Original subtitles

[narrator] Previously on Secrets & Spies.

[Ronald Reagan] People want to raise their children

in a world without fear and without war.

A nuclear conflict could well be mankind's last.

[Ken Adelman] There is a cat-and-mouse relationship

between intelligence agencies.

It was white-hot with the emotions on both sides.

[Aldrich Ames, on recording]

He has access to some of the top secrets of the United States.

He feels that people don't recognize his importance.

They have underestimated Aldrich Ames.

[Bianna Golodryga] The CIA were itching to find out,

who is this mystery spy?

[Aldrich, on recording]

[Oleg Gordievsky]

[crowd 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] After 11 years of secret work,

maybe I develop paranoia.

...and never-before-heard recordings...

[Aldrich, on recording]

...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]

[narrator] 1984 has been a momentous year.

Mikhail Gorbachev visits Great Britain,

and nuclear disarmament seems light years away.

There were way too many nuclear weapons,

and basically they were everywhere.

We had intermediate-range nuclear weapons,

which would go from the Soviet Union to Western Europe

in something like seven minutes.

The Soviets could press the button

and unleash a nuclear war against the West

because they were fearing an unprovoked nuclear attack

against themselves.

[narrator] While the political standoff is cooling down,

the battle played out in the shadows heats up.

KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky

is a double agent for the British.

His role in the successful meeting

between Prime Minister Thatcher and Gorbachev

gets the attention of his Russian bosses.

[Alexander] As a matter of fact,

Mikhail Gorbachev expressed

his personal appreciation

of what Gordievsky had done with his report.

[Sir David Omand] Shortly thereafter,

the Moscow Center chose Gordievsky

to be the head of the KGB station in London.

From their point of view, he was clearly good at his job.

MI6 is effectively running

the head of the KGB station in London.

An extraordinary situation.

This is too good to be true.

[narrator] But this triumph puts Gordievsky

in a dangerous spotlight.

I used to know several guys who worked as spies in London.

I think some officers were jealous, no doubt about it.

[narrator] Especially Gordievsky's immediate superior

at the KGB station, Leonid Nikitenko.

[Alexander] Nikitenko was the head

of the counterintelligence line in the London station.

He was number two,

and he had obviously more experience than Gordievsky.

[typewriter clacking]

So it would have been natural if he had got that job.

It was the job of Nikitenko to be suspicious.

If we are talking about that foreign office document,

they simply asked him about his sources.

How did he collect this information?

[narrator] As a double agent,

Gordievsky plays a dangerous game

of extremely high stakes.

[Tim Naftali] And in a sense, the British

were playing some KGB politics.

But it was a risk,

and Gordievsky was prepared to take it.

And so Oleg understands

that he's facing a death sentence

if his secret is betrayed to the KGB.

[suspenseful music playing]

Good evening, leaders from around the world

have gathered in Moscow to pay their last official respects

to the Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko.

More importantly, they've gone to shake hands

with the new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.

[reporter] Outside, hundreds of other Soviets

who were excused from work waited for their turn

to pay their respects to Chernenko.

[Susan Eisenhower] By the time Chernenko dies,

American diplomats had observed so many funerals in Moscow

that it had become an absolute joke.

But the successor

was a vital young man from Stavropol.

Gorbachev was a very, very different figure

than the Soviet leaders who'd gone before.

If nothing else, he was a heck of a lot younger.

[reporter] There was enormous public interest here

in the new Soviet leader, Mr. Gorbachev.

His picture appeared prominently on the front page

of all Moscow papers today,

eclipsing Chernenko's obituary photo,

which was inside on page two.

And Russians we talked to were clearly looking forward

to General Secretary Gorbachev.

I want him to fight for peace

and for better life,

and we hope he'll do his best.

There was a great debate over who Gorbachev was

and what Gorbachev intended to do.

For Kremlin watchers,

there was a sense in 1984

that Gorbachev has a great future.

[Ken] I was skeptical.

Here's an old drink in a new bottle.

But Reagan has been waiting around

for three and a half years,

eager to negotiate with a Soviet leader.

When Gorbachev came in March of '85, bingo.

Regan was poised and ready to go.

[narrator] Mikhail Gorbachev is the energetic

and open-minded leader

Ronald Reagan's been waiting to do business with.

It could be a huge turning point...

if they're willing to meet.

But no one consults with Aldrich Ames,

the CIA's top KGB expert.

[Bianna] Aldrich Ames may have had

a very sophisticated, impressive title,

but it was a title on paper only.

Whatever satisfaction the work was providing

is no longer there. In fact, he feels bitter.

He feels that he's been betrayed in some ways

by his employers,

and he's not being recognized for the sort of star spy

that he sees himself as capable of being.

[Bianna] He took to the bottle a lot.

He became an alcoholic.

He's having to pay off a very expensive ex-wife

in a lengthy divorce process,

and he is quickly running out of money and into debt.

[narrator] Aldrich Ames is saddled

with a crushing $47,000 debt,

which he hides from his partner, Rosario.

When all these things come together,

you have the conditions, maybe,

for someone to do something crazy.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Ames arranges to meet Sergey Chuvakhin,

a Soviet diplomat,

under the pretense of recruiting him

as a double agent.

[Jack] First of all, if I'm the KGB guy,

I'm worried that this is a dangle.

It could be somebody

who eventually will feed you false information.

You know, you got to be really careful.

Particularly because people like Ames

are not straight shooters.

[narrator] At four in the afternoon,

Aldrich Ames walks straight into the Soviet embassy

and hands over his information.

Ames could expose 20 Russian agents,

including MI6's super spy Gordievsky.

But he starts with Motorin and Martinov,

and effectively signs their death warrants.

[Bianna] This was a huge deal, what Aldrich Ames did.

Not only was the United States CIA and its intelligence sources

in the Soviet Union completely compromised,

he also was in a compromised position,

not knowing what tomorrow would hold.

And the thing is, he can't turn it around at this point.

There's no way you can back out of it.

Once you're in, they have you.

[narrator] The very next day, a telegram arrives in London.

The danger could come from different directions.

The weakest link in espionage

is the meeting between the operative and his agent.

He could have been spotted by a Soviet fellow officer.

There could be an MI6 officer working for the KGB

who could betray Gordievsky.

[narrator] To keep his cover, Gordievsky has no choice.

He must return to Moscow.

If not, he'll be defying orders

and essentially admitting his guilt.

[woman, over PA] Passengers to Moscow,

this is the final call of Aeroflot Soviet Airlines.

Passengers only on this flight

should go immediately through the departure doors.

[Alexander] We were officers.

We pledged our allegiance to motherland.

So, what do you do to officers who betray their own motherland?

What do you do to them?

You execute them.

[narrator] Gorbachev came to power two months ago.

The world waits to see which side will blink first.

[Susan] We had enough nuclear weapons

to blow up the world

between, you know, 11 and 15 times.

It depends on who you ask.

There was always this feeling that the other side

was making advances,

and we had to keep up with them.

[crowd cheering]

[dramatic music playing]

[speaking Russian]

[Nina Khrushcheva] When Gorbachev came in,

we were deciphering every sentence he would utter.

[speaking Russian]

And he started with celebrating or mentioning

how great Stalin was.

And I remember my family was like,

"That's it, that we're dead again.

Something is gonna happen."

[narrator] Margaret Thatcher tells President Reagan

that Gorbachev is someone she can do business with,

and Reagan is keen to believe her.

[Ken] Soon after March of '85,

we're asked to set up something

that might be a summit between the two of them.

I was skeptical.

[indistinct chatter]

The main thing we needed was, what is going to happen?

Okay? What is Gorbachev going to do?

[narrator] Reagan hopes to build bridges with Gorbachev,

but he pushes on with his Star Wars program.

My fellow Americans,

thank you for sharing your time with me tonight.

The subject I want to discuss with you,

peace and national security,

is both timely and important.

Timely because I've reached a decision

which offers a new hope for our children

in the 21st century.

[narrator] It's the anti-missile defense system

that would take the nuclear arms race to space,

and it terrifies the Soviets.

[Peter Jennings] Well, overseas this Monday,

the Soviet Union continues to attack

the president's proposal

for an anti-missile defense system in space.

This time, it was the Communist Party newspaper

which said the administration is threatening

strategic destabilization,

and Pravda repeated the Soviet leader's allegation

of yesterday.

It is all part of Pentagon's strategy

towards achieving a first strike nuclear capability.

[Tim] The Americans have now introduced the idea

that they might be able to create a dome

over the United States

that would mean that Soviet missiles

won't be able to penetrate the United States,

which is another way of saying

the United States may be planning

for a first strike on the Soviet Union.

This was another signal that, oh, my God,

this man doesn't want to engage

in some kind of diplomatic process.

He wants to destroy us.

I hated Reagan like everyone else did

because we thought Reagan really would potentially

start a nuclear war.

There was a phenomenal fear within the Soviet Union,

particularly the KGB, of Ronald Reagan.

Because there was a war going on.

An underground war.

[narrator] One of the main players

in this underground war, Oleg Gordievsky,

lands back in Moscow to answer a summons from his bosses.

He is terrified they have discovered

he is secretly working for the British.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Tim] He has three locks on his door.

He unlocks the first locks...

and then discovers he can't open the door

because somebody has locked the third lock,

which he never uses.

So he immediately understands

that somebody has been in his apartment.

Gordievsky knew that they had surreptitiously

entered his flat.

He would have assumed

he was under deep surveillance

and that his flat was bugged.

There was trouble ahead.

[narrator] Gordievsky's MI6 colleagues

are only streets away,

but are also constantly watched by the KGB.

[Raymond Asquith] Obviously, we were not declared

as intelligence officers.

I had a full-time daytime job in the embassy

as a working diplomatic officer.

There was a lot to do every day,

working out what was happening within the Soviet Union.

Anything not in the public record

I won't make any mention of.

[narrator] The team also have a long-standing secret mission.

[Raymond] Before I went to Moscow,

I was told and we were trained

that we had to be on standby.

It was almost impossible for a Soviet citizen

to get out of the Soviet Union.

[Sir David] In circumstances where your agent

is potentially under suspicion,

you're going to make plans so that the agent

can warn you if life had got too difficult.

And in the case of Gordievsky, of course,

an elaborate plan was devised

whereby if he activated it,

he could be spirited out of Moscow

without the Soviet authorities knowing.

[Bianna] The plan that they had hatched

was something that no one thought

was ever possible,

and no one thought

that they would actually be able to get away with.

[narrator] It's called Operation Pimlico.

[Raymond] We would have to watch a certain spot

outside a bakery,

not far from where we lived,

every night at a certain time.

And if we saw somebody there

holding a Safeways bag,

we were to approach him with a Harrods shopping bag

and then pass him, eating some kind of Western chocolate bar.

Kit Kats and Mars Bars.

And without any kind of verbal exchange,

that would have indicated that we'd spotted him.

And, believe me, I have had so many Kit Kats

and other chocolate bars in our car glove compartment,

that I absolutely hate Kit Kats to this day.

The basic plan was to drive to a agreed destination

near the Finnish border.

And he had to make his own escape.

Catch a train from Moscow

and get himself up to Leningrad,

and then catch another train, and then a bus,

and whatever it was.

Our mission was to pick him up

and his wife and his two children there.

This was what we were tasked with,

and therefore I suppose it could happen,

but I never felt at any time that it was for real.

[narrator] The plan is daring,

but it's been rehearsed nonstop for seven years.

As the Cold War plays out in the shadows,

official diplomacy moves to more constructive dialogue.

[Sir Bryan Cartledge] I'd known since the previous summer

that I would be going to Moscow

in July '85 as ambassador.

I'm there.

It was a very exciting time

because of the recent advent of Gorbachev.

Having met Gorbachev

when Margaret Thatcher invited him to the U.K.,

I did see enough to know

that this was a tremendous opportunity

not only for the U.K.,

but also for the West as a whole.

It wasn't until a few weeks before I was due

to actually leave

that I was briefed on the possible exfiltration

of an agent,

unidentified,

that would involve members of the embassy staff.

I also knew that there was a time bomb ticking

under the relationship

which would probably explode

during my early weeks or months as ambassador.

In many ways, this is a split-screen moment.

You have a bunch of geopolitical changes

that are going on,

and you have the long-running

Spy vs. Spy Cold War narrative.

And they are happening simultaneously.

[narrator] But Operation Pimlico

isn't the only threat.

A ticking time bomb at the heart of the CIA

could destroy everything.

[narrator] Preparations are underway

for Reagan to make a hopeful

and historic approach to Gorbachev.

But the head of the CIA's Soviet desk, Aldrich Ames,

is leading a double life

and it threatens to derail the political progress.

[narrator] Ames finally has the cash

for exposing Soviet double agents

Motorin and Martinov,

and he settled his debts.

It was obviously a great achievement for the Soviets,

that they had this kind of a volunteer.

And Aldrich Ames probably believed

that he would be able to control the situation around himself.

But he made a huge mistake.

A retired Navy officer is being held without bail this morning,

charged with passing classified national defense information

to the Soviet Union.

FBI agents arrested John Anthony Walker

as he dropped a paper bag

containing secret and confidential Navy documents

in a wooded area outside Washington.

[sighs]

[narrator] And what's more,

the CIA still have over 20 double agents

imbedded in the Soviet system,

and one of them could hear of what Ames has done

and turn him in.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] But Gordievsky somehow resists...

and doesn't confess.

[Sir David] Gordievsky managed to survive this ordeal.

But in his heart, he must have known

the chances of my being allowed to go back to London

and resume my position as head of station is zero.

[narrator] The KGB let Gordievsky go.

But he's not a free man.

His flat's bugged.

He's constantly watched.

They're waiting for him to slip up.

[Bianna] His bosses were possibly looking

for the ultimate piece of evidence,

and that was indeed that Oleg Gordievsky

was a spy for the U.K.

They hadn't found it yet...

so there were gonna wait him out.

[narrator] Gordievsky's crisis comes at a pivotal moment

in the cause he is dedicated to,

the opportunity to diffuse the hostility

between East and West.

[Susan] I think Gorbachev had a sense

that he had an opportunity here

to open this dialogue

because he was of a different generation,

and it was Gorbachev himself

who began to change the dialogue.

Well, I think this is an important letter,

and it's dated June 10th, 1985.

This is a letter Gorbachev wrote to Reagan.

"It is the Soviet Union that is surrounded

by American military bases,

stuffed also by nuclear weapons,

rather than the U.S. by Soviet bases.

Try to look at the situation through our eyes."

[Ken] "Try to look at the situation through our eyes."

It's a powerful line

because when you're negotiating with somebody,

one of your main obligations

is to see how they see the issue,

and maybe you can find some middle ground.

[crowd cheering]

[Andrei Grachev] Reagan, certainly for Gorbachev,

was a mythical figure

with a rather negative reputation.

Gorbachev felt the necessity

of putting an end

to the confrontation with the West as soon as possible...

[speaking Russian]

...in order to relieve the economy

from the unnecessary weight of the arms race.

[Susan] It would have been seen as extraordinary

to receive something like this

from anybody who had come before him.

The idea of seeing things through other people's eyes

is very meaningful for me

because it was the continuing lecture I got

at the dining room table as a kid.

[inaudible]

Just the way he talked, you could see change in the air.

And he called for new thinking.

This was the great expression of the time.

And I know that the Americans took enormous interest

in what this new thinking entailed.

It's a moving letter. It really is.

Wow.

Do you have a copy of this?

Can I keep this?

[Ken] Ronald Reagan writes to Gorbachev...

"History places on us a very heavy responsibility

for maintaining and strengthening peace,

and I am convinced we have before us

new opportunities to do so."

So he sees this as history

kind of endowing them with a mission,

with a real cause, with a purpose.

And they can do that together.

It is a ways from Evil Empire.

It is that there is this problem

that we are both can address,

even though you're an evil empire.

[laughs] You know?

The spy game and international politics

don't often run along the same timetable.

Spying involves convincing other people to betray their country.

At the same time, you want to have diplomacy

among the great powers.

You want them to be talking to each other.

You want there to be a little bit of trust.

[narrator] Aldrich Ames is on a path

that threatens to destroy that trust.

The moment Aldrich Ames is engaged

in his initial dance with the Soviets,

he knows the risks from the beginning.

[narrator] The pressure of what he's done

drives Ames to do something drastic.

[suspenseful music playing]

He tells his Soviet handler he wants to meet.

[narrator] The meeting is on.

[narrator] Ames hands the KGB the details

of 18 additional Soviet agents

secretly working for the Americans.

He's blown almost the entire U.S. Soviet spy network

to cover his own back.

Aldrich Ames is not the first American

to betray his country to the Soviet Union,

but in terms of the damage he was doing

to the U.S. intelligence effort against Moscow,

he was unparalleled.

[Bianna] So at the time that Ames convinces himself

that these spies who he has turned on to the Soviets,

likely losing their lives, ultimately,

knew what they were getting into,

he was also worried

that the longer that he continued to work incrementally,

bit by bit with the Soviets,

the more danger he was in for being discovered himself.

So in one fell swoop,

he not only would get a huge sum of money,

he would also irreparably harm the lives

of spies for his own security.

[narrator] He saves his most powerful card for last.

[Tim] The penalty for treason in the Soviet Union is death.

He hands over the name of someone,

it is likely they will end up

with a bullet to the back of the head.

It's assassination.

Aldrich Ames is voluntarily killing people.

He's cold, calculating, cynical, and needs the money.

He sells their souls to the Soviets.

He sells their lives.

And he's just shared yet another secret in return for cash,

and that secret is one of the greatest spies

Great Britain has ever had.