He was born George Behar in Rotterdam on November 11, 1922. His mother was a Dutch Protestant; his father, Albert, was a Spanish Jew born in Turkey who fought against the Ottoman Empire in World War I and was wounded, cited for bravery and given British citizenship. He settled in the Netherlands as an entrepreneur.
When his father died in 1934, George went to Cairo to live with relatives, including a cousin, Henri Curiel, who became an Egyptian communist leader. He was visiting Holland when World War II broke out in 1939. His mother and two sisters fled to England, but he joined the Dutch resistance, transmitting messages and gathering intelligence for two years.
Retiring to Britain, he changed his surname to Blake, joined the Royal Navy, trained in submarines, and was recruited by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service during the war as a novice agent. Fluent in Dutch, German, Arabic and Hebrew, as well as English, he translated German documents and interrogated German prisoners.
After the war, he studied Russian at Cambridge – at the time, Philby, Burgess and Maclean had graduated in espionage – and his teacher, a native of pre-revolutionary Saint Petersburg, inspired him with a love for Russian language and culture, a step in your conversion. He was then sent to Germany to build a network of British spies in Berlin and Hamburg. Wearing the cover of a naval attaché, he recruited several agents.
Shortly before the start of the Korean War in 1950, Blake was sent to Seoul, the capital of South Korea, under diplomatic cover to organize another spy network. But he was captured by the invasion of North Korean forces. Detained for three years in North Korea, he was subjected to communist indoctrination.
He later denied that this had influenced his conversion, insisting that American bombing in North Korea had been the main factor. “The relentless bombardment of small Korean villages by huge American flying forts”, killing “women, children and the elderly”, horrified him, he said. “I was ashamed,” he added. “I felt like I was committed to the wrong side.”
Blake said he met with a KGB officer in North Korea, agreed to become a Soviet agent and immediately started to reveal secrets. He did not want payment and, to avoid suspicion, he insisted on not having privileges and being released with other captive diplomats. At the end of the Korean War in 1953, he was repatriated to Britain and received as a national hero.