Gordievskiy, Oleg Antonovich

(1938– )

   One of the most important defeats for the KGB in the Cold War was the defection of Colonel Oleg Gordievskiy, who volunteered to work for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) when he was stationed in Denmark. He apparently acted out of deep anger with the Soviet decision to intervene in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968. He agreed to work without payment, claiming that he worked for ideological reasons. On his assignment to London in 1983 as deputy rezident, Gordievskiy provided the SIS with thousands of KGB documents. Gordievskiy’s reporting allowed London and Washington to defuse a crisis in the fall of 1983 when the Soviets, collecting information through their RYaN program, suspected the West of planning a covert nuclear strike against the Soviet Union.

   In 1985 Aldrich Ames provided the KGB with information to identify Gordievskiy as a British agent. (More recently, Russian intelligence officers have claimed that Gordievskiy was identified by other Soviet agents.) Gordievskiy was tricked into returning to Moscow and confronted with evidence of his behavior. The KGB left Gordievskiy a week to consider his treason and confess. He used a danger signal to alert the British, and with the direct approval of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the British service rescued Gordievskiy from certain death.

   Gordievskiy’s escape was an embarrassment for the KGB, especially when he began appearing on British television to discuss Soviet intelligence operations in London. Gordievskiy was later received by President Ronald Reagan at the White House. He lectured at the Central Intelligence Agency, with Ames in the audience. The Soviet government refused to allow Gordievskiy’s wife or children to join him in London. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new authorities permitted his family to emigrate. Gordievskiy settled in London, where he has written widely about the Soviet intelligence services. His books are considered the most authoritative accounts of KGB foreign operations.