Gordon Corera

But what Russia does is push and push and push and push.

When is hybrid warfare or what, um, our former colleague, um, well, he still appears on the BBC, Gordon Corera, calls the secret war.

Mm.

When is it secret and when is it just blatantly obvious? And I-- we are at the blatantly obvious, but I think when you see leaders dancing around certain incidents, um, it's because they don't want to declare that actually you could say that our countries are already at war with Russia.

Mm.

Gordon Corera, who presents The Rest Is Classified along with David McCloskey, he has asked us this question: How do you think the perception of October 7 as an intelligence failure on the part of Netanyahu and his government will impact the upcoming elections in Israel? And I have another question from somebody called Alistair, um, as Alastair Campbell is his name, is, "Have you, Michael Gove, ever, ever, ever said anything critical of Israel?"

Uh, so on the first, I think that there, there are three big issues in the Israeli election.

Um, one of them, the, the dominant one, is what went wrong on October 7th, to what extent, um, was the Netanyahu government, uh, culpable for security errors both, uh, before and after? Um, there are all sorts of wild conspiracy theories out there.

I'm David McCloskey.

And I'm Gordon Corera.

Well, last time we looked at this incredibly intricate episode in the life of Kim Philby, in which the web around him and the Cambridge spy ring is beginning to tighten.

His friends, contacts, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, have fled to Moscow, and now Kim Philby, who's connected to these guys, is beginning to face maybe the first little bits of suspicion that he might be involved.

Yeah.

I mean, served by a guy who's just been accused of being a, a, a, [laughs] a spy and a traitor.

Different times in the '50s, Gordon.

Different times in the '50s.

Well, welcome to The Rest Is Classified, I'm David McCloskey.

And I'm Gordon Corera.

And Gordon, last time we left off with Kim Philby working for MI6 in Washington as the Head of Station.

He's working directly with his CIA counterparts.

He's also compromising all manner of covert action operations, in particular covert action operations that are being undertaken by the CIA and MI6 into Eastern Europe, in places like Albania, where exile networks that are being smuggled in, Philby is compromising to his Soviet handlers.

Sell your car today on Carvana.

Pickup fees may apply.

So Gordon, these investigations, what, what are they and how are they beginning to alarm Philby?

he will adopt for himself in due course.

He's also, and I, um, I, I like this about him, he's a great fan of the pigeon, so like Gordon Corera and myself.

Yeah.

Um, pigeons and sparrows, and he keeps them and l- and feeds them and k- kind of looks after them.

I'm David McCloskey.

And I'm Gordon Corera.

And welcome.

In this series, we are going to look at a time when Kim Philby reaches the peak of his powers and influence.

Mm-hmm.

And I think there's a tendency somewhere to go, "Well, it's all because of Philby, the reason that these operations go wrong." Actually, it's more complicated than that.

I mean, the- I was afraid you were gonna say that, Gordon ... uh, but it's, it's, uh, you know, it's tempting [laughs] to blame everything on Philby, and it makes it a very kind of personal story.

But actually, the truth is different because, you know, the first failures in Albania were before he arrives in Washington.

I'm David McCloskey.

And I'm Gordon Corera.

And we left off last time in this two-part series about a wonderful new book that is just out, Redwood.

Uh, we left off with Redwood, this Russian KGB officer, uh, who's been recruited, or really volunteered, to work for MI6 in Iran, in part because of some ideological motivation, in part because of some very personal problems.

I mean, he, he was among-- At this point in 1982, he's among the hardliners.

He's one of those who is saying, "We gotta unleash the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on the Tudeh party.

You know, we've gotta get rid of them." And paranoia is absolutely the right word, Gordon, because here was proof, written proof, that there was a fifth column, that there, you know, it came from the left rather than from the imperialists.

But, you know, it enabled the regime to say, "We're under threat.

I'm David McCloskey.

And I'm Gordon Corera.

And welcome to a very special series as we delve into the amazing story of an MI6 agent known as Redwood.

His real name is Russian, Vladimir Anatolyevitch Kuzichkin.

...

among, uh, espionage history aficionados.

His story's pretty shadowy up until this point, but the amazing tale has finally come out, or is coming out, hasn't it, Gordon?

That's right, thanks to the writer Ben MacIntyre, author of many wonderful books, including on Gordievsky as, as well as others, Second World War onwards, and the author of the new book, Redwood, which is out now.