This is the story of Oleg Gordievsky, KGB rezident in London, and British spy. Born in 1938, he was the second son of an agent in the KGB. The agency recruited him in 1961. During his first overseas posting, in Copenhagen, the doubts he had about the system blossomed. On his second posting in the same city, he was recruited and committed to MI-6. Oleg proceeded to provide Britain with massive amounts of quality intelligence material. One stumbling block in his career was the collapse of his marriage to a fellow KGB employee and his love affair with another. He divorced upon his return to Moscow and was assigned a dead-end job. After learning his fourth language, English, he was rehabilitated and assigned an overseas post. With his new wife and two infant daughters in tow, he went to London. The early 80's saw a Soviet reaction of fear and paranoia in response to Reagan's bluster, and Yuri Andropov became convinced that the US was planning a first strike. Oleg's input that the former head of the KGB was serious was the first instance of his intelligence being shared by the UK with the US. He was providing the British with gold, and in order to help him, they provided him with chickenfeed to turn back to Moscow. One of the few people on the American side who knew about Oleg was Aldrich Ames. In November 1983, the USSR viewed the NATO winter war games involving 40,000 troops as the first step in the impending nuclear war. Again, Gordievsky advised MI-6 that the Soviets were serious. Alarmed at the Soviets' anxiety, both the UK and US toned down their rhetoric and sought a thaw in relations. Oleg was promoted to rezident in London in 1985 just before Ames offered his services to Moscow. The man he replaced in London thought he was a mole and told Moscow so. Either Oleg's name or position was reported by Ames. Soon thereafter, he was recalled to Moscow. He was drugged, interrogated and told he was demoted and that the KGB knew he had betrayed the USSR. Instead of being taken to the Lubyanka basement, he was sent home and told to take a vacation. He concluded that he was a dead man, but the sentence was delayed because they wouldn't kill a KGB colonel without better proof. He signaled a request for extraction and a long planned operation was begun. It required and received final approval from Margaret Thatcher. On a Friday afternoon, Oleg left his apartment and made his way to an overnight train to Leningrad. There, he changed trains and headed to the Finland border. In Moscow, the head of station, a Viscount, later an Earl and head of MI-6, and his wife, began a long car ride to the same border. Their cover was that they were taking her to a doctor in Helsinki. After his second train, Oleg rode a bus the last two hours to the rendezvous point. Meanwhile the embassy car was bracketed front and rear by KGB agents on the road from Leningrad to Finland. The Brits outraced the Soviets, picked up their man, drove north through Finland to Norway, a NATO ally, and pulled off one of the great intelligence coups of the Cold War. In the west, Gordievsky's knowledge was so valuable that CIA Director Casey spent hours with him in order to prep Reagan for his first meeting with Gorbachev. Oleg met with every western intelligence agency and met Thatcher at Chequers and Reagan at the White House. Although his wife and daughters joined him after six years, the marriage was over and both parties moved on. Gordievsky lives quietly today on a nondescript suburban street, but under 24 hour protection. The order to execute him still stands. LeCarre could not outdo this true story with one of his novel. It's fabulous.
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