Secrets and Spies is on BBC Two tonight at 9pm.
It’s 1985 and Mikhail Gorbachev is the new, young leader of the Soviet Union at a very tense time. East and West have been publicly stockpiling nuclear weapons for decades. Neither side wants to appear weak. And suddenly the spying game threatens the first tentative moves towards peace.
Oleg Gordievsky’s KGB bosses have drugged and interrogated him, suspicious that he is working for foreign powers. Oleg Gordievsky contacts his British handlers who have planned a daring operation to smuggle him out of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Aldrich Ames makes a decision. To cover his work for the Soviets, he hands over the names of virtually the entire CIA network of Soviet double-agents. His ace card is Oleg Gordievsky… the KGB now have proof of his betrayal. But with days to spare, the British smuggle Gordievsky across the Finnish border to freedom.
In the Soviet Union, blame for Oleg Gordievsky’s escape lands in Leningrad, among colleagues of another young KGB agent, Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Aldrich Ames remains undiscovered at the heart of the CIA.
This final episode includes exclusive audio recordings of Aldrich Ames, audio interviews from Oleg Gordievsky, and interviews with former KGB, CIA, FBI and MI6 officers including one of the MI6 officers who rescued Gordievsky.
Other interviews include colleagues of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, and experts with personal connections to the story such as Susan Eisenhower and Nina Khrushcheva.
Catch up on iPlayer.
