Free Republic

George Blake, the former MI6 officer and one of the Cold War's most infamous double agents, has died aged 98, Russian media has reported. Over nine years, the Soviet spy handed over information that led to the betrayal of at least 40 MI6 agents in Eastern Europe. He was jailed in London in 1960, but escaped in 1966 and fled to Russia. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service said Blake "had a genuine love for our country".

The former British spy and Soviet Union double agent George Blake has died at the age of 98. The RIA news agency reported that Blake died in Russia, citing the country’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. “We received some bitter news – the legendary George Blake passed away,” it said. Blake was the last in a line of British spies to operate secretly for the Soviet Union, exposing the identities of hundreds of western agents across eastern Europe in the 1950s and humiliating the intelligence establishment when his work was discovered at the height of the cold war. Some of the...

November 14, 2007 Vladimir Putin honours traitor George Blake with tit-for-tat birthday medal Tony Halpin Moscow Vladimir Putin has honoured a notorious British traitor as one of Russia’s greatest spies. George Blake received the Order of Friendship during a gala celebration of his 85th birthday, in what appears to be the latest twist in deteriorating relations between Moscow and London. Mikhail Fradkov, director of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, read out telegrams from officials praising Blake’s contribution to Soviet espionage as a double agent in the British Secret Service, MI6. “It is hard to overrate the importance of the...