Money matters
From Mr Chapman Pincher Sir: Mutual friends in MI6 have confirmed to me, on several occasions, that the contributions to Western security made by the senior KGB officer, Oleg Gordievsky, who spied for them for many years and is now domiciled here, were extremely valuable. However, none of them, including one who was, perhaps, closest to him and admired his courage, could deny that he had been a traitor to his prime employer, to his government and to the country of his birth.
In seeking to explain his treachery against the KGB and his colleagues there (Letters, 16/23 December), Mr Gordievsky raised the question of morality in his support of a Western liberal democracy against a monstrous totalitarian regime. To enable your readers to appreciate his predicament and to judge more accurately his brave actions over many years, perhaps he will answer a simple question.
Up to the point of his escape from Moscow, Mr Gordievsky continued to draw his KGB salary and expenses. Did he also accept regular payment from MI6 (or any other British agency) at the same time during his work as a British agent-in-place, which, he is at pains to stress, lasted many years? Clearly he had to draw his KGB money to avoid raising suspicion, but several of the British traitors who spied for the Soviet Union over long periods declined to accept anything, save a ritual token payment, from that side. They had convinced themselves that they were betraying their country for purely ideological reasons of conscience and to have accepted money from both sides would have been immoral.
Chapman Pincher Hungerford, Berkshire
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