There could have been a World War III… perhaps. And, if there’s someone to credit for preventing such a disaster, it’s Oleg Gordievsky – the greatest spy you’ve never heard of. There have been cases where spies have had a profound impact on history, like the breaking of The Enigma Code, which shortened World War II by at least a year and the espionage and deception that helped in the Normandy landing. The arena of world-changing spies is tiny and select, and Oleg Gordievsky is in it.
Source: Wikimedia Commons / Flickr
The only reason we even know who Gordievsky is now is because one American eventually uncovered his identity and alerted his superiors. And these weren’t just any superiors – they were the notoriously unforgiving KGB, the Soviet Union’s espionage organization. Throughout the Cold War, the British Secret Service used Gordievsky to gain invaluable information. And it was this information that effectively changed the course of history.