UK politician and former Labour Party leader Michael Foot worked for the KGB, local media reported Saturday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th September, 2018) UK politician and former Labour Party leader Michael Foot worked for the KGB, local media reported Saturday.
According to the Times newspaper, a new book The Spy and the Traitor of UK historian and columnist Ben Macintyre describes the biography of former KGB colonel Oleg Gordievsky, who was secretly working for UK intelligence. The book claims that Gordievsky's colleague from the Soviet intelligence agency told him about Foot being recruited by the KGB. Gordievsky, in turn, gave this information to UK intelligence agency MI6 in the early 1980s.
The publication claims that Foot was the Soviet "agent of influence" in the 1960s, his tasks were to promote Soviet ideas and reproduce them in articles and speeches. In general, the KGB paid the politician an equivalent to about 37,000 Pounds ($48,360) at present.
It is noted that although Foot was originally designated in the KGB files as an "agent," this definition was later replaced with "confidential contact". A senior UK intelligence agent concluded that Foot was not a Soviet "spy" or "conscious agent," but was conducting a disinformation campaign.
Intelligence reported Gordievsky's information about Foot to Robert Armstrong, aide to UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, but the parties decided to keep it a secret from the head of government.
The publication suggested that the cooperation of Foot and Soviet intelligence had discontinued after the events of 1968, known as the "Prague Spring."
