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Gordon Corera

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2026-06-16

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2026-06-16

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1. “Because if you steal something, it's missing, and you can see what's missing. But if you copied it, you don't know what he's taken. So theoretically, you have to assume everything is compromised. So it is a proper full-scale disaster for Russian intelligence at that point. But, you know. It's interesting because Russian intelligence, you read some of the memoirs for that period and it's like, oh, they were on the back foot and all these people were resigning. They were still running agents inside the CIA until 1994 and inside the FBI, Robert Hanson until 2001, in the heart of American intelligence. This supposedly on the back foot Russian service was still successfully running agents right in the heart of its opponent.”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

2. “And he was very introverted and obsessive, and he had a couple of datchers, actually. His wife was quite an eminent doctor but was kind of semi-retired. And I think his pension was still, interestingly enough, being picked up by someone or somehow. Interesting how that happened. But the result is everyone thinks, well, he must be at the other datch or he's moved or he's no longer here. We must be at the other place. And so it looks like they don't entirely fully appreciate. That's what it looks like and people have suggested to me it's the case until 1999 until the book he finally goes public with a book. And then at first their reaction is like, this can't be right. There's no way anyone could have stolen these files. And then they realize, oh, he was the archivist. Maybe he copied them. And then they have to think to themselves, hang on a sec, it's also a problem for them because he's not stuck.”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

3. “Yeah, one more question, which was about the reaction. So, this is a really interesting bit about the Mechonkin story, which I mentioned, which was that this also sounds a bit crazy. So he leaves in 1992. And it looks like the Russians don't realize he's gone. Now, that sounds strange, but he had retired.”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

4. “Those two, yeah. I have not been back to Russia for. Seven years now since 2018, maybe around then, and I can't quite date it. And I mean, I used to just go in and out rather than, you know, Sean was based there. And so I think had much more feel for what it's like to be there. And I think the sad thing is I found it a fascinating country and it's full of interesting art, culture, literature and lots of other wonderful things. I can't see myself going back at the moment. And I think it goes to the question, which is how long will Putin be around for? And I think, and after, and I think the answer is we don't know, and will whatever comes next be that different? And the answer to that is we don't know. So that doesn't make it very easy to see. I don't know. I mean, you might want to answer that one as well.”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

5. “Things remotely to turn things off, to do things. Cryptocurrency maybe to send money around. So the underlying ideology of the KGB has maybe not changed, the ways it's trying to do it have adapted to new forms of technology. And I think in terms of how we respond, I think awareness is key, but that's harder in some places than others.”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

6. “Has allowed Russia to just gear up those information operations on a completely different level. And I think we've really struggled to understand what to do with them. And there's lots of reasons for that. I think we've been slow at times. There's been issues about tech companies. There's been issues about, well, how do you balance that with free speech? And what's political speech and what's not. It's become politicized, particularly in the US, but other places as well. And so we're not very resilient, I think, or well defended. That's not a sabotage operator at home. I don't think it was. It's when the lights go out normally that you think that's the cyber attack. But I think that was, I think that's more innocent. But the point is, and actually with sabotage as well, cyberspace offers new ways to sabotage.”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

7. “Military is behind the AIDS virus, and that AIDS was the product of American military research. And they wanted to spread this idea to attack the West. Kind of classic KGB disinformation operation. It took them actually a long time, so they had to plant a story which I think went in an Indian newspaper first, and then try and get”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

8. “Accusations, you're a Russian agent, you're not, what constitutes Russian interference, what if Russia amplifies domestic genuine views? Is that interfering? And I think particularly the cyber, the online world, which was mentioned, has offered Russia and the KGB successors a new avenue to do something that they'd always done before, but in a much more efficient, effective, low cost high velocity mass scale, which is information operations. If you look at the Cold War, when they were trying to spread propaganda about the West, the famous one is they had an idea that the Americans”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

9. “British politics, why wasn't she prosecuted? What went wrong? Why didn't ministers know about it? That there is a big intelligence and security committee oversight report into the handling of the Metrokin Archive, which comes out in 2000, and which is an extraordinary document as a researcher because actually has details of the case and his code names and things like that in it, which actually puts a certain amount in the public domain, which makes it easier. So it's quite unusual actually as a MI6 case in there being a certain amount in the public domain, bizarrely, thanks to Malita Norwood. There's a question about the top about being aware of Russian interference. I mean, we are much more aware of it now. I think it's become quite politicized, whether it's in Scotland, whether it's in America, and the”

   2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

10. “One of the advantages I had in talking to people about it, and some of it, there is some written material, but not that much, and even particularly biographical, there are scraps in places. But there are a lot of people who knew Metrokin, even though he died many years ago, who I spoke to, and some who knew him very well, and someone at personal level and some on a professional level. And also one of the advantages, unusually, actually, and this was a researcher was quite unusual, is British intelligence doesn't normally talk about its operations and who it works with. And some people know there's kind of various rules neither confirmed nor deny and things like that about agents and operations. But Metroken is an unusual exception to that. And that is actually, strangely, it's all partly thanks to Melita Norwood. I mean, this is kind of, it's an odd story, but the Melita Norwood story becomes such a scandal.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

11. “father's death in 2004 will seek to preserve the legacy and the son sadly dies about a decade later but his almost final act is to hand over his father's archive to Churchill College Cambridge where you can go see it now and where you know Sean and I both visited and so the son having had quite a hard time ends up preserving the father's legacy and seeing that as his mission because I think he ends up understanding what his father had done I think it's quite a hard thing to do though to suddenly be told you're leaving your country and your friends and everything for good and by the way your father's working with British intelligence you know I mean it's not the moment you get on the boat seems quite late to find that out I think it was yeah complicated family I think in some ways there was a question there about the sources now any good journalist will be quite careful about their sources and so I'm definitely not going to name any names I think”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

12. “They were being. Yeah, it's a good question. I tempted to say read the book, but I'll give you a little answer, which is Here's the really weird bit. I don't think the mother-in-law ever realized I'm led to believe by people who were involved in things, being very discreet here, that she almost didn't quite understand, I mean, she was quite elderly. She didn't quite understand what was going on, and they were just going, it's fine, we're just going on a trip, whereas the son, who was a very interesting character, really interesting and had a, you know, obviously had a complicated life. He was in a wheelchair, he realizes the moment they're trying to take him on the boat to get him out. And at that moment, he doesn't want to go. And he's not very happy. On a personal level, I think it's very hard because it leads to a kind of quite a difficult relationship between father and son, which for many years I think there's resentment of the son that he's taken away from his life in Russia. And yet, it is the son who after his”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

13. “People who went through that saying And even more, in a sense that in the Cold War, the KGB was to some extent kept in balance by the Communist Party, whereas now the hardline KGB ideology, the Czechist ideology, has captured the whole state. It's become a security state. I mean, you've lived there and you know that. And that's what's become more evident, I think, in some ways more even, certainly in some ways in Soviet times.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

14. “From the Libyanka to this new headquarters, they put up a statue of Jezinski. They put up a statue of Felix Joshinsky, the founder of the Cheka. I mean, this is more than 100 years after the Bolshevik Revolution. This is a Bolshevik revolutionary in modern Russia. On one level, ideologically, it shouldn't make sense, but what it tells you is that those people who work there believe there is a continuity between the past KGB and the present activities of Russian intelligence. We should understand that too, I suppose.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

15. “More so. And so I think it's a moment to kind of bring attention to it and to what it tells us. And I guess just one more point on that is the persistence of that Czechist ideology I talked about at the start because that is the through line. It was not always about protecting the Communist Party. It was about protecting a certain vision of Russia and a certain power structure and the ruthlessness and willing to do whatever it took to do that. That is the through line which explains Putin. Putin is a checkist. The Czechist day was reinstituted in Russia and I think finally as a kind of the perfect symbol of that was about three years ago, I think it was 2023 outside the foreign intelligence headquarters of what had been the KGB and is now the SVR in the place where Metrochin had moved the files physically.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

16. “In India, in Italy, in lots of countries, in American politics, they were trying to undermine certain candidates, support others, sometimes funneling cash. It's all there in the archives. Killing dissidents abroad, killing enemies abroad, the exiles, if you like. Again, we were shocked with Alexander Lipnyanko and with Sergei Skripal, the attempt on his life. We shouldn't be because it's all in the archive, the fact that they were using these methods we'd forgotten. I mean, some of them are famous like killing Trotsky in Mexico City, but there were many other cases, you know, which Metrokin had dealt with. So I think in a sense we've had to relearn the lessons. And I think the tragedy for him is his book, his archive came out in 1999 at a moment when the world wasn't receptive, wasn't ready to listen. Whereas now, I think we are...”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

17. “And of the methods. And then again, and I'm self-critical about this rather than just blaming everyone else because you then, even if you fast forward a few years, you start to see things like the talk about, well, was Russia and Russian intelligence interfering in the US election in 2016. the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in 2018, the use of propaganda operations, the financing of political players. All these things which we talk about now and we go shock horror that they're doing this. Well, it's all in the Metrokin archive. It is all in the archive that these are the kind of activities they were doing in the Cold War. And if you read the Metrochan Archive, you can see that, for instance, the KGB was deeply involved in political interference and around the world.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

18. “the first signs that actually the KGB may be back in some ways. And of course, 2006, we're coming up to the 20th anniversary of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko here in London, a former FSB officer, Russian Security Service Officer, who was killed. An inquiry said, most likely on the orders of Vladimir Putin, and he'd had a direct kind of battle with Putin himself. They confronted each other. Vladimir Putin and Alexander Ipinyenko about corruption, about the FSB, because I think Litbenko was motivated by a kind of a similar desire to expose the dark side of what was happening. And yet even then, I think 2006, we didn't quite understand the KGB was coming back. I think we still didn't quite understand the persistence of that ideology.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

19. “No, totally. I think it's sad. I mean, I don't think he was content that he'd done what he could. So I don't think I wouldn't go too far on him being broken, but I think he was frustrated that what he was trying to tell people was not being listened to. And then I think it's only after that you start to get the”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

20. “That the KGB is returning and is still there. And yet people at that point, in the early 2000s, I think just didn't want to see it. And I put myself in that category, I should say, as a young journalist at the time. I don't think I saw it. So that's, you know, it's not criticism just of others.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

21. “After the chaos and humiliation of Russia in the 1990s. And he uses his KGB pass quite cleverly as part of his myth-making. And we can talk more about Putin and his KGB past.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

22. “Who works with British intelligence, whose secrets get out and get published. On the other side, I think it is actually a tragedy. Because I think the truth is...”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

23. “So, what does it matter? And this, I think. Is why the story of Metrochin is so interesting because it is, on the one hand, it's a wonderful story about a man who does what he believes in”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

24. “died in 1991 with the end of the Cold War. It's quite interesting because it tells you some stuff about the Cambridge 5, you know, the famous spies we didn't know about other spying operations around the world.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

25. “But also, everyone thinks, well, this book is very interesting about the secrets of the KGB, but the KGB said, oh, it's gone, isn't it?”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

26. “And he notices that they stock copies of the Morning Star, the communist newspaper, and they're like, oh yeah, that's Melita's copy. She always gets that. And it's like, that'll be the communist spy still reading myself. But the point is that what that does is that becomes the story.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

27. “For MI5 is she's still alive and she's living in Bexley Heath, South London making jam. And one of the favourite stories is a journalist are trying to track her down.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

28. “And one of the answers of where it certainly did was giving the Soviet Union the atomic bomb much faster than it would have done otherwise thanks to a group of atomic spies and the work of the KGB's predecessor. And she'd been one of those, maybe not the most important. There are others Fuchs famously and other people. But she'd been important. And MI5 had basically missed her, or at least had known a little bit about her and investigated her, but missed how important they were. She was. And so this becomes a huge scandal in 1999.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

29. “Or the KGB and its predecessors in Britain's atomic program in the early days, and she'd been able to get from the safes some of the deepest secrets and pass them on. She'd been one of a kind of collection of atomic spies. And people often ask, you know, does spying really make a difference?”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

30. “Called Hola, but whose real name was Melita Norwood. I don't know if any of you remember the name, but who had been actually Metrokin in his archive reveals an incredibly important agent.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

31. “This is what I think is important and this is why I think the book is so important for the contemporary. World that we live in now, and why it's not just about history”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

32. “Breaks down at one point, Metrokin actually discusses getting lawyers and saying, maybe I'm going to get my lawyers to argue, I've got the copyright for the archive. And I think someone from MI6 thinks themselves, if anyone has the copyright to this archive, it's the KGB.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

33. “And he wants to put context around it to explain these odd notes. And you've seen the archive. It's not easy to understand without context.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

34. “I mean, I think that's incredibly admirable, but it also makes you a driven person and maybe sometimes, in some cases, not all cases, that can make you difficult. And that will be the problem when he's out, because the idea is to publish this archive.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

35. “People. They're driven people who've taken huge risks. You know, I mean, to do what he did. Yet, no normal person would do that. To take such risks because you believe in something.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

36. “We had to pay a million dollars. But we didn't have to deal with him. And it was really hard to deal with it. The Brits had to deal with him. So I think there was a slight element where it was, you know, as I said, I mean, I've got a lot of sympathy for the man, but I don't think he was not easy.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

37. “Say, remember that guy you turned away, would you like to pay for him and we'll give you all the access to the secrets? And so they actually do a deal for that. And it's quite interesting because an American... Kind of dealt with it all said to me, maybe we actually got the best end of the deal because”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

38. “And the Treasury says I mean, we haven't got any money. And they say, you know, Cold War's over. You know what all this money to resettle him and his family? What's that? And so they then go back to the Americans.”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

39. “If the Brits are like, great, we'll get him out, we'll get the files And then, and this is Redolant of today They turn to the Treasury”

    2026-06-16 · Intelligence Squared · Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT