The Happy Traitor - The Life of Soviet Spy George Blake (164)

Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times

Ian Sanders

History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8 • 865 Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2021

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Acclaimed author and journalist Simon Kuper, has written The Happy Traitor, the story of British spy and Soviet Union double agent George Blake, the last major British traitor of the Cold War. In 1961, Blake was sentenced to forty-two years imprisonment – at the time, the longest sentence in modern British history. He had betrayed all the western spying operations that he knew about to the KGB. This included the names of hundreds of British agents working around the world. About forty of them are believed to have been executed. Blake is reckoned to have done as much damage to British interests as did his Moscow companions Kim Philby and Donald Maclean – perhaps more. Today, his story is known only to a few experts, and only insofar as anything can be known for certain in the world of deceit that is spying. MI6 has never made its files on him public. Now that the master spy has died, Simon Kuper finally sets the story straight. He unravels who Blake truly was through a combination of personal interviews, research in many languages, and use of almost unseen Stasi archives. His illuminating biography tracks Blake from his beginnings as a teenage courier for the Dutch underground during the Second World War, to his sensational prison-break from Wormwood Scrubs, to his tranquil old age in a dacha outside Moscow, where Kuper caught up with and interviewed him. There is more information in our episode notes here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode164/ Support the project! https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Youtube https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations 0:00 Introduction and Sponsor: Profile Books 1:27 George Blake's early life and recruitment into the Secret Intelligence Service 10:23 Blake's role in the early stages of the Cold War and conversion to Communism 20:38 Blake's betrayal, spying activities, and impact on Cold War dynamics 31:33 Discovery of Blake's betrayal and subsequent trial 40:21 Insights from Blake's speeches to the Stasi and his life in prison 46:11 Blake's escape and new life in Russia 54:45 Blake's remorse for his actions and admiration for Britain 56:30 Simon Cooper's personal connection with Blake 58:19 Conclusion and promotion of the book "The Happy Traitor: Spies, Lies, and Exile in Russia" Chapters powered by PodcastAI✨ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.
0:05.8	MI6 tries to work out what to do with Blake. And of course, one of the options that is
0:11.8	considered is shall we just bump him off? This is Cold War Conversations.
0:21.9	If you're new here, you've come to the right place to listen to first-hand Cold War
0:26.9	history accounts. Do make sure you subscribe in your podcast app so that you don't miss out on
0:32.6	future episodes. I'd like to thank our friends at Profile Books for sponsoring this episode and helping to support the work of Cold War conversations.
0:45.4	Do check them out at Profilebooks.com.
0:50.6	The Happy Traitor is the biography of George Blake, the last major British traitor of the Cold War by acclaimed author and journalist Simon Cooper.
1:02.4	In 1961, Blake was sentenced to 42 years imprisonment at the time the longest sentence in British modern history.
1:12.3	He had betrayed all the Western spying operations that he knew about to the KGB, and this
1:18.4	included the names of hundreds of British agents working around the world. About 40 of them
1:24.8	are believed to have been executed. Blake is reckoned to have done as much damage to British interests as did his Moscow companions Kim Filby and Donald McLean and perhaps more.
1:37.3	MI6 has never made its files on him public.
1:42.3	Now that the master spy has died, Simon Cooper can finally set the
1:46.9	record straight. He unravels who Blake truly was through a combination of personal interviews,
1:53.7	researching many languages and the use of the Starzy archives. We talk about Blake's beginnings as a teenage courier for the Dutch underground during
2:04.1	the Second World War to his sensational prison break from Wormwood Scrubs to his tranquil
2:09.6	old age in a dacha outside Moscow, where Simon Cooper caught up with and interviewed him.
2:17.1	I start by asking Simon what first attracted him to the George Blake story.
2:22.9	We welcome Simon Cooper to our Cold War conversation.
2:54.4	We share a background, as it were. We both grew up British and the Netherlands speaking Dutch, and I'm Jewish, Blake's part Jewish. So we had quite a lot in common. And when I read about him for the first time 20 plus years ago in a Dutch magazine, I thought,
2:57.7	what an extraordinary life and amazing that he's still alive.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ian Sanders, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ian Sanders and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.