Operation Ryan News Today

thanks for watching. good night. [dramatic music playing] [raymond asquith] the listeners, as they were, the kgb, who had all the surveillance equipment, lived on the floor above us in moscow. and you knew they were there. on the whole, one just endured it. i mean, i remember my wife and i had some kind of argument about where were gonna take the children for a weekend picnic. in a rather unmanly way, i sort of addressed the ceiling and said, "well, you up there, which did we agree?" a...

thanks for watching. good night. [dramatic music playing] [raymond asquith] the listeners, as they were, the kgb, who had all the surveillance equipment, lived on the floor above us in moscow. and you knew they were there. on the whole, one just endured it. i mean, i remember my wife and i had some kind of argument about where were gonna take the children for a weekend picnic. in a rather unmanly way, i sort of addressed the ceiling and said, "well, you up there, which did we agree?" a...

[dramatic music playing] [raymond asquith] the listeners, as they were, the kgb, who had all the surveillance equipment, lived on the floor above us in moscow. and you knew they were there. on the whole, one just endured it. i mean, i remember my wife and i had some kind of argument about where were gonna take the children for a weekend picnic. in a rather unmanly way, i sort of addressed the ceiling and said, "well, you up there, which did we agree?" and to my amazement, within about ...

and all of her treasured photographs. but months later, a miracle. there was a craigslist post from a stranger over 50 miles away who had found a photograph in their yard. it was a picture sucked up by the tornado. a baby photo of amber. the only one to survive. the woman mailed it back to amber along with $5, all she could afford, but wanted to give to help amber start her life over. for more information on what you can do in a tornado and what you can do to help combat the growing cl...

Forty thousand u.s. and nato troops gather across europe, right on the u.s.s.r.s border. [ken] able archer was a normal military exercise by nato command... to prepare nato forces in europe... for an attack from the soviet union. but the way it was done was not normal at all. the nuclear component of the exercise was hyped up. [indistinct radio chatter] the idea of it was, make this as realistic as you could possibly make it. [narrator] the western powers show an almost naive ignorance of how th...

Mi6 decides to inform 10 downing street. in december 1982, margaret thatcher is told that a highly placed kgb spy now works as a double agent for the british. but she isnt told his name. two months later, gordievsky provides crucial intelligence. operation ryan is now official soviet policy. [tim] what the soviets didnt understand is that there was a possibility that operation ryan could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. operation ryan was a perfect example of starting with a conclusion, and then l...

Secret intelligence. yuri andropov is the head of the soviet intelligence service, the kgb. the kgb have been running the russian life for years. andropov was getting more and more convinced of the menacing west. he was a full-blown kgb person who thought that its either us or them. and basically, it better be them. [tim naftali] yuri andropov concludes that the superpowers are on the verge of a nuclear war. and so he begins a process of collecting information that would be indicators of the app...

During the evening or on weekends, he became a spy. the job was to get british secrets, especially secrets concerning britains foreign policy. [narrator] gordievsky is under pressure to send intelligence to moscow that validates operation ryan. at the same time, hes had to hide the fact that he is a kgb spy from the british. in their eyes, hes just a diplomat. if he blows his cover or fails to feed the soviet leadership with good intel, hell be on the next plane to moscow. [alexander] it was a v...

And, you know, there was even a talk that the gulags are going to be reinstated. he is going to push forward certain policies, including international policies. [narrator] as leader of the soviet union, andropov takes his operation ryan charts from the kgb back rooms to the heart of soviet policy. [tim] yuri andropov is a very conspiratorial figure. he is convinced that the united states is seeking domination over the soviets, and ultimately a nuclear victory. [nina] and so the soviet union has ...

But this years exercise is more realistic than before. forty thousand u.s. and nato troops gather across europe, right on the u.s.s.r.s border. [ken] able archer was a normal military exercise by nato command... to prepare nato forces in europe... for an attack from the soviet union. but the way it was done was not normal at all. the nuclear component of the exercise was hyped up. [indistinct radio chatter] the idea of it was, make this as realistic as you could possibly make it. [narrator] the ...