Original subtitles

[dramatic music playing]

[Raymond Asquith] The listeners, as they were, the KGB,

who had all the surveillance equipment,

lived on the floor above us in Moscow.

And you knew they were there.

On the whole, one just endured it.

I mean, I remember my wife and I had some kind of argument

about where we're gonna take the children

for a weekend picnic.

In a rather unmanly way,

I sort of addressed the ceiling and said,

"Well, you up there, which did we agree?"

And to my amazement, within about two or three hours,

somebody had slipped in a note under our front door saying,

"Well, you had agreed on Koskovo, or Timiryazev..." or whatever it was.

Anyway, some picnic place.

And I thought that was a KGB surveillant

who had a good sense of humor, actually.

[crowds cheering]

[narrator] This is the unseen story of the Cold War.

Fought not by politicians...

but by secret agents.

[Jack Barsky] There was complete misunderstanding

on either side.

It's very difficult to determine

whom you can trust.

[narrator] As the Soviet Union faces off with the West

in the early 1980s...

two spies play a dangerous game from the shadows.

They seek to win the upper hand

while the world stands on the brink of nuclear war.

These are their stories

in their own words.

Testimony pieced together from interviews over the years.

[Oleg Gordievsky] After 11 years of secret work,

maybe I develop paranoia.

[narrator] ...and never-before- heard recordings...

[Aldrich Ames, on recording]

[narrator] ...that reveal the deadly intrigues

at the heart of the battle between East and West.

[Alexander Vassiliev] Look, this is a war.

A secret war.

[dramatic music playing]

[menacing music playing]

[Marina Litvinenko] 1982 was a time

when people in Soviet Union still believe

reality of nuclear war.

Confrontation between West and East

was very serious.

Sometimes, it was not only iron curtains,

it was like an iron sphere.

[narrator] This is a dangerous moment for the Soviet Union,

almost 40 years into the Cold War.

Their economy is overstretched,

the military entrenched in Afghanistan,

and support for communism in decline.

The Soviet leadership, led by Leonid Brezhnev,

stockpiles nuclear arms in a show of strength

against the West.

But there's a much subtler weapon too.

Secret intelligence.

Yuri Andropov is the head

of the Soviet Intelligence Service,

the KGB.

The KGB have been running the Russian life for years.

Andropov was getting more and more convinced

of the menacing West.

He was a full-blown KGB person

who thought that it's either us or them.

And basically, it better be them.

[Tim Naftali] Yuri Andropov concludes

that the superpowers are on the verge

of a nuclear war.

And so he begins a process of collecting information

that would be indicators of the approach of nuclear war.

[narrator] This running tally of signs

is called Operation RYAN.

And every time Andropov gets new intelligence,

he takes note.

[Nina] There is a chart for "Americans said this,"

and "the Brits said that."

"Somebody was caught here."

And, "the plane crossed that border."

And I think in Andropov's mind,

he was absolutely convinced nuclear confrontation is coming.

[narrator] Once his chart is full,

Andropov is convinced the Soviet Union should strike.

And so he uses every resource

to keep close watch on his adversaries.

[Marina] Oleg Gordievsky

was a very high-qualificated intelligence officer.

He was born in a family working for KGB.

His brother working for KGB.

[knock on door]

I think he was a good example

of Soviet Intelligence Service.

Soviet Union always keen to put agents

all around the world.

[door opens]

[narrator] In 1982,

the KGB sends Gordievsky to the U.K.,

disguising his identity as a Soviet diplomat.

His posting comes at a tense time.

Relations between East and West are at a knife's edge.

[Tim] In December of 1979,

the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan.

Soviet allies in Central America were making gains in Nicaragua,

and were trying to make gains in El Salvador.

Meanwhile, in Africa,

Soviet allies were fighting in Angola

and were making new friends

in other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This picture seemed to contradict Soviet commitment

to better relations with the United States.

Why are they behaving this way?

If they really want better relations with us,

why are they on the march

in what was then called the Third World,

but we now call the Global South?

[narrator] There's a political standoff,

and neither side shows any signs of backing down.

[Ken Adelman] The Cold War was a view of the world

where you had a communist totalitarian empire

run out of Moscow,

and Western countries

led by the United States

but including Western Europe and Britain,

facing off against each other.

You have the Soviet Union,

which is at this point a dominant superpower,

a nuclear leader,

neck and neck with the United States

in terms of innovation and development.

But at the core, their ideologies, as we know,

are completely different.

Democracy versus communism.

[narrator] What began as an ideological conflict

has escalated into a terrifying nuclear arms race,

and neither side wants to appear weak.

The Soviet Union had something like 33,000 nuclear weapons.

We had something like 22,000.

Way too many and way too scary.

[crowd cheering]

[reporter speaking Russian]

[Tim, in English] The Cold War was an existential struggle

over the future of world civilization.

And this is what makes this moment in history so dangerous,

is you have both sides completely misunderstanding

both the power of their adversary

and the intentions of their adversary.

[dramatic music playing]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] As a staunch anti-communist,

Ronald Reagan crusades against everything

the Soviet Union stands for.

And he's not alone.

[news reporter] President Reagan's vast limousine

has just drawn up here outside the Norman Porch,

having come from Buckingham Palace.

This is going to be the first time

that an American president has addressed

both Houses of Parliament here in Westminster.

[Ken] Ronald Reagan met Maggie Thatcher,

and was amazed that they thought alike.

Prime Minister Thatcher really did,

despite her uptight bearing and her hairdo,

really loved to be with Ronald Reagan.

There was a certain magnetism.

There was a certain glory to him.

And she felt that tingling.

[applause]

[Reagan] My Lord Chancellor,

speaking for all Americans,

I want to say how very much at home

we feel in your house.

[Ken] Ronald Reagan said that Soviet communism

will lie, cheat and steal

to advance its mission around the world.

That was the idea that Ronald Reagan had

to delegitimize the Soviet Union.

The decay of the Soviet experiment

should come as no surprise to us.

We see totalitarian forces in the world

who seeks subversion and conflict around the globe

to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit.

[Ken] Even before he became president,

Ronald Reagan said,

"The Cold War will end,

and I know how it's gonna end.

We win, and they lose."

[narrator] And he's about to ramp up the rhetoric

even further.

The march of freedom and democracy

will leave Marxism/Leninism on the ash heap of history,

as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom

and muzzle the self-expression of the people.

[applause]

[Tim] Ronald Reagan is rallying the troops.

He's rallying the NATO alliance,

trying to send a signal

that the United States should be respected and even feared.

The America of the 1970s,

which was licking its wounds after losing the Vietnam War,

that's over.

We're back, we're strong,

and we should be feared.

Making America great again, if you will.

We're gonna win.

In the end, we will outlast them.

[Ken] People like me, hard-liners,

thought that was terrific.

Most of the people in attendance of the speech

didn't think it was terrific at all.

Why? Because he was too radical.

And it did cause a reaction in the Soviet Union.

[Nina] That speech, it was offensive.

And it was actually offensive to a lot of people.

A lot of people I remember saying,

"Well, who the hell are you

to tell us that we are in the heap of history?"

[Tim] That fed into the sense in Moscow

that Ronald Reagan was a cowboy,

and that he intended to use nuclear weapons

against the Soviet Union

in a war that is really fought psychologically.

Think about how dangerous that is.

[narrator] Closer cooperation between the U.K. and the U.S.

is exactly what Andropov fears.

And in this Cold War,

Andropov looks to his agents for proof.

[Ken] What intelligence did in those days

were they gave us details of the overall picture.

We could follow the number

of intercontinental ballistic missiles

that they had deployed.

We could follow the number of new submarines.

We could follow the number of new tanks.

We could follow all these things

that you could see from the satellite.

And we could hear about rumblings

from Poland, or Czechoslovakia, or Hungary, or Bulgaria,

or the Soviet Union to Russia.

[Raymond] This is very typical of my wife and my aunt

eating ice cream in the snow

outside the Bolshoi Theatre.

I was head of SIS station

in Moscow in early 1980s.

Civil servants are all signatories

of the Official Secrets Act.

And what's not in the public domain

is rarely not for discussion by us.

Our station in Moscow was quite a small one.

The whole apparatus of control and surveillance

was very sophisticated. I mean, they used to paint

radioactive paint on the bottom of our cars, you know,

in order to track us.

We were thin on the ground, really.

It was extremely hard for outsiders to discover

anything significant about the Soviet political intentions.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[narrator] While British agents seek a foothold in Moscow,

in London, Oleg Gordievsky joins his fellow spies.

[Alexander] London was one of the major cities

where Soviet espionage was going on.

The KGB quarters in London, it's called a station.

KGB Station.

It's located in the Russian Embassy.

That London job was extremely advantageous

for Gordievsky.

It means that he was trusted,

and that he was a decent operative,

and it was good for him.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] At the KGB station in London,

there are two agents above Gordievsky

in the hierarchy.

One of them is the KGB station chief, Arkady Guk.

[Alexander] Gordievsky was supposed to spend

most of his time, 9:00 to 5:00, in the embassy

doing his official job,

being a diplomat.

And then,

during the evening or on weekends,

he became a spy.

The job was to get British secrets,

especially secrets concerning Britain's foreign policy.

[narrator] Gordievsky is under pressure

to send intelligence to Moscow

that validates Operation RYAN.

At the same time,

he's had to hide the fact that he is a KGB spy

from the British.

In their eyes, he's just a diplomat.

If he blows his cover

or fails to feed the Soviet leadership

with good intel,

he'll be on the next plane to Moscow.

[Alexander] It was a very bold career move for Gordievsky.

But the British counterintelligence service,

MI5, is considered one of the most professional services

in the world.

So I'm pretty sure he knew

that it wouldn't be a picnic for him.

[Lord Robin Butler] Well, I've got various newspaper cuttings,

but also photos with Mrs. T.

Margaret Thatcher was uncompromising

in her dislike of socialism and of communism.

And that is what drove her.

I look so young and innocent.

My job was really to make sure

that 10 Downing Street worked well

for the prime minister.

Yes, okay, certainly.

Margot!

[narrator] Margaret Thatcher knows

that it's not just politics

that dictates the key moves in the Cold War.

[Lord Robin] Margaret Thatcher was fascinated by intelligence.

Part of it was the glamor.

But also, she liked to collect as much information as possible,

and intelligence was one of the sources.

[indistinct chattering]

There was a special box in Number 10

in which there would have been regular reports

of anything which became known

about Soviet activity in the U.K.

[narrator] MI6 has a very big secret

they are keeping from the prime minister.

[narrator] But he isn't just a KGB spy

pretending to be a Soviet diplomat.

[narrator] Oleg Gordievsky

is a double agent.

[narrator] In the '60s and '70s,

Gordievsky was based in Denmark

as a loyal and dependable KGB agent.

And it's there that he begins to see things

in a different light.

[Tim] The turning point for him

was the Soviet decision

to crush the Prague Spring.

An attempt at liberalizing the Soviet-style regime

in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Gordievsky has had an internal personal shift.

He recognizes the inherent repressiveness

of the Soviet system which, as a KGB officer,

he's sworn to defend.

This is an ideological decision for him.

[Baroness Meta Ramsay] There are some things

that I really cannot go into.

I know you'll understand

the nature of what we're talking about.

When Oleg arrived in London in 1982,

it was invaluable

to have the views of an insider

in the Russian Embassy in London

who knew the meaning of everything that was happening.

[narrator] Only eight people in the country

know about this highly sensitive operation

at a highly sensitive time.

[Baroness Meta] It would be very, very few people anywhere

who knew about Oleg.

You don't want anybody at any stage

to betray the source,

because accidents happen.

Usually, things are very, very carefully contained.

Only people who need to know.

That's a great principle, "need to know."

You have to keep completely tight

to a very few people.

[announcer] A specially extended Nine O'Clock News

with Michael Buerk.

[Buerk] President Brezhnev,

ruler of Russia for nearly two decades,

is dead.

For the Soviet people tonight,

five days of mourning begin.

For the leaders who've grown old in his shadow,

the chance of ultimate power.

Who will take over?

[news anchor] Administration officials said there will be

no change in U.S. foreign policy toward the Soviets

until there is a change in Soviet policy.

[narrator] The Soviet Union finds Reagan's aggressive tone

not just insulting, but an existential threat.

Right now, the last thing the Communist Party wants

is to be seen as weak.

So it decides to promote someone

with a very clear agenda.

[news anchor] One advisor called front-runner Yuri Andropov

a hard-line man who would be tough to deal with.

[somber music playing]

[narrator] Just two days after Leonid Brezhnev's death,

the head of the KGB,

hard-liner Yuri Andropov,

is promoted to the top job.

[Nina] Andropov was quite a terrifying man.

He came out of the apparatus of control,

and he then ran the Soviet Union

as a very controlled environment.

[news anchor] Tomorrow, Vice President Bush arrives.

Also, Secretary of State Shultz.

Bush's visit is intended as a gesture of conciliation

according to Western diplomats here.

These diplomats worry that

new Communist Party chief Yuri Andropov

may have had to pledge a tough anti-Washington line

and big weapons buildup

to win military support.

They would like the American delegation

to meet with Andropov after the funeral Monday,

but have no assurance the meeting will be arranged.

[Susan Eisenhower] Here was a guy who came out

of the Soviet Intelligence Community.

You had the feeling during Andropov's period

that, you know, things were really inert,

and the old generation was still running the country.

[Nina] My family was simply terrified.

My great-grandfather was Khrushchev.

He was the General Secretary

of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev dismantled, or as much as he could,

he dismantled the KGB after Stalin's death.

So Andropov, as my mother was convinced,

was going to come back at us and the family with a vengeance.

And, you know, there was even a talk

that the Gulags are going to be reinstated.

He is going to push forward certain policies,

including international policies.

[narrator] As leader of the Soviet Union,

Andropov takes his Operation RYAN charts

from the KGB back rooms to the heart of Soviet policy.

[Tim] Yuri Andropov is a very conspiratorial figure.

He is convinced that the United States

is seeking domination over the Soviets,

and ultimately a nuclear victory.

[Nina] And so the Soviet Union has to be completely

and utterly prepared to push that button.

[narrator] All eyes are now on Reagan

in this uncharted new landscape.

[Nina] Reagan was adamant

that he's not going to deal with those Red bastards.

[dramatic music playing]

And for Andropov,

Reagan was that cowboy

who is going to destroy the Soviet Union

because he was playing in all these films like John Wayne.

Reagan and Andropov in some ways found each other.

Neither of them would back off.

This was the moment when we were really scared

of the nuclear war.

That really stayed with me

as the scariest time that I've ever experienced

in my life in the Soviet Union.

[narrator] The opposing sides in the Cold War

could not be further apart.

Britain's double agent is now vital

to understanding the level of Andropov's paranoia.

[Sir David Omand] He's got access

to the operations being run

against the United Kingdom

by intelligence officers in the embassy.

And he's got a knowledge of the politics of Moscow.

Gordievsky, of course,

was able to brief his handlers on the dossier.

He knows a lot of people in the system,

and therefore he's got this unrivaled insight

into how decisions are taken,

how they think

in the senior reaches of the politburo.

He would be able to leave the embassy

on a regular basis

and to a safe house,

where he would be debriefed.

And if he could smuggle documents out of the embassy,

so much the better.

There'd be arrangements for copying those

in the safe house.

[narrator] Gordievsky's actions make him so valuable,

MI6 decides to inform 10 Downing Street.

In December 1982,

Margaret Thatcher is told that a highly placed KGB spy

now works as a double agent for the British.

But she isn't told his name.

Two months later, Gordievsky provides

crucial intelligence.

Operation RYAN is now official Soviet policy.

[Tim] What the Soviets didn't understand

is that there was a possibility

that Operation RYAN could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Operation RYAN was a perfect example

of starting with a conclusion,

and then looking for justification

for that conclusion.

Agents weren't asked,

"Are the American and the British

on the verge of nuclear war?"

They were asked, "Prove to us,

find the evidence that they are so that we'll be ready for it."

And that was the fundamental flaw with Operation RYAN.

[Baroness Meta] What Oleg Gordievsky really brought

was an inside understanding

of what Operation RYAN was really about.

It was showing a paranoia.

But the paranoia was real.

When two sides don't know one another,

they both misread signs.

You can see how dreadful things can happen

by that kind of misunderstanding.

[narrator] Gordievsky's intel

on the deepening Soviet paranoia

is so vital to the British

that they must conceal their source

even from the Americans.

[Tim] The reason the British did not want the Americans

to know who Gordievsky was

was the more people who know the name of a source,

the more imperiled the source becomes.

[narrator] Reagan doesn't have the luxury

of the Brits' inside knowledge.

He feels the most effective approach

is to scare the Soviets into backing down.

He takes a brazen and terrifying new stance.

[dramatic music playing]

[man] Ladies and gentlemen,

the president of the United States,

Ronald Reagan.

[applause]

[Ken] In 1983, I was arms control director.

Thank you.

[Ken] Ronald Reagan gives his speech

before the evangelicals, of all people...

saying that the Soviet Union is the evil empire.

The focus of evil in the modern world.

The Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared

that the only morality they recognize

is that which will further their cause,

which is world revolution.

[applause]

[Ken] Ronald Reagan felt

that there was a tendency in the world

to equate the two sides.

They're both to be blamed for the Cold War.

They're both to be blamed for all these nuclear weapons.

There's a moral equivalence between the two.

Ronald Reagan was saying, "There's no moral equivalence."

Let us pray for the salvation

of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness.

They are the focus of evil in the modern world.

[applause]

[Ken] And everybody's aghast

at how provocative this was

and how inflammatory this was.

People worried that this cowboy from the West

was irresponsible,

and he could blow us all up.

[applause continuous]

[narrator] Reagan's approach is to aggressively arm Europe

as a way to force the Soviets to back down.

The whole idea of whether you were tough or soft on communism

was still very much part of our political landscape.

He decided to assure

the right wing of the Republican Party

that he was tough on communism.

And I was dismayed, because what is the strategy

to call somebody, you know, the global center of evil?

If you insult people publicly,

you'll have a hard time getting cooperation out of them.

[narrator] Reagan also promotes a defense system

nicknamed Star Wars.

These space lasers would identify and prevent

incoming nuclear missiles.

Its critics ridicule it as unrealistic.

But the prospect of taking the nuclear arms race to space

terrifies Andropov.

[Ken] There's the idea that we need to be very strong.

The only way to deter the Soviet Union

from any kind of aggression

is to show them that they cannot win in anything.

Second thing that was going on

was that we're going to increase our defense spending

quite a bit,

and the Soviet Union can't do that.

They can't keep up with us.

So we're gonna spend them into oblivion.

[narrator] As Reagan ramps up his rhetoric,

a drama unfolds on the other side of the world

that threatens to push the Cold War

over the edge.

Governments around the world have expressed indignation

over the Soviet Union's action

in shooting down a Korean jumbo jet

over the Western Pacific.

The U.N. Security Council

will take up that incident later today.

That tragedy later today.

It's now reported that at least 50

of the 269 people on that jet were Americans.

The search goes on for the plane's wreckage.

[reporter] The crisis over Flight 007.

Just about half were Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese.

[crying]

The free world was outraged.

[sobbing]

For once, it's no exaggeration to say that Western governments

have been stunned and even a little frightened.

[Ken] Once the news comes

that a Soviet had shot down the Korean airliner,

Ronald Reagan immediately goes on national television

and uses every dirty word for their behavior

that he can find in the thesaurus.

What can be said about Soviet credibility

when they so flagrantly lie

about such a heinous act?

The Soviet Union becomes very defensive, very quiet,

and makes no apologies at all.

[reporter] The military in Moscow explain,

"The Korean jumbo was spying,

so our missiles brought it down."

What is this all about, gentlemen?

[man] Hi.

My name's Robert Reynolds from Cable News Network.

-Yes? -Wondering if you would be

having any type of statement, or...

-Not at the moment. -...anything to say

about the Korean airliner?

Nothing? Expect one soon?

[Ken] So that drove people in the West,

especially conservatives like me, to think,

"Boy, they are even worse than we thought they were."

The incident raises the frightening thought

that the finger on the Soviet nuclear trigger

could be as unstable as the individual

who gave the order to shoot down the Korean airliner.

[narrator] It sparks protest and condemnation

around the world.

[crowd shouting]

[Susan] I mean, there was really significant fear

that this was going to lead to something, you know, big.

And extremely, extremely dangerous.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] In late 1983,

peace hands in the balance between the East and the West.

In a bid to be ready for a Soviet nuclear attack,

the West launches Able Archer.

It's an annual military operation,

but this year's exercise is more realistic than before.

Forty thousand U.S. and NATO troops

gather across Europe, right on the U.S.S.R.'s border.

[Ken] Able Archer was a normal

military exercise by NATO command...

to prepare NATO forces in Europe...

for an attack from the Soviet Union.

But the way it was done was not normal at all.

The nuclear component of the exercise

was hyped up.

[indistinct radio chatter]

The idea of it was,

make this as realistic as you could possibly make it.

[narrator] The Western powers show

an almost naive ignorance

of how this huge training exercise will be received

in the U.S.S.R.

For Andropov,

it looks like his Operation RYAN prophecy

is coming true.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[Bianna] And it came at a very sensitive moment for Moscow,

that it had been humiliated on the global stage

following the downing of that jet in particular.

So every move was interpreted

probably to a larger degree than it should have.

[narrator] B-52 bombers with nuclear capabilities

now arrive at the U.S. air base in Germany.

Andropov watches everything unfold

from his hospital bed.

The Soviet people are unaware

of their leader's declining health,

as he keeps his hands firmly on the reins of power.

[Nina] Andropov is dying,

but he is clutching that red button.

He really thinks if it's not him, who else?

He is in charge.

[narrator] The Soviets scramble to respond.

Nuclear submarines are primed and ready.

Soviet troops are put on a 15-minute combat standby.

[Bianna] Oleg Gordievsky probably was the one person

who could convey to Western sources

what was going on inside the mind of Soviet leadership

at the time of Able Archer.

Gordievsky helps his handlers realize

that they're dealing with sheer paranoia

at the hands of the top leadership

in the Soviet Union.

Now unfortunately, it didn't come in time enough

for this exercise to be canceled.

[narrator] The exercise continues,

oblivious that a nuclear confrontation

is now just a phone call away.

[Susan] Oh, it is a game, but, I mean,

but it's not a game too.

And I think what happened

is that everything got out of control.

This is just something that people can't comprehend,

that a human error could bring the end of the world.

People just can't absorb that.

[Nina] Ultimately, you kind of have this mendacity.

You believe in your own propaganda

of your own greatness.

You're in the control of the state.

[suspenseful music playing]

All Russian and Soviet dictators,

their problem is they always think

that they're the last line of defense.

You are in power.

You have the right to, if you decide,

to destroy it so nobody else will get it.

The United States doesn't even notice

that the Soviets are on edge.

They didn't even put the Soviet reaction

into Ronald Reagan's presidential daily brief.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[narrator] Before Andropov can act,

the Able Archer operation wraps up on schedule.

[pilot] Roger that.

[narrator] Andropov is finally persuaded

that this really was just an exercise.

This time.

[Tim] The United States didn't know

to ratchet down the tension when it really mattered.

That is an indicator of just the lack of understanding

that the United States and the Soviet Union had of each other.

But in a nuclear confrontation,

lack of understanding can have catastrophic consequences

when adversaries have nuclear weapons pointed at each other

and don't understand each other.