Infamous spy George Blake still railing against the West at 95 as traitor tracked down to remote Russian home
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The dacha is in an idyllic rural ­setting, nestling serenely amid a pine forest 60 miles from Moscow.
But one thing sets an ominous tone – its 10ft security fence. Inside lives a man who knows exactly who he wants to speak to, and who he doesn’t.
For this is the retreat of the traitor responsible for the deaths of more than 40 of MI6 ’s finest – Britain’s most ­notorious double agent George Blake .
Recently he has had a lot to say about why he hates the West.
However, when we tracked him down, the man branded a “traitor” in our 1961 front page, was less keen to speak.
Now 95, many might have assumed he died years ago. But the spy who betrayed so many is not only still alive, he’s issuing a new call to arms against the West.
(Image: Polaris / eyevine)
Just two months ago, in an extra­ordinary outburst to young recruits working for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, he said: “There is a real war going on between good and evil.
“I believe you will serve our common cause selflessly and courageously.”
Railing against an unnamed foe, be­­­lieved to be the West or the US, he added that intelligence officers were battling a “devious enemy, the possibility of whose final defeat gives me energy to live”.
He went on: “Your mission will be a difficult one – to save the planet when its destruction in nuclear war has again become a possibility due to irresponsible politicians and where ter­­rorism leaves its bloody traces everywhere.”
His words, released in a statement, show none of his hatred has abated.
We found his retreat is down a dirt track an hour-and-a-half’s drive from the Russian capital. He lives with second wife Ida in the fenced property, surrounded by tall fir trees, as a guest of the Russian authorities.
It’s a quiet, exclusive neighbourhood and Blake is never disturbed.
With fellow Mirrorman Ian Vogler, I pressed the intercom. No reply. Several more tries were no more effective. Not a curtain twitched, not a sound from the other side of the fence.
(Image: DAILY MIRROR)
The old traitor was there for sure. But today he was answering no questions.
Meanwhile, local residents had no idea the most famous living spy was in their midst. Vitally Natko said: “George Blake lives here? Wow! I didn’t know. He is still a big name in Russia. I saw the statement he released recently but I had no idea he was a neighbour.”
It was in this now-infamous statement to young Russian spies that Blake recalled the precise moment he decided to become a double agent.
He said that after seeing civilians killed by “the US military machine” during the Korean War he became committed to work for the Soviets.
(Image: DAILY MIRROR)
He added: “I realised back then that such conflicts are deadly dangerous for the entire humankind and made the most important decision in my life to help protect peace in the world.”
That was the turning point that made Blake’s story one of the most shocking in British military history.
Born in Holland in 1922, his mother was Dutch and his Egyptian father Albert Behar was a British subject.
Schooled in Cairo, he was back in Rotterdam when the Second World War broke out.
He joined the resistance as a courier and arrived in London in 1943.
Changing his name to Blake, he joined the Navy and with his language skills was soon recruited by MI6. After the war he was posted to South Korea to gather intelligence on the North.
When the war broke out in 1950 the Communists stormed Seoul, where Blake was stationed. Over the next three years as a PoW he read Karl Marx and decided to make it his life’s work to help his captors.
With his treachery yet unknown, he was afforded a hero’s welcome when he returned to Britain in 1953 and soon rose to become one of MI6’s most senior and respected men.
But in 1955 he got his big chance. He was sent to Berlin to recruit Russian agents. And once a month he would visit the city’s Soviet-controlled sector to hand over our most-prized secrets. In 1961 MI6 became suspicious and ordered him home. Blake freely admitted his activities and in May that year the Old Bailey heard how he had given the KGB details of hundreds of Western secret agents.
More than 40 are believed to have been killed. He was sentenced to 42 years – at the time the most severe sen­­tence in UK history.
But this was just the start of Blake’s story...
(Image: Getty)
In Wormwood Scrubs, with CND campaigners Michael Randle and Pat Pottle, and petty criminal Sean Bourke, he planned one of the most audacious escapes ever. On October 22, 1966, after the trio’s release, Blake clambered through a broken win­­­­dow and scaled the wall with a rope ladder made of knitting needles.
Blake was then smuggled across the Channel in a cam­­­­­­per van.
Back behind the Iron Curtain he became a hero and enjoyed ­barbecues and Martinis at his dacha with fellow traitors Kim Philby and Donald Maclean .
They are now dead. So are fellow spies Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess . But Blake still works for the “service”. In his last interview, in 2012, he said he had acclimatised well to the country, “like a “for­­eign car that adapted well to Russian roads”.
(Image: PA)
He is still a national hero. In 2007 Vladmir Putin awarded him the Order of Friendship and he holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the former KGB.
Secret police chief Sergei Naryshkin even praised him for “pro­­tecting the ideals of humanism and justice”.
But Blake also seems extremely keen on protecting his own privacy and hiding away from the world.
He famously said he never felt British, adding: “To betray, you first have to belong. I never belonged.”
He has always said he has no reg­­rets. And to this day, old and sick and with fading eyesight, he still has none.