SOVIET SPIES IN BRITAIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301870003-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 14, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: September 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO N REPORTS, ~N~
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
PROGRAM The Today Show
September 13, 1985 7:00 A.M.
srAnoN W R C- T V
NBC Network
Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT Soviet Spies in Britain
FORREST SAWYER: Our cover story this morning. Has the
Soviet KGB been dealt a knockout blow in Britain? The head of
the KGB in Britain has defected. And immediately after that,
Britain has expelled 25 Soviet diplomats for allegedly spying.
Two guests are joining us to discuss this apparent blow
to the spy network. Live from our bureau in Washington, Admiral
Stansfield Turner. He is the former Director of the CIA. He is
a consultant to CBS News. And live from our London bureau, Brian
Freemantle. He is an author who has been studying the KGB for
many years.
This man is named Oleg Gordievski, Mr. Freemantle. Can
you tell us a little about who he is and why this defection is so
important?
BRIAN FREEMANTLE: Yes, I can. He is possibly the most
important defector to come across to the West in 20-25 years,
maybe even longer than that. And his value to the West is not
just because he is the chief of the KGB in Britain and will
enable us to roll up completely the KGB system here. Before he
came here, he was in Denmark. He worked with extensively with
the Danes. His period of spying for the West stretches back
about ten years.
But even more important than that, before he was sent to
the West, in Moscow Center, in Dzherzhinsky Square, his function
was to train and infiltrate into the West people who are called
illegals. These are people who are sent in over a long period of
time to settle into the West, to get jobs, to marry, to settle
down and become citizens of whatever country they're chosen to be
in. And they are activated after maybe 10 to 15 years.
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Gordievski knows the identities of all these people. Some will
have moved, but he -- but Moscow will not know who he can
identify and who he can't.
This, I think, at the moment, is going to be Moscow's
chief concern. He can roll up and blow a lot, a very great deal
of KGB activities throughout the West and throughout America.
SAWYER: All right. Let me ask Admiral Turner.
Admiral Turner, you point out a point that's very
intriguing to you. The man has actually been a double agent,
apparently, for over ten years. Why should he come in from the
cold now? Couldn't he be more helpful to the Brits and to the
Danes as a double agent?
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: Well, there are a couple of
reasons for that. One is, of course, the KGB maybe got a tip-off
and may be hot on his trail.
The second, of course, is that he may want to come in
from the cold. He may want to start enjoying the kind of Western
life that he has seen and he wants to be part of, rather than
that repressive Soviet lifestyle.
SAWYER: How can we be certain that the information that
he is now giving us is, in its turn, possibly disinformation that
the KGB would like to put across?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Well, you take every defector with a
grain of salt and you put him through a lot of tests. You check
his information against other information that you have from
totally separate sources. You do things even to entrap him.
You'll try to set him up, so that if he has something he wants to
pass back to the Russians, that you'll catch him doing it. You
have to be very cautious.
But most of all, you don't give him any of your own
secrets so that he could pass anything back if he were a double
agent.
SAWYER: What about that, Mr. Freemantle? Are you
confident that the gentleman is all that he claims to be?
FREEMANTLE: Certainly the guidance I'm getting from
British intelligence is that they believe him to be who he says
he is, they believe in his bona fides.
Although I agree with Admiral Turner. He will be
treated very cautiously. There have been occasions before when
the KGB leaked something to the West in a disinformation exer-
cise. I certainly don't think that this occasion is a disinfor-
mation. I said, as I say before, I think he's the most important
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person to come across for a very, very long time.
SAWYER: A striking thing, Mr. Freemantle -- and briefly
-- is that 25 Soviet diplomats, same of them rather high-ranking,
are immediately expelled. Which suggests that the Soviet spy
network is extraordinarily extensive.
FREEMANTLE: Well, in fact, I know that there are at
least -- our counterintelligence holds the names of 75 to 100
ore agents. And the threat has been made in a diplomatic way to
Moscow that depending upon Moscow's reaction, if they overreact,
if they try and expel more than the ratio of our people from
Moscow, then we will expel more people from here, and get into a
tit-for-tat situation.
SAWYER: Admiral, will life go on as usual after this?
Just another expisode in the spy game?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes. I don't see a long-term
implication here. But it's certainly going to make it a lot
easier for Britain, and hopefully for the rest of the West, to
protect itself from Soviet spying.
SAWYER: So, one for the West this time.
ADMIRAL TURNER: Yes, indeed.
SAWYER: Admiral Stansfield Turner and Mr. Freemantle,
thank you both for joining us.
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