In short
Episode topic: Oleg Gordievsky’s escape from Moscow under KGB surveillance via MI6’s “Operation Pimlico,” followed by what happened after he reached safety and the long-term costs.
Guest backgrounds
No external guests appear; the episode is narrated by David McCloskey and Gordon Carrera, using Gordievsky’s memoir and references to MI6/CIA figures (e.g., Raymond Asquith, Valerie Petit, Bill Casey, Smiley Mike/Lubimov).
Key claims
Gordievsky’s discipline and need for control drive meticulous preparation. MI6’s two-car plan exploits diplomatic immunity and a medical “weekend trip” cover. Surveillance gaps and border risks are managed through improvisation (e.g., sedating Gordievsky in a car boot, using crisps to distract sniffer dogs, and a dirty-nappy timing maneuver). After escape, Gordievsky becomes an advisor to Thatcher and informs Reagan-era diplomacy; his family remains trapped in the USSR until 1991.
Notable examples
Asquith’s ceiling-bug “park” anecdote; Gordievsky’s sedatives and injury on a train; hitchhiking back to the rendezvous; tanks convoy creating a traffic gap; border dog checks; Finlandia music signaling success.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Escape Plan Unfolds
2:27 to 4:39
Delve into the meticulous details of Operation Pimlico and the challenges faced.
“little insight into the man's personality.”
Surveillance and Tension
4:39 to 6:04
Explore the intense surveillance faced by Oleg and the MI6 team during the operation.
“He's the Earl of Oxford and he will become, he's not at this point, but he will become the Earl of Oxford and he's actually a hereditary peer whose great-grandfather was the Prime Minister Asquith.”
The Journey Begins
6:04 to 8:06
Follow Oleg's escape journey as he navigates through Moscow and Leningrad.
“And to his amazement, a note appears a few hours later under the door telling him which park they'd agreed to.”
Unexpected Challenges
8:06 to 9:23
Learn about the challenges and unexpected events that occur during Oleg's escape.
“like Raymond Asquith would take a baby on such a perilous operation.”
The Final Approach
9:23 to 12:18
Witness the MI6 team's drive toward the rendezvous point amid rising tensions.
Waiting at the Rendezvous
12:18 to 14:03
Understand the psychological strain on Oleg as he awaits the MI6 team.
Surveillance and Decision Making in Moscow
14:03 to 17:46
Explore the complexities of surveillance and decision-making as the protagonist navigates through Moscow's dangers.
“Yeah, I'm going to lose my mind with mosquitoes ignoring me.”
The Hitchhike and the Tense Escape
17:47 to 21:55
Learn about the protagonist's risky hitchhike and the challenges faced during the escape attempt.
“You know, and if he gets it wrong, he might have missed it, which would have been a disaster.”
The Final Dash to Freedom
21:56 to 28:00
Follow the intense final moments as the MI6 team navigates danger at the border while ensuring a successful escape.
“And right now, when you're watching this crew of, for all they know, foreign diplomats, and they probably don't know, it's the MISX head of station from Moscow.”
The Escape Mission Explained
28:00 to 31:29
Explore the intricate details of Oleg's daring escape from the Soviet Union.
Show all 18 chapters
The Escape Mission Explained
31:38 to 32:03
Explore the intricate details of Oleg's daring escape from the Soviet Union.
“Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto.”
Aftermath of the Escape
32:35 to 38:22
Delve into the repercussions and the impact of Oleg's escape on the KGB and his family.
“And Gordon, I have to think that when the dust settles pretty quickly after this escape, it's not looking so good for the old KGB.”
Personal Costs of Espionage
38:22 to 42:00
Discuss the personal sacrifices Oleg made in his espionage career and its effects on his relationships.
“It makes sense because I guess, in effect, he chose his espionage work over the family.”
The Morality of Betrayal
42:00 to 44:28
Explore the complex nature of betrayal in espionage and its moral implications.
“because he would be like, Kim Philby is a hero, Oleg Gordievsky is a traitor.”
Gordievsky's Post-Espionage Life
44:28 to 46:01
Discuss how Oleg Gordievsky navigated life after espionage and the challenges he faced.
“He seems more well adjusted than a lot of other kind of defectors or people who have spied and then come out and they're sort of left in this limbo state.”
Concerns Over Gordievsky's Safety
46:01 to 48:14
Examine the security risks Gordievsky faced after his defection and rumors surrounding his death.
“Because twice Russian diplomats, diplomats, probably intelligence officers, are seen at a restaurant in Surrey, which he frequents.”
The Strategic Importance of Spying
48:14 to 50:41
Analyze the role of espionage in Cold War dynamics and its impact on global relations.
“Well, former CIA director Bill Burns had this great line when talking about Putin, where he said Vladimir Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback.”
Gordievsky's Legacy in Espionage
50:41 to 53:24
Reflect on Gordievsky's significant contributions to espionage and his lasting impact.
“I mean, it is interesting because it makes you think, I agree with you, sometimes spying raises tension and sometimes it lowers tensions.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:03Gordon: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 at therestisclassified.com. Most of us are one good deal away from finally replacing that worn-out rug, fixing up the backyard, or getting the bedroom we actually want. Good news, that deal's almost here. Wayfair's Black Friday in July sale. Get up to 80 % off area rugs and up to 60 % off outdoor and bedroom furniture. Shop Wayfair's huge selection of styles and find the piece to fit your style, budget, and space.
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0:55Gordon:On Thursday night, I again slept with the doors barricaded and my railway ticket under a napkin on the tin tray. On Friday, feeling emotional and overexcited, I spent the morning cleaning the flat. I knew I would probably never see the place again, but I wanted to leave everything in perfect order. I did not doubt that the KGB would study every detail, and I was anxious that they should find things ship-shape. Washing up done, crockery put away, documents in place, spare cash on the shelf. Having calculated that 80 rubles would suffice for my journey, I left 220 in a neat pile, enough at that date to keep Layla going for a couple of months.
1:37Gordon:In spite of all the care I took. I forgot one special item, the snuff I had bought in case I had to deal with inquisitive search dogs at the frontier. At last, about 4 p.m., it was time to leave. Well, welcome to The Rest is Classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera. And that is Oleg Gordievsky writing in his memoir about the night before he escapes, or attempts to escape the Soviet Union. And we left him last time, Gordon, in this bind of really, he escapes or if he dies. And now the die is cast. He has got his apartment totally cleaned, which I find absolutely fascinating and a great little insight into the man's personality.
2:30So his apartment is cleaned and he is ready to go.
2:34Gordon:The escape plan Operation Pimlico is now in motion.
2:39David:I'm not sure if I had a few hours left in my apartment, I'd spend it cleaning so that the KGB could find it in a fit state. I think I'd make it messy for them and make it difficult for them. But that's the man disciplined.
2:53Gordon:It gets to the ego thing again. I think he has a sense of superiority and he wants to demonstrate that he, until the last moment, is in control of the situation. Yeah, that's right. It's control.
3:05David:It's a control thing. And that control is going to be vital because this is a man who, as we said all along, is disciplined and focused. But the pressure he is going to come under now, I mean, he's been under pressure already. And now in these final hours, as he tries to escape, it is going to get so intense for him. Because the question is, how do you get out of Moscow under the watching eyes of the KGB who have you under suspicion? I mean, it's almost impossible for anyone to get out of the USSR, the Soviet Union, without approval.
3:41Gordon:Normal people who are not being sort of surveilled by the KGB, like that's hard to get out, right?
3:47David:Let alone when you're a KGB officer under suspicion. So the plan will be for an MI-16 based at the embassy in Moscow to drive him over the border into Finland. And the idea is that cars are not normally subject to search because of diplomatic immunity. But the question is, how do you get Oleg into a car to the border with no one spotting? And the plan, Pimlico, as we know it's called, is for a rendezvous point close to the border with Finland. that requires him not being followed the mi6 team not being suspected or searched and the mi6 team including their wives are normally tailed by three to five cars and foot surveillance wherever they go their apartments are bugged it's a small station it's under intense pressure now it's worth saying that the mi6 station chief the head of station in moscow at this time has outed himself we've said before that normally mi6 officers while they're alive are anonymous but raymond asquith has appeared and talked about his role in the escape particularly in a bbc documentary a couple of years ago called secrets and spies a nuclear game and he discusses it so we're going to talk about him since he's put this out in the public domain himself and he says it's out in the public domain worth noting that Raymond Asquith is also the Earl of Oxford.
5:14David:Recognise that name, Gordon. He's the Earl of Oxford and he will become, he's not at this point, but he will become the Earl of Oxford and he's actually a hereditary peer whose great-grandfather was the Prime Minister Asquith. I don't think that many MI6 officers are hereditary peers. I don't think any from the CIA will have been because you don't have that kind of system.
5:35Gordon:We overthrew that system, Gordon.
5:37David:We overthrew that system. but in that documentary i mentioned he actually tells a story about at one point he's having an argument with his wife in their moscow apartment and they're arguing about where they'd already agreed to take their children on a picnic on the weekend which park it was and they've got different recollection about which park it was going to be and so he decides to address the ceiling knowing that there's a bugging device in the ceiling and he just says to them almost joking well, where did we agree to go to? And to his amazement, a note appears a few hours later under the door telling him which park they'd agreed to.
6:15David:He says, I thought that was a KGB officer with a good sense of humour.
6:18Gordon:It reminds me, there's a very similar story, pretty close to the same period of time. And a CIA officer who'd served in Moscow around the same time, he and his wife got lost on their way to a restaurant where they were going for dinner. and they literally all they had to do was just let the KGB officers take them there because the KGB, of course, knew where they were going and exactly how to get there. So they just followed the surveillance dinner, right? Yeah, exactly.
6:47David:But yeah, that does give you a sense though, doesn't it? Of just how intense that surveillance is on the families. And they've practiced the drive so that they know where they're going. the plan is two cars raymond asquith and also his deputy and the plan of two cars is of course partly because they think and the original plan has the full family coming out oleg his wife and his two daughters i mean actually have a plan that if they need to they're going to have to chloroform the kids so that they can cope with being put in a car boot so the plan is the two cars are going to leave moscow on friday and stay overnight in leningrad and before going over to Finland on Saturday.
7:27David:Now the pretext is that one of the officer's wives needs some medical treatment because she's ill it's kind of relatively urgent and so the families decide that they're going to accompany her and make it a kind of weekend trip for both families including crucially a newborn baby and the baby is breastfeeding which is very newborn baby but they also kind of figure this might help with the cover story and they're making phone calls to London to establish the cover story and they're speaking to the ceiling, you know, and moaning and talking about the pain. And one of the things they'll later learn, actually, is that the KGB didn't think that a posh MI6 officer like Raymond Asquith would take a baby on such a perilous operation.
8:12David:So it kind of works.
8:14Gordon:Now, the plan that Valerie Petit had come up with, it wasn't this specific when she had written it years earlier right i mean it was it sort of like phase three as you gin up an excuse to drive to finland or was it down to this level of detail because this is some pretty good improvisation
8:33David:if not i think there's a high level of detail and all they've done is adapt the plan over the years so that for instance it's going to be two cars when they've got the kids so they've definitely changed it but the fundamentals are kind of there and so that's the plan but of course as we said At every stage, stuff just goes wrong. So the first problem is the new British ambassador, the one who we mentioned last time is a bit unhappy about the whole fuss of being made right in his first few days, is arriving in the embassy that Friday and he's going to have a welcome party for staff. And so, of course, like if you're two officers of the embassy, would they really miss that party?
9:16David:And if they're not there, it's suspicious. so they decide okay we're going to have to leave after the party and drive through the night to still make the rendezvous point which is going to be 2 30 the next afternoon near the border where oleg is also supposed to turn up and of course there's no contact with oleg so you can't say can we make it the next day or can we make it a bit later in the afternoon so meanwhile friday afternoon gordievsky oleg knows its time 4 p.m he leaves the flat now he's wearing something like a tracksuit and he makes out he's going jogging but rather than jogging he starts slowly and then speeds up he runs fast to something like a sprint and remember you know going back all the way through he's a runner his escape required all the characteristics we spoke about the start about this long distance runner the physical skills of running are going to be part of it and the endurance and the physical endurance but also the ability to deal with pressure when you're alone that loneliness of the long distance runner so he's running he heads into some nearby woods he gets on a bus he thinks he's clean of surveillance he heads to the Leningrad train station he walks through a big crowd to try and get there he's been through metro stations and shops when he gets to the station which takes you to Leningrad in Moscow the police are everywhere and he's panicked about that he thinks there's a lot of surveillance potentially on him and then he remembers no no no there's a festival taking place that explains it so he's already bought himself a fourth class train ticket i didn't realize so fourth class he's treating himself as he as he leaves i think i'd go
10:55Gordon:first class maybe that's suspicious is that like a lavatory seat or something like that that seems
11:00David:like yeah is fourth class the bottom of the barrel i guess it is it's kind of interesting isn't it so much for classless communist society with four classes of train tickets but it's an overnight train which is going that evening and he's on the top bunk and in the middle of the night he falls out of the bunk because he's taken some sedatives to kind of calm him down and he cuts his head and so he's bleeding so he's starting to look a mess so he's still in the tracksuit and i think he's still in the tracksuit and he sees this woman and he thinks i'll talk to her because they're talking about something interesting and she just takes one look at him and just recoils and says, if you speak one word to me, I'll scream, she says.
11:45David:Because he just looked, she thinks he's going to chatter up and he's just making conversation. He just looked so bad. He's sweaty. He's sweaty from the sedatives and bloody and in a dirty tracksuit. So that is Friday night in our timeline. Meanwhile, the MI6 team head out after the party and there's a kind of mix of fatalism, I think, and excitement as they head out with their families i think they know this is the last thing they'll probably end up doing in moscow because if they succeed people are going to know it there's going to be trouble and if they fail they're going to get caught and there's going to be even more trouble so it's going to be trouble either way but either through triumph or disaster and you know ask with in the tv documentary will say he was bloody frightened the sun is rising on saturday morning as they're driving towards leningrad they're playing good detail this dire straits brothers in arms in one of the cars that's from ben mcintyres the spy and the traitor and asquith will say it was such a beautiful day you'd think nothing bad could happen now surveillance vehicles are following them almost all the way so they've got surveillance on their tail and they had to reach the designated spot close to the finnish border at exactly the right moment not too early or too late so they have to kill some time they visit a monastery they're still under surveillance meanwhile oleg had got to leningrad and then he's taking another train to take him closer to the finnish border then he gets a bus and he gets off the bus at a particular point and walks to the rendezvous point which has a large stone which is the marker that's recognizable and he gets there and it's tall conifer trees and he sits there and there's mosquitoes everywhere and they're biting him and he also looks at his watch and he is nearly four hours early he's tired you know he's stressed he's acting oddly i guess you should just wait there for four hours with the mosquitoes gnawing you but i think the stress is too much so he actually decides he's going to hitchhike back to the nearest town to get some lunch and he goes to have a beer and a beer i mean it's mad isn't it i think under that intense pressure you're just
14:03Gordon:not thinking straight are you probably not thinking straight and also i mean i guess depending on how well screened the area is it's potentially in his mind like he's more vulnerable waiting there but it doesn't seem like that's the kind of spot that would have been chosen so it does seem like you're increasing your risk by going back and i guess it's understandable because maybe you're at a point where you're thinking, I actually can't sit in one place for four hours. I'm going to lose
14:30David:my mind. Yeah, just wait. Yeah, I'm going to lose my mind with mosquitoes ignoring me. I mean, he's been living under surveillance and fear for two months in Moscow.
14:39Gordon:Two months. I want to come back to that for a second, though, because up to this point, it doesn't seem like he's had surveillance on him over the past 24, 48 hours. Yeah, he's lost it. Has he lost them or had they actually pulled surveillance off? Because it's a resource game right they've got plenty of different targets to look at he's just one of them i mean did they pull surveillance and so he was just clean the whole time or had he actually had he actually lost them along the way and they couldn't find him they're looking for him but they can't find because i think if they lose him that's it yeah you're throwing all kinds of resources at this in
15:15David:moscow right so i think a few things are going on in moscow i think one is they had very intense surveillance early on and i think this is part of his game is to play for time and i think he knows the surveillance will be reduced and get sloppier as those two months progresses so by this point it's got lighter i also think in moscow they just don't think anyone could possibly escape you know they just don't think it's possible that he could do it and so he has got surveillance on him around his apartment but it's less intense than it might have been and he's lost them at that point but it's interesting and we'll come back to this i think with the cars as well that i think it hasn't set off alarm bells instantly in moscow because i think he's done dry cleaning routes before we talked about it when he did the signal he's lost people so i think there's this understanding that he occasionally drops out of coverage but will pop back up again and that's clearly happened before because he's done counter surveillance routes when he's done that signal on the tuesday night you know when he's there with the with the bag the safeway bag so i think they will have known that occasionally they'll lose him but it for a couple of hours and then he'll come back again so i think that means they've not hit the panic button in moscow overnight at that point although you'd think they would be but of course it's also saturday morning at this point he had left
16:37Gordon:the late afternoon the previous day right so he's been gone overnight presumably if there was surveillance of any kind they'd be worried on his apartment in moscow they would see that he's not there and you would have had alarm bells going off because even if you think it's going to be hard to escape it's not impossible the way that this appears to me is that they had pulled surveillance off of him for this period and that there was no one actually following him at any point and nor did they know that he had actually left moscow i think it's also that problem that
17:12David:the KGB don't want to it's pretty tightly held that he's under investigation I don't think it's widely known and I think if they have got a little bit of surveillance they may have not wanted to tell people and just hope oops yeah yeah yeah so he's gone for his chicken lunch and beer then suddenly he realizes it's one o 'clock but he might be late he's in like a parallel
17:35Gordon:universe during this time isn't it he's out of his gourd yeah I think that's right I think he's in a
17:42David:And I think, you know, there's no doubt he's making odd decisions, but who can blame him? So he actually has to hitchhike with a lorry driver to get back to the site. You know, and if he gets it wrong, he might have missed it, which would have been a disaster. But he's got a beer and he's back in the grass. And he says these were the hardest moments because the mosquitoes are biting him. He's worried he is too late. He's missed it. And if so, they're not going to come back. At one point, he walks out onto the road and he actually then tells himself, stop, this is madness. I've got to go back and wait.
18:13David:Now, meanwhile, the MI6 team has been trying to get towards the border. It's come out of Leningrad. City surveillance hands over to provincial surveillance. So, again, they're being followed, but I don't think they're being followed in a way that they think they're on an operation. So it's not the most intense surveillance. It's kind of regular surveillance, if you like, rather than they're really up to something. and at one point you know this is what's crazy is the idea is they're going to find this rendezvous point and then slip in have a picnic and then get out but that depends on having a gap between the surveillance car and at one point they're bracketed by kgb surveillance cars so one car is in front and one is behind and that is a huge problem because you can't do anything at that point you've got no room to speed up slow down do anything and so aswith decides to play games with them to kind of annoy them and he slows down to about 20 miles an hour now of course if it's a real car behind it would have to overtake he's kind of telling them i know what you're doing i'm just going to screw you i'm going to slow down the one in front has to slow down and eventually he kind of plays with them the point where the one in front gives up and comes to the rear and so now the cars are behind him so it's pretty lucky but he's about 20 miles away from the rendezvous spot and they're still being tailed by surveillance and so they've got to shake off these cars and soon and they're running late for the meeting time and then they get a stroke of luck had lots of bad luck in this operation here's a bit of good luck all the cars on the highway are stopped for 10 minutes because a convoy of tanks has to pass so the surveillance cars stop behind the mi6 cars then once the the military convoy the tanks pass the mi6 cars floor it asquith is driving a saab and his deputy a ford and the advantage they've got is they've got western cars which have obviously been imported in and are faster and better than the kgb surveillance cars so they leave them in a cloud of dust as they just floor the accelerator and zoom off and that means a gap is now opening up with the surveillance cars behind them which are still coming out of the the traffic which had stopped for this convoy so now they're approaching the site and the marker which is just after a turn so you've got the you've got the ability to lose surveillance they hit the corner they slam on the brakes they swing off into this lay-by in the forest The surveillance cars, now desperate to catch up, roar past.
20:53David:They've stopped, but are they too late? I mean, the plan would be to have a kind of fake picnic as cover. And so the wives are getting out the picnic stuff. But as they do, a smelly-looking tramp-like figure, who Asquith will later describe as looking like a Norwegian troll, will get out of a ditch and just say, which car? and that's all he says i mean what a moment i mean it's wild so gordievsky actually recognizes the driver of the ford car as as the person he'd seen eating a mars bar you know and who's he blocked eyes with on the moscow street he takes off his shoes because he's worried he's got that spy dust the spy dust yeah yeah so he puts them in a plastic bag and he's bundled into the boot
21:41Gordon:of the ford car it's the trunk for our american listeners yes and a heat reflecting blanket is
21:49David:put over him and that's to fool infrared sensors he's given a bottle in which to urinate and more sedative pills to calm him down he gulps them straight away cars get on the move they reckon it takes less than a minute and a half to do that to get him in get him ready and move off and they're back on the way to the border now this is i think the really interesting bit because they then pass their surveillance cars at a checkpoint coming up what it looks like's happened is the kgb assume the brits stopped for a bathroom break and so they just fall back inside them and it's interesting because of course this provincial surveillance team hasn't been told who they're following or why or that it's important and they've got a bit of a decision they're here i think because they've got to work out do they admit that they lost them for a minute and a half and report it or do they just kind of hope for the best and think it was a bathroom break and you know we're not going to bother reporting that to headquarters you're riding your luck
22:48Gordon:there aren't you there's not a lot of upside to reporting that it makes you look incompetent if you're the kgb's second chief directorate guys who are doing this surveillance also i mean the reality I would suppose of doing this kind of trailing vehicular surveillance is there are going to be short periods where you lose people. And right now, when you're watching this crew of, for all they know, foreign diplomats, and they probably don't know, it's the MISX head of station from Moscow. Like it's a foreign diplomats who were just driving around. This probably feels very typical very boring and you have no indication at this point given who's in the vehicle particularly the baby that they're doing anything operational so you're kind of raising your hand for trouble if you report that gap i would think if you're the head of that surveillance team no it does
23:39David:make sense and it is fortunate because if they had raised it then it could have slowed things down at the border so the mi6 team back in the cars approached the border now as diplomatic cars they should be exempt from being searched but there'd been slight despair about a week or so earlier when a british military attache had allowed his trunk to be searched at the border and he shouldn't have done but they fear it's kind of set a precedent and if the search was demanded the plan was just for the cars to refuse and then they've just got to turn around so it's pretty risky and one of them actually worries at one point they've forgotten to even lock the boot in which gaudi is sitting i mean which is but i guess you know if it's not locked it almost doesn't matter at that point and at that moment back in london the foreign office advisor to mi6 is gathered with senior staff and he looks at his watch and he says ladies and gentlemen they're about to cross the border i think it would be appropriate to say a prayer and they're going to need it multiple border checks as well not just one the first few go okay then you've got the big checkpoint it's busy everyone's getting their documents checked oleg is in the boot he's hot he's uncomfortable and he's smelly is he very imagine how smelly he is uh he's struggling to breathe and now here come the alsatian sniffer dogs i mean this is this is the problem the engines turned off gordievsky inside can actually hear the dog sniffing around the car and getting closer to him now he'd been given actually some snuff by mi6 you know which we heard about but and he'd forgotten it he's left it behind forgot it yeah he left it behind his immaculately cleaned apartment yeah so the risk is he's smelly he's dirty they're going to smell something so one of the wives of the mi6 team opens a pack of cheese and onion crisps to offer it to the dogs do you have cheese and onion crisps chips potato chips in america yeah i think you can get you can get
25:35Gordon:those flavors i'm not sure they're quite strong boy i'm gonna say something wrong here and someone is gonna someone's gonna just rip me apart in the it you know in the comments but i don't think it's a very common flavor i mean you have like sour cream and onion would be more do you have that sour cream yeah we do do more like yeah but but i think the idea is it's quite strong if you're one of these guys who's working the dogs though wouldn't she be ticked if this lady is reaching out of the car and giving the dog chips while it's supposed to giving she's giving crisps to
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26:06David:the dog it's like the dog is on duty yeah but you know but then the dog's still heading for the boot of the car so asquith's wife takes out her baby daughter and changes her dirty nappy on the boot of the ford car over oleg beneath and then as she's doing it obviously a smelly nappy we've all been there and drops it by the boot just as the dog is approaching it and the dog looks disgusted and slinks off i mean that is uh some that's thinking on your feet right there by mrs asquith
26:46Gordon:yeah the earl's the future earl's wife yeah that's that's good i mean because that is not something
26:52David:they give you as a uh item of tradecraft is a dirty nappy you know it's not something you can you can be provided with as a bit of spy kit i don't suggest people go around carrying dirty nappies in case they need to do it but they're cleared to go they wait in the queue as they approach the finish side of the border more checks barriers nearly ready to rise the phone in the guards booth rings he walks over slowly to answer it glances at the car puts the phone down on everyone's wondering finally you know the barrier swings up and the car pulls out and then a few moments later gordievsky could just remember this so vividly i remember talking to him about it suddenly the music in the car changes and he hears the ominous brooding opening notes of sibelius's finlandia come onto the car stereo and that is the sign he understands plans he's in Finland he's out and then a few moments later the car stops the boots flung open he could just see blue sky white clouds some pine trees and there is the face of Valerie the officer who'd made this plan and who'd seen it through and had been with him from the start she's looking down with him and smiling and she's been there with a team on the other side of the border had been her plan it had worked oleg looks a mess but somehow he's calm and controlled then also whether it's the mi6 reports officer who's been dealing with the political reporting and he'd be working on this but not actually met oleg and he said you must be very tired but we are so very glad to see you and at that moment the team from danish intelligence are waiting so the danes still there as part of the mission it's interesting they're also going to be there and of course they were there at the recruitment they're there here at the finish it is interesting that they're
28:45Gordon:there obviously yeah i think it's interesting on invitation presumably i mean yeah i think in some
28:50David:ways you know their role is important and i think there's part of it which they were there at the beginning giving some of the initial tips but i think it's also useful because he's placed in the boot of one of their cars because i guess you know finland is still you know famously finland in the war was still ambiguous territory wasn't it the soviets had a lot of influence over it so they are not yet safe so there possibly is some benefit of having him in the boot of a danish car
29:16Gordon:now rather than in the car that's got like british diplomatic plates on it that makes sense i think
29:21David:it's hired i think they've hired cars and amusingly they hired up three cars and then they initially realized they'd all hired cars and their number plates were sequential from the car hire place and they were like that doesn't look good and so but you know the mi6 reports officer is going to signal back to london from a pay phone at a filling station really enjoyed the fishing it's been a successful trip and we've had one guest now this actually causes some confusion because in london they kind of go well wait what one guest you know is that mean oleg and only one other person and if so what's happened to the kids you know they think maybe his wife's come out and then he has to explain no no no just one person has come out and actually the person on the other end of the phone line is actually quite upset about this because they kind of think has the family been abandoned did they not make it what happened to the wife and kids the car with oleg will drive north through the night towards norway without stopping head into the arctic circle summer sun disappears just briefly for a few hours before it rises again eventually they come to norway's north then they take a flight back down south to oslo and then to london and of course the monday morning what happens mikalu bimov that old friend of oleg is waiting at the station for the train which is supposed to carry oleg for their time at his dacha and his friend doesn't emerge from the last carriage as it'd been promised and they would never speak again and the kgb is going to realize
30:48Gordon:he's gone he's gone well there gordon let's take a break and when we come back we will see how everything shakes out for Oleg, for Smiley Mike, for everybody in the aftermath of this incredible escape. Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage solutions. Put heavy-duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid, impact-resistant design prevents cracking, and the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select shelving and tote storage up to 15 % off at the Home Depot to organize every room in your home, from your garage to your attic.
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32:34Gordon:Oleg Gordievsky has escaped the Soviet Union. And Gordon, I have to think that when the dust settles pretty quickly after this escape, it's not looking so good for the old KGB.
32:49David:No, it's a humiliation, isn't it? their future London resident, under suspicion, has escaped under their noses. There's no official statement, but a few days later, the new British ambassador, the one who just arrived, is summoned to the foreign ministry. This is his nightmare. This is his nightmare. A photograph comes out of the ambassador with all his team, you know, of the embassy, when he presented his credentials. and the official places a finger on the faces of the two MI6 officers who'd smuggled Gordievsky out of the country you know they know exactly what's happened at this point and the ambassador is told that those two and others have got 48 hours to leave the country so meanwhile Gordievsky comes to Britain he goes to a safe house in the Midlands initially see the chief of MI6 at that point it's Chris Kerwin, you know, meets him.
33:43David:He's taken to the fort, the services training facility where he's going to be debriefed extensively. And this begins another productive period for Gordievsky. It's not over his importance because, you know, the reports officer who'd worked, you know, on his files is going to start working through all the details they can now extract about him. You know, he is going to become an advisor to Margaret Thatcher on how to deal with the Soviet Union. She's going to express her gratitude to him about how much he'd helped and actually even while he's at the fort the americans are going to turn up that's september so he's got out in july and september bill casey who's this kind of rather famous head of the cia under reagan actually comes to the fort to see gordievsky and the reason is reagan is about to meet gorbachev in geneva for a summit and casey someone described this scene to me who was then casey sat in front of gordievsky with a yellow and blue cia notebook i don't know if such thing still exists i would like one if it does that's with a big seal on it and the person who was there described him as scribbling like a school boy casey famously was a mumbler and he big mumbler yeah big mumbler didn't speak very clearly and so see the chief of mi6 is have occasionally having to translate for oleg what he's saying and they do a kind of role-playing game where casey says you know you're mr gorduchov he says pointing to gordievsky and i'm mr reagan what about if we give you access to star wars what do you say casey says and gordievsky leans back in his seat and he goes yet and why says casey and he says i don't trust you you'll never give us anything and you can see here this role of gordievsky as being able to give insight into how the soviet union think you know is still there because you know he just attended a meeting in Moscow about the Geneva talks in which the KGB had said there's no point trusting the US since it had no desire for a serious agreement so he's able to kind of give Casey an insight ahead of the summit about how the the Soviets will react and you know they have a discussion about whether it's feasible to drop Star Wars and SDI or not and later Gordievsky is actually going to go to the Oval Office and meet President Reagan in person and and there's a famous picture of the two of them sacked by the fireplace in the Oval Office.
36:03David:And later he'll meet George H.W. Bush. So his influence is still going in these years after he was out. And former ambassador to Moscow, a kind of real Russia expert called Roderick Braithwaite, said something which I think is interesting, which is that the importance of Gordievsky was the fact that political leaders could hear something from him. he as an ambassador Braithwaite could write something in a report and the politicians would go yeah well that's just a you know report for the embassy but if Gordievsky says it to Reagan and Thatcher and other people they listen because this is an ex-KGB guy who's lived there and been there and I think that is really one of the values he has as an advisor afterwards so he's hugely important
36:50Gordon:I suppose the analysis he offers there I mean in the example where he's role-playing with Casey it's not particularly original right no but to the point of the former ambassador to russia it's insightful because of who is explaining it who's giving the analysis right who it is yeah
37:06David:and the source yeah he has this very important role then for the coming years but there are personal costs and i think one is that his family is still in the soviet union so you know mi6 are going to try and get him out and actually you know jerry warner who's a senior british intelligence officer goes to paris and and and gets the paris station to engineer a meeting with a someone from the soviet embassy at a club and he gives the message to the soviet diplomat who's actually not a kgb man he says we've got a message for you and the man goes white and he goes you're looking for gordievsky we've got him we want his family out and the offer that britain makes is that the expulsions that are going to come from Britain can be minimised and they can also be discreet and slow rather than public and a big row if the Russians, if Moscow lets Gordievsky's family out.
38:05David:But the reply from Moscow is just no. And reuniting him with his family is going to be a priority for British government. St Thatcher will raise it with Gorbachev repeatedly, but it takes years and it's actually only in 1991 as the kind of cold war is ending that they finally are allowed to come out well and then it's a tragedy really for oleg because it's too late for their marriage he'd kept everything from his wife he'd not told her he's working for british intelligence that had shielded her when she's inevitably interrogated by the kgb and it protected her But it's also left a kind of bitter, I think, not having known the truth.
38:46David:And then their marriage falls apart.
38:48Gordon:It makes sense because I guess, in effect, he chose his espionage work over the family. And he did. I mean, you can understand the reasons for it, but he left them behind. Right. He left them behind. And obviously, it could not have been a comfortable situation for the family in the Soviet Union after he left. Period. Right. Yeah.
39:11David:so yeah and then his daughters are now i think about 10 or 11 also barely remember him more than six years after he left and and it again there's an element of real personal costs to this because he's never reconciled to them even to the end of his life actually they're never quite patched up and so you do get a sense of a man who'd followed his beliefs but in doing so he'd paid a pretty heavy personal price he'd given up a lot he'd been wedded to his mission as you said but he'd had to put everything else out of his mind it's that kind of single-minded tunnel vision of the long distance runner again isn't it and then you know the other characters i mean aldrich ames cia man
39:52Gordon:takes a few years to get him doesn't it it does it does i mean 1994 yeah so ames gives over the names of oh i think almost two dozen yeah cia assets in in russia in 85 and yeah he's not
40:09David:uprooted until 1994 which leads to a crazy fact which is gordievsky and ames meet at langley i mean this is kind of wild isn't it it's insane so gordievsky is over kind of speaking to people at Langley doing a talk and he's introduced to the guy who probably betrayed him and he remembers it seems like he's a nice guy now he's going to get caught later but there is still this slight debate and we won't get into the depths of it here as to whether it was Ames who gave away Gordievsky and there's still some dispute about it isn't there in Washington and this because there's still some dispute about whether there might have been other traitors in some CIA period
40:51Gordon:it yeah well and i mean i guess the other character that we've got to reconnect with is smiley mike because yeah this is another case i mean similar to the family where in pursuit of this you know sort of ideological mission i mean oleg betrayed a dear friend
41:11David:i think i said said this when we first met smiley mike i i know him visited him in his Moscow apartment and in his dacha, the dacha that Oleg I guess was going to stay at, and I went to that dacha a few years ago in Russia, I spoke to both men about each other, asked Lubimov about him and he said, it was not so easy when you work with a man all your life and he's a traitor. It was not just betraying the Soviet Union but he betrayed me. That's quite powerful isn't it because Lubimov himself had been sacked from the KGB. He's no kind of KGB super loyalist at this point, but it's the personal betrayal.
41:50David:Yeah. You can understand it. And amusingly, talking to Lubimov, because Lubimov also knew Kim Philby very well, the great British traitor from MI6. I found it quite funny talking to Lubimov because he would be like, Kim Philby is a hero, Oleg Gordievsky is a traitor. And you'd be like, well, why is one a, you know, is it not position i mean i know what's the i guess where you stand depends on where you sit
42:13Gordon:right i mean he's emphatically doing this from the standpoint of agb right yeah but then it was
42:20David:interesting because then i you know having seen lubimov i went to see gordievsky and i said to gordievsky you know what do you say to lubimov who says you are a traitor and i'll never forget this conversation because we were having this conversation in oleg's house in surrey bottle of wine on the table and I broached it gingerly he was quite a stern character there was a flash of temper I think when I raised the accusation that he was a traitor and then this is the answer he gave me he said the betrayal question is pointless because it was a criminal state the most criminal element of the criminal state was the KGB it was a gang of bandits to betray bandits was very good for the soul i think it's one of the most interesting comments because i think you can spend this time thinking oh you know it's all about betrayal espionage one side betrays the other philby betrays on one side gordievsky the other side but gordievsky when he's faced with this accusation really of betrayal his response is so interesting because his argument is to betray a criminal regime is good for the soul.
43:38David:In other words, it depends on what you're betraying. There is a difference between someone who betrays their country for base motives and someone who betrays their country because they believe it is criminal and because they believe in a set of values. And if that is your motivation, it is good for the soul betrayal so in other words the betrayal depends on what you're betraying rather than simply the act itself and i think that kind of for me gets to the heart of the morality of espionage and the sense it's not about moral equivalence in the cold war between two sides but it depends on what you're betraying and what you believe in and that is oleg isn't it to the point around
44:26Gordon:And I guess the structure of his soul, it does seem like his kind of post espionage life in Great Britain, although obviously he's got the family issues. He seems more well adjusted than a lot of other kind of defectors or people who have spied and then come out and they're sort of left in this limbo state. It seems like he kind of, maybe it's because of the sort of strength of his convictions, seems like he was able to sort of also grit through really his kind of post-escape life.
45:09David:No one's post-escape, post-affection life is easy. And I think everyone knows you're a kind of declining asset over time. Your relevance and importance is bound to kind of diminish over time. but I think his you know his afterlife is easier than for instance Kim Philby's I don't think he ever has the doubts about what he did and why he did it I think that's the key I mean Philby will always pretend he'd ever had any doubts but I think deep down I think he did but Gordievsky you know that single-mindedness the ideological motivation is there and I think that sustains him yeah you know there's moments of drink and I think there's moments of it's not always easy but I think the motivation that goes to the core in this part of that should say though that he did live under protection because a death sentence gets passed in absentia shortly after he escapes which he lives under and in later years he does actually worry quite a lot about being targeted i mean at one point i think it's in 2007 he actually thinks he might have been poisoned now it's not clear whether he was whether there's an element of paranoia or whether it was real but he thought he was and then you get the script hour poisoning in 2018 former griu officer who's come to britain who's targeted to be killed and that also kind of raises fears and the the security which was quite discreet when i used to go see him was definitely upped after that and one thing i learned just recently very recently was that there were worries actually in the last couple of years about potential risks or threats to Oleg.
46:43David:Because twice Russian diplomats, diplomats, probably intelligence officers, are seen at a restaurant in Surrey, which he frequents. The view is that this wasn't coincidence, especially because it happens with two people. And the worry is it is reconnaissance for him. So he's told never to go back there and the security is upped. And he died earlier this year. I was aware he was ill and reaching the end, but MI6 kept the death incredibly quiet. And the government kept it incredibly quiet. MI6 actually, you know, bizarrely don't even comment when he dies. But I think the reason is they wanted to keep it quiet, be able to do a post-mortem and run tests so that when they do make it public, they can confidently say there was no foul play.
47:36David:because what they don't want is for him to die entirely innocently, as it looks like of old age and all the normal things. But they don't want people to go around saying, well, was he poisoned? Was he killed? And I think there was a real nervousness this year, 2025, that the Russians might play games around his death, that they might try and, if they found out about it before it was public, kind of try and spread news or spread fake news, or that there'd be kind of media questions about whether he'd been poisoned. So there was that genuine mischief that they feared that Putin could play around it, which goes to the kind of current state of relations and the fact Gordievsky was right in some ways, wasn't it?
48:18Gordon:Well, former CIA director Bill Burns had this great line when talking about Putin, where he said Vladimir Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback. And I think Skripal is traded back, you know, in what, 2010? And then assassins come for him in 2018. So eight years have passed. I mean, Gordievsky is one of the most significant penetrations of the Russian state in the past century. So the idea that the Russians would just forget about him is preposterous. I mean, it would be very much in keeping, I think, with sort of Vladimir Putin and the Russian state's behavior to consider him a viable target even 40 years almost after he's left the Soviet Union.
49:10David:Yeah, 40 years after he defects. It's amazing, isn't it?
49:14Gordon:And I guess it brings us to this question of, did it matter? I think we've made, I think we agree, we've made the case in the series that oftentimes you have human assets like Gordievsky that really can kind of shift the balance of international security, global peace, geopolitics. But there's a sense when we talk about these kind of Cold War spy games that they often almost raise the temperature of the Cold War, make it more tense. Or maybe even on the other side that it's – they're ultimately, you know, these kind of back and forth battles between East and West were pointless. You know, but I think Gordievsky shows you can have spy games of consequence that affect outcomes.
50:06David:I think that's right. Strategic consequence. He gave that understanding of the mindset. I remember John Scarlett saying in an interview that the risk in the Cold War and the risk of it going badly wrong was surprise. What no one wanted to be was surprise. And what you need was intelligence to give you the confidence to manage situations. and that it was things like Gordievsky's intelligence which helped stop there being a blowout because suddenly it opened a window into the mindset of the other side in a way I don't think anyone else did in that period. I mean, it is interesting because it makes you think, I agree with you, sometimes spying raises tension and sometimes it lowers tensions.
50:48David:I mean, it does make you think there's a benefit, you could almost say, in each side having spies in the heart of the other side if if you want to understand them and know and avoid miscalculation or mistakes or paranoia it's a kind of interesting argument because if it goes for gordievsky on the soviet side then does it also work the other way that it's useful sometimes for for them to have spies in our side in that sense of being able to tell people actually they're not about to launch a first attack i mean there's a famous quote from harold mcmillan who was prime minister he said it would be much better if the Russians saw the cabinet minutes twice a week.
51:27David:It would prevent all that effing dangerous guesswork. And his point is, you know, actually, maybe it would be better just to give them stuff so that they know what we're doing and what we're thinking to prevent all the kind of dangerous guesswork. Because the Cold War, you know, there's dangerous guesswork, there's miscalculation, there's misestimation of your opponent. and what intelligence does at its highest level is prevent that and that's why i think gordievsky was so important there's the counterintelligence value there's the drama there's the human story but it is that strategic importance which i don't know i don't know what you think but i think i put him down as amongst the most consequential spies certainly of the cold war perhaps full stop
52:15Gordon:Yeah, undoubtedly. I think he's up there in the pantheon. We did the series earlier in the year on Tolkachev, and I think you could make a case that both of these guys are right up there in terms of the most important spies of the Cold War. I think where Gordiebski, and it's sort of an interesting but potentially useless argument to say which of these two might have been more valuable. And it's probably not even that interesting of a conversation in the end. But I think the uniqueness of what Gordievsky did was to not eliminate, but to minimize that guesswork. Right. Yeah. At an absolutely tense, white hot point in the Cold War, there was somebody who was kind of sitting as almost a clandestine bridge between both sides, explaining why neither one actually wanted the Cold War to go hot.
53:20Gordon:and making it easier and more rational to sort of escape that kind of dangerous spiral. And for that alone, I think he's got to be seen as, I mean, an exceptionally interesting human, but also a spy of real consequence.
53:40David:I think that's right. And so with him having departed this year, 2025, I think having run the race the long distance runner he made it to the end and i think for that he deserves a toast maybe not a vodka fueled toast like arkady gook would have had he was a wine guy he's a wine guy a red wine guy but i read why will i will raise a glass tonight to oleg and say farewell and thank you for all you did because he was a brave and i think an exceptional man i think that's the spot
54:14Gordon:to end it, Gordon. And we would be remiss, even though we're at the end of a series, if we did not encourage everyone to both raise a glass to Oleg Gordievsky tonight, and go and join the Declassified Club at TheRestIsClassified.com, where you can get access to bonus episodes, early access to series, a whole bunch of other goodies. Please do go ahead and join up, and we'll see you next time.
54:40David:See you next time. you
From the publisher
Oleg Gordievsky wants to leave Moscow, but how? How can a man under suspicion of being a traitor escape the watchful eye of the KGB? Do MI6 have a plan to rescue him? Or will the man who has leaked countless state secrets become the next victim of the USSR?
Listen as David and Gordon finish their series on Oleg Gordievsky by looking at his fateful showdown with the KGB.
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