Original subtitles

(suspenseful music)

(bird cawing)

(grass rustling)

Lewis: Any secret agent walks a tightrope.

You have to know when to keep going and when to jump off.

This is the story of oleg antonovich gordievsky.

(drawer thudding)

One of the west's most valuable cold war agents.

It's how he risked everything to avert a third world war

That would destroy civilization.

And how he left everything he knew, and everyone he loved,

To attempt one of the most daring escapes in living memory.

(dogs growling) (dogs barking)

For oleg gordievsky, it's about how enlightenment

Triumphed over brutal authoritarianism.

And how in the process he became one nation's traitor

And another nation's hero.

(dramatic music)

(tense music)

Oleg gordievsky was the son

Of a loyal kgb officer,

An ambitious diplomat stationed in the consular department

Of the soviet embassy in denmark.

In reality though, gordievsky was no diplomat,

But a russian spy.

A rising star of the kgb enjoying the freedoms

Of a liberal society, while secretly conspiring

To bring about its demise.

Hansen: Denmark was a frontline state,

If the cold war turned hot,

That was why denmark was important.

Between 30 and 40% of the employees

At the soviet embassy in copenhagen

Would actually be intelligence officers.

Lewis: This posed a mounting threat

For denmark's intelligence chiefs,

A threat which was becoming far more sophisticated

And harder to detect.

Hansen: Kgb and gru officers from the 1950s,

They are taken out of a james cagney

Or a humphrey bogart movie.

In the 60s and the 70s, the kgb officer,

You couldn't tell him from the next guy.

Lewis: Jorn bro was in charge

Of the danish intelligence service at the time.

Bro: A completely new sort of intelligence officers appeared.

They were younger.

They were reasonably well-dressed, well-groomed.

Lewis: One such officer

Was oleg antonovich gordievsky.

Bro: I learned about him as soon as he entered denmark.

And we rather quickly found

Good reasons to believe that he was kgb.

Lewis: Kgb spymaster, mikhail lyubimov,

Was a friend and mentor to the young gordievsky.

Lyubimov: I got acquainted with gordie in '67 when I arrived

To copenhagen as the deputy chief of station.

He was one of the few intellectuals,

Very interested in music, and he was there working

At our station in the field of illegals.

Lewis: Constructing and running a network

Of deniable russian agents under deep cover,

Gordievsky soon caught the eye

Of the danish security service.

Danish intelligence believed gordievsky

Was stealing the identities of the dead

To provide new identities for his soviet illegals.

Bro: We saw him visiting cemeteries

And contacting clergymen,

And as he spoke to people our interest increased.

Lewis: With the cold war spying game

In full swing in copenhagen,

Both sides tried desperately to recruit each other's agents.

What the danish intelligence services couldn't know

Is how easy recruiting this spy would be,

Because oleg gordievsky had fallen in love with freedom.

During its 800 year history,

Copenhagen has won for itself a reputation

For liberal ideas and advanced social thinking.

Hansen: He met a country that was completely different

From that what he had been told.

It's a free country, people can do what they want.

Perhaps most important of all, people can go to the library.

Bro: You are allowed to read the books

Others are not allowed to read.

And he caught sight of the ways

In which the soviet society did not function.

Hansen: It made a huge impact on gordievsky

And made him perfect to recruit him as an agent.

Lewis: In 1968, a single momentous event provided

A catalyst for his eventual defection, the prague spring.

(tank treads whirring)

The kremlin sent in tanks backed by thousands of troops

To brutally suppress a popular uprising.

Over a hundred people were massacred.

(people shouting) (engines droning)

Hansen: Gordievsky was really shocked

About the soviet invasion of czechoslovakia.

He grabbed one of the phones at the embassy,

Called his wife back home and was just crying his eyes out

And saying, well it's all over.

Lewis: Gordievsky had lost his faith

In the soviet system.

And the phone call was a pivotal moment.

Because it wasn't just gordievsky's wife

Witnessing his despair that day.

(man speaking in tape recording)

Danish intelligence had bugged the soviet embassy's phones.

Bro: Our monitoring section asked me to come over

To the monitoring console and listen.

It was obvious that he was in a mental uproar.

He was really sorry, really angry.

He was very honest in his attitude to what happened.

(tanks rumbling) (flames blasting)

Lewis: Later, analysts would consider

If this was a careless mistake on gordievsky's part

Or a signal to the other side.

Hansen: He's a very bright and intelligent guy.

So when he made this phone call

I think it was very deliberately done.

Bro: And we remarked it.

It wasn't forgotten.

That was the day where we said, this man may be willing

To switch sides and work with us.

Lewis: By 1973, gordievsky had been promoted

To deputy of political intelligence

At the heart of the kgb's foreign operations in denmark.

But the danes knew they lacked

The experience and manpower to run him as an agent.

So, for help in securing gordievsky's services as a spy,

They turned to their ally,

Britain's secret intelligence service, sis,

Also known as mi6.

Powell: Denmark's a small country,

It had limited resources,

It did extremely well to identify him.

Lewis: Charles powell went on

To become margaret thatcher's foreign policy advisor.

Powell: Britain was a close intelligence ally,

And they very wisely involved us too.

Lewis: The question was,

How to approach a high-ranking official

Stationed at the soviet consulate,

Without getting caught.

(man speaking foreign language)

Lyubimov: He was running every morning.

He was a great badminton player and a good one by the way.

Bro: We agreed that it would be a very good idea

To make an approach in the badminton hall.

None of his colleagues would be there.

Lewis: In the spring of 1974, as gordievsky played

His regular game of badminton, mi6 made their approach,

Taking gordievsky completely by surprise.

The rendezvous at the badminton hall

Was a huge gamble for everyone.

The british couldn't be sure

Gordievsky wasn't a double agent,

Positioned by the kgb to infiltrate them.

And for his part, gordievsky couldn't be sure that the meet

Wasn't a trap set by the kgb to test his loyalty.

Gordievsky agreed to a second meeting

At a public location.

This time, it was with mi6 alone.

Hansen: He doesn't want the danes involved

Because he knows that the kgb

Has a contact inside the danish police.

No government member, no minister,

Was told about this operation.

In the center of copenhagen there's a big hotel

And that was the setting where oleg gordievsky

Met with his mi6 contact and the first steps

Toward him becoming a british agent was taken.

Lewis: By the summer of 1975, mi6 had their man.

But gordievsky insisted on three conditions

From his new employers.

He was never to be followed or photographed.

His colleagues at the consulate weren't to be compromised.

And unlike many other double agents,

Gordievsky wasn't to receive any payment

In exchange for secrets.

Hansen: He's doing this for ideological reasons.

He's doing this because that's what his heart

Is telling him to do.

(tense music)

Lewis: Gordievsky's early missions for mi6

Involved smuggling top-secret microfilm documents

From the soviet embassy and passing them

To his british handlers in a classic brush pass.

Bro: They were switched to an mi6 officer

Who took it to a room nearby and during half an hour

Copied the films and had it back to gordievsky

Who brought it back to the embassy.

Lewis: The microfilm gordievsky provided

Likely held the names and details

Of soviet agents located in the nordics.

What's more, they detailed the inner workings

Of the kgb's station in copenhagen.

Betraying these secrets to the british,

Gordievsky had become a traitor to the ussr.

There was no going back.

Bro: I think he must have been walking on glass at the feeling.

It was so brave, so courageous.

If he was sweating, I'd understand him.

He must really had cripples in the stomach.

But bravery is to control your fear, not to be fearless.

Lewis: Gordievsky knew the risks

For him and his family.

Bro: In moscow, interrogated, probably tortured,

And then in the end, sentenced to death and shot.

(gun firing)

I'm sure.

(gun firing)

Lewis: For four years, gordievsky continued

To provide top-secret russian intelligence to the british.

But by 1978, his posting in denmark would come to an end.

Mi6 were about to lose one of their greatest assets.

For gordievsky, the glory days of his diplomatic posting

To the west were over.

It would be four years before he re-awakened

As a british spy.

(dramatic music)

(upbeat music)

(wheels squealing)

Lewis: Oleg gordievsky had been posted back to moscow,

A kgb man tied to the grim soviet system he now despised.

Throughout, the british authorities

Had kept their distance

To ensure his safety.

He was desk-bound, handling classified documents

On soviet agents operating across western europe.

It was tantalizing information

For the british intelligence service.

But instead they decided to play the long game.

Powell: By putting a long-term bet on gordievsky,

So we all practice self-denial and we won't make

Any attempt to contact him at all.

Lewis: In June 1982,

Their patience finally paid off,

Because gordievsky was being posted to the one place

Where he could do the most damage to the kgb, london.

Powell: He might well have been sent to anywhere,

He might have gone to sweden

Or to germany or all sorts of things.

But we just were lucky, we got a bullseye there.

Lewis: Before leaving, he met with his old friend

And fellow operative, mikhail lyubimov,

For personal advice on what to expect from the british.

Lyubimov: He was completely unprepared, and he consulted me.

I recommended him to read "somerset maugham"

Or things like that.

Of course, it sounds now very funny,

But partly I am responsible for his education

As a british agent. (chuckling)

(camera clicking)

Lewis: In his four long years in moscow,

Gordievsky hadn't forgotten his trade-craft,

And he followed procedure to reignite his contacts

With british intelligence almost immediately.

Powell: There was a number which would always be manned

And which would have, at the very least, a message on it.

He could re-establish contact.

(dramatic music)

Lewis: Mi6 set up meetings

In a safe house in west london.

In a rare interview recorded in 2007, oleg gordievsky

Revealed how his british handlers ran the encounters.

Gordievsky: I met my british contacts once a month.

It was in bayswater,

A small flat was rented by the service.

The meeting lasted 50 minutes only.

Because unlike in copenhagen when sometimes

I was sitting for three hours without any difficulty.

Here I was able to use only lunchtime.

Lewis: Once again, as a political intelligence officer

For the kgb, gordievsky proved

To be an invaluable mi6 asset.

Powell: The soviets were trying to recruit agents within the uk

And within other countries, and they succeeded

In some cases, of course going back to the 1930s

When they recruited a lot of british agents

On the basis of membership of the communist party.

Lewis: Now his information sent shock waves

Through the british intelligence community.

The list of names he'd provided of alleged soviet agents

Contained some of the country's leading politicians

And trades union officials.

Goodman: The list of names he passed across

To british intelligence

Clearly showed that the russians were very, very interested

In penetrating british establishment,

And we know that a number of different british figures

Were involved in this, including someone like michael foot.

(camera clicking)

Lewis: Though only made public some years later,

Gordievsky's allegations against

The leader of the opposition,

And prominent trades union leaders,

Including jack jones and ron brown,

Led to deep concern about the extent

To which the british establishment

Had been penetrated by the kgb.

Gordievsky's information led to police warnings,

Interrogations, and expulsions,

Thwarting much of the damage to the west

That these alleged agents of influence could have inflicted.

Powell: Gordievsky was at the heart of the kgb

And therefore had access to soviet agents

Operating in our country and more widely.

But secondly, he understood what was going on,

He understood the context of soviet policy at the time.

I think he was quite canny about knowing

What files to look for and what information

Would be of interest to the uk.

Lewis: The british intelligence services

Were all too aware of the precarious position

In which they were placing oleg gordievsky as a mole.

Powell: Gordievsky was enormously important.

There was nothing more secret in the uk

Than his existence and who he was.

And ministers did not know who he was,

The prime minister did not know who he was,

And that was of course was for his protection

And the protection of an invaluable source.

Lewis: Yet supporting a secret agent

Was a delicate balancing act for the british.

Repeatedly, they had to give him benign

Or bogus intelligence he could take back

To his kgb bosses to maintain his cover.

Powell: The sis were able to supply him with information

Which wasn't really very classified, but made him look

As though he had access to credible information

And therefore was a, well, high-performing kgb agent.

Lewis: So successful was this deception,

In March 1983, gordievsky was promoted

To the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the kgb

And deputy head of its london station.

But by this time, the cia was taking a particular interest

In the high-grade intelligence coming out of london.

The president of the united states,

Ronald reagan. (applauding)

In the u.S., president ronald reagan

Had been elected on a strong anti-communist agenda

And was ratcheting up his rhetoric.

Reagan: Thank you.

Lewis: On March the 8th, 1983,

He made his most provocative speech of the cold war.

Reagan: To ignore the facts of history

And the aggressive impulses

Of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race

A giant misunderstanding, is folly.

It means the betrayal of our past,

The squandering of our freedom.

(applauding)

Lewis: David major was national security advisor

To the reagan administration at the time.

Major: The political relationship between the west

And the russians in the early '80s was very cold.

There was a great distrust between the two countries.

(yuri andropov speaking foreign language)

Lewis: The leader of the soviet union,

Yuri andropov, a career spy who'd never visited the west,

Was convinced reagan was secretly preparing

To mount a nuclear attack on the soviet union.

(applauding)

In his previous role as kgb chief, andropov's spy networks

In britain and america had been unable to provide

Any hard detail on the west's true intentions.

So andropov initiated operation ryan,

The largest spy operation launched by the soviets

In peacetime against the west.

Major: They were telling their intelligence services

To go out and collect as much evidence that they had

That we were going to have war.

Like how much blood is being donated,

And when the lights are out in the military,

And how much pizzas they ordered,

Things that are all indications of possibly, you know,

Confrontation, people working late hours.

Powell: And some of the indicators

That they were searching

Were perfectly absurd, one I always remember

Is counting how many lights were switched on

In the ministry of defense after 10:00 p.M. At night.

Now, there were a lot, and the reason there were a lot

Was not anything to do with nuclear war.

It's 'cause the cleaners were in cleaning the offices.

Lewis: However absurd, the intelligence gathered

By agents of operation ryan fueled andropov's suspicion.

Powell: I think he was frankly paranoid.

Whether he was medically paranoid

Or just paranoid in the sense

That one tosses the term about, I don't know.

President reagan and margaret thatcher were using

Very strong rhetoric against the soviet union.

That enhanced his paranoia.

(camera clicking)

Lewis: By September 1983, andropov was convinced

The americans were about to trigger a nuclear first strike.

(camera clicking)

Major: The russians became convinced that we were going

To nuke them with a bolt from the blue.

Powell: Andropov persuaded a lot of his politburo colleagues

That this really was a serious risk and a danger.

Lewis: Then, in early November 1983,

To compound the growing tension,

President reagan authorized a vast nato war game,

Able archer, a scripted rehearsal for armageddon.

(jet screaming)

(helicopter blades whirring)

So, just as soviet listening posts readied themselves

To detect the early signs of a nuclear attack,

Nato began to simulate one.

(jet screaming)

Major: The way military works is you have

What looks like an exercise and it turns into a real attack.

And so they thought that's what's happening.

They thought we were preparing for war.

Powell: So we were really teetering

A bit on the brink at this stage.

Lewis: In direct response to able archer, the soviets

Placed hundreds of ss-20 mobile ballistic missiles,

Each with 45 times the power of hiroshima,

On heightened alert.

In the baltic, the northern fleet prepared to attack.

Submarines and nuclear bombers

Armed with icbms were mobilized.

From the kgb's station in central london,

Gordievsky witnesses the ramping up of tensions.

Then, he makes a move that many believe helps pull the world

Back from the brink of nuclear annihilation.

(tense music)

(suspenseful music)

By early November 1983,

The soviet leadership was convinced

They were just days away from all-out nuclear war.

(tense music)

In london, fearing the deadly repercussions

Of an increasingly paranoid moscow,

And at great personal risk,

Oleg gordievsky took decisive action.

To pass key intelligence regarding the extent of hysteria

In the soviet leadership to his british handlers.

Gordievsky: I spoke about everything which I experienced.

You simply don't understand the mentality

Of the old russian leaders.

You are playing with fire.

I knew it was a dramatic moment.

I knew moscow was nervous.

Goodman: To pass these documents across

Was living on a knife edge.

He was risking death every single time

He took a document out of the office.

Every time he communicated with british intelligence

Meant that he was risking his life.

Lewis: Mi6 passed gordievsky's information

To british prime minister, margaret thatcher.

(camera clicking)

Thatcher made use of her special relationship

With president reagan to relay the information

Directly to the heart of the american command structure.

Goodman: Prime minister margaret thatcher used it

Very, very effectively with president reagan.

She managed to persuade him absolutely

On the basis of gordievsky's intelligence that his speeches

Were simply inflaming tensions with the russians,

It was feeding into their sense of paranoia.

Lewis: Thatcher convinced reagan

To tone down his rhetoric.

And through back-channels, american diplomats were able

To provide reassurance to their soviet counterparts.

(gentle upbeat music)

The intelligence provided by mi6's prized asset,

Oleg gordievsky, had helped pull the world back

From the brink of nuclear war.

A spy had kept the peace.

Major: Only one other time that happened

Was the cuban missile crisis,

We came that close to nuclear warfare.

(siren blaring)

Lewis: But the americans couldn't know

Who was behind the sudden cooling of tensions,

Because gordievsky was a closely guarded secret.

Major: When we got the information

It was from some mysterious source.

So the question was, who could have provided that?

Lewis: British intelligence had devised a strategy

To protect their source from exposure,

Even from their allies.

Powell: It was very much concealed.

It wasn't all attributed to a single agent.

It was presented as if it was drawn

From our intelligence resources

With the implication that it might well have been

Several different agents bringing it altogether.

This was all because we wanted to protect gordievsky.

Lewis: But given the depth of the intel,

The cia were increasingly unhappy

To be drip-fed information

On a need-to-know basis.

They wanted access to the source.

Powell: The information he provided

Became much more specific

And although even then he was never named

Or identified to the americans, I think it was pretty clear

That it was coming from one extremely well-placed agent.

(tense music)

Lewis: That the cia would seek out the source

Would set off a chain of events

That would prove to be devastating to oleg gordievsky.

(dramatic music)

The man the americans put in charge

Of tracing the source was the cia's chief

Of soviet counterintelligence,

(camera clicking) aldrich ames.

(camera clicking)

Through a process of elimination,

Ames realized the source must have been

A high-ranking kgb man, in london.

He settled upon recently promoted oleg gordievsky.

But the americans had made a grave error.

What the cia couldn't know

Is that ames himself was a kgb spy.

Bearden: You tell me what the odds might be,

It's a lightning strike.

Lewis: Milton bearden was deputy chief

Of the cia's soviet and east european division.

Bearden: Ames decided to dump

All of the assets working for the cia.

Maybe he wanted to close those operations out

Because he feared that somehow they might contribute

To his compromise, so he thought, I'll kill them off.

(camera clicking)

Goodman: Aldrich ames passed across

A carrier bag full of secrets.

And amongst those secrets was

The identity of oleg gordievsky.

(dramatic music)

(birds singing)

(ominous music)

Lewis: On Friday 17th of may, gordievsky received

A summons from kgb headquarters in moscow.

He was to return to the ussr immediately.

Goodman: Gordievsky has been given the pretense

Of returning to moscow for a promotion.

And that raised the alarm bells in his mind.

Lewis: He couldn't be certain

If his cover had been blown.

But to disobey a direct order would be tantamount

To a confession of guilt.

Powell: Never underestimate the strain

Under which any agent operates.

Consequences, certainly in the soviet system,

Would have been death.

Lyubimov: Well, of course, he would be shot.

No problem.

(gun firing)

Lewis: Gordievsky felt he had no option

But to return home to face the kgb.

Almost immediately, he was taken to a kgb safe house.

Their plan, to confront him with their growing suspicions

Of his true loyalties.

(liquid trickling)

(glasses clinking)

(dramatic music)

Goodman: Gordievsky was drugged.

(agent speaking foreign language)

He was interrogated.

He was accused of being an mi6 spy.

Lewis: Yet somehow, he must have found

The mental strength to resist the russian drugs.

Goodman: At no point did he own up to being an mi6 spy.

Lewis: So, the kgb changed tactics.

Gordievdky: They decided to play cat and mouse game with me.

And I was put under house arrest only.

(suspenseful music)

Goodman: What would have been very, very clear to gordievsky,

Was that time had run out, now was the time

To get in touch with his mi6 handlers

And finally get out of the soviet union.

Lewis: The question now was when and how

To initiate operation pimlico,

The first ever plan devised by british intelligence

To exfiltrate an agent from the soviet union.

(dramatic music)

(drawer slamming)

Gordievsky: In '77, we made the first plan of escape.

I visualized the situation when I would be

Under strong suspicion, and not yet properly arrested,

And I will have time to carry out an escape attempt.

Lewis: But by June 1985,

Mi6 had lost all contact with their source.

Gordievsky had simply vanished.

They had no option but to wait for him

To make the next move.

And that was only if he was still alive.

Before triggering the pre-arranged escape plan,

There was someone gordievsky wanted to see,

His old friend mikhail lyubimov.

But lyubimov barely recognized the man at his door.

Lyubimov: It was another gordievsky

Whom I never saw before.

He was in a very chaotic state, trembling hands.

Oleg, who never drank more than one or two glasses,

He was like this, a whole bottle,

A big bottle, about one liter.

I was his friend, his colleague.

Of course I didn't suspect that he was mi6 man.

Lewis: These would be the last moments

Oleg gordievsky would spend with his old friend.

The time had now come to flee the soviet union for good.

(suspenseful music)

Oleg gordievsky was now under

Constant surveillance by his fellow kgb agents.

(camera clicking)

Using russian spy-craft known as proverka or dry cleaning,

He tried to shake-off his kgb watch team.

To stay alive, he needed to get out of the country, fast.

And that meant setting in motion operation pimlico,

His mi6 extraction plan.

(exciting music)

(snare drum beating)

Gordievsky: I went to the appointed place,

At exactly 7:00 o'clock,

Under the lamp post near the road.

Lewis: From there, gordievsky gave

A seemingly innocuous signal,

Exposing a british supermarket carrier bag.

Gordievsky: A safeway bag, a plastic bag in my hands,

For six minutes, to be noticed by the british.

It was Tuesday.

It meant I would be picked up on Saturday

The same week at 2:00 o'clock.

Bearden: Gordievsky must have gone there,

And hoping against hope that the brits would say,

Oh my god, there he is, he's signaling us.

Lewis: To acknowledge the signal,

An mi6 agent would appear from the crowd,

Eating a pre-agreed brand of chocolate bar.

Now gordievsky would have to wait.

In london, the next stage of operation pimlico

Required authorization from the highest level.

Bearden: They'd had to go all the way to maggie thatcher

To get clearance to pull this exfiltration.

(camera clicking)

Lewis: It was down to charles powell,

Foreign policy advisor to prime minister thatcher

At the time, to deliver the news

Her source was ready to come home.

Powell: The prime minister was out of london in balmoral.

And her authorization was needed.

It was so secret that we couldn't

Communicate it by telephone.

So someone had to go up and talk to her directly.

I flew up to scotland and drove to the gates of balmoral,

Had to fight my way past various equerries

Who were discussing really important subjects,

Like whether the queen mother could borrow

The queen's video tape recorder that night or not.

And then I had to see the queen's private secretary

Who was rather insistent that he be informed

Why I had come to see the prime minister,

And I'm afraid I insisted that I couldn't possibly tell him,

And we had quite an altercation about this.

And finally I got to see her.

We did our business within five minutes or less,

And then it was a question of getting back to london.

In moscow, for gordievsky the next step

Would mean heartbreak.

Throughout his time spying for the british,

He had shielded his wife and children from the truth.

He knew getting his family involved now

Would simply be too dangerous.

He would have to make his escape

Without telling them where he was going, or why.

Gordievsky: I shook off the surveillance.

Caught a train to leningrad, from leningrad

Train, commuter train, and buses

In the direction of the finish border.

About 30 miles before the border

I was hiding in the woods at an appointed time

Which was 2:00 o'clock.

(suspenseful music)

Lewis: At the soviet-finnish border,

Mi6 officers arrived with a diplomatic car.

The plan was to conceal him in the trunk of the ford sedan,

And smuggle him over the border into finland.

As he made his way to the rendezvous,

Gordievsky had no way of knowing

Whether he was walking into a kgb trap or toward freedom.

(door slamming)

(wheels spinning) (engine revving)

Goodman: In effect, kidnapping a kgb officer

And transporting him across the border

Out of the soviet union, was a hugely risky plan.

Those mi6 officers would almost certainly

Also have been under observation,

So trying to drive to the finnish border,

Driving across that border,

Trying to persuade the border guards

That they were not the people they were pretending to be

Would have been fraught with risk.

(tense music)

(dog barking)

Lewis: That day, one of the border guards

Sensed something wasn't right.

(dogs barking)

The female mi6 operative had to think fast.

Somehow her chips were enough to distract the dogs

And the moment passed.

(dogs barking)

Officer: Here you go.

Gordievsky: Nobody wanted to waste time,

And nobody opened the boot,

And we went through the five check points.

Lewis: From the trunk of the vehicle,

Gordievsky wouldn't know if he had made it to freedom

Until he heard the pre-agreed signal.

The strains of sibelius' "finlandia suite".

Powell: It is a remarkable story, if anyone wants

A really good read of a spy story,

This is better than any fiction.

Lewis: Gordievsky's defection

Was one of the greatest espionage triumphs

Of the cold war.

("finlandia suite" by jean sibelius)

Powell: It was actually one in the eye for the kgb

And the soviet system that we had successfully done this.

(camera clicking)

After all, remember how they crowed about philby,

(camera clicking) burgess,

(camera clicking) maclean,

And now here at last they got it back,

And they got it back in spades.

Gordievsky: A kgb colonel under house arrest and surveillance

In moscow, and then escaping back to the west,

It was never happened before.

Lewis: Now that mi6's most valued asset was safe,

His intelligence could be freely shared

With britain's allies.

And reagan could reach out to the soviet union's

New head of state, mikhail gorbachev.

With real confidence of the likelihood

Of a new rapprochement.

Powell: The americans re-engaged with the russians

In geneva on arms control and so on.

Bearden: And then all the planets, I think,

Lined up, maggie thatcher's in london,

Ronald reagan's in washington,

And together at this moment,

Started pulling on the same rope.

(applauding)

Lewis: Oleg gordievsky's actions

Heralded the beginning of the end of the cold war.

(melancholy music)

But to some he remains a controversial figure.

Lyubimov: Of course he is a traitor.

The main motive of gordie to become a british spy,

His vanity.

His vanity, he wanted to become sort of a moses,

Anti-soviet moses.

Lewis: Hero or traitor, oleg gordievksy paid

A high personal price for his defection.

It would take another six years

And the fall of the soviet union

Before his family could flee moscow to join him.

But by then, gordievsky's marriage was over.

Lyubimov: I think that he's a lonely, poor man.

(camera clicking)

In 2007, gordievsky was appointed

Companion of the most distinguished order for services

To the security of the united kingdom by the queen.

It was the same gong given

The fictional cold war hero, james bond.

Bro: For sure I can say that last time I met him was in 2005.

The british celebrated his successful escape

With danish assistance.

I was deeply honored to be invited.

He was a fine man.

(rousing music)