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

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Part 1, Chapter 3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-11

Part 3, Chapter 12-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Key Figures

Oleg Gordievsky

The novel’s central figure, Gordievsky was in a sense “born into the KGB” (7), as his father was a KGB agent who began his service in the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB. Gordievsky and his brother, Vasili, both followed in their father’s footsteps and became agents themselves. Their mother’s side of the family was mistreated by the Communist Party, so she never fully bought into its supposed infallibility. She kept quiet, however. Thus, Macintyre notes the internal, silent dissension in which Gordievsky grew up, even as he appeared to be a model student from a model family.

His coming of age coincided with a brief period of liberalization within the Soviet bloc, a corrective to the excesses of the Stalin years. Gordievsky welcomed this change, taking it as a sign of his country’s growth and future promise. He therefore found the violent suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 disillusioning. Nonetheless, Gordievsky was loyal and dedicated to the KGB from early on. He was recruited at university and sent on a brief mission to Berlin in 1961. His faith was again tested when, on the very day after his arrival, the Berlin Wall went up. It stunned him that the Communists needed guards and a wall to keep its citizens in what was purportedly a socialist paradise.

As Gordievsky rose through the ranks of the KGB, his doubts about it grew. His first post abroad, in Copenhagen, was eye-opening. He enjoyed the varied culture and the freedom of expression that the West allowed. The Soviet response to the Prague Spring in 1968, so similar to that in Hungary 12 years earlier, was a turning point. Gordievsky reached out to Western intelligence agencies, voicing his complaints over a bugged phone, but his attempt was overlooked and nothing came of it. It wasn’t until his second stint in Denmark that Gordievsky was successfully recruited by MI6 and began passing intelligence to them.

From the beginning, Gordievsky made it clear that he wanted no money for his information, which was unusual. He spied solely out of ideological conviction, as he was now certain of the superiority of the Western political system. He hoped to improve and enlighten his own country by, in effect, bringing down the Communist system. On this score, the author compares him favorably against Aldrich Ames, whose sole motivation was money. Moreover, Macintyre argues that, unlike most spies, Gordievsky influenced history. In the mid-1980s, while posted in London, he provided information that likely changed the direction of the Cold War. For example, he impressed upon UK and US leaders the seriousness of the Soviets’ fear that a nuclear strike from the West was imminent; this helped tone down anti-Soviet rhetoric and led to more constructive negotiations with the Soviet Union. In addition, Gordievsky successfully managed Gorbachev’s first visit to London by advising both the Soviets and the British about the expectations and needs of the other side. Arguably, he helped end the Cold War peacefully.

Leila Gordievsky

Oleg met his second wife, Leila, while still married to his first wife and living with her during their second stint in Copenhagen. Oleg’s first marriage was one of convenience, and before long it was failing. Leila, the daughter of a KGB general, worked in Copenhagen with the World Health Organization. A decade younger than Oleg, she was fun and vivacious. They met at a diplomatic reception and fell in love. They were soon having an affair, meeting clandestinely at various hotels around the city. From the start, Oleg kept his spying from her, so their relationship was in a sense built on a lie. Leila didn’t learn the truth about her husband until he escaped to Britain, leaving her and their daughters behind in Russia.

Macintyre explores this issue the most regarding Leila. She plays a major role in the story toward the end, during Operation PIMLICO. Oleg agonizes about whether to confide in her and try to take the entire family with him to Britain. A complicated picture emerges: In part, Oleg decides to go alone to save his wife and daughters from the high risk of being caught; he felt that he shouldn’t jeopardize their safety for something they had no control over. In addition, he knew that his escape would more likely succeed without them, which must have played a role in his decision. Finally, while he loved Leila, he wasn’t sure that he could fully trust her. When she learned the truth, Leila felt betrayed. Still, Oleg’s reasoning that she was a loyal Soviet citizen wasn’t far off. When asked later whether she would have turned Oleg in, she replied “I would have let him go. I would have given him three days and then, as a loyal citizen, I would have reported it” (314).

Aldrich Ames

While Ames didn’t have a large role in Gordievsky’s personal story (and doesn’t appear until Chapter 7, which begins the second section of the book), he had a strong impact. His story intertwines with Gordievsky’s because of his knowledge that MI6 had a high-level spy within the KGB. Though at first Gordievsky’s identity was unknown to Ames, his actions nevertheless put Gordievsky at risk. If the KGB found out it had a mole, it would launch an internal investigation and everyone would be under increased scrutiny. Once Ames learned Gordievsky’s identity, thanks to the CIA’s secret investigation, the situation became doubly perilous.

In addition, Ames is a foil to Gordievsky, as Macintyre highlights several times. In comparison to the Russian’s high-minded motivation to spy out of ideological conviction and his refusal to take money, the American sought nothing more than financial gain. As a result, the author shows that Ames was less noble than Gordievsky even though both were traitors to their respective countries. Macintyre draws the contrast starkly, even using disparaging language to describe Ames. The author calls him “uniformly mediocre, reliably second-rate, and inconspicuously idle […] with thick spectacles and a mustache that never seemed fully confident of itself” (123). Thus, in an ironic twist, the “bad guy” of this story is an American and the “good guy” a Russian—a reversal of the typical “good” and “bad” sides in Western narratives. Ames’s presence in the text heightens the stakes, as he was the single greatest threat to Gordievsky being discovered.

Margaret Thatcher

Like Aldrich Ames, Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990, plays a corollary but significant role in Gordievsky’s story. She had the final say over Operation PIMLICO, leading to Gordievsky’s safe escape from the Soviet Union. She valued Gordievsky because of the intelligence he provided to MI6. Thatcher benefited from his insights into the KGB and the minds of Soviet leaders. In 1984, when she attended the funeral of Soviet head Yuri Andropov, Gordievsky provided advice for proper protocol. She left a favorable impression on Soviet leaders, softening her image somewhat from the “Iron Lady”—a moniker that a Soviet journalist had given her. The prime minister also benefited from Gordievsky’s insight about how deeply the Soviet leaders believed that the West was planning a first-strike nuclear attack. Upon learning this, she deliberately softened her stance toward the Soviet Union and sought common ground. This was famously on display during Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1984 visit to London at her invitation, when Gordievsky again played a central role, essentially counseling both sides about how to respond to each other. Thatcher was thus a central figure in what Macintyre asserts was Gordievsky’s influence on Cold War history.