![]() After they chatted for a while, the rezident said, “By the way, Sergei, this cable came in” and tossed it over. BuyĪs the deputy chief, Bokhan was privy to all GRU spy operations aimed at Greece, the United States and the other NATO countries. ![]() This story is a selection from the November issue of Smithsonian magazine. Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12 Sergei Ivanovich Bokhan stayed behind to talk to his boss, the local rezident of the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence agency. Gordievsky decided to risk his life and go.Īthens, May 21, 1985: After the Tuesday-morning staff meeting at the Soviet Embassy, Col. They urged him to go to Moscow, but they also provided him with an escape plan in case he signaled that he was in danger. His MI6 handlers assured him they’d picked up no sign anything was wrong. But if he returned home, he could be shot. If he refused the summons, he would destroy his career. ![]() Now, he feared, the KGB’s counterspies had become suspicious and were recalling him to confront him. He’d been back at headquarters only four months earlier, and all seemed well. “Because I knew it was a death sentence.” “Cold fear started to run down my back,” he told me. That Friday, Gordievsky received a cable ordering him to report to Moscow “urgently” to confirm his promotion and meet with the KGB’s two highest officials. Moscow seemed to have no clue he’d been secretly working for MI6, the British secret intelligence service, for 11 years. A skilled intelligence officer, he had been promoted a few months before to rezident, or chief, of the KGB station in the British capital. London, May 17, 1985: Oleg Gordievsky was at the pinnacle of his career.
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