Secrets & Spies - A Nuclear Game
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- Episode
- Episode 1 - Paranoia
- Broadcast Info
- 2024 (59 mins)
- Description
- It’s Summer 1982 and KGB spy Oleg Gordievsky travels from Moscow to take up a post at the Soviet Embassy in London. East and West have a deep mistrust and misunderstanding of each other. As a result, the Cold War, which has been rumbling on for almost 40 years, is heating up. The spying game and paranoia magnify the suspicion between superpowers and an arms race threatens to bring the world to nuclear armageddon. The Soviet Union’s KGB chief Yuri Andropov is increasingly anxious about the West’s intentions. He has established Operation Ryan, an intelligence operation to gather evidence that western leaders are preparing for an attack. He has KGB agents posted around the world to look for specific signs that fit his theory. One of these agents is Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, newly dispatched to London. Against this backdrop, President Ronald Reagan delivers his historic speech in the Houses of Parliament declaring that the Soviet Union belongs on the ‘ash heap of history.' This aggressive rhetoric coupled with Reagan’s obvious bond with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher feeds Andropov’s paranoia. Andropov’s spies feed his Operation Ryan charts with intel but Gordievsky is hiding a dangerous secret. Within weeks of his arrival in London he has called his British handlers. Oleg Gordievsky is in fact a double agent. He was recruited several years ago but now he is in London he can play a more active role in the Cold War. He must be carefully protected and his identity concealed from all, including Prime Minister Thatcher. When Soviet leader Brezhnev dies, KGB boss Andropov is promoted to take his place, bringing his paranoia to heart of the Kremlin. In this atmosphere of heightened fear, Gordievsky is almost spotted by his KGB boss after meeting his MI6 handlers. His life is at stake if he is found out but his intel couldn’t be more vital if nuclear conflict is to be avoided. The British desperation to protect Gordievsky means they do not share their learnings about Soviet anxieties with the Americans. An unaware President Reagan forges ahead with his aggressive strategy: following the ‘ash heap of history’ speech with another calling the Soviets the ‘Evil Empire’ and unveiling an ambitious plan to arm Europe with nuclear weapons to act as a deterrent. This all feeds Andropov’s concerns in the Kremlin, and he is now convinced that the West is preparing for a first strike. Kremlin spies report back on British public protests against American nuclear weapons at Greenham Common. Keen to please their bosses in Moscow, the Russian’s take credit for causing this unrest, rumour begins to fuel rumour and soon the British authorities are spying on the female protesters. This spy-charged paranoia sits uneasy with Mi5 agent Michael Bettaney. He decides to take matters into his own hands and turn double agent himself. The KGB office treat his initial approach with caution, it could be a trap. Unfortunately for Bettany news of his attempt to contact the Soviets quickly reaches Gordievsky. The British know within days that they have a mole and start the search. It is a dangerous time for the West if their own agent defects, but doubly dangerous if Bettaney were to discover the truth about Oleg Gordievsky and betray him to the KGB. The penalty for traitors in the Soviet Union is execution. The Soviets shoot down a Korean passenger jet travelling from the US; the plane had flown off course into Soviet territory. The deaths of all 269 passengers causes international outrage. Now tensions on both sides are higher than ever. Gordievsky lives with the daily knowledge the unidentified mole could expose his role as a double agent. But when Bettaney reaches out to the KGB for a second time he leaves a clue to his identity that will ultimately lead to his arrest. Oleg is safe for now, but the nuclear threat is growing. NATO has scheduled a routine military exercise called Abel Archer. It is routine war game where the Western Forces rehearse how they would manoeuvre in the event of an attack. But this year there is a difference; they increase the nuclear component. As news of NATO activity reaches Andropov, he believes he is witnessing what he has predicted... the buildup to a nuclear first strike by the west. He is determined not to be caught unawares, the Soviet military is put on standby, and Andropov is ready with his own nuclear launch codes. What follows is five days of tension as Oleg Gordievsky warns the British of an escalating risk, which no one can quite believe. Extraordinarily, the Abel Archer exercise wraps up without incident and without the West quite realising how close the world came to nuclear war. The episode includes rarely heard archive interviews with Oleg Gordievsky, and the unpublished letters of Michael Bettaney, as well as interviews with former aides to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and interviews with former KGB, MI5 and MI6 officers, some of whom have never spoken publicly before.
- Genre
- History
How to cite this record
The Open University, "Secrets & Spies - A Nuclear Game". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/249306 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)