Oleg Gordievsky, a senior KGB officer, monitored the West during the peak of the Cold War at the age of 86.
Gordievsky died in England on March 4, where he has lived since defecting from the Soviet Union in 1985. Police said Saturday they did not regard his death as suspicious. The BBC reported on Friday that Gordievsky had “died peacefully” at his home in Surrey.
Forty years ago, the whole world learned his name, when the British Foreign Office announced on September 12, 1985 that Godivsky (originally described as a senior official of the KGB) sought and obtained asylum in the UK.
After the defection, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tried to reach an agreement with Moscow: Britain would not expel all the KGB agents he suffered if Godivsky’s wife and daughter were allowed to join London.
Moscow rejected the proposal, and Thatcher pointed to information provided by Gordievsky, ordering the removal of more than twenty people (diplomats, journalists and trade officials), including allegations of their involvement in espionage.
The move was announced despite opposition from Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, who feared it would undermine relations, just as reforming Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is eased the deadlock between Russia and the West.
Soviet officials rejected the spy charges, and a spokesperson told reporters: “All all charges or hints are suspected of illegal activities of the Soviet representatives who have nothing to do with reality.”
Moscow responded to 25 British people. But despite Howe’s fear, diplomatic relations have never been cut off.
Rest assured by Moscow
Two years before his defection, Godivsky warned Britain and the United States in 1983 that Soviet leaders were so worried about Western nuclear attacks that they were considering a first strike. With tensions in Germany’s NATO military exercises, Goldivsky helped Moscow assured that it was not a pioneer of nuclear attacks.
Soon after, then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan began to ease nuclear tensions with the Soviet Union.
Over time, the public will learn more about the dramatic circumstances that have brought Goldivsky’s new life in the West.
In 1982, he was sent to the KGB’s London office, but a few years later, his term suddenly ended when Godivits Gene was recalled to the Soviet Union for allegedly Seymour, as he had been sharing secrets with British intelligence companies for years.
Get out of the way, first go to Finland
In May 1985, Godivsky returned to Moscow as directed, and he endured the trial but was not charged.
In July of that year, he made a dramatic escape from the Soviet Union through British infiltration efforts, which made him vibrate on the border while hiding in the trunk of a car.
Agents who were involved in his rescue were said to have played a tape recording of Jean Siberius Finland As a signal to Godivsky, they have crossed the border. He then flew through Norway to England.
Godivsky’s family was under the surveillance of the KGB for six years before being allowed to join England in 1991, the year when the Soviet Union was dissolved.
“A lot of times, I say to myself, ‘It’s like a movie, it’s like a movie,’” Goldivsky told the BBC Witness history The podcast in 2015 tells the story of his escape. “This is incredible.”
British authorities have made “excellent contributions” to Gordievsky’s national security and helped curb tensions between Russia and the West during a “critical period of the Cold War.”
