The George Blake reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

George Blake

George Blake is a British spy who was actually a double agent for the Soviets.

Born in Rotterdam in 1922, Blake was active in the anti-Nazi Dutch resistance and eventually worked for SOE. After World War II he was recruited by MI6 and worked on establishing agent networks in Soviet occupied Eastern Europe. He was later sent to Korea, and was in Seoul when it was overrun by the North Koreans. During three years as a prisoner of the North Koreans, he became converted to communism - suggested by some as a result of "brainwashing", although he insists his conversion was voluntary. After his release by the North Koreans, he was sent by MI6 to work as a double agent in Berlin, where he was actually a "triple agent"; he betrayed details of hundreds of MI6 agents to the Soviets, 42 of whom were killed.

In 1959 he was exposed by Polish defector Michael Goleniewski. In 1961 after an in camera trial, he was sentenced to 42 years imprisonment - one year for each of the agents whose deaths he had caused, and the longest sentence ever handed down by a British court. However just five years later he escaped from prison, and fled to the USSR. As of 2004, he is still living in Russia and remains a committed communist.

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