Revealing how Russian double agents infiltrated US and UK intelligence

During the 20th century, many Western secret intelligence operations against the Soviet Union were foiled. The work of double agents working for the Soviet Union played a large role in their counterintelligence operations. Here are three of the most effective Soviet spies of the Cold War.

1. Kim Philby - British intelligence officer who loved the Soviet Union

Philby, a famous member of the Cambridge Five Soviet spy ring in Britain, was awarded the highest honors of both Britain and the Soviet Union. In 1945, for his services during World War II, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1947, as the Cold War approached, Soviet leader Stalin awarded him the Order of the Red Banner.

Philby began working for the Soviet secret service in the 1930s after graduating from Cambridge University. Around the same time, Philby began working for British intelligence. He rose quickly through the ranks and after World War II, it was believed that he was being groomed to become the head of British intelligence. Although that never happened, Philby held several important positions that enabled him to provide valuable information to the Soviets.

When he was appointed head of British intelligence for Türkiye in 1947, Philby ensured that Moscow was aware of spies attempting to infiltrate the Soviet Union’s southern border. At the time, Türkiye was one of the main locations for such covert operations. The group of infiltrators was shot dead by Soviet soldiers at the border. According to a Russian historian of the secret services, the incident was a clear signal for the West to abandon such infiltration tactics.

Then, in 1949, Philby became the British intelligence chief in Washington, D.C. In this position, Philby had access to information from the CIA about a planned coup to overthrow the pro-Soviet Albanian leader Enver Hoxha. After the secret information was leaked to Moscow, the Albanian special forces involved in the coup were shot dead as they parachuted to the ground. Hoxha remained in office.

Philby defected to the Soviet Union in 1963 when he was threatened with exposure. He then lived in the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. In an interview with the Sunday Times in the late 1980s, Philby said frankly: Although life in the Soviet Union was difficult, he was attached to the country and there was nowhere else he would have preferred to live.

2. George Blake - British spy who considered Russia his second home

If Philby spent a quarter of a century living in the Soviet Union, another British double agent, George Blake, lived in Russia for more than 50 years after escaping from a British prison.

On his 95th birthday, he explained why he changed his mind about service in the 1950s. He said the Korean War played a major role in changing his views, as he saw civilians being killed by the “American military machine.”

“It was then that I realized that such conflicts were fraught with mortal dangers for all mankind,” Blake wrote in a letter to the then-Russian intelligence service. “And I made the most important choice of my life. I began to cooperate with the Soviet foreign intelligence service, voluntarily and without compensation, with the aim of protecting world peace.”

Blake was recruited by the British Foreign Intelligence Service (MI6) during World War II. When the Korean War ended, he returned to London. During this time, he informed the Soviet Union of the CIA and MI6's plan to dig a tunnel from West Berlin to East Berlin to tap the above-ground communications of the Soviet military headquarters in East Germany. The plan was codenamed Gold or Stopwatch.

Despite the difficulties, the tunnel was dug and equipped with the necessary listening devices. Moscow did not expose the tunnel immediately, in order to avoid exposing Blake. The Soviets only “discovered” the tunnel 11 months after the eavesdropping began, when Blake had already been assigned to a new assignment within MI6. The scandal that erupted from this discovery tarnished the reputation of the CIA.

In 1961, Blake was betrayed by a Polish intelligence officer (of the socialist bloc). As a result, Blake was sentenced to 42 years in prison in England. Four years later, he successfully escaped, using a rope ladder and knitting needles to escape. He eventually reached Moscow, where he lived for the rest of his life. In his letter, he wrote that “Russia has become my second homeland...”.

3. Aldrich Ames - the American who caused the CIA Director to lose his job

Although representatives of American intelligence agencies partly blamed their British colleagues for failing to expose the former top Soviet spies, they themselves were involved in a spy scandal that damaged the CIA's reputation and cost the then CIA director his job.

It all began in the mid-1980s when the CIA’s head of Soviet counterintelligence, Aldrich Ames, began cooperating with the Soviet Committee for State Security (aka the KGB – the Soviet Union’s security and intelligence agency). The cooperation lasted for nearly 10 years until his arrest in 1994. Ames is believed to have exposed more than 100 CIA intelligence operations and helped expose numerous moles inside the Soviet Union and later Russia. Some of these spies were executed by authorities for espionage.

Ames admitted in court that he had exposed “virtually all CIA agents operating in the Soviet Union, as well as agents working for other US and foreign intelligence agencies” that he knew.

It is said that Moscow used Ames for years to plant false information in CIA reports submitted to three US presidents.

It is believed that the CIA accidentally discovered Ames' double agent activities based on his sudden increase in living standards, such as his half-million dollar house and luxury Jaguar car.

Ames was sentenced to life in prison. The Ames case caused an earthquake in the US Congress and led to the resignation of CIA Director James Woolsey./.