MOSCOW (AP) – George Blake, a former British intelligence officer who worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union and passed some of the most coveted Western secrets to Moscow, died in Russia. He was 98 years old.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, known as the SVR, announced his death on Saturday in a statement, which gave no details. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences, saluting Blake as a “brilliant professional” and a man of “remarkable courage”.
As a double agent, Blake outlined a Western plan to spy on Soviet communications from an underground tunnel to East Berlin. He also unmasked numerous British agents in Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe, some of whom were executed. Blake has lived in Russia since his daring escape from a British prison in 1966 and was made a colonel of Russian intelligence.
Britain considered Blake a traitor, but the man himself never agreed with that assessment and said he had never really “felt” British.
“To cheat, you have to belong first. I never belonged, ”he said.
The British Office of Foreign Affairs, Community and Development declined to comment on Saturday about Blake’s death.
Born in the Netherlands, Blake joined British intelligence during World War II. He was sent to Korea when the war broke out in 1950 and was detained by the northern communist. He said he offered to work for the Soviet Union after witnessing the United States’ relentless bombing of North Korea.
In a statement issued in 2017 by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Blake emphasized that he decided to switch sides after seeing civilians slaughtered by the “American military machine”.
“I realized at that time that such conflicts are mortally dangerous for all of humanity and I made the most important decision of my life – to cooperate with Soviet intelligence voluntarily and for free to help protect world peace,” said Blake.
In a 2012 interview with the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Blake shared some details of his cloak and sword adventures, including meetings with a Soviet representative in East Berlin. He said that once a month he would take a train to East Berlin, making sure he was not being followed, and would drive to a secret apartment where he and his contact would have a conversation with a glass of sparkling Soviet beer.
A Polish defector denounced Blake as a Soviet spy in 1961. He was convicted of spying in Britain and sentenced to 42 years in prison. In October 1966, he boldly escaped with the help of several people he met while in custody.
Blake spent two months hiding at his assistant’s house and then was driven across Europe to East Berlin in a wooden box trapped under a car.
His British wife, who he left behind with his three children, divorced him and he married a Soviet woman and they had a son. He was celebrated as a hero, decorated with the best medals and received a country house on the outskirts of Moscow.
In the Soviet Union, Blake maintained contacts with other British double agents. He said that he met regularly with Cambridge Five members, Donald Maclean and Kim Philby, and said that he and Maclean were particularly close.
Blake said he has adapted well to life in Russia and once joked at a meeting with Russian intelligence officials that he is like a “foreign-made car that has adapted well to Russian roads”.
“He has made a truly invaluable contribution to ensuring strategic parity and preserving peace,” Putin said in his condolence cable.
Blake noted in his 2017 statement that Russia has become his “second motherland” and thanked SVR officials for their friendship and understanding. He said Russian intelligence officials are tasked with “saving the world in a situation where the danger of nuclear war and the resulting self-destruction of humanity is once again put on the agenda by irresponsible politicians”.
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Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.