Cold War Espionage and Prague

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the declassified club The rest is classified. com Well welcome everyone to this very special episode of the declassified club. Now Gordon, we've had conversations with a few former CIA directors on the pod, but I believe this is the first time that we'll be accompanied by one of our friends across the Atlantic, at least for by direction. Isn't that right Gard? We'll be joined by head over the former head of what You like to call MI six, Gordon, but I don't like to call it MI six on the podcast. I like to call it the Secret Intelligence Service. That's right. We have got with us Sir Richard Dear loveove who was a career MI six operations officer and then became chief of the Secret intntelligence Service, SIS to give it its right title or MI six, as it's popularly known in nineteen ninety nine and he served in that role until two thousand four, which took him through the tumultuous years really of the nine eleven attack and its aftermath, including, of course, the war in Iraq Since leaving he's also been busy, including hosting a podcast on dececision. Everyone's got a podcast these days, haven't they? So Richard, welcome to the decelassified Club. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks. nice to meet you. Online, Gordon and Davidway Richard, we're going to go back and talk a bit about your career as far as you can and particularly focus on your time as chief. But I just wonder if it's worth starting now on your reflections on where we are at the moment. because In recent months, the U.S., of course, has been engaged in a war in the Middle East against Iran which the UK unlike in the case of Iraq is not involved in I mean, do you view that as the right move for the UK to have stepped back from the relationship and the alliance in the way it has been involved in the past Well, I think it could have been more supportive of the United States in this conflict without becoming directly involved I mean It made this esoteric distinction between defensive and offensive action, which I thought was a little bit esoteric. But on the other hand I think we should have from the word go who expressed our support for this conflict. I mean, what's extraordinary about the conflict with Iran is that I retired in two thousand four It's an awful long time ago. What was the primary intelligence requirement When I retired, it was Iran nuclear This as in my book Perhaps or probably the final chapter of a long running which was always going to come to a head. Trump and Netanyahu have acted in a manner to bring it to a head. So I'm not at all surprised By what's happened And I think it was inevitable that given the intransigent nature of the theocratic regime in Iran, that this would eventually lead to a confrontation And I sort of disagree a lot with the legal interpretation. of the conflict. I mean, that's the opinion of international lawyers. It's nothing a cut and dried. about it I think, you know, the Iranian regime has largely brought the situation on itself What do you think will be the sort of outcome or trajectory when this conflict is over or if the notionational ceasefire it now holds and the conflict is resolved? I mean do you see resolution or some kind of mitigation of the risks on that file or how do you see it going forward now that we've had Operation Epic Fury I think I would expect the Iranian regime to implode. It won't necessarily happen immediately On my own podcast, on the new yearar, I made a prediction that twenty twenty six would see the disappearance. of the Iranian regime, and I'm pretty sure in my own mind is where this will end up. I mean, the twelfve day war destroyed the nuclear program. and what I mean by that is it probably destroyed enough of the centrifuges and the installations to make a serious weapons program. ongoing. What it didn't solve was the problem of fissile material which had already been produced of which we understand there are four hundred and fifty kilos buried somewhere the mountain in Nantz after it was bombed. and Okay, that would allow Iran, let's say, to craft a nuclear device or one or two nuclear devices and I use the word craft deliberately. What it wouldn't allow them to do. was to create a weapons production line because I think that has been destroyed So there is a remaining problem. And of course, if you escalate the relationship, it's more likely that Iran would respond in time, maybe with some sort of nuclear device which wouldn't necessarily be,, I don't want to go into the technicalities, but you can see what I'm driving at in terms of using the fissile material So I think an essential part of the end of this conflict is a recovery of that material. And if you have a change of regime, you probably have a more compliant regime which would have a different relationship with the West, maybe material can be extracted without a military operation I think that's probably the direction in which we're driving at the moment. You talked a little bit at the start about the fact that the UK perhaps could have been closer. Do you worry about risks to the intelligence relationship? I mean you've been quite deeply involved in that and committed to it Uh not really It's a storm that will pass, you think? I think it's so heavily institutionalized, It's so long running. My informal indications are that actually it's in pretty good shape. Look, there have always been tensions and disagreements of policy There are always isolationist elements within the U. S intelligence community I'm not going to go into detail, but in my experience, living inside the relationship isn't quite what people imagine from the outside On the other hand, the fact that it exists, the infrastructure around it, particularly things like the UQSA agreement between GCHQ and NSA and the nuclear relationship, which isn't part of the actual sort of structure of the special relationship, but I mean including given that you know our deterrent is American technology or some American technology This isn't going to disappear or evaporate so personal relationships, particularly those that Trump's behavior generates I wouldn't say irre relevant They create awkwardnesses and they create differences of policy. When I was had a station in Washington, which I was at one stage, I was often dealing with actually quite serious problems of disagreement, but it didn't make any difference. ultimately. to the major issue, which is a relationship which is profound, deeply based, institutionalized, and has its ups and downs. Okay, It's having a big down at the moment, but it's not going to collapse. I wanted to ask you bit more about your time as head of station in Washington, which I think was in the early nineteen nineties is kind of at the tail end or really after the Cold War had concluded. Could you talk a little bit about that period of time and in particular the special relationship was like at that stage and maybe how it's changed or how it hasn't over the past thirty years. You know, this is pre nine eleven. I mean, it's in the period when the Soviet Union is implading I think the Exchanges and discussions sort of understanding was happening in Russia, what was happening in the Soviet Union I mean, it was really important. There were areas where there were resistance on CIA's part to real closeness during that period. For example, they were quite proprietorial about their views of China. There were subjects where we cooperated very closely in subjects where We were not so close But overall, being head of station, I think I went went there in early ' ninety one. I remember driving down to Washington having holidayed. I had three months off between two postings and I'd been holiday up in Maine and driving down to Washington as that. attack on the when I say the White House in Moscow, you know what I mean. Yeah. I'm not talking about the White House Yeah where that specific incident which was fantastically dramatic and then realizing that these events were going to color the whole of my time there And of course, there were some really big events like, you know, the defection of the arrchivist. Mitrokin, one of my favorite stories here. He tried the Americans first. He did. Americans didn't get it right. Missed that one. Made a mistake there. Yeahah, missed that one slightly. We ended up with the prize, which became really quite a valuable prize So I mean there was a whole lot of extraordinary stuff that went on during that period I think you'd been educated partly in the US as well. so it was quite deeply ingrained in you. And then I suppose you'd lived through the Cold War when the relationship had been very close when you joined SIS I was an exchange student under this English spepeaking Union program at an American prep school Kent School, Connecticut, which is a fine school actually. I was sububsequently a governor of it. so I know the school trustee, as they say in the States rather well And u Yeah, it was a fantastic experience. This was sixty two, sixty three. Anyway, it was the autumn of the Cuba crisis. My mother, when my mother died, I discovered she had kept all my letters and I've got them here in a drawer. I'm sitting next to it And I found the letter that I wrote to my parents in the school in Connecticut during the Cuba crisis And it's quite interesting to read that Letters of a seventeen year old. Did you think you were going to die? Did you think it was all over? Well I said, you know, they're talking about the threat of nuclear war. Anyway. No, I think my letters show supreme confidence that everything would be fine as it were. But on the other hand, that there is this massive risk, it's very interesting to see how one sort of digested this extraordinary crisis at that age. And then you joined SIS and then you were in Prague, weren't you? I mean, I'm not sure how much you can talk about it, but I think you ran quite an interesting agent in Prague and you were under surveillance and you know as a kind of young officer. I remember once after the end of the Cold War trying to get h of going to the Czech seecurity service and actually trying to get hold of your file, you'll be pleased to know, to find out what they knew about you and it had been magically removed from the archives. Actually, I've got it I got it before you got You got there first. I did my best. I've got most of it. I haven't got the whole thing But interestingly, penguin again to publish a book about the case I ran next year I'm sure you know her, Danielle Richoro who is the most wonderful expert on the SDP archives has been immersed in these archives. I she wrote this excellent book on the relationship between the two Communist Party in various Palestinian terrorist groups, which I thought was superb because no one else had sort of delved into that and understood it. Anyway, she's now delving into this case. Of course, she hasn't got access to the MI six archives, so I'm going to restrict my comments to what comes out of the checkch archives But you know, this was one of the big CI cases of the Cold War. Big counter intelligence cases. Yeah. The source. was in charge of the operations in Czechnicles Bravo Dasuke Hi which means intelligence games, which basically means double agent cases and his job was to run the operations to penetrate British intelligence and we were running him. So it was a classic Coldbard case and it will make a fascinating book because he died Well, whilst I was in Prague towards the end of my time there he actually died of natural causes. I mean, he had a heart attack and died He wasn't very old. I mean he was a man in probably in his forties or maybe a bit older than that in his fifties Of course the Czechs never could interrogate him So once they discovered that he had been a British source, which they did from the papers in his house, there a bits and pieces of evidence he had left lying around. Their service was completely turned upside down by an investigation which lasted for twelve or fourteen years and sort of phrze their activity because it was such a key penetration And it was, I mean, I think, you know, we had such a complete picture of what they were doing. It was rather it was a privilege. You might not answer this, but how did you get the file before Gordon did What Srigs did you have to pull to get your own security file for Prague and beat Gordon Carrera to the punch. That was pretty easy because I was invited immediately back to Prague after the Velveit Revolution by Hubvel actually who was by then president to celebrate the role I had played in as it were, the penetration of plaque somewhere in Pri talks about the torturing secret police anyway The guy the disident who became head of the Czech serervice. He was a delightful lovely man called Elder Chany, who I'm sure Gordon probably knew too. An Elder was a close friend of mine And Alder said, Well, I'm not really meant to do this, Richard H. But he dug into the archives and said, I've got an interesting envelope here for you to take over with you. But it's interesting because it's not the investigational bit of the archives which recorded what happened after this case. It's my personal file which is fascinating and very interesting. and you know I've read it with great amusement because the Cechs thought I was naive rather useless. I mean, talk about hoodwinking them. I hoodwink them extremely successfully because I was there to do one thing which was to run the cololonel in charge of the operations against British intelligence. and they never twigged until after he had died anyway. So The Czechs celebrated this and They've been awfully nice to me and I get lots of rather wonderful invitations to go back.