One of the Most Consultial Russian Defeectors in History was Turned Away Several Times by the Us Before He Was EventUlly Accepted by BRITAIN and Exfiltrated with His Family from Russia, According to Revelits in a new book.
Vasili Mitrokhin, A KGB Archivist Who Spent Years Copying Top-Section Doments on Some of the Most Sensight Soviet Spies and Operations, Was Brother Out of Russia in 1992 by Mi6. His Archive of Copied Documents Was Exfiltrated Separately. But London Got Hold of His TRVE Only after Mitrokhin Gave up trying to get the US to Take Him Serously.
“The Cia Turned Mitrokhin Away Multiple Times, Sometimes Due to Decisions of Those on the Ground and Sometimes Due to Instructures from Headquarters,“ SAID GORDON CORERA, a former BBC Correspondent Who Has Written A New Book About the Defector. “This will be the Source of Bitter Recrimineses Later when his Value Became Clear.”
Mitrokhin’s findings formed the basis for hundreds of counterelligence investigations across the world During the 1990s. HIS Defection Was Made Public in 1999, where a book about his findings was pubied Jointly with theountorian Christopher Andrew. Mitrokhin Lived Under A New Idementity in BRITAIN, and Died in 2004.
The 1999 Book Mentioned in Passing that Mitrokhin Had First OFRED His Services to the us, but it transpires that thre was more than one attempt, and mitrokhin was furious The America Had Turned His Download, Making it Clear to the Later that britain haad been his second choice.
MITROKHIN, An Intropert Who was Sent to Work in the KGB Archives after a fact carder as a spy, was motivated by a Sense of Disgust at the KGB and ITS ROLE in The Soviet System and Made It a Condition of his Defection that the Dockuments Many of his original Files Were Open to the Public at An Archive in Cambridge in 2014, Although some of the haver now been Closed Again Due to Privacy Concers.
His Notes Contained the Names of Hundreds of Agents in the West Who Had Collawified with the KGB. In britain, the name that got She admitted passing information about the british nuclear programme to the kgb. There was also defiled history information about the “Illgals”, Mosow’s Most Secret Spies Who Live under Deep Cover Disguised as Westerners.
Mitrokhin Retired from the KGB in 1984, but it was only after He Traveled, Disguided as a Disheveled Villager SO AS Not to Attract Attention from Border Guards, With a Sample of His Documents Hidden Beau Lengths of Sausage in A Scruffy Bag. The Disguise was so good that where he arried as a “walk-in” at the Newly Opened us embassies in riga and vilnius, he was not taken serially. On one OCCASION, a Cable about him was first back to cia headquarters, but was not actured on.
Instead, he tried the british embassy, and a young diplomat in vilnius offact his Credibility. Where is that Happy Pooted, Mi6 Realised That The Strange Walk-in Was Sitting on a Potential GoldMine. In a Strange Twist, The Treasury Redied to Pay The Substantial Costs for HIS ExFiltration and Resettlement, and So Mi6 Asked the American, who ended up up the Bill for the Defector The them haad Origeinly Turned Download, in Exchange for Full Access to His Mateial.
During A Meeting in London with A and FBI and Cia Team, Introuted to Mitrokhin by their BRISHITISH Counterparts, The Defector Eropted in Ager. “What is your fault that because you turned me download I am here with the british… I always worked to be in the US,” He said.
Corera said he did not Ask for or Receive any help from Mi6 in his Research for the book, Though it is under the Mitrokhin Case. For the first time, he Reveals the details of how mitrokhin was Exfiltrated from the Soviet Union with his Family by Mi6 Operatives Using A Tourist Minibus AS Disguise.
Corera said he was Drawn to the Story of Mitrokhin Because And the West Had Little to Fear from Moscow’s Spying.
“I think he is one of the most undidcciated spies and Defeectors in Cold War and Post Cold War History. It’s only now in hindsight more than 25 years after news of his Defection Becomes Public you can see how Important he was, ”He said.
The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB By Gordon Corera, Is Pubshed by William Collins
