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00:00Previously, on Secrets and Spies.
00:15In 1982, the Soviet Union had something like 33,000 nuclear weapons.
00:22They are the focus of evil in the modern world.
00:27I hated the communist system.
00:29I wanted to fight against it.
00:31I became a secret agent for the British intelligence.
00:35Confrontation between West and East was very serious.
00:41There was really significant fear that this was going to lead to something extremely,
00:47extremely dangerous.
00:50You're playing with fire.
00:53You simply don't understand the mentality of the old Russian leaders.
01:02This is the unseen story of the Cold War, fought not by politicians, but by secret agents.
01:14There was complete misunderstanding on either side.
01:18It's very difficult to determine whom you can trust.
01:24As the Soviet Union faces off with the West in the early 1980s, two spies play a dangerous
01:33game from the shadows.
01:35They seek to win the upper hand while the world stands on the brink of nuclear war.
01:42These are their stories in their own words.
01:47Testimony pieced together from interviews over the years.
01:51After 11 years of secret work, maybe I developed paranoia.
01:57And never-before-heard recordings.
02:00More than five go undetected.
02:03Most counterespionage services understand that you're not going to catch all of us.
02:12Reveal the deadly intrigues at the heart of the battle between East and West.
02:18Look, this is a war, a secret war.
02:421983 had been a horrendous year for U.S.-Soviet relations, really one of the worst.
02:59Various things were done which scared the daylights out of the Soviet Union.
03:08You had the military exercise Able Archer.
03:13Soviet Union was convinced that if there was a bolt out of the blue, if there was an unprovoked
03:20attack by NATO, by the United States, against the Soviet Union, it would be under the guise
03:26of a military exercise.
03:31We'd also just gotten over the shoot-down of the KAL Airlines.
03:37We had gone through the evil empire speech.
03:42And so it was a real time of high, high tension.
03:48What we've been concentrating on in the last 10 days is the most important relationship
03:51in the world, and it makes an enormous difference to the world community, when Soviet-American
03:55relations deteriorate to the lowest point in 20 years, which they have.
04:06When the competition is a nuclear competition, the uncontrollable risks of misunderstanding
04:15could have catastrophic consequences.
04:19And that's really the lesson of 1983.
04:23The stakes are uncontrollably high.
04:27It would be a miracle if there is not one or two major dangerous confrontations, direct
04:32confrontations between the Soviet Union and the United States.
04:39On the world stage, President Reagan is determined to defeat what he calls the evil empire.
04:49But another battle is playing out in the shadows.
04:55For me, becoming a spy for the KGB was ideology.
04:59I am Jack Barsky.
05:01That's not the name I was born with.
05:03We stole the identity of Jack Barsky, who passed away at the young age of 11, spent
05:1010 years as an illegal undercover agent for the KGB in the United States.
05:18I was 100 percent convinced that communism was the right thing, that the world eventually
05:26would wind up being one happy communist family.
05:34In Moscow, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov continues running Operation RION.
05:40It feeds into his paranoia of a nuclear attack from the West.
05:48He has over 100 KGB spies overseas whose job is to win the struggle for global supremacy.
06:00But not all of them are loyal to the Soviet Union.
06:03Top London agent Oleg Gordievsky has a dangerous secret.
06:08Nobody had any idea that I was working secretly for Britain.
06:17There is a cat-and-mouse relationship between the intelligence agencies.
06:23It was white-hot with the emotions on both sides.
06:33In America, the CIA builds a network of their own, recruiting KGB agents willing to turn
06:39traitor.
06:45The new boss of this desk is Aldrich Ames, known to colleagues as Rick.
06:59I got picked up by the CIA in 1968, and that's where I stayed.
07:06Then I got hired by the Soviet Russia division.
07:12I liked Rick.
07:14I enjoyed being around him.
07:17I used to work for the Central Intelligence Agency.
07:20Rick Ames was my boss there.
07:25I was loving it.
07:28I really liked working on the Soviet target.
07:31It always felt like important work to me, plus watching my boss in action with the meetings
07:35he was going out to and what he was bringing back.
07:42He is newly in love after a failed marriage.
07:46While Rick was still married to his first wife, he met Rosario.
07:55This is Rick and Rosario at the beach in Puerto Vallarta.
07:59They were in love.
08:02In a way, he was very good for her, and she was very good for him.
08:07Ames' job is to protect the CIA's growing portfolio of Soviet agents.
08:15A very important part of the mosaic of information about the Soviet menace comes from spies,
08:22human agents, each of whom is taking an enormous risk, and those spies are sending their information
08:30ultimately via Aldrich Ames.
08:51His job is to be sure that the information that these agents provide in the field is
08:57in a useful form.
08:59For policymakers in Washington.
09:03But he's also in a position to shape how Washington uses this material.
09:10Through this man goes the most important human intelligence that the United States is collecting
09:16in the Soviet Union on the Soviet menace.
09:19Through this one man.
09:21So he knows their names, and of course he's supposed to keep those names secret so that
09:25they don't die.
09:29In London, one Soviet double agent is more valuable than all the American assets.
09:59It was such a tremendous opportunity for the British intelligence community that a senior
10:04KGB officer deployed in London was their source.
10:10The British source, Oleg Gordievsky, is third in command at the KGB London station.
10:17I was able to tell the West about the level of paranoia in the Kremlin, about the level
10:23of misunderstanding of the position of the West.
10:29Gordievsky's intelligence revealed that the West's military exercise,
10:34Able Archer, provoked the Soviets to seriously dangerous levels.
10:40The security was heightened around the perimeters of the NATO-US exercises.
10:47Russia interpreted that as not just another exercise,
10:51but perhaps posturing from the United States and NATO to actually deploy a nuclear weapon.
11:00Yuri Andropov, the leader of the Soviet Union, is so paranoid that one misstep could take
11:19the world to the brink of nuclear war.
11:22This misinterpretation about what the West's intentions were was something to be worried
11:28about.
11:30And President Reagan has no idea.
11:36Then the British decided it was time to start telling Washington a little bit about who their
11:42new spy was and some of the information that he was feeding them.
11:47In particular, that Russia was indeed alarmed and Russia was fearful.
11:52But these insights come just as Americans watch a nightmare scenario unfold on screen.
12:14In late November 1983, ABC put on a movie special called The Day After.
12:22It was a movie of a town in Kansas getting blown up by nuclear weapons.
12:35It's very powerful.
12:39President Reagan watched it at, I believe, at Camp David with Nancy.
12:45And he told us that he was kind of devastated by the whole thing.
12:52It was watched by over 100 million Americans.
12:58And it was the rage.
13:01Ronald Reagan doesn't want to be seen as someone who brought the world close to nuclear brink.
13:07So he wants to be the peace-lover president.
13:10And he was flopping around wondering what to do about it all.
13:15Shocked by the reality of nuclear war, Reagan offers his first olive branch to Andropov.
13:31I believe that 1984 finds the United States in the strongest position in years
13:37to establish a constructive and realistic working relationship with the United States.
13:41Establish a constructive and realistic working relationship with the Soviet Union.
13:46Just suppose with me for a moment that an Ivan and an Anya could find themselves,
13:52say, in a waiting room or sharing a shelter from the rain or a storm with a Jim and Sally.
13:59As they went their separate ways, maybe Anya would be saying to Ivan,
14:02wasn't she nice? She also teaches music.
14:05Jim would be telling Sally what Ivan did or didn't like about his boss.
14:11They might even have decided they were all going to get together for dinner some evening soon.
14:17People want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war.
14:21A nuclear conflict could well be mankind's last.
14:25Reagan's big point was not the day after. The big point was the day before.
14:30And let's try the day before to make sure that the day after never happens.
14:36If the Soviet government wants peace, then there will be peace.
14:43Let us begin now.
14:55But before any new strategy gets underway, a major tragedy rocks Moscow.
15:05It is after midnight in Moscow. The Soviet flag, the hammer and sickle,
15:19has been lowered to half-staff over the Kremlin. Yuri Andropov, the Soviet president, dead at 69.
15:30People knew that he had kidney problems. Everybody knew he was sick. People were
15:34comparing his skin color, whether greenish or whether bluish or whatever.
15:42So it wasn't really a surprise that he was dying.
15:47But at the same time, because of tensions with the United States, with the West,
15:53there was uncertainty.
15:55It turns out that Yuri Andropov had much more than a bad cold for the past six months.
16:00His funeral will be in Moscow Tuesday,
16:02and although a number of prominent American politicians urged President Reagan to attend,
16:07he will not.
16:11Reagan's olive branch does not extend to a trip to the USSR.
16:16Instead, he sends Vice President George H.W. Bush.
16:23Andropov's death has left many Russians feeling uneasy.
16:27They have now lost two presidents in less than a year and a half,
16:30and that's bound to unnerve a people who crave security.
16:42During this critical moment,
16:44British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is one step ahead of Reagan.
16:48The intelligence reports from early Gordievsky were very important,
16:53because you are, as it were, seeing behind the curtain.
16:59Margaret Thatcher began to feel that there might be an opportunity for her to open a relationship
17:05with the Soviet Union, which would also be a platform for her to establish her own political
17:13union, which would also be a platform on which the United States could build.
17:27Thatcher will cross the Iron Curtain and attend Andropov's funeral,
17:32her first visit as the leader of the British state.
17:37Gordievsky's insight into the Soviet leadership's mindset is critical.
17:44Yes, hello, it's the duty clerk here.
17:45We have an amendment to make to the Prime Minister's travel arrangements for tomorrow.
17:51Gordievsky's briefings advise her to be formal but friendly,
17:56and soften her normally tough image.
18:00The Soviets don't react well to shows of strength.
18:05On a human level, I think this briefing was extremely important.
18:10It's body language, it's style, it's smiling at the right moments but not smiling at the wrong moments.
18:21It's how you appear.
18:24An historic visit, Prime Minister.
18:26It is indeed, my friend.
18:26It's good to have your mum with us.
18:28I haven't been to Moscow since 9.45.
18:39The funeral provides an opportunity for Margaret Thatcher to meet the new head of the USSR.
19:03The new leader of the Soviet Union is 72-year-old Konstantin Chernenko.
19:10Mr Chernenko had moved up to the graveside for the final salute.
19:13He's known to have had health problems of his own.
19:16Moscow rumours have spoken of pneumonia, but say he's recovered.
19:21For a brief moment, he seemed to have difficulty raising his hand.
19:25Now, more than ever, he'll need his strength if he's to consolidate his power.
19:30The Prime Minister got a few minutes with the new leader and the foreign minister,
19:34Andrei Gromyko, immediately after the ceremony.
19:37She behaved in a very dignified way, but also in a charming way.
19:46We know from our intelligence source that her behaviour made a very favourable impression on the Russians at that moment.
19:57You were very courteously received, and I very much valued the opportunity of half an hour's talk with Mr Chernenko this evening.
20:06It's in the interest of the peoples on both sides of the political divide to live in peace and security.
20:12Let's start on that basis and try to build up.
20:18Thatcher seizes the opportunity to put Britain at the centre of a new kind of relationship.
20:23A relationship that could shift the balance in the Cold War.
20:27The new leader of the Soviet Union, Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko,
20:31immediately dispelled any suggestion that he might take a softer line with the West.
20:36For most of us, this kind of exhibition of state power was so tiresome.
20:46Another old guy died, and now we're going to have another old guy ruling over us.
20:51It was a dying joke. It was an absolutely ossified system.
20:57Ronald Reagan remains remarkably quiet following his Ivan and Anya speech.
21:06He's reluctant to invest in a leader who might not last long.
21:12Ronald Reagan is dying to negotiate with the West.
21:16But he says, they keep dying on me, they keep dying on me.
21:19He wants to have a real summit.
21:21And Chernenko was about 105 years old at that time,
21:25and drooling, and had trouble walking into the room by himself.
21:33Chernenko is so frail that there's no guarantee he'll rule for long.
21:37Both sides of the Iron Curtain begin to look to the future.
21:43Gordievsky picks up on rumors of a new young contender.
21:49Mikhail Gorbachev has risen quickly from Secretary of Agriculture
21:53to the second-in-command in the Politburo, a part of the country's ruling elite.
22:00I had a strong feeling that there was a tremendous interest
22:04and sympathy in the KGB for Mr. Gorbachev.
22:06If it is self-evident that Chernenko cannot survive very long,
22:12then the quicker we start having real contact with Mikhail Gorbachev,
22:16the better.
22:18He's a young man.
22:20He's a young man.
22:22He's a young man.
22:24He's a young man.
22:26The quicker we start having real contact with Mikhail Gorbachev, the better.
22:32Reagan is unaware about the new rising star of Soviet politics.
22:38President Reagan was very hawkish and had been very vocal
22:42about his views on communism and needing to break it down.
22:46Not necessarily viewing the Soviet Union as a partner,
22:50but as somebody who the United States really needed to one-up
22:54in terms of this overriding issue of democracy versus communism.
23:02But Thatcher has moved beyond this and sees a bigger picture
23:06thanks to Gordievsky's intel.
23:08This is her opportunity to take control
23:12and steer the Cold War away from its stalemate.
23:16A decision was taken to see if we could persuade Gorbachev
23:20to come to the United Kingdom.
23:22They wait with bated breath to see if their offer will be accepted.
23:42In 1984, the political relationship between East and West
23:46is as fractious and dangerous as ever.
23:50The spies continue their cat-and-mouse game to gain the upper hand.
23:56I lived in the United States
24:00with an established identity as an American,
24:04but I was actually spying for the KGB.
24:08The tensions were very, very high.
24:14The Russians were trying to spy on us and recruit our people.
24:18We were spying on them and trying to recruit their people.
24:22Oh, that's me.
24:24I worked the Soviet target, KGB mostly.
24:32They were interested in me living behind enemy lines
24:36as an American,
24:38somebody who, if necessary, could do a lot of damage.
24:44What I loved most about the job, I think,
24:46was kind of the chessboard game with the Russians.
24:52Our goal was to weaken the enemy
24:54and eventually help the, quote-unquote,
24:58working class to rise up
25:02and build another communist nation.
25:08The handling of the KGB double agents
25:12The handling of the KGB double agents
25:14is coordinated by the FBI and CIA working together.
25:20Rick Ames was responsible
25:22for monitoring every Soviet case.
25:26All the important agent cases
25:30sort of had to pass by his desk
25:32and get his seal of approval.
25:34For him, it was probably quite an exciting time.
25:38Is this Matoran and Martinoff?
25:44They were both KGB officers.
25:46Martinoff was a joint effort between the Bureau and us.
25:50Sergei Matoran was a line PR officer
25:54in Washington, D.C., who we recruited.
25:58This guy I know very well.
26:02This is Major General Dmitry Polyakov.
26:06I worked with him quite a while myself.
26:14CIA agent Aldrich Ames is in a powerful position.
26:18He has 20 Soviet double agents all under his protection.
26:24We were responsible for these assets.
26:28It's a job I really took seriously.
26:32Their lives were at stake.
26:34And they knew that risk
26:36when they had joined up to sign.
26:42But Ames is beginning to feel frustrated,
26:46and his endless daily commute gives him time to think.
26:50I realize I was, I think, the only person,
26:52at least from the agency,
26:54who really had a pretty good understanding
26:56of how the KGB works.
26:58No amount of intelligence
27:00would seem to have any effect
27:02on the decisions of the Palace of the Nobles.
27:08You know, our foreign policy and everything
27:10was so, was so locked in place
27:12that we're so over the place.
27:14He'd write these studies.
27:16Everybody would read them and say,
27:18oh, that's really great work, Rick.
27:20And then that would be the end of it.
27:22You know, they didn't really send it anywhere.
27:28I think it's a good thing
27:30that we're able to do this
27:32and that we're able to do this
27:34and that we're able to do this
27:36and that we're able to do this
27:38and that we're able to do this
27:40and that we're able to do this
27:43and that we're able to do this
27:45and that we're able to do this
27:47and that we're able to do this
27:49and that we're able to do this
27:51and that we're able to do this.
27:54Ames is feeling undervalued.
27:56The White House seems much more reliant
27:58on mysterious briefings from London.
28:05The intelligence from the CIA
28:07is very good on military technologies.
28:09It was just not good
28:11what is going to happen.
28:14You're asking to read a mind of somebody and to understand human motivations,
28:20that's tougher than what is happening or what has happened.
28:25The intel the Brits receive from Gordievsky gives them just that.
28:32And there are frustrations for Ames at home, too.
28:35He was also having a hard time in his mind
28:39trying to figure out how to get the divorce from his first wife
28:46and how much that was going to cost him.
29:04He gave Rosario, I think, an exaggerated sense of both how much money he had and his lifestyle.
29:20I think he exaggerated that to her.
29:23His old car was always breaking down.
29:25Everybody talked about his old junky cars.
29:30Why he didn't buy a new one? He probably couldn't afford one.
29:35He is leading a banal, middle-class life
29:40with the important distinction that he has access to some of the top secrets of the United States.
29:51He feels that people don't recognize his importance.
29:54They have underestimated Alder James.
30:04Oleg Gordievsky has proven so valuable, the British risk a bold move.
30:11They revoke the head of the station, Arkady Gook's diplomatic status.
30:19Gordievsky is the only man in the U.S. who has a diplomatic status.
30:25He is the only man in the U.S. who has a diplomatic status.
30:28Arkady Gook's diplomatic status.
30:34It forces Gook out of London and back to Moscow.
30:39When you do that, you open up the possibility that Moscow will start asking about why the British are doing what they're doing.
30:49And Moscow, which was already conspiratorially minded and paranoiac,
30:54might start doubting the loyalty of the people who were going to benefit from the fact that resident Gook had just been sent home.
31:04So that was a risk that they took.
31:08It leaves an enticing opening.
31:10With Gook out of the way, MI6 could plan for Gordievsky to step up a notch.
31:18Could he become the actual head of the KGB residency in London?
31:25It would give him much better access to intelligence operations being run from London.
31:32After Arkady Gook, the number two was Comrade Nikitenko, who was the head of the counterintelligence line in the station.
31:43Of course, there was a rivalry, but espionage is a teamwork, so you need a good member of a team.
31:54MI6 have to be extremely careful.
31:56He's got to show that he's really on top of the job and that he is the right person to lead the KGB effort in the United Kingdom,
32:05yet not be so good and so provoking that jealousies and suspicions will come about.
32:15MI6 might want Gordievsky in charge, but their puppeteering can't be discovered.
32:21Their strategy is a bold gesture with a potential double payoff.
32:26Impress Oleg's KGB bosses while making a strategic political move.
32:31With Gordievsky's help, we invited Gorbachev to come to the United Kingdom.
32:40We waited a rather long time.
32:43Then suddenly, we got an answer, saying, I'd like to come in the next couple of months and I'd like to bring Raisa, my wife, with me.
32:52Then we had to go into overdrive.
32:55It's a momentous event with a lot of tension.
32:59It's a momentous event with a lot of tension.
33:02It's a momentous event with a lot of tension.
33:05It's a momentous event with a lot at stake.
33:11It's a momentous event with a lot at stake.
33:15Gordievsky steps up and helps both sides to prepare.
33:21I was able to tell about the character of Mr. Gorbachev.
33:23I was able to tell about the character of Mr. Gorbachev.
33:25He was an able, energetic man who was keen to learn as much as possible about Great Britain and about Great Britain's achievements.
33:34Gordievsky is shown a copy of the Foreign Secretary Jeffrey Howe's brief, so he knows
33:43exactly how number 10 is gearing up.
33:48How do you get across the reality of what your actual position is?
33:52Sometimes the best thing you can do with intelligence is share it with your adversary.
33:59I was able to, knowing the position and the interest of the West, to make changes in some
34:05of my political reports sent to the Senate.
34:08He is then able to, in his own words, tell Gorbachev, this is what you must expect.
34:16These are the issues, for example, human rights, that the Prime Minister is going to raise
34:21with you.
34:24Gordievsky shares information on arms control, trade and economics, along with personal notes
34:28on Thatcher.
34:31Oleg is telling the KGB what the attitude towards Gorbachev would be, and what sort
34:38of things that would go down well with Mrs. Thatcher, and what wouldn't.
34:43Oleg was making sure that the right messages went in both directions.
34:50The reaction of Gorbachev, reading his briefs, was fed back to Gordievsky.
34:56There were ticks in the margin, passages were underlined.
35:01It's very rare in any intelligence operation to have real-time feedback on whether you're
35:07actually having the effect that you hoped to have.
35:13Having someone in London, who was on the political line, could produce world-historically important
35:22information.
35:28That's why he was an unusually important spy.
35:34He was at the right place at the right time.
35:52A decade after Gromyko, and 28 years since Bulganin and Khrushchev, Mr. Gorbachev arrived
36:02to do a little ice-breaking.
36:08I was at Chekhov's when he arrived, with Raisa, his wife.
36:16It was an unusual affair.
36:18The man who arrived was good-humoured, informal, and with a taste for well-cut suits.
36:24Gorbachev seemed a new kind of Russian.
36:26Big smile on his face, as if he's meeting an old chum.
36:33His wife, Raisa, showed not every Soviet woman was a 23-stone babushka.
36:40Thatcher's deciding to be very open and very...
36:44She wasn't stiff at all.
36:58The photograph was taken of us all standing on the steps and so forth.
37:09Margaret Thatcher, in her usual taking-control fashion, said, no, no, I think we have to
37:13have one shaking hands.
37:25So at this moment, Gordievsky's role was very important, actually, in creating a bridge
37:33between the British and the Russians.
37:39And then the first thing that happens is lunch.
37:42She hogged him to herself for the whole luncheon.
37:46He behaved, if I can put it this way, he wouldn't have liked this, but he behaved like a Western
37:50politician.
37:58I like Mr Gorbachev.
38:00We can do business together.
38:02We both believe in our own political systems.
38:05He firmly believes in his, I firmly believe in mine.
38:08We're never going to change one another.
38:10So that is not in doubt, but we should both do everything we can to see that war never
38:17starts again.
38:20A lot of the tension going into these meetings, the agenda that was set, the topics that each
38:27side was going to bring up and discuss, was known ahead of time, in large part, thanks
38:36to the messages that were received and delivered by Oleg Gordievsky.
38:42The visit is a success.
38:44Gorbachev and Thatcher find common ground.
38:54Thatcher immediately flies out to make the case to Reagan.
39:03And in 1983, Ronald Reagan said that the Soviet Union was an evil empire.
39:09And then Margaret Thatcher says to Mikhail Gorbachev, this is a man she can do business
39:14with.
39:15What an extraordinary shift.
39:17And of course, Ronald Reagan was not only an admirer and a friend of Margaret Thatcher,
39:23but he really respected her viewpoint on this.
39:26And she gave him some political cover to begin to look at the changes that were underway
39:32in the Soviet Union and take them more seriously.
39:43While Chernenko is leader, full dialogue with the Soviets remains a long way off.
39:50Her approval of Gorbachev legitimizes Reagan's desire to approach the Soviet leadership himself.
39:59And he is intrigued by her very well-informed insights.
40:11But the CIA wants to know exactly who is keeping the British one step ahead.
40:20The CIA had this, we are holier than thou position and thus have the right to have access
40:26to all of the information that we would like.
40:29And so they were itching to find out who is this mystery spy.
40:40We have sources in Europe, the Danish intelligence officer who said he worked for the Russian
40:47government.
40:48He didn't know the guy's name.
40:50And I asked the guy on my branch, I said, go check this against the London embassy.
40:58Ames and his colleagues scour the list of Soviet diplomats in London who had worked
41:02in Denmark.
41:03And I think in about an hour she came back and said, here it is, go see.
41:14Ames now knows the double agent who's been swaying Thatcher and Reagan's thinking.
41:21Unbeknownst to Oleg, there was a growing list of people in the CIA who were aware of him,
41:29his background, what he was doing, and his exact identity.
41:34And if the CIA can work out who the mole is, how long until the KGB finds out?
41:41The more people who know the name of a source, the more imperiled the source becomes.
41:50If his secret is betrayed to the KGB, it's a bullet to the back of the head.
41:59The risk for Gordievsky is death.