The librarian who stole KGB secrets

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. When an elderly man with a battered suitcase walked into the British Embassy in Vilnius in 1992, few could have guessed what he was about to hand over. In today's podcast, Author and journalist Gordon Carrera tells the story of Vassily Mitrokin, a Soviet archivist who embarked on a quiet rebellion that exposed the deepest secrets of the KGB. But what was driving him, and what impact did this intelligence have in the years after the Cold War had effectively ended?

Gordon explains more about the subject of his new book, The Spy in the Archive, to Eleanor Evans. Gordon, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about your new book, The Spy in the Archive. How are you doing? I'm very well, thank you, and thank you very much for having me on the podcast. It's nice to be able to talk about it with you.

It's brilliant to be talking about such a fascinating figure, Vasily Metrokin, and I wonder if some listeners might recognise him. If they were following news of sort of KGB revelations in the late 90s, his name might be familiar. But I want to rocket back to a moment that's really pivotal in the story where you start. The moment where he walks into the British embassy in the early 90s in Vilnius in Lithuania. Can you take us into this moment and give us the picture of what's happening as he does this?

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