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

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War is a 2018 nonfiction book by Ben Macintyre. It was short-listed that year for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction (previously known as the Samuel Johnson Prize). Macintyre is an editor and columnist for The Times and has written more than a dozen other books. Most deal with spies and intelligence, including Agent Sonya (2020), A Spy Among Friends (2014), and Agent Zigzag (2007).

This guide is based on the first edition hardcover by Crown Publishing.

Summary

The book opens with a brief Introduction describing a scene that took place in May 1985: When KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky, a spy for British intelligence, returned from London to his apartment in Moscow, he realized upon unlocking the door that his apartment had been broken into—and that the KGB was after him—because all three locks were secured, but he’d locked only two of them. With this revelation, the Introduction abruptly ends. The first chapter then backs up to tell Gordievsky’s story from his early years with his parents through 1965, when he was first posted overseas as a new KGB agent. Chapter 2 covers Gordievsky’s first stint in Denmark, where he reveled in the West’s freedoms and rich culture. After more than a year back in Moscow, Gordievsky and his wife returned to Denmark, and Chapter 3 covers this period, during which he was successfully recruited to work as a spy for MI6, the British foreign intelligence service.

Chapter 4 describes Gordievsky’s work with two successive MI6 handlers during the years 1975-77. Subsequently, as Chapter 5 describes, Gordievsky returned to the Soviet Union, where he divorced his first wife and married Leila, a woman he began an affair with while in Denmark. They had two daughters. Although the risk was too great to do any spying in Russia, Gordievsky learned English in hopes of being posted abroad again. Chapter 6 discusses the process of his getting posted to London and some of the intelligence he learned while in Moscow to bring with him and give to MI6.

Chapter 7 begins the second part of the book and tells of Gordievsky’s life and work in London, as well as his colleagues at the KGB station. In addition, this chapter introduces American CIA agent Aldrich Ames, who later became a spy for the KGB. In Chapter 8, Macintyre details Operation Ryan—the Soviet program to look for evidence of the US planning a preemptive nuclear strike—and explains how MI6 provided Gordievsky with harmless information to put in his KGB reports in an effort to boost his productivity and thus his career. Chapter 9 reveals how Gordievsky helped MI5 (Britain’s domestic intelligence service) root out an agent attempting to become a spy for the KGB. In Chapter 10, Macintyre outlines how Gordievsky influenced Cold War history in the mid-1980s by informing the West of Moscow’s paranoid reaction to NATO war games in 1983 and by advising Margaret Thatcher on protocol for two significant events: her attending the funeral of Yuri Andropov in Moscow and her hosting Mikhail Gorbachev in London. Chapter 11 describes how the CIA uncovered Gordievsky’s identity, Aldrich Ames began spying for the KGB, and Gordievsky was promoted to head of station in London.

The third and last section of the book covers Gordievsky’s return to Moscow, ostensibly for his formal promotion, and then, after discovering that the KGB was onto him, his escape to London via Operation PIMLICO. Chapter 12 details his return and accusation by his superiors that he was a spy. When they tried to get him to confess, he refused, and a “cat and mouse” game ensued, as the chapter title alludes to. In Chapter 13, the author explains how Gordievsky gave the signal to implement Operation PIMLICO and describes the preparations in Moscow and London to set it into action on Friday and Saturday, July 19 and 20, 1985. Chapter 14 outlines, step by step, the implementation of Operation PIMLICO, with all its twists and turns, from Friday morning to the next day’s rendezvous at the turnout near the Finnish border. The last chapter describes the final leg of the escape through Finland and Norway to England and summarizes Gordievsky’s first several months living in England. In the Epilogue, the author explains what happened to Gordievsky and the others involved in his case.

The book explores the themes Living a Double Life, Democracy Versus Authoritarianism, and The Price of Loyalty.