Spy Wars (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 6 - Trojan Horse - full transcript
Life as a double agent
can cause anyone to break.
The story of vladimir vetrov,
high ranking kgb officer,
And secret operative for the
french intelligence service,
Is one of the most bizarre
to emerge from the cold war.
Part thriller, part charade, It's a tale of
infidelity, Bravery and betrayal, that led to one
Of the most astonishing trojan horse
operations In the history of espionage.
And ultimately helped hasten the
collapse Of the entire soviet system.
Vladimir vetrov, the man who would become one
Of the most important spies of the cold war,
Was born to modest
means in 1932.
He grew up in central moscow, In a
one room flat with his parents.
Yet from a young age, It appeared
vetrov was destined for great things.
He was a very clever man.
Clever people are identified very
early on In the soviet system.
So he was pretty early on
directed to very good studies
And almost like programmed
to become a kgb officer.
Intelligent, and an excellent sportsman,
Vetrov was a popular young man.
He also had a big ego.
Vetrov graduated as an engineer From
one of the country's top universities.
Then he was handpicked to
join the kgb training school.
But he had bigger dreams.
Shortly after graduating, vetrov met svetlana
barashkova, A renowned beauty and a top athlete.
The two hit it off immediately.
Within a year,
they were married.
He's happy, he has the life, he has a nice
woman, He has a nice job, this perfect life.
By the late 1960s, The cold
war was beginning to thaw.
Both the u.S.A. And the soviet union
were keen To build closer relations.
This era would become
known as detente.
Richard allen worked in the nixon white
house When the detente policy was adopted.
In the strictest sense of the word, detente
means simply, A relaxation of tensions.
In that sense detente was good Because relaxing
tensions is exactly What nations ought to do.
But for the russians,
this was a smokescreen.
Behind the bravado of the arms race, The
soviets were in deep economic trouble,
Falling behind america
in almost every area.
They needed detente as diplomatic cover For their
real mission, to steal western industrial,
Scientific and
technological secrets.
And that's where
vetrov comes in.
The kgb assigned him to a
department Known as directorate t,
Responsible for industrial
espionage on a massive scale.
Directorate t was home to a secretive ring
Of industrial spies, known as line x.
It was a web of spies spread
out Pretty much everywhere
In the world that was
supposed to bring back home
Technology that the military
industrial complex was using.
We knew that we were
being ripped off by the soviets.
But I had no idea of the scale of the
rip-off, The worldwide scale of the rip-off.
At the heart of the operation,
Was vladimir vetrov.
As a rising star of the kgb,
Vetrov earned one of its
most glamorous postings.
An important bridge-head
between east and west,
Paris was a happy hunting
ground for soviet intelligence.
It was also the dream posting For
any kgb agent, and his wife.
They were coming from the ussr in the '60s It was
pretty gray And they arrive in the gay paris.
In France was just the biggest time ever,
The temps glorieuses as we call them,
Life was so easy here.
Wining, dining, and having fun was What
vetrov enjoyed more than anything else.
Mikhail lyubimov was a kgb spy in london
At the same time vetrov was in paris.
He knew how attractive western life
could be For a young soviet officer.
He was a man who liked life,
A typical hedonist who
likes wines, women,
Oh, a man who likes life
very much, too much!
But it wasn't
all champagne and oysters.
Vetrov had a crucial mission, To recruit
french scientists to the soviet cause,
And to steal their secrets.
He was doing the job of getting acquainted To
french scientists to extort them information,
He was an agent.
But it wasn't long before the bright
lights And freedoms of paris made vetrov
And svetlana question the merits Of the
soviet system they had left behind,
To the watching french intelligence
service, The dst, this open criticism
Of the soviet regime
was a red flag.
Raymond nart worked for
the dst at the time.
He believed vetrov might be
persuaded to defect to the west.
He instructed a contact, A man named
jacques prevost, to monitor him.
The french watched and waited For
the right time to make their move.
Then, vetrov got himself
into a spot of bother.
Vetrov couldn't tell his kgb
bosses About the crash,
It would have been
catastrophic for his career.
Crashing the embassy car is something That could
have brought you back to russia right away.
Overnight, the car was fixed,
Painted and returned, good as new.
Prevost had made
the problem go away.
Vetrov promised that one day He would
repay the favor to his friend prevost.
Vetrov was now a spy who owed a debt To a
member of a foreign intelligence service.
And in the world of spies,
debts are always collected.
By July 1970, vladmir vetrov was
one Of the top kgb spies in paris.
Enjoying everything
the city had to offer.
But the good times were
about to come to an end.
The kgb allowed their agents to stay
abroad For just five years at a time.
Vetrov, and his glamorous wife
svetlana, Had to return home.
But back in moscow, the
cold war was a lot colder.
Life was hard, luxuries much
more difficult to come by.
Their return was a
bitter pill to swallow.
That was a kind of dream life And they were in
paradise almost, And then they went back to hell.
Vetrov realized
that the kgb was no longer
The meritocracy in which he
had thrived as a younger man.
The big change that there was Between
the soviet union of the '60s
And the soviet union of the '70s was That
competence was not any more the issue.
Now, those at the top came From the party
hierarchy, known as the nomenklatura.
Vetrov was side-lined
into a dead end desk job.
He got totally put aside And all opportunity
of promotion was over for him, He knew that.
He was enraged at the incompetence
of the People above him
And the unfairness that
has been done to him.
As vetrov's career crumbled,
So too did his marriage.
You're going back home in a gray
country, Of course the relationship
And the couple are gonna be not as ideal As it
was during the dream life they had in paris.
Both he and svetlana became
embroiled In a string of affairs.
Once the kgb's golden boy, Vetrov
was now stuck in his office,
Bored, drinking himself
into an early grave.
His punishment was kind of a chinese
torture Of day to day going to the office
And having to obey to people That
were a lot less bright than him.
And since he had a strong ego of course,
That was just torture for him everyday.
But the kgb had
made a crucial mistake.
Though pushed down the pecking order,
Vetrov still had access to a treasure trove
Of secret documents from
line x industrial agents.
Vetrov was in the unusual situation Of receiving
stolen technology from around the world
And being more or less the distribution point for
it, Whether it would go to the defense sector,
Whether it would go to the industrial sector,
Whether it would go to the intelligence sector.
He saw all the collection done by the
kgb Around the world on technology.
It funneled into him.
Vetrov was sitting
on a gold mine.
It wasn't a very clever move from the kgb
To put some frustrated guy at the heart
Of the entire spying
network of the soviet union.
It's just giving an ak -47
to an angry kid.
Vetrov had reached his absolute limit,
Both personally and professionally.
Something had to give.
In December 1980, Vetrov made the decision
to cross the line To spy for the enemy.
Vetrov had decided
to switch sides.
The only question, to
whom would he turn?
One day, raymond nart, of the
french intelligence service,
Received a letter from his
contact jacques prevost.
Inside was a copy of an urgent
note That prevost had received,
From his old friend
vladimir vetrov.
Nart knew the name well.
A decade earlier, he had picked
vetrov out As a potential defector.
By this time, Nart was head of
the soviet section of the dst.
As the internal french
intelligence agency,
It's the equivalent to mi5,
or the fbi, but much smaller.
The french
intelligence service is a joke,
Was a joke at least, with no
experience of work in russia.
Yet the fact that the dst operated Only in
France, meant that, unlike mi6 or the cia,
It had not been
infiltrated by kgb moles.
Of course vladimir vetrov knew that,
And this is why he chose them.
Now, for the first time, Raymond nart and
the dst would have to run an operation,
In moscow, behind
the iron curtain.
As they had no agents in
moscow, how could they run it?
Well, at huge risk, they
chose to approach a civilian.
The dst made contact with
a man named xavier ameil.
In his late 50s, with no training in spy craft,
Ameil was one of the few french engineers working
In moscow at the time.
When the dst came calling, Ameil immediately
agreed to act as vetrov's handler.
So in March 1981, The french
intelligence services sent ameil
Into the lion's den, to make
contact with vetrov in moscow.
He could have fled to France, And
would have been highly recognized
And celebrated as a
hero of the cold war.
But that's not what he wanted.
What vetrov wanted was to be Where
he could do most damage to the kgb.
And that was by remaining in his
moscow post For as long as possible.
When ameil sent vetrov's documents back
to paris, Raymond nart was stunned.
The dst believed these documents
were Just the tip of the iceberg.
They instructed ameil To continue
the operation, codenamed farewell.
Every meeting, vetrov would hand over a
plastic bag, Stuffed full of state secrets.
Vetrov was giving him the most secretive
documents Of the kgb on the Friday,
And it took xavier and
his wife the whole weekend
To make copies and return them
to commence on the Monday.
Ameil, the middle-aged engineer,
Had found himself in the midst
Of perhaps the biggest spy
operation of the cold war.
Nobody could suspect
him, he was just an engineer.
It's because he took no precaution That
the kgb didn't pay attention to him,
So it was the perfect cover.
French intelligence was pulling
off A major undercover operation
In the world's
biggest police state.
But there was one big problem.
As a civilian, ameil didn't
have diplomatic immunity.
The dst knew they were placing ameil In danger of
imprisonment, possibly even torture and death.
So they decided to pull him out.
But this couldn't be the
end of the operation.
Vetrov was perhaps the west's
most valuable double agent.
And operation farewell
was about to go global.
On the may the 22nd, 1981, A frenchwoman
known as marguerite was shopping
In moscow's
cheryomushkinski market.
A housewife and mother of five,
She was about to become embroiled
In one of the biggest spy
stories of the cold war.
Two weeks earlier, The french
intelligence service had withdrawn
Vladimir vetrov's first handler,
the engineer xavier ameil,
Leaving the kgb spy
out in the cold.
Now raymond nart, the man in charge of the
case, Had to find a new handler for vetrov.
The french security services had
No agents working in moscow.
So raymond nart
turned to a friend.
What follows is the voice
of a man codenamed paul
Who to this day can't
appear on camera.
Paul wasn't a spy, But his job as a
military attache in the french embassy
In moscow, meant he did
have diplomatic immunity.
Yet before any meeting took place with paul, An
increasingly volatile vetrov added a condition.
He insisted that the first contact should
be With a woman and at a moscow market.
Simply because it would look more natural To
take and deliver documents at the market.
So paul went back to moscow
and asked his wife, marguerite.
Out of loyalty to
the west, and to her husband,
Paul's wife marguerite agreed To a
pre-arranged brush pass with vetrov.
But soon the strain was simply too
much For marguerite to continue.
To protect his
wife, paul himself stepped in.
Against his wishes, vetrov
would have to meet with a man,
His third amateur handler
in as many months.
In the 10 months following may 1981, Vetrov passed
more than 4,000 classified documents to paul,
The largest cache of stolen information
ever To emerge from the soviet union.
This information was known As the
farewell dossier by french intelligence.
Its contents revealed the extraordinary depth
Of the soviet's industrial espionage mission
Against the west.
More importantly, there were all the codes
Of the radar coverage of the u.S.A.
So there was a direct threat To
national security of the u.S.A.
As an added prize, Vetrov also
provided a list of 250 line-x agents
Around the world, some of whom
he had personally recruited.
With information this big,
The french had no choice
but to inform their allies.
It was time to
call the americans.
Ladies and gentlemen, The
president of the united states.
Under the new president, ronald reagan,
The cold war was heating up again.
In one speech, he coined a phrase
That would become infamous.
To ignore the facts of history And the
aggressive impulses of an evil empire,
In the struggle between right
and wrong, and good and evil.
Ronald reagan thought That the
russians did represent a threat.
He called it an evil empire.
Ronald reagan said "the soviets will lie,
cheat and steal "to get whatever they want."
There was a collective gasp from the press
corps In the east room of the white house.
I followed president
reagan out to the doors.
He said, "the soviets, they
do lie, cheat and steal
"to get whatever they
want, don't they, dick?"
And I said, "they sure
do, mr president."
And he said, "I thought so."
Reagan's instincts were right.
At the 1981 g7 summit, French president
francois mitterrand revealed
Vetrov's intelligence to
his american counterpart.
It was proof the soviets were
stealing nuclear, military
And technological secrets from under the
noses Of the american intelligence services.
They had such deep penetrations Of our technology
world That they knew what we were doing
And they were one
generation behind it.
This changed everything
about how we deal with it.
The americans
sensed an opportunity.
President reagan turned to me And asked
me my advice about how to proceed,
And my advice was to take
this ball and run with it.
They came up with a plan to use vetrov As a
trojan horse, a source at the heart of the kgb,
Through whom they could feed faulty
technology back To the russians.
We could bamboozle the
soviets with technology
That wouldn't function
correctly when deployed.
Over the next decade, Western spies fed this
flawed information To line-x agents across europe,
Meaning dodgy computer chips were installed In
military equipment, and defective blueprints
Undermined the
soviet space program.
Some say sabotage by the
u.S. Intelligence service led
To a catastrophic explosion
in a siberian oil pipeline.
The cia's grand plan Fatally undermined
soviet science and technology.
It was a critical step Towards the
west's eventual victory in the cold war.
The whole project of misinformation
Or disinformation worked very well.
We were able to disinform them And mislead
them and I think that was critical.
But back in moscow, this entire plan
hinged On an amateur spy, paul,
Picking up vetrov's crucial intelligence in
plastic bags And photocopying and returning it
Before anyone
noticed it was gone.
Vetrov and paul were
running a huge risk,
And as the months wore on,
they inevitably became friends.
But the huge pressure of working As a
double agent was taking its toll on vetrov.
He was drinking heavily, And had begun a
tempestuous affair with a kgb translator,
Named ludmila ochikina.
He is using paul
almost as a shrink.
The cold war was
becoming secondary.
Vetrov's friendship with paul wasn't enough
To stop him spiraling out of control,
As their final meeting revealed.
And at the next scheduled
rendezvous, Vetrov didn't show up.
Paul didn't know it then, But he
would never see his friend again.
Working as a mole had placed
vetrov under enormous strain.
But no-one could have predicted Just how
spectacularly things would fall apart.
On February the 22nd, 1982, Russian
double agent vladmir vetrov offered
To drive his mistress ludmila, A
kgb translator, home from work.
Stopping in a lay-by on the outskirts of moscow,
Vetrov surprised his lover with champagne.
Then, the story goes,
he turned on her.
When a witness
tried to intervene,
Vetrov lost control.
Miraculously, ludmila survived.
But the bystander, who had
come to her aid, lay dying.
Vetrov's breakdown had played out In
the most horrific way imaginable.
And now, perhaps the most valuable
spy In the cold war was compromised.
The following day, vetrov was
arrested, And charged with murder.
He refused to reveal what had
driven him To commit such violence.
One theory is that ludmila, The
kgb secretary, knew too much.
I think that in a very simple way, She
was blackmailing him, because she knew.
I guess probably he was trying to negotiate
with her, And it didn't work out,
And it turned into a
sort of horrific scene.
Ludmila has
remained mostly silent.
She testified she knew nothing of vetrov's
betrayal, And that her lover simply lost his mind.
There was too much
pressure on him, just too much.
Vetrov was tried, And sentenced
to 15 years in prison for murder.
At that point, the soviet authorities still
had No idea the man they'd imprisoned was one
Of the most important double
agents of the cold war.
Locked up in the kgb's notorious lefortovo
prison, Vetrov was no longer an active asset
For the u.S. Or the french.
The only contact he had with the outside world
was Through his estranged wife, svetlana.
Sergei kostin believes These letters
portray a man in total denial.
Vetrov even told svetlana, "my only regret
is that I was not able to kill her."
Although locked away, Vetrov
was still in great danger,
Because his cellmate happened To be a kgb
counterintelligence agent, valery rechensky.
Rechensky had been trained In the
art of extracting information.
And as time went on, his
suspicions about vetrov grew.
Rechensky reported his
suspicions To his superiors.
And the kgb began to question If
vetrov was more than a murderer.
At once our people started to think, "oh, there
is something else behind the whole affair."
So he got into the trap himself.
Then, in April 1983, something happened that
In effect, signed vetrov's death warrant.
The french expelled 47 diplomats
From the soviet embassy in paris.
Many of them were the same line x industrial
agents That vetrov had informed on.
It was only a matter of time Before the kgb
traced the source Of the intel back to vetrov.
They had to use the information
And using the information
He had provided was condemning
vetrov, and vetrov knew it.
That's why he knew he would die.
Vetrov was
questioned and confessed all.
Instead of pleading forgiveness, He wrote a
scorching condemnation Of the soviet system,
That he called "the
confessions of a traitor".
He was able for once to tell them
the truth, Tell them exactly that
They were betraying the country somehow,
As well, much more than he was.
That was probably the greatest
satisfaction He must have had.
Today, vladimir ippolitovich vetrov
is Many things to many people.
Of course he is a traitor.
If you belong to some service
you must work in this service
And if you want to become a
traitor, be a traitor, right?
In my view, vetrov should
be a major hero of the cold war.
He should have as many stars As he
possibly could have surrounding.
One thing is clear, Vladimir vetrov
had a major impact on the cold war.
Vetrov's case has accelerated the fall
Of the soviet union by many years.
So very decisive historical moment Which makes
of it, of course to me the greatest spy story
Of the 20th century.
In his prison cell, Vetrov knew that the kgb
only had one way Of dealing with traitors.
Was he terrified in the
moments before he was executed?
Yeah, probably.
But it's just possible That there was some
small part of him that felt victorious.
Vetrov had always wanted
to achieve great things.
And at the final moment, He knew that
he had changed the course of history.
can cause anyone to break.
The story of vladimir vetrov,
high ranking kgb officer,
And secret operative for the
french intelligence service,
Is one of the most bizarre
to emerge from the cold war.
Part thriller, part charade, It's a tale of
infidelity, Bravery and betrayal, that led to one
Of the most astonishing trojan horse
operations In the history of espionage.
And ultimately helped hasten the
collapse Of the entire soviet system.
Vladimir vetrov, the man who would become one
Of the most important spies of the cold war,
Was born to modest
means in 1932.
He grew up in central moscow, In a
one room flat with his parents.
Yet from a young age, It appeared
vetrov was destined for great things.
He was a very clever man.
Clever people are identified very
early on In the soviet system.
So he was pretty early on
directed to very good studies
And almost like programmed
to become a kgb officer.
Intelligent, and an excellent sportsman,
Vetrov was a popular young man.
He also had a big ego.
Vetrov graduated as an engineer From
one of the country's top universities.
Then he was handpicked to
join the kgb training school.
But he had bigger dreams.
Shortly after graduating, vetrov met svetlana
barashkova, A renowned beauty and a top athlete.
The two hit it off immediately.
Within a year,
they were married.
He's happy, he has the life, he has a nice
woman, He has a nice job, this perfect life.
By the late 1960s, The cold
war was beginning to thaw.
Both the u.S.A. And the soviet union
were keen To build closer relations.
This era would become
known as detente.
Richard allen worked in the nixon white
house When the detente policy was adopted.
In the strictest sense of the word, detente
means simply, A relaxation of tensions.
In that sense detente was good Because relaxing
tensions is exactly What nations ought to do.
But for the russians,
this was a smokescreen.
Behind the bravado of the arms race, The
soviets were in deep economic trouble,
Falling behind america
in almost every area.
They needed detente as diplomatic cover For their
real mission, to steal western industrial,
Scientific and
technological secrets.
And that's where
vetrov comes in.
The kgb assigned him to a
department Known as directorate t,
Responsible for industrial
espionage on a massive scale.
Directorate t was home to a secretive ring
Of industrial spies, known as line x.
It was a web of spies spread
out Pretty much everywhere
In the world that was
supposed to bring back home
Technology that the military
industrial complex was using.
We knew that we were
being ripped off by the soviets.
But I had no idea of the scale of the
rip-off, The worldwide scale of the rip-off.
At the heart of the operation,
Was vladimir vetrov.
As a rising star of the kgb,
Vetrov earned one of its
most glamorous postings.
An important bridge-head
between east and west,
Paris was a happy hunting
ground for soviet intelligence.
It was also the dream posting For
any kgb agent, and his wife.
They were coming from the ussr in the '60s It was
pretty gray And they arrive in the gay paris.
In France was just the biggest time ever,
The temps glorieuses as we call them,
Life was so easy here.
Wining, dining, and having fun was What
vetrov enjoyed more than anything else.
Mikhail lyubimov was a kgb spy in london
At the same time vetrov was in paris.
He knew how attractive western life
could be For a young soviet officer.
He was a man who liked life,
A typical hedonist who
likes wines, women,
Oh, a man who likes life
very much, too much!
But it wasn't
all champagne and oysters.
Vetrov had a crucial mission, To recruit
french scientists to the soviet cause,
And to steal their secrets.
He was doing the job of getting acquainted To
french scientists to extort them information,
He was an agent.
But it wasn't long before the bright
lights And freedoms of paris made vetrov
And svetlana question the merits Of the
soviet system they had left behind,
To the watching french intelligence
service, The dst, this open criticism
Of the soviet regime
was a red flag.
Raymond nart worked for
the dst at the time.
He believed vetrov might be
persuaded to defect to the west.
He instructed a contact, A man named
jacques prevost, to monitor him.
The french watched and waited For
the right time to make their move.
Then, vetrov got himself
into a spot of bother.
Vetrov couldn't tell his kgb
bosses About the crash,
It would have been
catastrophic for his career.
Crashing the embassy car is something That could
have brought you back to russia right away.
Overnight, the car was fixed,
Painted and returned, good as new.
Prevost had made
the problem go away.
Vetrov promised that one day He would
repay the favor to his friend prevost.
Vetrov was now a spy who owed a debt To a
member of a foreign intelligence service.
And in the world of spies,
debts are always collected.
By July 1970, vladmir vetrov was
one Of the top kgb spies in paris.
Enjoying everything
the city had to offer.
But the good times were
about to come to an end.
The kgb allowed their agents to stay
abroad For just five years at a time.
Vetrov, and his glamorous wife
svetlana, Had to return home.
But back in moscow, the
cold war was a lot colder.
Life was hard, luxuries much
more difficult to come by.
Their return was a
bitter pill to swallow.
That was a kind of dream life And they were in
paradise almost, And then they went back to hell.
Vetrov realized
that the kgb was no longer
The meritocracy in which he
had thrived as a younger man.
The big change that there was Between
the soviet union of the '60s
And the soviet union of the '70s was That
competence was not any more the issue.
Now, those at the top came From the party
hierarchy, known as the nomenklatura.
Vetrov was side-lined
into a dead end desk job.
He got totally put aside And all opportunity
of promotion was over for him, He knew that.
He was enraged at the incompetence
of the People above him
And the unfairness that
has been done to him.
As vetrov's career crumbled,
So too did his marriage.
You're going back home in a gray
country, Of course the relationship
And the couple are gonna be not as ideal As it
was during the dream life they had in paris.
Both he and svetlana became
embroiled In a string of affairs.
Once the kgb's golden boy, Vetrov
was now stuck in his office,
Bored, drinking himself
into an early grave.
His punishment was kind of a chinese
torture Of day to day going to the office
And having to obey to people That
were a lot less bright than him.
And since he had a strong ego of course,
That was just torture for him everyday.
But the kgb had
made a crucial mistake.
Though pushed down the pecking order,
Vetrov still had access to a treasure trove
Of secret documents from
line x industrial agents.
Vetrov was in the unusual situation Of receiving
stolen technology from around the world
And being more or less the distribution point for
it, Whether it would go to the defense sector,
Whether it would go to the industrial sector,
Whether it would go to the intelligence sector.
He saw all the collection done by the
kgb Around the world on technology.
It funneled into him.
Vetrov was sitting
on a gold mine.
It wasn't a very clever move from the kgb
To put some frustrated guy at the heart
Of the entire spying
network of the soviet union.
It's just giving an ak -47
to an angry kid.
Vetrov had reached his absolute limit,
Both personally and professionally.
Something had to give.
In December 1980, Vetrov made the decision
to cross the line To spy for the enemy.
Vetrov had decided
to switch sides.
The only question, to
whom would he turn?
One day, raymond nart, of the
french intelligence service,
Received a letter from his
contact jacques prevost.
Inside was a copy of an urgent
note That prevost had received,
From his old friend
vladimir vetrov.
Nart knew the name well.
A decade earlier, he had picked
vetrov out As a potential defector.
By this time, Nart was head of
the soviet section of the dst.
As the internal french
intelligence agency,
It's the equivalent to mi5,
or the fbi, but much smaller.
The french
intelligence service is a joke,
Was a joke at least, with no
experience of work in russia.
Yet the fact that the dst operated Only in
France, meant that, unlike mi6 or the cia,
It had not been
infiltrated by kgb moles.
Of course vladimir vetrov knew that,
And this is why he chose them.
Now, for the first time, Raymond nart and
the dst would have to run an operation,
In moscow, behind
the iron curtain.
As they had no agents in
moscow, how could they run it?
Well, at huge risk, they
chose to approach a civilian.
The dst made contact with
a man named xavier ameil.
In his late 50s, with no training in spy craft,
Ameil was one of the few french engineers working
In moscow at the time.
When the dst came calling, Ameil immediately
agreed to act as vetrov's handler.
So in March 1981, The french
intelligence services sent ameil
Into the lion's den, to make
contact with vetrov in moscow.
He could have fled to France, And
would have been highly recognized
And celebrated as a
hero of the cold war.
But that's not what he wanted.
What vetrov wanted was to be Where
he could do most damage to the kgb.
And that was by remaining in his
moscow post For as long as possible.
When ameil sent vetrov's documents back
to paris, Raymond nart was stunned.
The dst believed these documents
were Just the tip of the iceberg.
They instructed ameil To continue
the operation, codenamed farewell.
Every meeting, vetrov would hand over a
plastic bag, Stuffed full of state secrets.
Vetrov was giving him the most secretive
documents Of the kgb on the Friday,
And it took xavier and
his wife the whole weekend
To make copies and return them
to commence on the Monday.
Ameil, the middle-aged engineer,
Had found himself in the midst
Of perhaps the biggest spy
operation of the cold war.
Nobody could suspect
him, he was just an engineer.
It's because he took no precaution That
the kgb didn't pay attention to him,
So it was the perfect cover.
French intelligence was pulling
off A major undercover operation
In the world's
biggest police state.
But there was one big problem.
As a civilian, ameil didn't
have diplomatic immunity.
The dst knew they were placing ameil In danger of
imprisonment, possibly even torture and death.
So they decided to pull him out.
But this couldn't be the
end of the operation.
Vetrov was perhaps the west's
most valuable double agent.
And operation farewell
was about to go global.
On the may the 22nd, 1981, A frenchwoman
known as marguerite was shopping
In moscow's
cheryomushkinski market.
A housewife and mother of five,
She was about to become embroiled
In one of the biggest spy
stories of the cold war.
Two weeks earlier, The french
intelligence service had withdrawn
Vladimir vetrov's first handler,
the engineer xavier ameil,
Leaving the kgb spy
out in the cold.
Now raymond nart, the man in charge of the
case, Had to find a new handler for vetrov.
The french security services had
No agents working in moscow.
So raymond nart
turned to a friend.
What follows is the voice
of a man codenamed paul
Who to this day can't
appear on camera.
Paul wasn't a spy, But his job as a
military attache in the french embassy
In moscow, meant he did
have diplomatic immunity.
Yet before any meeting took place with paul, An
increasingly volatile vetrov added a condition.
He insisted that the first contact should
be With a woman and at a moscow market.
Simply because it would look more natural To
take and deliver documents at the market.
So paul went back to moscow
and asked his wife, marguerite.
Out of loyalty to
the west, and to her husband,
Paul's wife marguerite agreed To a
pre-arranged brush pass with vetrov.
But soon the strain was simply too
much For marguerite to continue.
To protect his
wife, paul himself stepped in.
Against his wishes, vetrov
would have to meet with a man,
His third amateur handler
in as many months.
In the 10 months following may 1981, Vetrov passed
more than 4,000 classified documents to paul,
The largest cache of stolen information
ever To emerge from the soviet union.
This information was known As the
farewell dossier by french intelligence.
Its contents revealed the extraordinary depth
Of the soviet's industrial espionage mission
Against the west.
More importantly, there were all the codes
Of the radar coverage of the u.S.A.
So there was a direct threat To
national security of the u.S.A.
As an added prize, Vetrov also
provided a list of 250 line-x agents
Around the world, some of whom
he had personally recruited.
With information this big,
The french had no choice
but to inform their allies.
It was time to
call the americans.
Ladies and gentlemen, The
president of the united states.
Under the new president, ronald reagan,
The cold war was heating up again.
In one speech, he coined a phrase
That would become infamous.
To ignore the facts of history And the
aggressive impulses of an evil empire,
In the struggle between right
and wrong, and good and evil.
Ronald reagan thought That the
russians did represent a threat.
He called it an evil empire.
Ronald reagan said "the soviets will lie,
cheat and steal "to get whatever they want."
There was a collective gasp from the press
corps In the east room of the white house.
I followed president
reagan out to the doors.
He said, "the soviets, they
do lie, cheat and steal
"to get whatever they
want, don't they, dick?"
And I said, "they sure
do, mr president."
And he said, "I thought so."
Reagan's instincts were right.
At the 1981 g7 summit, French president
francois mitterrand revealed
Vetrov's intelligence to
his american counterpart.
It was proof the soviets were
stealing nuclear, military
And technological secrets from under the
noses Of the american intelligence services.
They had such deep penetrations Of our technology
world That they knew what we were doing
And they were one
generation behind it.
This changed everything
about how we deal with it.
The americans
sensed an opportunity.
President reagan turned to me And asked
me my advice about how to proceed,
And my advice was to take
this ball and run with it.
They came up with a plan to use vetrov As a
trojan horse, a source at the heart of the kgb,
Through whom they could feed faulty
technology back To the russians.
We could bamboozle the
soviets with technology
That wouldn't function
correctly when deployed.
Over the next decade, Western spies fed this
flawed information To line-x agents across europe,
Meaning dodgy computer chips were installed In
military equipment, and defective blueprints
Undermined the
soviet space program.
Some say sabotage by the
u.S. Intelligence service led
To a catastrophic explosion
in a siberian oil pipeline.
The cia's grand plan Fatally undermined
soviet science and technology.
It was a critical step Towards the
west's eventual victory in the cold war.
The whole project of misinformation
Or disinformation worked very well.
We were able to disinform them And mislead
them and I think that was critical.
But back in moscow, this entire plan
hinged On an amateur spy, paul,
Picking up vetrov's crucial intelligence in
plastic bags And photocopying and returning it
Before anyone
noticed it was gone.
Vetrov and paul were
running a huge risk,
And as the months wore on,
they inevitably became friends.
But the huge pressure of working As a
double agent was taking its toll on vetrov.
He was drinking heavily, And had begun a
tempestuous affair with a kgb translator,
Named ludmila ochikina.
He is using paul
almost as a shrink.
The cold war was
becoming secondary.
Vetrov's friendship with paul wasn't enough
To stop him spiraling out of control,
As their final meeting revealed.
And at the next scheduled
rendezvous, Vetrov didn't show up.
Paul didn't know it then, But he
would never see his friend again.
Working as a mole had placed
vetrov under enormous strain.
But no-one could have predicted Just how
spectacularly things would fall apart.
On February the 22nd, 1982, Russian
double agent vladmir vetrov offered
To drive his mistress ludmila, A
kgb translator, home from work.
Stopping in a lay-by on the outskirts of moscow,
Vetrov surprised his lover with champagne.
Then, the story goes,
he turned on her.
When a witness
tried to intervene,
Vetrov lost control.
Miraculously, ludmila survived.
But the bystander, who had
come to her aid, lay dying.
Vetrov's breakdown had played out In
the most horrific way imaginable.
And now, perhaps the most valuable
spy In the cold war was compromised.
The following day, vetrov was
arrested, And charged with murder.
He refused to reveal what had
driven him To commit such violence.
One theory is that ludmila, The
kgb secretary, knew too much.
I think that in a very simple way, She
was blackmailing him, because she knew.
I guess probably he was trying to negotiate
with her, And it didn't work out,
And it turned into a
sort of horrific scene.
Ludmila has
remained mostly silent.
She testified she knew nothing of vetrov's
betrayal, And that her lover simply lost his mind.
There was too much
pressure on him, just too much.
Vetrov was tried, And sentenced
to 15 years in prison for murder.
At that point, the soviet authorities still
had No idea the man they'd imprisoned was one
Of the most important double
agents of the cold war.
Locked up in the kgb's notorious lefortovo
prison, Vetrov was no longer an active asset
For the u.S. Or the french.
The only contact he had with the outside world
was Through his estranged wife, svetlana.
Sergei kostin believes These letters
portray a man in total denial.
Vetrov even told svetlana, "my only regret
is that I was not able to kill her."
Although locked away, Vetrov
was still in great danger,
Because his cellmate happened To be a kgb
counterintelligence agent, valery rechensky.
Rechensky had been trained In the
art of extracting information.
And as time went on, his
suspicions about vetrov grew.
Rechensky reported his
suspicions To his superiors.
And the kgb began to question If
vetrov was more than a murderer.
At once our people started to think, "oh, there
is something else behind the whole affair."
So he got into the trap himself.
Then, in April 1983, something happened that
In effect, signed vetrov's death warrant.
The french expelled 47 diplomats
From the soviet embassy in paris.
Many of them were the same line x industrial
agents That vetrov had informed on.
It was only a matter of time Before the kgb
traced the source Of the intel back to vetrov.
They had to use the information
And using the information
He had provided was condemning
vetrov, and vetrov knew it.
That's why he knew he would die.
Vetrov was
questioned and confessed all.
Instead of pleading forgiveness, He wrote a
scorching condemnation Of the soviet system,
That he called "the
confessions of a traitor".
He was able for once to tell them
the truth, Tell them exactly that
They were betraying the country somehow,
As well, much more than he was.
That was probably the greatest
satisfaction He must have had.
Today, vladimir ippolitovich vetrov
is Many things to many people.
Of course he is a traitor.
If you belong to some service
you must work in this service
And if you want to become a
traitor, be a traitor, right?
In my view, vetrov should
be a major hero of the cold war.
He should have as many stars As he
possibly could have surrounding.
One thing is clear, Vladimir vetrov
had a major impact on the cold war.
Vetrov's case has accelerated the fall
Of the soviet union by many years.
So very decisive historical moment Which makes
of it, of course to me the greatest spy story
Of the 20th century.
In his prison cell, Vetrov knew that the kgb
only had one way Of dealing with traitors.
Was he terrified in the
moments before he was executed?
Yeah, probably.
But it's just possible That there was some
small part of him that felt victorious.
Vetrov had always wanted
to achieve great things.
And at the final moment, He knew that
he had changed the course of history.