Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky

by Oleg Gordievsky

  Now I understood how much my emotional life had been inhibited by intelligence work and the constant need to be secretive. All the time, while working with British intelligence officers, I had found them the epitome of friendliness, and I had longed to open my heart to them, but I could not because we were so busy that we simply had no time for emotional exchanges. Now everything had changed, and I was able to give rein to my natural conviviality. I began to entertain lavishly, organizing feasts at which I laid out mountains of smoked salmon, gravadlax, smoked eel, caviar and other delicacies, with vodka and wine flowing: I wanted both to relax, and to make as many friends as possible, so that more and more people would fight for the release of my family.

  At the same time, my debriefing continued intensively, most often at the home of a new case officer, who happened to live quite close by. I would go round there to meet delegates from various departments, often by bicycle, and sometimes during the lunch break, while my contacts were relaxing over the meal that our hostess had laid on, I would go out for a run.

  All through those months my most frequent request to the service was for help in contacting Leila. I did not even know where she was, and I had no idea what the KGB might have told her about me. One thing was certain, though: they would be putting heavy pressure on her, and coaching her minutely in what to say if I came through on the telephone. There was thus no point in my trying to ring her for even if I had got through she would only have been able to parrot out the lies forced upon her — that if I came home, I would be guaranteed a safe passage, that all would be forgiven. There was no point in writing as I knew letters would be confiscated by the KGB.

  The best alternative, it seemed, was to send telegrams, and I arranged for one of these, containing powerful expressions of love for her and the children, to be despatched on my behalf from Paris every month. I thought it possible that Leila had taken the children to live with her parents, and considered sending the cables to their address; but then I thought that they, like most Russians, would be nervous of receiving any communication from a traitor, so I directed them to my sister Marina instead. I realized that she, too, might not like it, but at least the telegrams would be more likely to get through to her, and she would pass them on.

  In this, unfortunately, I was mistaken: as Leila later told me, Marina turned out to be the most cowardly of the lot, and passed the telegrams straight to the KGB. Had she been braver, she could have made copies and delivered them to Leila but she did not have the guts even to do that. It was not until nearly a year later that Leila found out what was happening: by chance she was alone in Marina’s flat when one of my cables arrived, and because I had had the wit to number them in sequence, and she saw that this was No. 9, she realized what I had been doing. That was the first communication she had received from me in twelve months.

  Later I learnt that the KGB interrogated all the people who knew me, even those with the most tenuous links. Leila herself, Marina, Arif and Katya, all were taken, terrified, to the main interrogation centre in the Lefortovo Prison. Many members of the KGB were similarly questioned, including those who had been expelled from London: Mishustin, who had always felt that I was an alien element, was put through an inquisition, as was Lyubimov, even though he had long since been dismissed from the service. They were all innocent, of course, so they had nothing to be afraid of; but that did not lessen the stress of the experience.

  At the same time, a parallel inquiry must have been in progress within the First Chief Directorate, but almost the only person to suffer demotion was my old friend and colleague Nikolai Gribin. Two key senior figures — Grushko and Gennady Titov — survived unscathed, and emerged as the most trusted allies of the Head of the First Chief Directorate, Kryuchkov.

  In November 1985 a military tribunal passed a death sentence on me, in absentia, and ordered the confiscation of all my property. The best trophy was my car, it being the dream of every Homo sovieticus to own one, so some official of the court stole it and drove it away. A team arrived to strip the flat but, while they were at work the confiscation order was suddenly revoked. What happened, I think, was that the KGB became determined to recover me from enemy territory, and decided to use Leila and the children as bait. They reasoned, sensibly enough, that if they took away our home, the family would be unlikely to co-operate with them so all our property was returned, with the exception of the car, which the new owner/ thief had already smashed up. This infuriated Leila: she wanted that car so she went to court and started a case in an attempt to get it back. The case opened in 1987 and, at the time of writing (autumn 1994), is still running.

  The KGB’s attempts to lure me back were crude. At the end of my second year in England the Soviet Embassy demanded that I meet representatives so, after due consultation with my British friends, I agreed to see the Russians at the Foreign Office. I made it a condition of any meeting that they would deliver a letter from me to Leila.

  One of the Soviet delegates was Aleksandr Smagin, an inexperienced man, whom I had known as the Embassy’s lowly security officer, working in the room next to mine, and now, faute de mieux after the expulsions, the head of station. With him came the Counsellor, Givi Gventsadze, a clean diplomat, who later became Ambassador in Dublin.[40] All kinds of rumours had been flying — that I was mortally ill, that I had committed suicide. There had never been any proof, never a photograph, to confirm that I was in England, and many Russians still believed that my presence in London was a British fiction. The KGB had made strenuous efforts to discover more, even going to the length of persuading a Labour Member of Parliament to put down a written question in the House of Commons, but this had availed them nothing. When Smagin saw me far from dead, but fit and sharp in a well-cut suit, it was almost too much for him. He had brought me a letter from Leila, which he handed over. Of course it was a thrill to see her writing, and I opened the envelope with a flutter of excitement. But I only read two or three lines before I stopped. It was full of phrases like ‘they’ve forgiven you everything’, ‘you can easily get another job’. I said, ‘I see. It’s been dictated by the KGB. There’s no point.’

  Gventsadze then asked a no-less-dictated question: ‘Why aren’t you telephoning your wife?’

  ‘Givi Aleksandrovich,’ I said sharply, ‘do you realize what you’re saying? In the presence of officials of the British Foreign Office you’re admitting openly and loudly that the Soviet authorities have been violating international law by intercepting my letters and telegrams and now, at the dictation of the KGB, you’re trying to make me talk, instead of using those other means of communication which you’ve been illegally interrupting.’ That shook him, leaving him embarrassed and confused.

  But Smagin said, ‘Oleg Antonovich, pochemou? Why? Why don’t you phone?’

  ‘Because’, I said coldly, ‘I’ve no wish to speak to my wife when an operational officer is standing behind her, telling her what to say.’

  ‘Oleg Antonovich, do you really think there’s an operational officer living in your flat all the time?’

  ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I don’t suppose one is living there. But she’s under continual pressure.’

  In due course I found that my intuition had been not far wrong in that Leila was kept under close surveillance day and night for six years. The reason the KGB watched her so obsessively was never clear: most probably they feared that after I, a marked man, had been spirited out of the country under their noses, she, too, might disappear — and if she vanished with the children it would represent the ultimate humiliation.

  I now realize that the letter I handed to Smagin was a serious mistake. Of course it told Leila how much I loved her and the children, and how I longed to be with them but I also gave her an entirely fictitious account of the reasons for my sudden disappearance, repeating the story of intolerable KGB intrigues which I had told her when she returned from London to Moscow. Looking back, I believe I was still off balance as a result of my interrogation. Somehow this had given me a
profound shock. I knew full well that I was a traitor to the Communists’ system so that they felt free to do whatever they wished — try me, poison me, torture me, execute me. Yet from a personal point of view I regarded it as an outrage that I had been drugged, and still, nearly two years later, I felt that I had been insulted. This led me to try to rub salt in the Centre’s wounds by presenting the story of my downfall as if it had been the result of some terrible abuse of power by the KGB that had driven me out.

  At the time I thought it clever to write such an account; I hoped that my version of events would protect Leila by confusing the KGB and delaying the official investigation so that the family could remain in the flat. It was far too late, however, for any such subterfuge. She knew as well as anyone that what I had written was nonsense and afterwards I strongly regretted it.

  In all I had four meetings with the KGB in London. Their people were always courteous and careful but the pressure on me to return was unrelenting. On one occasion someone read out fine promises from a telegram allegedly emanating from the Centre: ‘You’ll be a free man...you’ll get a job...you’ll be happily reunited with your family.’ I pointed out that there was no signature on the document, which was just a useless piece of paper. To the slight dismay of the British who were present, I retained a robust and aggressive stance throughout, rejecting all Smagin’s overtures in peremptory fashion. He was particularly disconcerted when I told him that the letters he brought from Leila contained coded signals which showed that they had been dictated by the KGB.

  ‘Signals?’ he said angrily. ‘What signals? How can there be signals if you haven’t seen your wife for three years?’

  In fact there were none, but I could tell from the length and style that the letters were not spontaneous. At that stage, of course, I could not know what an ordeal Leila had been going through. Frustrated in their attempts to recover me, the KGB had resorted to their usual dirty tricks, telling her that I was having an affair with a young English secretary, then that I had married her. Seeing that life would be easier for her and the children if she reverted to her maiden name, Leila went through the formal process of divorcing me. Even when we began to communicate again, her existence was tough. Not only was she watched night and day. Her mail was intercepted, her telephone tapped. Any friend who met her was immediately questioned by the KGB so that one by one her friends deserted her. In an attempt to secure some sort of anonymity, she reverted to her maiden name, Aliyev, but even so she could not find employment.

  My only course was to build a life in the West and pray that one day she would be able to join me. At the fort many kind people had brought me books, and I had begun to assemble a library again: such was my interest in languages that in Moscow I had owned a hundred and fifty dictionaries, and soon I had brought my collection back to nearly a hundred.

  After three years in the flat, I sold it at a good profit — my first real capitalist transaction — and bought a brand-new house. Never having owned a house before, I had had no idea of the quality of life it can provide. I loved the privacy and the space — the chance to put things like books and plants in their proper places, to spread bright rugs and runners over the floors and walk around barefoot. I rejoiced in being able to play music as loud as I liked, without disturbing anyone else, and in wearing as few clothes as I wanted. I also began to enjoy the garden, especially the smell of freshly cut grass: to a Russian, who always dreams about some warm place in the south towards the tropics, the scent of cypresses, in the sun or after rain, is highly evocative, and now it took me back to Gagra, Yalta and all the other resorts I knew on the Black Sea. Because there is so much wood in the house — in the roof, floors, windows and doors — it has a far better microclimate than the little concrete boxes of flats in Moscow. Going to bed at night, and hearing the house’s noises — the clicking and creaking of wood — I imagine myself on a space-ship, speeding through space and time. But still I enjoy the sound of a train going by in the distance, because it gives me the feeling that I am not cut off from the human race, and can rejoin the rest of mankind whenever I want.

  *

  With my debriefing finished, I found that I was in strong demand from the political leaders and intelligence services of other countries, many of whom were eager to pick my brains. Apparently no other Soviet defector had ever been prepared to meet important political figures in this way, but it seemed to me essential that I, a witness from within, should explain to them directly how the Soviet system worked. Perhaps because I had already dealt with the West for so many years, and understood its methods, perhaps also because I had almost been caught by the KGB and had escaped with British help, I met a high level of trust wherever I went, particularly in America.

  And so I began to travel on a scale of which I had never before dreamt. Before settling in England my knowledge of foreign countries was limited: I had spent time in East Germany as a student, served twice in Denmark, made two short trips to West Germany and one to Sweden — but that was all. Now I had wonderful opportunities, which took me repeatedly round the world.

  My first trip was to France, where I was the guest of the intelligence service. What people I met there! Full of imagination, full of fantasy, full of good ideas and interesting observations, the officers were sharp and original: their excellence was exemplified in the person of Raymond Nart, head of the service dealing with Soviet espionage, a man of the widest experience, decorated for his work, and enormously stimulating. Yet for all their liveliness I never found the French in the least arrogant: sometimes they would ask me to dictate a political report on Soviet affairs, and they were always asking my advice on what to do and say. Also they entertained me royally, with splendid lunches and a trip to the opera. French food was a new experience, and on the whole an enjoyable one, though I found some of it rather rich.

  The Germans also made much of me, particularly the officers of the external service, who struck me as more polished and cosmopolitan than their domestic counterparts. As I hadn’t used it for ten years, my German had deteriorated so much that, although I could understand what was being said, I hardly dared speak for fear of bringing out a mixture of all the other languages I had learnt since. Apart from putting me up in style, my hosts presented me with a handsome set of German—Russian dictionaries, and also with a record of Carmina Burana, a neat reflection of an article by Andrew Knight in the British weekly Economist which had described how I once lectured the staff of the Soviet Embassy on Orff’s little masterpiece. (I had felt cheerful when that story appeared in print, imagining KGB officers asking each other anxiously, ‘What the hell is Carmina Burana?’)

  In all I made three trips to West Germany, and Otto Wieck, the outstanding head of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), took care of me personally, organizing seminars at which the participants were encouraged to throw problems at me. At one point he gave a banquet, in which a dozen of us sat round a circular table, and he made a generous speech. When it came to speaking, I was only too glad to leave behind me the hypocritical and insincere outpourings that had been part of life at the Soviet Embassy. Now I could say what I felt about the West, and Western solidarity. It needed hard work to brush up my German for an address to the German service, and still more thorough preparation for a speech in Swedish, which I gave in Stockholm, and for which I practised with my bodyguard; but the reception I received always made such efforts worthwhile.

  My third trip, predictably, was to the United States. In Washington I found myself working as never before: intensive briefing sessions began at 10 a.m. and lasted till 6 p.m., each of fifty-five minutes followed by a five-minute break, each with a different team. In the evening came a working dinner. At the CIA I addressed a seminar on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for three hours, with only a couple of short breaks. Small wonder that by the time I went on to Canada I was exhausted, and had to ask to be taken back to my hotel in the middle of dinner.

  The level of protection I received varied a great deal. During my
early days in England the services assumed that there was a significant threat from the KGB, who might try to assassinate me or snatch me back. I lived, therefore, under an assumed name, and when I began to appear before press or television cameras, I always wore a false beard and hairpiece. On my first trip to Washington I was heavily guarded, but in Israel a few months later the authorities laid on no security. In Norway I was protected day and night when I stayed with an intelligence chief in a bungalow only a hundred yards from the sea. The British seemed to think that a submarine might surface and the crew snatch me through the window, so they sent bodyguards to look after me. On my first trip to Stockholm the Swedish police, knowing that many Russian ships were in the harbour, did the same.

  Some of my journeys were dictated by circumstances, and none more directly than my four trips to New Zealand, starting in 1986. I believe that the work I did there was particularly important, because for years the country had been under massive propaganda and ideological attack from the KGB and the Central Committee, and the ruling Labour Party had seemed unaware of the extent to which the fabric of their society was being damaged by subversion.

  The Prime Minister, David Lange, and his Labour Party were anti-nuclear, and therefore anti-American, and Moscow had taken advantage of this. The Soviet aim was to have huge areas of the southern oceans declared nuclear-free, and deny them to nuclear-powered warships of the United States Navy: by reducing their sphere of operation as much as possible, Moscow would make it easier to keep them under control and destroy them in the first stage of any conflict that might develop. In its attempts to draw New Zealand into nuclear-free activities, the Soviet authorities had made tremendous efforts to penetrate and strengthen the Labour Party, partly through the local Party of Socialist Unity (in effect the Communist Party of New Zealand) and partly through the Trades Union Congress. When members of the ruling Labour Party were seen to be moving further and further to the left, alarm began to spread in intellectual circles as people saw that the country was losing its traditional balance.