Since her association with Leon Trotsky’s assassin, Ramón Mercader, Sylvia Ageloff has been demonised and vilified, pushed to the margins of history or simply ignored. What has been all too frequently lacking is any sense of respect, sympathy or understanding of her as a human being, a political activist and someone thrust into a situation not of her making. This short essay attempts to set the record straight.
Since her association with Leon Trotsky’s assassin, Ramón Mercader, Sylvia Ageloff has been demonised and vilified, pushed to the margins of history or simply ignored. What has been all too frequently lacking is any sense of respect, sympathy or understanding of her as a human being, a political activist and someone thrust into a situation not of her making. This short essay attempts to set the record straight.
Notorious MI6 double agent George Blake died on Boxing Day at the age of 98
He was feted in Russia after escaping from a prison term for spying for the USSR
A newly uncovered report from 1961 said he was unreliable and very un-British
The report said it had been a mistake for MI6 to recruit Blake in the first place
Notorious British traitor George Blake has been buried in Moscow with full military honours following his death at the age of 98.
The MI6 double agent, feared to have sent 600 spies to their deaths by betraying them to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, died on Boxing Day and was laid to rest today at Troyekurovskoye cemetery alongside other KGB icons.
Blake - officially a retired colonel in Russian foreign intelligence - was given a military salute before his coffin was laid in the ground.
A huge wreath of hundreds of red roses from Vladimir Putin dominated Blake’s grave, with a ribbon which made clear it had been sent by the President of the Russian Federation.