The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

“Recruited a dozen years earlier by MI6, Britain’s foreign-intelligence service, the agent code-named NOCTON had proven to be one of the most valuable spies in history. The immense amount of information he fed back to his British handlers had changed the course of the Cold War, cracking open Soviet spy networks, helping to avert nuclear war, and furnishing the West with a unique insight into the Kremlin’s thinking during a critically dangerous period in world affairs. Both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had been briefed on the extraordinary trove of secrets provided by the Russian spy, though neither the American president nor the British prime minister knew his real identity. Even Gordievsky’s young wife was entirely unaware of his double life.”

This is part of the flash-forward that the author employs in the Introduction, which summarizes much of the significance of Gordievsky’s spying life. As noted previously, it’s an interesting but necessary choice by the author for opening the book—by alluding to much of the story right at the start. What the author doesn’t disclose is whether Gordievsky is caught, as the Introduction ends with a cliffhanger, an effective technique to heighten suspense and entice continued reading. In addition, this passage foreshadows later events.

“Oleg Gordievsky grew up in a tight-knit, loving family suffused with duplicity. Anton Gordievsky venerated the Party and proclaimed himself a fearless upholder of Communism, but inside was a small and terrified man who had witnessed terrible events. Olga Gordievsky, the ideal KGB wife, nursed a secret disdain for the system. Oleg’s grandmother secretly worshipped an illegal, outlawed God. None of the adults in the family revealed what they really felt—to one another, or anyone else. Amid the stifling conformity of Stalin’s Russia, it was possible to believe differently in secret but far too dangerous for honesty, even with members of your own family. From boyhood, Oleg saw that it was possible to live a double life, to love those around you while concealing your true inner self, to appear to be one person to the external world and quite another inside.”

Macintyre foreshadows the theme Living a Double Life in this early passage. On the outside, his family was a model of Soviet values, but in reality, doubts and questions were buried inside. Macintyre astutely notes that none of this was openly revealed, thus creating an atmosphere that would infuse Gordievsky with a silent double existence—something he would emulate as an adult.

“Like all human beings, in later life Gordievsky tended to see his past through the lens of experience, to imagine that he had always secretly harbored the seeds of insubordination, to believe his fate was somehow hardwired into his character. It was not. As a student, he was a keen Communist, eager to serve the Soviet state in the KGB, like his father and brother. The Hungarian Uprising had caught his youthful imagination, but he was no revolutionary. ‘I was still within the system but my feelings of disillusionment were growing.’ In this he was no different from many of his student contemporaries.”

Passages like this show that the author maintains distance from and objectivity about his subject. This encourages acceptance of his guidance through the complex story as well as the conclusions he draws. Much of the information in the book comes from interviews with Gordievsky and his own autobiography, and it would have been easy for Macintyre to take everything from Gordievsky at face value.