Page 3 - Operation Ryan News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

[narrator] gordievsky's actions make him so valuable, 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 isn't told his name. two months later, gordievsky provides crucial intelligence. operation ryan is now official soviet policy. [tim] what the soviets didn't 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 looking for justification for that conclusion...

During the evening or on weekends, he became a spy. the job was to get british secrets, especially secrets concerning britain's foreign policy. [narrator] gordievsky is under pressure to send intelligence to moscow that validates operation ryan. at the same time, he's had to hide the fact that he is a kgb spy from the british. in their eyes, he's just a diplomat. if he blows his cover or fails to feed the soviet leadership with good intel, he'll be on the next plane to moscow. [alexander] it was a very bold career move for gordievsky. but the british counterintelligence service, mi5, is consid...

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 it's 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 approach of nuclear war. [narrator] this running tally of signs is called operation ryan. and every ti...

Was going to come back at us and the family with a vengeance. 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 to be completely and utterly prepared ...

At the height of the Cold War, the British Embassy on the embankment of Saint Sophia in Moscow was the ornate, imposing embodiment of political and diplomatic prestige and status.