Thatcher personally reassured KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky - Daily Mail — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00I mean, you know, there's a very
2. 0:01interesting file about UK Soviet Union
3. 0:04relations focusing on the defection of
4. 0:08uh Oleg Gordievsky. Now, Gordievsky uh
5. 0:12was a KGB uh officer who defected uh to
6. 0:16the West in 1985.
7. 0:19Um and he actually gave uh the
8. 0:23intelligence services a huge amount of
9. 0:25information about the Soviet
10. 0:27intelligence operation, including the
11. 0:30activities of many Soviet agents in the
12. 0:33United Kingdom. And in fact, the
13. 0:35information he supplied led to the
14. 0:37expulsion of uh I think it was sort of
15. 0:40something like up to 25 Soviet agents
16. 0:44who'd been working in the United
17. 0:46Kingdom. Um
18. 0:48what's particularly interesting is that
19. 0:51um you know, he writes to Mrs. Thatcher
20. 0:53and he he talks about his pain of being
21. 0:56estranged from his family.
22. 0:59Um and uh you know, he says life without
23. 1:02my family has no value. And Mrs.
24. 1:04Thatcher's um reply i- is very is is
25. 1:08full of empathy, really. You know, she
26. 1:10says, you know, I'm very touched by your
27. 1:12message. I understand how difficult the
28. 1:15decision to leave your family was for
29. 1:17you. Um you know, having children of my
30. 1:20own, she says, I know the kind of
31. 1:23thoughts and feelings that are going
32. 1:24through your mind each and every day.
33. 1:27Um and she says um you know, please
34. 1:29don't say that life has no value. Um
35. 1:32there is always hope. And she says
36. 1:34something like, we will do our very best
37. 1:36to get you through this difficult time.
38. 1:39Um some people
39. 1:41uh might take the view on Mrs. Thatcher
40. 1:43that she was rather cold and unfeeling,
41. 1:46but when you see a letter like that,
42. 1:48well, it does perhaps give a different
43. 1:51view of Mrs. Thatcher. Somebody that
44. 1:53could genuinely empathize with somebody
45. 1:55who was found himself in a a
46. 1:57predicament, really, because of the
47. 1:59action he'd taken.