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Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, and was a double agent, providing information to the British
Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intellige ...
(MI6) from 1974 to 1985. After being recalled to
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
under suspicion, he was exfiltrated from the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
in July 1985 under a plan code-named Operation Pimlico. The Soviet Union subsequently sentenced him to
death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
''in absentia''.


Early life and education

The son of an officer of the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
(the Soviet secret police and precursor to the KGB), Gordievsky was born in 1938. He proved an excellent student at school, where he learned to speak
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
. He studied at a prestigious Moscow University –
Moscow State Institute of International Relations Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) (russian: Московский государственный институт международных отношений (МГИМО), also known as MGIMO University) is an institute of ...
– and later undertook NKVD training, where in addition to espionage skills he mastered German and also learned to speak Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian.


Career

On completion of his studies, Gordievsky joined the foreign service and was posted to
East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 u ...
in August 1961, just before the erection of the
Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the gover ...
. The building of the wall appalled him, and he became disillusioned with the Soviet system. After spending a year in Berlin, he returned to Moscow. Gordievsky joined the KGB in 1963, and was posted to the Soviet embassy in
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...
in 1966. He became outraged by the USSR's cruel crushing of the
Prague Spring The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First ...
reform movement in
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
in August 1968, and began sending covert signals to Danish and British intelligence agents and agencies that he might be willing to cooperate with them. In 1974 he agreed to pass secrets to MI6, a step he viewed as "nothing less than undermining the Soviet system". MI6 gave him the codename SUNBEAM. His second posting to Denmark ended in 1978, and he was recalled to Moscow – this time for a lengthy period because he quickly divorced his wife and married a woman he had been having an affair with, and the KGB frowned upon affairs and divorces as immoral. During this Moscow period, it was too risky for him to send any information to MI6. After he learned to speak English and lobbied heavily for a position that opened up in London, the KGB posted Gordievsky to London in June 1982. He steadily advanced in rank there with the help of secret aid and manipulation by MI6, which handed him abundant non-damaging information and contacts; MI6 also steadily banished his direct superiors back to Moscow on trumped-up charges so that Gordievsky took their place. He continued to provide secret documents and information to MI6. While in London, his MI6 code name was NOCTON. The CIA – told of MI6's high-level informant but not his name or position – gave him the codename TICKLE. In late April 1985 he was promoted to KGB station chief ( resident-designate or ''rezident'') in London at the Soviet embassy. He was suddenly summoned back to Moscow via a telegram on 16 May 1985. MI6 allowed him to make his own decision whether to immediately defect to the UK and live thenceforth in secrecy under their protection, or to go to Moscow with the understanding that he could be interrogated, tortured, or killed if the KGB suspected his betrayal. Gordievsky felt, given the huge benefits MI6 would reap if he remained ''rezident'' of the embassy, that he was being encouraged by MI6 to return to Moscow as ordered, and decided on that; MI6 began to revive a plan to extricate him if necessary. Unbeknownst to him, Gordievsky had been betrayed in early May (or early June 1985 at the latest) by CIA officer
Aldrich Ames Aldrich Hazen "Rick" Ames (; born May 26, 1941) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer turned KGB double agent, who was convicted of espionage in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Fede ...
. After returning to Moscow on 19 May 1985, Gordievsky was drugged and interrogated, but not yet criminally charged; instead he was placed in a non-existent desk job in a nonoperational department of the KGB. Under increasing surveillance and pressure in Moscow and seriously suspected of being a double agent, in July 1985 he managed to send a pre-arranged covert signal to MI6 to be rescued. Following his exfiltration from the USSR to the UK in 1985, he became of even greater use to the West, in that the information he disclosed (and had previously disclosed) could be immediately acted upon and shared without endangering his life, identity, or position.


British secret agent

During his first Danish posting, Gordievsky became disenchanted with his work in the KGB, particularly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. He tried to send a covert sympathetic message to the Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (Danish Security Intelligence Service), called PET, but his three-year stint ended and he returned to Moscow before making any direct contact. By the time he arrived again in Copenhagen in October 1972 for a second three-year stint, both the PET as well as MI6 – which had been tipped off by one of Gordievsky's old university friends – felt he was a persuadable agent. MI6 subsequently made contact with Gordievsky, and began running him as a double agent in 1974. The value of MI6's recruitment of such a highly placed and valuable intelligence asset increased dramatically when, in 1982, the KGB posted Gordievsky to London, and he rose through the ranks there, gaining the ability to access higher and higher levels of Soviet secrets, which he passed easily to MI6 via a London safe house. Two of Gordievsky's most important contributions were averting a potential nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union, when NATO exercise Able Archer 83 was misinterpreted by the Soviets as a potential first strike, and identifying
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...
as the Soviet heir-apparent long before he came to prominence. Indeed, the information passed by Gordievsky became the first proof of how worried the Soviet leadership had become about the possibility of a NATO nuclear first strike.


Sudden recall to Moscow

Gordievsky was suddenly ordered back to Moscow in mid May 1985, a few weeks after he had been promoted to KGB station chief in London. Although MI6 allowed him the option to instead defect and stay in London under their protection, on 19 May 1985 he left for Moscow. After his arrival, he was taken to a KGB safe house outside Moscow, drugged, and interrogated. He was questioned for about five hours. After that, he was released and told that he would never work abroad again. He was suspected of espionage for a foreign power, but his superiors stalled on taking any overt further action against him. In June 1985, he was joined in Moscow by his wife and two children, who had been living with him in London. Although MI6 had passed on information provided by Gordievsky to the American
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, the British would not reveal their source, so the CIA had conducted a covert operation to discover who the source was. After about a year, they realised that it must be Gordievsky. There was great suspicion that a high-ranking American CIA officer,
Aldrich Ames Aldrich Hazen "Rick" Ames (; born May 26, 1941) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer turned KGB double agent, who was convicted of espionage in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Fede ...
, who had been selling secrets to the KGB, reported Gordievsky's treachery to Soviet counterintelligence. Ames first met and sold classified information to a KGB agent on 15 May 1985, in Washington, DC; the following day Gordievsky received the telegram from KGB leadership recalling him to Moscow. A 1994 report by the ''Washington Post'', however, stated that "After six weeks of questioning Ames ... the FBI and CIA remain baffled about whether Ames or someone else first warned the Soviets about Gordievsky". An FBI report later stated that Ames had not advised the Soviets about Gordievsky until 13 June 1985; by that time, Gordievsky was under KGB surveillance but he had not yet been charged with treason as of 19 July 1985 when MI6 agents began the process of his escape. Nevertheless, biographer
Ben Macintyre Benedict Richard Pierce Macintyre (born 25 December 1963) is a British author, reviewer and columnist for ''The Times'' newspaper. His columns range from current affairs to historical controversies. Early life Macintyre is the elder son of Ang ...
and most people involved in the Gordievsky case believe that during his first visit with the KGB in Washington in early May 1985, Ames provided sufficient information to prompt an investigation by Colonel Viktor Budanov, the KGB's top investigator, and trigger Gordievsky's recall.


Escape from the USSR

An elaborate escape plan from the USSR had been already devised for Gordievsky by MI6 in 1978, when the KGB called him back to Moscow for a few years after his second three-year stint in Copenhagen. The escape plan was code-named "Operation Pimlico", and was devised by an MI6 officer named Valerie Pettit. Although he almost certainly remained under KGB surveillance, Gordievsky managed to send a covert signal to MI6, which activated the elaborate escape plan, Pimlico, that had been in place for many years for just such an emergency. He waited on a particular street corner, on a particular weekday at 7.30 pm, carrying a
Safeway Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, del ...
bag as a signal. An MI6 agent walked past carrying a
Harrods Harrods Limited is a department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It is currently owned by the state of Qatar via its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. The Harrods brand also applies to ot ...
bag, eating a
Mars bar Mars, commonly known as Mars bar, is the name of two varieties of chocolate bar produced by Mars, Incorporated. It was first manufactured in 1932 in Slough, England by Forrest Mars, Sr. The bar consists of caramel and nougat coated with milk c ...
, and the two made eye contact. These mutual signals indicated that the escape plan was to be activated immediately. On 19 July 1985, Gordievsky went for his usual jog, but he instead managed to evade his KGB tails and boarded a train to
Vyborg Vyborg (; rus, Вы́борг, links=1, r=Výborg, p=ˈvɨbərk; fi, Viipuri ; sv, Viborg ; german: Wiborg ) is a town in, and the administrative center of, Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus ...
, near the Finnish border, where he was met by British embassy cars, after they managed to lose the three KGB surveillance cars following them. Lying down in the boot of a Ford Sierra saloon, he was smuggled across the border into Finland. Two British diplomats and their wives were Gordievsky's courier; to dissuade
sniffer dog A detection dog or sniffer dog is a dog that is trained to use its senses to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs, wildlife scat, currency, blood, and contraband electronics such as illicit mobile phones. The sense most used by d ...
s at the Finnish border one of the wives dropped her baby's dirty nappy (US:diaper) on the ground, causing the dogs to flee. Gordievsky was flown to the UK via Norway; in the UK, his MI6 codename was changed to OVATION. Soviet authorities subsequently sentenced Gordievsky to death ''
in absentia is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent". may also refer to: * Award in absentia * Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body * Election in ab ...
'' for
treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
, a sentence never rescinded by post-Soviet Russian authorities, but which cannot be legally carried out because of Russia's then-membership in the
Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it has 46 member states, with a p ...
. His wife, Leila (an
Azeri Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most nume ...
) was the daughter of a KGB officer and was unaware of her husband's defection. She and their children were on holiday in the
Azerbaijan SSR Azerbaijan ( az, Азәрбајҹан, Azərbaycan, italics=no), officially the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR; az, Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы, Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist R ...
at the time of his escape. She was interrogated and detained for some six years, the Soviets presuming (wrongly) that she had been complicit in Gordievsky's activities. However, the marriage was effectively dead by then and eventually it foundered completely. It was reported in 2013 that Gordievsky was in a long-term relationship with a British woman he had met in the 1990s. Gordievsky's exfiltration greatly embarrassed both the KGB and the Soviet Union and resulted in disruptions by Viktor Babunov, the KGB's chief of counterintelligence, within the KGB including Sergei Ivanov's career with the KGB, who was KGB resident in Finland, as well as numerous members of the Leningrad KGB, which was responsible for surveillance of British subjects, and numerous persons close to
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
, who was a member of the Leningrad KGB. Gordievsky included a discussion of his exfiltration in his memoir, ''Next Stop Execution'', published in 1995.


Life in the UK

Gordievsky has written a number of books on the subject of the KGB and is a frequently quoted media pundit on the subject. In 1990, he was consultant editor of the journal ''Intelligence and National Security'', and he worked on television in the UK in the 1990s, including the game show ''
Wanted Wanted may refer to: Law enforcement * Fugitive, a person wanted by the authorities * Wanted poster, a poster put up to inform the public of one or more criminals whom authorities wish to apprehend Film * ''Wanted!'', a 1937 British comedy film ...
''. In 1995, the former
British Labour Party The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all ...
leader
Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
received an out-of-court settlement (said to be "substantial") from ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' after the newspaper alleged, in articles derived from claims in the original manuscript of Gordievsky's book ''Next Stop Execution'' (1995), that Foot was a KGB "agent of influence" with the codename 'Boot'. On 26 February 2005, he was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by the
University of Buckingham , mottoeng = Flying on Our Own Wings , established = 1973; as university college1983; as university , type = Private , endowment = , administrative_staff = 97 academic, 103 support , chanc ...
in recognition of his outstanding service to the security and the safety of the United Kingdom. Gordievsky was appointed Companion of the Most Distinguished
Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III. It is named in honour ...
(CMG) for "services to the security of the United Kingdom" in the 2007
Queen's Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours, in some Commonwealth realms, mark the King's Official Birthday, reigning British monarch's official birthday by granting various individuals appointment into Order (honour), national or Dynastic order of knighthood, dynastic ...
(in the Diplomatic List). ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' newspaper noted that it was "the same
gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...
given (to) his fictional
cold war The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
colleague
James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors hav ...
." Gordievsky noted that the KGB were puzzled by and denied the claim that Director General of MI5 Roger Hollis was a Soviet agent. In the 2009 ITV programme ''Inside MI5: The Real Spooks'', he recounted how he saw the head of the British section of the KGB express surprise at the allegations that he read in a British newspaper about Roger Hollis being a KGB agent: "Why is it they are speaking about Roger Hollis, such nonsense, can't understand it, it must be some special British trick directed against us". The allegiance of Hollis remains a debated historical issue; the MI5 official website has cited Gordievsky's revelation as a vindication of Hollis. In the ''
Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
'' in 2010, Charles Moore gave a "full account", which he said had been provided to him by Gordievsky shortly after Foot's death, of the extent of Foot's alleged KGB involvement. Moore also wrote that, although the claims are difficult to corroborate without MI6 and KGB files, Gordievsky's past record in revealing KGB contacts in Britain had been shown to be reliable. Gordievsky was featured in the PBS documentary '' Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy''. Work in recent years included being a consultant editor for the journal of ''National Security'', co-hosting a TV show titled ''Wanted in the Nineties'' and writing content for ''Literary Review''. Gordievsky lived for years in a "safe house" in London, and security has been tightened since the Salisbury poisonings. A September 2018 article indicated that by that time he was living in an undisclosed location in the
Home counties The home counties are the counties of England that surround London. The counties are not precisely defined but Buckinghamshire and Surrey are usually included in definitions and Berkshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent are also often included ...
of England.


Suspected poisoning

In April 2008, the media reported that on 2 November 2007, Gordievsky had been taken by ambulance from his home in
Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...
to a local hospital, where he spent 34 hours unconscious. He claimed that he was poisoned with
thallium Thallium is a chemical element with the symbol Tl and atomic number 81. It is a gray post-transition metal that is not found free in nature. When isolated, thallium resembles tin, but discolors when exposed to air. Chemists William Crookes an ...
by "rogue elements in Moscow". He accused MI6 of forcing
Special Branch Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and intelligence in British, Commonwealth, Irish, and other police forces. A Special Branch unit acquires and develops intelligence, usu ...
to drop its early investigations into his allegations; according to him, the investigation was only reopened due to the intervention of former MI5 Director General
Eliza Manningham-Buller Elizabeth Lydia Manningham-Buller, Baroness Manningham-Buller, (born 14 July 1948) is a retired British intelligence officer. She was Director General of MI5, the British internal Security Service, from October 2002 until her retirement in Apr ...
. In Gordievsky's opinion, the culprit was a UK-based Russian business associate who had supplied him with pills, which he said were the sedative Xanax, purportedly for
insomnia Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder in which people have trouble sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, ...
; he refused to identify the associate, saying British authorities had advised against it. Gordievsky accused MI6 of trying to suppress the incident from being known. "I realised they wanted to hush up the crime," he remarked. "There has been accusation and counter-accusation. If they are saying I am not affected by the poison, why did I spend two weeks in hospital?"


In popular media

In 2018
Ben Macintyre Benedict Richard Pierce Macintyre (born 25 December 1963) is a British author, reviewer and columnist for ''The Times'' newspaper. His columns range from current affairs to historical controversies. Early life Macintyre is the elder son of Ang ...
published a biography of Gordievsky, ''The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War''. The 2019 edition of the book includes an Afterword of post-publication reactions from officers of MI6, the KGB, and the CIA who had been involved in the events surrounding Gordievsky. In March 2020, Gordievsky's story was recounted in an episode of ''Spy Wars With Damian Lewis'', on the Smithsonian Channel in the US, streaming on various cable services. The episode, ''The Man Who Saved The World'', recounts the "years-long effort by Gordievsky to pass Soviet intelligence to the British, all but preventing a nuclear Armageddon between the Soviet Union and the West".Youtube video, publishe March 15, 2020
/ref>


Works

* * * * * * Jakob Andersen med Oleg Gordievsky: "De Røde Spioner – KGB's operationer i Danmark fra Stalin til Jeltsin, fra Stauning til Nyrup", Høst & Søn, Copenhagen (2002).


See also

*
List of Eastern Bloc defectors A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
*
List of KGB defectors This is a list of KGB officers and agents who have defected. See also * List of GRU defectors * List of Soviet and Eastern Bloc defectors * List of Soviet Union defections * List of Cold War pilot defections * Petrov Affair References Fur ...
* Vitaly Nuykin


References

*


External links

* ''
Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an engine ...
'' magazine
Oleg Gordievsky: Interview
(2006)
Biographer Ben Macintyre summarizes Gordievsky's life, career, and escape from the USSR
(one-hour talk, 2018) {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordievsky, Oleg 1938 births Living people British spies against the Soviet Union Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Double agents Eastern Bloc spies for the West KGB officers Soviet diplomats Soviet spies Soviet intelligence personnel who defected to the United Kingdom Moscow State Institute of International Relations alumni Secret Intelligence Service People sentenced to death in absentia by the Soviet Union