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Just over a year ago, the British Counterintelligence Service (known as MI-5) discovered classified files, including the famous Portland Spy Network case. This is what the counterintelligents called the largest known group of Soviet spies operating in Britain.
In Russia, the story is called Operation Portland, led by Soviet underground explorer Konon Molody. However, all KGB files related to this story are still classified.
Canadian lighter, passport and police
The Portland Network’s own history has been known for a long time. Soviet intelligence officer Molody pretended to be Canadian Gordon Lonsdale. Having come to the UK under a false identity, he has been establishing a successful business for several years.
Molody receives a list of agents previously recruited by the USSR, including Harry Houghton, a scientist who served in the Royal Navy. Later, H. Houghton’s mistress, a secretary of a military base, participated in the work of this group. Communication with Moscow for the Portland Group was provided by a recruited American Cohen family (surnamed Kroger, working in Great Britain).
The documents revealed showed what steps MI-5 had to take to reveal the entire group of people supervised by K. Molody.
The MI-5 investigation began after the CIA learned from its informant, nicknamed Sniper, that in the 1950s, a Polish employee (then run by the Communists) had been recruited by a British naval mission in Warsaw. When the person returned to Britain, he was “turned over to Soviet intelligence.”
MI-5 quickly established that it was H. Houghton. When he began to follow him, counterintelligents saw that he often ran into Canadian Gordon Lonsdale. After secretly checking the businessman’s safe at the bank, MI-5 scanners found a double-bottom lighter with hidden miniature encryption codes that allowed it to read secret and encrypted messages or encrypt the data that was being transmitted. A camera, other film equipment and tapes were also detected.
The British decided to search their archives for more information about this businessman and realized that they knew absolutely nothing about his past. He then contacted colleagues in Canada.
Officials in this country have been surprised to find that there is practically nothing to say about Mr. Lonsdale. All that was known was that he was born in Vancouver in 1924, and in 1955 Mr. Lonsdale went to the police to have a passport issued to him based on the information on his birth certificate.
“The complete absence of documents is probably one of the clearest proofs that Lonsdale is a secret intelligence agent,” one of the MI-5 agents noted in his comments.
Test under the torso
The Canadian police have launched a more detailed investigation. In 1961, he discovered G. Lonsdale’s father and questioned him. It turns out that the businessman’s mother, Olga Elina Bousa, divorced her husband and, after taking her 8-year-old son, left Canada. One version said they went to Finland and the other to the USSR. What fate awaited them, Gordon’s father did not know. However, he told investigators that the boy had undergone circumcision after birth.
The Canadians reported this information to MI-5. At that time, the investigation was already well advanced. The CIA informant, Sniper, had to flee to the United States. This meant that the USSR would soon begin reporting and “retiring” all agents and scouts the Sniper might have met.
MI-5 wanted to continue its investigation to identify all the people involved in the Portland Network. Classified documents state that at least one other agent who provided valuable information to the Soviets belonged to this group. However, the counterintelligence could not determine who it was due to lack of time. If the delays begin, Moscow could warn its subordinates about its disclosure. In this case, they could escape the country using forged documents.
On January 7, 1961, MI-5 was arrested by K. Molody, H. Houghton, and their lover, Ethel Gee. The arrest took place directly on the street during a threesome gathering. At the same time, a tray with confidential documents was found. On the same day, the police also arrived at Krogeri’s home. Radio equipment, a microstrip scanner, the aforementioned double-bottom lighter, tables of encryption codes and seven passports with different names were found there.
MI-5 needed to prove that Mr. Lonsdale was not just a stubborn boss, but a true USSR explorer living in Britain under someone else’s identity. This is where the information provided by Canadians was needed. Mr. Lonsdale asked during the interview that he undress halfway.
During the inspection it was found that the detainee had not been circumcised. Thus, MI-5 was able to obtain irrefutable evidence that this person was, in fact, simply pretending to be Mr. Lonsdale.
It was later learned that the real Gordon Lonsdale had died when he was still a child, and his documents fell into the hands of the KGB. In 1953, taking advantage of Gordon’s real birth certificate, Konon Molody came to Canada to start a new life in the western country.
A British court found Molody guilty and sentenced him to 25 years in prison for falsifying documents and working for foreign intelligence. Only now, with the disclosure of secret documents, is it possible to discover how the British managed to reveal the true identity of K. Molody.
Already seated in jail, the suitor G. Lonsdale befriended another Russian-speaking inmate and offered to help convey the message to his loved ones. Mr. Lonsdale gave him his mother’s address in Moscow. It turns out that the prisoner willingly cooperated with the prison management, so that message immediately fell into the hands of MI-5. However, the technical possibilities at that time to gather information about the people of Moscow ended there: the agents could not learn anything more about the identity of Mr. Lonsdale.
Soon, MI-5 agents, while reviewing the data of the case, discovered the content of one of the conversations heard. Speaking with the girl, Mr. Lonsdale alluded to attending a prestigious school in California. While living in the UK, K. Molody had written many novels, so MI-5 decided to interview all the girls they knew. One of them recalled how Mr. Lonsdale recounted his childhood in San Francisco, where he was raised by his aunt. The girl even remembered that while watching the movie, the spy talked a lot about San Francisco, as if she had lived there.
The FBI came to the rescue here and asked California school principals if they would remember a Russian student studying there in his 30s. The principal of one of the Berkeley schools recalled that in 1936-1938 a talented boy, Konon Molody, was studying with them. He lived with his aunt, the dance teacher Tatiana Pyyankova.
Death on a walk
K. Molody was born into a poor family in the USSR. When her husband died, her mother could barely make ends meet. Tatiana, the mother’s sister, who was living in Estonia at the time, offered to take the child to the United States.
But getting a visa for the United States was not so easy. The matter was taken up personally by the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs of the USSR, Genrich Jagoda. According to his instructions, the boy’s metrics were changed: a record appeared in the church where Konon was baptized that he is the illegitimate son of his father and Tatiana.
At age 11, Konon came to the United States. Five years later, his mother wrote to him that he had to decide whether to remain an American citizen and live there until the end of his life or to return to the Soviet Union. Konan chose the second option.
Before returning, his aunt organized a trip to European countries so that “when he returned to Russian poverty, he would always remember his mistake.” The trip did not change Molody’s decision and she returned home to her mother in Moscow.
Upon learning of Molody’s identity, MI-5 began to “pressure” him. They told him that his real name would be revealed to the American media. This could also represent a problem for the USSR: it could easily “accuse” it of betraying its homeland or of revealing secret information to the enemy. However, Molody refused to cooperate with British counterintelligence.
In 1962, the British businessman Greville Wynne was arrested in Budapest and later convicted of espionage. In 1964, London and Moscow agreed to exchange spies.
Until then, Britain and the USSR did not exchange spies, so the former were very concerned about it. However, the exchange took place and Mr. Molody returned to Moscow. But a sad fate awaited him here: at the age of 48, he died while biting with his family in the forest. The man collapsed and did not recover anymore.
British intelligence history experts say the case has forced MI-5 to review its working methods, the BBC notes. Later, counterintelligence officers encountered Soviet secret agents of this type for the first time.
They were no longer KGB officers working undercover, but people who could pretend to be locals or immigrants from friendly states of Britain.
Such intelligence was virtually untraceable. They could only be detected with information from refugees from Eastern countries.
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