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Speaker 1: And I already have one cut in sight, which I

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Speaker 1: got as a suspicious This.

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Speaker 2: Is Olegg Gordievsky, a Soviet spy.

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Speaker 3: There's a blue.

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Speaker 1: I'm not very good at some models, but I sees

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Speaker 1: a shape and this is a color, and it is

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Speaker 1: behind us.

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Speaker 4: Again.

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Speaker 2: It's nineteen ninety. He's filming a British TV show called

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Speaker 2: World in Action, where he's demonstrating how the KGB trained

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Speaker 2: him how to tell if he was being followed.

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Speaker 1: The philosophy is not to shake off the surveillance. Maybe

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Speaker 1: curtius to the surveillance, don't irritate them.

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Speaker 2: In this video clip, he's wearing a faux goo tea

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Speaker 2: and a wig as a disguise his short athletic build.

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Speaker 2: His sport coat and pants are slightly oversized. In other words,

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Speaker 2: he looks like every other middle aged man in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen nineties. He blends in like a spy should.

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Speaker 1: Now I do absolutely unexpected. I turned right to stay

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Speaker 1: with me. They have to make the choke, and they

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Speaker 1: are making the joke. I set a trap for them.

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Speaker 2: I bet you were expecting something a little more dramatic,

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Speaker 2: James Bond style car chase that turns into a motorcycle

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Speaker 2: chase that turns into a fistfight on a blimp or something.

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Speaker 2: But no, this is what International Super spiderm really looks like.

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Speaker 2: An average looking man in a wig and a fake

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Speaker 2: go te, hands placed at ten and two, driving just

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Speaker 2: under the speed limit.

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Speaker 1: You know, a bunch of ex operations, admitting that the

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Speaker 1: agents will not take place, but tomorrow we will try again.

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Speaker 2: But the movies do get one thing right. Spies like

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Speaker 2: Oleg Gordievski, sometimes the fate of the world does depend

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Speaker 2: on them. There's one more thing I should tell you

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Speaker 2: about him. He's one of the two spies who would

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Speaker 2: be forced to intervene during an international nuclear crisis in

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. Listeners, pour yourself up vodka martini, shaken,

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Speaker 2: not stirred, because today it's all about the spies situation.

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Speaker 2: Norman Fucko. I'm at Helms and this is Snafu, a

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Speaker 2: podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On season one, we're

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Speaker 2: telling you the story of a snaffo that is gigantic, absurd, terrifying.

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Speaker 2: It's able Archer eighty three, the nineteen eighty three NATO

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Speaker 2: military exercise that almost led to a real nuclear war.

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Speaker 2: All right, here's where we're at. The Cold War was

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Speaker 2: heating up or was it cooling down? I don't know,

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Speaker 2: whatever's worse thanks to Reagan and a drop off and

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Speaker 2: their teeny tiny inferiority complexes. Well, what did you think

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Speaker 2: I was going to say? Come on, get your mind

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Speaker 2: out of the gutter. Anyway, after a year of name calling,

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Speaker 2: aggressive impulses of an evil empire, the announcement of a

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Speaker 2: very mysterious space project and destroy strategic ballistic missiles, and

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Speaker 2: the scheduled deployment of super speedy missiles discouraging two can

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Speaker 2: fly up to one thousand miles in under ten minutes,

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Speaker 2: let's just say the Soviets weren't feeling particularly trusting.

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Speaker 5: The West were wicked. The capitalists were unreliable. They would

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Speaker 5: trick into sie View as soon as they would look

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Speaker 5: you in the eye. You know, this was an evil

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Speaker 5: sort of Western system that these paranoid KGB officials saw

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Speaker 5: in the West.

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Speaker 2: This is Taylor Downing. He's an historian and a documentarian,

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Speaker 2: and boy does he have the voice for it. He

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Speaker 2: says that a drop Off didn't believe Thatagan's antics were

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Speaker 2: standard political performance. He thought Reagan was building up to

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Speaker 2: something far more sinister.

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Speaker 5: The fear was that the Americans had some sort of secret,

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Speaker 5: cunning plan to launch a preemptive strike. Obviously, in the

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Speaker 5: nuclear era, a surprise attack could be completely overwhelming.

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Speaker 2: Overwhelming is putting it lightly. With the new euro missiles

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Speaker 2: in play, the Soviet Union would need to detect an attack,

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Speaker 2: get word to the leaders, notify the public, scurry into bunkers,

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Speaker 2: and launch a retaliation, all within seven minutes. And drop

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Speaker 2: Off was like seventy years old. You're not exactly sprinting

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Speaker 2: to bunkers at that age. I mean, your knees are

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Speaker 2: just not what they once were.

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Speaker 5: They were determined that they must not ful prey to

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Speaker 5: a surprise attack from the West.

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Speaker 2: And drop Off realized the only chance for Soviet survival

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Speaker 2: was to see an attack coming before it even happened.

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Speaker 5: So Andrewpov had started this KGB program for its international

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Speaker 5: residences called Operation Rhyan.

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Speaker 2: So Rhon is an acronym, and it actually is spelled

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Speaker 2: like the name Ryan. You're gonna hear a variety of

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Speaker 2: pronunciations for this acronym. I'm just gonna go with Ryan.

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Speaker 2: So what this acronym means is nuclear missile attack. It

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Speaker 2: was and Dropoff's crystal ball his chance at seeing the

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Speaker 2: incoming missiles before a button was ever pushed. Nope, and

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Speaker 2: drop Off could not see the future. This isn't that

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Speaker 2: kind of show. But what he lacked in psychic ability

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Speaker 2: he made up for in espionage.

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Speaker 5: So Operation Rhiann was telling its agents abroad to look

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Speaker 5: for signs of the preparation for a nuclear attack.

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Speaker 2: And this is where spies like ol Ed Gordievski come in.

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Speaker 2: Under Operation Ryan, a global network of Soviet spies began

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Speaker 2: to search for clue that might indicate that an attack

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Speaker 2: from the West was eminent.

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Speaker 5: Many of these signs were very sensible. You know, our

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Speaker 5: hospitals being emptied in anticipation of mass casualties.

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Speaker 2: Were the missiles getting moved around, were blood banks increasing

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Speaker 2: their supplies. You get the idea. Signs that could rationally

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Speaker 2: point to the fact that the enemy is preparing for war.

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Speaker 2: But agents were told to look for other signs as well,

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Speaker 2: signs that were not so sensible.

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Speaker 5: We're go and count the number of lights on in

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Speaker 5: the Pentagon at night or in the Ministry of Defense

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Speaker 5: in London at night, because if you knew that regularly

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Speaker 5: there were had one hundred lights on and suddenly there

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Speaker 5: are two hundred lights on. My god, they must be

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Speaker 5: planning for a war. So the whole operation that got

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Speaker 5: crazier and crazier as the leadership became more and more anxious.

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Speaker 2: Every two weeks, spies would report back to KGB headquarters

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Speaker 2: with a list of all the different indicators they saw.

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Speaker 2: Officials would accumulate a tally, and that taally would be

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Speaker 2: used to calculate when the attack was coming.

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Speaker 5: I was told that there was this extraordinary perspect screen

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Speaker 5: in the KGB sentern that dul Bianca.

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Speaker 2: According to Taylor, the KGB analysts had a giant screen

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Speaker 2: with a grid on which they would put x's for

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Speaker 2: each indicator.

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Speaker 5: The KGB leaders could judge the overall leftl of tension

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Speaker 5: simply by looking at the number of crosses on the

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Speaker 5: big board in the main room.

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Speaker 2: Once the board was full of axes, that meant the

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Speaker 2: West was going to attack naturally, then the Soviets could

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Speaker 2: prepare accordingly, sound the alarms, or worse, they could strike first.

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Speaker 2: It was like a tic tac toe game of death.

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Speaker 5: I mean, this is just so utterly crazy. Stanley Kubrick

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Speaker 5: could not invent this elderly savie gentlemen, you know, looking

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Speaker 5: at a big board with crosses on it, and it's

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Speaker 5: from this that decisions to launch nuclear weapons might be based.

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Speaker 5: Seems the craziest of satires that you could ever imagine,

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Speaker 5: But I was certainly told that that's what happened.

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Speaker 2: Kind of sounds like the world's most fucked up game show. Okay,

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Speaker 2: you're for the center square. How many lights are on?

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Speaker 2: It's the pentagon right now? Oh, I'm sorry, it's two hundred.

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Speaker 2: That puts an X in the center square.

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Speaker 6: And you know what that means.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Well, that's our game. I'd say, join us

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Speaker 2: tomorrow night, But by then all of human civilization will

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Speaker 2: be buried under a ton of radioactive ash. Good night, folks. Now,

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Speaker 2: even after a lot of digging, we can't verify exactly

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Speaker 2: what Ryan actually looked like a Tic Tacto board of death,

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Speaker 2: or more likely, an algorithm in a supercomputer in a

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Speaker 2: basement somewhere. After all, the Soviets did have a habit

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Speaker 2: of using technology to soothe their nuclear anxiety. But what

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Speaker 2: we do know is that as spies our the West

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Speaker 2: for these insane indicators, that data would be input into

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Speaker 2: Ryan which would then output a measure of the balance

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Speaker 2: of military power. Some sources say the Soviets believed once

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Speaker 2: that power balance hit sixty forty in favor of NATO,

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Speaker 2: that meant an attack from the West was imminent and

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Speaker 2: the Soviets needed to strike first. Does this feel crazy

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Speaker 2: to you? It should, because it is. This is not

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Speaker 2: a system, this is not science or math. It's just

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Speaker 2: some made up arbitrary threshold. I mean, I am truly

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Speaker 2: at a loss for words.

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Speaker 5: Here, completely mad, completely bizarre, completely crazy.

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Speaker 2: Thank you Taylor. That about sums it up crazy or not.

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Speaker 2: Operation Ryan would put spies at center stage in our

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Speaker 2: little Cold War story, more specifically two spies from different

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Speaker 2: lands who would be put on a crash course with

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Speaker 2: able archer a where they would be forced to act

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Speaker 2: to save us all.

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Speaker 7: Gordievsky was born in the late nineteen thirties.

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Speaker 2: This is Michael Goodman. He's the head of the War

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Speaker 2: Studies department at King's College, London. He's talking about Oleg Gordievsky,

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Speaker 2: our fake goateed spy driving instructor.

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Speaker 7: He had been the son of an officer of one

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Speaker 7: of the KGB's precursors. Something called the NKVD, but fundamentally

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Speaker 7: it was the same thing. But in other words, he

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Speaker 7: was born into the sort of world of secret policing.

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Speaker 7: I suppose you know, espionage or something which came in

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Speaker 7: the blood.

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Speaker 2: You could argue Oleg Gordievski's brother was also a KGB agent,

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Speaker 2: so for him, becoming a spy was just like joining

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Speaker 2: the family business. Come on down to Gordievski and brothers,

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Speaker 2: your friendly neighborhood spies.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, to be honest, his career in the KGB might

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Speaker 2: have been pretty straightforward if it wasn't.

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Speaker 3: For this.

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Speaker 4: B Diomaggio Ripartash Katoribus jell and Zajind's mercy Stay.

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Speaker 2: It's nineteen fifty three, ole At Gordievski is fifteen, the

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Speaker 2: perfect age to get into a little geopolitical tomfoolery. He

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Speaker 2: had learned that he could pick up several transmissions from

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Speaker 2: west of the Iron Curtain. The KGB, of course, monitored

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Speaker 2: the radio waves closely, and if they caught a transmission

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Speaker 2: from the west, they jammed the signal jab seneskot iq

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Speaker 2: roling by nation Viktata, making the contraband broadcasts barely intelligible.

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Speaker 2: Western broadcasters would try to dodge the jammers. Eager to

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Speaker 2: get their clear message to Soviet citizens, they'd ease off

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Speaker 2: one frequency and jump to another. The KGB would chase

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Speaker 2: them down. The result was inevitably a game of free

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Speaker 2: speech squashing whack.

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Speaker 7: Them on abrakis busham.

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Speaker 2: But on this day, with his ear hovering next to

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Speaker 2: his short wave Baltika radio, the KGB's jamming signal wasn't

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Speaker 2: strong enough. This mole would go unwhacked. Gordievski was able

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Speaker 2: to make out a life changing broadcast from Radio Liberty

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Speaker 2: out of.

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Speaker 4: Munich boch krofiat krovi.

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Speaker 7: We're Sardetsky.

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Speaker 2: I'll translate for you. He was the worst tyrant in

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Speaker 2: the history of mankind, the greatest criminal and executioner of

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Speaker 2: the world has ever known. His victims numbered millions. It's

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Speaker 2: March fifth, nineteen fifty three, the day that Stalin died.

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Speaker 2: I mean, how's that for a eulogy. In his memoir,

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Speaker 2: only Gordievski recalls listening completely spellbound. He had never heard

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Speaker 2: the Soviet Union disparaged before. At some level, hearing those words,

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Speaker 2: he knew them to be true. But despite the nagging

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Speaker 2: feeling that the Soviet system might be a broken one.

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Speaker 2: Only Gordievski would go on to join the KGB. You see,

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Speaker 2: an ordinary Soviet life seemed a little boring to him.

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Speaker 2: As a KGB man, he could travel, experience different cultures,

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Speaker 2: and have adventures. He said it himself, he wanted to

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Speaker 2: live a magnificent life.

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Speaker 3: It was exciting, it was thrilling, it was romantic.

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Speaker 1: Though I didn't expect it would be as exciting in

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Speaker 1: my case as it jugged out to be.

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Speaker 2: That's because all like Gordievski would become a double agent.

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Speaker 2: Kordievski was twenty eight when he got his first KGB

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Speaker 2: assignment abroad in Copenhagen.

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Speaker 7: Kordievsky would have traveled under some form of cover. He

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Speaker 7: would not have been declared KGB officer.

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Speaker 2: As he passed through customs, he told the agent he

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Speaker 2: was a Russian diplomat. Of course he was not. That

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Speaker 2: was only his cover. In reality, he was a Russian

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Speaker 2: Internet national superspy. Of course, Danish intelligence was always suspicious

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Speaker 2: of a new Russian diplomat.

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Speaker 7: Is he what he says he is or is he

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Speaker 7: something else?

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Speaker 2: So the Danish intelligence service would scrutinize his backstory, looking

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Speaker 2: for anything that seemed inconsistent. Anything that may reveal Oleg

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Speaker 2: Gordievski was actually a spy.

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Speaker 7: You know where had this Russian served before? They were

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Speaker 7: a cultural latasha in Mexico and then they suddenly appeared

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Speaker 7: in How Sinki is a trade atasha?

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Speaker 1: You know?

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Speaker 7: Does that seem a bit old that you'd go from

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Speaker 7: one to the other.

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Speaker 2: But Olegg Gordievsky's story was air tight. He was safe

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Speaker 2: for now. He hadn't been there but a few months

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Speaker 2: when he and his wife were invited out to dinner

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Speaker 2: by a local police officer. Hey, that's great for them.

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Speaker 2: It's always so hard to make friends in a new place.

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Speaker 2: But Olegg must have also gotten some spy tingles. Something

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Speaker 2: was up. As he left the flat, he placed a

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Speaker 2: small dab of glue between one of the bedroom doors

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Speaker 2: and the doorframe. When they came back from dinner, the

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Speaker 2: bedroom door was wide open. The glue was dislodged. That

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Speaker 2: could mean only one thing. While they were out, the

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Speaker 2: Gordievskis had visitors olegs KGB training told them that the

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Speaker 2: apartment was now bugged. Was the Danish intelligence really so

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Speaker 2: sloppy that they would make such an obvious mistake? Well,

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Speaker 2: documents later revealed what went wrong. When the Danish intelligence

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Speaker 2: broke into the Gordievski's apartment, they accidentally let out his

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Speaker 2: wife's black cat. They chased the damn thing all around

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Speaker 2: the neighborhood before finally corralling it back into the apartment.

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Speaker 2: In the frenzy, they left the bedroom door open. I

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Speaker 2: can't not picture this scene in cartoon form, but hey,

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Speaker 2: they did manage to bug the apartment, so mission accomplished.

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Speaker 2: I guess from this moment on, Danish intelligence would listen

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Speaker 2: to Gordievsky day in and day out, waiting for him

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Speaker 2: to mess up, to reveal a vulnerability that they could

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Speaker 2: exploit to make Gordievsky work for their side. Of course,

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Speaker 2: Gordievsky knew he was bugged, which makes it all the

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Speaker 2: more surprising that in short order he gave the Danes

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Speaker 2: exactly what they wanted. Gordievski's seed of discontent that was

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Speaker 2: planted all those years ago was about to be watered

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Speaker 2: by a fucking monsoon.

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Speaker 7: It was the check invasion that was the big turning points.

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Speaker 2: In July of nineteen sixty eight, Soviet tanks lined up

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Speaker 2: along the border of Czechoslovakia. The Czech leader had been

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Speaker 2: talking about a freer Czechoslovakia, freedom of speech, freedom of movement,

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Speaker 2: but the Soviets couldn't have their allies being too free.

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Speaker 2: Soviet tanks closed in iron fist, hovering. Honestly, kind of

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Speaker 2: an evil empiry move Gordievski watched the news coverage with

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Speaker 2: a knot in his stomach. He debated with his colleagues

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Speaker 2: at the Russian embassy. Half of them were Stalinists, hardliners.

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Speaker 2: They wanted the movement squashed. The other half, Gordievski included,

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Speaker 2: supported the checks. Maybe it was some naive hope that

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Speaker 2: a communist nation could actually provide a good quality of

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Speaker 2: life for its people. Hope so it, friends, will't press

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Speaker 2: us to change the way of our policy of the

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Speaker 2: last months. Gordievski was adamant. He said, surely the tanks

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Speaker 2: won't cross the border. They can't. It would be awful,

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Speaker 2: Oh Kordievski, you sweet innocent espionage agent. He made a

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Speaker 2: bet with one of the hardliners who thought the tanks

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Speaker 2: would invade. The loser has to buy the winner a

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Speaker 2: case of champagne.

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Speaker 4: Once again, the Soviet Union, demonstrating a colossal contempt for

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Speaker 4: the opinion of mankind, has resorted to brute force to

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Speaker 4: keep a satellite nation under control Russian tanks and infantry.

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Speaker 2: It was worse than Gordievski could have ever imagined.

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Speaker 3: Tonight was one of terrors of the patient who expire

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Speaker 3: the cars, motorcycles, every moving object without warning.

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Speaker 7: Because he was based in a foreign country, he was

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Speaker 7: able to see not just how the Russians portrayed this,

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Speaker 7: for how the West portray this. And I think this

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Speaker 7: was really a huge cristical moment in his conversion, if

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Speaker 7: you like.

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Speaker 2: For the first time he saw the Soviet Union for

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Speaker 2: what it was, unobscured by state propaganda. It confirmed what

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Speaker 2: deep down he had already known.

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Speaker 7: It was moments like that that he really began to think,

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Speaker 7: I need to do something about this. I need to

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Speaker 7: target the Soviet system, undermine it somehow, and try and

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Speaker 7: damage it somehow.

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Speaker 2: At that moment, Gordievsky made a faithful decision. It would

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Speaker 2: put his life at risk, his family's lives at risk.

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Speaker 2: He went to the phone in the embassy and immediately

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Speaker 2: called his wife Yolena at home. He sobbed into the phone.

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Speaker 2: He told her they've actually invaded Czechoslovakia. How could they

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Speaker 2: do this? It's unbelievable. I don't know what to do now.

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Speaker 2: He knew his home line was bugged by Danish intelligence.

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Speaker 2: By making this call, he was sending a deliberate Gordievsky

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Speaker 2: was ready to flip. He hung up the phone and

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Speaker 2: bought his colleague a case of champagne. We're going to

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Speaker 2: say goodbye to Gordievski for now, because another spy in

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Speaker 2: a different land is traveling on a similar crash course

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Speaker 2: toward able Archer, and in order to understand this story,

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Speaker 2: we need to meet him too.

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Speaker 8: I would just have got feeling this all this society

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Speaker 8: was rotten.

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Speaker 2: Meet rhiner Rup. This audio is from an interview he

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Speaker 2: gave in two thousand and eight for the documentary nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty three The Brink of Apocalypse. Like Gordievski, rhiner Rup

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Speaker 2: would also become a spy, betray his homeland, and end

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Speaker 2: up in the middle of a nuclear crisis. Guys, y'all

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Speaker 2: have so much in common, you should totally be friends.

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Speaker 2: Only rhiner Rupp's betrayal would happen in the opposite direction.

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Speaker 2: That's right. He was born in West Germany and soon

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Speaker 2: he would be working for the East.

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Speaker 8: The society didn't suit me in nineties. The more I

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Speaker 8: learned about it, the more I rejected.

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Speaker 2: Rhiner. Rupp is a burly sort. He just seems like

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Speaker 2: the kind of guy who could wrestle a bear into submission.

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Speaker 2: But maybe I'm just saying that because of his very

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Speaker 2: impressive beard. He wears those classic Aviator style eyeglasses, and

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Speaker 2: he fits a lot of German stereotypes, meaning let's just

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Speaker 2: say he's not very silly. Rupp was sixteen when the

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Speaker 2: Berlin Wall went up, creating an overnight barrier between two

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Speaker 2: very different Germanys. It became ingrained in his mind how

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Speaker 2: lucky he was to be on the Western side, the

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Speaker 2: free side. That behind the curtain they were making schnitzel

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Speaker 2: out of cardboard, or sour crowd out of used diapers

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Speaker 2: or something. But Rupp knew the West had its problems too.

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Speaker 8: Nazis were still sitting in positions of power, and all

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Speaker 8: that reminded us too much of what happened not so

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Speaker 8: long ago in Germany.

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Speaker 2: He and his pals were activists. They would famously be

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Speaker 2: called the sixty eight Ers, a group of students who

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Speaker 2: were trying to throw the remaining Nazis out of West

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Speaker 2: Germany in nineteen sixty eight. Not a super controversial take

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Speaker 2: in my humble opinion, but apparently the larger West German

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Speaker 2: population found these young students to be a nuisance, even dangerous.

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Speaker 2: They were anti establishment, and that made them attempting target

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Speaker 2: for Communist spy recruiters.

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Speaker 8: I wasn't a Marxist at the time, so I don't

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Speaker 8: know what would have happened if I hadn't met by

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Speaker 8: Sheia Chance, one of the recruiters.

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Speaker 2: One of the recruiters for the Stasi, East Germany's spy organization,

361
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Speaker 2: very much in cahoots with the KGB. By the way,

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Ryaner, but I have a feeling that it

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Speaker 2: was not at all by chance. One misty spring afternoon

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Speaker 2: in nineteen six and the other sixty eight ers found

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Speaker 2: themselves marching the streets of Mines, a humble little town

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Speaker 2: in the Rhineland that still bore the scars of World

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Speaker 2: War two bombing raids.

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Speaker 8: The crow Bible was was hungry. We were thirsty from shouting,

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Speaker 8: and so we went to a pup.

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Speaker 2: They ordered a round of beers and bowls of gulash.

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Speaker 8: When we paid, we wanted to pay to be literally

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Speaker 8: a tin tin Finnick, which is nowadays Tincent. I mean nothing,

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Speaker 8: just didn't have it anymore in our pockets.

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Speaker 2: So to the waitress reps like, look, we don't have

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Speaker 2: money for all these beers and poles of gulage. But

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Speaker 2: let me back there in the kitchen. I'll do some

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Speaker 2: washing and work off the debt.

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Speaker 8: That's how this nice chap order man could have been

379
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Speaker 8: my father. Two tables further away, said oh, waitress, I'll

380
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Speaker 8: pick up those and bring those young men and another

381
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Speaker 8: round of beers. So he was very welcome in our circle.

382
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Speaker 2: Apparently the cost of buying a spy is roughly the

383
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Speaker 2: price of gulash. When it came time to leave, the

384
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 2: old man reveals that he, by complete chance lived right

385
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Speaker 2: next to Rup. What a small world.

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Speaker 8: And so we walked back up up the hill to

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Speaker 8: the rose garden where I lived and talked more.

388
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Speaker 2: They're talking politics, the state of Germany, and they discovered,

389
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Speaker 2: to the complete surprise of only one person in that conversation,

390
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Speaker 2: that they're totally ideologically aligned. What a kuaki dink, right.

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Speaker 8: I old god, it's the first time in my experience

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Speaker 8: this is an older man could be my father order generation,

393
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Speaker 8: and he has same kind of feelings, the same kind

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Speaker 8: of views like me, so I wanted to know him again.

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Speaker 2: Hook Line and Singer, the nice old Gulash buying Chap

396
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Speaker 2: played the long game. It was an entire year before

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Speaker 2: he came back to Rupp and said, Hey, I know

398
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Speaker 2: you think the East is bad. You think it's an

399
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Speaker 2: evil dictatorship where life is dreary and monotonous, but you're

400
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 2: actually just brainwashed by the West.

401
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Speaker 8: So he said, come and have a fabu look for yourself.

402
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Speaker 2: So he did. Rupp visited East Germany and let's just

403
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 2: say he wasn't turned off by it, so he agreed

404
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 2: to help them out a little. At first, Rupp was

405
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Speaker 2: tasked with documenting Nazi activities within the West German government. Truly,

406
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 2: and I think we can all agree on this, fighting

407
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 2: the good fight. But slowly Rhiner Rupp began to see

408
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 2: the West in a very dark light, as greedy, exploiting

409
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 2: the working class and on a quest for world domination.

410
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Speaker 2: And that's when Rhiner Rupp fully flipped. He committed to

411
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Speaker 2: being a full fledged agent in the Stazi, which ironically

412
00:24:55,080 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 2: was itself a very dark, repressive, even torturous organization. Now

413
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 2: with a new mandate. RUP's target shifted. It was no

414
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 2: longer the Nazis, it was NATO.

415
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Speaker 8: Ito was my enemy and I went in to destroy it.

416
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 2: Well, that got intense very fast. Now Rup needed an in.

417
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 2: But you can't just waltz into the NATO office and

418
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Speaker 2: apply for a job. What do you think is this

419
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 2: jam bajuice? And what's he going to say in the interview? Hi,

420
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Speaker 2: I'm Rhyner Rupp. I want to destroy you from within.

421
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:33,479
Speaker 2: I mean, you don't hire that guy. So he started

422
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 2: by enrolling at a local university. He hatched a plan

423
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Speaker 2: he could make contacts and eventually infiltrate the enemy. But

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Speaker 2: then he met and Christine.

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Speaker 9: And Christine Bowen and I met in nineteen seventeen.

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Speaker 2: This is Floria and Schimakowski. He's head of collections at

427
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Speaker 2: the German Spy Museum in Berlin.

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Speaker 10: And she was actually totally unpolitical and he was very

429
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Speaker 10: political at that time, and she took over his opinions

430
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Speaker 10: bit by bit.

431
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Speaker 2: And Christine Bowen was British. She was a student alongside

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Speaker 2: Rhiner Rubb at the university. She was also a secretary

433
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 2: at NATO. You might know where this is going. The

434
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 2: spy who wants to get into NATO, conveniently meets a

435
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 2: young woman who works at NATO.

436
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 10: I don't know if you're familiar with the term Romeo agent.

437
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 10: It's what the English call it honeypot, honeytrap, because they

438
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 10: frequently sent out good looking man to get in contact

439
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 10: with secretaries of governmental institutions in order to spy on

440
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 10: those people and to get these secretaries to spy for them.

441
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 2: But rub swears he has always sworn this is not

442
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 2: that he loved Anne Christine. They ended up getting married.

443
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 2: In fact, they're still married. No honeypot, no manipulation. This

444
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 2: relationship is the real deal. And maybe to prove his affection,

445
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 2: or maybe because he's a reckless romantic, he does exactly

446
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 2: what he's not supposed to do. He tells her, hey,

447
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 2: by the way, darling, mine shots, I'm a spy.

448
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 9: And the Starzi was shocked, as you can imagine.

449
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 10: They were quite kind of angry with him, so to speak,

450
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 10: because they really really said, you shouldn't have done that.

451
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: What do we do?

452
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 9: We don't know anything about that woman, for.

453
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 2: God's sake, she's English. We don't know where her loyalties lie.

454
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 2: She calls fries chips and chips crisps. They're like, what

455
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 2: are we going to do with you?

456
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 4: Now?

457
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,159
Speaker 2: Fire you? So Rup is pretty scared from getting his

458
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 2: ass handed to him by his Starzi handlers. And he

459
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 2: goes back to an Christine and he says, can I

460
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 2: trust you?

461
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:41,880
Speaker 9: And she assured him she's not gonna tell anyone.

462
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 2: Not only is Anne Christine not going to tell anyone,

463
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 2: she's so smitten with Rupp that she even agrees to

464
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 2: help him.

465
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 10: So he actually convinced her. You're a secretary at NATO headquarters.

466
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 10: That means you've got position to documents and you can

467
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 10: do something good costs. So she starts at smuggling out

468
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 10: documents in a handback.

469
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 2: Come on, that is so romantic. If only Hallmark made

470
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 2: cards for spy lovers. You smuggled my heart out. There

471
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 2: are so many treasons why I love you. I got

472
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 2: a million of these, Hallmark, give me a call for

473
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 2: the Stazzi. Having an agent inside NATO was a gold mine.

474
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 2: It was a clear look inside the minds of the West.

475
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 2: If NATO attacks, and they were convinced NATO would attack

476
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 2: this Dozzi would see it coming from a mile away.

477
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 2: But and Christine's access was limited. They wanted to be deeper,

478
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 2: and that's when a job vacancy opened up in the

479
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 2: Economics department of NATO. They were looking for a candidate

480
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 2: with language skills, someone who spoke French, German and Spanish.

481
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 2: Ryan heer Upp was the perfect candidate. So I guess

482
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 2: in the end he did just walton to NATO and

483
00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:07,239
Speaker 2: apply for a job. My apologies to Jombajuice. All right,

484
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 2: let's go check back in with our other pal, Oleg Gordievski,

485
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 2: the Soviet spy who has just made the faithful decision

486
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 2: to become a double agent and help destroy the Soviet system.

487
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 2: You'll recall he had just given a dramatic performance on

488
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 2: a bugged line when he called his wife after the

489
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 2: Czech invasion. So now Gordievski expected a visit from Danish intelligence,

490
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 2: but they never came. They didn't hear his signal. Not

491
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 2: that the phone wasn't bugged, it was I don't know.

492
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 2: The dude listening must have taken a break to eat

493
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 2: some chemader bread. That's an open faced Danish sandwich. You

494
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 2: should really try one sometime. Regardless, the Danes didn't get

495
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 2: the message, so, not realizing that he was fully prepared

496
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 2: to be flipped. They fleshed out their own plan to

497
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 2: flip him, and they believed they had some leverage. Here's

498
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 2: nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis.

499
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 6: Here the Danish bookstore story about Gordievski.

500
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 2: A boy do I Jeffrey, and it's a doozy. One day,

501
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 2: shortly after his arrival in Copenhagen, oled Gordievski was drolling

502
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 2: through the red light district, as one does when you're

503
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 2: getting to know your new home.

504
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 6: And Gordievski, who is just a weird dude, walks by

505
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 6: a gay bookstore, or maybe it was just a pornographic bookstore.

506
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 6: It was a sex shop, and he just can't believe

507
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 6: that the West is so open and free that such

508
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 6: a thing can exist. So he goes in and he

509
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 6: buys two pornographic magazines that are gay themed, right, and

510
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 6: take some home to show his wife to be like,

511
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 6: can you believe how free this country is? Here's some

512
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 6: hardcore gay pornography. And I don't know what her reaction

513
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 6: to this is, but you know it's probably like, that's great, Oleg.

514
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 6: But the Danish intelligence services immediately decide Gordievski must be

515
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 6: a closeted gay man in the nineteen.

516
00:30:56,200 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 2: Sixties, a gay KGB agent that was definitely something to exploit.

517
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 6: And they see this as like a way that they

518
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 6: could recruit him, right, they could blackmail him and recruit him.

519
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 6: And so they try to set up a honeypot where

520
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:11,959
Speaker 6: they get, you know, an attractive young man to kind

521
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 6: of flirt with him at a cocktail party. But Gordievski,

522
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 6: being straight, doesn't realize that that's what's happening at all,

523
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 6: and it doesn't work.

524
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 2: Ohlegg probably went home and told his wife all about

525
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:23,239
Speaker 2: that nice guy he met at the party and how

526
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 2: people in the West are so interested in his stamp collection.

527
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 6: But like, that's Olegg Gordievski for you, right, like the

528
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 6: kind of guy who would do something like that.

529
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 2: In the end, Treason finally found Gordievski on the badminton court,

530
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 2: as it's found so many of us. It was nineteen

531
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 2: seventy three. A tall English diplomat walked onto the court,

532
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 2: interrupting what I can only imagine was a riveting match.

533
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 2: Gordievski was, in all likelihood donned in sweatbands, short shorts

534
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 2: and tube socks. The Englishman invited him to lunch. He

535
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 2: said somewhere we won't be overheard. You can kind of

536
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 2: fill in the blanks on that conversation, Gordievski agreed to flip,

537
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 2: and thank Christ he did.

538
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 7: It's kind of for chewed says, and it was also

539
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 7: source of.

540
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 2: Calculated Gordievsky was now a double agent for six, which

541
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 2: is basically the CIA of the United Kingdom. Now. I

542
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 2: six wanted to help Gordievsky climb the ranks and the KGB.

543
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 2: The higher up he was on the Soviet side, the

544
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 2: better intelligence he'd be able to feed them, and they

545
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 2: wanted him close where they could be in touch with

546
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 2: him more freely. So I six set a plan in

547
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 2: motion to get Gordievsky a new job in London. The

548
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 2: opportunity would finally come in nineteen eighty one, some eight

549
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 2: years after Gordievsky was first approached on that Badminton court.

550
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 7: I six, as we now know, helped ensure that someone

551
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 7: in the embassy was sent back to Moscow to record

552
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 7: sort of slightly in disgrace, and so that an opening

553
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 7: came up.

554
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, The Soviets had a diplomatic opening

555
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 2: to fill in London. Back here, BACKO, you're going to

556
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 2: London Town.

557
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 7: And it was at that point that really he began

558
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 7: to provide the best sort of intelligence.

559
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 2: There was just a recap. Gordievski was in London on

560
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 2: official business as a Russian diplomat, but he was sent

561
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 2: by the KGB as an undercover agent. But he was

562
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 2: actually set up by six to be placed there by

563
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 2: the KGB to pose as a diplomat. Are you following me?

564
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 2: Because I'm barely hanging on and I'm like the host here. Listen.

565
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 2: The point is, being a double agent is a dangerous

566
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 2: and confusing job. If being a regular secret agent is

567
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,600
Speaker 2: like juggling knives, then being a double agent is like

568
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: juggling knives while double dutching through jump ropes made of

569
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 2: knives in front of a crowd who is also throwing

570
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 2: knives at you. It's a lot of knives.

571
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 7: Even had Gordievski known something, he couldn't necessarily pass it

572
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 7: across straight away. Of course, even if he could pass

573
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 7: across intelligence straight away, how the West dealt with it

574
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 7: had to also be very cleverly and carefully handled, because

575
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 7: if you all suddenly told something which you have no

576
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 7: other means of knowing, and you somehow revealed that then,

577
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 7: of course, to the other side. It will then post questions,

578
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 7: well how did they know that? This whole world of

579
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 7: casts and mouse becomes absolutely fascinating because you had to

580
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 7: try and conceal how do you know?

581
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,919
Speaker 2: You know that the KGB kept detailed records of which

582
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 2: agents knew which pieces of information, so when secrets inevitably

583
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 2: leaked to the other side, they could trace the breadcrumbs

584
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 2: of treachery back to the source. And once they did,

585
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 2: can you guess what happened? Execution? But that wasn't the

586
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 2: only danger in Gordievsky's capacity as a double agent. He

587
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 2: may also feed completely false information back to the KGB,

588
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,879
Speaker 2: and if they found out he was lying, he could

589
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 2: be executed. And even if Gordievsky was extremely careful, there

590
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,800
Speaker 2: was always the possibility that his new employers had a

591
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 2: mole of their own. He could be rated out and

592
00:34:54,880 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 2: then he'd be say it with me, execute it, see

593
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 2: knives everywhere. I'm bringing all this up not just because

594
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 2: it's fascinating fun spy tradecraft. I bring it up because

595
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 2: it's utterly terrifying, arguably completely unacceptable that this intelligence that

596
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 2: was at best convoluted and at worst completely fucking false

597
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,960
Speaker 2: could sway the decisions of world leaders to I don't know,

598
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 2: maybe you launched some nukes during a NATO military exercise.

599
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 2: I mean, the lives of the entire human race depended

600
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 2: on analysts accurately detangling this muddy espionage web, knowing what

601
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 2: was legitimate and what was not. Meanwhile, moles, traders and

602
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 2: defectors were deliberately just trying to confuse everyone. When you

603
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 2: really think about it, it's kind of insane. We didn't

604
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 2: have a nuclear war like every other month, and the

605
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 2: problem was about to get a lot worse.

606
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 3: They started to panic, and they developed a concept of

607
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 3: how the Americans will prepare to a sudden nuclear attack.

608
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 2: This is Kordievsky again from an interview he gave in

609
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight. He's talking about Operation Ryan.

610
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 3: They needed to know the time of the preparation to

611
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 3: the attack in order probably to carry out a preventive attack,

612
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 3: so we will remain, the Winders will prevail.

613
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 2: The beginnings of Operation Ryan date back to nineteen eighty one,

614
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 2: but according to Kordievsky, things got a bit more urgent

615
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,400
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty three. That's when it became clear that

616
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 2: the euro missiles were in fact going to be deployed

617
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 2: in Europe. Oh yeah, and it's also when Ronald Reagan

618
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 2: publicly called the Soviet Union the source of all evil

619
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 2: in the world. Every two weeks agents were to go

620
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 2: look for these indicators, no matter how ridiculous they seemed,

621
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,280
Speaker 2: and write a report to be sent back to Moscow.

622
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. The West wasn't planning an attack,

623
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 2: so there were no actual signs.

624
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 3: What should we do to write? There was no signs.

625
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 3: You will get such a blow? Do you heather you

626
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 3: write such thing?

627
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:20,720
Speaker 2: The message was clear, don't come back empty handed, find

628
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 2: some signs, and if they're not there, find them anyway.

629
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 5: No agent is going to stand up and say, well, look,

630
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,320
Speaker 5: I'm in London or I'm in Washington, there's absolutely no

631
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:32,880
Speaker 5: sign here for preparations for a nuclear war.

632
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 2: Your daft.

633
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 5: Don't be silly. You know that way would lie the

634
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 5: end of a career. The way to advance your career

635
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 5: was to find signs and send them into the center.

636
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 5: It became totally self fulfilling. A series of paranoid leaders

637
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 5: ask agents around the world to report if they see

638
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 5: anything suspicious happening. As soon as they reported it, makes

639
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,280
Speaker 5: the kg BE centered even more paranoid, even more anxious,

640
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 5: even more nervous about what's going on.

641
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 2: If you look up lose Lose in the dictionary, there

642
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,279
Speaker 2: should be a really big picture of Operation Ryan right

643
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,359
Speaker 2: next to it. If the Soviet agents reported what they saw,

644
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 2: which was nothing, they could be risking their lives, and

645
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 2: if they reported back fake intel, they could effectively accelerate

646
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 2: a nuclear war, leaving us all dead. See Lose Lose.

647
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 3: My boss was head of the station. It was a

648
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 3: beak fat, pompous and also stupid man.

649
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:33,879
Speaker 2: Damn, Gordy, tell us how you really feel.

650
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 3: But still he was not stupid enough to understand that

651
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 3: this requirement was just not But he was a boss,

652
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 3: so he pretended that it was serious. America. He's preparing

653
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 3: a sudden new class talk.

654
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,879
Speaker 2: And while Gordievsky's boss may have been stupid, he wasn't

655
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 2: stupid enough to defy the KGB.

656
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 3: And we that he didn't believe it. Nobody believed it.

657
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 2: Like ts Eliot said, this is how the world ends,

658
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 2: not with a bang, but with the Soviet middle manager

659
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 2: brow beating his department to reach its monthly quota and

660
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 2: then pure with a bang after that and if any

661
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:19,760
Speaker 2: was left then a whimper.

662
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 1: Were you surprised when you were told to look out

663
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: for the NATO plans for a surprise attack?

664
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:35,479
Speaker 2: Yes? And no, this is Ryan a rup again.

665
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 8: I mean, I can't understand why they were scared, because

666
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,359
Speaker 8: from the outside it really must have looked bad.

667
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 2: Last we saw Rupp, he had just accepted a job

668
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 2: at NATO. He would now have access to NATO's precious

669
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 2: war plans. He was a major asset for the Stasi

670
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 2: and by extension, the KGB, and so of course he'd

671
00:39:56,600 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 2: get a dope code name. He'd be called Agent Topaz.

672
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 7: Does the word Topaz mean anything to you?

673
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 9: What is Topaz?

674
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 3: The story of espionage in high Places?

675
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 2: Now turns out there's a nineteen sixty nine Hitchcock film

676
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 2: by the same name. In the movie, there's a NATO

677
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 2: official who is working for the East. And believe me

678
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 2: when I tell you that, I have no idea if

679
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 2: ryner Up aka Agent Topaz picked his code name based

680
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,879
Speaker 2: on that movie. But let's just say the similarities are

681
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 2: a little uncanny. Apparently the Topaz film was an utter failure.

682
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:35,800
Speaker 2: Critics were like, Hitchcock, time to retire Buddy kind of harsh.

683
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,919
Speaker 2: Presumably Rupp and his comrades disagreed, they loved the film,

684
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 2: or they just figured nobody saw it, but still it

685
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 2: seems like kind of a risky move to hang a

686
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 2: lantern on yourself like that. Ryner Rupp went to work

687
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 2: each day in the Economics department in NATO. He had

688
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 2: a teeny tiny little camera that he would sneak into

689
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 2: the office stashed in the handle of his umbrella or

690
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 2: squash racket, and then he would photo secret NATO documents

691
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 2: to send back East. I did it.

692
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,360
Speaker 8: Was it all open, pretty bold, and I was sitting

693
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 8: not then at my desk, but I had an additional

694
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,359
Speaker 8: work disc in a corner, and I was sitting there

695
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 8: over the documents, and I was taking the pictures.

696
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 2: With the door slightly ajar and a file cupboard rolled

697
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:21,120
Speaker 2: just in front of it, so when a colleague walked in,

698
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 2: the door would hit the file cabinet.

699
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:26,800
Speaker 8: And if the bang came, I'll just put the camera

700
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:27,359
Speaker 8: down here.

701
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,399
Speaker 2: Well, sorry about that, francois what can.

702
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:31,800
Speaker 4: I do for you?

703
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 8: So that happened quite occasionally.

704
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,840
Speaker 2: So Rupp was now one of the most valuable agents

705
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 2: the East had. He was in the NATO inner Sanctum

706
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 2: photographing classified documents for the Stazi, who would then pass

707
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 2: them on to the KGB. Meanwhile, Gordievski is passing Soviet

708
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 2: intel to the West. Both sides are using this intelligence

709
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 2: to gain the upper hand in an arms race that

710
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 2: is spiraling out of control? What could go wrong next time?

711
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 11: On STAFFO, one story dominates the free world news media

712
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 11: tonights the killing of two hundred and sixty nine innocent

713
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 11: people I board a Koreem jumbo jip that drifted into

714
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:17,280
Speaker 11: Soviet territory.

715
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 12: The United States reacts with revulsion to this attack. Loss

716
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 12: of life appears to be heavy. We can see no

717
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 12: excuse whatsoever for this appalling act, Sylvia.

718
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 2: Saying now they were only trying to help the plane

719
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 2: out of their airspace. Snafu is a production of iHeartRadio, Film,

720
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 2: Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with

721
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 2: Gilded Audio. Our lead producers are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa Martino.

722
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 2: Our producer is Carl Nellis, Associate producer Tory Smith. It's

723
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 2: executive produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka, Mike Falbo,

724
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 2: Andy Chug and Whitney Donaldson. This episode was written by

725
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 2: Sarah Joyner, with additional writing from Me, Elliott Kalen, and

726
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 2: Whitney Donaldson. Our senior editor is Jeffrey Lewis, who is

727
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 2: just a weird dude. Olivia Kenny is our production assistant.

728
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 2: Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Additional research and fact

729
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:21,400
Speaker 2: checking by Charles Richter, Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley.

730
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 2: Original music and sound designed by Dan Rosatto. Some archival

731
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 2: audio from this episode originally appeared in Taylor Downing's fantastic

732
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:32,320
Speaker 2: film nineteen eighty three, The Brink of Apocalypse. Thank you,

733
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:35,320
Speaker 2: mister Downing for permission to use it. Special thanks to

734
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 2: Alison Cohen and Matt Aisenstadt