The journalist Richard Gott, who died earlier this month, used to meet his KGB case officers at a greasy spoon in North London. There, in return for intelligence titbits, they slipped the former Guardian stalwart envelopes stuffed with used £10 notes, a scheme he had pulled for years.

The Soviet double agent and architect of Gott’s downfall in 1994, Oleg Gordievsky, revealed he received £600 as a “welcome back payment” when the Russians renewed contact after a 10-year gap, and £300 for assignments that followed. He was also given free trips to Vienna, Athens and Nicosia.

However, Gott was not the only Guardian journalist to be courted by the Kremlin during the closing stages of the Cold War. I know this because when I was working at the paper in the Eighties, Gott’s handlers — Mikhail Bogdanov and Yuri Kudimov — also tried to recruit me and my then-boss, Alan Rusbridger.

In the autumn of 1984, Rusbridger was in charge of the Guardian diary column, and I was his number two. We both went to that year’s Labour Party conference in Blackpool to hunt for stories, and encountered the two Russians in a hotel bar. Both had pretended they were journalists: Kudimov as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, Bogdanov for the paper Socialist Industry. When they suggested we all meet for lunch back in London, we readily agreed.

Over the next few months, we met them several times. The last few lunches took place after Mikhail Gorbachev’s accession as Soviet leader, and they were full of insights into the changes they thought he would bring. We assumed they had KGB clearance, and as journalists in the know, had more to tell us. But we would soon learn their involvement with Russian intelligence went deeper.

We met on a late summer day in 1985 at an Italian restaurant in Covent Garden. Usually, we’d converse about the issues of the day as a four, but on this occasion something felt different. Once we’d ordered, Kudimov turned his chair towards me and ignored the others. Bogdanov did the same with Rusbridger.

I must admit, there was an apolitical reason for my putting up with the Russians. As a keen explorer of undiscovered cave systems, I had hoped to travel on an expedition to the Caucasus Mountains. The inevitable bureaucratic hurdles had until then made it impossible. Would the acceptance of these gentlemen be enough to let me into the country as an innocent explorer? Kudimov told me he knew about my efforts to go caving and said that if we developed “a closer relationship”, he could “make it happen”.

I knew exactly what that “closer relationship” meant. After we left the restaurant, I told Rusbridger: “I think I’ve just been pitched by the KGB.” He replied: “I think I have, too.” In his case, the lure was a paid holiday to a luxury Black Sea resort. We knew that would be the end of that acquaintance.

A few days later, Margaret Thatcher’s government announced it was expelling 25 KGB spies — including Mikhail and Yuri. We assumed we’d never see them again. But to our surprise, they were given three weeks to pack up, and on the eve of their departure, we were invited to a farewell party at Kudimov’s Notting Hill flat. Being forever on the hunt for news, we thought it might be worth our time. Some of the other 23 KGB men earmarked for expulsion were there too. No Richard Gott: we were the only Brits.

The flat was opulent, and the vodka and Georgian sparkling wine flowing. At the end of the evening, Yuri started weeping to a melancholy record he’d just put on. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Look at this beautiful place,” he replied. “What’s wrong is that I’m going to be living with my in-laws in a cramped apartment in a high-rise block, and working at my paper as a down-table sub!”

Gott’s treachery was real, but many years after my brush with Russian intelligence, I discovered that I had also been a suspect. In 2022, as political editor of the Jewish Chronicle, I applied for a parliamentary lobby pass. It’s a routine check which should take a few days, but it took five months. A senior Commons official said my application was being reviewed “at a high level in MI5”.

Eventually, my clearance came. A few months later, I happened to meet an old friend who worked in intelligence. It turned out he had been consulted, and vouched that I wasn’t a national security risk. But the reason for the delay? Those strange lunches with Kudimov and Bogdanov.

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David Rose is UnHerd‘s Investigations Editor.

DavidRoseUK

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