Youtube comments of Philip Thompson (@PhilipThompson).
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“Mata Hari never lacked for male admirers, even though she was nearing forty years old and even though she was in love with Vadime. From her perspective, she needed money and money meant lovers. From that of the officers she entertained, she was enchanting. An officer leaving the horrors of the battlefield and the dreadful responsibility of command to spend a few days or a week in Paris with Mata Hari entered a dream world.
The life expectancy of those fighting on the western front could be measured in weeks, not years, and they knew it. To enjoy the attentions of a beautiful woman who was fashionably dressed, to take her to fine restaurants, and to make love to her with passionate abandon were the surest escapes from the realities that haunted these men. No wonder so many sought her company and savoured every moment of it, knowing that the battlefield, that blood, death, and hardship, would be temporarily held at bay.”
- Pat Shipman, Femme Fatale
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Gordievsky’s father went to his grave never revealing the specific role he played in the 1917 Russian Revolution nor the forced siezure of grain during Collectivisation. After his death it was revealed that his marriage to Olga was in fact his second marriage. It is not known whether his first marriage bore him any children, which he never discussed.
[2] This time became known as the “Khrushchev Thaw”. Students were allowed to criticise, print leaflets, and to organise rallies and speeches. Oleg delighted in this, perhaps a bit too much, when he tape recorded himself giving a speech in which he extolled the virtues of freedom and democracy. He promptly destroyed the tape on the advice of his college friends who were aghast at hearing what he had had to say.
[3] Oleg hoped that his message would be overheard and taken as a signal of intent to his Danish counterparts. Sources conflict as to whether PET were in fact listening in, however the Danes have since confirmed that they heard the conversation and noted it with interest. What Gordievsky was not aware of at that time was the extent to which PET and MI6 had developed an interest in him. In a bizarre decision, Oleg had purchased from a shop an item of homosexual pornography. He did this not because he had any such inclinations, but because he simply felt like exercising what was until then an unknown freedom. The event was observed and noted by the Danes. It was thought that KGB agents with homosexual leanings were more prone to defect given the strict anti-gay Soviet stance. PET set out on a classic ‘honey-trap’ operation, attempting to have a Danish agent seduce Oleg at a dinner party. The advances were unnoticed by Gordievsky, who, without cottoning on, declined the invitation to visit a bar with the Danish agent after the party.
[4] Bromhead was a gregarious, larger than life type character, and it was at his dinner party that the attempted but unsuccessful homosexual seduction took place.
[5] To hedge his bets, Gordievsky reported his intention to meet Bromhead for lunch, under the auspices of making a potential connection with a senior MI6 spy.
[6] This is in direct contrast to many of Gordievsky's counterparts, including Aldrich Ames who spied for Russia, and whose motivations were personal gain as opposed to having an ideological bent towards Communism.
[7] The special export licence plates however introduced a timing complication which was that special export licence plates had to be issued by the local authorities - dealing with Russian bureaucracy meant that timing was extremely tight
[8] Gordievsky was not the primary candidate for the posting - this honour went to his colleague Viktor Kubeykin, but who has his diplomatic visa refused by Britain on the grounds of their (correct) suspicions that he was a KGB agent.
[9] Some of the tedious tasks KGB officers were forced to undertake included counting the number of lights that were on or off in British government buildings at any given time, and monitoring whether UK blood banks were purchasing more than usual amounts of blood (the Soviets not realising that blood banks, despite their capitalist sounding name, did not in fact purchase any blood).
[10] Operation RYAN continued well into 1983 when the US and NATO performed their annual military exercise known as “Able Archer”, a simulated period of conflict escalation, culminating in the US military attaining a simulated DEFCON 1 coordinated nuclear attack. It is thought by some historians that “Abel Archer 83” was the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war, further fueling the paranoia associated with Operation RYAN.
[11] Bettany was later tried at the Old Bailey and sentenced to 23 years in prison. His detection as an attempted spy had to be carefully concealed so as not to create suspicion that he was outed by a mole from within the KGB.
[12]The reference to radioactive dust was the KGB’s practice of dusting items belonging to targets with radioactive materials that could be traced and followed using appropriate instruments. The warning about car accidents had to do with the KGB’s modus operandi of forcing Western agents out into the open by ramming their vehicles.
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