83. The Man Who Saved The World: Countdown to Armageddon (Ep 4)

19:55David:Yeah, and it's interesting because she was actually one of only a handful of people outside of MI6 to know that there was a senior KGB officer offering up secrets. She doesn't know his name, Gordievsky. She knows him as Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins, which is like a great name. And she really gets interested in him and the reporting. I mean, she's kind of a little bit of a spy fan.

20:18Gordon:She likes spy novels, doesn't she?

20:20David:She likes spy novels. She likes Freddie Forsyth novels. Poor old Freddie, who's just passed away recently. and um she gets this raw intelligence and it comes in the form of what are called red jackets because that's the folder they were in had a kind of red jacket around them and a foreign affairs advisor puts them on the desk and would say you know we've got some more posts from mr collins prime minister written more letters mr collins has written some letters and they'd be in this special blue box for which only the prime minister her private secretary and a foreign affairs advisor have got the key.

20:51David:So, you know, I love the idea. It's like it needs a key. It's very kind of old school. But it does mean she's kind of reading some of the raw intelligence and reading these reports from Gordievsky. Margaret Thatcher's biographer, Charles Moore, says, you know, probably no British prime minister has ever followed the case of a British agent with as much personal attention as Mrs. Thatcher devoted to Gordievsky. That's Charles Moore. So, you know, I think, you know, MI6 also, let's be honest.

21:17Gordon:Oh, this is like crack. This is great because this is good stuff. This is a way to, I mean, intelligence, especially an agency like MI6, which is essentially just a collector, right? I mean, there is a bit of an analytic capability, but my understanding is it's, and I think this was true back then as well. It's kind of like there are reports officers, but there aren't analysts like you have at the CIA, right? There's not, there's a directorate of intelligence or analysis at CIA. You don't have that in MI6. And so your currency is always going to be the quality of the human intelligence. And so all of a sudden, with a case like Gordievsky, you've got an invitation to go visit Maggie Thatcher whenever new reports come out.

22:00Gordon:And as a senior MI6 officer, I'd imagine that is exactly what you're after, is to get the policymakers hooked on the product, right? It's perfect. Hooked on the product. Yeah, exactly. You do make it sound like a drug deal. I said it. It's like crack. So I came full circle, Gordon.

22:14David:Yeah, it was like the cat that got the cream, someone said, told me of MI6 at that time, of how they kind of, you know, walked around. It's a good point, because even if you go back to World War II, it was the MI6 chief who had the intercepts from Bletchley Park, and they came through the chief of MI6 and would kind of walk them into Churchill. And it was about very, very deliberately saying, look what we've got, and building that kind of relationship. So yeah, these agencies know what they're doing. They know how to play it. So it's going to go direct to Thatcher. It's going to have a big impact on her.

22:44Gordon:Which is not always true of the intelligence, right? Like there's really exciting stuff that gets to the policymaker. And then there's stuff that actually changes the policymaker's mind and eventually their actions. We used to have a joke because you'd get feedback when you'd write a PDB, you know, an article for the President's Daily Brief. And it would go down to, you know, when I was writing, it was either George W. Bush or Obama. And sometimes the feedback from the briefer who took the stuff down would be that the president, quote, read it with interest, which essentially meant he was looking at the page for some period of time that had your article on it.

23:18Gordon:Right. And that was like, OK, maybe it had no impact at all. Right. But in this case, Thatcher is actually sort of changing her approach in some ways to the height of the Cold War because of what Gordievsky is reporting, which is amazing.

23:34David:It's amazing, isn't it, in that sense, because she realises how dangerous it is, having seen all this stuff around Rian and the paranoia in Moscow. And so she's going to tone down the rhetoric. And I think it's one of the biggest contributions of any spy. But she'll also then talk to Ronald Reagan and President Reagan about it. And initially, he's a bit kind of sceptical about it, but it is going to play a role. and we'll come back to this, in helping shift the whole approach of these two allies and very closely aligned leaders to the Soviet Union at this dangerous moment, Gordievsky's reporting starts to filter through into Washington at this point.

24:11David:And it's going to be described as an epiphany for Reagan when he sees this material from Gordievsky. Now, this, in terms of the story of the case, proves to be both good and bad, the fact that it reaches Washington, David. because I'm afraid this is where the CIA, time to utter those words, comes into the story.

24:30Gordon:Don't you feel better having said CIA, Gordon? Don't you just feel like there's a lightness about this conversation that we can now proceed with because we have the Central Intelligence Agency involved?

24:40David:Let's let the audience judge that lightness as we get through the story about how we feel about the CIA in this case.

24:48Gordon:It's decidedly going to be a mixed bag, I would say, isn't it? That's generous even. Yeah, it's slightly a bad bag, maybe, in the end.

24:55David:Not even that mixed. So Gordievsky's intelligence is past the Americans, but it's interesting. It's past as a report, but not the name of the source. So Five Eyes, US, UK, MI6, and CIA are close, aren't they? But I think sometimes people have the wrong idea that that means they share absolutely everything. But one of the things they don't share are the actual identity of the sources.

25:18Gordon:So you might share the product of a source, but you don't always share the identity of who that source is.

25:23David:And that's what's happening with Gordievsky.

25:25Gordon:Standard operating procedure in both services would be to not share the name of a source, right? Because if you think about it, your number one priority, say you're the case officer of the team running Gordievsky. I mean, really, I guess the dual priorities are to collect intelligence and to protect the source. And sharing the source's name, even with a trusted intelligence service like the CIA, is increasing the risk that you're placing on the case and on the sources, in this case, life. And so your policy would be to not share the name. Why would you? You don't need to if you're sharing the product.

26:04Gordon:There are cases where you might, if, for example, MI6 had started to share the product and CIA looks at it and says, oh, maybe this guy actually approached us as well. And we've got some stuff. And maybe we're actually, this guy's double dipping. Yeah. And he's actually trying to work for both services. You might have to de-conflict by sharing the name to be sure, you know, we haven't actually recruited the same person. So there's de-confliction. And there's also cases, I think, where you might share the name if either side was trying to learn more about another source through Gordievsky. So, like, there are cases where it would make sense.

26:44Gordon:But I really do think that it's actually not abnormal in this case for the Brits to not share the name because there's really no reason for CIA to know.

26:53David:Yeah, because I find it interesting because at the moment people go, oh, well, given the politics and current US administration, will MI6 stop sharing source names in case they get blown somehow in Washington in a different administration? You go, well, actually, look at the Gordievsky case, because at that point, Thatcher and Reagan were about as closely aligned politically as you could get. I mean, they were incredibly close in their foreign policy and in their domestic politics. And at that point, the two agencies in the middle of the Cold War are not sharing the identity of the sources. So it makes clear it's not what normally happens.

27:24David:I agree. So anyway, it goes to CIA, the material, treated as the holy of holiest in the CIA, I was told, dealt with by the analysts. So the mini McCloskeys. That doesn't sound right. Are we sure about that?

27:39Gordon:I'm sure that there were analysts who had access to it, but I don't know. It seems like it would be officers inside, you You know, what was then, what was it, SE Division? The shop that held what became Russia House?

27:53David:I met someone who had been on the analytical wing at the time who said it was shared with them. For sure. Under very strict conditions. So like hard copy only, you know, had to be kind of signed in, signed out. So I think analysts would see the product.

28:08Gordon:Yeah.

28:09David:The mini McCloskeys of the day in Russia House and elsewhere. But, you know, and I think they found it very valuable because it's giving them that insight. and he's revealing to them how kind of skewed those Soviet perceptions of Western policies were. And, you know, wars come from those misunderstandings. So Gordievsky's warnings, I think, then do start to feed into Washington quite deeply. And Bob Gates, who was Deputy Director of the CIA, later Defence Secretary, said Gordievsky helped reinforce Reagan's conviction that a great effort had to be made not just to reduce tension, but to end the Cold War.

28:43David:So you can see the impact there. Although, of course, here is the problem. And we'll come back to this. It makes the CIA a bit jealous, doesn't it?

28:52Gordon:You know, those kind of base emotions, Gordon, are not. Those are below the Central Intelligence Agency. I think you'll find, maybe in your time, David, but I think if you go back to the early 80s. We'd matured by the early 2000s. No, I could see there being a sense of rivalry, for sure. I think there is occasional competition or maybe just a constant undercurrent of competition between the two services that usually is resolved peaceably and to the mutual benefit of both capitals, but occasionally can be disruptive. That makes sense to me, especially given how good of a case this is. I could see there being, number one, yeah, some sense of like, why didn't the Russian House guys in the States or, you know, whatever it was at the time, SE Division, why didn't they get this?

29:45Gordon:Why haven't you recruited a sort of mid to upper level KGB officer, right? What's going on? Yeah, that makes total sense. Well, maybe there, Gordon, with the Central Intelligence Agency being a little bit naughty. Let's take a break. And when we come back, we will see how this case careens toward disaster. See you after the break. See you after the break. Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from Goal Hangers. The rest is science.

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32:19Gordon:Well, welcome back. Oleg Gordievsky is, of course, spying for MI6 in London. But Gordon, you know how much I love to talk about family on this podcast. Families of all kinds. And Gordievsky is interesting with his second wife now and his daughters. I mean, they are absolutely not in the loop on what he's doing. That's right.

32:41David:So he's London leading this double life, spying for MI6 while working for the KGB. And he doesn't really have any doubts himself. We spoke before about his kind of ideological commitment to the ideas of freedom and democracy. The only times where he does a little bit question whether he is on the right path is when it comes to his family. And he looks at his wife and his daughters and thinks, what have I done? How do I get out of this? And he knows there's not really any way out. But that's the one thing which makes him worried is the knowledge he's embarked on a path which could be dangerous for him, but also for his wife and his two pretty young daughters.

33:24David:He doesn't actually, at the time, share any of these worries or his doubts with his MI6 case officers. I think he's always very keen to present this disciplined focus intelligence officer front to them in the meetings that he has with Scarlett and others. But I think behind the scenes, there is just that element of struggle. And he sometimes feels the urge of perhaps he should tell his wife. One time he's criticising something about Moscow. She tells him to stop. And she says, well, you can't do anything about it. And he thinks, maybe I can do something about it. Maybe one day you'll see I was able to do something about it.

34:00David:That's what he says. He nearly wants to go further and say, I am doing something about it. You know, I'm spying. I'm taking on the KGB. But he knows, you know, her mother and father are, you know, in the Soviet Union and deep inside the system and linked to the KGB itself. She also talks about being a bit homesick, you know, and she's got friends back in the Soviet Union. She's got a part-time job in the KGB station in London. I think he just knows he can't guarantee that she will share his views. And then what if she betrays him? If he says anything to her, the risks for her go up as well, whatever she decides to do about it.

34:41David:He's keeping his spying and his secret life closed off from her. Seems very stressful. It seems stressful. I think he's very good at compartmenting his life. but you can still believe that all this emotional energy is going into staying on the road you know kind of keeping the show on the road rather than perhaps having a positive relationship with his wife so you get a sense the relationship is not easy and he's kind of tense and he's preoccupied but she hasn't got any idea so he's walking this tightrope and it's about to get even more tense and even more important. Gordievsky's reporting about how to manage the Soviet Union, as we saw, has been important for Thatcher.

35:25David:It's going to feed into a meeting that Thatcher has at Chequers, which is the Prime Minister's country retreat, in which they decide in London, they want to reach out to reformists in the Soviet Union and invite some of them to Britain. And there's a younger star on the rise in the Communist Party at this point, which is Mikhail Gorbachev, not yet leader, but the invitation is made in 1984 to come to London. It's going to be in December. It's a big moment for Oleg and the embassy, but also things are getting a little bit tricky at the embassy. He's not entirely popular with other KGB officers.

35:59David:You know, he's not one of the drinking boys.

36:02Gordon:He's not swilling vodka from a tumbler in the office. He is really an outlier though. He doesn't really drink. I mean, I guess he will. He doesn't seem to be totally a teetotaler,

36:12David:but he's not he's not a social drinker he's not a social drinker he's not consuming it to the

36:17Gordon:extent that resident gook might be yeah our friend arcady gook arcady our favorite resident

36:24David:um but he's also especially at the start not been recruiting that many agents because he's

36:30Gordon:he's busy spying for mic is anybody recruiting agents though in the london resident aura good

36:36David:point i think they're busy trying by having fancy lunches people are trying i think they've got a A few contacts. So MI6 start to realise this is a bit of a problem and they start to help. They start to give him chicken feed, which is material he can send back to look like he's writing useful reports. And they also put him in touch with people who can be confidential contacts, so not full agents, but contacts. And these are people that MI5 have put in his path deliberately so that he can up his quota of people he's talking to, but who are not going to feed back real stuff. Yeah, it's good. Ben McIntyre mentions this in his book, The Spy and the Traitor on this, that they put a young woman who worked in the Conservative Central Office in front of him so he can say, look, I've got a contact.

37:19David:So he's on the up. And MI6 also do this smart thing, which is they manoeuvre against his colleagues. So they expel one of them in March 1983. So now Oleg is the head of Line PR. So he's the head of political reporting for the whole embassy. And then betony michael betony as we heard last time unmasked as a kind of wannabe traitor when the trial comes for that in 1984 they've got a pretext to do what seems like a wonderful move and a tragic move for our favorite character arcady gook unfairly villainized in the series he's been

37:55Gordon:villainized by us he's just a humble kgb man who wants to drink vast quantities of vodka and conspire against his colleagues and he's been tossed out, sent back to the Soviet Union.

38:05David:So he's going to get expelled because, you know, his name can come up in Bettany's trial. It means that Oleg has moved from deputy head of political reporting to head of political reporting. Now with Arkady Gutt removed, the deputy head of the whole residentura becomes the acting head and Oleg becomes his deputy. So suddenly he's number two in the embassy and the person above him is only the acting head. So there's a succession battle. Oleg has got a shot at this. And MI6 wonder about expelling the acting head, but they're kind of like, that's because it looks too obvious. Too obvious. And, you know, Oleg's going to go back for a regular meeting that summer, 1984.

38:45David:He's told he's a candidate to be resident, the head of the KGB in London, but he knows it's going to be a battle. And he knows that this big moment is coming up, which is that in December, Gorbachev is due to make this eight-day visit to London. And as the head of political reporting, as well as deputy head, he's going to be briefing Gorbachev on British politics. And as an MI6 agent, he's going to brief London about Gorbachev and Soviet politics. And this is just, I think this is absolutely wild as a kind of triumph of human intelligence. He is writing reports on British politics, things like the miners' strike, Margaret Thatcher, to prepare Gorbachev for the meetings.

39:26David:And when Gorbachev arrives, he reads these reports. And back to your point about PDBs, Gordievsky will get the briefs for Gorbachev back with the things underlined that Gorbachev is interested in for the visit. And then Gordievsky can go tell MI6, this is the stuff Gorbachev is really interested in, and you should be prepared for that. And MI6 even give of Gordievsky, a brief on what the British Foreign Secretary is going to raise with Gorbachev so that then Gordievsky can write the brief for Gorbachev ready so that he knows what's going to be raised. Spot on. Yeah, spot on. Amazing, Mr. Gordievsky, how you seem to have this amazing insight into what the British will be raising.

40:14David:And it's wild that in the middle of this is this kind of political reporting officer for MI6, who is basically briefing both the British Prime Minister and the upcoming Soviet top official through an agent, through an MI6 agent. I mean, it is wild.

40:27Gordon:An asset like this, like Gordievsky, you could argue actually releases a lot of pressure from the system. Because what's being passed to Moscow, the Brits are providing through Gordievsky real insight into the British position and decision-making, right? So this can help to take the temperature way down to have this kind of free flow of communication. I mean, the Brits know what's going on, the Soviets don't, but it kind of decompresses things.

40:56David:Yeah, you're reducing the space for misunderstanding or miscalculation or going down rabbit holes off the wrong way. Thatcher's going to notice how well-breathed Gorbachev is. It means that when they meet Thatcher and Gorbachev, they have back and forth about things like the miners' strike, which is going on, and Soviet dissidents. And yet, they kind of can get beyond that and understand each other and actually get to like each other. Now, you know, Gordievsky, when Gorbachev first arrives at the embassy, actually thinks he's a bit disappointing. He thinks Gorbachev is just this kind of, he's another apparatchik, he thinks, you know.

41:27David:Screwed up that assessment. Yeah, he did, didn't he? Well, that's interesting as well, isn't it? Because I think it maybe speaks to Gordievsky being so cynical about the Soviet Union and so pro-Western that he can't see any potential, that even Gorbachev could be a reformer. He doesn't see that there's a chance of reform. It means the trip is wildly successful and a really important success because Thatcher comes away from it convinced, and she says this publicly, that for all the differences the two sides have, Gorbachev is someone she can do business with. She says, you know, this is someone we can work with to low attentions.

42:03David:And she immediately sends a note to Reagan in Washington. And then she actually flies out to Washington soon after, a few weeks later, to personally brief Reagan at Camp David, saying to President Reagan, it is worth getting to know Gorbachev. This guy is interesting. And that, I think, will help shape policy in these crucial years. You've had these years of tension. And now, partly thanks to Gordievsky, they've realised the tensions need to be lowered. And again, thanks to Gordievsky, Reagan and Thatcher are realising that Gorbachev offers a different path through the second half of the 80s. And it's going to open up, I think, that possibility of engagement and reform, which is going to bring the Cold War to a manageable end rather than a blowout.

42:51David:And I think that's, I mean, in terms of contributions, that's pretty big.

42:54Gordon:Slightly significant, I would say. Also, I mean, I'd have to think that those briefings that Kordievsky provides would have played really well in Moscow, given how accurate they were. Someone would have taken note and said, you know, that sort of deputy resident out there in London is a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.

43:13David:Yeah, so it does. It does him no end of good. Although, noticeably, his rival for the top job as resident kind of is slightly suspicious of how good the briefings were. How do you understand? Isn't it remarkable? The British system so well. And actually tells Oleg, I think at one point, you know, those briefings were suspiciously good. So it looks like, you know, there's a little bit, he might have been too good. But the result of all this is at the start of 1985, he is told, you've got the job. You are resident designated. You are about to be the head of the KGB station in London, outside of perhaps Washington, the most important foreign posting for the KGB at that time.

43:54David:A very senior officer, privy to all the secrets. and he's due to start in a few months. This is an amazing prize, I think, for MI6. And then it's going to start to slip away. And why, David? Why does it slip away?

44:08Gordon:Enter a CIA man wearing a Stetson with cowboy boots on, trying to understand who in the world is providing this exceptional information to our British cousins. Who is this?

44:21David:The CIA getting particularly jealous, it looks like at this point. At one point, supposedly, pinning an MI6 officer up against the wall at a Christmas party and asking like, who's this one? No. I find that a bit implausible.

44:34Gordon:Anything's possible if someone has 10 scotches at a Christmas party, you know, they could do anything. It makes sense to me that MI6 would sort of politely demure and say, we're not going to tell you the name. Also, I mean, to some degree, I kind of wonder if the CIA is even really asking. It also makes sense that the CIA sort of behind the scenes would try to figure out who the source is because it will give you more confidence or I guess potentially less. Right. Helps you understand the stream of reporting that you're looking at if you really know who it is. So it makes sense to me that the agency would maybe try to figure it out or at least go on with a list of suspects.

45:12David:It's maybe a little bit hard for me to say it's all down to jealousy, because I guess there is a practical bit where if you know that this source is so influential in the White House with your president, you kind of want to be sure about it. So early 85, Burton Gerber, head of SC division at CIA, decides he's going to try and find out who this source is. I still think this is bad practice and very naughty, David. You think it's naughty? I think it's naughty. Yeah. And the Brits, I can tell you the Brits think it's naughty.

45:41Gordon:It's a naughty business, Gordon. It's a naughty business.

45:46David:That should be our slogan for the podcast.

45:49Gordon:Is it naughty? It seems understandable on all sides. It seems understandable that the Brits would say, this is an amazing source and here's a bit of information on who it is, but we're not going to tell you the name. It also makes sense to me that Burton Gerber would want to figure out who it is.

46:03David:Well, I can tell you that the Brits think it's naughty because I talked to someone who was involved in this case and they were fuming about it still years on and they said it wasn't a game if we'd wanted to tell them we would have done well that's why we had to find out ourselves because you didn't tell us okay i think it's naughty i'm going to stand by that position

46:21Gordon:fair enough i guess lots of naughty things are also understandable right even if they remain naughty those are two different so they're going to try and find out in their naughtiness the cia

46:30David:will be trying to find out how to do it and it's interesting because of course you can see how they could start to piece it together because they know it's someone who the Brits are able to meet regularly. If you've got the analytic product, you can say, well, this guy knows a lot about what's happening in London. He knows a lot about this. He knows a lot about that. You can start to go, oh, well, there was that arrest of Bettany in Britain. There's been an arrest also, we should say, of a Norwegian agent of the KGB who Gordievsky had informed on. So you can start to see, oh, well, there's someone who was working in that division between Britain and Scandinavia, and he's been doing it for a while.

47:06David:And you can start to piece it together and narrow it down. And of course, you've got the expulsions in Britain, you've got Arkady Guk. And so if you're in the CIA, if you're smart CIA analysts, the best of the mini McCloskeys, you can probably start going, okay, you can start to see what the Brits are up to.

47:23Gordon:The analysts were never read into this little game to find out the name. No, no, no. I can guarantee you there were, I would be shocked if a single analyst had known that this was happening. This was going on inside SE division and in the kind of.

47:37David:In the operational bit.

47:39Gordon:Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

47:40David:Yeah, that does make more sense. So they are going to work it out and they're going to work out that Gordievsky fits the profile. And they're going to send a cable to the CIA's London station saying, would Gordievsky fit the profile? on the London station will say, yes, he fits the profile. They're not going to tell the Brits. They've had a guess about it. Now, here is the problem, that one of the people, one of the counterintelligence officers in the SC division, the Soviet division, is a man called Aldrich Ames. And he is a baddie. He is a baddie. He is a baddie. I think we should do his story properly.

48:13David:We will do his story properly, won't we? Because it's a good story.

48:16Gordon:I mean, it's one of the defining espionage and counterintelligence stories of the Cold War as well, is the sort of betrayal of Aldrich Ames, his betrayals of the agency and so many of its Russia sources. And he's essentially after money, right? Ames is. And it's just, it's remarkable that he's one of the people running the sort of hunt for Gordievsky's name inside the CIA. It's unfortunate. I know it's a little unclear if Ames was really the one who gave up Gordievsky's name, but certainly him running the sort of CIA investigation to figure out who the source is.

48:53David:Yeah. And we will delve into Ames more. This all happens then in 1985 in May, because just before Oleg is due to take up his role as resident, Ames first approaches the KGB, but he doesn't talk to them properly until May the 15th. And he might have at that point told his handler about the fact that there's some kind of mole. But you're right, there is a bit of ambiguity about this because Ames himself when he's later interrogated will say he doesn't give up Gordievsky's name at this point you know and he is clear about that but a lot of other people think the coincidence is too strong but the fact there's a bit unexplained you know is an issue and he will say I only gave up the name in June now these dates might seem a bit kind of marginal May or June it does matter because it's in May that things are going to go south for Gordievsky and there is also the possibility that the KGB had some fears about a mole anyway that you know you've got Gordievsky's rival for the resident job who's also kind of got his suspicions so there might have been other circumstantial reasons why the KGB could have been suspicious about it even if the aims perhaps at his first meeting had just been vague about a penetration in Britain and not mentioned that it was Gordievsky but whatever the exact cause is the result is disaster because in London Gordievsky has the prize in sight becoming resident when a cipher clerk brings in a telegram to his office May 16th so it's the day after Ames has had a meeting with his KGB handlers but Gordievsky gets a telegram and without warning he's being recalled to Moscow.

50:35David:A sudden summons home two days. And I think it's fair to say that's really good news.

50:41Gordon:It's never good news in the KGB, Gordon, I suppose. And maybe there with Oleg now headed home to see what awaits him and into the dark embrace of the KGB, who is going to investigate him and try to understand if he is truly the mole. Let's end. And when we come back, We'll see how Oleg navigates through that minefield.

51:07David:But wait, before we go. There's more. If you don't want to wait. Don't wait. You don't have to be an Aldrich Ames trying to piece together what happens in your own mind. Because you can just join the Declassified Club. You don't have to be naughty. You can just join the club at therestisclassified.com. And you will get all the deepest secrets from the podcast. but especially you can listen to the next few episodes right away without any delay or having to piece together any fragments of intelligence so do join but otherwise we'll see you next time we'll see you next time