EXCLUSIVE: The Spy Who Smuggled Gordievsky Out of Russia

0:03Raymond Asquith: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.

0:24Raymond Asquith:Hello, Rest is Classified listeners, David and Gordon here. If you've been enjoying our latest series on the absolutely fascinating life of Oleg Gordievsky, we thought we'd treat you to an exclusive extract from our latest Declassified Club interview with the man who actually snuck Britain's most valuable spy out of Russia. That's right. I mean, the story of Gordievsky escaping from Moscow and then getting over the border into Finland is a wild tale. And we've been speaking to the man who actually ran that operation on the ground, Raymond Asquith, who was the MI6 head of station in Moscow, who was driving the car as it picked up Gordievsky.

1:08and it's a kind of remarkable interview to just get an insight into what it's like to be on the ground under that kind of intense pressure. It's an absolutely fascinating insight into what it's really like to be at the heart of an exfiltration.

1:21Raymond Asquith:Well, that's right. And speaking of people who ran stations in Moscow, Gordon, for members who signed up at the restisclassified.com but couldn't make the live cocktail masterclass that we ran last night where we cooked up some espionage-themed drinks with two former CIA officers, one of whom ran the CIA's Moscow station at the height of the Cold War. If you didn't make that, you can access the recording by clicking the link in your Declassified Club email or signing up to the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com. Never too late to make some cocktails. Or too early, like mine yesterday.

2:01Or too early. It's cocktail time somewhere. But first, here's the extract from that interview. about Oleg Gordievsky.

2:12When exactly did you first set eyes on Oleg Gordievsky? We were, I think, 10 minutes late to the time we were due to meeting with the rendezvous. And he had got into rather a panic and he started to walk down the main road towards us. And then he realised that was a silly thing to do. And so he had only just got back into the bushes in the Leyby, which was a rough track road off the main road from Neningrad, as it then was, to Wyborg, which was on the frontier with Finland. And he'd only just got back to hide himself in the bushes. And we arrived at a high speed off the main road, and he came out of the bushes straight away, I must say, smelling pretty high.

3:03And sure enough, as we approached the exact rendezvous spot where Kordievsky was supposed to be, we could see the KGB cars accelerating at great speed around the corner ahead of us. If they'd looked in their rearview mirrors at that exact point, they would have seen us, but fortunately they didn't. There was a point when And I thought we would have to abort the operation. And then there would have been nothing for Gordievsky to do except return home. He wouldn't be able to find a way across the frontier because that frontier was anxiously defended by the public unions. And they had a lot of guard places all the way along the frontier.

3:46And then you meet him at the rendezvous point. He goes into the car boot, I mean, very quickly. I guess that all takes a matter of, what, a minute or so for that to happen. so that you can get off again? I mean, there wasn't, I guess, much time to think or to talk to him at that point. No, there wasn't any time. I mean, I timed it and it was less than two minutes. The original instructions were that my wife would get out of the car with a tray of sandwiches. I mean, it was very English, the whole thing. And that would be an indication to Gordievsky that he could come to the car. All that went completely by the board.

4:25We just stopped, and he came out of the bushes straight away like a sort of troll. He was covered in moss and ferns and mosquitoes and things. So we didn't say anything. I just pointed to the boot, the trunk of my colleague's car, and he knew he had to get in. We had brought with us quite a lot of sophisticated equipment. But to answer your question, we were literally out within two minutes from our viewpoint and not far off. Because as you probably know, in those days, they still are, I think in those days, they had traffic police surveillance points all along their main roads. And they used to report between the traffic police, the GAI, the State Automobile Inspectorate, it was called, they used to phone ahead and say a foreigner is coming along or a diplomat is coming along and they would time you between the traffic and if you were more than whatever it was 10 minutes or 15 minutes behind schedule they would come looking for you in the countryside hope you enjoyed that if you like what you heard you can listen to the full interview with raymond asquith by signing up to the club at the rest is classified.com Thank you.