Masterspy of Moscow - George Blake

0:00:11 > 0:00:14CHORAL MUSIC

0:00:18 > 0:00:21It was the last leg of a long journey.

0:00:21 > 0:00:23I was trying to find a man

0:00:23 > 0:00:27who'd been wanted by the British police for nearly 50 years.

0:00:27 > 0:00:30I did have the feeling that he wanted to be somebody -

0:00:30 > 0:00:34to end up having done something quite important.

0:00:34 > 0:00:37First, he'd planned to be a priest.

0:00:37 > 0:00:38Then he became a secret agent.

0:00:39 > 0:00:43He said to me, "Are you one of us?"

0:00:43 > 0:00:45And I said, "What do you mean, George?"

0:00:46 > 0:00:49"George" was George Blake,

0:00:49 > 0:00:52the most damaging British traitor of the Cold War.

0:00:52 > 0:00:54What Blake did

0:00:54 > 0:00:57is what a good spy is supposed to do...

0:00:59 > 0:01:03..to obtain highly protected secrets from a foreign government.

0:01:03 > 0:01:07The trouble was, those secrets were ours.

0:01:07 > 0:01:10He toyed with me like a gambler.

0:01:10 > 0:01:12How long can you gamble?

0:01:12 > 0:01:14He's continued to deny

0:01:14 > 0:01:16that he was responsible for getting people killed.

0:01:20 > 0:01:23And there he was, in the window -

0:01:23 > 0:01:25the spy who got away.

0:01:25 > 0:01:28I was a bit sorry, in a way -

0:01:28 > 0:01:29because we all liked George.

0:01:45 > 0:01:49I never, for one single moment,

0:01:49 > 0:01:53thought that he was anything but British...

0:01:54 > 0:01:58..though there was a slight, greasy look about him -

0:01:58 > 0:02:02which gave me the idea that he might have some...

0:02:02 > 0:02:04perhaps Jewish blood in him,

0:02:04 > 0:02:07or perhaps something oriental -

0:02:07 > 0:02:09tinge of oriental, somewhere.

0:02:20 > 0:02:25In fact, George Blake was born here in Holland, in 1922 -

0:02:25 > 0:02:27and his name was "Behar", not "Blake".

0:02:32 > 0:02:34His father, Albert, was a British subject,

0:02:34 > 0:02:36but was neither Dutch nor English.

0:02:38 > 0:02:42He named his son "George" after the King of England,

0:02:42 > 0:02:44but did little else to make him feel British.

0:02:45 > 0:02:49Indeed, as Blake's biographer Roger Hermiston found out,

0:02:49 > 0:02:52he scarcely communicated with his son at all...

0:02:52 > 0:02:54Albert spoke English

0:02:54 > 0:02:56and he spoke French.

0:02:56 > 0:02:59What he didn't speak - astonishingly,

0:02:59 > 0:03:00because he lived in Rotterdam,

0:03:00 > 0:03:02he made his business, he made his home in Rotterdam -

0:03:02 > 0:03:05he didn't speak Dutch.

0:03:05 > 0:03:08..and George in those days spoke nothing but Dutch.

0:03:11 > 0:03:13His father had a business

0:03:13 > 0:03:15on the ground floor of their canal side house,

0:03:15 > 0:03:18making tough gloves for dock workers.

0:03:19 > 0:03:23But he remained an outsider in his family's city.

0:03:23 > 0:03:25He was a man who liked to keep himself to himself.

0:03:25 > 0:03:27He was a man with secrets.

0:03:27 > 0:03:30I get no sense at all that George Blake and his father

0:03:30 > 0:03:33had any normal father-son relationship.

0:03:36 > 0:03:39Not surprisingly, George grew closer to his mother...

0:03:40 > 0:03:43..and that, in time, meant closer to God.

0:03:47 > 0:03:48Catherine Behar belonged to

0:03:48 > 0:03:51a liberal branch of the Protestant church

0:03:51 > 0:03:53and this was where she prayed,

0:03:53 > 0:03:57among like-minded members of the Dutch upper-middle-class.

0:03:59 > 0:04:02George says he wanted to become a pastor himself,

0:04:02 > 0:04:06though in the stricter Calvinist Church of working people.

0:04:08 > 0:04:12Then suddenly, everything in his solemn young life turns upside down.

0:04:16 > 0:04:19A worldwide slump hits the family business.

0:04:19 > 0:04:22Albert falls ill and dies.

0:04:22 > 0:04:25His mother, in their house by the canal,

0:04:25 > 0:04:27is struggling to pay the bills...

0:04:30 > 0:04:34..when out of the blue, a fairy godmother enters the story.

0:04:36 > 0:04:39His father, it turned out, had a sister called Zephira -

0:04:39 > 0:04:42and Zephira lived in Egypt, in a palace.

0:04:46 > 0:04:51And so, it was to here that George was sent to complete his education.

0:04:51 > 0:04:55It was a magnificent life, because they were very rich,

0:04:55 > 0:04:57there were a lot of servants -

0:04:57 > 0:05:00servants come from Nubia -

0:05:00 > 0:05:03the south of Egypt.

0:05:03 > 0:05:05And it was very beautiful,

0:05:05 > 0:05:08the house, with a very big garden.

0:05:08 > 0:05:10It was on Zamalek -

0:05:10 > 0:05:13it was the high land of Cairo,

0:05:13 > 0:05:16where the rich people lived at that time.

0:05:18 > 0:05:21Cousin Sylvie knows all the family stories.

0:05:22 > 0:05:26The head of the family was a banker called Daniel Curiel

0:05:26 > 0:05:29and George, it emerged, was half Jewish -

0:05:29 > 0:05:32grandson of a carpet dealer in Istanbul.

0:05:33 > 0:05:36George was astonished at the beginning,

0:05:36 > 0:05:39because also he was very puritan,

0:05:39 > 0:05:42so he was not used to such a noisy life!

0:05:44 > 0:05:47George must have wondered who he was, where he came from,

0:05:47 > 0:05:49what he believed in.

0:05:49 > 0:05:51Was he now a Calvinist, a Lutheran?

0:05:51 > 0:05:53Or was he Jewish?

0:05:53 > 0:05:56Was he Dutch? Was he Egyptian?

0:05:56 > 0:05:57Or what?

0:05:58 > 0:06:01His new family made sure he learnt French and English

0:06:01 > 0:06:04and turned him into a citizen of the world.

0:06:04 > 0:06:06But they did much more than that.

0:06:06 > 0:06:09This is the authorised history of MI5.

0:06:10 > 0:06:15"There was much that SIS had failed to discover...

0:06:15 > 0:06:17"about their new recruit" - that's Blake -

0:06:17 > 0:06:22"notably the influence on him of his older cousin, Henri Curiel,

0:06:22 > 0:06:24"co-founder of the Egyptian Communist Party."

0:06:35 > 0:06:38Here is the grave of Henri Curiel.

0:06:40 > 0:06:421978... "Assassine"?

0:06:42 > 0:06:43Yes.

0:06:48 > 0:06:51Henri Curiel was murdered here, at his house in Paris.

0:06:53 > 0:06:54No-one was ever caught.

0:06:57 > 0:07:01"Fallen in the struggle for socialism and peace,

0:07:01 > 0:07:03"to which he dedicated his life."

0:07:06 > 0:07:09When they first met, Henri had been a playboy

0:07:09 > 0:07:11and George a bit of a prude -

0:07:11 > 0:07:13but the next two years changed both of them.

0:07:17 > 0:07:20SHE SPEAKS FRENCH

0:07:50 > 0:07:52Back in Holland,

0:07:52 > 0:07:55George's family had moved to a seaside town near The Hague.

0:07:56 > 0:07:59As the summer ended, Germany invaded Poland.

0:07:59 > 0:08:01So instead of Cairo,

0:08:01 > 0:08:04he returned to school in Rotterdam -

0:08:04 > 0:08:06and to yet another shock.

0:08:06 > 0:08:10They came over our house in Utrecht, flying at low altitude.

0:08:10 > 0:08:13You could see these pilots in the cockpit looking down at us

0:08:13 > 0:08:15and we looked back at them.

0:08:15 > 0:08:18Louis Wesseling, later a close friend of Blake's,

0:08:18 > 0:08:20was also a schoolboy then.

0:08:20 > 0:08:22My mother said,

0:08:22 > 0:08:26"This is a flagrant insult to our impartiality in wars", you know?

0:08:26 > 0:08:28And I said, "Mother, you're wrong.

0:08:28 > 0:08:30"It is war.

0:08:30 > 0:08:32"It's totally different.

0:08:32 > 0:08:34"Your world has changed - and mine too."

0:08:36 > 0:08:39George was in Rotterdam with his grandmother,

0:08:39 > 0:08:41trapped in the eye of the storm,

0:08:41 > 0:08:44like the nearby family of Robert van Voren.

0:08:44 > 0:08:48What I have here is a film made by my grandfather,

0:08:48 > 0:08:50who was an amateur filmer.

0:08:50 > 0:08:52This is Rotterdam, from his balcony.

0:08:58 > 0:09:00So these are the German bombers, the Junkers.

0:09:00 > 0:09:03Here, you see images of the bombing itself.

0:09:03 > 0:09:04This is the harbour.

0:09:06 > 0:09:10We saw... the ashes of Rotterdam landed in Utrecht.

0:09:10 > 0:09:13The sky was red and we knew it was terrible.

0:09:19 > 0:09:21From her home by the sea,

0:09:21 > 0:09:24George's mother tried desperately to contact her son.

0:09:24 > 0:09:27But when the Dutch royal family headed for England,

0:09:27 > 0:09:29she faced a stark choice.

0:09:29 > 0:09:33The last ship was leaving and she had two daughters to protect.

0:09:36 > 0:09:38When George finally reached home,

0:09:38 > 0:09:42all he found were the remains of breakfast on the kitchen table.

0:09:42 > 0:09:43He was not yet 18.

0:09:45 > 0:09:47We shall fight on the beaches,

0:09:47 > 0:09:50we shall fight on the landing grounds,

0:09:50 > 0:09:53we shall fight in the fields and in the streets.

0:09:53 > 0:09:55We shall fight in the hills...

0:09:58 > 0:10:01Stirred by British defiance,

0:10:01 > 0:10:03George Behar wanted to join the fight.

0:10:04 > 0:10:07After some scrapes with the German occupation forces,

0:10:07 > 0:10:10he made contact with the embryonic Dutch resistance.

0:10:11 > 0:10:13Terrified he was not.

0:10:13 > 0:10:16He loved the atmosphere of illegality.

0:10:16 > 0:10:19He liked the romance of it.

0:10:19 > 0:10:21He liked living life on the edge.

0:10:21 > 0:10:23He liked being in danger.

0:10:23 > 0:10:26But there was little - beyond running messages -

0:10:26 > 0:10:29he could do in Holland to hasten victory.

0:10:29 > 0:10:31So in July 1942,

0:10:31 > 0:10:34he set off on a hair-raising journey through occupied France

0:10:34 > 0:10:36and into Spain.

0:10:36 > 0:10:39What I now understand is that we are war children.

0:10:39 > 0:10:41You have peace children, you have war children.

0:10:41 > 0:10:44Our lives are drenched in war.

0:10:44 > 0:10:48Having been part of the resistance, having seen the bloodshed,

0:10:48 > 0:10:49I think there is a...

0:10:49 > 0:10:52Especially when you still have this young age,

0:10:52 > 0:10:55this kind of determination to never let this happen again.

0:10:57 > 0:11:00By January 1943, he was heading for England...

0:11:01 > 0:11:05..where a new name, a new job

0:11:05 > 0:11:08and a chance to change the world awaited him.

0:11:12 > 0:11:15"If any person having any possession of document

0:11:15 > 0:11:18"communicates to foreign power...

0:11:18 > 0:11:20"shall be guilty of misdemeanour."

0:11:20 > 0:11:22This is the document that Blake signed

0:11:22 > 0:11:25when he was first recruited by MI6 -

0:11:25 > 0:11:27as the Secret Intelligence Service was known.

0:11:27 > 0:11:31His resourcefulness in reaching England had impressed them

0:11:31 > 0:11:33and he was sent to work in Broadway Buildings,

0:11:33 > 0:11:38one of the many MI6 offices dotted around London's political zone.

0:11:38 > 0:11:40He was joining an elite,

0:11:40 > 0:11:42where the usual entry ticket was the right school

0:11:42 > 0:11:44or the right family.

0:11:45 > 0:11:49I think my father knew somebody called Guy Westmacott,

0:11:49 > 0:11:52who was in MI6 - and they were looking for...

0:11:53 > 0:11:56..for girls to come and do the typing.

0:12:00 > 0:12:02We always had to say we worked in the Foreign Office...

0:12:04 > 0:12:05..and...

0:12:05 > 0:12:08we weren't actually even in the building.

0:12:08 > 0:12:10Susan Asquith, as she then was,

0:12:10 > 0:12:13had just arrived there from a stint

0:12:13 > 0:12:16typing for the codebreakers at Bletchley.

0:12:16 > 0:12:20In keeping with the times, the best jobs went to the boys.

0:12:20 > 0:12:22My cousin, she was always saying,

0:12:22 > 0:12:24all the ones she knew were frightfully stupid.

0:12:24 > 0:12:27The head of the whole thing came down to Bletchley.

0:12:27 > 0:12:30She said, my God - it's not him.

0:12:30 > 0:12:33And he was somebody she used to go hunting with.

0:12:33 > 0:12:37She said, "Well, that really does condemn you, doesn't it?"

0:12:37 > 0:12:41One of her tasks was to sort incoming messages -

0:12:41 > 0:12:43and that's where she met George Blake,

0:12:43 > 0:12:47on secondment from his official job in the Royal Navy.

0:12:47 > 0:12:51George used to come in practically every day and just...

0:12:51 > 0:12:54I mean, not that I knew him well or anything, but he used to

0:12:54 > 0:12:58come and have a cup of tea and wait for his telegram and all that.

0:12:58 > 0:13:00He was much more amusing to talk to

0:13:00 > 0:13:04than most of the people who wandered in to pass the time of day.

0:13:04 > 0:13:08He loved talking about religion and...

0:13:08 > 0:13:11How he couldn't...

0:13:11 > 0:13:14He was going to be a priest, but he couldn't really, now.

0:13:14 > 0:13:16I don't know why.

0:13:16 > 0:13:17Something to do with...

0:13:17 > 0:13:20He was quite religious, was he?

0:13:20 > 0:13:22Yes, very.

0:13:22 > 0:13:24But he had a Walter Mitty streak too,

0:13:24 > 0:13:26regaling his new friends with stories

0:13:26 > 0:13:30about being dropped by parachute into Holland.

0:13:30 > 0:13:34George himself was dropped in, as you know.

0:13:34 > 0:13:36On... I forget on how many occasions.

0:13:36 > 0:13:38And it always had to be at night.

0:13:38 > 0:13:41Was she absolutely certain about this, I asked?

0:13:41 > 0:13:45About being dropped in? Yes, he said he was terrified.

0:13:45 > 0:13:48Because you never knew when the land was going to come up to meet you.

0:13:50 > 0:13:52Because, you know? Dark and all that.

0:13:52 > 0:13:53He said he was dropped in...

0:13:53 > 0:13:56I forget how many times - several times.

0:13:56 > 0:13:58Really?

0:13:58 > 0:14:01He easily exaggerated, you know?

0:14:01 > 0:14:02And how.

0:14:02 > 0:14:06These airborne liberators of the southern provinces of the Netherlands

0:14:06 > 0:14:07were greeted and assisted

0:14:07 > 0:14:10by enthusiastic Dutch underground forces.

0:14:10 > 0:14:12He'd never, in fact, been dropped into Holland -

0:14:12 > 0:14:15though when the war ended, he did go back there,

0:14:15 > 0:14:18accompanied - among others - by Iris Peake.

0:14:18 > 0:14:22I'd been moved to the Dutch section a few months before

0:14:22 > 0:14:24and then, I can't remember how it happened,

0:14:24 > 0:14:27but we were asked if we would go out to...

0:14:29 > 0:14:33..The Hague and work there for a few weeks.

0:14:37 > 0:14:40Iris was from a grand English family -

0:14:40 > 0:14:43light years away from a Dutch refugee.

0:14:43 > 0:14:46He was always great fun.

0:14:46 > 0:14:47Everybody liked him.

0:14:47 > 0:14:52They took over a house in a place called Wassenaar

0:14:52 > 0:14:55which is quite near The Hague, right on the coast there.

0:14:56 > 0:15:00And there were quite a lot of men working there.

0:15:00 > 0:15:04And then there was another place, where we had our bedrooms.

0:15:04 > 0:15:07The girls slept over in this other bit of the house.

0:15:10 > 0:15:13It must have been disconcerting for Blake -

0:15:13 > 0:15:15feted as a liberator,

0:15:15 > 0:15:20whilst the countrymen of his childhood were close to starvation.

0:15:20 > 0:15:24It was like arriving in a completely sort of dead place,

0:15:24 > 0:15:27rather like going to the moon, or something.

0:15:27 > 0:15:29When we first arrived, there was no food there.

0:15:29 > 0:15:32They were eating the tulip bulbs for food.

0:15:33 > 0:15:35We were like skeletons

0:15:35 > 0:15:39and the boys - they were nothing like the boys

0:15:39 > 0:15:44that liberated us, who were well fed, self-assured.

0:15:44 > 0:15:47We were shadows of our own selves.

0:15:47 > 0:15:51And the girls at the time were a big problem for us,

0:15:51 > 0:15:55because they felt attracted to these healthy soldiers that came.

0:15:57 > 0:16:00At a political level too, there were tensions.

0:16:00 > 0:16:03The euphoria of victory soon gave way to rivalry

0:16:03 > 0:16:06between the West and the Soviet Union.

0:16:06 > 0:16:08There were millions of displaced persons,

0:16:08 > 0:16:10wandering all over Europe -

0:16:10 > 0:16:13many of whom were swearing loyalty and fealty to the West,

0:16:13 > 0:16:16because they didn't want to be sent back East,

0:16:16 > 0:16:19where they would face prison or worse.

0:16:19 > 0:16:23Tim Weiner sifted through thousands of CIA documents

0:16:23 > 0:16:26to compile a history of the period.

0:16:26 > 0:16:28Who loves whom? Who hates whom?

0:16:28 > 0:16:30Who's who?

0:16:30 > 0:16:32We don't know -

0:16:32 > 0:16:34and in these two years,

0:16:34 > 0:16:37between the death of Adolf Hitler

0:16:37 > 0:16:40and the advent of the Cold War,

0:16:40 > 0:16:43there is a state of chaos.

0:16:43 > 0:16:45Blake, somewhat displaced himself,

0:16:45 > 0:16:47thrived in his new job.

0:16:48 > 0:16:52I felt he was ambitious, that he wanted to be somebody -

0:16:52 > 0:16:55as if he wanted to be famous.

0:16:55 > 0:16:58But in what direction, I don't know.

0:16:58 > 0:17:02Some thought that one direction he'd have liked was closer to Iris.

0:17:05 > 0:17:08The euphoria of victory was one thing,

0:17:08 > 0:17:10social realities another.

0:17:11 > 0:17:15Did you stay in touch, when you came back to England?

0:17:15 > 0:17:18Well, yes. I mean, we were both still at MI6, then.

0:17:18 > 0:17:22So we sort of... We had lunch from time to time and then he was...

0:17:24 > 0:17:27I think he was sent to Cambridge, to learn Russian.

0:17:28 > 0:17:31So I really lost touch with him, then, yes.

0:17:32 > 0:17:35Cambridge had been the breeding ground of

0:17:35 > 0:17:37an earlier generation of gentleman traitors...

0:17:39 > 0:17:42..but being sent there by MI6 to learn Russian

0:17:42 > 0:17:44was a mark of the confidence they now had in Blake.

0:17:46 > 0:17:48He was put on their permanent staff -

0:17:48 > 0:17:52in effect, translated from useful outsider to "one of us".

0:17:54 > 0:17:57But Blake, in a seminal interview

0:17:57 > 0:18:01given when he first broke his silence more than 20 years ago,

0:18:01 > 0:18:03says it was precisely the moment

0:18:03 > 0:18:05when he began to drift the other way.

0:18:05 > 0:18:11I think it was one of the decisive moments in my conversion,

0:18:11 > 0:18:14although I didn't realise that myself then.

0:18:14 > 0:18:19And the Professor of Russian was Dr Elizabeth Hill

0:18:19 > 0:18:23and somehow, she managed, in her tutorials

0:18:23 > 0:18:26to inspire into her pupils

0:18:26 > 0:18:27and certainly in me

0:18:27 > 0:18:30a very great admiration -

0:18:30 > 0:18:32I would say romantic admiration -

0:18:32 > 0:18:34for everything Russian.

0:18:36 > 0:18:39But even his favourite tutor thought he was a man apart.

0:18:40 > 0:18:42Accommodation for the officers on the course

0:18:42 > 0:18:45had been arranged in this college,

0:18:45 > 0:18:48but Blake chose instead to live in a village outside the city.

0:18:51 > 0:18:53I'd say, "Why do you live in Madingly,

0:18:53 > 0:18:55"instead of with the other officers?"

0:18:55 > 0:18:58Which was very odd, to me.

0:18:58 > 0:19:00And he would say, "Oh, I like the exercise"

0:19:00 > 0:19:01which is a very poor answer.

0:19:01 > 0:19:06So I don't know whether he was not already left-wing,

0:19:06 > 0:19:08or even worse.

0:19:14 > 0:19:17Alan Judd is a historian of MI6

0:19:17 > 0:19:18and now writes about spies

0:19:18 > 0:19:21in fiction that has a ring of fact about it.

0:19:21 > 0:19:25He thinks Blake would have known he could never belong.

0:19:25 > 0:19:28Philby was much better at playing the game of being part of them,

0:19:28 > 0:19:31because Philby was, of course.

0:19:31 > 0:19:34He was the beloved child of the establishment.

0:19:35 > 0:19:37But Blake probably never had the social confidence,

0:19:37 > 0:19:41I would guess, that would have made him feel part of them,

0:19:41 > 0:19:44or not mind whether he was or not.

0:19:44 > 0:19:46He'd never lived here, he'd never been brought up,

0:19:46 > 0:19:49he hadn't been schooled here.

0:19:49 > 0:19:53You know, he didn't have that emotional thing to overcome...

0:19:53 > 0:19:56once he started to reject his country.

0:20:01 > 0:20:05Deep down, the man who'd once wanted to be a minister of the church

0:20:05 > 0:20:07was now questioning everything.

0:20:07 > 0:20:10Not just where he belonged, but what he believed in.

0:20:10 > 0:20:14In his autobiography, he offers with hindsight

0:20:14 > 0:20:17a theological defence for what he was about to do.

0:20:17 > 0:20:21He says he now came to believe that free will was an illusion.

0:20:21 > 0:20:24"No room for free will on the part of a human being."

0:20:26 > 0:20:28Everything is preordained

0:20:28 > 0:20:31and that sins themselves a part of God's will.

0:20:31 > 0:20:34"You cannot punish me for my sins

0:20:34 > 0:20:37"because my sins were put inside me and are not my fault."

0:20:39 > 0:20:43In other words, as he approaches the biggest choice of his life,

0:20:43 > 0:20:45there is no choice.

0:20:52 > 0:20:55It takes about two hours to get from Seoul

0:20:55 > 0:20:57to the frontier with North Korea.

0:20:57 > 0:20:59That's on a normal day.

0:21:01 > 0:21:04But there had been an exchange of gunfire across the line

0:21:04 > 0:21:06the day before we'd turned up -

0:21:06 > 0:21:09so everyone was a bit jumpy.

0:21:09 > 0:21:13OK, they've told us that the DMZ is closed to tours,

0:21:13 > 0:21:14so we're going down this road,

0:21:14 > 0:21:17to see if we can get closer to it ourselves.

0:21:20 > 0:21:24Not quite sure where we're going, but let's see where it goes.

0:21:26 > 0:21:29THEY SPEAK KOREAN

0:21:45 > 0:21:49When George Blake arrived here in the autumn of 1948,

0:21:49 > 0:21:51it was still technically one country,

0:21:51 > 0:21:56though trouble between the two halves was obviously brewing.

0:21:56 > 0:21:59The Communists were concentrated in the North -

0:21:59 > 0:22:01American-leaning nationalists in the South.

0:22:04 > 0:22:05There's a watchtower.

0:22:09 > 0:22:11There's the DMZ -

0:22:11 > 0:22:12the demilitarised zone.

0:22:16 > 0:22:19Blake had a daunting task.

0:22:19 > 0:22:22Those mountains over there are North Korea,

0:22:22 > 0:22:25which was then a Russian sphere of influence.

0:22:25 > 0:22:29His job was to target the Soviet city of Vladivostok,

0:22:29 > 0:22:31about 500 miles beyond them.

0:22:31 > 0:22:34He felt disillusioned, really quite quickly.

0:22:34 > 0:22:38He felt that the scale of the task that he was being asked to tackle

0:22:38 > 0:22:40was really beyond him.

0:22:41 > 0:22:45Vladivostok, that he was supposed to be penetrating...

0:22:45 > 0:22:48As far as the crow flies, may have not been that far,

0:22:48 > 0:22:50but it was as if it was in another world.

0:22:56 > 0:23:00The city was the focal point of Soviet strategy in the Far East.

0:23:02 > 0:23:06Where is China? Where is Korea? Where is Russia?

0:23:06 > 0:23:08HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

0:23:21 > 0:23:25Alexei Buyakov has worked closely with Russian intelligence for years.

0:23:44 > 0:23:47It's the kind of assignment -

0:23:47 > 0:23:49difficult, dangerous,

0:23:49 > 0:23:51well-nigh impossible...

0:23:52 > 0:23:56..that was given to intelligence officers

0:23:56 > 0:23:59in the early days of the Cold War.

0:23:59 > 0:24:03"Proceed forward to Vladivostok and recruit Russian-born agents,

0:24:03 > 0:24:06"who will serve the West."

0:24:06 > 0:24:08Now, how the hell are you going to do that?

0:24:09 > 0:24:12Blake's base for Mission Impossible

0:24:12 > 0:24:15was here at the British Legation in Seoul.

0:24:15 > 0:24:20He was a month short of his 26th birthday and starting from scratch

0:24:20 > 0:24:23in a city where British influence was negligible

0:24:23 > 0:24:24and living conditions appalling.

0:24:26 > 0:24:27There was nothing to eat.

0:24:27 > 0:24:32There was very little in the way of basic human services,

0:24:32 > 0:24:34like potable water.

0:24:34 > 0:24:38The first thing that most American soldiers remember

0:24:38 > 0:24:40is the stink of it -

0:24:40 > 0:24:42not the stink of the dead,

0:24:42 > 0:24:44but the stink of life.

0:24:48 > 0:24:51The stink of corruption, too.

0:24:51 > 0:24:55The American-backed regime of Syngman Rhee appalled Blake.

0:24:55 > 0:24:58And with every month that passed, he says,

0:24:58 > 0:25:00he became more disenchanted with his own side,

0:25:00 > 0:25:02more sympathetic to the Communists.

0:25:02 > 0:25:05I didn't feel anti-Communist by then -

0:25:05 > 0:25:08certainly on a local level.

0:25:08 > 0:25:12I remember the Minister of Education

0:25:12 > 0:25:14having a big photograph of Hitler in his room.

0:25:14 > 0:25:18And my sympathy already, by then,

0:25:18 > 0:25:21was very much with the resistance, or the opposition.

0:25:24 > 0:25:26ORGAN MUSIC

0:25:26 > 0:25:29On Sunday morning, June 25, 1950,

0:25:29 > 0:25:34George Blake was at a service in the crypt of the Anglican Cathedral.

0:25:34 > 0:25:35The whisper went round

0:25:35 > 0:25:38that the Communists were advancing on Seoul from the North.

0:25:41 > 0:25:43As soon as the service was over,

0:25:43 > 0:25:47Blake and the other diplomats hurried back to the legation.

0:25:47 > 0:25:50Their standing instructions from London were that

0:25:50 > 0:25:53Britain would remain neutral if civil war did break out,

0:25:53 > 0:25:55so they should stay put.

0:26:00 > 0:26:02It was a bad call.

0:26:06 > 0:26:08Britain did not remain neutral

0:26:08 > 0:26:11and by nightfall on Wednesday,

0:26:11 > 0:26:13the North Koreans had entered the compound

0:26:13 > 0:26:16and Blake and his colleagues were prisoners.

0:26:22 > 0:26:25In the quiet town of Perry, Northern Florida

0:26:25 > 0:26:29lives one of the few men still alive who was a prisoner with Blake.

0:26:30 > 0:26:34Ed Sheffield, whose company of 700 men

0:26:34 > 0:26:36had been overwhelmed in the opening onslaught.

0:26:36 > 0:26:38One guy ran up there,

0:26:38 > 0:26:42kicked my rifle away from me,

0:26:42 > 0:26:45kicked my helmet off my head

0:26:45 > 0:26:48and motioned for me to get up.

0:26:49 > 0:26:51And when I stood up,

0:26:51 > 0:26:54he began to frighten me with a rifle butt, you know?

0:27:01 > 0:27:03Here I am, right here.

0:27:04 > 0:27:06Right there.

0:27:06 > 0:27:09The North Koreans were mean people.

0:27:09 > 0:27:11They didn't treat you good at all.

0:27:13 > 0:27:16But nor, in the heat of war, did the Americans.

0:27:17 > 0:27:21A massive counterattack began, driving the Communists back north.

0:27:21 > 0:27:23The countryside was devastated

0:27:23 > 0:27:26and so were the people beneath the bombardment,

0:27:26 > 0:27:29including Blake and his fellow prisoners.

0:27:30 > 0:27:34They kept moving us further and further north in their territory.

0:27:34 > 0:27:38Sometimes by train, but the train was getting strafed too.

0:27:39 > 0:27:43We were in box cars, cattle cars.

0:27:43 > 0:27:46The planes would come in and bomb us and strafe us.

0:27:47 > 0:27:50I guess it was American planes.

0:27:50 > 0:27:53- Quite frightening, to be bombed by your own side.- Yeah.

0:27:56 > 0:28:00Blake and his friend Jean Meadmore felt in real danger.

0:28:00 > 0:28:04He told me, "I don't want to die in North Korea."

0:28:04 > 0:28:06He said that - George Blake said,

0:28:06 > 0:28:09"Je ne veux pas mourir en Coree du Nord."

0:28:09 > 0:28:12So despite his anti-Americanism,

0:28:12 > 0:28:15it was to the Americans that he now decided to flee.

0:28:15 > 0:28:17He told me, "I'm going to try to escape tonight.

0:28:17 > 0:28:18"Do you come with me?"

0:28:18 > 0:28:20I said "No.

0:28:20 > 0:28:22"I haven't got the guts to do it,

0:28:22 > 0:28:26"because I think it's absolutely doomed to failure.

0:28:26 > 0:28:27"We haven't got a chance."

0:28:28 > 0:28:31Nobody escaped from a Korean camp, nobody.

0:28:31 > 0:28:34The guards had told us that if we tried to escape,

0:28:34 > 0:28:36they'd catch us and they'd shoot us.

0:28:38 > 0:28:39But Blake did try,

0:28:39 > 0:28:42setting off under cover of darkness

0:28:42 > 0:28:44to reach the advancing American troops.

0:28:44 > 0:28:47It was a long way uphill.

0:28:47 > 0:28:49Obviously fitter than me - two hours...

0:28:50 > 0:28:52..up to the top of a ridge...

0:28:53 > 0:28:57..and one more row on the other side, before suddenly,

0:28:57 > 0:28:59out of the darkness...

0:29:00 > 0:29:02It was a Korean soldier.

0:29:04 > 0:29:09Blake says he first tried to convince his captors he was Russian,

0:29:09 > 0:29:12but eventually admitted he was a British diplomat.

0:29:14 > 0:29:17He was then taken to a cave,

0:29:17 > 0:29:19where a small fire was burning.

0:29:19 > 0:29:23He realises he's in big trouble and he gets put down in a corner,

0:29:23 > 0:29:25given something to eat briefly

0:29:25 > 0:29:28and told that he'd decide his future in the morning.

0:29:28 > 0:29:30That could well have been the moment at which he said,

0:29:30 > 0:29:33"Look, I'll cooperate, I'll tell you.

0:29:33 > 0:29:35"I'm actually a member of MI6."

0:29:36 > 0:29:39Blake has always vehemently denied that.

0:29:39 > 0:29:43I didn't speak any Korean and in the time that I was away -

0:29:43 > 0:29:47which included my walking to that place across the mountains -

0:29:47 > 0:29:49and the time I was in the cave

0:29:49 > 0:29:52and the time to walk back to the camp...

0:29:52 > 0:29:56I couldn't possibly have made such a deal with anybody.

0:29:56 > 0:29:59Maybe, but it's odd claiming he spoke no Korean,

0:29:59 > 0:30:01given that he'd been there for two years

0:30:01 > 0:30:05and was clearly having some sort of dialogue with his captors.

0:30:05 > 0:30:10Whatever. When dawn broke, he was let off with a reprimand

0:30:10 > 0:30:13and made to rejoin his fellow prisoners.

0:30:13 > 0:30:17We were taken on what was known as a death march

0:30:17 > 0:30:19and for the next three months,

0:30:19 > 0:30:22we were in extremely harsh conditions.

0:30:22 > 0:30:24I was, on one occasion,

0:30:24 > 0:30:27beaten up and made to sit in the snow

0:30:27 > 0:30:30for about four hours.

0:30:30 > 0:30:33If I had been recruited by the Russians,

0:30:33 > 0:30:38they would never have allowed me to be exposed to such danger -

0:30:38 > 0:30:42and to the danger of losing a potentially very valuable agent.

0:30:43 > 0:30:47What the Americans on that death march remember

0:30:47 > 0:30:49is that the man who let Blake off

0:30:49 > 0:30:51was not known for his mercy.

0:30:51 > 0:30:53They called him "The Tiger".

0:30:53 > 0:30:56My company commander got up and approached him,

0:30:56 > 0:30:59told him that none of these men were able to go on a forced march

0:30:59 > 0:31:01up through these rugged mountains.

0:31:01 > 0:31:05The Tiger's reply was, "You will go or you will die."

0:31:07 > 0:31:10So my commander called him a madman...

0:31:12 > 0:31:16..and that was a mistake, because he called over two of his guards

0:31:16 > 0:31:19and they took him, tied his hands behind him...

0:31:21 > 0:31:24..took him up there, about 50 yards away

0:31:24 > 0:31:29in a little rock cliff there, about 12 foot high...

0:31:29 > 0:31:31Positioned him there on the edge of it...

0:31:32 > 0:31:36..and he walked up there behind and shot him in the back of the head.

0:31:37 > 0:31:41Sorry to tell you, but there it is forbidden to take film.

0:31:41 > 0:31:43There is a sign up there.

0:31:46 > 0:31:48It's interesting to speculate what his career would have been,

0:31:48 > 0:31:51had that escape attempt succeeded.

0:31:51 > 0:31:54He'd have been worshipped in SIS

0:31:54 > 0:31:56and maybe gone on to be

0:31:56 > 0:31:59a very successful and loyal senior member of it -

0:31:59 > 0:32:00who knows?

0:32:01 > 0:32:03From high over Vladivostok,

0:32:03 > 0:32:06you can look down on the building that used to be

0:32:06 > 0:32:08KGB headquarters for this region.

0:32:11 > 0:32:13The way they tell it here,

0:32:13 > 0:32:16it was one of their men who should take the credit

0:32:16 > 0:32:20for seeing that Blake was worshipped instead by the KGB.

0:32:23 > 0:32:27Nikolai Loenko was certainly in Korea at that time,

0:32:27 > 0:32:28looking for likely agents -

0:32:28 > 0:32:31but he gets no mention in Blake's book.

0:32:31 > 0:32:33HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

0:32:42 > 0:32:45Buyakov thinks one explanation

0:32:45 > 0:32:47is that Blake didn't discover Loenko's name

0:32:47 > 0:32:49until very much later.

0:33:02 > 0:33:04There is one curious postscript,

0:33:04 > 0:33:07which lends some weight to Buyakov's story.

0:33:07 > 0:33:09Nearly 50 years later,

0:33:09 > 0:33:12the governor of the Pacific region, Evgeny Nasratenko

0:33:12 > 0:33:14got a phone call from Moscow.

0:33:14 > 0:33:16HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

0:33:25 > 0:33:27This was his official destination -

0:33:27 > 0:33:30by then, FSB headquarters in the Far East.

0:33:31 > 0:33:34Blake gave a talk in that low building there

0:33:34 > 0:33:39and when it was over, asked to be taken to Loenko's grave.

0:33:55 > 0:33:57I viewed Communism

0:33:57 > 0:34:03as an attempt to create the kingdom of God in this world.

0:34:03 > 0:34:05The Communists were trying to do by action

0:34:05 > 0:34:10what the church had tried to achieve by prayer and precept.

0:34:12 > 0:34:14I came to the conclusion

0:34:14 > 0:34:18that I was no longer fighting on the right side.

0:34:20 > 0:34:22Was he looking for a cause?

0:34:22 > 0:34:25Was he looking for an identity that as it were,

0:34:25 > 0:34:27took the place of a stable background...

0:34:27 > 0:34:30Where I am, where I come from and what I'm for?

0:34:31 > 0:34:35And that in Communism, he persuaded himself that he'd found it.

0:34:46 > 0:34:49On 22 April 1953,

0:34:49 > 0:34:53a man from MI6 hurried towards an airfield near Oxford.

0:34:54 > 0:34:57An RAF Hastings aircraft lands at Abingdon,

0:34:57 > 0:34:58bringing home several civilians

0:34:58 > 0:35:00released at last from captivity in North Korea.

0:35:00 > 0:35:05Blake and his fellow survivors arrived back in England as heroes.

0:35:05 > 0:35:09No-one imagined that the trim young man in a blazer,

0:35:09 > 0:35:10who gave a cheery wave

0:35:10 > 0:35:13and marched briskly across the tarmac to greet his mother

0:35:13 > 0:35:15was now the enemy.

0:35:15 > 0:35:17How did you find the food out there, Mr Blake?

0:35:17 > 0:35:20Well, the food was adequate, but very monotonous.

0:35:20 > 0:35:23- It was monotonous?- Very monotonous. - Anything special?

0:35:23 > 0:35:25I mean, any odd things they gave you to eat, or anything?

0:35:25 > 0:35:28No, just rice and turnips, mainly.

0:35:28 > 0:35:31When he manages to extract himself from the TV cameraman,

0:35:31 > 0:35:33the reporters and his friends,

0:35:33 > 0:35:35a man quietly says in his ear,

0:35:35 > 0:35:39"Here's some money to tide you over for a few days,

0:35:39 > 0:35:42"but we'd also like you to come in for an interview,

0:35:42 > 0:35:44"back at SIS headquarters."

0:35:44 > 0:35:47Blake duly turns up here on Monday morning.

0:35:47 > 0:35:50I dare say they've left the place now,

0:35:50 > 0:35:54but it still retains a lot of the grandeur

0:35:54 > 0:35:57that Blake found when he first came here.

0:35:57 > 0:36:00He's all psyched up for a detailed grilling,

0:36:00 > 0:36:03but all he gets are some gentle questions,

0:36:03 > 0:36:05spread over a couple of days.

0:36:06 > 0:36:09And it's interesting to reflect

0:36:09 > 0:36:13on the views of the Vice Chief of SIS at the time -

0:36:13 > 0:36:16a chap called Sir James Jack Easton.

0:36:16 > 0:36:19And he said, "I don't think at the time

0:36:19 > 0:36:22"that anyone really thought that there would have been efforts

0:36:22 > 0:36:24"to turn people in the camps.

0:36:24 > 0:36:27"If it'd been an Iron Curtain country,

0:36:27 > 0:36:30"it would have been different, but we used to regard North Korea

0:36:30 > 0:36:34"as a bit primitive and unsophisticated, if you like."

0:36:34 > 0:36:36CHEERING

0:36:36 > 0:36:40Two months later, when the young Queen Elizabeth is crowned,

0:36:40 > 0:36:42the Soviet Union's new secret agent

0:36:42 > 0:36:44is standing here, overlooking The Mall...

0:36:46 > 0:36:50..rubbing shoulders with the people who ran Britain's Secret Service.

0:36:50 > 0:36:53George seemed a very OK guy

0:36:53 > 0:36:56and he was after all, a bit of a hero.

0:36:56 > 0:36:59Peter Montagnon was a signals expert,

0:36:59 > 0:37:01who'd been drafted into MI6

0:37:01 > 0:37:04to help with a top-secret phone tapping operation

0:37:04 > 0:37:05going on in Vienna.

0:37:09 > 0:37:13George came into the operation really quite late.

0:37:13 > 0:37:16We were told to give him an easy ride,

0:37:16 > 0:37:19because he'd had a very rough one in prison.

0:37:19 > 0:37:23Not at all good at the work,

0:37:23 > 0:37:27because he had a habit of...

0:37:27 > 0:37:30curling up and going to sleep behind the safe.

0:37:30 > 0:37:33And we put it down to the fact that

0:37:33 > 0:37:37he was still recovering from being in a camp.

0:37:37 > 0:37:41But not so dozy when it came to stealing secrets for the KGB.

0:37:42 > 0:37:45It was the investigative writer Tom Bower

0:37:45 > 0:37:47who first grilled him publicly on this.

0:37:47 > 0:37:50Whenever it took your fancy, you just photographed documents?

0:37:50 > 0:37:51Well, not when it took my fancy,

0:37:51 > 0:37:55but when I realised it was the right opportunity.

0:37:55 > 0:38:00When it did, I would wait, maybe till lunchtime.

0:38:00 > 0:38:04I had a room to myself, so when the secretaries were away,

0:38:04 > 0:38:05I photographed the documents.

0:38:08 > 0:38:11Then he would get the Tube to a prearranged rendezvous

0:38:11 > 0:38:14with his Soviet contact and hand the secrets over.

0:38:15 > 0:38:18- Any nerves?- In the beginning, but not afterwards.

0:38:18 > 0:38:21How did you divide your day, between working for SIS

0:38:21 > 0:38:23and working for the KGB?

0:38:23 > 0:38:25I just worked for SIS

0:38:25 > 0:38:30and whenever I saw something

0:38:30 > 0:38:32which I thought might interest the KGB,

0:38:32 > 0:38:36I simply, quickly photographed it.

0:38:36 > 0:38:39- But it was a betrayal, it was traitorous.- It was, yes.

0:38:39 > 0:38:42- Did that ever cross your mind? - Oh, yes. Of course it did.

0:38:44 > 0:38:46If he didn't have any documents to steal,

0:38:46 > 0:38:49he'd have lunch with Montagnon.

0:38:49 > 0:38:53George was an engaging creature, who I liked a lot.

0:38:53 > 0:38:55He was very affable...

0:38:55 > 0:38:58and easy-going...

0:38:58 > 0:39:00jolly...

0:39:00 > 0:39:02What sort of things did you chat about?

0:39:02 > 0:39:07His previous existence, as a Dutch resistance hero...

0:39:09 > 0:39:11..because that was quite interesting.

0:39:15 > 0:39:18George was a bon viveur.

0:39:18 > 0:39:21He liked to eat well.

0:39:21 > 0:39:25We used to go down to these wonderful Soho restaurants

0:39:25 > 0:39:28and wend our way back

0:39:28 > 0:39:31and carry on with the MI6 stuff.

0:39:37 > 0:39:39The principal focus of attention

0:39:39 > 0:39:42for MI6 and their counterparts in the CIA

0:39:42 > 0:39:44was here, in Berlin.

0:39:44 > 0:39:47The city was awash with rival spies,

0:39:47 > 0:39:49but the Soviets were winning.

0:39:49 > 0:39:52The paramilitary operations

0:39:52 > 0:39:57that were designed to put human beings behind the Iron Curtain

0:39:57 > 0:39:58were not working.

0:39:59 > 0:40:02It was a series of unmitigated disasters.

0:40:03 > 0:40:07It became clear that human agents were not going to do the trick

0:40:07 > 0:40:12and that technological means of espionage had to be developed.

0:40:13 > 0:40:16Thus was the plan for the Berlin Tunnel conceived.

0:40:18 > 0:40:21Back in London, Christmas was coming

0:40:21 > 0:40:23and Blake was about to deliver

0:40:23 > 0:40:25his first great gift to the Soviet Union.

0:40:27 > 0:40:28One morning in late December,

0:40:28 > 0:40:32he was called to a top-level meeting in Carlton Gardens

0:40:32 > 0:40:35to consider ways of tapping into the Berlin telephone system.

0:40:37 > 0:40:39The man on the American side was Bill Harvey.

0:40:41 > 0:40:44Harvey was a pear-shaped man

0:40:44 > 0:40:46with bulging eyes,

0:40:46 > 0:40:50who usually carried two handguns on his person

0:40:50 > 0:40:53and was rarely sober, after noon.

0:40:53 > 0:40:56He was a three-Martini man at lunch -

0:40:56 > 0:41:00two doubles and a single.

0:41:00 > 0:41:03And yet, from this pickled brain

0:41:03 > 0:41:08emerged not the original concept of the tunnel,

0:41:08 > 0:41:11but the execution of the tunnel...

0:41:13 > 0:41:16..as he served as chief of the Berlin base.

0:41:17 > 0:41:20The head of the British technical section

0:41:20 > 0:41:22was a very small man

0:41:22 > 0:41:24with a very squeaky voice

0:41:24 > 0:41:31and with Bill Harvey's subterranean rumbling...

0:41:31 > 0:41:35and this pipsqueak...voice,

0:41:35 > 0:41:37it was rather entertaining.

0:41:37 > 0:41:40It was like a bit of Viennese opera.

0:41:42 > 0:41:45Blake's job was to take the secret minutes -

0:41:45 > 0:41:48every word a jewel for the KGB.

0:41:48 > 0:41:50How long did the meeting last?

0:41:50 > 0:41:54It went on for hours, because we had to look at the, um..

0:41:56 > 0:42:00..right place to dig the tunnel.

0:42:00 > 0:42:03So it was dark, by the time the meeting broke up.

0:42:03 > 0:42:05They'd made their choice

0:42:05 > 0:42:09and most people went off into the night, for Christmas.

0:42:09 > 0:42:11Not George Blake.

0:42:11 > 0:42:14After the meeting had finished and everyone had gone away

0:42:14 > 0:42:16and had a quiet moment,

0:42:16 > 0:42:17he photocopied all the minutes

0:42:17 > 0:42:19and early next year,

0:42:19 > 0:42:21he takes a copy of the minutes of

0:42:21 > 0:42:25this astonishing, original eavesdropping operation

0:42:25 > 0:42:27to his KGB handler

0:42:27 > 0:42:30and he actually hands them over to him

0:42:30 > 0:42:32on the top deck of a London bus.

0:42:39 > 0:42:42This is the place they had chosen - the Schonefelder Chausee.

0:42:44 > 0:42:46The cable was running down the right-hand side here,

0:42:46 > 0:42:48where these cars are parked.

0:42:48 > 0:42:51That was the Soviet side - look at the buildings today.

0:42:55 > 0:43:00The West was over there, among the trees.

0:43:00 > 0:43:02It was wasteland, then.

0:43:02 > 0:43:04But what the Americans did was,

0:43:04 > 0:43:07they built some sort of low factory, like that one,

0:43:07 > 0:43:09as a way of disguising all the earth

0:43:09 > 0:43:11they were digging out from the ground.

0:43:11 > 0:43:14Big building, bristling with antennae,

0:43:14 > 0:43:17to make the Soviets and East Germans think

0:43:17 > 0:43:23that it was for the interception of...broadcast communications,

0:43:23 > 0:43:26not the cable communications.

0:43:27 > 0:43:30And a few feet below the surface of this road

0:43:30 > 0:43:33crouched Peter Montagnon and his team.

0:43:33 > 0:43:38There was a chamber that went up underneath the road

0:43:38 > 0:43:43and you could hear all the Joseph Stalin tanks etc

0:43:43 > 0:43:47rumbling across the top and everybody was dead nervous

0:43:47 > 0:43:51that our rather creaky little hole in the ground

0:43:51 > 0:43:53was going to fall in.

0:43:54 > 0:43:59But it was...good Boy Scout stuff.

0:43:59 > 0:44:01Terrific sense of triumph, presumably, when you...?

0:44:01 > 0:44:03When we got into the cables

0:44:03 > 0:44:06and heard the first Russian voice -

0:44:06 > 0:44:08yes, absolutely.

0:44:08 > 0:44:12They were discussing sex and the officers, as usual(!)

0:44:17 > 0:44:19Now, this -

0:44:19 > 0:44:21on this deceptive little street -

0:44:21 > 0:44:25is the nerve centre of the Soviet administration in East Germany.

0:44:28 > 0:44:32And this is the place whose phone calls they were trying to intercept.

0:44:32 > 0:44:35But even though the KGB shared a building here

0:44:35 > 0:44:36with the Soviet army,

0:44:36 > 0:44:40they didn't breathe a word to them about the tunnel.

0:44:40 > 0:44:43They didn't want the secret of him

0:44:43 > 0:44:45to spread beyond the Lubyanka.

0:44:45 > 0:44:47They didn't want the GRU, the military intelligence...

0:44:47 > 0:44:49They didn't want the Red Army to know.

0:44:49 > 0:44:51So they let it run.

0:44:51 > 0:44:55They let their secrets spill forth, really to protect Blake.

0:44:57 > 0:44:59HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

0:45:01 > 0:45:05It was nearly a year before the KGB felt they could stage this

0:45:05 > 0:45:08pantomime discovery without putting Blake at risk.

0:45:08 > 0:45:11HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

0:45:13 > 0:45:16They gathered the media together and milked the moment.

0:45:19 > 0:45:24And as you can see from this only recently declassified CIA report,

0:45:24 > 0:45:28the KGB ploy to protect Blake worked.

0:45:28 > 0:45:32The conclusion reached at that time

0:45:32 > 0:45:36was that the blowing of the Berlin tunnel...

0:45:37 > 0:45:43..was purely the result of unfortunate circumstances beyond our control.

0:45:43 > 0:45:46Of course, this was what spy services everywhere do.

0:45:46 > 0:45:49It must be a technological problem,

0:45:49 > 0:45:51it must be a machine - it can't be one of us!

0:45:58 > 0:46:01Come along, I want to show you the little apples.

0:46:01 > 0:46:04From the moment that the blossoms starts,

0:46:04 > 0:46:06I look at them every day, you see.

0:46:06 > 0:46:08Did they catch on or didn't they?

0:46:10 > 0:46:16Trudi Wesserling now lives on a farm near the Dutch border with Germany.

0:46:16 > 0:46:1950 years ago, she and George Blake were good friends

0:46:19 > 0:46:21and he would confide in her.

0:46:21 > 0:46:27He said, I didn't really want to marry. I'm quite happy with Gillian,

0:46:27 > 0:46:29but I didn't really want to marry.

0:46:29 > 0:46:32We didn't know why he didn't want to marry Gillian.

0:46:32 > 0:46:35But that's what he said.

0:46:35 > 0:46:39Gillian was the woman he'd met at work when he came back from Korea.

0:46:40 > 0:46:42Their romance began in Carlton Gardens

0:46:42 > 0:46:46whilst he was passing on secrets to the communists.

0:46:46 > 0:46:49Do you think it was because he knew that ultimately

0:46:49 > 0:46:52he was going to betray her?

0:46:52 > 0:46:57I think so. I think that was the reason, yes. Yes.

0:46:57 > 0:47:01Neal Ascherson, a few years younger than Blake, had known her for years.

0:47:03 > 0:47:05We were all children in Scotland.

0:47:05 > 0:47:10Gillian was very pretty, sparky and mocking.

0:47:10 > 0:47:14She realised then and in later encounters

0:47:14 > 0:47:17that I was attracted to her, which I was.

0:47:19 > 0:47:22And she regarded me as an absurd

0:47:22 > 0:47:25and uncouth kind of figure

0:47:25 > 0:47:27and she referred to me as Goofy.

0:47:28 > 0:47:31By now, Goofy was at Cambridge.

0:47:31 > 0:47:34Famously described by historian Eric Hobsbawm,

0:47:34 > 0:47:37as perhaps the brightest student he'd ever taught.

0:47:37 > 0:47:40One day, he had a blast from the past.

0:47:40 > 0:47:46I saw Gillian to my complete surprise with this dark man,

0:47:46 > 0:47:49who as far as I remember had a beard.

0:47:49 > 0:47:53She introduced me - this is George - George Blake.

0:47:53 > 0:47:56And I was impressed by how happy she seemed to be.

0:47:56 > 0:47:59This was in contrast to the man she was with.

0:47:59 > 0:48:04I assumed at the time that he just thought, "Oh, this is some old flame

0:48:04 > 0:48:06"and I do not need this", you know.

0:48:08 > 0:48:10The two of them then got married.

0:48:10 > 0:48:13Did you think that they were suited to each other?

0:48:15 > 0:48:19As much as anybody is suited to anybody else.

0:48:20 > 0:48:24I knew her father was a senior guy in MI6

0:48:24 > 0:48:26and that was about it.

0:48:27 > 0:48:30When Kim Philby had been recruited to the KGB,

0:48:30 > 0:48:33he was ordered to get rid of his new wife

0:48:33 > 0:48:36because she had the wrong political colours.

0:48:37 > 0:48:41Did Blake get an order like that in reverse?

0:48:41 > 0:48:44Would he get an order like that? Yes, he might.

0:48:44 > 0:48:48From the Soviet controller's point of view, the question of whether

0:48:48 > 0:48:52he should or should not marry a colleague in SIS -

0:48:52 > 0:48:57who had SIS relations, as well - was a pretty big opportunity.

0:49:01 > 0:49:06Whatever the reason, Blake arrived in Berlin for his next assignment

0:49:06 > 0:49:09a married man and still above suspicion.

0:49:11 > 0:49:16And this is where George Blake and his new wife Gillian settled.

0:49:16 > 0:49:20A nice leafy street in a smart part of the British sector.

0:49:22 > 0:49:25And this is where he worked.

0:49:25 > 0:49:28Hitler's Olympic Stadium.

0:49:28 > 0:49:31Nazi architecture at its best.

0:49:31 > 0:49:33Well, he didn't work in it, of course.

0:49:33 > 0:49:36SIS had offices around to the right.

0:49:38 > 0:49:40Blake's job in Berlin was to run agents.

0:49:40 > 0:49:45He was to find agents, to run agents, to bring in information.

0:49:45 > 0:49:49I mean, Berlin in the 1950s, in the mid-1950s,

0:49:49 > 0:49:51was a haven for spies.

0:49:51 > 0:49:54ACCORDION MUSIC

0:50:03 > 0:50:07Berlin taught me one thing, which is that almost all intelligence work

0:50:07 > 0:50:10is just a black market in information.

0:50:10 > 0:50:13These people are black marketeers.

0:50:13 > 0:50:17The Berlin Wall had not yet been built and it was possible to move

0:50:17 > 0:50:19from one sector to another,

0:50:19 > 0:50:22which suited Blake perfectly.

0:50:22 > 0:50:24This is Friedrichstrasse,

0:50:24 > 0:50:28just going into what used to be the East German sector.

0:50:28 > 0:50:32Blake would come here, get out a couple of stops further on,

0:50:32 > 0:50:34do his business, then come back.

0:50:34 > 0:50:37How much material did you hand over in that period?

0:50:37 > 0:50:41- Well, that I cannot tell you.- Why not?- Because it's so much.- So much?

0:50:41 > 0:50:46- Yes.- You don't even know how much you handed over?- No, I don't.

0:50:46 > 0:50:48You fooled MI6 pretty well.

0:50:49 > 0:50:52I suspect, for Blake, there was a thrill-seeking element.

0:50:52 > 0:50:55Whether it applies to all spies, I don't know.

0:50:55 > 0:50:58But there's certainly an element of getting one over on somebody.

0:50:58 > 0:51:00Of getting away with it and teaching them.

0:51:00 > 0:51:04His wife Gillian, I believe, also thought in retrospect

0:51:04 > 0:51:06there was a control element.

0:51:06 > 0:51:09That it gave him a sense of empowerment that -

0:51:09 > 0:51:11I know something you don't.

0:51:11 > 0:51:13I'm doing something you don't. I'm winning.

0:51:16 > 0:51:19But it was a dangerous game, where the cleverest move

0:51:19 > 0:51:21could be trumped at any moment.

0:51:21 > 0:51:23As a journalist in the Cold War,

0:51:23 > 0:51:26I was approached from time to time

0:51:26 > 0:51:29by intelligence services - East and West...

0:51:30 > 0:51:34..see if I could be used, one thing or another.

0:51:34 > 0:51:37But one thing you learn very quickly -

0:51:37 > 0:51:41particularly in Berlin, of course - is that the moment you sign up

0:51:41 > 0:51:44to something like that, the other side knows.

0:51:44 > 0:51:47One of Blake's informants in this double-crossing world

0:51:47 > 0:51:50was a man called Horst Eitner.

0:51:50 > 0:51:53Horst Eitner was a man who liked to go out

0:51:53 > 0:51:56and tackle the Berlin night scene.

0:51:56 > 0:51:59His wife was also an agent - she was a Russian agent.

0:51:59 > 0:52:01They were out drinking one night in a Berlin bar,

0:52:01 > 0:52:05he was with two other women and he was flirting with one of them

0:52:05 > 0:52:09and she got so fed up with him, she said, "If you don't stop that,

0:52:09 > 0:52:11"I'm going to go to the nearest police station

0:52:11 > 0:52:13"and tell them about you."

0:52:13 > 0:52:16And his behaviour didn't improve in the evening and she did go

0:52:16 > 0:52:20to a police station and tell them, "My husband's a double agent.

0:52:20 > 0:52:23"He's working for the British and Russian intelligence services."

0:52:23 > 0:52:27And it was the start of the trail which led to Blake.

0:52:27 > 0:52:30By the time Blake left Berlin,

0:52:30 > 0:52:33he had betrayed virtually every agent working for the British.

0:52:34 > 0:52:38But the noose he'd thrust his own neck into was tightening.

0:52:46 > 0:52:50In 1960, Blake was sent by his grateful bosses to Lebanon.

0:52:51 > 0:52:55He was going to learn Arabic at the centre for Arabic studies.

0:52:55 > 0:52:57The so-called School for Spies.

0:52:59 > 0:53:02Set up by the Foreign Office, in a mountain village called Shemlan.

0:53:07 > 0:53:11By then, Louis Wessling was an oil executive

0:53:11 > 0:53:14and he joined the school at the same time as Blake.

0:53:14 > 0:53:17When people came just out of university of Oxford,

0:53:17 > 0:53:19with first-class results,

0:53:19 > 0:53:24it was genuinely a race - an academic race - who was best.

0:53:24 > 0:53:28And funnily enough, George Blake was number one.

0:53:29 > 0:53:34High in the mountains, Wessling and his wife became close friends of the Blakes.

0:53:36 > 0:53:39I particularly liked George, I was very fond of him, actually,

0:53:39 > 0:53:45because he was part Dutch and we used to talk a little Dutch together.

0:53:45 > 0:53:47He loved to do that.

0:53:49 > 0:53:52The real professional diplomats who were not spies

0:53:52 > 0:53:57did not find him a very interesting man.

0:53:57 > 0:54:01He was, of course, admired for his Arabic.

0:54:01 > 0:54:04But, yeah, I think he considered me as a friend.

0:54:07 > 0:54:10Cut off from the intrigues of Berlin and London,

0:54:10 > 0:54:12Blake seemed to drop his guard.

0:54:12 > 0:54:15We talked about the future of England

0:54:15 > 0:54:18and he saw that in totally different way

0:54:18 > 0:54:21that any other Foreign Office man saw that.

0:54:21 > 0:54:24And I wondered at the time, and I said to my wife,

0:54:24 > 0:54:28- is that allowed that he talks like that?- And what were your views?

0:54:29 > 0:54:33Shall I say that? I was as red as a brick...

0:54:33 > 0:54:36SHE LAUGHS

0:54:36 > 0:54:41- ..at that time.- And did he seem quite attracted to that?

0:54:41 > 0:54:43Yes, he liked that.

0:54:43 > 0:54:47He liked that very much and he was egging me on to say all kinds

0:54:47 > 0:54:51of nonsense of how I would think

0:54:51 > 0:54:54the world should be arranged.

0:54:57 > 0:55:00He said the royal house of Windsor was finished.

0:55:00 > 0:55:03The people won't stand up for it any more

0:55:03 > 0:55:06and he was critical of class system.

0:55:06 > 0:55:09He was leftist, leftist view.

0:55:09 > 0:55:11Never heard of that.

0:55:12 > 0:55:14A few months into the course,

0:55:14 > 0:55:18a spy ring back in London was put on trial.

0:55:18 > 0:55:22He said it is not as important as you think. And I said, why not?

0:55:22 > 0:55:26He said, because these people did it for money.

0:55:26 > 0:55:29If people spy for their principle,

0:55:29 > 0:55:31those are the ones that are really dangerous.

0:55:36 > 0:55:38Far away from Beirut,

0:55:38 > 0:55:42something really dangerous to Blake had already happened.

0:55:42 > 0:55:46A Polish intelligence officer had turned traitor, too.

0:55:46 > 0:55:50A good traitor, this one. Because it was the communists he'd betrayed.

0:55:52 > 0:55:56Back in London, MI6 realised that his information led remorselessly

0:55:56 > 0:56:00to the unsuspecting George Blake.

0:56:04 > 0:56:09It was the last party before we all said goodbye

0:56:09 > 0:56:13and I danced with George.

0:56:14 > 0:56:16He was holding me quite tight

0:56:16 > 0:56:20but that was because he was a little drunk, I think.

0:56:20 > 0:56:22- Flirting a bit?- Absolutely.

0:56:26 > 0:56:29I was saying to him the usual nonsense.

0:56:29 > 0:56:33I said about the division of riches in the world and how unjust

0:56:33 > 0:56:37it all was and George suddenly said to me, "Are you one of us?"

0:56:39 > 0:56:42I said, "what do you mean, George?" "Oh," he said "nothing, nothing."

0:56:46 > 0:56:51- Do you think that he was longing... - Longing to tell the story.

0:56:52 > 0:56:56Longing to have somebody who could share it.

0:57:00 > 0:57:03He didn't have long to wait.

0:57:03 > 0:57:07One night soon afterwards Blake ran into Nicholas Elliott,

0:57:07 > 0:57:09head of MI6 operations in Beirut.

0:57:11 > 0:57:15Elliott said to him, "George, they'd like you to go back to Broadway."

0:57:15 > 0:57:17And Blake was very surprised about this.

0:57:17 > 0:57:19And then Nicholas Elliott said,

0:57:19 > 0:57:23"Well, I think it's about a future posting, a new job of some sort."

0:57:26 > 0:57:29Blake smelt a rat immediately

0:57:29 > 0:57:33and arranged to meet his Soviet handler on a nearby beach.

0:57:33 > 0:57:37And his handler said, "Look, I don't think there's a problem here,

0:57:37 > 0:57:41"I think you should go back. I think you shouldn't be worried" and that's how it was left.

0:57:43 > 0:57:46You can imagine that they thought that Blake might be in trouble.

0:57:46 > 0:57:48But what they would also have thought

0:57:48 > 0:57:50was that Blake would find a way out of it.

0:57:50 > 0:57:52Ride the storm, as it were.

0:57:54 > 0:57:57Back in Shemlan, Blake told no-one.

0:57:57 > 0:58:01His closest friends gathered to celebrate the likelihood of his promotion.

0:58:02 > 0:58:06We had champagne and we were congratulating George.

0:58:06 > 0:58:09He said, this is going to be wonderful

0:58:09 > 0:58:13and we'll have a party again when you come back, etc etc.

0:58:13 > 0:58:18Louis and I were happier for him than he was himself.

0:58:18 > 0:58:21He was certainly in doubt about things,

0:58:21 > 0:58:25what was going to happen if he went back to England, yes.

0:58:27 > 0:58:29And rightly so.

0:58:38 > 0:58:42Two days later, he turns up here sharp at ten o'clock as instructed

0:58:42 > 0:58:45where he is met by a man called Harry Shergold.

0:58:46 > 0:58:50At that stage, at probably 10:01, he's not feeling worried.

0:58:50 > 0:58:54But then Shergold says, we're going to take a little walk

0:58:54 > 0:58:56and we're going to go across St James's Park

0:58:56 > 0:58:58and we're going to go to Carlton Gardens.

0:58:59 > 0:59:02And I think that's when he starts realising

0:59:02 > 0:59:04that this isn't any ordinary sort of meeting

0:59:04 > 0:59:07and he just might have a problem or two.

0:59:09 > 0:59:13when Blake arrived for the interrogation,

0:59:13 > 0:59:16he was taken to this room, I think.

0:59:16 > 0:59:19Ground floor on the right, I was told.

0:59:19 > 0:59:21Overlooking the park.

0:59:24 > 0:59:27There was a table - not this one, I'm sure -

0:59:27 > 0:59:31but with chairs around it for the interrogators.

0:59:34 > 0:59:37Outside - the park and sunlight.

0:59:38 > 0:59:42Inside - in his head - gloom, I imagine.

0:59:47 > 0:59:50Downstairs, a tape recorder was ready.

0:59:53 > 0:59:58Publicly, SIS don't admit that a recording of the interview exists.

0:59:58 > 1:00:03But it's actually been used for training agents.

1:00:03 > 1:00:06For two days they got nowhere.

1:00:06 > 1:00:08Shergold and his colleagues are plugging away.

1:00:08 > 1:00:12You say you weren't a Soviet agent, we have such and such evidence.

1:00:12 > 1:00:17And Blake is doing what any double agent should do

1:00:17 > 1:00:20and deny all this sort of stuff.

1:00:20 > 1:00:24Blake could have just walked away at any time, he wasn't charged.

1:00:24 > 1:00:27They couldn't hold him at all.

1:00:27 > 1:00:31The evidence was probably not usable in court without his confession.

1:00:32 > 1:00:35Why do you think he didn't walk away?

1:00:35 > 1:00:37Maybe that guilt thing.

1:00:37 > 1:00:40Maybe the need to justify himself

1:00:40 > 1:00:43even to those whom he had most offended.

1:00:46 > 1:00:50The breakthrough came unexpectedly...

1:00:51 > 1:00:54..on the morning of the third day.

1:00:54 > 1:00:58What I've heard is that he didn't confess

1:00:58 > 1:01:00in answer to a direct accusation.

1:01:00 > 1:01:02He confessed in answer to a more oblique question,

1:01:02 > 1:01:05which was a hypothetical one.

1:01:05 > 1:01:08What would you expect us to do if you were in our position?

1:01:08 > 1:01:11"We understand the pressures you were under.

1:01:11 > 1:01:16"We understand that out in Korea you were put under extreme pressure

1:01:16 > 1:01:19"and by force of that - you turned sides.

1:01:19 > 1:01:22"You went over, you said you would spy for the Soviets."

1:01:26 > 1:01:29'And when they said that, something happened to me,

1:01:29 > 1:01:33'which even today I may find difficult to account for

1:01:33 > 1:01:37'and it certainly goes against all logic of self-preservation.'

1:01:37 > 1:01:41But my reaction - and it was a sort of gut reaction, was,

1:01:41 > 1:01:46"Oh, no. I have not been tortured.

1:01:46 > 1:01:48"I have not been blackmailed.

1:01:50 > 1:01:55"I went to the Soviet intelligence service myself.

1:01:55 > 1:01:58"I established contact with them

1:01:58 > 1:02:03"and I offered them my services of my own free will."

1:02:03 > 1:02:06And who knows what provoked that actual moment.

1:02:06 > 1:02:09He may not know himself, because after all, people's account

1:02:09 > 1:02:11of why they did what they did at the time

1:02:11 > 1:02:14will vary from what they say at the time about it,

1:02:14 > 1:02:16from what they say a week later.

1:02:16 > 1:02:18Of what they might say in court

1:02:18 > 1:02:21and what they say in their autobiography many years later.

1:02:21 > 1:02:24The dam had been completely burst then

1:02:24 > 1:02:29and Blake absolutely went on and told them everything.

1:02:29 > 1:02:32- What was the look on their faces? - Of great amazement.

1:02:34 > 1:02:38Back in Lebanon, his wife Gillian was waiting with two children

1:02:38 > 1:02:40and a third on the way.

1:02:40 > 1:02:43Blake's friend and former colleague, John Quine,

1:02:43 > 1:02:45came up to Shemlan to tell her the truth.

1:02:45 > 1:02:48He told her to sit down, he'd pour them a glass of whisky

1:02:48 > 1:02:51and he had something rather extraordinary to tell her.

1:02:51 > 1:02:56Poor Gillian. That was my first reaction.

1:02:56 > 1:02:59It is so difficult to understand that somebody

1:02:59 > 1:03:04who's just your neighbour and you had a friendly relation with,

1:03:04 > 1:03:09that he could do such a thing.

1:03:09 > 1:03:11And yet he did.

1:03:11 > 1:03:13It was my Eureka moment.

1:03:13 > 1:03:15That's it!

1:03:15 > 1:03:19That's why he is so reserved and want to be open

1:03:19 > 1:03:21but cannot be fully open.

1:03:21 > 1:03:26Hold something back from me. He's a friend but not a total friend.

1:03:26 > 1:03:27That's it.

1:03:27 > 1:03:30HEAVY DOORS SLAMMING

1:03:39 > 1:03:44By the time Blake confessed, many British agents in Berlin

1:03:44 > 1:03:46were already paying a price for his treachery.

1:03:47 > 1:03:51This is a cell in the notorious Stasi prison...

1:03:53 > 1:03:58..where people that Blake had betrayed were held until their fate was decided.

1:04:02 > 1:04:06No evidence of this was produced at Blake's short trial.

1:04:06 > 1:04:11But he was sentenced himself to what seemed like a vengeful 42 years

1:04:11 > 1:04:13in a British jail.

1:04:13 > 1:04:17Within SIS, the Holy Grail was the identity of agents

1:04:17 > 1:04:20and anyone who destroys that, who gives away the identities

1:04:20 > 1:04:24of agents - let alone gets them killed - it is just unforgivable.

1:04:24 > 1:04:28That is a sin against the Holy Ghost of espionage.

1:04:28 > 1:04:31The sentence was unprecedented and Blake appealed.

1:04:31 > 1:04:35This document is the one he prepared to help his defence counsel

1:04:35 > 1:04:38make this plea in mitigation.

1:04:38 > 1:04:40And he's saying - you can see -

1:04:40 > 1:04:44he's stipulated that the names he'd given should not be arrested.

1:04:44 > 1:04:48Should only be used by the Russians to protect themselves and so on.

1:04:51 > 1:04:55The appeal was rejected and one usually well-informed journalist

1:04:55 > 1:04:57made the explicit connection.

1:04:57 > 1:04:59My investigations reveal...

1:04:59 > 1:05:02disappeared... been executed.

1:05:04 > 1:05:07One year for each agent betrayed.

1:05:10 > 1:05:13But out on the front line it wasn't so simple.

1:05:13 > 1:05:19When the story broke, Neil Ascherson was in Berlin working for the Observer.

1:05:19 > 1:05:21He managed to locate Horst Eitner,

1:05:21 > 1:05:25the man whose flirting had helped uncover Blake.

1:05:25 > 1:05:26I said to him,

1:05:26 > 1:05:29"It's terrible what happened to all these people betrayed by Blake."

1:05:29 > 1:05:31He said, "No, no, no.

1:05:31 > 1:05:35"Once they had the list, they just went round to them and said,

1:05:35 > 1:05:39"Now, look. We can play this the hard way

1:05:39 > 1:05:42"or there's an easy way. How would you...

1:05:42 > 1:05:46"The easy way is just to start working for us

1:05:46 > 1:05:50"and not telling them that you're working for us."

1:05:55 > 1:05:59On the other hand... "Oh, no. No, you don't need to go into that."

1:05:59 > 1:06:03So, according to Eitner, most of them chose the easy way

1:06:03 > 1:06:06and, no, they were not executed.

1:06:07 > 1:06:11In fact, executions for spying in Germany were by then quite rare.

1:06:11 > 1:06:15And later when Blake talked to Tom Bower, that hint of remorse

1:06:15 > 1:06:19in his mitigation statement had been replaced

1:06:19 > 1:06:21by a whiff of professional pride.

1:06:21 > 1:06:26- You gave away the identity of every agent?- Every agent, yes.

1:06:26 > 1:06:32- Operating on behalf of MI6?- Yes. - How many is that?- I can't say.

1:06:32 > 1:06:38But it must have been, oh... I don't know, but maybe 500, 600.

1:06:41 > 1:06:45Did you consider that one of those who you'd betrayed might be executed?

1:06:45 > 1:06:49- I had been assured that that wouldn't be the case.- By whom?

1:06:49 > 1:06:54- By the people with whom I was in contact.- By the KGB?- Yes.

1:06:54 > 1:06:57And you actually said to them, "What will happen to these people?"

1:06:57 > 1:07:00Yes, I said to them, "I'll only give you this information

1:07:00 > 1:07:04"if you can assure me that these people will not be executed."

1:07:06 > 1:07:10From the late '50s, most cases of spying on German soil

1:07:10 > 1:07:15were actually handled by the Stasi - the East German secret police.

1:07:15 > 1:07:16So, to check out Blake's claim,

1:07:16 > 1:07:20I went down to the place where you can ask to see their files.

1:07:21 > 1:07:25Inside, I found a document which looked like a smoking gun.

1:07:26 > 1:07:30The names have been blacked out but the words are pretty chilling.

1:07:30 > 1:07:34The Stasi is saying that Blake did a lot to help them liquidate

1:07:34 > 1:07:37the agent rings of the British.

1:07:37 > 1:07:41And given them the names they say of 100,

1:07:41 > 1:07:43not 500 or 600 spies.

1:07:44 > 1:07:48And then they list what they say are the most dangerous of them.

1:07:48 > 1:07:51A stenographer in the Council of Ministers.

1:07:51 > 1:07:53A colonel in the army,

1:07:53 > 1:07:56an official on the Planning Commission and so on.

1:07:56 > 1:07:59These were not people who'd get off lightly.

1:07:59 > 1:08:01The blacking out seems very final.

1:08:03 > 1:08:07But in a country of meticulous records, nothing is lost for ever.

1:08:09 > 1:08:13I managed to find the hidden names and gave them to a man

1:08:13 > 1:08:15who knew all the German archives inside out.

1:08:17 > 1:08:21Bernd-Rainer Barth is a specialist in espionage

1:08:21 > 1:08:23and soon came up with some answers.

1:08:23 > 1:08:28We found out from the files of the Ministry of Interior

1:08:28 > 1:08:32that the stenographer got a lifetime imprisonment.

1:08:32 > 1:08:37The third one, the member of the State Planning Commission,

1:08:37 > 1:08:41got lifetime imprisonment.

1:08:41 > 1:08:44The fourth one who was an official

1:08:44 > 1:08:47in the Ministry for Mechanical Engineering

1:08:47 > 1:08:51he got 15 years, reduced to ten years.

1:08:53 > 1:08:58The next one, who was an official in the Ministry of Foreign Trade,

1:08:58 > 1:09:01he got also lifetime imprisonment.

1:09:01 > 1:09:06The last one, a woman, got five years and was still alive.

1:09:06 > 1:09:08So, I went to find her.

1:09:09 > 1:09:11400, 500 metres, I think.

1:09:11 > 1:09:15She was visibly shaken by our arrival and still so scarred

1:09:15 > 1:09:20by the memory of what she'd been through, she didn't want to talk.

1:09:20 > 1:09:23Which left only the colonel unaccounted for.

1:09:23 > 1:09:28He was probably one of the rare examples

1:09:28 > 1:09:32in the second part of the '50s,

1:09:32 > 1:09:34who was given to the Soviet authorities.

1:09:36 > 1:09:39- So, you think the colonel might have been executed?- Yes.

1:09:41 > 1:09:44All but one of the others were released by the end of the '60s.

1:09:45 > 1:09:47Deal or no deal?

1:09:47 > 1:09:50Almost certainly no deal.

1:09:50 > 1:09:54But this first hard evidence left that question still unanswered.

1:10:02 > 1:10:05This is where the righteous traitor himself ended up.

1:10:09 > 1:10:12One of his first visitors was his newborn son

1:10:12 > 1:10:14in the arms of his long-suffering wife.

1:10:17 > 1:10:19Although she stayed loyal for the next four years,

1:10:19 > 1:10:22Blake was soon settling in to his new life.

1:10:22 > 1:10:24Apparently, a model prisoner.

1:10:26 > 1:10:31Spies, child abusers, and at that time,

1:10:31 > 1:10:36probably still homosexuals, were the lowest of the low

1:10:36 > 1:10:39in terms of how they were regarded by other prisoners.

1:10:41 > 1:10:46But George made an impression and I think he made it because

1:10:46 > 1:10:51he seemed to be taking this 42 year sentence in his stride.

1:10:51 > 1:10:54MUSIC: Prelude in C Minor, BWV 934 by Bach

1:10:59 > 1:11:02Michael Randle is the last man alive of the three

1:11:02 > 1:11:04who got him out of jail.

1:11:04 > 1:11:05He didn't condone spying,

1:11:05 > 1:11:08but thought Blake's sentence was inhumane.

1:11:10 > 1:11:14He was in the Scrubs, himself, because of the energy with which

1:11:14 > 1:11:17he'd campaigned for nuclear disarmament.

1:11:17 > 1:11:20We were organising a demonstration at Wethersfield air base -

1:11:20 > 1:11:24an American air base where nuclear weapons were stored.

1:11:24 > 1:11:28A group of us who were actually organising it were arrested

1:11:28 > 1:11:31and charged under the Official Secrets Act

1:11:31 > 1:11:34and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment.

1:11:34 > 1:11:37Randle and his wife Anne now live in Yorkshire.

1:11:37 > 1:11:40In jail, his best friend was Pat Pottle.

1:11:40 > 1:11:45I'm there and there's Anne. That's Pat Pottle.

1:11:45 > 1:11:49And it was with Pat that Blake first broached the idea of escaping.

1:11:49 > 1:11:53They were at the urinals together and...

1:11:54 > 1:11:58These things happen in the urinals, as you know...

1:11:59 > 1:12:03Pat said to him, "Have you ever thought of escaping?"

1:12:03 > 1:12:07And George said, "I never think of anything else."

1:12:10 > 1:12:14The escape plan went into action one night in October 1966.

1:12:15 > 1:12:19Although Blake had help inside, the main movers were Pottle,

1:12:19 > 1:12:24Randle and an Irishman called Sean Bourke, who were all free by then.

1:12:26 > 1:12:29The astonishing thing was that they didn't get caught.

1:12:29 > 1:12:34Bourke turned up knowing Blake was on the other side waiting for him.

1:12:34 > 1:12:38He flung a rope ladder up there.

1:12:38 > 1:12:41It wasn't quite so high in those days.

1:12:42 > 1:12:45Blake caught it the other side, climbed over...

1:12:48 > 1:12:50..and was down.

1:12:50 > 1:12:55And they went down to that road there and got into a getaway car...

1:12:57 > 1:13:01..and set off the mile or so to the safe house.

1:13:04 > 1:13:07Bourke had found a place in a nearby street for them both

1:13:07 > 1:13:10to hole up in before the alarm went up.

1:13:10 > 1:13:12'It's believed that he got out of D Block where he was housed

1:13:12 > 1:13:15'with 320 other long-term first offenders,

1:13:15 > 1:13:18'by smashing a window and sawing through an iron bar.'

1:13:18 > 1:13:21Within hours, Randle got a call.

1:13:21 > 1:13:23Not from the police but the press.

1:13:23 > 1:13:28Two journalists rang me and said, "You were in prison with George Blake,

1:13:28 > 1:13:33"have you any idea of who might have been involved in this?"

1:13:33 > 1:13:36"Well, no! Why would I?"

1:13:36 > 1:13:39- Did the police, did you ever get a...- Well, this is it.

1:13:39 > 1:13:44You see, once I had those calls from the journalists, I thought,

1:13:44 > 1:13:47well, if they can get on to it within a couple of hours

1:13:47 > 1:13:49we've got to be prepared for them

1:13:49 > 1:13:52to knock on our door and interview us.

1:13:52 > 1:13:55But that never happened.

1:13:55 > 1:13:58'The police are anxious to trace the movements of this car

1:13:58 > 1:14:01'between the last time it was seen, which was at 6.30 on the evening

1:14:01 > 1:14:03'of the escape in the vicinity of Wormwood Scrubs...'

1:14:03 > 1:14:06In fact, Blake was in no shape to go anywhere.

1:14:06 > 1:14:10He'd actually knocked himself out, he had a cut about here

1:14:10 > 1:14:15and he'd not slept all night because of the pain.

1:14:16 > 1:14:20- So, he did look rather gruesome. - His fall had broken his wrist.

1:14:20 > 1:14:24So, they found a sympathetic doctor and something to fix it with.

1:14:24 > 1:14:29We knew someone who knew how to get hold of plaster of Paris bandages

1:14:29 > 1:14:34from the BBC make-up department in the Doctor Who studios.

1:14:35 > 1:14:39'We assume from this theory that he came the 12 miles or so

1:14:39 > 1:14:43'from Wormwood Scrubs to London airport in a car.'

1:14:43 > 1:14:44Not exactly.

1:14:44 > 1:14:47The safe house turned out to be an unsafe bedsitter

1:14:47 > 1:14:49with a shared bathroom.

1:14:50 > 1:14:54So, they hurriedly found a couple who said they could use their flat.

1:14:54 > 1:14:58A couple of days later I met up with the woman.

1:14:58 > 1:15:01She was obviously feeling very nervous and she said to me,

1:15:01 > 1:15:04"Who are these people?

1:15:05 > 1:15:10"Why are they having to hide?" And I said, "Well, one of them is George Blake."

1:15:10 > 1:15:16She stopped in the road and she said in a loud voice, "GEORGE BLAKE?!"

1:15:16 > 1:15:18'Now, the hunt has spread much wider.

1:15:18 > 1:15:22'Ports are being watched and trips, notably from the Eastern countries

1:15:22 > 1:15:26'for whom he worked, are almost certainly under surveillance.'

1:15:26 > 1:15:29The next day, the woman's husband came round to say his wife

1:15:29 > 1:15:33had been so upset she told her therapist.

1:15:33 > 1:15:35You mean, about us?

1:15:35 > 1:15:38He said, "Oh, yes. Yes.

1:15:38 > 1:15:41"The therapy doesn't work unless you're completely honest."

1:15:43 > 1:15:47Sean Bourke dived under the bed, got his suitcase out

1:15:47 > 1:15:50and started throwing things in it and said, "I'm off."

1:15:50 > 1:15:55And George, who was always very much self-controlled, said,

1:15:55 > 1:16:00"I think in all the circumstances, we should move somewhere else."

1:16:00 > 1:16:03But his luck held.

1:16:03 > 1:16:08The therapist said the hullabaloo had simply caused the wife to hallucinate.

1:16:08 > 1:16:11At times I felt like we were immune.

1:16:11 > 1:16:15Everyone was looking for him and yet nobody found.

1:16:15 > 1:16:20It just seemed like we were floating around in a bit of a balloon.

1:16:20 > 1:16:23After eight weeks of this comedy of errors,

1:16:23 > 1:16:25they decided it was time to go.

1:16:28 > 1:16:32They made their escape in a van, rather like the one they still have.

1:16:32 > 1:16:37There was a long bench seat here to the back

1:16:37 > 1:16:41which was hinged and...

1:16:41 > 1:16:47- when you lifted the hinge, he would be hidden...- Oh, underneath!

1:16:47 > 1:16:53..underneath. So, when we were travelling, the hinge would be down

1:16:53 > 1:16:56so it would be a complete bed and the children would be sleeping on top of it.

1:16:58 > 1:17:00Most of the journey was relatively uneventful

1:17:00 > 1:17:04though Blake got carsick in the secret compartment.

1:17:04 > 1:17:10The first time that we had any kind of inspection was at the East-West

1:17:10 > 1:17:14German checkpoint and there they did come down to look at the van,

1:17:14 > 1:17:16opened it up...

1:17:16 > 1:17:21As soon as they saw the children asleep...

1:17:21 > 1:17:24No! No, they weren't going to bother.

1:17:24 > 1:17:27You know, they didn't want to disturb the children.

1:17:27 > 1:17:29So, they didn't look.

1:17:31 > 1:17:32SHE EXHALES SHARPLY

1:17:35 > 1:17:40We drove on that grim motorway

1:17:40 > 1:17:42- from Helmstedt.- Helmstedt.

1:17:42 > 1:17:47- Immediately, it became black.- There was no road lighting on the roads.

1:17:47 > 1:17:50Potholes... That was frightening.

1:17:52 > 1:17:54We drove until...

1:17:54 > 1:17:57We could just see some lights in the distance, couldn't we?

1:17:57 > 1:17:59Which would have been the checkpoint.

1:17:59 > 1:18:03I remember George saying, "Well, we've done it."

1:18:03 > 1:18:08I was thinking, "Well, you've made it, but will we?"

1:18:11 > 1:18:16We'd said goodbye and then we left him at the side of a dark road

1:18:16 > 1:18:20and there were just trees all around. Dark, black trees.

1:18:20 > 1:18:22We just watched this receding figure.

1:18:25 > 1:18:27Blake walked up to the guardhouse

1:18:27 > 1:18:30and asked to speak to someone in the KGB.

1:18:31 > 1:18:34I don't know, it just didn't seem to be real.

1:18:46 > 1:18:47That was then,

1:18:47 > 1:18:50and this - nearly 50 years on - is now.

1:18:52 > 1:18:53HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

1:18:57 > 1:19:00The man on the left is George Blake.

1:19:00 > 1:19:03Starting yet another winter in Russia.

1:19:03 > 1:19:05Yeah. Well...

1:19:05 > 1:19:10I prefer - we all prefer - the summer.

1:19:10 > 1:19:14But it's inevitable that...

1:19:16 > 1:19:20..the winter must come and then you try to make the best of it.

1:19:23 > 1:19:27In fact, it's a long time, the winter is very long here.

1:19:29 > 1:19:34His career as an active spy had lasted just eight years.

1:19:37 > 1:19:41The dream for which he'd done so much damage to Britain is dead.

1:19:44 > 1:19:45Spasiba.

1:19:50 > 1:19:53When he'd arrived in the winter of 1966,

1:19:53 > 1:19:57he was reinventing his life yet again in a strange, cold city.

1:19:58 > 1:20:02His mother came to see him, but Gillian had divorced him

1:20:02 > 1:20:05and he was cut off from his children in England.

1:20:10 > 1:20:12But the KGB were good to him.

1:20:12 > 1:20:16Like his fellow spy, Kim Philby, he was showered with medals

1:20:16 > 1:20:20for his years in the field and given a flat near the city centre.

1:20:24 > 1:20:26He got a job in a prestigious think-tank

1:20:26 > 1:20:28a few stops south on the Metro.

1:20:30 > 1:20:32And found a new wife, Ida.

1:20:32 > 1:20:34They had a son Mikhail

1:20:34 > 1:20:37and later his English children were reconciled, too.

1:20:38 > 1:20:41The infinitely adaptable man.

1:20:42 > 1:20:43SHE SPEAKS FRENCH

1:21:12 > 1:21:14TRADITIONAL RUSSIAN SINGING

1:21:16 > 1:21:20Each year, when spring returns, veterans of the old regime

1:21:20 > 1:21:24happily belt out songs of what they call the great patriotic war.

1:21:26 > 1:21:28But it's an illusion,

1:21:28 > 1:21:31what's gone is the cause for which they fought and died.

1:21:34 > 1:21:37One day, just before communism crumbled away,

1:21:37 > 1:21:42Louis Wessling found himself in Moscow and invited Blake to lunch.

1:21:42 > 1:21:45I called him and he was delighted. He said, "You are paying?"

1:21:45 > 1:21:47I said, "Of course, I'll pay."

1:21:47 > 1:21:52And he said, "Well, then, we must go to the best restaurant in Moscow

1:21:52 > 1:21:55"opposite Lubyanka, the prison."

1:21:56 > 1:22:01And he was very proud of Lubyanka. He said that Russians don't dare to walk

1:22:01 > 1:22:06in front of it for fright of being taken in.

1:22:09 > 1:22:11But he was clearly frustrated, said Wessling.

1:22:11 > 1:22:16He was at the bitter end of his career. The war was over.

1:22:16 > 1:22:20He said, "It is not the system, I'm still a Communist.

1:22:20 > 1:22:22"It is the Russians who fucked it up."

1:22:23 > 1:22:27And he said, "They never do anything right."

1:22:30 > 1:22:33What he missed was the place where he was born.

1:22:33 > 1:22:36"Can you get me a visa?" he asked his friend.

1:22:36 > 1:22:38Don't ask me to get a visa, George.

1:22:38 > 1:22:42If you go, you'll be glad to get out alive again

1:22:42 > 1:22:43because people don't like you.

1:22:46 > 1:22:48He didn't feel that at all.

1:22:48 > 1:22:54He was childishly attached to go back to Holland.

1:22:54 > 1:22:58And he had a totally different idea,

1:22:58 > 1:23:02as if his past was forgiven and forgotten.

1:23:02 > 1:23:05And I said, "No, it has not been forgotten."

1:23:08 > 1:23:11When I was in Rotterdam myself, at the start of my journey,

1:23:11 > 1:23:15I'd met a Dutch-speaking journalist called Simon Cooper.

1:23:15 > 1:23:19He talked to Blake in Moscow a couple of years ago on the unusual condition

1:23:19 > 1:23:23that anything he wrote would only be published in Dutch.

1:23:23 > 1:23:26He told me, you arrive here and immediately as soon as you arrive

1:23:26 > 1:23:28you'll see communism doesn't work.

1:23:28 > 1:23:32And he said, "Well, I just came to terms with it. I moved on."

1:23:32 > 1:23:35So, maybe it's this Calvinist idea that it was all predestined,

1:23:35 > 1:23:38but he didn't struggle against his fate.

1:23:40 > 1:23:45Once Blake believed that his fate was to help this country do God's work on Earth.

1:23:48 > 1:23:52Look at it now. What did he think about that? I asked.

1:23:52 > 1:23:54The condition of our interview is that

1:23:54 > 1:23:58I wouldn't ask him about contemporary Russia.

1:23:58 > 1:24:00Because I was told that Blake loathes Putin

1:24:00 > 1:24:03and Putin is everything Blake doesn't like.

1:24:03 > 1:24:05Putin is a cynic and he's violent.

1:24:05 > 1:24:09But Blake is totally dependent on Putin and the security services

1:24:09 > 1:24:12for his pension, so Blake doesn't want to say anything bad about Putin.

1:24:12 > 1:24:16But of course he also doesn't want to say anything good about Putin, either.

1:24:19 > 1:24:21I wanted to hear that from his own mouth.

1:24:21 > 1:24:25But the message I got back from his family was that at 92,

1:24:25 > 1:24:28he was too old to give another interview.

1:24:29 > 1:24:31Still, one has to try.

1:24:34 > 1:24:38Well, this is his street. Charming dachas

1:24:38 > 1:24:40set in a charming wood.

1:24:41 > 1:24:45Let's go and see if we can find the one where he lives.

1:24:51 > 1:24:53This is the dacha he's been given

1:24:53 > 1:24:55for his services to the Soviet cause.

1:24:56 > 1:25:00I hadn't made an appointment, so I wasn't sure if anyone was in.

1:25:04 > 1:25:06But then I saw him and he let me in.

1:25:09 > 1:25:11We made small talk for a while.

1:25:11 > 1:25:15- So, the next thing is that you do, is going to be this film...- No, film.

1:25:15 > 1:25:18Yeah. I've sort of done quite a lot of it.

1:25:18 > 1:25:21But as soon as I brought up the subject of Putin's Russia,

1:25:21 > 1:25:24the shutters came down.

1:25:24 > 1:25:27Well, that I don't want to dwell on at the moment.

1:25:27 > 1:25:30I don't think that... that is not part of your...

1:25:30 > 1:25:34and now you are taking this particular interview.

1:25:34 > 1:25:36No, I don't think I want...

1:25:36 > 1:25:39'Instead of the easy smile,

1:25:39 > 1:25:42'the closed look of a man who can still keep secrets.'

1:25:46 > 1:25:48So, I asked him the other way round.

1:25:48 > 1:25:51Would he still like to return to the place where he grew up?

1:25:51 > 1:25:53No, no, no, no.

1:25:53 > 1:25:57And anyway, you see, I'm virtually blind.

1:25:58 > 1:26:05And so that makes travelling very difficult and not much point in it.

1:26:06 > 1:26:10- Because I can't see anyway...- Yeah. - ..where I am.

1:26:10 > 1:26:13And whether I'm talking to you here now,

1:26:13 > 1:26:15or whether I'm talking to you in Rotterdam

1:26:15 > 1:26:16doesn't make any difference.

1:26:16 > 1:26:19- I suppose that's right. - That's right.

1:26:19 > 1:26:25- But if you could get a visa? - It's not that I wouldn't get visa...

1:26:25 > 1:26:29but I wouldn't be quite sure about what would happen to me.

1:26:29 > 1:26:31They might arrest me

1:26:31 > 1:26:35and hand me back to the British in some way or another.

1:26:37 > 1:26:41So, here he is trapped in a beautiful backwater

1:26:41 > 1:26:42he can no longer see.

1:26:44 > 1:26:46He's never going to admit it,

1:26:46 > 1:26:49but he must wonder whether it was all worthwhile.

1:26:49 > 1:26:51SHE SPEAKS FRENCH

1:27:41 > 1:27:44THEY LAUGH