George Blake

George Blake was born Georg Ernst Behar on November 11, 1922, in Rotterdam, Netherlands, to a Dutch mother and a Jewish Egyptian father who was a naturalized British subject. After his father's death he took British citizenship. During World War II he worked with the Dutch resistance, eventually making his way to Britain, where he worked with the Dutch government in exile. After the war he was recruited by MI6 and had a career that included postings in Germany and Korea. He died December 26, 2020, in Moscow, at age 98.¹

Korean War Capture and KGB Recruitment

Blake was serving as MI6 head of station in Seoul, when North Korean forces invaded in June 1950. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war for three years, during which time he was exposed to North Korean and Soviet Communist indoctrination. He was converted to Communism and made contact with Soviet intelligence. He was recruited as a KGB agent before his repatriation to Britain in 1953.¹

Blake later described his conversion as genuine: he stated that it came from his experience as a prisoner of war and his observation of American air campaigns destroying Korean villages, which led him to embrace Communist ideology. Whether this account is complete is disputed.

Betrayal of Operation Gold

In late 1953, Blake attended the planning conference in London at which CIA and MI6 officials briefed the concept for Operation Gold - the joint operation to dig a tunnel from West Berlin to tap Soviet military communications cables. Blake passed the existence, location, and details of the operation to his KGB handler shortly after the conference.

The KGB chose not to immediately reveal the tunnel's existence in order to protect Blake's identity. Soviet forces instead allowed Operation Gold to proceed and operate for approximately eleven months before staging a "discovery" in April 1956. Soviet communications passed through the compromised cables for nearly a year while the KGB accepted the intelligence loss to protect their source.¹

Scale of Damage

Blake subsequently betrayed an estimated 40 Western agents - individuals working for MI6 against Soviet bloc targets - to Soviet intelligence. Most of these agents were arrested; the majority are believed to have been executed. He also betrayed other operations and revealed information about MI6's organizational structure, personnel, and methods over approximately eight years of active service as a KGB agent after his return from Korea.¹

Exposure and Trial

Blake was exposed in 1961 following information provided by a Polish intelligence defector, Michał Goleniewski, who had information about a British MI6 officer who had worked with the KGB. Blake was confronted by MI6 officers in April 1961 and confessed. He was tried at the Old Bailey in London, convicted on five counts of passing information useful to an enemy, and sentenced to 42 years in prison - at the time the longest sentence ever imposed by a British court. The judge sentenced him to consecutive terms of 14, 14, and 14 years, one for each count of espionage he considered most serious.¹

Escape from Wormwood Scrubs

On October 22, 1966, Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in London. He had been serving his sentence there and was assisted by two anti-nuclear protesters he had befriended in prison, along with a network of supporters including a former British soldier. He was hidden in London for several months before being transported through the Netherlands to East Germany and ultimately to Moscow.¹

He settled in Moscow, where he was given a pension, an apartment, and the rank of colonel in the KGB. He lived in Russia for the remaining fifty-four years of his life, publishing his memoir, No Other Choice (1990), and giving occasional interviews. He became a Russian citizen and remained committed to his Communist ideology until his death.²