{"id":21940,"date":"2026-03-14T04:07:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T04:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/the-spy-and-the-traitor\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T04:07:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T04:07:02","slug":"the-spy-and-the-traitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/the-spy-and-the-traitor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spy and The Traitor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Read: The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 &#x1f4da;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>On the morning of 4 July, a dishevelled couple in tattered clothes could be seen lounging aimlessly at the end of Victoria Road, Coulsdon, in the South London suburbs. One was Simon Brown, of P5, MI6&#039;s head of Soviet bloc operations; the other was Veronica Price, the architect of Gordievsky&#039;s escape plan. A Home Counties creature from her pearls to her twinset, Price was not suited to this sort of subterfuge. &#039;I&#039;ve borrowed the char&#039;s hat,&#039; she announced, as they climbed into their disguises.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#039;ve not read much spy fiction but this true story of a KGB man who betrayed Russia &amp; helped cool Cold War tensions only to be first caught &amp; then escape from the USSR to Britain was quite a trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Read: The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 &#x1f4da; On the morning of 4 July, a dishevelled couple in tattered clothes could be seen lounging aimlessly at the end of Victoria Road, Coulsdon, in the South London suburbs. One was Simon Brown, of P5, MI6&#039;s head of Soviet bloc operations; the other was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"status","meta":{"mf2_syndication":[],"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[898],"tags":[2080,1597],"post_format":[642],"class_list":{"0":"post-21940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-status","6":"category-book","7":"tag-ben-macintyre","8":"tag-1597","9":"post_format-post-format-status","10":"kind-article","12":"h-entry","13":"hentry"},"better_featured_image":null,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p57zFQ-5HS","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"kind":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21940"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_format?post=21940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}