Daily: THE RUSSIAN SPY AND I — Up close with Britain’s worst traitor

For British intelligence, Soviet mole George Blake was possibly the most damaging traitor of the whole Cold War. Towards the end of Blake’s life the FT’s Simon Kuper met the ageing defector for “the most extraordinary interview of my life.” He tells Arthur Snell about his book The Happy Traitor, which sets out Blake’s astonishing journey from comically patriotic British citizen through his time of treachery in an unbelievably complacent British intelligence service to an escape from justice that came straight from a cartoon story. Why did Blake do it? And did he in some sense get away with it?

• “For a decade, every secret of British intelligence was handed over to the Soviets by Blake.”
• “By his own reckoning Blake betrayed several hundred British agents, many of whom were executed.”
• “I was told that Blake detested Putin’s gaudy KGB capitalism… but he depended on Putin for his dacha.”

Presented by Arthur Snell. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production

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