The long awaited book “Mitrokhin Archive: the KGB and the World” is due out very soon.
Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin was a KGB archivist who pilfered and stored huge quantities of secret files over many years. In 1992 he defected to the UK taking 6 truckloads of files with him. Mitrokhin’s files are an intelligence historians dream. His material exposed dozens of Soviet spies and shed much light on Soviet activities during the “cold war”. The first volume was published in 1999 in collaboration with Cambridge historian, Christopher Andrew and focused largely on Soviet actions against the UK, the US and Western Europe.
I am told this volume deals with the rest of the world including the Commonwealth countries and NZ. There are allegedly one two bombshells in the section dealing with our little corner of the world.
Will the new book shed more light on the three NZers already alleged to been Soviet agents: former Trade and Industry head, William Ball Sutch, NZ diplomat Paddy Costello, Australian diplomat, the NZ born Ian Milner?
Will Mitrokhin expose the very high ranking Foreign Affairs official long rumored to have been the Soviet’s key NZ agent. Will it look at the several of his colleagues who are believed to have assisted him? What about the wider circle of agents he is believed to have assisted in other key government departments?
Will we learn more about the senior public servant and unionist, also believed to have been an agent? Will Mitrokhin shed light on the circle of Cambridge and Oxford educated NZers who were closely linked to the famous Cambridge spies? What about the Marxists from the Victoria University Free Discussions Club and Socialist Clubs who moved into very influential positions in academia, government and business?
What about the producer board chairman who came under suspicion? The several journalists and politicians with ties to the Soviet Embassy?
Will we learn anything about the large number of Communist Party and Socialist Unity Party members who trained in Moscow at the Lenin School or Lenin’s Institute for Higher Learning in Leningradski Prospect?
Will Mitrokhin’s book be a damp squib, or a major step forward in busting open the “veil of silence” around illicit Soviet activities in NZ?
