George Blake
George Blake (pictured), a notorious double spy during the Cold War, died on the 26th (local time) at 98. He worked for the British foreign intelligence agency MI6, and converted to an operative of the Soviet Union (formerly Soviet Union) in the wake of the Korean War. A spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), a Russian foreign intelligence agency, announced the news of his death through the Russian TASS news agency. The exact cause of death was not disclosed.
Taken prisoner on June 25 and turned communist
Soviet hero breaks out after 42 years in prison in England
Blake was assigned to Seoul in 1948 as a deputy consul for the British Embassy in Korea when he was a member of MI6, collecting information on the Korean Peninsula, China, and the Soviet Union. When the Korean War broke out in 50 years, he became prisoners of the North Korean People’s Army along with other diplomats and was dragged from Pyongyang to the Yalu River for three years. In the process, Blake leaned toward the Soviet Union as he watched US planes continue to bomb small towns in North Korea, Blake said in a 2011 British Independent interview.
“I thought it would be better for mankind to end the war with communism,” he said.
Blake returned to England in 1953, after a ceasefire, hiding that he had become a communist. From this time on, he was a double agent. It was Blake who passed the identities of 400 Western European spies who were active in Eastern Europe in the 50s to the Soviet Union. For that reason, many Western spies were executed for treason.
He was found to be a Soviet spy in 61, sentenced to 42 years in prison by a court and imprisoned in a British prison. However, in 66, with the help of a fellow prisoner and a prisoner who had been released, he crossed the prison wall and escaped. Then, after crossing to East Berlin, which was the communist sphere, he fled to the Soviet Union. After that, Blake was treated as a hero and spent the rest of his life in Russia. Living under the Russian name Gregory Ivanovich, while educating spies. In 2007, he received a medal from President Vladimir Putin.
The book about his life, The Great Traitor: The Secret Life of George Blake (author Roger Hermiston), was attempted by filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock to make a film titled “A Short Night,” but Hitchcock passed away and did not make it a reality. .
Reporter Seo Yujin [email protected]