One of the essential spies of the Chilly Conflict, whose covert passing of secrets and techniques to Britain helped change the course of historical past and avert a nuclear warfare, has died.
Oleg Gordievsky, a former Soviet KGB officer, was 86. He died in Godalming, having lived in England since defecting in 1985.
Surrey Police mentioned officers had been referred to as to a home in Godalming on 4 March, the place an 86-year-old man was discovered lifeless.
The pressure mentioned whereas counterterrorism officers had been main the investigation, “the loss of life isn’t at present being handled as suspicious” and “there’s nothing to counsel any elevated threat to members of the general public”.
Gordievsky was recruited by Britain’s MI6 within the early Nineteen Seventies after changing into disillusioned with the USSR and was probably the most senior Soviet spy to defect throughout the Chilly Conflict.
Utilizing the code-name Hetman, for greater than a decade his studies gave Britain invaluable insights into the pondering of the Soviet management and KGB.
Within the early Eighties, his warnings to the West that the Soviets feared a possible shock NATO nuclear assault prompted then US president Ronald Reagan to dial down his anti-USSR rhetoric.
His intelligence was subsequently essential in guiding Margaret Thatcher in her early contacts with Mikhail Gorbachev, whose ascent to energy helped convey the Chilly Conflict to a detailed.
In 1985, whereas head of the KGB residency in London, suspicions he may very well be a British spy led him to be referred to as to Moscow the place he was drugged and interrogated.
Realising his life was in peril, and utilizing an extended pre-arranged plan, a sign was relayed to his MI6 handlers, and a rescue mission was set into movement.
The signal {that a} rescue was underway was a person strolling previous him on the street in Moscow carrying a Harrods bag and consuming a Mars bar.
On 2 August 1985, Raymond Asquith, great-grandson of former Liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith, and Andrew Gibbs, managed to present Soviet surveillance the slip and smuggle their man throughout the border into Finland hidden within the boot of a automotive.
In his absence, Gordievsky was sentenced to loss of life in Russia for treason.
His spouse and daughters had been saved below 24-hour KGB surveillance for six years earlier than being allowed to affix him in England in 1991.
He lived the remainder of his life below UK safety in Godalming, Surrey, writing various books and being obtained by Mrs Thatcher in Chequers and Mr Reagan within the Oval Workplace.
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Gordievsky is honoured by Queen Elizabeth in 2007. Pic: PA
In 2007, he was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II, being made a Companion of the Order of Saint Michael and St George (CMG) in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
It is the identical honour held by the fictional spy James Bond.
The next 12 months, Gordievsky mentioned he had been poisoned and spent 34 hours in a coma after taking tainted sleeping drugs given to him by a Russian enterprise affiliate.
The dangers he confronted had been underscored in 2018 when former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Soviet-made nerve agent within the English metropolis of Salisbury, the place he had been residing quietly for years.
