KGB defector turned to Britain only after US rejected him several times, book reveals

The Guardian

15 hours ago

One of the most consequential Russian defectors in history was turned away several times by the US before he was eventually accepted by Britain and exfiltrated with his family from Russia, according to revelations in a new book.
Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who spent years copying top-secret documents on some of the most sensitive Soviet spies and operations, was brought out of Russia in 1992 by MI6. His archive of copied documents was exfiltrated separately. But London got hold of his trove only after Mitrokhin gave up trying to get the US to take him seriously.
'The CIA turned Mitrokhin away multiple times, sometimes due to decisions of those on the ground and sometimes due to instructions from headquarters,' said Gordon Corera, a former BBC correspondent who has written a new book about the defector. 'This would be the source of bitter recriminations later when his value became clear.'
Mitrokhin's findings formed the basis for hundreds of counterintelligence investigations across the world during the 1990s. His defection was made public in 1999, when a book about his findings was published jointly with the historian Christopher Andrew. Mitrokhin lived under a new identity in Britain, and died in 2004.
The 1999 book mentioned in passing that Mitrokhin had first offered his services to the US, but it transpires that there was more than one attempt, and Mitrokhin was furious the Americans had turned him down, making it clear to them later that Britain had been his second choice.
Mitrokhin, an introvert who was sent to work in the KGB archives after a failed career 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 documents he had copied should be made public. Many of his original files were opened to the public at an archive in Cambridge in 2014, although some of them have now been closed again due to privacy concerns.
His notes contained the names of hundreds of agents in the west who had collaborated with the KGB. In Britain, the name that got the most attention was Melita Norwood, who was 87 when the Mitrokhin revelations were published. She admitted passing information about the British nuclear programme to the KGB. There was also detailed historical information about the 'illegals', Moscow's most secret spies who lived under deep cover disguised as westerners.
Mitrokhin retired from the KGB in 1984, but it was only after the Soviet collapse, in 1992, that he decided to offer up his secret archive to western intelligence services. He travelled, disguised as a dishevelled villager so as not to attract attention from border guards, with a sample of his documents hidden below lengths of sausage in a scruffy bag. The disguise was so good that when he arrived as a 'walk-in' at the newly opened US embassies in Riga and Vilnius, he was not taken seriously. On one occasion, a cable about him was sent back to CIA headquarters, but was not acted on.
Instead, he tried the British embassy, and a young diplomat in Vilnius offered him a cup of tea and suggested he return later, when MI6 officers could be sent out to assess his credibility. When that happened, MI6 realised that the strange walk-in was sitting on a potential goldmine. In a strange twist, the Treasury refused to pay the substantial costs for his exfiltration and resettlement, and so MI6 asked the Americans, who ended up footing the bill for the defector they had originally turned down, in exchange for full access to his material.
During a meeting in London with an FBI and CIA team, introduced to Mitrokhin by their British counterparts, the defector erupted in anger. 'It is your fault that because you turned me down I am here with the British … I always wanted 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 understood that he was able to speak to former operatives who were involved in 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 a disguise.
Corera said he was drawn to the story of Mitrokhin because he had the feeling that in 1999 the importance of Mitrokhin's disclosures was somewhat lost, given the sense that the cold war was over and the west had little to fear from Moscow's spying.
'I think he is one of the most under appreciated spies and defectors 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 published by William Collins