Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky

by Oleg Gordievsky

  When it came to handing out money, I did my fair share. In Copenhagen I had watched Lyubimov giving cash to the Communist Party of Denmark, and in London I handed over four-figure amounts in dollar bills to the Communist Party in the Philippines and in South Africa, as well as to the African National Congress. Representatives of these organizations would come to the Soviet Embassy twice a year; one such was a pensioner then living in London, who had taken part in what he called the ‘class struggle against American imperialism’ before and after the Second World War, and, forty years later, was still authorized to receive money on his old friends’ behalf.

  Yet although Moscow was prepared to support such people financially, the KGB was not allowed to recruit Westerners who were avowed Communists. Thus a man like Ken Gill, general secretary of the white-collar union TASS, was never cultivated by us because he was a leading member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and often mentioned as a possible leader of it. All the same, I got to know him well because I often had to take delegations from Moscow to meet him.

  Through all vicissitudes Moscow preserved an extraordinarily reverential attitude towards Communists in the West, an attitude exemplified in their treatment of Andrew Rothstein, one of the founder-members of the Party in England. By the time I came to England Rothstein was already in his eighties, yet the Embassy conceived it their duty not only to look after him but also to use him as a consultant on difficult policy questions. Supposedly Communists themselves, the Soviet diplomats of the 1980s often found it necessary to discover what a real Communist thought about a particular issue, and frequently drove out to his home in North London to take his advice. I went once, and came away depressed that this shabby old man, immutably dogmatic, reactionary and narrow-minded, should remain an authority, and that the Embassy should want to preserve him. (It was fitting that he should live close to the cemetery in which Karl Marx is buried. As late as 1989 he was still proclaiming ‘Communism will come’, and he died, unrepentant, in 1994, aged ninety-five.)

  Among my own contacts, none gave me more trouble than Ron Brown, Labour MP for Edinburgh Leith and former trade union organizer, famous for such scandals as smashing the mace in the House of Commons, and being caught stealing his mistress’s knickers. By the time I arrived in London, contact had already been made with him, and it fell to me to continue whatever relationship there was. The trouble was that Brown had a Scottish accent so thick that I, still struggling with my English, could scarcely understand a word he said. KGB rules laid down that meetings with contacts must be clandestine, and should not take place in the centre of London. But because Brown was a working MP, tied to the House of Commons, he could not be expected to take more than a couple of hours off for lunch; he did not have time to drive out to the suburbs, and would not have wanted to anyway. I had to meet him in places like Queensway and Kensington High Street. This meant that when I wrote my reports I was obliged to invent a spurious rendezvous somewhere further out, as well as the dry-cleaning route I had taken to this non-existent place.

  Then, since I could scarcely understand him, I also had to invent our conversation. I used to sit there listening to him and making intelligent faces, wondering what the hell I was going to write in my report. I am not sure who he thought I was, certainly not a KGB agent — and he may well have been giving me an interesting run-down on events in Parliament. Equally, he could have been describing the weather in Scotland. For all I understood, he could have been talking Arabic or Japanese. Thus every detail of my summary — the place, the route, the conversation — was false: a circumstance as I have already indicated by no means uncommon in KGB annals.

  After my escape from Moscow in 1985, and the announcement that I was safe in England, Brown wrote to Mrs Thatcher accusing her of having sent me, a British agent, to spy on him. The sad fact was that, even if I had been acting as he claimed, I still would not have picked up one word in ten of what he uttered.

  Nevertheless, the KGB felt that Brown could be of use, even if only passive use — as when he made a trip to Afghanistan in 1981, accompanied by his parliamentary colleague Robert Litherland. The two made statements supporting the Communist regime in Kabul against the Mujahideen so, to Moscow’s way of thinking, backing up official Soviet propaganda. During their tour they posed for a newspaper photograph in front of a monument in the form of a tank mounted on a plinth, and later the Young Conservatives pirated the picture for a poster. In a speech balloon one of the intrepid travellers was made to say, ‘We’ve never seen a single tank in the whole of our time in Afghanistan,’ and the headline above the picture warned, ‘Socialism is bad for your eyes.’

  I had learned a good deal from Mikhail Lyubimov about how, in the 1960s, the KGB had recruited left-wingers and dealt with them as proper agents, using all the paraphernalia of espionage, including deadletter boxes, signal sites and so on. ‘Why did you bother with all that covert stuff?’ I once asked. ‘Why didn’t you just have overt relationships with them?’ To which Lyubimov had replied that, on the one hand, the Centre expected the KGB to handle agents like that, and on the other the use of those methods had the effect of disciplining the man, and making him feel that he was in a proper relationship with his case officer. As for the British, they probably thought that if the money was there, why not take it? I do not know whether they believed the information they handed over was useless or whether they didn’t really care. Few, however, would have regarded themselves as spies; many may have been caught up in the romance of it all.

  One day, instructions came to renew our efforts with one particular potential ‘confidential contact’: Jack Jones, the veteran trade union leader, who was then over seventy and retired. I tracked him down with the help of Anatoli Chernyayev, a Line X officer working in the Embassy who had a huge knowledge of the British trade union movement, and arranged to be introduced to him in his flat — a typical council flat, and a typically philistine environment, with few books, and everything in an exaggerated state of tidiness. After I had twice visited the apartment, we started to meet in restaurants but, grateful as the former union official was, he was also absolutely useless. By then he was a pensioner — and what good was that to the KGB? In his memoirs, Union Man, published in 1986, he followed Fenner Brockway in giving no mention of his involvement with Soviet intelligence but in his case it would have been because he really was not aware of who we were.

  Jack Jones did, however, inadvertently do me a considerable favour. One day I took with me a brochure from the Trades Union Congress which gave a long list of union leaders, and asked him to comment on them. This he did to such effect that I was later able to write a three-page summary, which I added to my report of our meeting. ‘Our agent’s information on trade union personalities was so extensive’, I wrote, ‘that I am attaching it as an appendix.’ The combined document made it appear that he had been outstandingly helpful and volunteered many facts of the greatest value. You can see from this what the facts really were and how, by careful reporting, success can be created out of very little.

  That telegram produced an extraordinary reaction in Moscow, when I was there on holiday a few months later. Ravil Pozdnyakov, the departmental head responsible for Britain, joined a lunch given to Suslov, head of the British and Scandinavian department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Suslov, a powerful imbiber, arrived already drunk. Pozdnyakov, a Tatar from a Muslim family, was not used to alcohol, but he began drinking to keep Suslov company. When he arrived back in the office a good deal the worse for wear, the alcohol seemed to have changed his personality, making him excessively open and sincere. ‘Do you realize what you did with your report, old boy?’ he burbled genially. ‘You showed what an idiot I am, what a lousy intelligence officer! Your appendix proved that you could extract good information even from a hopeless contact. It was incredible! I was very impressed.’

  I looked at Pozdnyakov with close interest, thinking what an extraordinary difference a couple of glasses of wine can make.

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nbsp; Because Jack Jones produced so little I met him only five or six times in all, and mostly we exchanged harmless talk about the unions and the Labour Party. But we also discussed Neil Kinnock a good deal, because he was leader of the opposition. Curiously enough, Dmitri Svetanko had shown a flash of intuition in Moscow back in 1981, when I was in the process of joining the British desk. A report from the London Residency had named Kinnock as the Labour politician to watch, and Svetanko had endorsed the suggestion, cabling back that he was regarded as the man of the future, and should be carefully observed. For all the KGB’s interest, Kinnock remained ignorant of the organization’s attempts to make connections with his party. I had a feeling that Kinnock was much more alarmed about the Trotskyist penetration of the Labour Party than that of the KGB — and probably he was right.

  Kinnock’s successor, John Smith, struck me as easily the most impressive man in the Labour Party. I met him only once, at an Embassy reception, but I saw that he had a quick, strong intellect, and that, besides being well in control on the domestic front, he understood foreign policy and technical aspects of arms control. He showed curiosity about everything, along with a willingness to meet Russians and discuss things with them, and I felt sure that he was Labour’s man for the future. Like thousands of other people, I was shocked by his sudden death in 1994.

  An agent with a long record was the veteran politician and trade unionist Bob Edwards, MP successively for Bilston and Wolverhampton, who had fought for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and had led delegations to the Soviet Union in 1926 and 1934. His recruitment had taken place so long ago that it was lost in the mists of antiquity, but for many years he had been personally run by Leonid Zaitsev. This was easy when Zaitsev was posted to Britain, during the 1960s, but later, when he had become head of Directorate T, and a major-general, he insisted on continuing to run Edwards, partly because he liked keeping in touch with an old friend, partly because he wanted to go on being an operational officer, and partly because the connection gave him the excuse for making occasional trips to Europe. Since Edwards was an enthusiastic European, a Member of the European Parliament from 1977 to 1979, and also involved with the Western European Union (a paper military alliance), they often met in Brussels, where Edwards had excellent contacts and access to useful military and political information. So highly did the KGB value him that he was awarded the Order of the People’s Friendship, the country’s third highest decoration. The medal was kept in his file at the Centre, but Zaitsev once took it with him to Brussels, so that the recipient could at least see and touch what he had won.

  On holiday in Moscow I had met Mikhail Lyubimov, and told him how I had started to work again with various of his old contacts. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘But what about Mikardo? In the fifties and sixties he was regarded as an agent, and a very good one. But then after Czechoslovakia he faded away.’

  Ian Mikardo, as far as I know, never worked with the KGB again, but once when I was back in London I saw him with Clive Ponting, the civil servant — never one of ours, so far as I was aware — sitting in one of the window seats at the Gay Hussar, the Hungarian restaurant in Soho much favoured by Labour politicians and trade union leaders. In another corner, armed with a bumper of cognac and a foot-long Havana cigar, was a man regarded by the KGB as one of our most important and active confidential contacts, general secretary of a major union. Studying the scene, I thought: That figures. Mikardo is no longer getting KGB support, but this fellow is. That cigar started life in Cuba, and came here via Moscow and the diplomatic bag. I also used the Gay Hussar to target another trade unionist, Alan Tuffin, general secretary of the post workers’ union, in whom the Centre had expressed an interest. I soon saw that he was a solid, middle-of-the road man with no interest in foreign policy, and I decided that there was no prospect of developing him.

  Some Labour MPs, far from wanting to co-operate with Soviet interests, stood out robustly against them, none more so than Edward Leadbitter, member for the Hartlepools, who seized every chance of asking questions in the House of Commons about Soviet espionage. To the KGB he became a hate-figure, and our telegrams to the Centre often rang with the refrain: ‘Mr Leadbitter, the person notorious for trying to inflate anti-Soviet spy-mania in Britain, has done it again.’ Another hate-figure was Stefan Terlezki, the Ukrainian-born Conservative MP for Cardiff West, who was always vociferously opposed to Soviet ideas, and appeared to Moscow to be rooting for Ukrainian nationalist movements.

  The KGB’s interest in trade union leaders was a hangover from the 1960s, when the unions had been all-powerful; and in the 1980s, in spite of Mrs Thatcher’s reforms, we continued to cultivate them enthusiastically. Yet the Soviet ace in this sphere was not a member of the KGB. Boris Averyanov was often mistaken for a KGB colonel, but he was merely an exceptionally clever official of the Central Committee’s International Department. From his base at the World Federation of Trade Unions in Prague, he travelled all over Europe, visiting British and Irish unions at least once a year, usually twice, and always appearing in Britain for the Trades Union Congress. His knowledge of union affairs was prodigious. He knew the history of every union backwards. He knew the officials and every detail of their backgrounds: he knew the names of their wives and children, where they lived, what their recreations were. Also, in talking to them he was cordiality itself and was always welcome at a meeting.

  Besides Averyanov in Prague and the KGB in London, yet another organization was busy courting British trade union officials: the department in Moscow known as Directorate RT (standing for ‘work on the territory’), which was independently cultivating targets through various Soviet facilities. Officials in this department knew full well how easy it is to recruit people when they are abroad: since they tend to behave less responsibly than at home, and drink too much, it is relatively simple to put them under pressure by surrounding them with agents or listening devices and creating some incriminating circumstance. Staff from Directorate RT would arrange holidays for Western trade unionists, and encourage them to attend conferences abroad.

  One leading recipient of their bounty was Jim Slater, second-in-command of the Seamen’s Union. By the time I arrived in London, Slater was already listed as a confidential contact, and a man from RT who came to Britain gave me an enthusiastic account of his cultivation — how Slater had visited Russia, how impressed he had been by the Soviet struggle against Fascism, how he liked the country and the people. It was strictly against the rules for the RT people to give us, in the KGB, any feedback about their own contacts, but in this case they were delighted with their achievement.

  Among specialists, one man considered helpful, although unwittingly, was Fred Halliday, a specialist in Arab affairs, and at that time a Fellow of a policy studies institute. During the Iran-Iraq war he emerged as a leading expert, and often appeared as a commentator on television. As an independent left-winger, he spoke out against American and Soviet policies but was perceived by Moscow as being likely to follow the Soviet propaganda line. Yuri Kobaladze kept in touch with him, and reported that they got on well. Although Halliday was critical of Soviet policy the friendship was seen as advantageous by the KGB, which profited from receiving good analysis on Arab affairs.

  Kobaladze was half Georgian, an intelligent man free from the chauvinism which beset most pure Russians, but even he was thoroughly naïve in some matters. One day he asked Halliday if there was such a thing as a global Jewish conspiracy. ‘Yuri!’ said Halliday reproachfully. ‘How can you ask such a ridiculous question? Of course there’s no such thing.’ Yet when Kobaladze mentioned the conversation to me he was still not sure that Halliday had given him a true answer.

  Relationships like that between him and Halliday could not be kept secret by the KGB but were conducted in the open. Yet the PR Line officers, knowing that Moscow did not like such overt contacts, told lies in every report and pretended that their meetings were clandestine. In this respect Guk was regarded as part of Moscow, rather than head
of the London station: because he had such poor knowledge and understanding of Britain, his officers told the same lies to him as they did to the Centre — and I was part of the conspiracy.

  One day Kobaladze came to me in some distress. He and his wife had been invited to dinner by Halliday, but he had told Guk that he was going to see a man whom he hoped to appoint a confidential contact. Guk, driven by his ridiculous ideas about some recent ‘deterioration of the operational climate’, and quoting recent information that a provocation had been planned, forbade him to go. Yuri appealed to me for help. I agreed that it would be rude to refuse an invitation at such short notice. ‘All Guk’s ideas are based on KGB paranoia,’ I said. ‘We can’t deceive ourselves that this is an operation. Of course it’s nothing of the kind. It’s just a dinner. Go, of course. Don’t tell Guk, and I’ll cover for you.’ Kobaladze was hugely relieved and grateful, and duly kept his appointment. Halliday never gave away anything but, because of his views, the KGB continued to present its relationship with him as an operational involvement.

  There were, of course, many public figures whom the KGB would have liked to cultivate, but for whom they had neither the time nor the resources. One such was Stuart Holland, the high-profile Labour MP who specialized in foreign affairs. Moscow told me I should get hold of him as it was hoped that he might become an asset to the KGB, but although I once had a long talk with him, nothing came of it, and it was clear that the Centre had been wrong. Moscow was also eager that I should make contact with Dick Clements, the author and journalist who had been editor of Tribune from 1961 to 1982, and then became a senior adviser to Neil Kinnock. After years of attempts at cultivation by others, he was taken over by Kobaladze but the KGB decided to abandon him.