21. Death on the Thames: The Poisoned Umbrella (Ep 2)

Summary

Summary of "Death on the Thames: The Poisoned Umbrella" (Episode 21 of The Rest Is Classified)

Episode Overview

In Episode 21, titled "Death on the Thames: The Poisoned Umbrella," hosts David McCloskey and Gordon Corera explore the mysterious assassination of Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov in London in 1978. This episode delves deep into the intricacies of espionage, uncovering the methods, suspects, and geopolitical tensions that surrounded this Cold War-era murder.

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1. The Mysterious Assassination of Georgi Markov

The episode opens with the harrowing account of Georgi Markov's assassination on September 7, 1978, on Waterloo Bridge in London. Markov, a prominent Bulgarian writer and dissident, became the victim of an unprecedented attack involving a poisoned pellet.

Key Points:

• On Waterloo Bridge, Markov felt a prick in his leg, leading to his immediate illness and subsequent death.
• The post-mortem revealed a minuscule pellet embedded in his skin, later identified to contain the deadly toxin ricin.

Notable Quote:

“[01:34] Unknown Speaker: ...welcome to the Rest is Classified. I'm David McCloskey.”

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2. The Umbrella Weapon: Innovation in Assassination Techniques

A central focus of the episode is the innovative method used to deliver ricin to Markov. The use of an umbrella as a delivery mechanism not only signifies creativity but also the lengths to which intelligence agencies would go to eliminate dissidents without direct confrontation.

Key Points:

• The pellet was ingeniously designed to be fired from a modified umbrella.
• The umbrella was equipped with compressed gas to pierce Markov's skin and inject the toxin without immediate detection.

Notable Quote:

“[02:57] Gordon Carrera: ...the umbrella was perhaps the delivery mechanism for the pellet.”

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3. Initial Investigation and Cold War Complexities

The British authorities quickly suspected Bulgarian intelligence and the KGB due to the geopolitical climate of the Cold War. However, the investigation faced significant hurdles, primarily due to the secretive nature of Soviet-era intelligence operations and the lack of concrete evidence.

Key Points:

• Markov's assassination occurred during a tense period of East-West relations.
• The British investigation struggled to find solid leads, with the primary suspect being a man with an umbrella who vanished after the attack.

Notable Quote:

“[06:04] Unknown Speaker: And this is 30 some odd years before the British state got comfortable with Russian dissidents being murdered willy nilly on British soil.”

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4. Breakthrough Through KGB General Oleg Kalugin

A decade after the assassination, former KGB General Oleg Kalugin provided pivotal insights through his memoirs, shedding light on the internal deliberations within the KGB regarding Markov's death.

Key Points:

• Kalugin recounted a meeting where Bulgarian leader Todor Zhivkov requested assistance in eliminating Markov.
• The KGB exhibited reluctance, reflecting a shift from earlier, more aggressive tactics to a more reserved approach in covert operations.

Notable Quote:

“[16:02] Unknown Speaker: ...I'm against political assassinations. I don't think it's the right way to deal with these problems.”

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5. The Prime Suspect: Francesco Galino (Agent Piccadilly)

Further investigation led to Francesco Galino, codenamed "Piccadilly," identified through Bulgarian intelligence files. Galino's background and activities made him the prime suspect, although definitive proof remained elusive.

Key Points:

• Galino, of Italian origin, operated out of Denmark and was linked to multiple suspicious activities.
• Circumstantial evidence, including his presence in London during the time of the assassination and his training by Bulgarian intelligence, pointed towards his involvement.

Notable Quote:

“[30:19] Gordon Carrera: ...he'll have to dredge up her checkered past in service of CIA investigating a short list of her dearest friends and most cherished enemies.”

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6. The Technical Challenges of Poison Delivery

The episode delves into the technical aspects of the ricin pellet, emphasizing the sophistication required to ensure the toxin's effectiveness while maintaining plausible deniability.

Key Points:

• The pellet was crafted from platinum and iridium, featuring microscopic holes to release ricin upon injection.
• Trials conducted on animals and prisoners revealed flaws in the initial design, necessitating further refinement.

Notable Quote:

“[24:39] Unknown Speaker: ...the pellet has small holes that actually release the ricin.”

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7. Comparative Analysis: State-Sponsored Poisonings

McCloskey and Corera draw parallels between Markov's assassination and other high-profile poisonings, illustrating a recurring pattern in state-sponsored eliminations of dissidents.

Key Points:

• Similar methods were later employed in the assassinations of Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal.
• The choice of poison over conventional weapons highlights a preference for stealth and reducing the risk of attribution.

Notable Quote:

“[22:23] Gordon Carrera: ...radioactive material against Litvinenko.”

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8. The Enduring Legacy and Unresolved Mysteries

Despite extensive investigations and emerging evidence, Georgi Markov's assassination remains officially unresolved. The episode underscores the challenges inherent in prosecuting Cold War-era crimes, where much evidence was lost or destroyed.

Key Points:

• Files related to the case were destroyed by Bulgarian intelligence officials attempting to cover up state involvement.
• Francesco Galino remained uncharged due to insufficient direct evidence, leaving room for speculation and continued intrigue.

Notable Quote:

“[43:35] Unknown Speaker: ...this is why we're talking about this case 50 years later is the poison and the umbrella gun.”

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9. Broader Implications on Espionage and International Relations

The episode concludes by reflecting on the broader implications of such covert operations on international relations and the ever-evolving tactics of espionage.

Key Points:

• The use of advanced poison delivery systems signifies an escalation in covert assassination techniques.
• Political leaders' personal vendettas, as seen with Todor Zhivkov's directive to eliminate Markov, can have far-reaching consequences on diplomatic relations.

Notable Quote:

“[41:21] Unknown Speaker: ...the Russians had used poisons...left no trace such that an autopsy might inconclusively..."

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Conclusion

"Death on the Thames: The Poisoned Umbrella" offers a comprehensive exploration of one of the Cold War's most enigmatic assassinations. Through meticulous analysis and expert insights, McCloskey and Corera illuminate the shadowy interplay between intelligence agencies, political motives, and innovative assassination methods that defined an era fraught with secrecy and suspicion.

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Additional Notable Quotes from the Episode:

• “[05:02] Gordon Carrera: ...the Bulgarian DS have a memo...weapons like miniature pistols with silencers..."
• “[12:29] Unknown Speaker: ...the KGB recommended no direct involvement..."
• “[27:17] Gordon Carrera: ...it's a demonstration maybe of the state's power to kill you..."

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This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of Episode 21, providing listeners and newcomers alike with a thorough understanding of the intricate events surrounding Georgi Markov's assassination and its lasting impact on the world of espionage.

Transcript

[Alexandra Daddario]

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[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

I'm gonna take care of it. Of him.

[Alexandra Daddario]

Surrender to the darkness.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's not a sin to kill the devil.

[Alexandra Daddario]

Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches Sundays Exclusively on AMC and amc. Plus.

[David McCloskey]

Oh, sheet.

[Gordon Carrera]

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[Alexandra Daddario]

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[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

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[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

And all the money we'll save.

[Gordon Carrera]

Oh, sheet, Arm and hammer.

[Alexandra Daddario]

More power to you. This episode is brought to you by Paramount. The new season of the Paramount original series School Spirits is here, but the mystery has only just begun. Maddie is still trapped in the afterlife. Now she must work together with her friends in the spirit and living worlds to find a way back before it's too late. Stream the new season of School Spirits now on paramount. Head to paramountplus.com to get started.

[Unknown Speaker]

He told me the most extraordinary story, that he had been jabbed with an umbrella tip. It was almost as if he didn't want to believe it himself. And I don't think he wanted to frighten me with it, but he showed me the mark the umbrella had made. It was like the point of a hypodermic needle. Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey.

[Gordon Carrera]

And I'm Gordon Carrera.

[Unknown Speaker]

And that was the testimony of Annabel Markov, wife of the murdered Bulgarian dissident and writer Georgi Markov. And we have been looking at the amazing story surrounding the death of Georgi Markov in London, in Central London in 1978. So last time, the last episode, we talked about how Markov Gordon had been feeling ill after he felt something jab him on Waterloo bridge, September of 1978. Within days, Markov is dead and a post mortem is going to find a tiny pellet inside his leg. Tests are going to later reveal that the deadly toxin ricin is the most likely culprit in this murder. But we still have no idea of exactly how it was delivered. And I think, as we're going to see here, that Markov gives sort of the critical clue to his wife Annabelle in the hours after he's poked on Waterloo Bridge that's right.

[Gordon Carrera]

He clearly remembers that moment of being on the bridge of feeling something. He associates that with then feeling unwell and with this person who had the umbrella and who picks up the umbrella. So he clearly gives this clue that, that the umbrella was perhaps the delivery mechanism for the pellet that they find within him. But it's still a bit mysterious as to how this actually happened. I mean, was it a poisoned umbrella? How does a pellet get into you? Who would be able to kind of wield such a weapon? But that's the suggestion, at least at this time, is that the umbrella was associated with it. And of course, you can imagine at the time when this gets out that this is what he thought. It's a media sensation because, I mean, you couldn't get anything more British than, you know, the murder of a man with an umbrella in rainy Britain on a bridge in the shadow of Big Ben. And so, you know, both in British terms, also worldwide, this becomes a huge kind of subject of interest and a kind of a murder mystery. But it's a murder mystery where people think they know what the weapon was, but they don't actually have any suspects or any proof.

[Unknown Speaker]

Markov is convinced that the umbrella plays some role, but he didn't see the umbrella Pokemon. All he did was see the guy pick it up, the national symbol of Britain. And so we don't have any really concrete evidence. We have no idea who this mysterious man with the umbrella was, who he was working for. And I think it is worth saying we talked about this a little bit last time, Gordon, that the pellet that was dug out of Markov's skin was very unusual. Right? It was very tiny. I mean, we're talking about 1 point something millimeters in length. It was made from platinum and iridium, and it had very, very small holes that might have been drilled or engineered in some way to secrete a poison. So it looks like something that's quite advanced, but again, no idea who was actually behind this thing.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. And the Bulgarians are the obvious suspects because they've got the motive, they've got the axe to grind with Markov, the kind of thorn in side as this dissident writer. But could they really have fashioned this kind of remarkable pellet and come up with a means of delivery as advanced as seems to have been required? That does seem unlikely. So you have got this mystery. And the problem for the police, led by Jim Neville, this investigation is that it basically hits a dead end right after the poisoning. I mean, they can't find any suspects, they can't find the mystery man who carried the umbrella with a foreign accent, who disappeared in a taxi. They've got no hard evidence to link it either to Bulgaria or to the kgb, the Soviet secret services, who Markov had suggested, you know, on his deathbed, might have been involved. And so it's a problem, and it's a problem for the British state because, you know, they can't really complain about it or make a fuss or do anything because they haven't got the proof to say, you know, you were behind this, give us the evidence. Because everyone could deny it. They haven't got the proof to be able to show or to put on display.

[Unknown Speaker]

And this is 30 some odd years before the British state got comfortable with Russian dissidents being murdered willy nilly on British soil.

[Gordon Carrera]

And I think it's a different era where it's harder to kind of prove these things and therefore it's harder to kind of to make an accusation or to get any proof or to put any pressure on a country. So effectively, the trail goes quiet for a decade or so and then something surprising happens.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's quite the jump, Gordon. A whole decade passes.

[Gordon Carrera]

I mean, I mean, well, that's it from about 1980 or so. I mean, it doesn't look like this is still an open case, but there's really nothing more they can do. The police are investigating, we should say, you know, the investigation is ongoing, but there's effectively 15 years after his murder before there's the next kind of big moment. But the crucial thing that happens, of course, the end of the 80s, start of the 90s, is that the Cold War ends and the Bulgarian communist regime, which had been thought to have been perhaps behind this, has fallen. And so the question is, is the answer in the files, can investigators go there and get the answers as to what happened with Markov? And they clearly hope they might be able to.

[Unknown Speaker]

I will say that one of the things that struck me just in preparing for this episode was the contrast between the absolute dead end that the British investigation ran into in the Markov case and the relatively quick capture of the sort of suspect here in the states of killing that healthcare executive, our friend Luigi, who got paraded around right afterward, is it has become, I think, a lot harder to kill people and get away with it, wouldn't you say? I mean, In London of 1978, there are no cameras anywhere. I would imagine there's nobody's got a phone. And in this case, interestingly enough, I guess the difference between using A gun or knife or something like that and a poison is that there's a tremendous amount of time that's going to elapse that would have allowed a killer to get away. Because for most of that day in September, the next day up until his death, there's a lot of confusion about what's actually happened. And so, you know, you just kind of contrast London 78 with today. I mean, anybody who's thinking about killing someone has a little bit of a harder road to hoe these days than they did back in the Cold War.

[Gordon Carrera]

And that's one of the things that makes it so difficult for the police. We shouldn't underestimate the challenges for them then. And so they're hoping once you get to 1990, that they might find. Get the answers.

[Unknown Speaker]

They've literally got to wait for the archives to open to get the answer.

[Gordon Carrera]

So you get to 1990 and the police and actually, I think Markov's widow go to Bulgaria. But here they hit a problem because the crucial files, surprise, surprise, have been destroyed as the Communist regime fell, the files directly relating to Markov have been destroyed, and anything which might suggest responsibility on the part of the Bulgarian state, and this appears to have been done by the head of the Foreign Intelligence Department of the Committee of State Security, a general who actually had been serving back in 1978, and he's actually prosecuted for destroying these files. And the second person suspected to destroy the documents commits suicide. So what you get is a sense of people who are keen to cover up any evidence there might have been. And, you know, this does become a very, very controversial episode in Bulgaria then and still to now. And it goes back to what we talk about previously, that Georgi Markov was quite a famous figure. He was a big novelist who'd been killed. So people wanted to know the answers.

[Unknown Speaker]

He was the Bulgarian Ian McEwan.

[Gordon Carrera]

He was. And I think one of the interesting things is it does get to a bit of. You know, I visited Bulgaria once or twice, and it is a country which, even now, long after the fall of Communism, but still is slightly caught between a kind of European future and its old ally, Russia. And there are certainly people in Bulgaria who feel closer and a closer affinity to Russia. And, you know, there would have been people at the time who'd have worked closely with the Russians or the Soviets then and who'd have wanted to maintain that. And so you get this sense that the Markov case, then in 1990, but right up to now is part of a tussle over Bulgaria. Its political alignment, its future, you know, and how open to be about the past. This becomes a crucial problem. So again, we've got a kind of dead end, it appears. But then around 1993, the mystery starts to open up again in a really interesting and surprising way. And that comes when a former KGB general called Oleg Kalugin flies to London for an interview with the BBC. Now, Kalugin is a very interesting character. He had, as I said, been in the kgb, and he'd actually been, you know, a real high flyer in the KGB who had at one point been one of the youngest generals ever to rise up, you know, into the KGB. He'd spent time in the US as a young officer, but in the 80s, he falls out with the hardliners at the KGB quite badly, and then moves to becoming effectively an opposition politician. And when there's a coup in the Soviet Union in 1991, he's on the side, not of the KGB, but of the opposition trying to bring democracy to Russia and Boris Yeltsin and people like that. And he would eventually leave Russia and goes to live in the us. And I've actually met him. He kind of still alive in the us. I've been to his house and spoken to him. He's very interested, interesting, cultured guy. I mean, you know, I was actually talking to him because he'd known Kim Philby many years ago, and I was talking to him about that. Really interesting. But he's not. He wasn't a defector or a classic kind of, you know, spy who'd been spying for the west, but he's someone who became disaffected with the KGB and then leaves. And what that means is at this period in the. In the early 90s, he knows the KGB secrets. And it turns out he crucially knows one of the secrets about Markov. And actually he's briefly detained when he comes through London because the British police think that he might have been involved or at least knows about the Markov.

[Unknown Speaker]

And I guess the case is still open at this point, 15 years later.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, he's not arrested in the sense that he's not, you know, charged because he hadn't been directly involved in Markov's killing. But he does know about it. And this is the crucial fact, is that he brings a crucial piece of the puzzle because we've been looking at that question of, you know, was it the Bulgarians, was it the kgb? Well, it turns out that Kalugin knows about the exact sequence of events and particularly the relationship between the kind of KGB and the Bulgarians. He's got this kind of crucial insight into what happened.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, and I think it's probably before I read here a little bit of exactly how this went down. It is probably worth just a little bit of a setup of the Bulgarian Committee for State Security. Their security service, the Drznava Sigournost. The DS was. And for those of you keeping track on your rest is classified bingo card cards for mentions of obscure security services. You'll be pleased to be able to check off the DS as one of them. On this episode, we kind of think about the Eastern bloc, I guess the Soviet bloc is kind of monolithic in this period, I guess. But, you know, it's the case that, like the Stasi, the East German service is kind of a partner with the kgb. There's a bit of a give and take. The Bulgarian DS in this period is basically the KGB's outpost in Bulgaria.

[Gordon Carrera]

They're very close.

[Unknown Speaker]

It is a very close service. It is so close, in fact, that in this period they are. They're sharing agents with one another. The Bulgarians are basically sending all of their people to Moscow for training. They are extremely, extremely close. I mean, the KGB is actually helping the Bulgarians spy on foreign embassies in Sofia. I mean, in one case, the Bulgarians actually have handed over an asset they recruited to be run instead by the kgb. All of this, you know, from the standpoint of sort of sovereign nations or separate security services is kind of pretty wild. So it's a kind of Soviet bloc special relationship, I guess you could say, Gordon, in which the Bulgarians have gone kind of full open kimono in exchange for support from Moscow. And I think, interestingly, and I think this might have been from reading. I don't know if they're portrayed this way in Clancy novels or if it's because they were suspected of having some role. The Bulgarians were in an attempt on Pope John Paul II's life. But there was this like, tendency to see the Bulgarians as the KGB's wetwork. Guys like, you know, the KGB needed something nasty done, they went to the Bulgarians to. To get it done.

[Gordon Carrera]

Wetwork, we should say, is the euphemism for killing people.

[Unknown Speaker]

Or, you know, I've actually also seen in some of these Bulgarian files. I'm deep in the Bulgarian files now, Gordon. They called it sharp measures was another. Sharp measures sounds like what you tell.

[Gordon Carrera]

Your children you'll be subject to sharp measures should you not do what you're told.

[Unknown Speaker]

There were many times, many times over holiday breaks where I would like to subject them to sharp measures, but not the Bulgarian type.

[Gordon Carrera]

Thank you.

[Unknown Speaker]

But the Bulgarians are actually entirely dependent on the Soviet KGB to conduct these sharp measures. It's kind of the other way around. It's not the KGB outsourcing its dirty work to the Bulgarians. It's really the Bulgarians coming to the KGB and proposing something that the KGB is not maybe super keen on supporting.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, that's exactly right. And that seems exactly what happens here with the Markov case. And it's interesting, Kalugin says that this was the only time, in his words, he was involved in what he called a wet job, meaning of assassination. And he, Kalugin, in his memoir, says that the KGB chief Khrushchkov had been contacted by the Bulgarians to ask for help in carrying out a specific request from the Bulgarian leader Todor Zhivkov, because they needed help to do it and they wanted help to get rid of Markov effectively. And we've got from Kalugin's memoir an account of the meeting in the KGB where they're discussing this.

[Unknown Speaker]

This is Kalugin recalling the incoming Bulgarian request and how it was dealt with at the kgb. We sat in silence for a few seconds. I will never forget the tide of euphemism Kruchkov used for Markov's assassination, quote, physical removal in Russian. I felt a chill go down my spine and thought to myself, to hell with these Bulgarians. Let them do whatever they want to their political opponents. Why are they dragging us into this mess? Andropov was taken aback. He got up from his desk and started nervously pacing back and forth. The chairman seemed lost for a few seconds, then said, I'm against political assassinations. I don't think it's the right way to deal with these problems. The time when this sort of thing could be done with impunity has passed. We cannot return to the old ways. I'm really against it. Again there was silence, save for the faint hum of traffic in Dzerzhinsky Square. Finally, Kruchkov spoke again. It's Comrade Zhivkov's personal request. We have to deal with this problem somehow. Andropov continued pacing around the room. Alright, alright, he said, stopping suddenly. But there has to be no direct participation on our part. Give the Bulgarians whatever they need, show them how to use it, and send someone to Sofia to train their people. But that's all. No direct involvement.

[Gordon Carrera]

Beautifully rare does ever. David, I think you've got the KGB voice down pat but it's a, I think, quote, because what you get a sense of from there, which is, I think, quite surprising, is a few crucial details about Markov's assassination. One is it's the Bulgarian's request to the KGB that it's come from Zhivkov. The Bulgarian leader personally has asked the Soviets, please help me with this problem. So clearly it's him who wants it done, but he can't do it himself. And so it's come to the kgb. Also fascinating, isn't it, that the KGB is quite reluctant. They don't want to deal with this. They were like, don't go, yeah, why are we going to do this dirty job? It's fascinating, isn't it?

[Unknown Speaker]

It's totally fascinating on that point. Also in my Bulgarian files, Gordon, in 1972, and this is all the stuff that's come out since the collapse of communism in Bulgaria. What was called Department 4 of the DS in Bulgarian intelligence, which kind of had this part of its portfolio, the planning of sharp measures against dissidents, what they called the. The hostile emigre community. They actually had a memo that they were going to send to the East German security service, the Stasi, in which they were going to ask the Stasi for a whole bunch of different items, like miniature pistols with silencers, quick working poisons was in there, some gadgets for the sudden injection of poison into the body. And all of this stuff was being sent in a memo to the East Germans, but the KGB had to clear it first. And that's how close the Bulgarians were with the KGB and the kgb. And editing the memo literally in red ink, wrote nyet with two exclamation points. No, you're not. Do not send this to the East Germans. So you kind of see that. I think this is also something that the KGB had probably been dealing with with Zivkov and these guys in the DS for a lot of the 1970s, was these guys wanted to kill Bulgarians living outside of Bulgaria who were bothering them and creating problems. And the KGB had probably said no a whole bunch of times and felt by the time they got to 1978, like they had to say yes.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And what's interesting is we think of the KGB being the kind of trained killers and being the ones who've done this. And there is definitely a history of that. If you go back to the kind of Czechist days from the 20s onwards, you know, there's a period in the 50s where they were kind of really busy with this. You know, they'd already killed Trotsky. So there is a history of assassinations which are linked to the Soviet Union, the KGB. But actually, once you get into the 60s and 70s, mellowed. Yeah, they've mellowed. I mean, they're actually not so into it. And they kind of want to see themselves a bit more as a professional intelligence service, less, you know, willing to use those kind of slightly darker Stalinist methods. And so in their self image, as we can hear in that kind of quote, they're reluctant. They don't want to do it. But, you know, it's so interesting. The leadership of the KGB is like, oh, you know, it's a personal request from Zhivkov. You know, he's really pestilent. We don't want to do this. So, okay, if we have to, we're going to do it. We'll give them some technical support. But I don't want anyone to get their hands dirty directly in doing it from the kgb. We give them the stuff, we tell them how to do it, they do it. So that is the kind of key detail that really comes from Kalugin's account. And so what we then know from what he says is the KGB go to their operational technical directorate, and it is noticeable that even though KGB people say, oh, we didn't really do that many assassinations in there this time, they still have a technical directorate and a secret poisons laboratory which knows how to do it. So, you know, they've not got rid of that. You know, they still got this laboratory 12, which develops poisons. So it's clear they've kept the capability, even if they're a bit more reluctant to use it.

[Unknown Speaker]

And we should say that, I guess the 50s and the 60s and kind of the 70s, this was sort of the. Any security service worth its salt had a secret poisons lab, right? I mean, the CIA had one, right? I mean, this was an era in particular in the 60s, where the CIA had one of the largest caches of shellfish toxin. It's actually a distilled toxin from butter clams in its laboratory. The CIA had cobra venom. The CIA had a gun famously held up by Senator Frank Church at sort of the Church pike hearings in the mid-70s. There's a great picture of him holding this thing up. And, you know, it's a gun that's designed to shoot a pellet with kind of that distilled shellfish toxin in it to induce a heart attack, Right? And so you do have this period where you would sort of be embarrassed if you were A security service that didn't have cobra venom in the basement, you know, but. But the difference, I think, between the Central Intelligence Agency and here, the KGB, was that by the time you got to the mid-1970s, the CIA had basically been dragged through the mud for not having destroyed all of its cobra venom and its shellfish toxins. It had kind of more or less dismantled those programs. And the kgb, obviously, in this case, is fielding an active operational request from the Bulgarians to poison somebody or to help poison somebody in London.

[Gordon Carrera]

And it's fascinating because they look at the different ways they could do this, and I think it's particularly interesting now, in hindsight, to look at the account of this, particularly after what's happened recently, because one option they look at to get rid of Markov is poison in his food or drink. Now, of course, poison in your tea or in case of, you know, radioactive poison. That's how it's done with Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Another option they look at is a gel, a poisonous gel, which you could apply to the handle of Markov's car. Now, of course, this is similar to how it's done with Sergei Skripal in that Novichok, a poison nerve agent is put on the door handle of his house.

[Unknown Speaker]

We should say both Linvinenko and Skripal, both Russian defectors. Right. Who were. Who were in London.

[Gordon Carrera]

And then a third option, which they talk about at the time is a pellet. And, you know, Kalugin talks about in his memoir it being like a comedy of errors as they try and work out how to use this and what the best way might be. They look at, you know, trying to poison Markov while he's on holiday in Sardinia. It turns out, you know, they wanted to smear gel onto his bare skin on the beach.

[Unknown Speaker]

The cabana boy approach to assassinations.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I mean, you know, you kind of go. I mean, that's even weirder than an umbrella is the idea that someone's gonna kind of walk past you while you're kind of semi naked on a beach and just smear something on you. I mean, it does sound so bad, but the weather was so bad, supposedly, that he wasn't on the beach the time they were looking at it. And he was a private villa, so they couldn't get anything into his drinks or his hotel.

[Unknown Speaker]

The assassin just sat there with a bucket of toxic gel in the rain, I think.

[Gordon Carrera]

So. I mean, bizarre. Another one was to poison him in his drink while he's recording for Radio Free Europe in Munich. Problem is he's actually pretty careful because he's had these warnings, of course, and doesn't eat out at restaurants or bars. And he, you know, brings his own food, even if he's going to someone's house. So in the end, they settle on this idea of the ricin pellet. The KGB bring it to Bulgaria, the Bulgarians test it on a horse, and it dies. And according to Kalugin, they even test it on a prisoner who feels his skin pricked. And, you know, you're a prisoner and you feel something, you know, prick your skin. So he knows this is looking bad and he cries out, but in that case, the poison isn't released, and so he's fine. And so the KGP go back to the lab and say, hang on a sec, you know, you need to make this work. We have to develop a better pellet.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, on the pellet point. I guess the idea they're testing here technically, is that pellet has a couple small holes that actually release the ricin. Right. But there's something that coats the pellet once it's injected into the skin. Sort of the body temperature, I guess, is going to melt that coating and then release the ricin.

[Gordon Carrera]

So you've got to get it into someone, but also, you know, make sure it releases the poison. Now, in the end, it looked like they settle on the umbrella as the delivery mechanism. Now this, it's interesting because there's still some. Some people who are. Who are not totally sure about this. There's some people who've thought that the umbrella was a kind of distraction and that actually there was a kind of special pistol that would be used. But almost all the evidence points to it being a specially designed umbrella which the KGB make, which uses compressed gas to fire the pellet. And it has to be hard enough to kind of break through clothes and get into someone, as you said, but not a kind of bullet or something which is going to go through the person or, you know, which is going to be really obvious, you know, in terms of pain. And there's a few more clues as to how it's done, which come out from the files that Vasily Mitrokin, the KGB archivist, smuggles out.

[Unknown Speaker]

And we should say, Gordon, before we get to Mitrokin, that in the of kind of also mentioning the fact that we have the same sort of technical advances going on on both sides of the Iron Curtain in this era. The Office of Strategic Services, the sort of predecessor to CIA, had developed an umbrella gun in the Second World War. And they also had an electric dart gun capable of silently firing poison pellets that would dissolve in a victim before an autopsy could be performed.

[Gordon Carrera]

Now, that's really interesting. So it's very similar.

[Unknown Speaker]

Very similar, yeah. So I think you had essentially kind of, I guess, the same tech being created to solve this problem of how do I kill somebody and leave no trace such that an autopsy might inconclusively, certainly to the point where you couldn't point a finger at a particular assassin or at a particular security service. Right. Because I'm utterly fascinated by this Russian Soviet bloc obsession with poison. And I'm sure it's something we'll talk about when we discuss some of the other notable poisonings in London by the Russian security services. But it is this question of they're going through all of these technical, really this kind of R and D work to build this thing. And it does kind of raise this question of why not just find a criminal willing to take some money and have him shoot Markov? It's kind of an interesting point, I think, around the tension of, I guess they're trying to build something that will allow this person to get away. I think there's also something to be said for the theatrics of it. It's a demonstration maybe of the state's power to kill you in a particularly kind of brutal and unique way. Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

But it is interesting because I think in these cases, the idea was that it would look. It would be mysterious shooting someone in the head. It's clear it's murder and you've got an assassin who needs to get away and you could easily get caught. And then they get traced and then it's, you know, it's a mess. The advantage of these techniques are firstly, that they suggest that someone might have been. But they're not definitive. There's an element of mystery because you don't know what poison is being used, and it may take some time for that to work out. And the delivery mechanism is covert, so the person who uses it, you know, in this case, an umbrella can get away. And the Soviets had used other things. They'd used these kind of cyanide sprays in the 50s, which they'd used against Ukrainian nationalists and they'd sent out KGB assassins who would effectively, you know, kind of spray with a kind of specially made kind of spray gun, cyanide into people's faces. But again, that gave someone time to away, and it would often not be clear what had killed them for a while. So I think, you know, this fits into that category, you know, in terms of the umbrella being the cause. I mean, the Matrokin archive. So these are files brought out by the former KGB archivist and which got published in 1999, has some further clues because they say that the murder weapon in the Markov case was concealed in an American umbrella and that these were purchased by the KGB's residency, its office in Washington. And again, this was partly to disguise the KGB connection. So the is, you know, if anyone found that umbrella or if, you know the person was captured, then, you know, it would look like an American umbrella and not. You're not going to use a Russian or even a British umbrella. And that this had then been converted by these KGB technicians to be able to fire that tiny pellet from the tip of the umbrella into someone, and.

[Unknown Speaker]

Even through his genes, I guess, right, without him even being able to. To see. So, I mean, maybe there, Gordon, with we've now got the weapon and we know it was the KGB supporting the Bulgarians, but we still don't know who actually did it. So when we come back, we'll get into who was actually using that umbrella gun on the streets of London.

[David McCloskey]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. During tax season, your personal info travels to a lot of places, between payroll, your tax consultant and the IRS. If your W2 gets exposed, that's just the ticket for identity thieves. That's why Lifelock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Don't let identity thieves take you for a ride. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply.

[Unknown Speaker]

Welcome back. We are now unraveling the last thread in the murder mystery of who killed Georgi Markoff on Waterloo Bridge in 1978. And it's going to come out here, Gordon, that the British police thought they knew who the murderer was all the way back in 1993 and had actually spoken to him.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. This will only come out many, many years later, and the name of the person will only emerge, really, in the 2000s and beyond. We talked a bit about how the FIL had been destroyed and lots of the files which dealt directly with the murder. But a Bulgarian journalist, Hristo Khristov, starts working through these files in Bulgaria in the mid-2000s, and he particularly focuses on a Bulgarian operative, an agent working for the ds, who is codenamed Piccadilly. Now, I mean, it's a slightly weird, you know, Piccadilly Circus is in London. It's a slightly weird codename. But his research suggests that this might be the prime suspect in Markov's murder. And what he does is he looks at some of the related files about Agent Piccadilly and identifies him as someone of Italian origin, but who's living in Denmark, called Francesco Galino. Now, the key files on the murder itself might have been destroyed, but Galino's files are fascinating because they point to him traveling to the UK around the time of the murder. He receives special training signed off by the head of Bulgarian intelligence. And I think, most tellingly, he's recorded as giving an acknowledgment signal to a Bulgarian spy the day after Markov's killing in Rome. And he's also paid off for many years afterwards, despite actually not looking like he's doing that much spying. There's even a special dinner in his honor. And there's nothing else which suggests he would be deserving of that kind of treatment. So it's not definitive proof, but it's very, very suggestive, circumstantial evidence about it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, and this is one of the fascinating things, I think, about our maybe mental model for some of these more piratical security services, let's say, these kind of communist services in the Cold War, is that even though they did things that we would consider to be remarkably immoral or amoral and illegal, they kept massive amounts of paper.

[Gordon Carrera]

They kept the files.

[Unknown Speaker]

They kept the files. And so there's. There is this very bizarre paradox in that they are pursuing extralegal action but keeping mountains of paperwork to document it. There's not really a wink and a nod thing here, and then none of it's captured. I mean, they're capturing the sort of case files in the same way that, you know, the British SIS would or the CIA would, in terms of monitoring and tracking their interactions within assets.

[Gordon Carrera]

And the thing is, even though they thought they destroyed the files on the murder because they're so bureaucratic, they've got so many files, you can find kind of circumstantial evidence from the other files. So let's. Let's look a little bit at Galino. Now. He is a really interesting character. He is like the kind of character out of one of those spy novels of the past, a kind of, you know, Eric Ambler spy novel of the 30s or something like that. He's a shady chancer, he's an oddball, he's a drifter, he's Orford Young. He ends up in petty crime, and by his 20s, he's driving trucks from Turkey around Europe and doing low level smuggling. And then this crucial moment comes where he's arrested as a 24 year old traveling into Bulgaria from Greece with a small amount of drugs and undeclared foreign currency. And at this moment he's told he could face 10 years in jail. And then in the kind of classic spy move, he's there having been detained and he's introduced to a charming man who says he could make the charges go away for him. And of course, that man works for the first main director of Bulgarian intelligence. And he's basically spotted that Galino has some potential. He's a guy who's got languages, he's an opportunist, he knows how to move across borders, he's involved in smuggling and so effectively, you know, says, come and work for us. And he signs a loyalty oath, he becomes Agent Piccadilly and he's trained then in espionage and how to spy on foreigners and ends up in Denmark. Now, you know, this is also where the story gets fascinating because the book to read on this is a book called the Umbrella Murder by a Danish journalist called Ulrich Scotter, which came out just a few years ago and who really drills down on the trail of Galino. And the reason why Ulrich Scotter, you know, focuses on so much is that he's actually that, you know, Ulrich Scotter is approached in the 90s by a friend of Golino who says, you know, I think I know who Markov's murderer. And this person, you know, has apparently been sharing a place with Galino and he comes across, you know, from Ulrich Scotter's kind of investigations, this really odd character Galino, who's got copies of Mein Kampf, he's got photos of women dressed up as Nazis. You know, it's kind of is a weird oddball. But he's also questioned by British police in 1993 in Denmark. And they actually go over and interview him about the case at that point. So clearly British police have also got onto him as early as 1993, because it's at that point that Scotter kind of first becomes aware of his name.

[Unknown Speaker]

Do we know why the British police were interested specifically in Galino in 93? Was it looking at the archives and kind of piecing it together or.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I guess that must be the case that they'd somehow got some kind of tip or some lead or they'd got something when they did visit the archives because Galino's name isn't public until the 2000s. But they do, they do have enough where they feel they can question him. But the real problem seems to be that they fly over to interview him. And what it looks like is that they're trying to get a confession and they need the confession because it doesn't look like they've got hard evidence. If they had the hard evidence, you'd suspect they would have extradited him or found a way to charge him, but they don't. They haven't got that. So they managed to interview him, but no more. And so then the saga continues and they're still trying to get more from the files. And this is really interesting that in 1997, you've got two foreign secretaries from Britain bringing up the issue of files before and after an election and access to the Agent Piccadilly files. And the Bulgarians say, oh, we can't really help you. There's a limit to what we've got. Again, the kind of difficulties in getting.

[Unknown Speaker]

Answers, because I guess by this point, Galino has wisely decided to pack up from Denmark and go back to Bulgaria.

[Gordon Carrera]

No, no.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, he's still in Denmark.

[Gordon Carrera]

He's still there. I mean, this is what's remarkable. He moves around Europe, but he's effectively a free man. And you get the Metropolitan Police detectives, they visit Bulgaria and they still pursuing this case. So in 2007 and 2008, and I checked this with a Met police detective I know from that era, and he said, yep, we were still, you know, pursuing this three decades after Markov's murder, they've got detectives flying out to Bulgaria trying to interview people and get access to the. To the files. Journalists are now onto this as well. Ulrich Scotter is on the case. So he. He actually tries to speak to Shivkov, who's still alive in Bulgaria, and he goes to see, you know, the Bulgarian leader who is suspected of ordering this assassination. And Shivkov, of course, denies it, you know, says, no, I didn't do it, which isn't very believable. And Ulrich Got also confronts Galino himself in 2021. And Galino, of course, denies it all and then dies shortly after natural death. But what that means is, you know, he was the prime suspect. All the circumstantial evidence is there, but he's never charged, no confession. And technically still an open case for.

[Unknown Speaker]

The Metropolitan Police is the thinking that he was responsible. And we also, we talked in the last episode about the fact that there was another sort of Bulgarian journalist in Paris who'd been hit with a similar pellet and who did not die. There was a Bulgarian dissident, another one in London, who was pushed down the stairs and did die. Is the thinking that Galino was responsible for those as well? Like he was moving kind of around Europe, knocking off problematic Bulgarians.

[Gordon Carrera]

Less clear. Less clear whether he was involved in Paris. Someone else was briefly in the frame for Paris, but. But again, not charged. And also there have been questions over the years about whether really Galino would have acted alone or whether there would have been other people in London, perhaps on the Bulgarian Secret Service who were supporting, for instance, doing reconnaissance on Markov because. Working out his route, where he'd be. Because they had to know he'd be passing that bus stop on Waterloo Bridge on that day on September 1978. So whether there was a bigger team as well, that is unclear. And that may be in those files that was destroyed. So. So Galino's the only person in the frame, but the proof is never quite there to get him.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, and I think it does. I mean, you know, as we end this story with the case still being open, although the answer on the question of, you know, who done it, probably answered. I mean, I think there is a big question around. If you are Todor Zhivkov, the former dictator of Bulgaria, and you ordered this killing, I mean, was it successful, do you think? I mean, I wonder how you. How you think about that one, Gordon. Like, I mean, obviously he died, so in some respects it was. But Markov was killed on September, or attacked, rather, on September 7, which is Jeevkov's birthday, which I think is a pretty damning bit of circumstantial evidence as well. This was kind of a birthday gift for Jeep Cobb to have this frustrating dissident knocked off.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're Zhivkov, you know, you wanted him gone and he's gone. This person who'd kind of slightly humiliated you, this dissident writer you thought was your friend. But equally, you've drawn a hell of a lot of attention onto yourself in Bulgaria and into what you're capable of. And the Secret Service operatives involved in it have been trying to cover it up for decades. So I guess what it tells you is that if you're Zhivkov, you become so obsessed with getting rid of one person that you're willing to take those risks. And I think there's a parallel there with some of the other assassinations that we've briefly touched on. If you look at Alexander Litvinenko, he is killed in London with radioactive polonium, another kind of remarkable thing to do in 2006. And again, there. There was something personal between him and Putin, actually. The two of them had met when both had been at the FSB, the Russian Security Service, in the 90s. So, again, there's a kind of slightly. The personal desire of a leader to do whatever it takes to get rid of someone they really hate and they really want to kill. So I think there are parallels there about why, you know, certain leaders are willing to take quite big risks to go after someone. But I guess one of the other differences is that with Litvinenko, it was much easier and quicker to identify the suspects who were involved there. But again, they got away. You know, that's the advantage of using these kind of poisons, is those suspects were able to get away, get back to Russia, and even though they've been identified, they've not been brought to justice, they've not been put on trial.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, it's also, I think, an interesting case study in how common it is for these types of authoritarian regimes to use their spy services not to kill foreigners, although that can certainly happen, but to kill members of their sort of political elite who have left and who are creating problems for them. Right. If I think about a lot of these Russian killings are of, you know, Russian defectors or oppositionists or journalists who are making problems for Putin. It's. They're killing Russians. The Iranian services for a long time focused on Iranian dissidents overseas. Right. The Bulgarians here, I mean, they're not. They're not killing members of the British secret services in London or British citizens. I mean, they're going after. Going after Bulgarian exiles and even China, you know, with some of these kind of kidnappings and renditions they've done of political opposition businessmen. They're going after, you know, Chinese citizens or exiles who live overseas. So, I mean, this is one example of that kind of evergreen tendency on the part of dictators to go after people who are causing them problems at home.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And I think one of the points to make as well is that, you know, we talked a bit about how there was some reluctance in the 70s from the KGB to get involved in this assassination. But I think you can see if you look at the long arc of history, the ebbs and flows of Russia and Moscow's willingness to use poisons as a tool of assassination. And you can see it, you know, the 30s, 40s, 50s, they're using it. There is this, you know, slight period where the 60s and 70s and 80s where maybe they're less likely to use it. But certainly once you get to recent years, it's back. And you can see their use of toxins in Ukraine against Yushchenko, a Ukrainian leader. You can see it in the use of radioactive material against Litvinenko. You can see nerve agents against Sergei Skripal in Salisbury and against Alexei Navalny in Russia itself. And so I think the idea that there's a reluctance to use poisons or toxins like in the Markov case, that might have been the case for a brief period, but these days it certainly seems to be back as a tool in Moscow's arsenal.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, and I think it's certainly, you know, and maybe this is a good point to kind of close out or sort of drop the curtain on this murder mystery, because this is the theater of it and this is why we're talking about this case 50 years later is the poison and the umbrella gun. If the Bulgarians, if the KGB decide to do this with just pushing someone down the stairs or shooting them, we're not cutting an episode on it. Right. I mean, there is a theatrical nature to these crimes that I think really seems to appeal to these kind of security services, builds this kind of notoriety and it creates, I think, this kind of reverberation over time. Right. They're powerful stories because of the choice of the poison and the umbrella gun. And so maybe that's a good spot to wrap up the story of Georgi Markov and the assassin with the umbrella gun. We'll see you next time on the Rest is Classified.

[Gordon Carrera]

Thanks for listening.

[Unknown Speaker]

There's a double agent, a mole working for Moscow inside the upper reaches of CIA. Hi, I'm David McCloskey, co host of the Rest Is Classified. And in my latest novel, the Seventh Floor, an operation gone wrong has CIA officer Artemus Proctor convinced there is a mole working for the Russians. But who is it? To find the answer, she will have to dredge up her checkered past in service of CIA investigating a short list of her dearest friends and most cherished enemies. This is a story of modern day espionage tradecraft, a peek at the actual spy war between Washington and Moscow. And most of all, it's a story about what friendship means in a faithless business. The book is available now in hard copy and all good bookshops and also online in ebook and audio formats.