The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

“Oleg Gordievsky grew up in a tight-knit, loving family suffused with duplicity. Anton Gordievsky venerated the Party and proclaimed himself a fearless upholder of Communism, but inside was a small and terrified man who had witnessed terrible events. Olga Gordievsky, the ideal KGB wife, nursed a secret disdain for the system. Oleg’s grandmother secretly worshipped an illegal, outlawed God. None of the adults in the family revealed what they really felt—to one another, or anyone else. Amid the stifling conformity of Stalin’s Russia, it was possible to believe differently in secret but far too dangerous for honesty, even with members of your own family. From boyhood, Oleg saw that it was possible to live a double life, to love those around you while concealing your true inner self, to appear to be one person to the external world and quite another inside.”

Macintyre foreshadows the theme Living a Double Life in this early passage. On the outside, his family was a model of Soviet values, but in reality, doubts and questions were buried inside. Macintyre astutely notes that none of this was openly revealed, thus creating an atmosphere that would infuse Gordievsky with a silent double existence—something he would emulate as an adult.

“Like all human beings, in later life Gordievsky tended to see his past through the lens of experience, to imagine that he had always secretly harbored the seeds of insubordination, to believe his fate was somehow hardwired into his character. It was not. As a student, he was a keen Communist, eager to serve the Soviet state in the KGB, like his father and brother. The Hungarian Uprising had caught his youthful imagination, but he was no revolutionary. ‘I was still within the system but my feelings of disillusionment were growing.’ In this he was no different from many of his student contemporaries.”

Passages like this show that the author maintains distance from and objectivity about his subject. This encourages acceptance of his guidance through the complex story as well as the conclusions he draws. Much of the information in the book comes from interviews with Gordievsky and his own autobiography, and it would have been easy for Macintyre to take everything from Gordievsky at face value.

“Just as Lyubimov had fallen in love with Britain, so Gordievsky found himself smitten by Denmark, its people, parks, and music, and the liberty, including the sexual freedom, that its citizens took for granted. The Danes had an open attitude toward sex, progressive even by European standards. One day Oleg visited the city’s red-light district, and on a whim entered a shop selling pornographic magazines, sex toys, and other erotica. There he bought three homosexual porn magazines and took them home to show Yelena. ‘I was just intrigued. I had no idea what homosexuals did.’ He placed the magazines on his mantelpiece, an open exhibition of a freedom unavailable in Soviet Russia.

‘I blossomed as a human being,’ he wrote. ‘There was so much beauty, such lively music, such excellent schools, such openness and cheeriness among ordinary people, that I could only look back on the vast, sterile concentration camp of the Soviet Union as a form of hell.’ He took up badminton and found that he loved the game, particularly relishing the game’s deceptive element. ‘The shuttlecock, slowing down in the final few seconds of flight, gives a player a chance to use his wits and change his shot at the last moment.’ The last-minute change of shot was a skill he would perfect. He attended classical-music concerts, devoured library books, and traveled to every corner of Denmark, sometimes on spy business, but mostly for the sheer pleasure of being able to do so.”

This passage reveals a sense of the deep impression that Denmark (and, by extension, the West) had on Gordievsky. He was around 30 years old at that time, but the passage reads like it refers to an adolescent on the verge of discovering some of life’s pleasures. Gordievsky was naive sexually and like a sponge intellectually. This kind of joy in life and learning went a long way toward leading him to favor Western lifestyles and political systems.

“In that one cathartic moment, in the corner of a Copenhagen hotel, all the strands of a long-brewing rebellion had come together: his anger at his father’s unacknowledged crimes, his absorption of his mother’s quiet resistance and his grandmother’s hidden religious beliefs; his detestation of the system he had grown up in and his love of the Western freedoms he had discovered; his simmering outrage over the Soviet repressions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Wall; his sense of his own dramatic destiny, cultural superiority, and optimistic faith in a better Russia. From now on Oleg Gordievsky would live two distinct and parallel lives, both secret, and at war with each other. And the moment of commitment came with the special force that was central to his character: an adamantine, unshakable conviction that what he was doing was unequivocally right, a whole-souled moral duty that would change his life irrevocably, a righteous betrayal.”

This quotation provides a good summary of Gordievsky’s motivations for deciding to spy for MI6. It refers to the moment he met his first handler, Richard Bromhead, and indicates to Bromhead that he’s willing to deceive the KGB about the true nature of their meeting. Macintyre notes Gordievsky’s ideological commitment to the West and refers to the book’s theme of living a double life.

“Exploiting and manipulating that hunger for affection and affirmation is one of the most important skills of an agent-runner. There has never been a successful spy who did not feel that the connection with his handler was something more profound than a marriage of convenience, politics, or profit: a true, enduring communion, amid the lies and deception.”

Macintyre has a keen eye for the ironic and absurd in the world of espionage. Elsewhere he writes of a lack of trust among allies and even married couples—in this world no one can be completely certain of another’s motivations and intentions. However, humans crave that connection. Here, he notes that spies improbably feel a strong connection to their handlers even though all the while both are trading in deception.

“The eccentric and ebullient Richard Bromhead had appealed to Gordievsky by seeming ‘terribly English.’ He was just the sort of bravura Englishman Lyubimov had described with such enthusiasm. Hawkins was Scottish, and colder by several degrees. Upright, clipped, as stiff and brittle as an oatcake.”

This quote exemplifies the author’s crisp writing style. His figurative language not only creates interesting images in the reader’s mind but fits the subject well. Here, he uses a play on the word “colder” to describe Hawkins’s demeanor and personality, while noting that Hawkins was Scottish—Scotland being a colder climate than England. In addition, Macintyre compares Hawkins to an oatcake, an apt reference to a snack favored in Scotland.

“Gordievsky knew what the KGB did to traitors. Regardless of Danish or international law, he would be seized by the operatives of the Special Actions department, drugged, bundled onto a stretcher bound in bandages to conceal his identity, and flown to Moscow, where he would be interrogated, tortured, and then killed. The Russian euphemism for the summary death sentence was vyshaya mera, ‘highest measure’: the traitor was taken into a room, made to kneel, and then shot in the back of the head. Sometimes the KGB was more imaginative. It was said that Penkovsky had been cremated alive and his death filmed, as a warning to potential turncoats.”

In this passage, Macintyre tries to convey the high stakes involved when Gordievsky decided to spy for MI6. He could have simply written that, if discovered, traitors would be shot. Instead, he provides gory details of the possible ways the KGB might dispose of traitors. These concrete details form an image, making a much more powerful impact and emphasizing the risks that Gordievsky was taking. It also, once again, provides a subtle reminder of why Gordievsky viewed the West as superior: Democratic systems provide due process under the law, rather than summarily executing suspects.

“The Soviet Union was in effect an enormous prison, incarcerating more than 280 million people behind heavily guarded borders, with over a million KGB officers and informants acting as their jailers. The population was under constant surveillance, and no segment of society was more closely watched than the KGB itself: the Seventh Directorate was responsible for internal surveillance, with some 1,500 men deployed in Moscow alone. Under Leonid Brezhnev’s inflexible brand of Communism, paranoia had increased to near Stalinist levels, creating a spy state pitting all against all, in which phones were tapped and letters opened, and everyone was encouraged to inform on everyone else, everywhere, all the time.”

In this passage, Macintyre starkly depicts life in the Soviet Union at the time that Gordievsky was returning from Copenhagen to work there. It increases the stakes for Gordievsky, as his spying could be exposed at any time and he’d now live within this heavily surveilled, dangerous “prison” of a country. The description again highlights just why Gordievsky decided to spy for the West: The Soviet system was repressive and enslaving.

“The Nepalese and Egyptian embassies next door were assumed to be ‘listening posts,’ and officers were banned from speaking near the adjoining walls; unseen spies with telephoto lenses were thought to be tracking everyone entering or leaving the building; the British, it was said, had built a special tunnel under Kensington Palace Gardens in order to install bugging equipment beneath the embassy; electric typewriters were banned, on the grounds that the sound of tapping might be picked up and deciphered, and even manual typewriters were discouraged in case the keystrokes gave something away; there were notices on every wall warning: DON’T SAY NAMES OR DATES OUT LOUD; the windows were all bricked up, except in Guk’s office, where miniature radio speakers pumped canned Russian music into the space between the panes of the double glazing, emitting a peculiar muffled warble that added to the surreal atmosphere. All secret conversations took place in a metal-lined, windowless room in the basement, which was dank all year round and roasting in summer.”

In this passage, Macintyre gives a sense of the paranoia and craziness involved in the world of espionage. The Soviet embassy in London, described here, was particularly paranoid under the rezident Arkadi Guk. It created a fortress-like workplace for Gordievsky when he arrived: hushed tones, speaking in codes, no typing, and no windows. It shows the lengths to which paranoia pushed people and is another subtle reminder of the repressive system Gordievsky was working to undermine.

“Gordievsky’s detailed depiction of the KGB operations in London, Scandinavia, and Moscow proved that the Soviet adversary was not the ten-foot giant of myth, but flawed, clumsy, and inefficient. The KGB of the 1970s was clearly not what it had been a generation earlier. The ideological fervor of the 1930s, which had seen the recruitment of so many committed agents, had been replaced by a terrified conformity, which produced a very different sort of spy. It remained vast, well funded, and ruthless, and it could still call on some of the brightest and best recruits. But its ranks now also included many time servers and bootlickers, lazy careerists with little imagination. The KGB was still a dangerous antagonist, but its vulnerabilities and deficiencies were now exposed. At the same time that the KGB was entering a period of decline, new life and ambition were beginning to animate Western intelligence. MI6 was emerging from the defensive crouch it had adopted during the debilitating spy scandals of the 1950s and 1960s.”

One of the values of Gordievsky’s intelligence was to inform Britain of the true state of the KGB. It had been a feared and effective organization a generation or two earlier, successfully recruiting spies like Kim Philby, but had fallen far from those earlier heights. At the same time, MI6 was improving its results. This knowledge gave MI6 more confidence that it was on the right track and capable of defeating the Soviet giant.

“KGB officers were instructed to carry out close surveillance of ‘key nuclear decision-makers’ including, bizarrely, church leaders and top bankers. Buildings where such a decision might be taken should be closely watched, as well as nuclear depots, military installations, evacuation routes, and bomb shelters. Agents should be recruited as a matter of urgency within government, military, intelligence, and civil-defense organizations. Officers were even encouraged to count how many lights were switched on at night in key government buildings, since officials would be burning the midnight oil preparatory to a strike. The number of cars in government parking lots should also be counted: a sudden demand for parking spaces at the Pentagon, for example, might indicate preparations for an attack. Hospitals should also be watched, since the enemy would expect retaliation for its first strike and make provision for multiple casualties. A similarly close eye should be kept on slaughterhouses: if the number of cattle killed at abattoirs increased sharply, that might indicate that the West was stockpiling hamburgers prior to Armageddon.”

This passage describes Operation RYAN, the Soviet program to collect evidence that the US was planning a first-strike nuclear attack. Macintyre again cleverly points out the absurdity of it all, particularly in the last line. It would be humorous if it weren’t so dangerous. Because of the way the KGB functioned, an order to look for evidence resulted in stretched interpretations and even outright manufacturing of evidence. If the KGB really thought the US was going to attack, the Soviet Union might decide to strike first. One of Gordievsky’s key contributions was to impress upon Western leaders the seriousness of this situation.

“Gordievsky had every reason to feel contented and confident. He was rising up the ranks. His position was secure. His intelligence haul was landing, regularly, on the desk of the British prime minister, and he was attacking, from within, the Communist system he loathed. What could go wrong?

“On April 3, 1983, Easter Sunday, Arkadi Guk returned to his flat in 42 Holland Park and found an envelope had been pushed through the letterbox. It contained a top-secret document: the MI5 legal brief outlining the case for expelling Titov and the two GRU men the previous month, including details of how all three had been identified as Soviet intelligence officers. In an accompanying note, the writer offered to provide more secrets, and gave elaborate instructions on how to contact him. It was signed ‘Koba,’ one of Stalin’s early nicknames.

“Someone inside British intelligence was offering to spy for the Soviet Union.”

Macintyre is effective at crafting cliffhangers. This one, which ends Chapter 8, is one such example. Suddenly, a new development changes the tenor of things in a moment. Macintyre does this elsewhere in ending chapters and even sections within chapters, starting with the Introduction (see Quotation 1). It propels the plot forward and generates interest in continued reading.

“The pantheon of world-changing spies is small and select, and Oleg Gordievsky is in it: he opened up the inner workings of the KGB at a pivotal juncture in history, revealing not just what Soviet intelligence was doing (and not doing), but what the Kremlin was thinking and planning, and in so doing transformed the way the West thought about the Soviet Union. He risked his life to betray his country, and made the world a little safer. As a classified internal CIA review put it, the ABLE ARCHER scare was ‘the last paroxysm of the Cold War.’”

Macintyre notes that most spies do little to change the state of the world or alter history. Only a small number do, and Gordievsky is among them. ABLE ARCHER was the code name for the war games that NATO undertook in 1983, which the Soviets perceived as preparation for a nuclear attack. Western nations saw them as nothing more than a routine exercise. Gordievsky’s intelligence opened their eyes to the seriousness of the situation, leading Britain and the US to dial back the intensity of their rhetoric and competition. The author argues that Gordievsky’s work helped bring an end to the Cold War.

“The case officer ended with a declaration: ‘If you think this looks bad, stop now. Ultimately it has to be your decision. But if you do go back and things go wrong, then we will execute the exfiltration plan.’

“It is perfectly possible for two people to listen to the same words and hear entirely different things. This was one of those moments. Brown thought he was offering Oleg a way out, while reminding him that this might waste a golden opportunity. Gordievsky believed he was being instructed to return to Moscow. He was hoping to hear his case officer say that he had done enough, and he should now stand down with honor. But Brown, as instructed, gave no such direction. The decision was Gordievsky’s.”

This passage shows how even allies, people working closely together toward the same goal, can miscommunicate and misunderstand each other. The author illuminates this dynamic by interviewing both participants. When KGB headquarters ordered Gordievsky home, ostensibly to make official his promotion to London rezident, Gordievsky and his handler debated whether he should go back, as it might be a trap. Gordievsky felt that MI6 was subtly urging him to return to Moscow when he really didn’t want to. If Operation PIMLICO had failed, he’d have died over a misunderstanding. Moreover, had he defected then and there, he’d have spared his family the torment they later endured, and his marriage might have survived.

“One officer left a vivid account of the extra burden this placed on the British spies: ‘Each night for about eighteen not wholly foreseeable weeks a year, we had to check the bread shop, near the combined bus and concert timetable, where we expected—and always dreaded—that PIMLICO would appear. The winters were the worst: too dark and foggy to check by any means other than walking; the snow scraped off the sidewalks piled so high that you could barely identify someone from more than thirty yards away. And how many times a week can a wife plead that she’d forgotten to buy any bread that day, and “Would you be so kind as to pop out in minus twenty-five degrees for the last, stale consignment of buns”?’

“Preparing for Operation PIMLICO was one of the most important tasks of the MI6 station: a dedicated escape plan to save a spy who frequently wasn’t there, in readiness for a time when he might be. Every MI6 officer kept on hand, in his flat, a pair of gray trousers, a green Harrods bag, and a stock of KitKats and Mars bars.”

Although Gordievsky’s story has moments of real excitement and intrigue, the author tries to convey the reality that most of a spy’s work and life is drab, tedious, and quotidian—much like any other work. Even PIMLICO itself, a plan of high stakes and derring-do, entailed tedious groundwork. In this quotation, one of the embassy staff members who took part in PIMLICO describes that groundwork, which needed to be done regularly in the event that the plan was set into action.

“At night, rum-sodden and panic-stricken, Gordievsky chewed over his limited options. Should he tell Leila? Should he try to make contact with MI6? Could he activate his escape plan, and attempt to flee? But if he did so, should he take Leila and the girls, too? On the other hand, he had survived the drugged interrogation, and he had not been arrested. Was the KGB genuinely backing off? If they still did not have the evidence to haul him in, then an escape attempt would be foolish and premature. He would wake exhausted, no nearer a decision, head pounding and heart fluttering.”

This passage shows the intense pressure that Gordievsky was under when he was called back to Moscow only to learn that the KGB was onto him. He was accused of spying but allowed to remain free (though under surveillance), leaving him in limbo—and with more questions than answers. He took to drinking heavily and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Macintyre’s writing style here heightens the suspense. He presents information he learned about Gordievsky’s thoughts, presumably through interviews, as a series of questions that Gordievsky pondered in real time.

“On the morning of June 15, 1985, the third Saturday of the month, Gordievsky emerged from the flat, carrying a Safeway bag, and wearing the gray leather cap he had brought back from Denmark and a pair of gray trousers. He walked a quarter mile to the nearest shopping precinct, careful not to look behind for his tail, the first rule of evading surveillance. The lessons he had learned at School 101, twenty-three years earlier, were coming back. He entered a pharmacy, and casually looked through the window, while appearing to search the shelves. Then to a savings bank on a second floor, which afforded a view of the street from the stairs; then a busy food shop. Next he walked up a long, narrow alleyway between two blocks of flats, turned the corner, and ducked into one of the blocks, climbed two flights of the communal stairs, and surveyed the street. No sign of surveillance, which did not mean it was not there. He walked on, rode a bus for a few stops, got off again, hailed a taxi, took a roundabout route to the apartment block where his younger sister, Marina, lived with her new husband. He climbed up the main stairs, passed the door of her apartment without knocking and then went down the back staircase, sauntered into the Metro and headed east, changed trains, alighted, crossed the platform, and headed west again. Finally, he reached the Central Market.”

Here, Macintyre conveys a clear sense of just what the evasive tactics known as “dry-cleaning” entailed. Such were the lives of a spies and the measures they had to take regularly. The author does a good job of including as many concrete details as possible in the passage to better illustrate what Gordievsky went through.

“But into that thought wriggled a worm of doubt. Spies trade in trust. Over a lifetime of espionage, Gordievsky had developed a knack for detecting loyalty, suspicion, conviction, and faith. He loved Leila, but he did not entirely trust her; and, in one part of his heart, he feared her.

“The daughter of a KGB general, steeped in propaganda from childhood, Leila was a loyal and unquestioning Soviet citizen. She had enjoyed her exposure to Western life, but never fully immersed herself in it as he had. Would she put her political responsibility above marital loyalty? In all totalitarian cultures, the individual is encouraged to consider the interests of society before personal welfare: from Nazi Germany to Communist Russia to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and North Korea today, a willingness to betray those nearest to you for the greater good was the ultimate mark of committed citizenship and ideological purity. If he revealed himself to Leila, would she renounce him? If he told her of the escape plan and asked her to join him, would she refuse? Would she denounce him? It is a mark of how far ideology and politics had corrupted human instinct that Gordievsky could not be sure whether his wife’s love was stronger than her Communism, or vice versa.”

This quotation deals with the book’s theme of the price of loyalty. Gordievsky was loyal to the West, having been convinced of the superiority of its open system. Leila was a product of the Soviet system and had less exposure to the West, so she’d likely remain loyal to Communism, Gordievsky thought. In the middle was their marriage, which became a casualty of their respective loyalties.

“The KGB surveillance team had already lost Gordievsky twice. On both occasions he soon popped up again, but he knew that they would be more attentive from now on, if they were any good at their jobs. Which, oddly, they were not.

“The decision to use a surveillance team from within the First Chief Directorate, rather than the experienced professionals of the Seventh Directorate, had been taken for reasons of internal office politics. Viktor Grushko did not want the story of Gordievsky’s treachery gaining wider currency. The deputy head of the FCD was determined to solve this embarrassing, and possibly damaging, problem in-house. But the team allocated to follow the suspect were used to trailing around after Chinese diplomats, a boring job requiring little imagination or expertise. They did not know who Gordievsky was, or what he had done; they had no idea they were tailing a trained spy and dangerous traitor. And so, when Gordievsky lost them, they assumed it was accidental. Admitting to failure was not a career-enhancing move in the KGB. So instead of reporting that their quarry had vanished, twice, they were merely relieved when he turned up again, and kept their mouths shut.”

One of the many random and serendipitous aspects of Gordievsky’s tale comes in this passage. His ability to move about Moscow and lose the KGB surveillance was made easier by this little bit of luck, aided by ego and bureaucracy. The person in charge of his case, Viktor Grushko, wanted to cover his own behind and keep the case under wraps as much as possible. Consequently, Grushko’s decision to use his own—less experienced—surveillance team helped Gordievsky escape.

“The equerry in the gatehouse was on the telephone, conducting a high-level discussion on a matter of considerable royal concern: the queen wanted to borrow the queen mother’s videotape recorder in order to watch Dad’s Army. This was proving hard to arrange.

“Powell tried to interrupt the conversation, but was silenced with a cold look. Cold looks are taught at equerry school.

“For the next twenty minutes, while Powell tapped his foot and looked at his watch, the equerry continued to discuss the royal videotape recorder, its precise whereabouts, and the need to move it from one room in the castle to another. Finally the problem was solved. Powell explained who he was and that he needed to see the prime minister urgently. After another long delay, he was ushered into the presence of the queen’s private secretary, Sir Philip Moore, later Baron Moore of Wolvercote, GCB, GCVO, CMG, QSO, and PC, and chief keeper of the queen’s secrets. Moore was a courtier of ingrained caution and immoveable protocol. On retirement, he would become a permanent lord-in-waiting. He did not like to be hurried.”

Macintyre’s sense of the absurd is again on display in this passage. Tensions in the MI6 and government factions were high, as some wanted Operation PIMLICO to go forward while others wanted to scrap it. Prime Minister Thatcher had the last word, but she was away on her annual visit to Balmoral Castle with Queen Elizabeth. Her private secretary, Charles Powell, went there to get her approval, setting up this scene with the queen’s private secretary, Sir Philip Moore. It provides comic relief in an otherwise suspenseful passage.

“11 a.m., Vaalimaa Motel, Finland

“The Finnish end of Operation PIMLICO was running according to schedule. The team assembled at a small motel, about ten miles from the border. Veronica Price and Simon Brown, traveling under false passports, had arrived in Helsinki the previous evening, and spent the night in an airport hotel. Martin Shawford, the young MI6 officer in charge of coordinating matters in Finland, was already waiting when they drew up in the motel parking lot, followed a few minutes later by the two Danish PET officers, Eriksen and Larsen. Coincidentally, the cars had all been booked through the same rental company at the airport, and to Shawford’s horror three identical cars were now parked in the lot: three bright-red, brand-new Volvos, with sequential license plates. ‘We looked like a convention. It could hardly have been more conspicuous.’ At least one car would have to be changed before the next day.”

This is an example of the format Macintyre uses in Chapter 14, which describes the first leg of Operation PIMLICO. As previously noted, it’s an effective format, in which the time and location precede the description of an event, to organize and present the action taking place in several different locations. As this passage shows, many of these sections also include an unforeseen hurdle that must be overcome (here, the identical cars). The author reveals how everything had to fit together exactly right—with some luck thrown in—for the plan to work.

“The Soviet sniffer dogs had almost certainly never smelled anything like cheese and onion crisps before. She offered a crisp to one of the dogs, which wolfed it down before being yanked away by the unsmiling handler. The other dog, however, was now snuffling at the trunk of the Sierra. Gordievsky could hear muffled Russian voices overhead.

As the dog circled the car, Caroline Ascot reached for a weapon that had never been deployed before in the Cold War, or any other. She placed Florence on the trunk directly over the hidden spy, and began changing her nappy—which the baby, with immaculate timing, had just filled. She then dropped the soiled and smelly diaper next to the inquisitive Alsatian. ‘The dog duly slunk off, offended.’ Olfactory diversion was never part of the plan. The nappy ruse had been completely spontaneous, and highly effective.”

This is another example of a serendipitous moment during one of the many events in Operation PIMLICO that could have thwarted the escape but instead helped make it a success. Chapters 14 and 15 are full of such moments. The suspense at this point in the story is extremely high, and this is clearly a make-or-break moment. In addition, it provides another moment of comic relief, which Macintyre presents to full effect.

“Some historians see the meeting in Fort Monckton as another pivotal moment in the Cold War.

“At the Geneva summit the following November, the American president refused to budge on the Star Wars program, just as Gordievsky had advised, describing it as ‘necessary defense.’ The first test of the SDI system was announced while the summit was under way. Later described as the ‘fireside summit,’ reflecting the warmth between the two leaders, Reagan ‘stood firm’ on his pet project. Gorbachev left Geneva believing the world was a ‘safer place,’ but also convinced that the USSR would have to reform, and quickly, to catch up with the West. Glasnost and perestroika followed, and then a wave of tumultuous change that, in the end, Gorbachev was powerless to control. Gordievsky’s accurate interpretation of Kremlin psychology in 1985 did not cause the collapse of the Soviet Union—but it probably helped.”

In this passage, the author steps back from the story to contemplate the big picture and situate Gordievsky in history. The Fort Monckton meeting that the author refers to came after Gordievsky escaped the Soviet Union and settled in Britain. CIA director William Casey flew to meet Gordievsky in preparation for Ronald Reagan’s first summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The summit proved a success for the West, largely thanks to Gordievsky’s input.