Summary
Overview
This episode introduces Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer who became one of Britain's most valuable Cold War spies. The story follows his journey from a loyal Soviet diplomat in Copenhagen to a disillusioned agent who begins secretly working for MI6, driven by his horror at the USSR's crushing of the Prague Spring. As his personal life unravels through a failed marriage and a dangerous love affair, Gordievsky prepares to return to Moscow, where the risks of his double life will escalate dramatically. MI6 devises an elaborate escape plan involving chocolate bars and diplomatic cars, though Gordievsky doubts it will ever work.
The Failed Escape Attempt
The episode opens dramatically in July 1985 with Gordievsky hiding in the undergrowth near the Finnish border, waiting desperately for MI6 to rescue him from the Soviet Union. As mosquitoes swarm and his beer runs out, he makes a careless mistake by tossing a bottle with his fingerprints, then panics when cars approach. This opening scene sets up the high-stakes tension of his eventual escape attempt.
- Gordievsky lies in a forest near the Finland border, waiting for MI6 extraction
- He carelessly tosses a beer bottle with his fingerprints, then retrieves it to smudge them away
- White cars approach the lay-by - either his rescuers or KGB agents coming to arrest him
" Britain's Foreign Intelligence Service, MI6, has never successfully extracted a Russian agent from the USSR, let alone one under near constant scrutiny. "
Surveillance in Copenhagen's Red Light District
Flashback to 1967 Copenhagen, where Danish intelligence (PET) is monitoring Gordievsky, whom they suspect is a KGB agent working undercover as a diplomat. When officers follow him into a sex shop and discover he's purchasing magazines featuring men, they believe they've found potential blackmail leverage, as homosexuality is criminalized in the Soviet Union. This surveillance sets up the groundwork for his eventual recruitment.
- Danish intelligence PET has been trailing Gordievsky since his arrival at the Soviet embassy
- An officer follows Gordievsky into a sex shop and observes him purchasing magazines with men on the covers
- Gordievsky displays the magazines in his apartment, telling his wife Yelena they're a reminder of what she's fighting against
- Gordievsky's marriage to Yelena is hollow - she had an abortion without telling him
" Denmark has shown him what life could be, open, unafraid and free, everything Moscow taught him to fear. "
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