KGB double agent Oleg Gordievsky has died at the age of 86. A colonel in Russia‘s KGB – the Soviet secret service – Gordievsky spent many years working as a double agent. He passed vital intelligence to both Britain’s MI6 and MI5.
Gordievsky died peacefully at his Surrey home. His death is not being treated as suspicious, yet counter-terrorism police are assisting the coroner, the BBC reports. He was originally recruited in 1974, becoming Britain’s key source of information inside the KGB after being posted to the Soviet’s secret service’s bureau in London. He lived under police protection in the market town Godalming since Moscow became suspicious of him in 1985. The double agent managed to escape arrest and trial by getting smuggled across the border into Finland in the back of a car. Six years later, he was able to reunite with his wife and children when they arrived in 1991.
The crucial information that he passed on allowed NATO to prevent its infamous Able Archer exercise – thought to be the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war.
Information given by Gordievsky also led to the expulsion of 25 Soviet agents working undercover in Britain.
During his time as a double agent, his defection was hailed by then Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe as « a very substantial coup for our security forces ».
Gordievsky was honoured by the Queen in 2007 with the Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George. This is the same title given to the fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond.
“I’m more British now than Russian,” he said after being honoured. “Of course, I don’t have the subtlety and politeness which is typical of Britain.”
Gordievsky has since written multiple books about the operations of the KGB.
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