SNAFU with Ed HelmsWhile we're hard at work on season 3 of SNAFU, we’re excited to revisit a pivotal moment from Season 1 with a special bonus episode of GREATEST ESCAPES. Produced by the same folks behind SNAFU, it's a brand new podcast covering history’s wildest true escape stories of all time. Ed joins host Arturo Castro this week to dive deeper into the bonkers escape of Oleg Gordievsky, the Cold War double-agent who helped avoid nuclear annihilation during Able Archer 83 and was able to slip through the clutches of the KGB.
Greatest Escapes is produced by iHeartPodcasts and FilmNation Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio.
Please listen and follow here: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-greatest-escapes-259897937/
Hey, guys, this is Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories of all time. Today we're telling the story of a Soviet spy who switched sides and its Bonker's attempt to get away from the KGB or as I pronounced good but good. I'm retro Castro and my guest today is actor, writer, producer, comedian, musician, Trappeeze Artists and host of his very own podcast, Snapho. It's Ed Helms. Welcome, Ed, Thank you so much.
Honor to be here.
Thank You're fantastic. You're fantastic. Really, it means a lot to me that you did this. Man, I'm such a fan of your podcast, which we'll get into in one second. Something about myself is I find white bearded dudes harmonizing incredibly soothing. So I love folk music, man, I'm such a big fan of folk music. Fleet Foxes give me that Mumford and Sons, give me all that good stuff. And you were in a folk band, Is that right?
Yeah, I've never heard the appeal of folk music described quite that way. I love, but I do love that bearded white dudes harmonizing. Come on, they just got out of the lumber trade. It either makes your skin crawl or it just soothes you. And I honestly go back and forth. Sometimes dracts me nuts. But yeah, my two buddies from college, Jacob ty Love and Ian Riggs, we went to Oberlin College together and I had a banjo background from Whoa High school, and we just became this trio. Then after college, we all moved to New York City to kind of pursue different things, but kept the music going, and the Loansome Trio lives on to this day.
Loansome Trio. That's wonderful. And I got to tell you, you know, it's not even a bit that I love folk music. I've never I've never been really good at being like kind of stereotypically Latin, like most people assume that I like, I like salsa or like reggaetona shit, And I'm really musically challenged, like rhythmically challenged in that sense. And I heard Ray lomon Tyne for the first time when I just moved to New York, and I was, you know, I try to go to all my friends back and want to moll and be like, you guys have to hear this shit called folk music. It's like really sensitive, like are you in the forest?
You know?
Yea. So trying to convince people that I'm actually into folk music has been a lifelong journey.
It's so funny.
To set the tone for this greatest escape thing. Do you have one that you consider to be an escape of your own?
No? You know what, there's a funny story. It's just sort of a silly thing that happened in college. I was really into this band, Fishbone. Do you remember this band?
They're like kind.
Of a heavy ska band.
Back in the day, that heavy, heavy sky.
Yeah. Well, well what's funny is that they were they were best friends with and toured with another band called Biohazard, which was like real metal, like you know, death metal kind of.
Right, and a ska man and a metal band. Yeah, they were sharp and.
They were really and they toured together a lot, and they were very different acts. But everyone would just go to these concerts and go bananas. And so I was in college in Ohio and we some friends and I went to go see them in Cleveland, and which is you know, it's a rock.
And roll town. Were their fans called call themselves fish Boners or Whatso I'm Sorry, that's the stupid question. But I want to know question, and I don't.
I certainly didn't refer to myself as a fishboner at the time, But had I thought of that, I think I would have. I would have made a lot of T shirts and made a lot of money. So you were in Ohio, Okay, So we go to the We go to the I think it's called the Apollo Theater in Cleveland, Ohio to see Biohazard and Fishbone. Now I was like really more into Fishbone, excited to see them, and they were like kind of joyful, crazy sco but Biohazard was first, and I was like, I love these guys too. I mean, they're just super committed.
But I but I didn't know.
I kind of didn't know like death metal concert etiquette. So I just was like, whatever is going to go down, I want to be in the middle of it. I want to be right up front. And so you know, it's before the show and everybody's kind of like mingling around and I'm looking around. I'm like, these guys look intense, like there's a lot of there's like skinhead energy in this crowd. It's like this is kind of a weird vibe and uh, but like I'm I love just you know, some human experience, like what's gonna have what's this going to be?
Like? So I'm it's alive.
Yeah, yeah, And I'm right down in front and uh and they start playing that song Carmina Burana. Do you know that that it's a famous it's this famous classical music that's that sounds like it's from the omen like that.
Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So that they start playing that and it's getting louder and louder, and the tension in the room is just getting more and more intense and uh. And the lights are going out and I'm on the I'm in sort of the pit area and uh and it's really crowded, like super dense, and people are starting to like jump up and down and get like starting to get a little bit I don't know, the energy is changing and uh. And then all of a sudden, a hole, like a vacuum forms in the middle of the pit, which is to say, like everyone everyone kind of realized at the same moment that they didn't want to be in the middle of the pit and it just started to open up. I don't know what's gonna happen. There's a lot of scary looking dudes around getting real intense and fired up and excited. And then sure enough the lights come on and the and bio hazard just and everyone rushes into this void and crushes up against the front of the stage with like really intense mosh pit rage and anger, and like everyone's just throwing punches for but for fun. Like it's just it's like, at first, I'm absolutely terrified. How do I get out of this. I don't want to get killed. I don't want to get like fall down and get trampled or something. But the music is also kind of awesome, and I start seeing people stage diving, and I was like, okay, the people that are stage diving are landing on top of the crowd and getting passed back. So so I was like, this is this, This is my escape. And so I managed to climb up on the this this sort of stanchion or whatever in front of the stage. There was like a you know, a little row where these big burly security dudes were guarding the stage, but in front of that you could climb onto the railing and jump into the crowd, and so I did. I climbed up and was just like a landed on top and I was passed all the way.
To the back all the concession stand.
Directly to a guy handing me a congratulatory.
People and he's.
Like, congradulator, you're still alive. But yeah, so I did escape with my life.
I'm really happy you did. And also like I love that oh fuck moment that we've all had when you realize that like you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You know, like you're equipped.
Yeah, then you're ill equipped.
You just don't have the knowledge or the skills.
I just want to dance, you guys.
I'm wearing sneakers. You all have combat boots.
All right, man, let's escape. Let's rock and roll. Oh yeah, we're gonna talk about Olegg's Great Escape. Okay, Now to get us there, let's talk about who he was and what made him that Soviet spy and why he switched sides from the Soviets to the West. So, first of all, he was in the family business, right, this was sort of like a thing that they did. Now. His dad was a hardcore communist, like to the level where he joined the secret police and was put in charge of indoctrinating new recruits, and that was how he raised his kids. So you know, no barney for Oleg and his older brother, No, no, they became KGB agents. Why wouldn't you. Inteen sixty six only got his first assignment outside the USSR, where he was posted to the Soviet embassy in Copenhagen. The Danish government knew that he was there, but officially he was just part of the embassy staff, but secretly his mission was to manage the network of undercover spies throughout the country. Not that this would have been a real surprise of the Danes, because of the twenty workers of the Soviet embassy, fourteen were spies.
I pretty much if you're if you're a Russian in the sixties and seventies, like in another country, you're probably a spy.
Yeah. But also yeah, I imagine the dates were too busy being happy to give a fuck about the spies. They're like, un spies, Yeah, that's cool.
Like what are you gonna spy on it?
Like what do we have to hide? Yeah? A minimum people like a home man spy FORID now, living outside the iron grip of the Soviet Union was really exciting for all like he enjoyed seeing just how lucy goosey things were in Copenhagen. Yeah, do you remember the honeypot story? Honey pot story?
I'm about to yeah, alright, Well is it honey pot or honey trap?
I think honey pot? I believe is any pot. Honey trap would be more. I'm happy to tell you it is both a honey trap and a honey pot.
Well, you have to have a honeypot to ha to set honey.
Trap it, you gotta have it, Thank you over lords.
All right, But no Olegg. I think we touched on this before. But he's he was a critical character in the whole Able Archer eighty three story that my podcast is about. And I'm so psyched we're talking about him because I have just the tiniest bit of knowledge about Olegg, enough to maybe sound like a smarty pants, but not enough to really contribute anything meaningful. But but but where were we with Olegg?
He's so he's so he went for a stroll this one time through the red light district, which it seems like the North k State seemed to just all have red light districts. You know, they just call him the district. Now, I guess sure. So he browsed a show that was selling sex toys, and he even bought some gay porn and brought it home to show his wife. He probably displayed it on his mantelpiece, because you know, freedom. He's like, look at the old soul. They were so flexible, these men. Yeah, And so he bought a gay porn magazine and he put it on his mantle.
Literally, he's it. He's excited by the gay pornography, not because it is erotic to him, but because it is such He's like, can you believe that they are allowed to do this?
And they put him in pictures on these lis of them, and they put the red lights into fantastic you know, so get everyone.
This would get you so quickly shot in the in the Soviet Union that's on.
And so this, this little purchase is what kind of sets us up for the goofiness of it. Because one night a local police captain invited Olegg and his wife over for a dinner so that the Danish spies could sweep the apartment, and they spotted the magazine, and it made them think that he was one hundred percent gay, right, which is reasonable, Yes, I would say, particularly if it's in your mantle piece, like I was just like you're like, hello, welcome to my house, and here is my here is what I love to do when my wife's not here.
I just want to comment just that this story could never happen today, Like if somebody showed you pornography in an excited way and they were like, can you.
Believe this is so?
Look at up the how exuberantly free and happy these people in this pornographic magazine are.
And look what we're all smiling. Except it is one guy and he's got a mask on.
Okay, So the Danes go to his apartment they find this gay pornography and they're like, oh, obviously he's gay. So we're going to set a honey trap there you go, and we're going to uh try to blackmail him to be a an informant because we know he's KGB. We want to flip him. So then they get they get a guy to hit on him at a party, right right, and and ol Like's just like oh what a nice guy, guy like friendly and like make it. They just get nowhere with it, like there's just no traction because that's not that's not Olegg's persuasion. So, uh, it's just a failed honey trap.
Also, I can imagine, like so the Eagle hit that that like devilishly handsome young man must have had. He's like the Danish, like's wrong with you? Don't like sea? That's beautiful?
I was specifically chosen as a honey trap.
I am the hottest agent, I am so sexy. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? And meanwhile olegs his house me like mean, man, these days are really fucking nice.
Yeah.
So in the end, it wasn't actually the Danish recruiting that swayed him to turn against the Iron Curtain, but it was the Soviets themselves. In nineteen sixty eight, the Soviets brutally crushed the prog Spring when Hanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to squash an uprising. There's incredibly violent, incredibly bloody. So before this, Olegg had this dreamy idea of what the Soviet Union was, the stuff that he had learned from his dad about how good it was to be a communist, you know, But seeing the progue Spring finally convinced him how brutal the USSR was. Sure, so Olegg was an unhappy Soviet in nineteen seventy two, when one of his old friends showed up at his apartment unannounced. By the way that he was talking, Olegg realized that he was being tested by Western spies to see if he would flip. Right. Chatting with his buddy, he said how disappointed he was in the Soviet Union, and it was a message to them that he was ready to cooperate in the West. Now, I wonder what do you think? What do you think? He was saying that like made him realize that he was getting recruited about the West.
I just imagine that these kinds of conversations between spies where they're trying to sort of suss each other out and figure out if am.
I giving it?
Like is he giving me a signal? And he's giving me an opening. I would just I picture of those conversations as super tense and and like lots of like overt winking and kind of like and like wild gesturing yes and like and like fake laughing but with like but with like weird intense eyes.
Yeah, it would. It would be crazy if I like the McDonald's.
But Oleg is really he's a really fascinating double agent. Ultimately, because he's an idealist and he's not a like like a lot of double agents are, uh the money. They're either in it for the money, or they're psychotic and they just want the thrill of it, or because.
They they've been sight they've been, or because.
They hate their homeland and they want, you know, they they want to sort of like doom their homeland for some reason. But like there are Americans who who wound up hating America and becoming double agents four or the Soviets at the time. But what's fascinating about Oleg is that he never didn't love Russia and or the Soviet Union or what Russia kind of represented historically, and he never he never stopped hoping for the best for Russia, and he felt that by helping the West, he was helping Russia's future, the Soviet future.
Yeah, and to your point, here's where we see how clever Olegg is right, because he also told the KGB that he was going to go meet with a British agent. So his bosses in Moscow told him to go for it. They wanted to see if they could use Gordievski as a false double agent to fool the British but they didn't know that Oleg was for real, for real right, ready to switch sides. When Oleg finally met with the British, he agreed to work with them under three conditions. First, he didn't want to attack or injure any other KGB agents. He was not offering to become a British assassin, you know. Second, he he didn't want to be secretly photographed recorded, which makes a lot of fucking I can't imagine like a spy being like, but just takes lots of pictures of me, Please just like make sure that you get a good one. It's from my album. And Third, he would take absolutely no pay. He wasn't doing this for the money. He was doing it because he no longer believed in this in how the Soviets were running it. You know, right, what would it take for you to become a spy ed in this time? What would they have to offer you? You're a Soviet Union and you're like, they're like you gotta defective America? What would it take?
Let's see, this is nineteen, this is about four, okay, nine said four, So I'm I'm like about one years old.
I would it's just like a good I would just think like a bottle of milk would A bottle of milk would, right, And then you're immediately a double agent immediately. So in nineteen seventy four, Old Egg started sneaking roles of microfilm of documents out of the Soviet headquarters on his lunch breaks. Right, he would hand them off to be copied, pick them up on his way back, and drop them off again before anyone noticed they were missing. But this was also the year that he got his first code name from the British, and they named him Sunbeam. What would be your code name, Cowboy Rid? No, I don't know, Cowboy Rid. I would like mine to be a fish boner. Nobody would know. So nineteen seventy four was also the year that Olegg met his second wife, Layla. She was a secretary at the World Health Organization in Copenhagen, and the pair began a very low key, very slow motion affair. You know, he had code names for this affair too, was what is a slow motion affair? Overlords? What is this that it happened? Was it tantric? Is that what you're referring to, like slow motion is just slow simmering? Answer me that is correct. It took many years for him to leave his first wife and choose Laila. Okay, slow, most affair, got it. So Olegg was leaving the Soviets for the British, and he was also leaving his first wife for Laila. Also, women named Leila tended to make men in the seventies go insane George Harris and Eric Clapton, you know, which is also a crazy story in of itself. Her name was actually Patty Voyd, but whatever in the way, she Masha. So after four years, in nineteen seventy eight, things were going really well for both of them, right, but Olegg was recalled to Russia. So pack your bags, ed, we're going to the Kremlin. Oligg was stationed in Moscow for the next few years, and he spent this time building his new family with late.
Right, right, right, yeah, yeah.
They were married in nineteen seventy nine and their first daughter was born the next year. Now, meanwhile, she had no idea that he was actually a double agent between the Soviet Union for the British. And Olegg was never really comfortable in Russia anymore, so he wanted to be back in England.
There was no gay pornography, which at that point for him again not a turn on, just was something that had become like a comfort.
He's like, yes, yes, it's democracy, but about the gay board on the wad this it.
Was a comfort blanket for him, just wants to know it's there.
Exactly. So, in the summer of nineteen eighty one, Oleg passed this super spy English exam that qualified him for a post at the Russian Embassy in London. And this is where you're talking about. So by the by that fall, his second daughter was born and the KGB were finally convinced that the new marriage was more solid than the first one. This feels like a weird detail, but it was important because it helped the KGB decide that Olegg could be trusted.
Right.
They're like, if he can make two marriages work, he can do this.
Well, no, they it is true that that that the KGB, if you had a rocky relationship with a spouse, then you're a risky agent.
Which makes sense, right, Coral Kla couldn't.
There was like more openings for you know, to get in trouble or blackmailed or whatever.
Exactly, And they're like, well, this man wasn't happy in his first marriage, he left and created the second marriage. This is a reliable man, so they let him take the job in London. And because if there's anything to be said about the KGB, it's they're romantics. Finally, when Olegg arrived in London in June nineteen eighty two, he was an easy reach of his British spy friends. Now he could pass them even more information and even lower risk. The British spies decided to switch it up with his nickname with his code name, and the new code name was nocked In. Well, this was his British code name, okay, So the Brits were passing along until to the CIA too. And the Americans didn't know Nockton's identity, which is important later, but they did know that he was a high ranking KGB officer, so they gave him their own nickname and code name. The spy community is going to be up in arms that I keep calling it a nickname. They called him Tickle, so now he is Tickle right right right. I love the idea of like a copywriter being like, what's a catchy one? You know that that's their only their only job is to pick code names, because that's what we feel. We feel tickled when we get this information. He so once he was in London, he was able to spend hours talking with him discussing the KGB methods, the identity of hidden agents. You know, it's just tons of secrets that six had never understood before. Now. Meanwhile, the rest of the KGB was focused on the idea of whether or not the United States and the rest of the European allies we're going to start a nuclear war. That's where it comes in boom. But one important thing is that the KGB spies were supposed to be tracking all sorts of weird things, right like looking for signs that the West was preparing for a sudden nuclear attack.
Uh no, but it really, it really was a fascinating that this system that the Soviets set up where they were basically telling their spies like, give us intel so that we can try to figure out if attack is getting planned. And it was things like you know, how many lights are on at the Pentagon, that's exactly, and and you're like, well, I don't know, there's a hundred lights on tonight at the Pentagon, okay, but usually there's two hundred, So what's going on? They're planning something. Yeah, And there were some things that you could point to that were more practical, like are you seeing troop movements? Are you seeing like hospitals building up supplies, or you know, things that might indicate they expect to have lots of casualties. Those might be reasonable indicators of potential war conflict. But so much of it was not reasonable that it became this insane, crazy, arbitrary algorithm arbitry.
I was gonna say, it just seems like so like ineffable, where people were like, I don't know, tell me how much how many burgers are there stashing? Right, because they wanted to know how many they did. They wanted to know how many cows were getting killed at a slaughter house. The one that you're talking about is like they were monitoring how much blood was being stashed in blood banks, which makes a little more sense, but like cow's I don't fucking know, man.
Right, But it is just it just it's like if you're convinced something's gonna happen. And a lot of historians believe that the Soviets really did think that NATO was going to attack them, and so if you think that everything you see is going to be through that prism, and you're going to be like, uh, what's the reason that all of this extra cowslaughtering indicator indicates an appending nuclear attack? And you just sort of fill in the blanks and all of a sudden you have all these reasons.
So our guy Olegg is caught in the middle of this, right, he was telling I six everything he knew about the KGB, and then he was telling the KGB whatever they wanted to hear about how many cookies were in the fucking shop or whatever it was, right, right, So he knew that this put him in a really dangerous spot, and he was right to be worried. Right, the KGB didn't know that someone was passing their secrets to the British because the British were sharing those secrets with the Americans and the Russians, which I did not know had a spy in the CIA. So fortunately for Olegg, the Brits weren't telling the CIA about Tickle's identity. That was in part because they enjoyed dangling secrets over the Americans. So that's really a win for being petty, you know, sure, then thank you thank you for being mad at your cousins. So the Russians were really on the hunt for their trader, and if the KGB found out that it was Olegg, they were probably this is what they do. They call him back to Russia to squeeze him for information before they finally did away with him. Right. But now, if he needed an escape route back to England, he would need to get his wife and his two kids out as well. So together with the British spies, they cooked up this plan called Operation Pimlico name for the Pimlico neighborhood in London. Are you ready for the super intelligence spy plan? Oh yeah, okay, here we go, very elaborate. If things go bad in Russia, they would stuff ole Egg in the trunk of a car and drive like fucking hell to Europe. That's it, that was a fun I should do not And if the whole Gordievski family was together, then the plan became much more elaborate. They would stuff one man, one woman and two children in the trunks of two cars and then drive like hell to Europe. Who is thank god? I would be like the guys. I feel safe, I feel heard, I feel understood, I would.
Be like, Okay, so I'm gonna go back. I'm in London, I'm happy as a clam. My family is all happy. I'm about to go back to Russia to find out if they know I'm a spy. If they do know I'm a spy, then you stick me in a trunk and try to get me back. And by the way, I'm also claustrophobic, so I'm not down with any of them.
No. Also, but that you bring up a really interesting point that I'm like, why do you go back anyway? Like, you know what I'm saying, If you know that you are an imminent threat, why go through the fucking process of like just checking in, you know?
Because I think it's you're getting into the psychology of spies at this point, which I can never wrap my head around, Like the amount of information and the amount of kind of like ruses and and lies that you have to kind of maintain to be a spy, let alone a double agent. Right, It's incredible, It's mind blowing. And what's more insane about these guys people like Gordievski and I got to interview a KGB spy he did, Jack Barski, Yeah, And what's crazy about these guys is that they're so confident. If you were like, Okay, Moscow wants you to come home and check in, and if you don't come home, then they're gonna know you're a double agent, and so you better go home. But so in my mind, you're like, well, maybe I should just take my chances and stay here, because if I do go back and then they then they interrogate me, am I more screwed? Well, a guy like Gordievski is so confident that he's been playing his cards perfectly the whole time that he's like, eh, I'll just go back, but they don't. I know, they don't have anything on me. I know that they might suspect I'm a double agent, but they can't prove it. And I know they can't prove it. Now what that's an insane level of confidence. Like to me, I would be like, I think I cover all my bases, but I'm not sure. I mean, like, it.
Wouldn't take that much if they tell me come back to Rush. I was like, that's it. I'm dead, Yeah, fucking I'm safe. But you know, to your point too, like that, once you're in that mindset and you've been so used to just playing this card. Yeah, I don't think it dawns on you the option of just staying right, because then that just defeats the whole thing that you like, whatever you build your personality around, and your mind game's about, like you don't know how to do anything? Are you sort of going on autopilot by going back to this sovietnion?
And we're looking at this from the standpoint of like we're just average schmos who if we got put in these situations, we would melt down and something like a canary and just.
Be like gilt.
Right at this point, Oleg Gordievsky is I think he's been a double agent for over ten years. He has an incredible, uh, set of skills, set of kind of like mind games, and like I said, confidence and this is just part of it. You go back and you play the game, and he just feels like he'll get away with it and he'll get that almost.
But that confidence almost been him in the ass. It It really did, Yeah, it did. So in May nineteen eighty five, it finally happened. Right the KGB recalled Olig to Moscow via telegram, so they said that he was getting a promotion and needed to come back for some high level secret preparations. But things didn't feel quite right for Oleg right, so he confirmed with his British context if he gave the signal, they would launch Operation Pimlico to get him out of Russia. On May nineteenth, nineteen eighty five, Olegg arrived in Moscow, where he had had an apartment. There's a feeling that he got. He describes a chill shooting up his spine, which if you're of a spy like Oleg, that doesn't seem overly paranoid. That's a really bad sign. The dead bold lock on his apartment had been turned, so his place must have been combed by other agents before he arrived. They were searching vigorously for gay pornography. On the right side, he was now a colonel in the KGB, so there were rules about how to treat somebody of his rank. The Soviets actually have to gather evidence and hold a trial if they suspected him, So that bought him some time, you know, but Oleg knew that they were onto him. After a few days, Gordievski was called in for questioning, and this is what we're talking about that, we would have fucking folded this guy. In the interrogation, the other KGB agents gave a spiked brandy and dug for details about his British and Danish contacts. They asked him questions for hours, and eventually Oleg blocked out. Now he doesn't even know what the fuck happened. He was just allowed to leave after he came to, so he could only guess that he didn't give up anything about his counter or espionage. How fucking scared would you be? Bro? If you're like if you're like, do you think you have your shit together? And then you block out? And then you come back and we have all we wanted. Like I'm like, what if I like, dude, I have two tequilas. I'm like spilling fucking family secrets.
Man, I cannot even imagine that.
So at the end of May, Leylan and the kids were brought back to Moscow and told that Old Egg was sick. But when they get there, he didn't want to let him know how dangerous things were, so he acted like things for you know, like everything's fine, I'm fine, you guys, okay, Like why is it? Don't be weird about it? And he sent them off to a vacation at the Caspian c Now, he says the same goodbye was the hardest thing that he'd ever done. By the time they would get back to Moscow, he was either going to be dead or in exile. After this time in the hospital, he was back in Moscow that July, he felt eyes on him everywhere right. He feared it was only a matter of time before he was snatched. So if it was finally time to engage in Pimlico. So the plan was supposed to go like this. Olegg was supposed to stand on the street at seven thirty am and he would be holding a crucial signal, this plastic bag from the Safeway grocery store, signaling that he needs a safe way out of this fucking place.
Do you believe what's so insane is it's like, we give these spies so much credit for being like masterminds and coming up with these elaborate schemes. And you can just imagine Olegg talking to his I six handlers and he's like, Okay, so what's the plan, guys, And they're like, uh, you gonna stand there with a grocery bag if it's a Safeway grocery bag. Huh, you're gonna jump in the trunk?
Wait what okay? Then but and then and then what? Oh?
Well, then we just drive. We drive, okay, and you go we go to this like a safe house somewhere and then getting in a hot air balloon or no, we just we just go. We drive to Europe and we hope for the best.
Yeah, I'm gonna but we're gonna bring really positive attitudes.
And yes, I forgot. There's a lot of positive energy around this whole operation. We've been we've been doing a lot of like sold searching, Yeah, a lot of meditation. We're just getting we're getting real psyched about it.
We're bringing our energy coach Ananda. His real name is Jeff, but he is coming along for the ride and he's very excited.
So wait, I just want to be clear. So I just come to stand there with a bag, and then I just jump in a car and the truck of a car and and that's it.
Are we fucking fie? Are we just to come up with coal? Shit? That doesn't sound good enough. So in response to this fucking Safeway bag, another man would walk past him, holding a green bag from the luxury department store Harrod's, and he would be eating chocolate bar. Then Olig was supposed to wait for three days, go to church and pass a little note with the details of his situation, and then wait again. So Olegg followed his plan right. He did his little safe way shopping back thing at the street corner. Message sent, but he didn't notice anybody else following the plan. There were no herods back, no with chocolates being eaten. So Oleg nervously waited three days and went to church and he scribbled on a little note that he was ready to pass along right, and it said need excultration. He worried the whole way that he was going to be found out because part of the plan was for him to wear a hat in church, and no one wears a hat in church.
No, not in Moscow.
Not in Moscow, you don't. When OI got to the church, there was a sign hanging out in the front which said all hats are welcome. No, they just said that it was closed for redecoration. So Oli freed the fuck out. He dashed back home, chewed up and swallowed his note so it would never be found, and to sleep. He crammed himself with sedatives and Cuban rum, which also, to be honest, at this stage of his expltation, I would be a full blown alcoholic man. Like you gotta have something going on for you to cons I.
Mean the anxiety, That's what I just can't imagine. I can't carry a lot like any kind of lie around. I just I can't pull it off. I'm too I'm just too much of a nervous nelly to let alone like these grand life or death.
You know, I spent sleepless nights. If a wader says welcome to the restaurant, I say thanks you too, like I spent. I'll spin a sleepless night and be like, oh fuck, I fucked it up. I fucked it.
You know he was already there.
He didn't know what he doesn't. Yeah, I'm the one coming to his establishment. God damn it. What a rude thing to say. So the next Tuesday, anxiety driven as he is, he went back to the street corner once again. He flew his Safeway shopping bag, and he was just screaming internally the whole time, until finally another man walked by him carrying a green bag and munching on a chocolate Mars bar while making direct eye contact with Olegg as he marched by. Message received boom. Also, I mean, such an awkward, fucking secret spy signal, But fuck.
It, it's hard to look sort of serious and like a spy guy chewing on a chocolate bar.
And making uninterrupted eye contact. Lah. And it turned out to be the Danish agent, like he's just hoping for a second run at the honeypotty. He's like, you're gonna fucking look me in the eye this time. So for the next two days, Olegg visited friends and families, saying his goodbyes. You know, he talked about literature with his friends, He jogged around his neighborhood. He tried to act as normal as possible. He was the only one that knew that he was about to run for his life in a very non complicated way. So now we get to the final bit of it, which is the day finally came Oleg dunked out of his apartment. Now he knew he was being followed, so he jogged directly into a thick patch of trees and sig zagged his to the train station, where he boarded on a trip toward Finland, and this trip was wild man, so Oleg took too many sedatives on the train, and then he ended up falling out of a high bunk bed and gashing his head open. So he stumbled around, bleeding on people like I'm sorry, I'm sorry, not exactly keeping a low profile, right, yeah, exactly, screaming about harrods and safeways like shut the fuck up, hole, like you're so close now. When he finally caught a bus near the finished border, Oleg went through a bonker sequence of events right to get to the To get the bus to stop at the right place, he convinced the driver to pull over, telling him that he was going to barf all over the seats, So the bus let him out on the side of the road, where he pretended to yak into the bushes until it drove away. Once he was alone, Olig realized that he was way too early for his meeting with the British Buys to pick him up. So what does he do?
He this is amazing, This is truly the hubris of these so.
You know what, this is fucking nuts. So he he waits? Does he wait for a little like a good little I defect.
What should you do?
What should you do in this? Stand here and wait? You stand there, or you fucking wait.
Or you hide in the bushes.
He was like four hours early, right, it was like a day early, man, Like you don't have to like survive, yeah, and like take a nap, but watch people going by, read a fucking book. But no, no, our pal Olegg had a little rumbley in his little tummy, so he decided to hitchhike to the nearest town and sit down for lunch. He slammed down a beer, he ate some chicken, bought another beer for the road, and he started walking back to the meeting place.
By the way, it's eighteen miles. It's not just like around the corner. It's like it's it's.
Far faster you walking, bro, Like yeah, it's it's completely four hours and only only now he realized that he had taken too long and that he might be late. This is the first moment it strikes him when he's walking back, right, So internally he was like what the fuck am I doing? Like why did I not just wait there? Because externainly he was just like walking around with the bottle beer, sprinding down the road, as fast as it could have been. Like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You know. The worst of all, he was wearing corduroy pants, which is a very Yeah, that's a lot of chafing, Boddy, you know, I don't know about it. If you've ever walked out.
It's gonna make a lot of noise. That's a lot of swishing.
None of this is his spy Like, he's like just chicken. His pieces of chicken are falling off of him. He's shaking beer. He's just in Corday's weird. So fortunately, Oleg finally heard a truck going in the right direction, so he stuck out a thumb and caught another ride back to cover the sixteen miles. He would have never made it on his own. Now, this is a true story. He tried to In order to convince the truck driver to step in the middle of nowhere, Oleg told the truck driver that he had an appointment to have sex in the woods, and the driver agreed. Obviously, the driver didn't look at his corduroy pants, because everybody knows you can't have sex in the woods with courterory pants.
I guess that is a good a good way to just sort of be like, hey, we're in the middle of nowhere, but I need to get out of your t rock, Like what could you get? Is there any other.
Good excuses that I would get to be like, I am so sorry. Listen, dude, I was planning on robbing you, but I've changed my mind. Leave me off here, you know one of these which they might get you shot. I don't know.
I'm a botanist. And there's like a really rare plant over here.
What is that called the fucking autobun Society. It's like, if I don't fucking catch his bird, I'm gonna be the embarrassment, you understand. And the truck driver, being a fellow autobund Society member, was like, say no more. The problem is getting him to go away. Me posted here's my number. So Olegg swatted mosquitos and swig from his beer once he finally got there, And finally he's waiting on the spot where his two cars pull up and his rescuers jumped out. Now there was a price to see only one man and not the whole family as they had plan for. But they opened the trunk for ole Egg and he dove inside and they rebbed the engines, and now ole Egg was finally racing towards the border. Now in the trunk, he had a bottle of water, setups for his children which he's not gonna use now, and a spacelanket. They also knew that the Soviet scanned cars with infrared cameras at the finished border, so they hoped that the metallic space blanket would hide Olegg from the cameras and allow them to pass through. Did they do any fucking tests on it, like they were hoping, you were, Lily.
Here's like some plastic cell aphane wrapped yourself in this.
Chew on these ice cubes. That's going to make it bring your body temperature down. So the sedatives were OLiS first moved. He pounded them, and fortunately they also gave him an empty jug for a piss. Now, over the next half hour, from the darkness of the trunk, Oleg felt them stop at four different Soviet checkpoints on the way to the border. They all seem to be quick conversations while the drivers and the passengers showed papers, but they kept music playing in the car radios and it seemed like they were doing just fine. Now, the fifth stop is when it gets tricky. Oh boy, the engine switched off and all they could hear voices They had reached customs. Olig heard the officers talking and men with dogs circling the cars. Now one of the British officers started feeding chips to the dogs while another complained with a Soviet official about the annoyance of students in Moscow. That was it, That was like, what did I like it that they found his one niche thing that he loves to complain about, So yeah, I can go. So finally, after what felt like an hour, the British officers climbed back inside the car, crossed from the highway to a dirt hole on They didn't just check the trunk nope, huh, because the British bis were just like, hey, fuck is students? Am I right? They were both from like, I don't know, benson Hurst, Brooklyn in this scenario. But there was also one more thing, which was that the British agents brought a baby with them and while the guards were talking with the driver, she actually got out and gave the baby a diaper change on the trunk of the car. So the Soviet guards was just like, I don't like a baby, this is poop. I don't like to do this. So they didn't even make them open it. What So they managed to talk their way out of it by complaining about students in Moscow and by feeding chips to the dogs. All right, So finally, after all this tension, they're in a dirt road and they finally come to a stop outside a stand of pine trees. When the truck open, Olegg was met by the friendly face of his English handler. He had just escaped the KGB. Yay, good for you, but he had left his family behind.
There's some aspect to a lot of these guys that's somewhat psychopathic.
So because it was successful, Operation Piblico is remembered as one of the most daring escapes of the Cold War. A lot of other KGB defectors died trying to escape, so it's kind of a miracle. Like truly, the Gordyaevsky got out. Ever since he's basically spent the rest of his life trying not to get killed by KGB assassins. Now six wasn't surprised, of course, Like one officer said, he made absolute fools of the KGB. The only way that they did have to get back at him was to hold his family hostage, started lobbying world leaders asking them for help. He even flew to the US and he went to the White House where he met with President Reagan and he asked for the US to get his kids back.
This is also a fascinating moment in the Able Archer story because in the run up to the Able Archer conflict, ol Gordievski was trying to tell his Soviet handlers that guys, there's crazy tension between the East and the West, but they're not trying to nuke you. They're not planning to nuke you. When he went to talk to Reagan, he actually was also trying to take credit for avoiding nuclear conflict to some extent by saying, like, look, I helped avoid you know, a nuclear holocaust during Able Archer because I was telling both sides the right thing. And that's another reason why you should really think about helping me, right, And it was it was pretty good leverage, Like it was a good story that he that he told. And but what's fast from a historical standpoint is, like, you know, a lot of historians relied on his account of Able Archer.
Information came from him of what the Russians, well.
Just you know, his his narrative of what was happening at that time was was sort of an important part of the historical record. But it's also you can now understand the deep conflict of interest in like, of course it behooves him to uh to bolster his own role in the able Archer crisis, because now it's a reason to help get his family out of out of Russia. He can like put you know, he can tell foreign leaders like, look, I helped save the world, now you need to help me get my family.
Out, like it's a it might be an unreliable area, yeah, sort of, yeah, exactly. If it was true, then it's it was a great detriment to the easing of tensions that you lost the like one of the only guys in the room being like, guys, nobody's fucking fighting, You're good, everybody's okay.
Yeah.
Unfortunately he had to go to Britain to chill. So in the years since after he went to talk to Reagan, Olig had been in hiding and he has lived in safe houses and had to keep watch for Russian assassination at tempts ever since. But there is one bright spot though. In nineteen ninety one, when the Russian government was in turmoil, new leadership stepped in and looking to make amends with the western world, they finally let Laila and the girls go. They reunited with Oleg that September. Three months after Oleg and his family got back together, the Soviet Union collapsed. So in the end, tickle tickle one. Yeah, anyway, that's our story. Ed, thank you so much for being a part of it, man, and thanks for so many interesting details of it. I didn't know that the conversation with Reagan was because a big part of it was.
It was part of the color of that conversation.
One hundred percent. I want to talk about snap Fu for a second too, if you don't mind.
So. Season one is the story of Able Archer eighty three, which was an event in nineteen eighty three. It was the height of the Cold War, and there was so much tension between the United States or NATO and the Soviet Union that this Able Archer exercise, which by any other measure was just a normal military exercise, was suddenly getting interpreted by the Soviets as possible staging for a real nuclear attack, and basically there was this kind of like Domino reciprocating spiral of fear and outrage and misunderstandings and miscommunications.
Yeah, listeners should go to it because it gives such rich context while also being quite funny and entertaining and fucking scary.
It's such a cool story. Thank you for having me on to talk about this awesome man.
Well, listen. I can't wait to hear your band play and to watch you in whatever awesome movie or show you steal next, and I can't wait to listen to more snafu Okay. Season two is out now and season three is coming soon. Right, I appreciate you coming in, brother, Thank you so much.
Thank you Arturo. You're so awesome at what you do.
Keep doing it.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much later, brother. Bye. Brady's Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers from me Ar Turo Castro Alyssa Martino and Milan Papelka from Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chug and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein, Olivia Canny and Kelsey. All Right, Hey, thank you so much for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop a rating or review. My mom will call you each personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next week
