The famous KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky passed away at the age of 86.
Mr. Gordievsky's alias, “Hetman,” made him a key figure among Cold War spies.
Surrey Police said they were called to an address in Godalming on March 4 where “an 86-year-old man had been found dead”.
An official statement said the counter-terrorism unit was investigating, but “at this time the death is not being treated as suspicious” and “there is no evidence to suggest an increased risk to the public.”
For more than a decade, intelligence material provided by Mr Gordievsky provided Britain with valuable information about the thinking of the Soviet leadership and the covert operations of the KGB.
In the early 1980s, he was able to warn the West that Soviet leaders' paranoia about a surprise NATO nuclear attack was putting both sides on the brink of conflict, forcing US President Ronald Reagan to tone down his anti-Soviet rhetoric.
His intelligence later played a key role in advising Margaret Thatcher during her early meetings with the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, whose rise to power helped end the Cold War.
However, in 1985, when he was appointed to the important position of head of the KGB residency in London, he came under suspicion as a British spy.
He was summoned back to Moscow, where he was drugged and interrogated. He quickly realized that his life was in danger and he needed to escape.
Using a pre-prepared plan, he transmitted a signal to his MI6 handlers.
A man walking past him on a Moscow street with a Harrods bag and eating a Mars bar was a sign that his message had been received and the rescue operation had begun.
On 2 August 1985, in a daring operation personally approved by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, two MI6 officers – Raymond Asquith, the great-grandson of former Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and Andrew Gibbs – managed to evade Soviet surveillance and smuggle their agent across the border into Finland, hiding him in the boot of a car.
Mr. Gordievsky was sentenced to death in absentia in Russia for treason.
Meanwhile, he began a new life, living in a safe house in London, writing several books and being received by Mrs Thatcher at Chequers and Mr Ray
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
