George Blake

Background

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAccording to UPI, he was born in 1922 in Rotterdam to a Dutch mother and an Anglo-Egyptian father. The Foreign Office historian Gill Bennett noted that he celebrated his 94th birthday in Russia on 11 November 2016.^1,3

In SIS and in captivity

In 1948 he was Vice-Consul in Seoul. After the outbreak of the Korean War he was taken prisoner; according to the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, he spent nearly three years in internment. Gill Bennett writes that he was captured by North Korean soldiers in 1950.^1,2

Macmillan told the House of Commons that there was no reason to doubt that Blake had served the country loyally until 1951, and that he had decided to join the communist side while interned in Korea. According to the Prime Minister, Blake agreed to make available to Soviet intelligence such information as came his way in the course of his duties.²

Betrayal

Moscow knew him by the codename DIOMID. Working for British and Soviet intelligence at the same time, he betrayed agents, including a network in East Germany, and told Moscow about the Anglo-American listening tunnel under Berlin.¹

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAccording to UPI, he betrayed a network of about 40 British agents in Eastern Europe and the Middle East; some were executed and others imprisoned.³

Trial and escape

He was caught thanks to information from a Polish defector.¹

On 3 May 1961, at the Old Bailey, he pleaded guilty to five counts under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act. He was sentenced to 42 years in prison, and the case led the government to set up the Radcliffe Committee on security procedures.^1,2

After five years, on 22 October 1966, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs using a ladder made with knitting needles. Sean Bourke helped and hid him, and Michael Randle and Pat Pottle organised the rest of the journey.¹

Just before Christmas 1966 Randle drove him in a campervan to an East German checkpoint, and his KGB controller, Sergei Kondrashev, arranged the onward trip to Moscow.¹

In Moscow

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesIn Russia he was hailed as a hero, writes Gill Bennett. According to UPI, President Vladimir Putin awarded him a medal in 2007.^1,3

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesOn 26 December 2020 Sergei Ivanov, spokesman for Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, announced his death, AFP and UPI reported.^3,4