Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part Two)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
So, you're saying with Hilton Honors, I can use points for a free night stay anywhere?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
Anywhere.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:06)
What about fancy places like the Canopy in Paris?

**Mia Sorrenti** (0:08)
Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:10)
Or relaxing sanctuaries like the Conrad in Tulum?

**Mia Sorrenti** (0:13)
Hilton Honors, baby.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:15)
What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you gonna do this for all 9,000 properties?

**SPEAKER_4** (0:22)
When you want points that can take you anywhere, any time, it matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:29)
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**Mia Sorrenti** (0:54)
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. In this episode, we return for part two of our recent live event, with co-host of The Rest is classified and former security correspondent for BBC News, Gordon Corera.
Corera joined us recently at Conway Hall to discuss life and death in the KGB with Sean Walker, Central and Eastern Europe correspondent for The Guardian. If you haven't heard part one, do just jump back an episode to catch up. Now let's return to the conversation live at Conway Hall in London.

**Sean Walker** (1:27)
The last question about how they deal with Matrokin. So I mean, there's this interesting moment where they get him to London and they realise the value of what he's bringing, but they realise they've got a bit of a problem paying him, right?

**Gordon Corera** (1:43)
Oh, yeah.

**Sean Walker** (1:44)
So what happens then?

**Gordon Corera** (1:44)
Well, because the Brits are like, great, we'll get him out. We'll get the files. And then, and this is very redolent of today, they turn to the Treasury because they need money to resettle him. And this has to go through the Treasury. And the Treasury says, no. I mean, we haven't got any money. And they say, Cold War's over. You don't want all this money to resettle him and his family? What's that all about? And so they then go back to the Americans.
They say, remember that guy you turned away?
Would you like to pay for him? We'll give you all the access to the secrets. And so they actually do a deal for that. And it's quite interesting, because one American who kind of dealt with it all said to me, maybe we actually got the best end of the deal, because we had to pay a million dollars, but we didn't have to deal with him. And he was really hard to deal with him.

**Sean Walker** (2:29)
The Brits had to deal with him.

**Gordon Corera** (2:31)
So I think there was a slight element where, you know, it was, you know, as I said, I mean, I've got a lot of sympathy for the man, but I don't think he was he was not easy.

**Sean Walker** (2:39)
Which is the case with many defectors, right?

**Gordon Corera** (2:41)
Yeah, I mean, they're driven people. They're driven people who are, who've taken huge risks, you know. I mean, to do what he did, you know, no normal person would do that, to take such risks because you believe in something. I mean, I think that's incredibly admirable, but it also makes you a driven person, and maybe sometimes in some cases, not all cases, that can make you difficult. And that will be the problem when he's out, because the idea is to publish this archive, because, but that's actually going to be a long and quite difficult journey, which is that he wants all the secrets of the KGB out in the raw, and MI6 will ask Christopher Andrew, the eminent kind of Cambridge historian, professor there, to work on the archive, and he wants to put context around it, to explain these odd notes. You know, and you've seen the archive. It's not easy to understand without context, and the two clash, you know, quite badly. And the relationship breaks down. At one point, Mitrokin actually discusses getting lawyers and saying, you know, maybe I'm going to get my lawyers to argue, you know, I've got the copyright for the archive. And I think someone from MI6 thinks to themselves, if anyone has the copyright to this archive, it's the KGB.