Transcript of Russian Spies, Pigeons, and The Rest Is Classified…

Thank you for listening to The Rest is History. For weekly bonus episodes, add free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory. Com and join the club. That is therestishistory. Com. Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Rest is History. Tom. Today, we're going to tell the listeners about an absolutely thrilling new venture from Goalhanger, aren't we? The rest is classified, telling the very best stories from the world of espionage. It's presented, or I should say, co-presented by somebody who is incredibly close to your heart.

He absolutely is. One of the presenters is a former CIA analyst who now writes spy novels, and that's David McClossky. But the man who is also presenting it, man very close to my heart, is Gordon Carrera, so BBC Security Correspondent, but more gemanely, massive enthusiast for pigeons, who first alerted me to the massive role that pigeons have played in history. You will then remember, I nagged you for days, weeks, months. Was it a year?

No, there was no nagging required.

To do a whole episode on pigeons, which I think everyone would agree was a complete triumph.

I bargain them down from a series.

Gordon alerted us to the pigeon gap, the fact that China is way ahead of us when it comes to pigeon communications. It'd be interesting to find out from him whether he thinks that we've managed to close the pigeon gap. But more jumanely, Gordon, welcome to the show and congratulations on the rest is classified. Clearly, both of you are massive experts on the world of espionage. But how did you come to find yourselves doing this podcast?

Pigeons, Tom. It all comes back to pigeons, the heroes of history. I I think if I hadn't appeared on The Rest is History doing pigeons, I don't think I'd have understood the power of podcasting, not least, and enjoyed it so much. It was fascinating. After a career, 20-odd years broadcasting at the BBC, I appear on The Rest is History to talk about pigeons, and that is all anyone wants to talk to me about. They go, I heard you on The Rest is History. I suddenly realized, I think the power of podcasting came to life at that moment, brought to life through the Superheros of Pigeons. I think that was one of the foundational reasons for the rest is classified, coming into being. There are a few others as well, which is people do love stories about spies and secrets, and me and David enjoy a good spy story as well.

Well, on that issue of spies and secrets, so tell us a little bit about the spy stories that we can expect when we tune into the rest is classified.

Well, we've got a rich array from history right up to the present. We started off with a coup in Iran in 1953, engineered by Britain and America and the MI6 and the CIA to overthrow Mossadeq in Iran. We've also looked at the first chief of MI6, a wonderful character called mansfield Coming, who was founding MI6, the British Secret Service, around the time of the First World War. Famously, he had a wooden leg, and he wouldn't tell new recruits that he had a wooden leg. They'd come into his office and he would stab himself with a penknife in the wooden egg to test whether or not they'd flinch. If they flinched, he knew they weren't good enough for the British Secret Service. Very kingsman. It's a bit of a character there.

You've got a brilliant series on North Korean, espionage, haven't you? Yeah.

More recently, we've done North Korean espionage, done a bit about Syria. Got a series going out around now about Anna Chapman, who was a rather famous female agent from Russia who infiltrated both London and New York society on behalf of the Russian security services in around 2010. We've got a rich array, I think, of different stories for people who just love spy stories.

My favorite spy stories are probably Gordievsky and Vassil. John Wassel, who was a great traitor, and Gordievsky Gordievsky, who amazing story about him in the 1980s, getting out of the Soviet Union and giving all this amazing information to the West. Are you going to do those at some point?

Absolutely. Wassel is a fascinating story about a honey trap in Moscow, actually. He gets trapped there while he's serving with a British embassy. Gordievsky is one of the great spy stories. I've met Gordievsky a few times, and he's an amazing character, still alive, living in semi-hiding in Britain. But he's a great example where you've got all the excitement of a spy story, of his exfiltration from Moscow under the watching eyes of the KGB and the drama of it. But you've also got a figure who is quite consequential in history because the intelligence he provided helped, especially Thatcher and Reagan, inform them how to deal with the Soviet Union, how to deal with Gorbachev, and how to manage the end of the Cold War. I think that's really interesting when you get a spy story, which isn't just an exciting story, but actually tells you something about history.

Because, Gordon, I guess the question is, does spying matter? Does it influence history. For so long, the ability to answer that question has been locked up in archives or governed by the Official Secrets Act. But that's slightly changing, isn't it? I guess that you and David, of all the people in the world, are the best qualified to tease that question out.

That's right. I think that's one of the things we want to answer, as well as the human side of these. But when did it matter? I think Gordievsky is an example. Philby is another figure who mattered enormously in terms of the early Cold War, but also shaping, as I think Dominic knows, shaping British institutions and British culture, actually, for many decades. That one person's betrayal and what it did, I think, is really interesting. I do think spies matter, and you can look at that right up to the recent invasion of Ukraine in 2022 by Russia and the way in which Western intelligence was declassifying information about what Russia was up to to try and disrupt that invasion. You can see the way intelligence is often used in the public domain. Think about the justification of the war in Iraq using intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. All of that shows that it does matter.

You're going to have Alister Campbell as a guest on your show.

Alister and Rory may want to comment on some of these matters. They may have knowledge about these affairs given their backgrounds in the diplomatic and governmental world. So, yeah, I think there's plenty of room.

As touches our own podcast, of course, we all know and love you as great enthusiast for the role of pigeons in espionage. Can we just end by asking you, is Britain closing the pigeon gap?

Since our podcast a while back, I have been asking that high and low in the British State. I had some assurances from security officials that they were looking at it, but I fear That's meaningless. But that's what I fear, Dominic. I fear you're right. I feel they're fobbing me off. I'd hope that perhaps collectively, we could make another push on the pigeon gap.

Maybe the rest is classified could become a great campaigning podcast.

It's campaigning podcast.

If Churchill in the '30s could campaign on the gap with Nazi rearmament, I think if he was alive today, I'd like to think Churchill might have a podcast, and he'd be podcasting about that. Perhaps we can do our bit to close that pigeon gap.

On that splendid note of Gordon likening himself to Winston Churchill. Thank you, Gordon. A pleasure. Now for our listeners, we have a great treat. We have a clip from today's episode of The Rest is Classified.

I'll say, I think her process of becoming an intelligence officer. I see it as a more organic step-by-step process because that's a bit of how the Russians operate. We tend to think of the categories of, are you an asset or are you not? Or are you an intelligence officer? What type are you? I think in the West, particularly in the States with CIA, we have more rigid categories for these types of people. I think the Russians are pretty be fluid with it. The Russians, what they care about is, do you produce? They care less about whether are they a formerly recruited asset or are they not? At CIA, we cared a lot about that, and the words mattered for what you called somebody. But I think with the Russians, it's a little bit more like, Can she give us interesting things?

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting way of seeing it, because rather than thinking she is someone who is trained as a spy and recruited, put through a year or two of training and then sent to do this, she's someone who they go, You've got access, you've got influence, you've proved that in London. Let's start using you and training you up as you go to become a spy. I think it's worth reflecting here about the way Russia spies, which is slightly different as well. In that one of the things that they do is use these people under what they call illegal cover, which is an odd phrase. But the contrast is they think of someone who's under diplomatic cover, so a spy who's working at the embassy. They have legal cover because they've got diplomatic immunity. If they get arrested, they can't be arrested, they just get expelled. But an illegal is someone who doesn't have, if you like, diplomatic cover, but is blending into a society and who is moving around with it, swimming in the waters, hopefully unseen. It's a particular type of spy which the Russians specialize in.

Well, she'll be a particular type, won't she? Because when you think of an illegal, show that really captures this dynamic is called The Americans. The premise is, it's Reagan era United States in the '80s, high to the Cold War. The premise is that there are two Russians who come to the States. They're living under assumed identities, typically gleaned from fabricating a passport based off a real person who may have passed away when they were two or three or something, taking the identity. I think the Russians call it tombstones. But living under a false name. Anna isn't going to do that. Although she's got that great last name, Chapman, which can mask the fact that she's Russian, she's not hiding who she is at any point. In some respect, she's a little bit like a CIA officer who'd be under a commercial cover, who is probably operating with their real name, but hiding the fact that they're working for CIA. But she's not your illegal who's taken Argentinian documents and come up with a new identity.

Exactly. I think the Russians were famous, the Soviets, for using these deep cover illegals who they trained for years, and they trained them to actually pose as being another nationality. You take a Russian and you'd make them into being a Canadian or a Britain or an America and insert them with the identity of a real, maybe a Britain or an American who died and have them embed themselves deep in society. The idea was that they could then do things which a Russian couldn't do. They could move in circles and not be as suspicious. That was your classic deep cover illegal. But what I think we're seeing here in the '90s and 2000s is a recognition by Russia that times have changed. For two reasons, I think one is that it's harder to do that deep cover stuff. One of the reasons is biometrics because you've got passports, you've got databases. It's harder to create a fake identity and then sustain it when you know, whether it's fingerprints or DNA or facial recognition, to use different names and different types of cover. But also, one of the reasons that they needed to do this in the '20s and '30s and in the Cold War onwards and use these illegals was because Russians couldn't move easily in Western society, where suddenly you've got this period Whereas we said from the '90s, the 2000s, Russians can come into London.

They can move around London. That's not suspicious. There's not a barrier to it. Anna, I think, is emblematic of this new type of spying that Russia can do, which is no need to do the deep training for some illegal spy, but take someone who's already moving in between the two societies or has got links in London or somewhere, and just train them up, use them, make the most of them because they're there. They've got the ability to meet people and talk to people and move in interesting circles.

Thanks for listening. Listen to The Rest is Classified wherever you get your podcasts.

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