watch for spies
The other side of the spy ring, the communications experts, had created the perfect cover story. Peter and Helen Kroger were second-hand Americana booksellers and housewives to their neighbors in a quiet London suburb. This was an ideal cover for their activities, as the book describes their regular overseas trips, even behind the Iron Curtain. Inside an apparently nondescript bungalow, they had built a sophisticated communications center equipped with hidden radio transmitters and microdot equipment. Their real names were Morris and Rona Cohen, both American nationals and veteran Soviet intelligence agents.
In the center, the KGB liaison running operations on behalf of Moscow was known around London as Gordon Lonsdale, a Canadian businessman who specialized in supplying jukeboxes and vending machines. He enjoyed the benefits of capitalism and was able to buy a car and a yacht through his profitable business. In fact, his name was Konon Molody, a Russian-born KGB agent. His role in the Portland spy ring was to obtain information from two insiders at the research facility and pass it on to the Krogers. This activity continued undetected for several years until intelligence agencies received information that could not be ignored.
Polish intelligence officer, one of the most important spies of the Cold War Michal Goleniewskialso known as Sniper, was a triple agent who provided Soviet and Polish secrets to the CIA. He said the Soviets had highly placed British informants involved in naval research. Although the information was vague, it was enough for MI5 to send investigators to the Portland facility. Suspicion soon fell on Harry Houghton, and Ethel Gee and his secret trips to central London attracted much attention. At one point, they were seen handing a bag to a man later identified as Gordon Lonsdale. The road continues into the suburbs, lonsdale It was tracked to a high-tech bungalow at Kroger’s.
Over the next two months, MI5 and the police trapped the Kroger family in a house across the road owned by the Saatchi family, who were friends of the Kroger family. This surveillance operation was so dramatic that Judi Dench would later star in the 1983 hit West End play, Pack of Lies, about the surveillance operation. Officers monitored people entering and exiting the Kroger store, and investigators continued to feign normality. Her daughter Gay Saatchi, who was 15 at the time, told the BBC’s Witness History in 2014: “It’s amazing how capable my mother was. I don’t think her parents understood at first that Kroger was playing a big role in the investigation. Little by little, MI5 made her realize that Peter and Helen were not who they claimed to be.”
Source: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
