Great Illegals

The Great Illegals were a group of Soviet Comintern espionage agents whom MI5 counterintelligence agent Peter Wright grouped together due to their masterful espionage activities against the west.[1][2][3] Often, they were generally foreigners but held Russian citizenship and were ideologically driven.[1] They were trotskyist communists who believed in international communism and the comintern. Wright considered them the best recruiters and controllers (espionage directors) that Soviet intelligence ever produced.[1] They knew each other, and together they recruited and built a number of high-grade espionage networks in hostile foreign countries, across the world.[1] Examples of these were, Arnold Deutsch who recruited Kim Philby of the Cambridge Five in Britain[4] the Red Three (Rote Drei) in Switzerland run by Alexander Radó or Leopold Trepper's network the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) in German-occupied Europe, and Richard Sorge's espionage network in China and Japan.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d e Wright, Peter (31 July 1987). Spycatcher. Stoddart. ISBN 9780773721685.
  2. ^ Boatner, Mark (1996). Biographical dictionary of World War II. Presidio Press. p. 672. ISBN 9780891416241.
  3. ^ Andrew, Christopher; Mitrokhin, Vasili (1999). The Sword and the Shield - The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. Blackstone Publishing. p. 154. ISBN 978-1470889340.
  4. ^ Gazur, Edward P (2002). Alexander Orlov : the FBI's KGB General (1st ed.). New York: Carroll and Graf. p. 398. ISBN 9780786709717.