British Double Agent George Blake Honored At His Moscow Funeral As A Russian Hero

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George Blake, a former British spy and double agent in service of the Soviet Union, in Moscow in 2006.

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British spy George Blake arrives at RAF Abingdon in Oxfordshire, England, after his release from North Korea in 1953. Blake became a double agent in service of the KGB.

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Central Press/Getty Images

British spy George Blake arrives at RAF Abingdon in Oxfordshire, England, after his release from North Korea in 1953. Blake became a double agent in service of the KGB.

Central Press/Getty Images

Blake was repatriated to Britain after three years in captivity in North Korea, and welcomed back as a national hero. He again worked as a British agent and was stationed in Berlin, where he secretly fed a high volume of classified information to KGB agents.

In addition to revealing identities of British spies, Blake leaked information about the Berlin Tunnel, a failed effort to tap Red Army communications in East Berlin.

He remained undetected for a number of years. During that time Blake married and had three children — all while keeping his double life a secret.

It wasn’t until 1961 that Blake was caught and thrown in prison, according to The Guardian. He was sentenced to 42 years but made a daring escape five years after being convicted.

Friends he made inside prison helped to construct a rope ladder of knitting needles which was thrown over the wall. Blake broke a window and used the ladder to escape.

Blake hid with friends before fleeing to Moscow. There, he adopted the identity of Col. Georgiy Ivanovich Bleyk, according to The Times. He remarried (he and his first wife divorced when he was in prison) and had a child.

Blake’s children from his previous marriage later visited him in Russia and reconciled with their father. He once described his time in Russia as the happiest years of his life.

Despite all his time as a mole, Blake dismissed the idea that he betrayed Britain.

«To betray, you first have to belong, he once said. «I never belonged.

Blake acknowledged in his interview with PBS that communism in Russia never amounted to what he had hoped. It was a perfect system that an imperfect society could not carry out, he said.

The reporter asked: Despite this, was it worth dedicating his life to the cause?

«Yes, he answered, «because I think it is never wrong to give your life to a noble ideal, and to a noble experiment, even if it doesn’t succeed.