An unpaid spy
From Mr Oleg Gordievsky
Sir: It is easy to answer Chapman Pincher's question about money (Letters, 6 January) because I have done so in my numerous interviews and my books, particularly the recent Next Stop Execution. It is a pity that Chapman Pincher didn't bother to read any of them. In my period of co-operation with MI6 I did exactly what he speaks about. I did not get payments from the British government, just to make the point that I was working for the West purely for ideological reasons. It was precisely the reason why my family, after my arrest by the KGB and then escape, were kept in Moscow as hostages for six years and had to live in conditions of abject poverty until they were rescued by British diplomacy.
As to the KGB salary, I am not in debt to them after all my efforts to teach mostly ignorant and poorly educated officers about Russian grammar, history and how to write reports.
By the way, do not forget that in a totalitarian state there is no legitimacy with the government and its branches. Thus, to be a traitor to the KGB should be regarded as a duty of any honest and law-abiding man, like being a traitor to the Gestapo. SS or to the Iraqi Muhabharat. It is a shame that such elementary things should have to be explained to people like Chapman Pincher. In order to understand the conflicts of conscience in a totalitarian society, I would recommend a reading of the rulings of the Nuremberg trials.
As to the British traitors, I remember reading Anthony Blunt's receipts for KGB payments dated as early as 1938 — the most ideological period of history.
Oleg Gordievsky
London WC2
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