The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

by Ben Macintyre

Major Petrov clearly had a sense of humor, and had been unable to resist the pun on Foot/Boot when choosing a code name. But the rest of the dossier was deadly serious. It described, step by step, how a twenty-year relationship with Foot had evolved since the late 1940s, when the KGB decided that he was “progressive.” At their first meeting with Foot, in the offices of Tribune, KGB officers posing as diplomats slipped £10 into his pocket (worth roughly £250 today). He did not object. One sheet in the file listed the payments made to Foot over the years. This was a standard form, with the date, amount, and name of the paying officer. Gordievsky scanned the figures and estimated there had been between ten and fourteen payments during the 1960s, of between £100 and £150 each, so roughly £1,500 in total, worth more than £37,000 ($49,000) today. What happened to the money is unclear. Lyubimov later told Gordievsky that he suspected Foot might have “kept some for himself,” but the Labour MP was not a mercenary man, and it seems more likely the cash was used to prop up Tribune, which was perennially broke. Another page listed the case officers who had run Agent BOOT out of the London rezidentura