A Spy Like No Other-Plates

A stern image of Ivan Serov, taken in 1955 when he was Chairman of the KGB. His short stature is demonstrated by his feet being off the ground. © Corbis

A smiling Ivan Serov with his homely wife, Valya, speaking to Edmund Stevens, the veteran Moscow correspondent for several Western newspapers and magazines. © Getty Images

The CIA and MI6 jointly built a tunnel under the Soviet Sector of Berlin to tap strategically important communications cables. The tap chamber (at the bottom of the photo) was just inches below the road surface. The tunnel was ‘discovered’ by the Soviets on 22 April 1956, but they had known about it from the early planning stages from information supplied by George Blake, the Soviet mole inside MI6. © Bundesarchiv

George Blake, an MI6 officer, arriving back in the United Kingdom on 1 April 1953 after being held captive for three years by the Communist North Koreans. The Communists had ‘turned’ him and he immediately started to spy for the Soviet KGB. © Corbis

Janet and Ruari Chisholm. During their posting to Moscow Ruari was head of the MI6 station but it was Janet who made regular contact with Penkovsky, the Soviet military intelligence officer who passed an incredible amount of high-quality military and other intelligence to MI6 and the CIA.

Revolutionaries in Budapest burn a picture of Stalin during the Hungarian uprising in the autumn of 1956. This would have infuriated Serov, who was in Budapest largely controlling the Soviet political and military response. © Corbis

Stalinist hard-liner Yuri Andropov was the Soviet Ambassador in Budapest during the uprising and gave strong support to Serov. © Corbis

A Minox camera and film cassette of the type used by Penkovsky inside the GRU (Soviet military intelligence). It measures 3.8 × 1.1 × 0.7 inches (96 × 28 × 18mm). Each cassette has thirty-six exposures. An experienced user can shoot a new document every three or four seconds.

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan talking to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the British Embassy in Paris on 15 May 1960. © Corbis

Greville Wynne (top, speaking into microphone) and Oleg Penkovsky (bottom) on trial in Moscow in May 1963 on charges of spying for the West. Penkovsky was sentenced to death and Wynne to eight years in prison. © Corbis

Penkovsky listening to his death sentence in Soviet court, 11 May 1963. © Corbis

The Berlin Wall, April 1962. A young woman, accompanied by her boyfriend, stands – precariously – near the top of the Wall to talk to her mother in East Berlin. © Corbis

Khrushchev embracing Cuban President Fidel Castro at the Soviet Legislation Building in New York, 23 September 1960. © Corbis

President John F. Kennedy meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the White House, 18 October 1962. Gromyko insisted Soviet arms in Cuba were purely defensive but Kennedy already knew there were offensive weapons there. © US National Security Archive

Crates holding Komar guided-missile patrol boats on the deck of a ship bound for Cuba, September 1962. © US National Security Archive

A U-2 photograph of the first IRBM site found under construction in Cuba. It was taken on 17 October 1962. © US National Security Archive

President John F. Kennedy in the limousine on Main Street, Dallas, minutes before he was assassinated.

The view Oswald would have had, looking out from the sixth floor of the School Book Depository building to Elm Street, from where he shot President Kennedy. © Getty Images

Nightclub owner Jack Ruby: very much his own man. He shot Oswald for killing the President of the United States. © Corbis

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