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- [00:04]
A
For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the Declassified club@the restisclassified.com on the afternoon of Thursday, Thursday the 16th of May, the thunderbolt struck. I was sitting at my desk in the residence office when the cipher clerk brought in a telegram. As I read the handwritten message, I felt sweat break out of my back and for a second or two my vision clouded. Fighting to control myself, I was dreadfully afraid that the clerk must notice how badly shocked I was in order to confirm your appointment as Resident, said the cable. Please come to Moscow urgently in two days time for important discussions with comrades Mikhailov and Alyoshin. Instantly I sensed that something was badly wrong. Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I am David McCloskey.
- [01:08]
B
And I'm Gordon Carrera.
- [01:10]
A
And that of course is Oleg Gordievsky, writing years later in his memoir, Next Stop Execution, about this fateful day in May of 1985 when he's really on the cusp of an incredible professional accomplishment, becoming the actual the Resident, the KGB resident, the most senior officer in London while he's spying for the British. Right on the cusp of this achievement, he is mysteriously and very ominously called back to Moscow for consultations. And now Gordon, things are starting to look very dire and very bad for MI6's most prized spy.
- [01:52]
B
That message just come back for urgent consultations, important discussions in two days time. I mean that is a warning sign, you know, it's not something that had been pre planned, it's not something he'd expected. There's not much time to decide. It feels bad, but of course he doesn't know it's bad. And so Gordievsky is going to call an emergency meeting with MI6 and he's got only 48 hours to decide what to do.
- [02:20]
A
How does he signal, by the way, for an emergency meeting? Do we know it's just a no.
- [02:24]
B
I'm not sure actually at this point he's got a, he's got a phone number I think he can call for that emergency meeting. So he's going to sit down with his handlers. It's no longer John Scarlett at this point and this is quite a tricky conversation because on the one hand, if, if they are onto him, he's dead, you know, it's game over. That's the price for treason and it's the end of everything that they've worked for. But then on the other hand, you know, the prize is close, being Resident. And if they were sure he was a spy, is that what they'd say? It's not so clear. He's not been suddenly bundled into a van or told, you know, he's under suspicion. So there's a question, what do you do about it? This is a really interesting discussion, I think, and it's quite a tricky one. And I think Oleg as well found it a difficult one because he's going to meet his handlers for MI6 and they're going to ask him if he knows any reason why he shouldn't return. Now, the answer to that is no, because he doesn't know that he's compromised. It just feels dangerous. And they are saying to him, it's up to you to decide what to do. You're the person in the hot seat, you decide what to do. They're saying, do you know that you shouldn't go back? And he's of course saying no. He said this to me years later. If they'd ask him, does he feel he should go back? That might have elicited a slightly different answer. And the option is on the table to not go back, to basically defect in London, to just leave. And I think the MI6 people would say, no, we left it up to him. But I think Gordievsky himself feels that sense of expectation and pressure from them that they want him to go back. And you can understand that a bit. And I remember someone saying, you know, as he looked at the faces in the room, one person thought they saw in his eyes perhaps a hope for a reprieve and for someone telling him, don't go back. And that if they'd said that, he might have been relieved and that they felt they could see this in his eyes as he looked around the room, you know, the hope that someone might make the decision for him rather than leave it up to him. But he doesn't know for sure. And I think, you know, he is a driven man. You know, it goes back to where we started with his character. He is the long distance runner, he is the guy who is, you know, who wants to finish the race. He doesn't want to give up. He's got that endurance, that desire to overcome the obstacles. He's got the bravery, he's got the dedication. And I think, as we also talked about, he's got the ideological commitment to what he's doing. If this had been someone just worried about his own safety or about money, I think you'd go, I'm out, you know, I'm done. But he just he wants to do it. He is driven to do it. He's determined.
- [05:23]
A
That ideological component, it seems hard to kind of even exaggerate it here. It just. It seems so fundamental to who he is that I suppose at this point with. With no certainty about what's awaiting him in Moscow to just kind of quit. It would seem really out of character for him because obviously he's also a person who has to have taken the steps that he's taken. He's got a tremendous amount of courage. Me, it would feel out of step with what we know about Oleg Gordievsky for him to kind of wave the white flag and say, well, I'll just defect. Right. I mean, if he had information that. That there was a mole hunt underway inside the kgb, maybe it changes his mind. But, yeah, it seems. It just seems out of step with who he is to kind of quit before he finishes the race.
- [06:10]
B
Would you have gone back? Would you have defected?
- [06:13]
A
I think I would have gone back because I know that Gordievsky understands the nature of the kgb. And obviously in the way that we're talking about the organization in the series, it has, you know, it's sort of a villainous place, but he works there. These are rivals and whatnot, but they're also colleagues. He's going home. I guess with him being, you know, sort of on the cusp of promotion, you could understand how they might want to talk to you in person about things before they give you the job. So I think given all of that, I would. I would share his concern, but I think I would have gone back.
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B
Yeah.
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A
What about you?
- [06:54]
B
I'd like to think I would.
- [06:55]
A
You'd like to think so? Yeah, I think we both maybe would like to think so, yeah. But in any case, he does.
- [07:00]
B
Yeah, he does. He says he goes back. He says he's gonna go. Valerie Petit, who we talked about before, she's the person who's been managing his case. She's the person who's been there from.
- [07:10]
A
The late 70s inside MI6.
- [07:12]
B
Inside MI6, yeah. She goes through an escape plan one more time. He's only got two days. So he does his last assignment on a Saturday, May 18. Takes his two small daughters, who he's going to leave behind, to a park in Bloomsbury. But he's actually leaving thousand pounds, thousands of pounds of cash behind an artificial brick for an agent to pick up. So he's using his kids as cover there, and then gets on the plane to Moscow. So he. He arrives in Moscow, it's the middle of May. Once he steps off the plane, it's too late, because he's not totally sure how much suspicion he might be under, if at all. But immediately there's those telltale signs. The slight pause, but the. As the border guard at the airport looks at his passport, and then the phone call. Maybe it's nothing, but he just senses something's wrong. He gets to his Moscow apartment, and then this is the crucial bit for him, is that there are three locks on the door, and all three are locked. And he never uses the third lock. He only ever locks with the first two. And that immediately tells him that someone else has been inside who didn't spot that and has come out and has locked all three locks. He has to go get a locksmith to get in. So he knows someone has been in this apartment, and he knows, therefore, it's bugged. And he knows now that he is definitely under suspicion. He thinks there might be cameras, but he knows there's gonna be buggy devices. So now I think the pressure really starts to mount.
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A
But he hasn't been arrested. He's not arrested.
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B
Right.
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A
He's not arrested at the board. When he comes back at customs, there aren't people waiting to jump him in his apartment. So obviously he understands he's under suspicion, but he's also. He probably thinks they're not certain. Right, because otherwise they would have hauled him in at that point.
- [08:56]
B
Yeah, exactly. There's suspicions, but not arrests. So he's thinking, maybe I can brazen this out. So he goes to KGB headquarters, and again, he just senses in his colleague's eyes, his close colleagues, there's just this look of slight fear in their eyes as they look at him. He can sense they're a bit wary of him, there's something going on, which just again, just gives them that sense that something is amiss. But what's interesting is there's no interrogation at this point. He's not summoned for a meeting. They're basically letting him stew. One thing does happen, though. He bumps into a colleague, and the colleague clearly doesn't know about the investigation because the colleague goes, hey, you know, have you heard? All the illegals are being pulled out of Britain. Now, that is a big red warning sign. These are the deep cover spies who. It takes years to build up their identity and put them undercover, and they're being pulled out of Britain. And, you know, why would you do that? I mean, only if they're compromised or you feel worried they might be compromised.
- [09:56]
A
Presumably as an officer in line, pr, political intelligence. Gordievsky didn't know who those illegals were. Right.
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B
Once he's resident.
- [10:06]
A
Yeah, once he's resident, he might know. But up to this point, the reason there would be any illegals in Britain at all is because he actually didn't have the names or identities of those illegals to provide to MI6.
- [10:18]
B
He's got some details, but not all of them. Okay, but clearly there's a bit of, you know, there's something going on in London. And what's interesting is the KGB kind of let him stew for a week. A week. There's a full week of tension before he gets a call on May 27 saying, can you please come over from a boss, There are two people who want to talk to you about high level agent penetration of Britain. It's not good.
- [10:44]
A
Disturbing subject line for the zoom call. Invite to arrive.
- [10:48]
B
Exactly. Not great. So he's driven to a small cottage on a compound which is for guests of the first Chief Directorate for which he works at the kgb. The sandwiches and drink. Couple of guys. Now, only later does he remember that the other three drink the brandy out of one bottle, but he thinks he served out of another bottle. Lesson out there for listeners ever meeting KGB officers. Check which bottle they're serving you out of and make sure it's the same. One little pro tip from. From your podcast, Ace.
- [11:22]
A
Sodium pentothal. We think some kind of, I think so.
- [11:25]
B
Truth serum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because very quickly he says a strange out of body sensation comes over him and he's fighting to stay alert and he'll actually remember nothing more properly until he wakes up in a bed only in his vest and his underpants the next morning. Now, he was probably supposed to remember nothing of that.
- [11:45]
A
Disconcerting way to wake up, I would.
- [11:47]
B
Think, like a big night out in.
- [11:49]
A
He's wearing a vest and underpants in summer.
- [11:53]
B
Yeah, that's all he's left wearing. Cause I guess he undressed in this kind of delirious state. I mean, I've never had sodium pentothal. Have you ever been fed it? It's not.
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A
Not that I know of. Not that I know of. He doesn't remember the interrogation though, when he wakes up.
- [12:10]
B
Well, he remembers fragments of it and that's what's so interesting. And he thinks one of the only reasons he can remember some fragments is that MI6 had given him some. Some pills to keep him alert, and he'd taken some that morning. And he kind of thinks that might have just about allowed him to remember just some bits of it, even if not the whole experience. So he can recollect just these fragments. And you can imagine him there waking up the next morning, trying to remember. Last thing he properly remembers is drinking some brandy. And then these fragments come back into his mind during the day, and there's questions about books, books by Orwell and Solzhenitsyn, that he had questions about why his daughter knows the Lord's Prayer. And then he starts to remember that it was a real interrogation. We know very well that you've been deceiving us for years, someone had said. And then there's an accusation. We know who recruited you in Copenhagen, they say, and they mention the name of the MI6 officer who really had recruited him. And he can remember kind of vaguely saying, that's not true. And they're saying, we know you're a British agent, you'd better confess. And they just go, confident, confess, confess. And then they start saying to him, you've already confessed, so why not just do it again? And, you know, talking to him slowly, as if he's a child, and he's just saying, no, I've got nothing to confess. And he thinks as he wakes up, he's pretty sure that he hadn't confessed, but he knows now that they're onto him, and clearly they're onto him. But also they need a confession. And again, it's interesting, isn't it, with the kgb, for all their ruthlessness, they need evidence and they need proof. They're not just going to kind of execute some guy without anything kind of concrete.
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A
It's an interesting contrast in that service, and I think it goes back to even Stalin's day, where it's both lawless and legalistic at the same time. Like, you go back to the terror. They're shooting people every night in some of these prisons, and yet they. They need paperwork to justify it.
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B
Right?
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A
Yeah.
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B
And a confession often.
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A
Yeah, And a confession often. Exactly. Even if it's been extracted forcibly. Right. You've been intimidated into confessing something you didn't do. Very paperwork focused. Mountains of paperwork inside the kgb.
- [14:32]
B
And it is all about getting the confession. And, I mean, there's an interesting bit of advice, which is Kim Philby's advice, and I always remember this. He did a video to. Did a talk to KGB offices. I don't think Oleg was at it. And. And. But I'm sure it got passed on. And one of his bits of advice was, if you're ever confronted, never confess. Because, you know, they are always trying to get the confession out of you and play up how much evidence they have. And we saw it. They. I mean, they did it with Bettany. You know, when. When MI5 are interrogating Bettany, they have less evidence than they're making out, and they're trying to use that to get the confession. So again, pro tip for anyone captured as a potential traitor is. Sorry, I'm maybe giving too much away, but.
- [15:12]
A
Yeah, it also brings us back to this point of how did the KGB get onto him? Because one would assume if Aldrich James in mid May, so, you know, a couple weeks before this had given Oleg's name, that maybe you have an arrest. I mean, if Abe says, we've been getting this reporting from the Brits and we ran this kind of analysis to figure out who it might be and well, like Gordievsky is top of the list or may, maybe, I guess speculating here, maybe Ames just says we know that the Brits are running someone inside. Yeah, you know, the residentura in London, but we don't exactly know who it is. And Ames would not have seen a report from the Brits that's got Oleg's name on it. So I guess you could see how, given that filter through Ames and the Americans, there could be some uncertainty which.
- [16:08]
B
Would then explain ambiguity.
- [16:10]
A
Why the KGB wants the confession.
- [16:12]
B
Yeah, but it does leave that mystery of whether it was definitely Ames. But. Yeah. So then the next morning, you know, he sees the two interrogators back at the office and rather comically, they have a go at him because he accused them of resurrecting the spirit of the Great Terror under Stalin. And they look really annoyed about that. So he actually apologized.
- [16:31]
A
Yeah, they don't like that, the interrogator.
- [16:33]
B
You don't want to hear that you're a Stalinist interrogator. Meanwhile, in. In London, and this is also important, his wife Leila has been contacted and told the whole family need to get back to the Soviet Union in the next few days. And they're told it's because Oleg has been taken ill. Now, of course, when MI6 hear this, they know things are going bad because once your family's back in the Soviet Union, they're effectively more like hostages and he can't escape, so they're in shock. So Oleg's back in. In Moscow. After the interrogation, he's summoned by a boss and he's told they know. What they say is interesting. They say they know he's been deceiving them, the kgb, and he is no longer going to be resident in London. But weirdly, he's going to stay in the kgb, he'll be moved to a non operational department. And Oleg doesn't know how to, how to react. So he kind of goes, it was a strange the other day and must have eaten something bad in the sandwiches. And the interrogator says, no, the sandwiches were fine. Got a weird conversation where this is a strange conversation about sandwiches.
- [17:34]
A
It wasn't the sandwiches, Oleg, it was the brandy. Yeah, the sandwiches were exceptional.
- [17:41]
B
But, you know, he now knows they're onto him. He also suspects that they don't have the evidence yet. And what they're going to do is watch it now, try and collect evidence, maybe see if he contacts MI6, because that would of course give them the evidence they need if he tries to run, if he tries to contact them, that's the evidence they need. So now he's got a problem because he's got really intense surveillance around him. His apartment block is mainly fellow KGB officers and everyone can see there's as many as 15 cars now outside, people outside the apartment, people in nearby parking lots, people in a, you know, in markets nearby. And the fact that it was quite obvious was probably designed to put Oleg under a bit of pressure to make him know he was under surveillance. And he knows he's got to be careful because if he moves too fast, he's going to be in trouble. I think he has one advantage though, which is it looks like they're not using Officers from the 7th Directorate kind of specialist surveillance teams, but they're using in house surveillance teams from the First Chief Directorate, which is the overseas bit. And it's the classic thing. Whereas you want to, it's your dirty laundry that you might have a mole and, you know, you don't want word to get out, so you're going to use your own surveillance teams rather than tell the rest of the kgb. But it means they're perhaps not quite as good as the kind of elite Moscow surveillance teams. So I think that might play to his advantage. Layla's now back with the two, with the two girls, they're age five and three. He just tells her there's some plotting against him, doesn't tell her what's really going on. He's still not sure about that. But now the pressure is growing. He's drinking. We said he didn't drink much, but now he's starting to drink and he's smoking and who does he go to see?
- [19:27]
A
Smiley Mike.
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B
Smiley Mike.
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A
Smiley Mike. The return of Smiley Mike. I'm excited that I feel better now that Smiley Mike is back in the picture.
- [19:37]
B
I love Smiley Mike and is a character I know old friend Mikhail Lubimov, his old friend, his boss from Copenhagen, who's now left the KGB and become. What else but a novelist. What else? What else? They all try it, David. Not many succeed, but they all try it.
- [19:53]
A
Did Smiley Mike not succeed as a novelist, do we know? Like, how did his literary career go?
- [19:58]
B
Yeah, I think it did okay, actually. Okay. He wrote quite a few books. So he opens the door and Lubimov can see Gordievsky's a mess, you know. And Oleg, one of the meetings, he steps into the kitchen, turns on the tap, and Liubimov is like, what are you doing? Is this a counter surveillance move? Turning on the taps, and it's just Kordievsky's like, I'm thirsty. I need a drink. My throat is dry. I need vodka, you know? He is stressed. And Oleg tells Smiley Mike that he's been interrogated about dissident books. And, you know, one of the reasons he's telling him is because the two of them have bought the books together. And Liubimov doesn't realize how serious it. It's because all he thinks it's about is dissident books. Doesn't know about the suspicions. So he tells him, like, don't worry. If you get fired from the kgb, it's not the end of the world. Maybe you can become a novelist, too.
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A
You can become a novelist too.
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B
He's not.
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A
Not aware of the impending sort of treason. Exactly.
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B
But then it's interesting because he'll leave from that first meeting and Smiley Mike will go and he'll actually go and find his copies of dissident books and then bury them in the garden, you know, out of fear that he's gonna get in trouble too. So Gordievsky's. Now you can just sense this pressure building because also the days are ticking on. He's starting to take sedatives. He's drinking rum, which I don't think rum. He normally drinks rum. That's what he says.
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A
That seems like a surprising choice for a Russian KGB officer.
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B
Yeah, I think it'd be vodka, wouldn't you?
- [21:28]
A
You would.
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B
Needs must. Needs must. So he's starting to think that he's gonna have to kind of trigger the escape plan. Now this is going to be the crucial question is, can he trigger the plan and can he make it work? Can he get to MI6 and can they get him out of Moscow?
- [21:45]
A
Maybe they're Gordon with Gordievsky. About to crack under the pressure and the impending sort of deployment of this escape plan. Let's take a break. When we come back, we will see if he can manage to get out from the KGB's net.
- [22:07]
B
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info and if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year@lifelock.com podcast terms apply.
- [22:38]
A
Welcome back. Now, Gordievsky, Gordon needs to get out. And he is going to be fortunate, I guess, that Valerie petit in MI6 has actually spent a tremendous amount of time and energy building just such a plan to help him escape.
- [22:57]
B
That's right. This goes back, actually, this plan, to the late 70s and had first been formulated in around 1978, when Gordievsky is still in Copenhagen and he's going back to Moscow the first time. And MI6 are unsure what might be in store for him, so they want to have a plan. So it's interesting that already at this point, they get one of the MI6 officers who's based in Moscow to go find signal sites that could be used for Gordievsky to signal to MI6 that he needs to escape or needs to contact them. And that officer is going to go go round scouting potential sites and that he's actually going to come out and travel out of Moscow via Helsink in Stockholm to Copenhagen to discuss those signal sites with Oleg to see if he thinks they work. And this is where I think it's really interesting because, of course, the advantage with Gordievsky is that he is a KGB officer, he is a professional intelligence officer, which means he understands how to do a proper signal, what the risks are and what could go wrong. And he can help them advise on the plan all the way through from that period in the late 70s. There's one interesting story someone was telling me, which is that, you know, they were looking at potential post boxes where someone could, you know, post a letter to, which might go abroad or get to MI6. But they were trying to work out, is there a post box that could be used? And this officer works out. There's a particular post box in Moscow which looks perfect because it's, you know, not overseen by anything. It's round a corner. So if you had Surveillance, you could lose the surveillance. You turn a corner, drop it in the post box, and then move on. And as the surveillance follows you, they wouldn't have seen that. And so he says to Oleg, well, this is a great potential post box. And Oleg goes, I know it, I know it. And don't use it because it's so good. The KGB know that any intelligence service will use it as a drop point, and therefore all the letters in it get checked. And, you know, that is the kind of detail that Oleg can kind of give them because he is inside the KGB and knows it. And so originally, they're looking for potential signals back at the Copenhagen days. And there are three reasons why they might need to. He might need to give a signal. One is that actually war is about to break out and he's got to tell them. Another is that there's a high level penetration of the west, which of course, might endanger him. And the third is that if he's under suspicion and needs to get out. And so that's the. The original plan from the late 70s. And then this gets updated over the years and is kept up to date by Valerie. And originally that plan is for his whole family to be able to get out, and they update it as the daughters are born to work it out. But now, crucially, Oleg has to decide what to do about his family. And this is the kind of big decision point, and it's going to have huge consequences, I think, for him as a person. And it's hard because escaping with a wife and two really young daughters in tow, that almost exponentially increases your chances of it, of being caught or something goes wrong, doesn't it? I mean, it just makes the odds much harder to get four people out, two of them who are very young. And of course, then it's disaster for all of you if you get caught.
- [26:23]
A
Well, and I don't think he thinks he can really trust his wife.
- [26:28]
B
Right.
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A
I mean, he's got a figure that even if he tells them, like the day of that, there's a real chance that not only would maybe she doesn't come, or she keeps the daughters, or both, or she might then tell the kgb.
- [26:45]
B
Right.
- [26:46]
A
I mean, she's kind of a KGB brat herself. Right. Her family is deeply connected to the institution. She doesn't seem to share Oleg's views on the system entirely. Right. And his dissent. So I don't think he trusts her, you know?
- [27:01]
B
Yeah, I think that's true.
- [27:01]
A
He loves her, but he doesn't trust her with this secret.
- [27:05]
B
Yeah, yeah. That's right. So I think there's a mixture, isn't there, of practical reasons why it's hard to get the family out. But also there's a risk question there. So, you know, I think he decides it's safer for, for not to do it. I mean, we would obviously never abandon our families if under pressure in Moscow and required to get out. But I, I don't blame Oleg, you know, actually, in fact, I think most people would in this scenario understand that decision, even if it's going to be pretty consequential.
- [27:32]
A
Well, and it's, it's pretty heavy, isn't it? Because, yeah, his wife is, is going away with the girls up to the, the Caspian where her, her father has a dacha. And I mean, the kind of way he describes this in his memoir is, it's really heavy. He says, we parted in the doorway of a supermarket with her mind already on the holiday and on the clothes she was about to buy for the girls, she gave me a quick farewell peck on the cheek. I said, that could have been a bit more tender. And she was gone. Not knowing that by the time she returned to Moscow, I would be either dead or in exile. I mean, wow, talk about. I mean, this. It's astounding, isn't it? I think, I think most humans would make the decision to remain with their family, sort of regardless of what comes. But he's so dedicated to, to this mission. Yeah, to kind of really wreck the Soviet Union and the KGB from within. I mean, he's, you know, he's put it above being with his family. He really has.
- [28:35]
B
And he'll pay a price for it because he won't see them for years and the relationships will, will never be the same after that. So he's about to go away for a brief trip to a sanatorium out of town and he wants to leave a note for MI6. And, and there is one drop site at St. Basil's Cathedral, which is this wonderful, you know, famous iconic building in Red Square right by the Kremlin. So on, on June 30, so already like a month and a half after he first came back to Moscow, he's going to do a three hour dry clean to get to St. Basil's and he's got a, he's got a note. I always remember him reading this note to me. I got him to read it and he said, am under strong suspicion and in bad trouble. Need exfiltration soonest. Beware of radioactive dust and car accidents. Maybe it's worth explaining the last two, because it's not just a random warning.
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A
It's not. It's not this. Signs of a man who's had too much rum. He's actually very, I think, attuned to the risk. I mean, so I guess the radioactive dust he's referring to is what I guess has come to be known as spy dust. It's nitrophenyl pentadienol, which is known as metka in Russian. And it's basically a tagging agent, right, that the KGB would use. They would put it on cars, door handles, places where, you know, foreign intelligence officers would actually make contact with it. And then they could actually see if it might show up. Like, for example, if they're looking at Gordievsky, they could go in with essentially some form of, like, a black light and see if he had any of the dust in his apartment or on his car. That would establish a connection between him and a foreign intelligence service. Right? So the dust, that actually is a real, I mean, very real thing. And then, I mean, the car accidents, I guess. Was that a reference to staging a car accident? Yeah, staging a car accident to sort of intimidate someone, to create a problem for them, to get, you know, create an excuse to declare someone Persona non grata. So he's, you know, these are all sort of tried and true methods and tactics of the kgb.
- [30:43]
B
And so he's got this note with this warding, and he does this surveillance route from the department store, this big department store on the side of Red Square, and then he goes into the church. And I actually, I recreated this route in Red Square, many years ago, I think 2009, when I was in Moscow, I was doing a radio documentary, you know, about Gordievsky, and I'd interviewed him and I actually kind of recreated this route walking through. Up into St. Basil's but when Oleg does it, you know, he heads to the first floor and he finds a sign saying, upper floor closed for redecoration. And that's the place where he was.
- [31:17]
A
Not what you want to see.
- [31:18]
B
Yeah, it's not what you want to see. And so he has to walk out and he's got this note and he basically puts it in his mouth, he chews it and spits it out. So he's now gonna have to try again to signal. And he goes and looks at his instructions for the escape plan, and they're kept hidden in the sleeve of a book. She has to kind of unpick the sleeve. And, you know, this is on his return then from his Sanatorium trip. So we're now into mid July when he needs to signal for the escape. Now this again, I find these signal sites in Moscow just fascinating because what, what they need is, is a site where Both him and MI6 could plausibly see each other or walk past each other and it not be suspicious, but then both spot each other. And you need somewhere where that's going to work, you know, in every season, you know, whether it's winter or summer, you know, if a road is closed and they decide on a spot on a big busy street outside a bread store near the Ukraine Hotel. Now one of the reasons is it's not far from Oleg, but it's also not far from where diplomats and MI6 officers lived. So it meant that they had a reason why they would be passing that, because they're coming out of their apartments, you know, and going past that every evening. And the idea is that potentially every night, but certainly on every Tuesday night at around 7:30, an MI6 officer had to pass that site outside the bread store and see if Oleg was there. Now the first thing is that they have to do that come rain or come shine, always, every time and all year. And one of the interesting things is they have to do it not just when Oleg's in town or where they think he might be in town, but you have to do it all the time, even when he's not in town.
- [33:09]
A
Because you don't actually, if you, if you just do it when he's in town, that it's a giveaway. That makes it even more suspicious. Right? Yeah. It's gotta look like it's part of an established pattern of life of the MI6 case officer. And over time, I mean, in this case, we've been monitored for seven years. This is something that probably whatever KGB surveillance is on these MI6 officers, probably bored to death by this point and have noted like this is, it's become so normal for this to happen that it does not look anomalous at all.
- [33:41]
B
But I mean, seven years, 1978 to 1985, they've been checking this sign, remarkable every week. And then finally, on Tuesday 16th July 1985, he's ready to trigger it that evening. The signal needs to be incredibly precise. You don't want him to just be walking past because he could just have had to walk past. And you don't want to trigger an escape plan and everything else. So you need to also come up with something unusual and quite specific so that if you do see it, you know that is deliberate and not just chance. And you know, as we see, it's slightly absurd. This is a bread shop where there's lots of people, including foreigners, kind of mingle. And the idea is Oleg needs to be holding a, a plastic bag from the Safeways, which is a grocery store in Britain, and he needs to be holding that bag and that's the signal he wants to get out. And an MI6 officer is going to acknowledge it by walking past him carrying a Harrod shopping bag and eating a Western chocolate bar.
- [34:48]
A
Very specific.
- [34:49]
B
It's, it's very specific. I mean, bordering on the absurd. I mean if, if someone's life wasn't in danger, you'd think this is slightly absurd, wouldn't you? I mean, but I guess that's the point. It's got to be, it's got to be unusual and specific. And someone said, look, actually carrying a shopping bag or carrying a western shopping bag. And of course, Oleg had been in London. So the idea he's carrying a Safeway.
- [35:11]
A
Shopping bag, that's not abnormal.
- [35:13]
B
It's not completely abnormal. You could get away with that. And the fact that a Brit is carrying a Harrods shopping bag is not complete. You know, each thing is kind of plausible while being very unusual, I guess. And then, you know, One of the MI6 officers will say, believe me, I've had so many Kit Kats or Mars bars in the glove compartment of my car that I absolutely hate them to this day. So, so that's the plan. He's going to trigger it in the evening. Now the first problem is in the morning his father in law calls and invites him to dinner that evening. I mean, how bad is that? You know, because the KGB are listening.
- [35:48]
A
It's been two months. He's been like in this purgatory in.
- [35:53]
B
But you can imagine the father in law is probably thinking, oh, my daughter's gone away, poor Oleg's by himself, I'll invite him around to dinner. And little does he know, it's like dinner on the evening. He's supposed to be triggering an escape signal. So he says yes, he could make it because he thinks he's got to say he's going to make it, even if he's going to be late because you know, you can't. He hasn't got a reason for the. And of course KGB are listening. They're eavesdropping on the phone. Then Smiley Mike calls, Lubimov calls and he's calling to invite him to his dacha the following week. It's the Friendship, isn't it? He's saying he knows Bordevsky's in a.
- [36:25]
A
Bad way, he knows he's stressed.
- [36:26]
B
Yeah, he knows he's stressed and he's saying, catch a train Monday morning, be in the last carriage, arrives 11:13 to the dapture. And Gordievsky says yes. So he walks out mid afternoon, does a three hour, nearly three hour counter surveillance route. Summer evening, he gets near the bread shop, he sees what looks like a black Volga car used by the KGB pull up on the pavement and he's looking at the driver and the driver looks back and he thinks this is surveillance and they're onto me. But then some people get in and out the car and it moves off. He's at the point, he's got his bag out now at that point the head of the MI6 station is out for dinner with his wife in the car, being tailed of course, and it's not his turn to check the site, but he's driving past because as we said, it's, you know, he lives nearby. And as he drives past the site he sees a man carrying a shopping bag just after 7:30. And he's thinking, I think that's the signal, but is my colleague going to see him? Has he missed him? You know, so he's got this kind of question in his mind, do you turn around? Do you kind of, do you suddenly park the car and acknowledge it? But that will look really weird, won't it, if you do that. But fortunately his colleague, who's the kind of the second MI6 officer in the station, had also spotted Gordievsky as he drove past, parks his car around the corner, says to his wife, I need to get some bread from the bread shop. Fortunately, his wife doesn't go, we've got lots of bread at home, like why do you need another loaf? She knows what's on. So he walks out the car, pulls out his green Harrods bag, pulls out a Mars chocolate bar, starts to eat it, walks past Sto leg. The two men lock eyes just for a second, but they look at each other and that's all it takes. It's on. The escape is activated. It's gotta get moving now for Pimlico to be put in place. It's kind of crazy, isn't it? Just that one second.
- [38:26]
A
It's the magic of a Mars bar, Gordon. It can do amazing things.
- [38:30]
B
And I mean, I guess this episode is brought to you by Senors.
- [38:33]
A
And now we're at Mars. So it triggers, it basically will start, I guess two Days later. And in that two day period, I mean, I guess one of the things that you absolutely need if you're MI6 is you need to let the Prime Minister know because if this thing, I mean, frankly, if it goes well or goes wrong, there could be real political fallout.
- [38:59]
B
Yeah, yeah. And so at this point you need to get political clearance because getting an agent at Moscow is risky. Everyone thinks it could go wrong. If you get caught in the act of an MI6 team trying to bring someone out, it's going to be a blow up in international relations. And of course, as we've just said, Thatcher is trying to improve relations with Gorbachev. This is a point of trying to improve relations. And so it is a decision for Thatcher to take herself. Here's the problem. And again, it's like everything that can go wrong does go wrong nearly because at that moment she's not in London, she's not in Downing street, she's up, up in Balmoral Castle with the Queen at one of the Queen's kind of residences in, in Scotland. And they. There's a regular point in the summer where the Prime Minister by tradition, goes and stays with the Queen. Although famously, Thatcher and the Queen did not get on terribly well.
- [39:56]
A
I think people saw that Crown too. Yeah, we saw that in the Crown, saw this episode, I think.
- [40:01]
B
Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah.
- [40:03]
A
Playing games. And Prime Minister Thatcher was not. She couldn't kind of get in the flow. I don't know if that was real, but that's the image I have when I think about this.
- [40:12]
B
And it's interesting because they're so careful, aren't they? Because they know they can't, they can't make the call on the phone to explain it. So someone's got to go up there. Thatcher's foreign affairs adviser, Charles Pole is going to race to Heathrow, catch a flight to Aberdeen, then a car to Balmoral. Now he arrives. Yeah, I talked to him about this. He arrives at Balmoral and the problem is he's got to see Thatcher and it's really urgent. But there's all the kind of, am I allowed to call them flunkies, the equerries? I think that's the official term, straphangers, whatever the correct term is. Sorry, I'll get into trouble for that. But who were there to protect? Anyone getting close bureaucratically to the Queen are all like, you can't just walk in. They're like, what are you here for? And he's like, can't tell you. And they're like, we're the Queen's Private Secretary. We, we are, we're the flunkies.
- [41:00]
A
We're the flunkies.
- [41:01]
B
And you know, he's meeting top, the top, you know, person, the Private Secretary to the Queen who's like, you got to tell me why you, you, you want to see that, you know why you got to kind of break into this meeting and, and see the Prime Minister. And he's like, you know, nope, I can't do it. So eventually he does, he does get there. Thatcher immediately goes, yes, she's invested in the person she knows as Mr. Collins, you know, in this agent. She's taken a really personal interest in him, his reporting, but also his safety. And so she says, we have an obligation and we will not let him down. So on that level, it's a go. There is another obstacle which is in London again, just by chance, there's a new British ambassador to Moscow who is due to go out that week and he's briefed on the escape plan. It's gotta be excited about this going.
- [41:54]
A
On in his first week. This is good.
- [41:56]
B
I think it's fair to say he was very, very unhappy about it. I mean, which is, it's very Foreign Office, isn't it? Because no offense, friends at the Foreign Office, but I think they don't like a fuss and they don't like the spies causing a fuss on their patch, do they?
- [42:12]
A
Was he against it though, or was he just.
- [42:14]
B
I think he was pretty upset. Yeah. I think he knew ultimately that the Prime Minister's going to sign it off and it's her call, so he hasn't got the ability to stop it, and that's going to be made clear to him. But I think he is pretty much saying this is a really bad idea and this is going to be disastrous. You know, he can just see a massive diplomatic row in his first week when his team are caught smuggling a spy out. And, you know, he's thinking, this could be the shortest posting in diplomatic history if I get expelled.
- [42:44]
A
But what are they gonna do? Leave Mr. Collins there to be to be shot? Like, it doesn't seem like a good outcome.
- [42:53]
B
I asked someone about this when I was preparing this. I said to someone, what would have happened? Because Gordievsky triggers this, right? And then once it triggers it, he gets the recognition signal from the MI6 officer with the Mars bar. So as far as he knows, it's on. And he's going to start making the moves as we'll see to get him out. What would have happened if Clearance had been denied if they decided it's too risky. And the awful truth is he would have made his way, as we'll see, up to a meeting place and there would have been no one there to meet him. Yeah, there was no way of contacting him and stopping his side of the plan in motion. So I think there's also that kind of pressure and that obligation to him to know you are really letting him down if you don't go ahead with this now, you know, this is, this is high risk to try and get him out. And there are definitely people at MI6HQ, you know, at Century House, who think it's a trap. They think Gordievsky has already been blown, he's had his wife recalled. This is just a trap to expose our officers and to have a pretext to have a big row. And the whole thing is a provocation. And so, you know, some of the people, pessimists, give it a 1 in 20 chance of working. 1 in 25% chance. I mean, that is pretty bad. And yet they're still going to do it.
- [44:14]
A
You have a deep obligation to this agent, right? I mean, yeah, your service, MI6, or any intelligence service really has to. The currency with an asset has got to be some measure of trust, a certainty on the part of the asset that, that they will be protected if they, you know, sort of fly a signal like this. I mean, it seems almost inconceivable to me that at the end of the day, I mean, the MI6 people involved in this would have, would have lost their minds if the decision had come down from the politicos that, you know, we're just going to let this guy, we're going to, we're going to hang him out to dry. I mean, yeah, you probably would have had people who resign the service and leak it, you know, if that happens.
- [45:01]
B
Right, yeah, yeah, I think you're right. There would have been deep anger, so they know it's on. So there's kind of some communication, some cable traffic going back between the embassy in Moscow and headquarters in London to say, right, it's going to be on and it's heading towards basically Friday being the moment when the wheels start to turn to get him out on the weekend. So Gordievsky knows Friday is his kind of go day. It's interesting. There's one more phone call, though, he makes on Thursday. Again, it goes back to the really personal nature of this story because he's going to call Lubimov, Smiley, Mike again. And this conversation, I think, is really Interesting, because it's a. You know, they have been the closest of friends. And there is an element of. In which Gordievsky is going to use that friendship in a way which I think is kind of painful to some extent, because Oleg calls Lyubimov on the Thursday morning and to confirm the fact that they're going to meet next week, because, remember, he said he's going to the dacha, to Lubimov's dacha. And Lyubimov notices this kind of confidence in his friend's voice, which is different from the nervous wreck, you know, who was drinking vodka and turning on the taps a few weeks earlier. Now, Gordievsky knows the phone is bugged, but he then asks Liubymov an odd question. Did Lyubimov remember a short story by Somerset Maugham, this kind of British spy writer called Mr. Harrington's washings? And now, this is a weird reference because the story by Maugham, who's a kind of semi spy himself in the First World War era, involved a plan to escape from Russia over the border from Finland. And that is exactly the place where Gordievsky is going to go the following day, as he puts Operation Pimlico into practice. And it's crazy because he's saying on a phone which is bugged to a friend. Do you remember that novel? And in that novel are the seeds, I mean, in general terms, not in precise terms of what he is going to do to try and escape from the clutches of the kgb. It's wild, isn't it?
- [47:27]
A
Why do that if you're Gordievsky?
- [47:30]
B
The way he explains it, it's a last two fingers up at the kgb, if that makes sense to you. The two finger. I think it's a British reference to be thumbing your nose at the.
- [47:42]
A
Thumbing your middle fingers at somebody.
- [47:45]
B
It.
- [47:45]
A
Does that imply both middle fingers raised.
- [47:47]
B
It's going like that. Sorry to use it, but it means basically going, screw you, kgb. It's like, I'm smarter than you, I'm better than you. I think it says, I'm more cultured than you. Because he's kind of like, I'm going to have a joke because I'm going to let you know what I'm planning to do. And I'm so confident that UKGB guys are so stupid and uncultured that you will not understand this reference and be able to work it out and stop me. I mean, it is crazy, isn't it? But I kind of like it.
- [48:23]
A
We get a flash of the ego here, you know, the sort of sense of. Because, I mean, really throughout the story, we've been describing him, of course, as ideologically committed, but also as this kind of very deliberate, very disciplined guy who was able to really control himself to an incredible degree and compartmentalize himself. We haven't talked a lot about maybe his ego, but you do kind of get a little flash of it here, of the sense that there's some catharsis for him in demonstrating in a real physical way that he is going to win and that he's superior to them.
- [49:03]
B
He.
- [49:03]
A
That's what it seems like. Yeah.
- [49:05]
B
I think that's right. Yeah. He wants to know and prove and tell them he's better than them. That's it. And so he's gonna sleep that night, Thursday night, with the doors of his Moscow flat barricaded out of fear that something might happen that night. Although, of course, if they really want to get to him, they can, but he's. They'll get through the barricades. They'll get through the barricades. But I guess it's maybe just again, it's just a psychological thing, isn't it? Because he knows the next day is when he's going to go, so he's barricaded in. Him in. And then waiting for Friday morning and for Friday when he's going to try and make his run for it.
- [49:47]
A
Well, and then I guess it's really escape or death, Gordon, for Oleg Gordievsky. And that feels like the right cliffhanger to end this episode on end. Next time, in the thrilling conclusion of this series about Oleg Gordievsky, we are going to look at his escape and see if he can get out of Russia and get away from the sort of claws of the kgb.
- [50:13]
B
That's right. But of course, if you can't wait, you can listen to that episode now. And lots more goodies. You do not have to eat a Mars bar carrying Harrods.
- [50:24]
A
We have our own escape. For you. We have our own escape.
- [50:27]
B
We have a signal site. You can go online to therestisclassified.com and join the Declassified Club. No free chocolate, but bonus episodes which will tell you the inside scoop for this story and lots of other exciting things. But for everyone else, we'll see you next time.
- [50:49]
A
See you next time.