, u know, paying it forward and trying to help people understand their sacrifice. karen davis, the nurse who survived the entrapment in the mega fire in paradise, california, says she lost everything in the inferno. battling the trauma from the flames, she decided to move to las vegas to be closer to her daughter and rebuild her shattered life. once there, karen continued her career in health care. she also decided to become a member of the henderson, nevada, community emergency response team, aiming to help others in future emergencies. a testament to her inner strength and resiliency. for more information on what you can do in a wildfire and how to combat the growing climate crisis, please go to cnn.com/violentearth. i'm liev schreiber. thanks for watching. good night. [crowd shouting] [narrator] previously on secrets & spies. [ken adelman] in 1982, the soviet union had something like 33,000 nuclear weapons. [ronald reagan] they are the focus of evil in the modern world. [applause] [oleg gordievsky] the confrontation between west and east was very serious. there was really significant fear that this was going to lead to something extremely, extremely dangerous. [oleg] [crowd cheering] [narrator] this is the unseen story of the cold war. fought not by politicians... but by secret agents. [jack barsky] there was complete misunderstanding on either side. it's very difficult to determine whom you can trust. [narrator] as the soviet union faces off with the west in the early 1980s... two spies play a dangerous game from the shadows. they seek to win the upper hand while the world stands on the brink of nuclear war. these are their stories in their own words. testimony pieced together from interviews over the years... [oleg] after 11 years of secret work, maybe i develop paranoia. [narrator] ...and never-before- heard recordings... [aldrich ames, on recording] [narrator] ...that reveal the deadly intrigues at the heart of the battle between east and west. [alexander vassiliev] look, this is a war. a secret war. [dramatic music playing] [dramatic music playing] [ken] '83 had been a horrendous year for u.s.-soviet relations. really one of the worst. various things were done which scared the daylights out of the soviet union. you had the military exercise abel archer. [inaudible] the soviet union was unconvinced that if there was a bolt out of the blue, if there was an unprovoked attack by nato, by the united states, against the soviet union, it would be under the guise of a military exercise. we'd also just gotten over the shoot-down of the kal airlines. we had gone through the evil empire speech. and so it was a real time of high, high tension. what we've been concentrating on in the last ten days is the most important relationship in the world, and it makes an enormous difference to the world community when soviet-american relations deteriorate to the lowest point in 20 years, which they have. [tim naftali] when the competition is a nuclear competition, the uncontrollable risks of misunderstanding could have catastrophic consequences. and that's-- that was-- that's really the lesson of 1983. the stakes are uncontrollably high. it will be a miracle if there is not one or two major dangerous confrontations, direct confrontations, between the soviet union and the united states. [narrator] on the world stage, president reagan is determined to defeat what he calls the evil empire. but another battle is playing out in the shadows. [jack] for me, becoming a spy for the kgb was ideology. i am jack barsky. that's not the name i was born with. we stole the identity of a jack barsky who passed away at the young age of 11. i spent ten years as an illegal undercover agent for the kgb in the united states. i was 100% convinced that communism was the right thing. that the world eventually would wind up being one happy communist family. [narrator] in moscow, soviet leader yuri andropov continues running operation ryan. it feeds into his paranoia of a nuclear attack from the west. he has over 100 kgb spies overseas whose job is to win the struggle for global supremacy. but not all of them are loyal to the soviet union. top london agent oleg gordievsky has a dangerous secret. [ken] there is a cat-and-mouse relationship between the intelligence agencies. it was white-hot with the emotions on both sides. [narrator] in america, the cia builds a network of their own, recruiting kgb agents willing to turn traitor. and the new boss of this desk is aldrich ames. known to colleagues as rick. [diana worthen] i liked rick. i enjoyed being around him. i used to work for the central intelligence agency. rick ames was my boss there. i was loving it. [laughs] i really liked working on the soviet target. it always felt like important work to me. plus, watching my boss in action with the meetings he was going out to and what he was bringing back. [narrator] he is newly in love after a failed marriage. [diana] while rick was still married to his first wife, he met rosario. this is rick and rosario at the beach in puerto vallarta. they were in love. in a way, he was very good for her and she was very good for him. [narrator] ames's job is to protect the cia's growing portfolio of soviet agents. [tim] a very important part of the mosaic of information about the soviet menace comes from spies, human agents, each of whom is taking an enormous risk. and those spies are sending their information, ultimately, via aldrich ames. his job is to be sure that the information that these agents provide in the field is in a useful form for policymakers in washington. but he's also in a position to shape how washington uses this material. through this man goes the most important human intelligence that the united states is collecting in the soviet union on the soviet menace. through this one man. so he knows their names, and, of course, he's supposed to keep those names secret so that they don't die. [ominous music playing] [narrator] in london, one soviet double agent is more valuable than all the american assets. [narrator] the british source, oleg gordievsky, is third in command at the kgb london station. [narrator] gordievsky's intelligence revealed that the west's military exercise, able archer, provoked the soviets to seriously dangerous levels. [bianna golodryga] the security was heightened around the perimeters of the nato-u.s. exercises. russia interpreted that as not just another exercise, but perhaps posturing from the united states and nato to actually deploy a nuclear weapon. [helicopter blades beating] [narrator] yuri andropov, the leader of the soviet union, is so paranoid that one misstep could take the world to the brink of nuclear war. this misinterpretation about what the west's intentions were was something to be worried about. [narrator] and president reagan has no idea. [bianna] then the british decided it was time to start telling washington a little bit about who their new spy was, and some of the information that he was feeding them. in particular, that russia was indeed alarmed and russia was fearful. [narrator] but these insights come just as americans watch a nightmare scenario unfold onscreen. [laughing] [man] have a good weekend. [glass shatters] [ken] in late november 1983, abc put on a movie special called the day after. it was a movie of a town in kansas getting blown up by nuclear weapons. it's very powerful. president reagan watched it at, i believe, at camp david, with nancy. and he told us that he was kind of devastated by the whole thing. it was watched by over 100 million americans. and it was the rage. ronald reagan doesn't want to be seen as someone who brought the world close to nuclear brink. so he wants to be the peace-lover president. and he was flopping around wondering what to do about it all. [narrator] shocked by the reality of nuclear war, reagan offers his first olive branch to andropov. i believe that 1984 finds the united states in the strongest position in years to establish a constructive and realistic working relationship with the soviet union. just suppose with me for a moment that an ivan and an anya could find themselves, say, in a waiting room, or sharing a shelter from the rain or a storm with a jim and sally. as they went their separate ways, maybe anya would be saying to ivan, "wasn't she nice? she also teaches music." jim would be telling sally what ivan did or didn't like about his boss. they might even have decided they were all going to get together for dinner some evening soon. people want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war. a nuclear conflict could well be mankind's last. reagan's big point was not the day after. the big point was the day before, and let's try the day before to make sure that the day after never happens. if the soviet government wants peace, then there will be peace. let us begin now. thank you. [applause] [narrator] but before any new strategy gets underway... a major tragedy rocks moscow. norman, bad news... i never graduated from med school. what? -but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... i know... faster wifi and savings? ...i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? [reporter] it is after midnight in moscow. the soviet flag, the hammer and sickle, has been lowered to half-staff over the kremlin. yuri andropov, the soviet president, dead at 69. [ominous music playing] [nina khrushcheva] people knew that he had kidney problems. everybody knew he was sick. people were comparing his skin color whether greenish, or whether bluish, or whatever. so it wasn't really a surprise that he was dying. but at the same time, because of tensions with the united states, with the west, there was uncertainty. it turns out that yuri andropov had much more than a bad cold for the past six months. his funeral will be in moscow tuesday, and although a number of prominent american politicians urge president reagan to attend, he will not. [narrator] reagan's olive branch does not extend to a trip to the ussr. instead, he sends vice president george hw bush. andropov's death has left many russians feeling uneasy. they have now lost two presidents in less than a year-and-a-half, and that's bound to unnerve a people who crave security. [ominous music playing] [narrator] during this critical moment, british prime minister margaret thatcher is one step ahead of reagan. [lord robin butler] the intelligence reports from oleg gordievsky were very important because you are, as it were, seeing behind the curtain. margaret thatcher began to feel that there might be an opportunity for her to open a relationship with the soviet union. which would also be a platform on which united states could build. [narrator] thatcher will cross the iron curtain and attend andropov's funeral. her first visit as the leader of the british state. gordievsky's insight into the soviet leadership's mindset is critical. [woman] yes, hello, it's the duty clerk here. we have an amendment to make to the prime minister's travel arrangements for tomorrow. [narrator] gordievsky's briefings advise her to be formal but friendly, and soften her normally tough image. the soviets don't react well to shows of strength. on a human level, i think this briefing was extremely important. it's body language. it's style. it's smiling at the right moments, but not smiling at the wrong moments. it's how you appear. [reporter] [dramatic music playing] [narrator] the funeral provides an opportunity for margaret thatcher to meet the new head of the ussr. [reporter 1] the new leader of the soviet union is 72-year-old konstantin chernenko. [reporter 2] mr. chernenko had moved up to the graveside for the final salute. he's known to have had health problems of his own. moscow rumors have spoken of pneumonia, but say he's recovered. for a brief moment, he seemed to have difficulty raising his hand. now, more than ever, he'll need his strength if he's to consolidate his power. [reporter 3] the prime minister got a few minutes with the new leader and the foreign minister, andrei gromyko, immediately after the ceremony. she behaved in a very dignified way, but also in a... in a charming way. we know from our intelligence source that her behavior made a very favorable impression on the russians at that moment. we were very courteously received, and i very much valued the opportunity of half-an-hour's talk with mr. chernenko this evening. it's in the interest of the peoples on both sides of the political divide to live in peace and security. let's start on that basis and try to build up. [narrator] thatcher seizes the opportunity to put britain at the center of a new kind of relationship. a relationship that could shift the balance in the cold war. [news anchor] the new leader of the soviet union, konstantin ustinovich chernenko, immediately dispelled any suggestion that he might take a softer line with the west. [nina] for most of us, this kind of exhibition of state power was so tiresome. another old guy died, and now we're gonna have another old guy ruling over us. well, good for them. congratulations. it was a dying joke. it was an absolutely ossified system. [narrator] ronald reagan remains remarkably quiet following his "ivan and anya" speech. he's reluctant to invest in a leader who might not last long. [ken] ronald reagan is dying to negotiate with any soviet, but he says, "they keep dying on me. they keep dying on me." he wants to have a real summit, and that chernenko was about 105 years old at that time, and drooling, and had trouble walking into the room by himself. [narrator] chernenko is so frail that there's no guarantee he'll rule for long. both sides of the iron curtain begin to look to the future. gordievsky picks up on rumors of a new young contender. mikhail gorbachev has risen quickly, from secretary of agriculture to the second in command in the politburo, a part of the country's ruling elite. [speaking russian] [in english] if it is self-evident that chernenko cannot survive very long, then the quicker we start having real contact with mikhail gorbachev, the better. [narrator] reagan is unaware about the new rising star of soviet politics. president reagan was very hawkish and had been very vocal about his views on communism and needing to break it down. not necessarily viewing the soviet union as a partner, but as somebody who the united states really needed to one-up in terms of this overriding issue of democracy versus communism. [narrator] but thatcher has moved beyond this and sees a bigger picture, thanks to gordievsky's intel. this is her opportunity to take control and steer the cold war away from its stalemate. [sir malcolm rifkind] a decision was taken to see if we could persuade gorbachev to come to the united kingdom. [narrator] they wait with bated breath to see if their offer will be accepted. [ominous music playing] [narrator] in 1984, the political relationship between east and west is as fractious and dangerous as ever. the spies continue their cat-and-mouse game to gain the upper hand. i lived in the united states with an established identity as an american. but i was actually spying for the kgb. the tensions were very, very high. the russians were trying to spy on us and recruit our people. we were spying on them and trying to recruit their people. oh, that's me. [jim laughs] i worked the soviet target. kgb, mostly. they were interested in me living behind enemy lines as an american. somebody who, if necessary, could do a lot of damage. what i loved most about the job, i think, was the, um... was the kind of the chessboard game with the russians. [jack] our goal was to weaken the enemy and eventually, you know, help the quote, unquote, "working class," the suppressed, to rise up and build another communist nation. [narrator] the handling of the kgb double agents is coordinated by the fbi and cia working together. [jim] rick ames was responsible for monitoring every soviet case. all the important agent cases sort of had to pass by his desk and get his seal of approval. for him, it was probably quite an exciting time. is this motorin and martinov? they were both kgb officers. martinov was a joint effort between the bureau and us. sergei motorin was a line pr officer in washington, d.c., who we recruited. hmm! this guy i know very well. this is major general dmitri polyakov. i worked with him quite a while myself. [narrator] cia agent aldrich ames is in a powerful position. he has 20 soviet double agents all under his protection. [diana] we were responsible for these assets. it's a job i really took seriously. their lives were at stake, and they knew that risk when they were... had joined up to sign. [narrator] but ames is beginning to feel frustrated, and his endless daily commute gives him time to think. he'd write these studies. everybody would read them and say, "oh, that's really great work, rick." and then that would be the end of it, you know? they didn't really send it anywhere. [narrator] ames is feeling undervalued. the white house seems much more reliant on mysterious briefings from london. [starts engine] [ken] the intelligence from the cia was very good on military technologies. it was just not good at the main thing we needed. what is going to happen? you're asking to read the mind of somebody and to understand human motivations. that's tougher than what is happening or what has happened. [narrator] the intel the brits receive from gordievsky gives them just that. and there are frustrations for ames at home too. [diana] he was also having a hard time, in his mind, trying to figure out how to get the divorce from his first wife... and how much that was gonna cost him. [honking horn] [jim] he gave rosario, i think, an exaggerated sense of both how much money he had and his lifestyle. i think he exaggerated that to her. his old car was always breaking down. everybody talked about his old junky cars. why he didn't buy a new one? he probably couldn't afford one. [tim] he is leading a banal, middle-class life... with the important distinction that he has access to some of the top secrets of the united states. he feels that people don't recognize his importance. they have underestimated aldrich ames. [ominous music playing] [narrator] oleg gordievsky has proven so valuable, the british risk a bold move. they revoke the head of the station, arkady guk's diplomatic status. it forces guk out of london and back to moscow. when you do that, you open up the possibility that moscow will start asking about why the british are doing what they're doing. and moscow, which was already conspiratorially minded and paranoiac, might start doubting the loyalty of the people who were gonna benefit from the fact that resident guk had just been sent home. so that was a risk that they took. [narrator] it leaves an enticing opening. [sir david omand] with guk out of the way, mi6 could plan for gordievsky to step up a notch. could he become the actual head of the kgb residency in london? it would give him much better access to intelligence operations being run from london. [alexander] after arkady guk, the number two, it was comrade nikitenko, who was the head of the counterintelligence line in the station. of course there was a rivalry. but espionage is a teamwork, so you need a good member of a team. [sir david] mi6 have to be extremely careful. he's got to show that he's really on top of the job, and that he is the right person to lead the kgb effort in the united kingdom, yet not be so good and so provoking that jealousies and suspicions will come about. [narrator] mi6 might want gordievsky in charge, but their puppeteering can't be discovered. their strategy is a bold gesture with a potential double payoff. impress oleg's kgb bosses while making a strategic political move. [sir malcolm] with gordievsky's help, we invited gorbachev to come to the united kingdom. we waited a rather long time. then, suddenly, we got an answer... saying, "i'd like to come in the next couple of months, and i'd like to bring raisa, my wife, with me." then we had to go into overdrive. [narrator] it's a momentous event with a lot at stake. gordievsky steps up and helps both sides to prepare. gordievsky is shown a copy of the foreign secretary geoffrey howe's brief, so he knows exactly how number 10 is gearing up. [sir malcolm] how do you get across the reality of what your actual position is? sometimes, the best thing you can do with intelligence is share it with your adversary. he's then able to, in his own words, tell gorbachev, "this is what you must expect. these are the issues, for example, human rights, that the prime minister is going to raise with you." [narrator] gordievsky shares information on arms control, trade and economics, along with personal notes on thatcher. [baroness meta ramsay] oleg is telling the kgb what the attitude towards gorbachev would be, and what sort of things would go down well with mrs. thatcher, and what wouldn't. oleg was making sure that the right messages went in both directions. [sir david] the reaction of gorbachev reading his briefs was fed back to gordievsky. there were ticks in the margin. passages were underlined. it's very rare in any intelligence operation to have real-time feedback on whether you're actually having the effect that you hope to have. having someone in london who was in on the political line could produce world historically important information. that's why he was an unusually important spy. he was at the right place at the right time. a slow network is no network for business. that's why more choose comcast business. and now, we're introducing ultimate speed for business —our fastest plans yet. we're up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds... at no additional cost. it's ultimate speed for ultimate business. don't miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! [dramatic music playing] [reporter] a decade after gromyko and 28 years since bulganin and khrushchev mr. gorbachev arrived to do a little ice-breaking. [camera shutters click] [sir malcolm] i was at chequers when he arrived with raisa, his wife. [camera shutters clicking] [reporter] it was an unusual affair. the man who arrived was good-humored, informal, and with a taste for well-cut suits. gorbachev seemed a new kind of russian. big smile on his face, as if he's meeting an old chum. [reporter] his wife, raisa, showed not every soviet woman was a 23-stone babushka. thatcher's deciding to be very open and very... she wasn't stiff at all. [indistinct chattering] [laughter] the photograph is taken of us all standing on the steps and so forth. now, have you got enough? -[photographer] thank you. -a handshake. madam, could we just turn... could you... [sir malcolm] margaret thatcher, in her usual "taking control" fashion, said, "no, no, i think we have to have one shaking hands." and you'll stand on the end... -all right. -[all laugh] yes, now, i think... [robin] so at this moment, gordievsky's role was very important, actually, in creating a bridge between the british and the russians. [sir malcolm] and then the first thing to happen is lunch. she hogged him to herself for the whole luncheon. he behaved, if i can put it this way, he wouldn't have liked this, but he behaved like a western politician. [dramatic music playing] [thatcher] i like mr. gorbachev. we can do business together. we both believe in our own political systems. he firmly believes in his, i firmly believe in mine. we're never going to change one another. so that is not in doubt. but we should both do everything we can to see that war never starts again. [bianna] a lot of the tension going into these meetings, the agenda that was set, the topics that each side was going to bring up and discuss, was known ahead of time... in large part thanks to the messages that were received and delivered by oleg gordievsky. [narrator] the visit is a success. gorbachev and thatcher find common ground. thatcher immediately flies out to make the case to reagan. [camera shutters click] [susan eisenhower] imagine, in 1983 ronald reagan said that the soviet union was an evil empire. and then margaret thatcher says to mikhail gorbachev this is a man she can do business with. what an extraordinary shift. and, of course, ronald reagan was not only an admirer and a friend of margaret thatcher, but he really respected her viewpoint on this. and she gave him some political cover to begin to look at the changes that were underway in the soviet union and take them more seriously. [narrator] while chernenko is leader, full dialogue with the soviets remains a long way off. her approval of gorbachev legitimizes reagan's desire to approach the soviet leadership himself. and he is intrigued by her very well-informed insights. but the cia wants to know exactly who is keeping the british one step ahead. [bianna] the cia had this "we are holier than thou" position, and thus have the right to have access to all of the information that we would like. and so they were itching to find out, who is this mystery spy? [narrator] ames and his colleagues scour the list of soviet diplomats in london who had worked in denmark. [narrator] ames now knows the double agent who's been swaying thatcher and reagan's thinking. unbeknownst to oleg, there was a growing list of people in the cia who were aware of him, his background, what he was doing, and his exact identity. [narrator] and if the cia can work out who the mole is, how long until the kgb finds out? the more people who know the name of a source, the more imperiled the source becomes. if his secret is betrayed to the kgb, it's a bullet to the back of the head. the risk for gordievsky is death.