Anecdotal intelligence
From Oleg Gordievsky Sir: Obviously Andrew Gilligan does not know a lot about the intelligence services (`Licence to goof', 29 May). His article is based mostly on anecdotal evidence.
Take, for example, his statement that Gorbachev was seen 'as a fraud'. I remember very well that MI6 distinctly felt, as early as 1985-86 — well before I did, though I was a Soviet expert — that Gorbachev meant to implement changes and reforms. However, they also knew, quite correctly, that Gorbachev did not intend to get rid of the communist USSR; he just wanted to improve it. He fought for it to the very last breath, until Boris Yeltsin, in the autumn of 1991, scoffingly, to Gorbachev's loud protestations and lamentations, signed a decree banning the Communist party of Russia.
Oleg Gordievsky
London WC2
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