i'm liev schreiber. thanks for watching. good night. [narrator] previously on secrets & spies. [ronald reagan] people want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war. a nuclear conflict could well be mankind's last. [ken adelman] there is a cat-and-mouse relationship between intelligence agencies. it was white-hot with the emotions on both sides. [aldrich ames, on recording] he has access to some of the top secrets of the united states. he feels that people don't recognize his importance. they have underestimated aldrich ames. [bianna golodryga] the cia were itching to find out, who is this mystery spy? [aldrich, on recording] [oleg gordievsky] [crowd cheering] [narrator] this is the unseen story of the cold war... fought not by politicians... but by secret agents. [jack barsky] there was complete misunderstanding on either side. it's very difficult to determine whom you can trust. [narrator] as the soviet union faces off with the west in the early 1980s... two spies play a dangerous game from the shadows. they seek to win the upper hand while the world stands on the brink of nuclear war. these are their stories in their own words. testimony pieced together from interviews over the years... [oleg] after 11 years of secret work, maybe i develop paranoia. ...and never-before-heard recordings... [aldrich, on recording] ...that reveal the deadly intrigues at the heart of the battle between east and west. [alexander vassiliev] look, this is a war. a secret war. [dramatic music playing] [narrator] 1984 has been a momentous year. mikhail gorbachev visits great britain, and nuclear disarmament seems light years away. there were way too many nuclear weapons, and basically they were everywhere. we had intermediate-range nuclear weapons, which would go from the soviet union to western europe in something like seven minutes. the soviets could press the button and unleash a nuclear war against the west because they were fearing an unprovoked nuclear attack against themselves. [narrator] while the political standoff is cooling down, the battle played out in the shadows heats up. kgb colonel oleg gordievsky is a double agent for the british. his role in the successful meeting between prime minister thatcher and gorbachev gets the attention of his russian bosses. [alexander] as a matter of fact, mikhail gorbachev expressed his personal appreciation of what gordievsky had done with his report. [sir david omand] shortly thereafter, the moscow center chose gordievsky to be the head of the kgb station in london. from their point of view, he was clearly good at his job. mi6 is effectively running the head of the kgb station in london. an extraordinary situation. this is too good to be true. [narrator] but this triumph puts gordievsky in a dangerous spotlight. i used to know several guys who worked as spies in london. i think some officers were jealous, no doubt about it. [narrator] especially gordievsky's immediate superior at the kgb station, leonid nikitenko. [alexander] nikitenko was the head of the counterintelligence line in the london station. he was number two, and he had obviously more experience than gordievsky. [typewriter clacking] so it would have been natural if he had got that job. it was the job of nikitenko to be suspicious. if we are talking about that foreign office document, they simply asked him about his sources. how did he collect this information? [narrator] as a double agent, gordievsky plays a dangerous game of extremely high stakes. [tim naftali] and in a sense, the british were playing some kgb politics. but it was a risk, and gordievsky was prepared to take it. and so oleg understands that he's facing a death sentence if his secret is betrayed to the kgb. [suspenseful music playing] good evening, leaders from around the world have gathered in moscow to pay their last official respects to the soviet leader konstantin chernenko. more importantly, they've gone to shake hands with the new leader, mikhail gorbachev. [reporter] outside, hundreds of other soviets who were excused from work waited for their turn to pay their respects to chernenko. [susan eisenhower] by the time chernenko dies, american diplomats had observed so many funerals in moscow that it had become an absolute joke. but the successor was a vital young man from stavropol. gorbachev was a very, very different figure than the soviet leaders who'd gone before. if nothing else, he was a heck of a lot younger. [reporter] there was enormous public interest here in the new soviet leader, mr. gorbachev. his picture appeared prominently on the front page of all moscow papers today, eclipsing chernenko's obituary photo, which was inside on page two. and russians we talked to were clearly looking forward to general secretary gorbachev. i want him to fight for peace and for better life, and we hope he'll do his best. there was a great debate over who gorbachev was and what gorbachev intended to do. for kremlin watchers, there was a sense in 1984 that gorbachev has a great future. [ken] i was skeptical. here's an old drink in a new bottle. but reagan has been waiting around for three and a half years, eager to negotiate with a soviet leader. when gorbachev came in march of '85, bingo. regan was poised and ready to go. [narrator] mikhail gorbachev is the energetic and open-minded leader ronald reagan's been waiting to do business with. it could be a huge turning point... if they're willing to meet. but no one consults with aldrich ames, the cia's top kgb expert. [bianna] aldrich ames may have had a very sophisticated, impressive title, but it was a title on paper only. whatever satisfaction the work was providing is no longer there. in fact, he feels bitter. he feels that he's been betrayed in some ways by his employers, and he's not being recognized for the sort of star spy that he sees himself as capable of being. [bianna] he took to the bottle a lot. he became an alcoholic. he's having to pay off a very expensive ex-wife in a lengthy divorce process, and he is quickly running out of money and into debt. [narrator] aldrich ames is saddled with a crushing $47,000 debt, which he hides from his partner, rosario. when all these things come together, you have the conditions, maybe, for someone to do something crazy. [dramatic music playing] [narrator] ames arranges to meet sergey chuvakhin, a soviet diplomat, under the pretense of recruiting him as a double agent. [jack] first of all, if i'm the kgb guy, i'm worried that this is a dangle. it could be somebody who eventually will feed you false information. you know, you got to be really careful. particularly because people like ames are not straight shooters. [narrator] at four in the afternoon, aldrich ames walks straight into the soviet embassy and hands over his information. ames could expose 20 russian agents, including mi6's super spy gordievsky. but he starts with motorin and martinov, and effectively signs their death warrants. [bianna] this was a huge deal, what aldrich ames did. not only was the united states cia and its intelligence sources in the soviet union completely compromised, he also was in a compromised position, not knowing what tomorrow would hold. and the thing is, he can't turn it around at this point. there's no way you can back out of it. once you're in, they have you. [narrator] the very next day, a telegram arrives in london. the danger could come from different directions. the weakest link in espionage is the meeting between the operative and his agent. he could have been spotted by a soviet fellow officer. there could be an mi6 officer working for the kgb who could betray gordievsky. [narrator] to keep his cover, gordievsky has no choice. he must return to moscow. if not, he'll be defying orders and essentially admitting his guilt. [woman, over pa] passengers to moscow, this is the final call of aeroflot soviet airlines. passengers only on this flight should go immediately through the departure doors. [alexander] we were officers. we pledged our allegiance to motherland. so, what do you do to officers who betray their own motherland? what do you do to them? you execute them. norman, bad news... i never graduated from med school. what? -but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... i know... faster wifi and savings? ...i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? [narrator] gorbachev came to power two months ago. the world waits to see which side will blink first. [susan] we had enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world between, you know, 11 and 15 times. it depends on who you ask. there was always this feeling that the other side was making advances, and we had to keep up with them. [crowd cheering] [dramatic music playing] [speaking russian] [nina khrushcheva] when gorbachev came in, we were deciphering every sentence he would utter. [speaking russian] and he started with celebrating or mentioning how great stalin was. and i remember my family was like, "that's it, that we're dead again. something is gonna happen." [narrator] margaret thatcher tells president reagan that gorbachev is someone she can do business with, and reagan is keen to believe her. [ken] soon after march of '85, we're asked to set up something that might be a summit between the two of them. i was skeptical. [indistinct chatter] the main thing we needed was, what is going to happen? okay? what is gorbachev going to do? [narrator] reagan hopes to build bridges with gorbachev, but he pushes on with his star wars program. my fellow americans, thank you for sharing your time with me tonight. the subject i want to discuss with you, peace and national security, is both timely and important. timely because i've reached a decision which offers a new hope for our children in the 21st century. [narrator] it's the anti-missile defense system that would take the nuclear arms race to space, and it terrifies the soviets. [peter jennings] well, overseas this monday, the soviet union continues to attack the president's proposal for an anti-missile defense system in space. this time, it was the communist party newspaper which said the administration is threatening strategic destabilization, and pravda repeated the soviet leader's allegation of yesterday. it is all part of pentagon's strategy towards achieving a first strike nuclear capability. [tim] the americans have now introduced the idea that they might be able to create a dome over the united states that would mean that soviet missiles won't be able to penetrate the united states, which is another way of saying the united states may be planning for a first strike on the soviet union. this was another signal that, oh, my god, this man doesn't want to engage in some kind of diplomatic process. he wants to destroy us. i hated reagan like everyone else did because we thought reagan really would potentially start a nuclear war. there was a phenomenal fear within the soviet union, particularly the kgb, of ronald reagan. because there was a war going on. an underground war. [narrator] one of the main players in this underground war, oleg gordievsky, lands back in moscow to answer a summons from his bosses. he is terrified they have discovered he is secretly working for the british. [suspenseful music playing] [tim] he has three locks on his door. he unlocks the first locks... and then discovers he can't open the door because somebody has locked the third lock, which he never uses. so he immediately understands that somebody has been in his apartment. gordievsky knew that they had surreptitiously entered his flat. he would have assumed he was under deep surveillance and that his flat was bugged. there was trouble ahead. [narrator] gordievsky's mi6 colleagues are only streets away, but are also constantly watched by the kgb. [raymond asquith] obviously, we were not declared as intelligence officers. i had a full-time daytime job in the embassy as a working diplomatic officer. there was a lot to do every day, working out what was happening within the soviet union. anything not in the public record i won't make any mention of. [narrator] the team also have a long-standing secret mission. [raymond] before i went to moscow, i was told and we were trained that we had to be on standby. it was almost impossible for a soviet citizen to get out of the soviet union. [sir david] in circumstances where your agent is potentially under suspicion, you're going to make plans so that the agent can warn you if life had got too difficult. and in the case of gordievsky, of course, an elaborate plan was devised whereby if he activated it, he could be spirited out of moscow without the soviet authorities knowing. [bianna] the plan that they had hatched was something that no one thought was ever possible, and no one thought that they would actually be able to get away with. [narrator] it's called operation pimlico. [raymond] we would have to watch a certain spot outside a bakery, not far from where we lived, every night at a certain time. and if we saw somebody there holding a safeways bag, we were to approach him with a harrods shopping bag and then pass him, eating some kind of western chocolate bar. kit kats and mars bars. and without any kind of verbal exchange, that would have indicated that we'd spotted him. and, believe me, i have had so many kit kats and other chocolate bars in our car glove compartment, that i absolutely hate kit kats to this day. the basic plan was to drive to a agreed destination near the finnish border. and he had to make his own escape. catch a train from moscow and get himself up to leningrad, and then catch another train, and then a bus, and whatever it was. our mission was to pick him up and his wife and his two children there. this was what we were tasked with, and therefore i suppose it could happen, but i never felt at any time that it was for real. [narrator] the plan is daring, but it's been rehearsed nonstop for seven years. as the cold war plays out in the shadows, official diplomacy moves to more constructive dialogue. [sir bryan cartledge] i'd known since the previous summer that i would be going to moscow in july '85 as ambassador. i'm there. it was a very exciting time because of the recent advent of gorbachev. having met gorbachev when margaret thatcher invited him to the u.k., i did see enough to know that this was a tremendous opportunity not only for the u.k., but also for the west as a whole. it wasn't until a few weeks before i was due to actually leave that i was briefed on the possible exfiltration of an agent, unidentified, that would involve members of the embassy staff. i also knew that there was a time bomb ticking under the relationship which would probably explode during my early weeks or months as ambassador. in many ways, this is a split-screen moment. you have a bunch of geopolitical changes that are going on, and you have the long-running spy vs. spy cold war narrative. and they are happening simultaneously. [narrator] but operation pimlico isn't the only threat. a ticking time bomb at the heart of the cia could destroy everything. [narrator] preparations are underway for reagan to make a hopeful and historic approach to gorbachev. but the head of the cia's soviet desk, aldrich ames, is leading a double life and it threatens to derail the political progress. [narrator] ames finally has the cash for exposing soviet double agents motorin and martinov, and he settled his debts. it was obviously a great achievement for the soviets, that they had this kind of a volunteer. and aldrich ames probably believed that he would be able to control the situation around himself. but he made a huge mistake. a retired navy officer is being held without bail this morning, charged with passing classified national defense information to the soviet union. fbi agents arrested john anthony walker as he dropped a paper bag containing secret and confidential navy documents in a wooded area outside washington. [sighs] [narrator] and what's more, the cia still have over 20 double agents imbedded in the soviet system, and one of them could hear of what ames has done and turn him in. [dramatic music playing] [narrator] but gordievsky somehow resists... and doesn't confess. [sir david] gordievsky managed to survive this ordeal. but in his heart, he must have known the chances of my being allowed to go back to london and resume my position as head of station is zero. [narrator] the kgb let gordievsky go. but he's not a free man. his flat's bugged. he's constantly watched. they're waiting for him to slip up. [bianna] his bosses were possibly looking for the ultimate piece of evidence, and that was indeed that oleg gordievsky was a spy for the u.k. they hadn't found it yet... so there were gonna wait him out. [narrator] gordievsky's crisis comes at a pivotal moment in the cause he is dedicated to, the opportunity to diffuse the hostility between east and west. [susan] i think gorbachev had a sense that he had an opportunity here to open this dialogue because he was of a different generation, and it was gorbachev himself who began to change the dialogue. well, i think this is an important letter, and it's dated june 10th, 1985. this is a letter gorbachev wrote to reagan. "it is the soviet union that is surrounded by american military bases, stuffed also by nuclear weapons, rather than the u.s. by soviet bases. try to look at the situation through our eyes." [ken] "try to look at the situation through our eyes." it's a powerful line because when you're negotiating with somebody, one of your main obligations is to see how they see the issue, and maybe you can find some middle ground. [crowd cheering] [andrei grachev] reagan, certainly for gorbachev, was a mythical figure with a rather negative reputation. gorbachev felt the necessity of putting an end to the confrontation with the west as soon as possible... [speaking russian] ...in order to relieve the economy from the unnecessary weight of the arms race. [susan] it would have been seen as extraordinary to receive something like this from anybody who had come before him. the idea of seeing things through other people's eyes is very meaningful for me because it was the continuing lecture i got at the dining room table as a kid. [inaudible] just the way he talked, you could see change in the air. and he called for new thinking. this was the great expression of the time. and i know that the americans took enormous interest in what this new thinking entailed. it's a moving letter. it really is. wow. do you have a copy of this? can i keep this? [ken] ronald reagan writes to gorbachev... "history places on us a very heavy responsibility for maintaining and strengthening peace, and i am convinced we have before us new opportunities to do so." so he sees this as history kind of endowing them with a mission, with a real cause, with a purpose. and they can do that together. it is a ways from evil empire. it is that there is this problem that we are both can address, even though you're an evil empire. [laughs] you know? the spy game and international politics don't often run along the same timetable. spying involves convincing other people to betray their country. at the same time, you want to have diplomacy among the great powers. you want them to be talking to each other. you want there to be a little bit of trust. [narrator] aldrich ames is on a path that threatens to destroy that trust. the moment aldrich ames is engaged in his initial dance with the soviets, he knows the risks from the beginning. [narrator] the pressure of what he's done drives ames to do something drastic. [suspenseful music playing] he tells his soviet handler he wants to m