MOSCOW (AP) – George Blake, a former British intelligence officer who worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union and transmitted some of the most coveted Western secrets to Moscow, has died in Russia. He was 98 years old.
Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as SVR, announced its death on Saturday in a statement, which gave no details. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences, hailing Blake as “a brilliant professional” and a man of “remarkable courage.”
As a double agent, Blake laid out a Western plan to listen to Soviet communications from an underground tunnel in East Berlin. He also exposed dozens of British agents in the countries of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, some of whom were executed. Blake has lived in Russia since his daring escape from a British prison in 1966 and received the rank of Russian intelligence colonel.
Britain considered Blake a traitor, but the man himself never agreed with the assessment and said he had never “felt” British.
“In order to betray, you must first belong. I never belonged, “he said.
The British Bureau of Foreign Affairs, Community and Development declined to comment on Blake’s death on Saturday.
Born in the Netherlands, Blake joined the British secret services during World War II. He was sent to Korea when the war there broke out in 1950 and was detained by the communist north. He said he volunteered to work for the Soviet Union after witnessing the relentless US bombing of North Korea.
In a statement issued in 2017 through the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Blake stressed that he decided to change sides after seeing civilians massacred by the “American military machine”.
“I realized then that such conflicts are dangerous for all of humanity, and I made the most important decision of my life – to cooperate voluntarily with Soviet intelligence and to protect world peace for free,” Blake said.
In a 2012 interview with Russian government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Blake shared some details about his cloak and dagger adventures, including meetings with a Soviet link in East Berlin. He said that once a month he would take a train to East Berlin, make sure he was not being followed, and drive to a secret apartment where he and his contact would have a discussion with a glass of Soviet products. sparkling wine.
A Polish deserter exposed Blake as a Soviet spy in 1961. He was convicted of espionage in Britain and sentenced to 42 years in prison. In October 1966, he made a bold escape with the help of several people he met while in custody.
Blake spent two months hiding at his assistant’s place and then was driven through Europe to East Berlin in a wooden box attached under a car.
His British wife, whom he left behind with their three children, divorced him and married a Soviet woman and they had a son. He was worn like a hero, decorated with top medals and given a country house outside Moscow.
In the Soviet Union, Blake maintained contacts with other British double agents. He said he met regularly with Donald Maclean and Kim Philby, members of the so-called Cambridge Five, and said he and Maclean were very close.
Blake said he had adapted well to life in Russia and once joked at a meeting with Russian intelligence officers that it was like a “foreign-made car that had adapted well to Russian roads.”
“He has made a truly invaluable contribution to ensuring strategic parity and peacekeeping,” Putin said in his telegram of condolences.
Blake mentioned in his 2017 statement that Russia has become a “second home” and thanked SVR officers for their friendship and understanding. He said Russian intelligence officers were on a mission to “save the world in a situation where the danger of nuclear war and the resulting self-destruction of humanity have once again been placed on the agenda by irresponsible politicians.”
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Lorne Cook from Brussels contributed to this report.