you very much, Sean. Very well moderated, very well presented. Short question for me. At what point did. Did Mitoken's mother in law and son
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Sean Walker
realized what was happening when they were being.
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Gordon Corera
Yeah, it's a good question.
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Audience Member / Interjector
Yeah.
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Home Depot Advertiser
What happened?
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Audience Member
Thank you.
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Gordon Corera
I tempted to say read the book, but I'll give you a little answer which is here's the really weird bit. I don't think the mother in law ever realized, I'm led to believe by people who were involved in things being very discreet here, that she was. She almost didn't quite understand. I mean, she was quite elderly. She didn't quite understand what was going on. And they were just going, it's fine, we're just going on a trip. And Whereas the son, who was a very interesting character, really interesting, you know, obviously had a complicated life. He was in a wheelchair. He realizes the moment they're trying to take him on the boat to get him out, and at that moment he doesn't want to go, and he's not very happy. And on a personal level, I think it's very hard because it leads to a kind of quite difficult relationship between father and son, which for many years, I think there's resentment of the son that he's taken away from his life in Russia. And yet it is the son who, after his father's death in 2004, will seek to preserve the legacy. And the son, sadly dies about a decade later. But his almost final act is to hand over his father's archive to Churchill College, Cambridge, where you can go see it now, where Shaun and I both visited. And so the son, having had quite a hard time, ends up preserving the father's legacy and seeing that as his mission, because I think he ends up understanding what his father had done. I think it's quite a hard thing to do, though, to suddenly be told you're leaving your country and your friends and everything for good. Oh, and by the way, your father's working with British intelligence. You know, I mean, it's not the
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Sean Walker
moment you get on the boat. Seems quite late to find that out.
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Gordon Corera
I think it was, yeah. Complicated family. I think in some ways there was a question there about the sources. Now, any good journalist will be quite careful about their sources. And so I'm definitely not going to name any names. I think one of the advantages I had in talking to people about it, and some of it, there is some written material, but not that much. And even particularly biographical, there are scraps in places. But there were a lot of people who knew Mitrokin, even though he died many years ago, who I spoke to, and some who knew him very well, and some on a kind of personal level and some on a professional level. And also one of the advantages, unusually actually, and this was made, you know, as a researcher, it's quite unusual, is British intelligence doesn't normally talk about its operations and who it works with. And some people know there's kind of various rules, neither confirm nor deny and things like that about agents and operations. But Mitrokin is an unusual exception to that. And that is actually, strangely, it's all partly thanks to Melita Norwood. I mean, this is kind of. It's an odd story, but the Melita Norwood story becomes such a scandal in British politics. Why wasn't she prosecuted? What went wrong? Why didn't ministers know about it? That there is a big Intelligence and Security Committee oversight report into the handling of the Mitrochin archive, which comes out in 2000 and which is an extraordinary document as a researcher, because actually has details of the case and his code names and things like that in it, which actually puts a certain amount in the public domain, which makes it easier. So it's quite unusual actually, as an MI6 case in there being a certain amount in the public domain. Bizarrely, thanks to Melita Norwood. There's a question about, from the top, about being aware of Russian interference. I mean, we are much more aware of it now. I think it's become quite politicized, whether it's in Scotland, whether it's in America and, you know, the accusations. You're a Russian agent, you're not. What constitutes Russian interference? What if Russia amplifies domestic genuine views? Is that interference? You know, and I think particularly the cyber, the online world, which was mentioned, has offered Russia and the KGB successes a new avenue to do something that they'd always done before, but in a much more efficient, effective, low cost, high velocity, mass scale, which is information operations. And if you look at the Cold War, when they were trying to spread propaganda about the west, the famous one is they had an idea that
- [26:48]
Home Depot Advertiser
the
- [26:49]
Gordon Corera
American military was behind the AIDS virus and that AIDS was the product of American military research and they wanted to spread this idea to attack the West. Kind of classic KGB disinformation operation. It took them actually a long time, so they had to plant a story which I think went in an Indian newspaper first and then try and get paid, get agents who are in their payroll to pick it up and then report it further on and attribute it to them. It would take months, but it would eventually it had quite a bit of circulation. But if you think about what the online world offers you today is you can spread a piece of misinformation like that, you can create it like that. You can create a false identity online to make it look like you're not a Russian in Saint Petersburg, you know, working in a big office block for the Russian government. But you're, in fact a. You can make it look like you're an American or a Brit who's putting this out on social media. Just saying, maybe, you know, maybe there's something to this idea that, you know, the Ukrainians are really, you know, you can see how you can do that. And so the Internet and cyberspace and some of the anonymity of cyberspace has allowed Russia to just gear up those information operations on a completely different level. And I think we've really struggled to understand what to do with them. And there's lots of reasons for that. I think we've been slow at times. There's been issues about tech companies, there's been issues about, well, how do you balance that with free speech and what's political speech and what's not. It's become politicized, particularly in the U.S. but other places as well. And so we're not very resilient, I think, or well defended. That's not a sabotage operation, I hope. I don't think it was. It's when the lights go out. Normally you think that's the cyber attack, but I think that was. I think that's more innocent. But the point is, actually with sabotage as well, cyberspace offers new ways to sabotage things remotely, to turn things off, to do things. Cryptocurrency, maybe to send money around. So the underlying ideology of the KGB has maybe not changed the ways it's trying to do it, have adapted to new forms of technology. And I think in terms of how we respond, I think awareness is. Is key, but that's harder in some places than others.
- [29:24]
Sean Walker
I'm going to take two questions now. So one at the front here, wait a second for a microphone, and then I'll take one from the woman in the white in the middle there as well.
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Audience Member
Both of you have been journalists based in Moscow at some point. You, I gather, now in Poland. Would either of you think that you will ever be able to go back into Russia as journalists. And do you ever have any sense of unease being here at home and what you've been writing about?
- [29:59]
Sean Walker
And we'll just take one more as well and then we'll come to this.
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Gordon Corera
What was the reaction Inside Russia to
- [30:04]
Sean Walker
the publication of the archive of the archive in 1990?
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Audience Member / Interjector
Those two.
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Gordon Corera
Yeah. I have not been back to Russia
- [30:13]
Sports Commentator
for
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Gordon Corera
I think seven years now, since 2018, maybe around then. And I can't quite date it. And I mean, I used to just go in and out rather than, you know, Sean was, was based there and so I think had much more feel for what it's like to be there. And I think the sad thing is I, you know, I found it's a fascinating country and it's full of interesting art, culture, literature and lots of other wonderful things, but I can't see myself going back at the moment. And I think it goes to the question which is how long will Putin be around for? And I think the answer is we don't know. And will whatever comes next be that different? And the answer to that is we don't know. So that doesn't make it, make it very easy to see you. I don't know, I mean, you might want to answer that one as well.
- [31:05]
Sean Walker
But yeah, I mean, so I was, I was, I left, I lived there until 2018 and then I was going back and forward until the end of 2021. Actually, the last time I got a visa was the day before the full scale invasion. It was approved and I even picked it up, but I didn't use it. And then after that I was put on a list of people producing propaganda. I can't remember the phrase, you know, detrimental guardian of the Russian Federation. So I'm like, I have an indefinite ban now. So, you know, I think it's. If the regime changes will be when I'm able to go back.
- [31:41]
Gordon Corera
And then, yeah, one more question which was about the reaction. So this is a really interesting bit about the Matronkan story, which I didn't mention, which was that this also sounds a bit crazy, but. So he leaves in 92
- [31:54]
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and it
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Gordon Corera
looks like the Russians don't realize he's gone now. That sounds strange, but he had retired and he was very introverted and obsessive and they had a couple of vouchers actually. His wife was quite an eminent doctor, but was kind of semi retired and I think his pension was still, interestingly enough, being picked up by someone or somehow interesting how that happened. But the result is everyone thinks, well, he must be at the other datch, or he's moved or he's no longer here, we must be at the other place. And so it looks like they don't entirely fully appreciate that's what it looks like. And people have suggested to me, in this case, until 1999, until he finally goes public with a book. And then at first their reaction is like, this can't be right. There's no way anyone could have stolen these files. And then they realize, oh, he was the archivist, maybe he copied them. And then they have to think to themselves, hang on a sec. It's also a problem for them because he's not stolen files, because if you steal something, it's missing and you can see what's missing. But if you copied it, you don't know what he's taken. So theoretically, you have to assume everything is compromised. So it is a proper full stop scale disaster for Russian intelligence at that point. But you know, it's interesting because Russian intelligence, you read some of the memoirs of that period and it's like, oh, they were on the back foot and all these people were resigning. They were still running agents inside the CIA until 1994 and inside the FBI. Robert Hanson, until 2001, in the heart of American intelligence, this supposedly on the back of foot, Russian service was still, you know, successfully running agents right in the heart of its opponent.
- [33:45]
Sean Walker
Yeah. And they were helpfully both recruited in 1985. So just after Matrokin, his details.
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Gordon Corera
So the details of those agents weren't in his files because he just retired. Yeah.
- [33:55]
Sean Walker
Everyone, we've run out of time. Thank you so much for all of your questions. Thank you, Gordon, for a fascinating discussion. Thank you to everyone. Thanks to Intelligence Squared for organizing the event. That's all from us. Have a great evening.
- [34:07]
Windows 11 Advertiser
Thank you.
- [34:14]
Mia Sorrenti
Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by me, Mia Sorrenti and it was edited by Mark Roberts. For ad free episodes and full length recordings, you can become a member@intelligencesquared.com membership and to join us at future live events, you can head to intelligencewared.com attendance to see our full events program. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.
- [34:53]
Carrington College Advertiser
Your next chapter in healthcare starts at Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors and learn about our associate degree in nursing program that prepares you to become a registered nurse. Take the first step toward your nursing career. Save your spot now. At Carrington. Edu events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington. Edu Sci Stitch Fix.
- [35:24]
Audience Member / Interjector
Stop shopping. Get styled. Not today, sweatpants. Somebody's wearing jeans that fit.
- [35:30]
Windows 11 Advertiser
Wow.
- [35:32]
Sean Walker
No photos please.
- [35:32]
Gordon Corera
I'm just a regular dad who happens to have a stylist.
- [35:35]
Windows 11 Advertiser
I really look my best when someone
- [35:37]
Gordon Corera
else makes the decisions. Hey, we can all see you two way mirrors.
- [35:42]
Audience Member / Interjector
Just share your size, style and budget and your stylist sends personalized looks right to your door. Stitch Fix get started today@stitchfix.com I want to hug you. I'm going to hug you. I'm coming. I'm coming in for a hug.
- [35:54]
Ed Conway
How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.
- [36:24]
Gordon Corera
Most hotels don't just host guests. They also hold secrets of power, glamour, scandal, of history of every flavour.
- [36:33]
Carrington College Advertiser
In Hotels with History, we transport you to iconic addresses around the world to
- [36:38]
Gordon Corera
uncover the stories hidden behind closed doors. Hotels With History Season 2 is out now and we're bringing you episodes weekly. Follow Hotels with History on your favorite podcast platform so you don't miss a thing.