Aeon
Apr 20, 2024 - 26 min
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"I’m sorry about the suffering I caused. But, well, there’s nothing to be done about that." In the wake of his death, Simon Kuper recalls in the Financial Times his captivating experience of interviewing George Blake, the most notorious Soviet agent to ever operate inside Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. Striking up a fascinating but complex bond, they discuss identity, regrets and betrayal. "Blake was a one-man Netflix series, whose life tracked many of the dramas of the 20th century. A Briton raised in the Netherlands, he was a teenage courier in the Dutch resistance, joined the British secret services, converted to communism while a prisoner in North Korea and became a spy for the KGB. He then sent dozens of agents working for Britain to their deaths."