{"id":15625,"date":"2025-03-27T03:36:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T03:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/oleg-gordievsky-k-g-b-officer-turned-double-agent-dies-at-86\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T03:36:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T03:36:24","slug":"oleg-gordievsky-k-g-b-officer-turned-double-agent-dies-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/oleg-gordievsky-k-g-b-officer-turned-double-agent-dies-at-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleg Gordievsky, K.G.B. Officer Turned Double Agent, Dies at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Oleg Gordievsky, who was the top K.G.B. agent in London until he defected to the West in 1985 and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1985\/09\/15\/weekinreview\/the-world-kgb-suffers-a-setback-in-britain.html\" title=\"\">revealed himself as a longtime double agent<\/a> for British intelligence \u2014 making him one of the most highly placed Western spies during the Cold War \u2014 was found dead at his home in Godalming, southwest of London, on March 4. He was 86.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The local police, who discovered his body, said that they did not believe foul play was involved but that an investigation was ongoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The British foreign intelligence agency, MI6, first recruited Mr. Gordievsky in 1974, when he was based in Copenhagen. In 1982 he moved to London, where the K.G.B. tasked him with seeding disinformation about Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher before the next year\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In practice he helped the British root out secret operatives and informants working for the Soviet Union. He kept up enough of a front to please his K.G.B. bosses in Moscow, who soon promoted him to rezident, or head agent, in Britain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He also played a crucial role in preventing what could have become World War III.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By the early 1980s, the Soviets were convinced that the United States was planning a first-strike nuclear attack under the guise of a major NATO exercise, a suspicion underlined by President Ronald Reagan\u2019s bellicose rhetoric.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As NATO carried out the exercise, known as Able Archer 83, the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies moved onto a war footing. Historians consider this to have been the closest moment to world war since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gordievsky was in a unique position to work both sides. He was able to persuade Moscow that an attack was not in fact imminent while also communicating Soviet fears to the British and the Americans. As a result, Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Reagan pared back their language, and future military exercises were more limited.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">All of this remained secret for years afterward, and in the meantime Mr. Gordievsky had to watch his own back. In 1985 he was recalled to Moscow, given drugs and interrogated. Someone, it seemed, had tipped off the K.G.B. to the presence of a high-ranking mole in London.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lacking solid evidence, the Soviets placed him on leave. A few days later he appeared at 7 p.m. on a Moscow street corner, holding a shopping bag. A man soon passed, eating a candy bar. They locked eyes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That was the signal to activate Operation Pimlico, an emergency extraction. Mr. Gordievsky shook his K.G.B. tail and then hurried to the Finnish border. Two British agents, a man and a woman, along with their baby, awaited him there in their Ford Sierra.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They placed him in the trunk, wrapped in a foil sheet to confuse heat detectors. When dogs at the border grew suspicious, the agents began to change the child\u2019s diaper, filling the car with odors that threw the canines off Mr. Gordievsky\u2019s scent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When they were finally across, they played Jean Sibelius\u2019s \u201cFinlandia\u201d symphony on the car\u2019s sound system, a signal to Mr. Gordievsky that he was safe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Back in Moscow, he was sentenced to death in absentia. That sentence has never been rescinded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky was born on Oct. 10, 1938, in Moscow. His father, Anton, was an agent with the N.K.V.D., the forerunner of the K.G.B., and his mother, Olga, was a statistician. His father was a committed Communist, but his mother quietly reviled the party, an attitude that greatly influenced her son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, there was no question where his future lay. He graduated from the elite Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1961, and he joined the K.G.B. two years later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After an initial posting in East Berlin, he did two tours at the Soviet Embassy in Copenhagen, with time in between to improve his spycraft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But as he rose in the K.G.B. ranks, he also grew disillusioned with Communism. In Germany he had seen the newly erected Berlin Wall split families, and from afar he had watched the Soviet Union crush the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/08\/20\/world\/europe\/prague-spring-communism.html\" title=\"\">Prague Spring<\/a> movement of 1968.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Working on a suggestion from a double agent who was a former colleague of Mr. Gordievsky\u2019s, British intelligence agents began to feel him out in Copenhagen. Once he turned, he was considered among the West\u2019s prize assets \u2014 so prized that the Americans and even Mrs. Thatcher did not know his identity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While continuing to provide intelligence to Moscow \u2014 bits of low-value information fed to him by his MI6 handlers \u2014 he helped Western governments uncover spies within their ranks. Among them were <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/02\/16\/world\/europe\/arne-treholt-dead.html\" title=\"\">Arne Treholt<\/a>, a Norwegian diplomat, and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1984\/04\/17\/world\/briton-convicted-of-trying-to-spy.html\" title=\"\">Michael Bettaney<\/a>, a British counterintelligence officer who in 1983 tried to pass classified documents to Arkady Guk, the rezident at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The ensuing scandal led the Soviets to recall Mr. Guk, opening the door for Mr. Gordievsky to replace him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Both sides in the Cold War used moles like Mr. Gordievsky to hunt for spies. It was later revealed that his cover was blown by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1995\/01\/27\/us\/how-the-fbi-finally-caught-aldrich-ames.html\" title=\"\">Aldrich Ames<\/a>, a C.I.A. officer who began working for the Soviets in 1985. Mr. Gordievsky was one of the first double agents Mr. Ames exposed and one of the few who escaped; nearly a dozen others were executed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After defecting, Mr. Gordievsky lived under an assumed name in Godalming but continued to advise British intelligence. As the Cold War wound down, he began writing under his own name, including articles for The Daily Telegraph and the books \u201cKGB: The Inside Story\u201d (1990), a collaboration with the historian Christopher Andrew, and \u201cNext Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky\u201d (1995).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His story was also the subject of \u201cThe Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War\u201d (2018), by Ben Macintyre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gordievsky\u2019s first marriage, to Yelena Akopian, a fellow K.G.B. agent, ended in divorce. He married Leila Aliyeva in 1979.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After defecting, Mr. Gordievsky spent years trying to get the Soviet Union to allow his wife and their two daughters, Mariya and Anna, to join him. They arrived in Britain in 1991, but the couple soon divorced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gordievsky\u2019s survivors include his daughters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Beginning in the mid-2000s, Mr. Gordievsky raised alarms about the increasing authoritarian rule of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, including his deployment of a robust network of spies and subversives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When his friend and fellow defector Alexander Litvinenko was <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/11\/24\/world\/europe\/25spycnd.html\" title=\"\">fatally poisoned<\/a> by Russian agents in London in 2006, Mr. Gordievsky began to fear for his life. When he fell ill and went into a temporary coma in 2008, he maintained that he, too, had been poisoned by Russian agents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gordievsky continued to warn about renewed Russian espionage, saying that Britain had na\u00efvely lowered its defenses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is easier than ever to work and recruit here,\u201d he wrote in The Daily Telegraph in 2010. \u201cIf anything, the overall Russian espionage presence in Britain is now bigger and more active than in my time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/26\/world\/europe\/oleg-gordievsky-dead.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oleg Gordievsky, who was the top K.G.B. agent in London until he defected to the West in 1985 and revealed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4980,3289,441,4978,2896,4976,949,98,4979,4977,4981,4982],"class_list":["post-15625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-british-secret-intelligence-service","tag-cold-war-era","tag-deaths-obituaries","tag-defectors-political","tag-espionage-and-intelligence-services","tag-gordievsky","tag-great-britain","tag-international-relations","tag-kgb","tag-oleg","tag-the-spy-and-the-traitor-the-greatest-espionage-story-of-the-cold-war-book","tag-ussr-former-soviet-union"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Oleg Gordievsky, K.G.B. 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