The Spy Who - The Spy Who Became Stalin's Greatest | Eastbound From The Cotswolds | 3

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

With the Nazis in retreat, the U.S. hopes to get spies on the ground in Berlin before the Soviets take the city. But Ursula Kuczynski has different plans. She’s going to co-opt the American... mission to give Stalin an edge in the coming Cold War between capitalist and communism.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of The Spy Who, add free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. August 1944. In a corner of a North London pub, four German communists sit around a wooden table, looking uncomfortable in their second-hand suits and neckties. They are all exiled anti-fascists and trade unionists who fled Nazi Germany before the war,
Starting point is 00:00:40 and ended up sitting it out in Britain. Trusted enough not to be interned, distrusted enough not to be allowed to fight in the war. And they've gathered here on a vague promise of there being a chance to help end Adolf Hitler's regime. The man who made that promise approaches their table, carrying a tray loaded with beers. He is Eric Henshke,
Starting point is 00:01:07 a stocky German communist and associate of Ursula. Kuczynski, and with him is a man the men around the table don't recognize. Henshka puts the beers on the table. The men take their pints and shuffle along to make space for him and the unfamiliar man. Henshka sits. Gentlemen, this is the man I wanted you to meet. Lieutenant Joseph Gould from the US Office of Strategic Services. Lieutenant Gould smiles.
Starting point is 00:01:41 He doesn't look like much of a soldier. He's youthful, bespectacled, and wearing a suit. Hi, folks, pleased to meet you. One of the men eyes him warily over his pint glass. You a spy? If you're asking if I work in intelligence, yes I do, sir. The men nod. Henshka cuts in.
Starting point is 00:02:04 Lieutenant Gould has a proposal I think you will be interested in. Thank you, Eric. I'll get to the point. I'm looking for Germans, reliable anti-Nazis, to undertake a mission inside Germany. It won't be long before our troops are fighting on German soil, but Germany is an intelligence dead zone. We need people on the ground, men who know the country and the people. One of the men, Paul Lindner, puts down his beer. Lindner is a 33-year-old former metal worker from Berlin,
Starting point is 00:02:40 whose good looks have been marred by the beatings he suffered at the hands of Nazis. If it helps Finnish Hitler, I'm interested. You need to know that it will be hazardous. We'll pay you $331 a month. But if you're caught, the Germans won't treat you as soldiers. You could be killed, although we will compensate your families if that happens. So what's the mission? We parachute you into Germany ahead of the Allied advance.
Starting point is 00:03:09 You blend in, you reconnect with people you trust and build small intelligence rings. Then, report back on troop movements, industrial targets, civilian morale, transport links, anything that helps the Allied push. And how are we supposed to report back? We're developing a new communication system. I can't say more now, but it'll let you relay information almost as soon as you have it. So are you interested? Henshke speaks before any of the others can. We'll discuss this amongst ourselves,
Starting point is 00:03:46 and then we'll get back to you. The meeting went better than Henshke anticipated. Gould wants men on the ground. He's not worried about their politics, so long as they are anti-Nazi. And that means his operation is ripe for infiltration by Moscow. The following Sunday, on a street corner in West London, Henshka waits inside a red telephone box. It rings right on time.
Starting point is 00:04:26 Sonia? Down the line from another payphone elsewhere in England, he hears the voice of Soviet spy Ursula Kaczynski, code name Sonia. How is the meeting? He wants our men. He doesn't care much who he hires, as long as they. are anti-Nazi and willing to risk their lives, which they are. Excellent. He mentioned some sort of new communication system the men would use.
Starting point is 00:04:52 He was reluctant to say exactly what it was, so I presume it's secret. The centre will want to know about that. So we should help them. Yes. Henshke hangs up and steps out of the phone box. He has his instructions now. He'll let Gould know that the men. are willing to go ahead.
Starting point is 00:05:18 Officially, they'll be spies for the Americans, but in reality, they will be double agents infiltrating a U.S. intelligence operation to help the Soviet Union. Does it bother you that the world is on fire? Do you also often find yourself choking on your own rage? Maybe you too perpetually feel like screaming bloody freaking murder into your own pillow.
Starting point is 00:05:48 Well, hop in, rabble-razer. We're going hunting for a man of four. Listen to Dan Taberski's manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. Police in Irvine, California, are investigating the double murder of a young couple in the parking lot of their apartment complex. A double homicide grabs the public's attention by the throat. We have identified Christopher Dorner as a suspect in this double homicide. A former cop, and still in the loose. Considered armed and extremely dangerous.
Starting point is 00:06:18 And scariest of all, he left something behind. A particular interest is a multi-page manifesto. This manifesto on Facebook is 11 pages long. Trace, this manifesto from this suspect who's targeting cops, it's stumbling. Listen to the show, The New Yorker calls one of the best podcasts of the summer. Dan Tiberski's Manifesto. And I tell you, this manifesto, it scares a hell out of the way. Listen to Dan Tiberski's Manifesto, wherever you get your podcasts,
Starting point is 00:06:46 or binge the entire series right now, only with Audible. I'm Amelia Folk. and this is The Spy Who, an audible original. In the last episode, Ursula Kaczynski married her British agent, Len Bjerton, and relocated to England, where she helped Klaus Fuchs leak Britain's atomic secrets to Moscow. Now she's got a new target, subverting an operation run by America's new foreign intelligence agency, the OSS, to help the Soviet Union take Berlin. This is Episode 3, Eastbound from the Cotswolds.
Starting point is 00:07:39 Seven months later, March 11, 1945, the outskirts of Berlin. On a hill, Paul Lindner stands alone in the dark after parachuting into Germany a week earlier. The Soviet Red Army is just outside the city, preparing for the final assault on the German capital. The American and British troops advancing from the west are more than 300 miles away. But somewhere overhead, invisible in the night sky, an American reconnaissance aircraft is circling the city. From inside his overcoat, Lindner pulls out a large metal handset. He extends its aerial, checks the connections and switches it on. This handset is part of the OSS's secret radio communication system known as Joan Eleanor.
Starting point is 00:08:42 Lindner can use it to communicate directly with the reconnaissance aircraft six miles above him. It's a wartime first, allowing two-way communication with spies behind enemy lines without relying on heavy and easily detected radio transceivers. A voice from the plane of the plane. above comes through the earpiece of Lindner's handset. Is that you, Heinz? Lindner presses the earpiece tight against his ear and replies using the agreed call sign. Is that you, Vic?
Starting point is 00:09:17 Ready for your report? Item 1. Potential Target, the Klingenberg Power Plant. It remains operational and is still providing power to defense industries. Roger. Item 2. An attack on the marshalling yard could paralyze the rail station. system. 26, repeat 26 freight trains and 1818 passenger trains are currently stationed there. Roger.
Starting point is 00:09:44 Item 3, low on supplies, request airdrop. No more items. Over. Roger and out. Five weeks later, April 21st, 1945, 3 a.m. Berlin is collapsing. The Soviet Red Army has arrived and the final backer. with the Nazis is underway. Streets are shattered, buildings burn, and in the northeast of the city, through the darkness,
Starting point is 00:10:16 Paul Lindner moves carefully, keeping to the shadows. He carries the OSS radio handset with him, but if he's caught with it by either side, he risks imprisonment and execution. The Nazis will think he's a spy, and the Soviets will think he's a German resistance fighter. resistance fighter. So he's heading to the address of a safe house he memorized before leaving London. A man's face appears in the half-open doorway. Lindner whispers the password. Sonia.
Starting point is 00:10:54 Lindner is pulled inside without another word. He follows the man through the house and out into the rear allotment, where they stop between a plum tree and a chicken coop. The man The man nods to the soil at their feet. This is the place. Then, with the man's help, Lindner buries the top secret handset in the ground. Nine days later, the battle for Berlin is almost over. Soviet troops control most of the city. A Red Army officer stands outside the safe house.
Starting point is 00:11:45 Once again, the man who lives there leads the stranger through the house and to the allotment at the back, and finally to the spot between the plum tree and the chicken coop. The army officer begins to dig, and within moments, he has found what he came for. The OSS handset is recovered. The officer inspects it briefly, then hands over a receipt and heads back into the night.
Starting point is 00:12:18 America's new spy communication system is now in Soviet hands and on its way to its military intelligence agency, the GRU, which will unlock its high-tech secrets and then deploy them in the service of the Motherland. One week later, May 8, 1945, Summertown, Oxfordshire. Inside her home, Ursula stands at a table and finishes filling a victorious sponge cake
Starting point is 00:12:56 aided by her daughter Nina. Careful, spread it evenly. That's it. Job done. Ursula lifts the cake and carries it outside, where neighbours have set up long tables along the street to celebrate VE Day. The war in Europe is over.
Starting point is 00:13:17 Germany has surrendered. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler has taken his own life and Berlin is under Soviet control. Across Britain, people are celebrating. A neighbour waves Ursula towards one of the tables. Wonderful looking cake. Here, put it next to the scones. Can you believe it, Ursula?
Starting point is 00:13:41 The war is finally over and life can return to normal. I'm so happy. It is a truly wonderful moment. Ursula shares her neighbour's joy, but she has more to celebrate than most. The Centre has confirmed the success of her last mission. The OSS's secret communication system is now in Soviet hands. Her agent, Klaus Fox, is in America, feeding Moscow the secrets of the US atomic bomb project, and her home city, Berlin, is finally under communist rule.
Starting point is 00:14:20 Meanwhile, her network of spies in Britain have, so far, evaded the attention of the British Security Service, MI5. But while the Britons around her celebrate the end of the war with Germany, Ursula is already looking forward to the future. Because now the Nazis are defeated, she can finally refocus on the ultimate goal of bringing down capitalism. Autumn, 1946, Great Rollwright, the Cotswolds, Oxfordshire, one year after the end of World War II. Ursula cycles out of the village and along a quiet country lane.
Starting point is 00:15:12 She passes beneath a railway bridge, continues to a crossroads, then stops counting the line of trees. two, three, four. At the fourth tree, she kneels and reaches into the hollow at its base. The dead drop site is empty. No message, no money, no signal from Moscow. Four weeks ago, Ursula's Soviet handler failed to show at a meeting in London. In the event of this happening, someone else is supposed to leave a message for her here. She's checked the dead drop site several times since then, but it has always been empty,
Starting point is 00:16:00 and her instructions are clear. If contact is broken, due to the risk of compromise, she must not attempt to re-establish contact with the centre by radio. She turns around and begins to cycle back home, checking over her shoulder to see if anyone has seen her. has seen her. With no contact from Moscow, she has no orders and no money. But its loss also signals something far more worrying. It could well mean that the British Security Service is closing in on her and her network. Hey, Dan Tiberski here. I'm a podcast host, a journalist, and now with my newest project, the author of my own manifesto. Well, it's a
Starting point is 00:17:01 Manifesto about manifestos. My search for inspiration in a world that feels more infuriating, more out of its freaking mind with each passing hour. Manifestos are a call to action, an artful scream. They capture our anger and they try to do something with it. This is my attempt to take the manifesto back from mass shooters and nihilists and return it to its rightful place with the warriors, the visionaries, the regular folks with just the right amount of crazy. I compare notes with radicals, secessionists, internet trolls out for a laugh, and punk singers screaming their guts out, all trying to turn their anger into the world they want to see. Listen to Manifesto wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:17:41 Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Manifesto early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. 30 years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City. Who will you trust your friends and neighbors? Who will you trust the people five miles overseas? This is a story about neighbors turning on each other, and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough. Listen to revisionist history, the Staten Island problem, wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:18:28 August 1947, nearly one year later, rugby mansions, West London. Ursula's former agent, Alexander Foote, looks out of the window at the tree-lined street and can almost taste freedom. He's been in Moscow since the end of the war, but persistent interrogations by the GRU have stripped away any remaining belief he had in the Soviet system. A few days ago, on route to a new foreign posting, he turned himself over to Britain's Secret Intelligence Service,
Starting point is 00:19:02 also known as MI6. Foot readies himself as an MI6 officer switches on a tape recorder and resumes his interrogation. Let's go over your time in Munich during the war again. You said you were part of a Russian spy ring run out of Switzerland. Yes, that's correct. Foot wants to defect, and to do that, he needs to gain the trust of MI6
Starting point is 00:19:28 and convince them he's not a double agent, sent by Moscow to infiltrate British intelligence. So he'll need to tell them everything he knows, and that could put others at risk. where in Switzerland was the ring's leader, Coe-sur Montreau, near Lake Geneva. And what was his name? He was a she, a woman.
Starting point is 00:19:52 A woman? Yes. What was her name? Foot pauses. If he can't convince MI6 he is genuine, they will send him back to Moscow, where a gulag or worse will await him. But while his loyalty to the centre is gone,
Starting point is 00:20:07 he still feels loyal to the people he worked with during the war. Ursula Burtain. Burtain? That's her name now. She married one of the agents for a British passport. And is she still active? No.
Starting point is 00:20:24 Really? Why is that? Foot frames his answer carefully, hoping to protect Ursula while preserving his own credibility. She felt betrayed by the Soviet Nazi pact. She left Switzerland as soon as possible and came to England to put it all behind her. So she was disillusioned with communism. Yes, especially after Russia invaded Finland, she considered it a naked act of aggression. It made her see Stalin for who he was another dictator.
Starting point is 00:20:57 I wish I'd had the same clear-sightedness a bit sooner myself. Thank you, Mr. Foot. You've been most helpful. I think we can take a break. A month later, great roll right, the conference. In her farmhouse cottage kitchen, Ursula is mixing a cake for her son Peter's fourth birthday when there's a knock at the door. She wipes her hands on her apron and goes to open it. Three men stand outside, a uniformed policeman and two in civilian clothes. One of the civilians wears a Trilby hat and Macintosh. A pipe hangs from the corner of his mouth. The policeman removes his helmet.
Starting point is 00:21:46 Good day, Mrs. Burtain. I am Detective Constable Herbert of Chipping Norton Police Station. These gentlemen would like to speak with you. May we come in? Now, I'm in the middle of baking a cake. But I suppose you're going to want to come in anyway. She ushers the three men into the living room. But before she can ask them to sit,
Starting point is 00:22:10 the man with the hat removes his pipe and says, starts talking. I'm Mr. Sneddon and this is my colleague, Mr. Saville. We know you used to be a Russian agent until the Finnish war disillusioned you. We're aware that you haven't been active in England and we are not here to arrest you. If his intention was to wrong foot Ursula, it has the opposite effect. She's been expecting the knock at the door ever since becoming a spy, but she didn't expect it to be quite so comical. like a cup of tea, constable? Yes, please. Milk and two sugars. And Mr. Sneddon? Well, go on then. Yes, please. And Saville will have one too. Moments later, Ursula pours tea. Sits and looks expectantly
Starting point is 00:23:07 at Sneddon. So, are you going to tell me what this is about? It's about your time in Switzerland. We know you became disillusioned with communism and are now a loyal British, subject. So there's nothing to fear if you cooperate and tell us about your activities there. I am a loyal British subject now, but that doesn't oblige me to speak about my past. I am quite happy to talk about my years in England. I've been very happy here. She sees Sneddon watch her as she glances through the window to where Len is working in the garden. Why refuse to tell us about it if you've done nothing wrong. We have information about what you were doing from a leak in Russian intelligence. We just need you to clear up a few ambiguities. I'm afraid I can't help you.
Starting point is 00:24:05 I don't intend to tell lies and therefore I prefer not to answer your questions. Shall I fetch my husband? We have visitors. Minutes later. Minutes later, Burtain joins them from the garden, and Ursula excuses herself. I was about to put a cake in the oven when you arrived. Would you mind if I did that while you speak to Len? Sneddon looks a little put out, but she goes back to the kitchen anyway and listens through the open door as she spoons cake mixture into a tin. Mr. Bjerton, I understand you knew Alexander Foot.
Starting point is 00:24:54 Footy, yes. What's he doing nowadays? Ursula puts the cake in the oven and returns to the men with a fresh pot of tea top up anyone, Mr Sneddon Thank you Mrs Beerton Your loyalty to your former employers is understandable
Starting point is 00:25:15 But you know it would not be reciprocated My loyalties are to ideals Not people But you are anti-communist now I wouldn't describe myself as anti-communist, but I don't see any contradiction between being a loyal British subject and holding left-wing views. You may not, Mrs Beerton, but if you don't come clean, others in your family may come under suspicion. Ursula doesn't answer, and Sneddon picks up his hat and pipe and prepares to leave. If you change your mind about talking, get in touch with Detective Huron.
Starting point is 00:25:58 Ursula shows the three men out, and, just as they are about to leave, Saville, who has remained quiet throughout the exchange, speaks for the first time. It's beautiful here. It must be lovely living like this. I shouldn't mind it. If the observation is supposed to be a threat to her established way of life, Ursula ignores it. That could be arranged. I happen to be looking for a lodger. Late 1947, great roll right. It's early morning when Ursula hears the post arriving and leaves her bedroom to retrieve it. As she passes along the landing, she glances through an open door at her sleeping father.
Starting point is 00:26:58 Robert Kaczynski has been living with the family for the past three months since Ursula's mother died, but his cancer is in its final stages. She knows it won't be long before she loses him too. In the hallway, she sorts through the post and spots a letter from Berlin. She tears it open. The paper has been folded more than once.
Starting point is 00:27:27 MI5 have not been back, but Ursula suspects they are monitoring her mail and movements. Not that she's been doing much of anything. since Moscow ceased communication more than a year ago. She takes the letter to the kitchen where Len is sitting, smoking and staring into space. It's starting to rain, and Ursula shivers in the early morning chill, wishing the money from the centre hadn't dried up. With just Len's wages from his job at the aluminium factory to live off,
Starting point is 00:28:02 they can't afford to heat the house properly. She sits and moves her chair close to Len so that the lodger they have taken in to help with the bills will not overhear her. I've had a letter from Juergen. Her brother moved to East Berlin at the end of the war and is working there as an academic. He's suggesting we move out there, Len.
Starting point is 00:28:25 It's a possibility. What do you think? I don't speak very good German. Oh. She gets up and goes to the window. looking out as heavy rain falls outside. Len is increasingly depressed these days and can only see the negatives.
Starting point is 00:28:45 But for her, East Berlin sounds like the new communist utopia she always dreamed of, and moving there would mean getting rid of MI5 for good. Leaving won't be easy. She's already forced her young family to move several times over, and finally they're settled. She's not sure she can bring herself to uproot them again.
Starting point is 00:29:23 January 1949, Prague. Just over a year since receiving Juergen's letter, Ursula is meeting her brother in Czechoslovakia while he is there on academic business. Jirgen, it's so good to see you. She embraces him warmly. You too?
Starting point is 00:29:42 I'm sorry, but I haven't got long. Shall we walk? She falls into stork. step beside him, disappointed by the cool reception, despite knowing that Juergen has never been one for emotion. I was hoping I might visit you in East Germany, but my visitor's visa was refused. That's how it is. Only people on official business are allowed in. The risk of spies getting into the East on false pretenses is too great. That's why I suggested you meet me here. I'd still like to see it for myself. Is there no way around that for someone like me?
Starting point is 00:30:22 You'd need approval from the centre. And how? I'm sorry, I've just seen the time. I'm going to have to go. But it was good to see you. Ursula remains where she is, trying to decide what to do next as her brother rushes off to his meeting. She came all this way, not just to see him, but To ask for his help should she need to leave Britain in a hurry. And now that she's here, she's not going to leave empty-handed. Moments later, Ursula walks towards the Soviet embassy and she's about to break with protocol. In her bag is an envelope addressed to the Soviet military attache. Inside is a note to the centre asking for permission to visit Berlin and reminding them how
Starting point is 00:31:16 to contact her. She stops at regular intervals, making sure she's not being followed. It's quite possible that the British have alerted MI6 travel plans and someone is keeping tabs on her. But this could be her only chance to re-establish contact with Moscow. She arrives at the embassy, delivers her letter and walks away briskly. briskly. One year later, January 1950, great roll right. Ursula cycles
Starting point is 00:31:59 carefully on the icy road to the dead drop site beyond the railway bridge. Earlier in the winter, Len skidded on the ice, falling from his motorbike, breaking his leg and losing his job as a result.
Starting point is 00:32:13 The family is desperate for money, so Ursula keeps checking the site more out of hope than anything else. She leans her bike against the tree and reaches into the hollow at its roots. There's an envelope inside. At last. Ursula tears it open with icy fingers. Inside is some cash and a message from the centre. Moscow has granted her permission to visit East Berlin. She is finally coming in from the cold. A month later, great roll right.
Starting point is 00:32:57 Ursula opens the front door and picks up the milk bottles and her copy of the Oxford Times. She glances at the front page as she walks to the kitchen, but stops in her tracks. On the front page is a photograph of her former agent, Klaus Fuchs. Beneath that, the headline, German atomic scientist arrested. She sits and reads the article trying to work out if his arrest spells danger for her.
Starting point is 00:33:29 She's been careful. He only knows her as Sonia and he doesn't know where she lives, or any details of her life. Even under interrogation, there is only so much he can reveal. But as she reads on, her heart skips a beat. The report says Fox passed atomic secrets to Moscow by, meeting a foreign woman with black hair in Banbury. It won't be long now before MI5 joins the dots. And when they do, she has no intention of being here. A month later, February 1950, Great Rollwright.
Starting point is 00:34:19 In her bedroom, Ursula packs clothes for herself and the children into four large kit bags. She adds a couple of Chinese prints from her time in Shanghai, a postcard from Switzerland, and a framed photograph of Richard, the man who recruited her. Her life, as a spy, zipped into a few bags. She's received approval to go to East Berlin and is preparing for departure. She's already burned every potentially incriminating item in the house, and that leaves just one more thing.
Starting point is 00:34:55 to get rid of. She goes downstairs, intending to remove her radio transmitter from the cellar. But her lodger is sitting nearby. As Ursula approaches, she begins her habitual, nosy round of questioning. Have you been packing? I keep thinking that it's odd that the school is happy for you
Starting point is 00:35:20 to take the children out during term time. Will it be very cold there? I've noticed you're taking a lot of clothes for a holiday. It's not really a holiday. I have to deal with my father's estate. And since Lenz broken his leg, I can hardly leave him to care for the children. Ursula knows that her lodger likes to gossip. If she's going to spread the news that she's taking the children away,
Starting point is 00:35:46 then she needs to give her a cast-iron reason. She also needs her out of the house so that she can clear the cellar. You're right, and I probably am taking too much with me, but I'm not sure how long it will all take. Best to be prepared, but there's so much to do. I was wondering, do you think you could help me with some of the washing? There's a basket in the kitchen which needs hanging out to dry. Of course.
Starting point is 00:36:16 The lodger puts her book down and goes through to the back of the house, allowing Ursula to head down to the cellar. Here, she retrieves the radio, wraps it in sacking, then heads outside. She carries it quickly to the nearby woods. Then she buries the last remaining piece of evidence that she has ever been a Soviet spy. Three months later, East Berlin. Ursula sits at a table in an apartment with a GRU officer sent from Moscow. It is International Workers' Day, and she's been invited for a celebratory, if modest, meal.
Starting point is 00:37:13 Bradfast with potato salad and sauerkraut and a glass of Rodkipien sparkling wine. Tell me, Mrs. Burtain, are you enjoying life here in East Germany? Ursula pushes the Brat first onto her fog and decides to give an honest answer. My apartment is cold, cramped, and rather drab. A bit like this one. She gestures at the beige-coloured walls stained with damp. But I am happy to no longer be leading a double life. And how were your last years in England?
Starting point is 00:37:48 Honestly, they were not easy. I had no contact with the centre, no instructions, and no purpose. That was an error on the centre's part. The agent got the wrong dead-drop site. He thought it was the fourth tree after the railway bridge. not the fourth one after the crossroads after the bridge, as you explained in your letter. Thankfully, you were able to get in touch, and here you are. He raises his glass and touches it to hers.
Starting point is 00:38:20 And I am here, on behalf of the Centre, to congratulate you on your work. In China, Poland, Switzerland, and finally Britain, where you were key in helping the Soviet Union build its own nuclear bomb. I was just doing my job and that helped the Soviet Union to where it is now but Comrade Stalin has warned that the capitalist West is preparing
Starting point is 00:38:45 for conflict, possibly nuclear already war in Korea seems likely and the GRU will play a major role so when will you be ready to resume your duties? Ursula pushes her plate away I do not wish to continue spying The officer blinks in disbelief.
Starting point is 00:39:08 Service to Soviet intelligence is not something one simply walks away from, major. It's a commitment for as long as the revolution continues. I remain committed to the Soviet Union and that struggle. But my nerves and my concentration are not what they were. Twenty years is enough. I want to stay here in Berlin. but I don't wish to spy anymore. Ursula stands and walks over to the window
Starting point is 00:39:41 where the afternoon spring sunshine is just beginning to filter through. After years of operating in the shadows, the time has come for her to emerge and lead an ordinary life. In a rare move, the GRU agreed to let Ursula leave the service. She was later joined by her husband, and Len and her eldest son Misha in East Berlin.
Starting point is 00:40:12 There she reinvented herself as a successful children's author using the pen name, Ruth Varner. By then, she had secured her place as one of the USSR's most important spies, recruiting more agents than almost anyone in the history of Soviet military intelligence. She played a central role in helping Moscow obtain the secrets that accelerated, its atomic bomb program and rose to become the highest-ranking female officer in the GRU. But the communist utopia she had believed in never matched the reality of life in East Germany. There, the woman who had spied for over 20 years found herself living under constant surveillance, watched by the Stasi, questioned about her loyalties, and increasingly troubled by the repression
Starting point is 00:41:07 and dishonesty of the system she served. Over time, and especially after the revelations about Stalin's crimes and the USSR's later crises, she concluded that socialism, as built in the Soviet bloc, was deeply flawed. Ursula outlived all the men she had loved. She saw the Berlin Wall rise and fall, and lived long enough to watch the communist world collapse before she died in July 2000 at the age of 93.
Starting point is 00:41:43 The man who first recruited her in Shanghai, whose photo she kept throughout her life and whom she knew as Richard Johnson, was in fact Richard Zorga, one of the greatest spies of the 20th century. Next time on The Spy Who, Charlie Hickson talks to former CIA officer, Anne E. Butler,
Starting point is 00:42:07 to find out how she raised five kids while living a double life as an undercover spy. Follow the Spy Who on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of The Spy Who ad free by joining Audible. You've been listening to The Spy Who, an audible original. If you'd like to know more about Klaus Fuchs and the atomic secrets he passed to Moscow, you can hear his story in season seven of The Spy Who, The Spy Who started the Cold War. Have you got a spy story you'd like us to tell?
Starting point is 00:42:55 Email your ideas to The Spy Who at audible.com. A quick note about the scenes you've been hearing. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said. Those scenes are dramatizations, but they're based on the best available sources. We used many sources in our research for this season, including Agent Sonia by Ben McIntyre and Sonia's report by Ursula Gachinsky.
Starting point is 00:43:24 The Spy Who was hosted by me, Amelia Fox, produced by Audible with Yellow Ant. This episode was written by Lizzie Enfield and researched by Louise Byrne, with thanks to Cat Whitehouse and Inner Bruce. The senior producer was Jane. Priest, the sound designer was Joshua Morales. The lead sound designer was Damian Pace. For Yellowant, the story editor and executive producer was Tristan Donovan. For Audible, the executive
Starting point is 00:43:58 producers were Estelle Doyle and Theodora Lilludis. Head of Production, Audible Europe, Chris Jones, Senior Director of Originals, Lisa Higginson. Head of Audible Originals International, O'Reilly de Troye. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Ltd.

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