True Spies Classic: The Ace of Spies | Historical
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Hello, True Spies listeners. Welcome back. You're joining us as we venture into the vaults to revisit some of your favorite episodes from our collection. We hope you enjoy this classic True Spies rendezvous. We think it's well worth catching up with. This is True Spies, the classics, from Spyscape Studios. Incoming transmission. Welcome back.

Welcome to True Spies. Week by week, mission by mission, you'll hear the true stories behind the world's greatest espionage operations. You'll meet the people who navigate this secret world. What do they know? What are their skills? And what would you do in their position? This is True Spies. In front of the steps.

Of the British Embassy, they had something like 10 bodies laid out on the pavement, all Red Guards or Chequer officers. And above them, the British Union flag torn off its flagpole. The front door smashed off its hinges. This is True Spies. Episode 96. The Ace of Spies. Question.

How did one of the greatest spies of the 20th century survive and thrive for so long in so many different conflict zones? Who was Britain's ace of spies? Sidney Riley is a legendary figure in espionage history, allegedly one of the real-life inspirations behind James Bond, one of several proto-Bonds we've profiled on True Spies, in fact. Could I have another scotch, please?

Riley died nearly a century ago, and so the following is a recreation based on his memoirs and on several of his biographies. His words are spoken by an actor. Sidney was a master of deception and reinvention, so many details of his life are still disputed even now. But a consensus has gradually emerged over much of his story, including his role in the early days of Soviet Russia. It was a violent, chaotic time, sure, but that morning stays with me.

1918, a year after Russia's communist revolution. Under Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik party has taken over, promising to smash the power of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie and end the oppression of the working class forever. On this morning, Riley, a British agent, is in the small city of Klin, a few miles outside Moscow. I was on the platform at the railway station, just off the sleeper from Petrograd.

The station was packed. You could smell the fear in the air almost. Lenin's hold on power at this time is far from certain. And so a ruthless crackdown is underway. Mass arrests, torture, summary executions. What the communists openly call their policy of Red Terror. It was random, deliberately so. People knew that at any moment they might disappear for any reason.

And travelling between cities using the railways was, of course, an invitation to be scrutinised. Under those circumstances, you avoid looking strangers in the eye. No one wants the risk of being remembered or seeming inquisitive. I remember the conversations of the people around me on the platform seeming stilted. They knew that anyone could be listening. Come on, now! Come on, now!

I had just bought a copy of the Moscow papers from the kiosk and they identified me as one of the most wanted men in Russia. Then I heard a commotion behind me. Down the platform, the crowds were parting and over the heads of the families and factory workers, I could see the end of a long bayonet. A Bolshevik commissar or political officer and a Red Guard. They were heading my way.

The Soviet newspapers are filled with details of an anti-communist plot that Sydney is alleged to have masterminded, further targets for Red Terror. I put my hand in my coat and I felt for my papers, dug them out. So to anyone reading those papers, I'm Comrade Rylinski, Communist Party member and agent for the Criminal Investigation Division of the Cheka.

The checker, the feared secret police, forerunner of the KGB. The problem was that I wasn't just Comrade Rolinski. Hidden in the lining of my suitcase were other papers identifying me by other names and other professions. A thorough search would be unwelcome. The blade of the bayonet is moving closer. Comrade Rolinski carried a weapon, obviously, and so well part of the look, so I reached for it.

I have killed people when I needed to and sometimes when I haven't, but only when the odds were in my favor. Here, they were not. It was probably half the length of the platform to go before they reached me. I could already hear one poor fella they'd grabbed. He was in tears, begging them to let him go. None of the passengers around me moved a muscle. Being seen to fear the terror is as dangerous as opposing it. The decision was called for. I braced myself for action.

Establishing when and where Sidney Riley was born has never been easy. For years, biographers have disagreed about the simplest facts of his life. People say I've been born in many places, to many nations and many faiths. According to some, I'm the son of Polish-Russian Jews from Ukraine. Or should that be Russian gentry from St. Petersburg? It's hard to keep track.

The answer I prefer is that I'm simple Sidney Riley from Tipperary, son of an Irish merchant seaman, or an Irish clergyman or a landowner. Recent research shows he was most likely born as Shlomo Rosenblum in the 1870s, in or near Edessa, then part of the Russian Empire, to a middle-class Jewish family.

Odessa was then one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe, which may explain Sidney's mastery of languages, equally at home in Russian, English, French and German, and his ability to pass as different nationalities. People tell me that this accent isn't strictly Tipperary, but I've been away from Klan Mel for a long time.

We do know for certain that he left Russia early in his adult life, possibly to study chemistry in Germany, or possibly because he fell out with his mother after discovering he was the illegitimate son of the family doctor, or possibly to escape the violent anti-Semitic pogroms of Tsarist Russia. The point is that a man has a right to reinvent himself, and I had experience of doing that long before I became an agent of any government.

By the 1890s, he is recorded as Sidney Rosenblum, a freelance chemist in London, producing homemade medicines and selling miracle cures, trading under the reassuringly scientific name of the Ozone Preparation Company. I have a background in chemistry and I would say a good bedside manner.

You know, so much of medicine is about helping the patient to relax, to trust in the treatment, to trust in you. In 1898, one of Sidney's patients dies suddenly. The Reverend Hugh Thomas is in his 60s and suffering from inflamed kidneys, which Sidney had been treating with some of his own patented remedies.

Sidney has become a close friend of the Thomas family over the years, both of the Reverend and of his much younger Irish wife, Margaret. Strangely, only one week before his death, Reverend Thomas arranged for his will to be drastically rewritten, making Margaret one of his executors for the first time.

After the death, Margaret wanted a quick funeral. And I'm sure that's what Reverend Thomas would have wanted too. I believe he was buried within three days. Heart failure. It's quite tragic and unexpected. No autopsy or inquest was ever carried out into the death. No record of the medicine supplied by Sidney survives. Margaret, meanwhile, inherited her husband's entire estate, including two houses in London.

A few months later, Margaret and Sidney were married. They moved into one of the Thomas family's London homes. I found it so funny how grief can bring people together. Around this time, the first signs of Sidney Riley's talents as an undercover agent begin to appear. He becomes a paid informant of Scotland Yard's special branch, the forerunner of the Secret Service, led by spymaster William Melville.

If Special Branch are aware of Sydney's history with Margaret and the Reverend Thomas, there is no record to show they took any interest. Sydney's first assignment, to keep tabs on groups of politically active Russians in the capital. Melville had concerns that unhelpful political activity was brewing among the Russian émigrés, and Special Branch needed someone who could enter that world.

It was similar to being a freelance chemist. In fact, you had to identify the client, convince them you were to be trusted, establish your name, and then listen. I was good at it. According to some accounts, it is thanks to his work for Special Branch that he is first able to apply for and get a British passport under the new name of Sidney Riley, born in Southern Ireland, then still part of Great Britain.

Someone in government appears to have had ambitions for him. I later did work in Spain, Italy, the Caucasus. It was an interesting time. A constant struggle between the great European powers. And London needed someone who could blend in in a way other agents couldn't.

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It brings people together in meaningful ways. Kuhnle and his team are building a Wi-Fi experience that connects one billion devices every year. Learn more about how Comcast is redefining the future of connectivity at comcastcorporation.com slash Wi-Fi. In London, Riley takes on the habits of a true British gentleman. For gentleman's tailoring, I recommend J. Daniels & Co. of Pall Mall. There's something about their way with a tweed. Sydney superiors certainly don't see him as one of their own.

The head of the secret intelligence service privately described him as being of the Jewish Jap type, with brown eyes deeply protruding and a sallow face. Well, whatever anyone thought, the service needed good Russian speakers. I think my longest assignment was several years in the Russian Far East, the Tsar's naval base at Port Arthur on the border with Korea. Fascinating place. Sidney's precise role in the Russian Far East will probably now never be known exactly.

According to some accounts, he worked for both Japanese and British intelligence in Port Arthur, helping them come to grips with the growing might of the Russian Navy. He may even have facilitated a daring raid by Japanese warships on the port itself. It's fair to say that I left the Far East in a hurry. Riley next appears in Paris in 1904. By this time, he and Margaret are living apart.

And here he is tasked by his handlers with a crucial mission. I received a telegram telling me through the usual codes that I was wanted for an urgent interview at the embassy on the 8th arrondissement. Melville, my handler, he always enjoyed the theatre, these meetings, you know, how are you, dear boy, glass of port and so on. Something has come up that has got Sydney's bosses in London scared.

His exact words were, You see, Sidney, it's to do with the dreadnoughts. Now, at that time, every warship in the world afloat, give or take, ran on coal, including His Majesty's Royal Navy. But the way things were going, more and more were going to be powered by oil. It simply works better. And the great oil deposits of the world were most regrettably, inconveniently, outside the confines of the British Empire. He told me...

We will have to go and get it ourselves, dear boy. One of the great oil deposits is located in Persia, modern-day Iran. A businessman named William Knox Darcy has purchased the right to extract the oil from the Shah of Iran. And now Darcy is threatening to sell that right to the highest international bidder. Melville explains that Darcy is known to be discussing selling to the Rothschild banking family, not to the British government.

So, would I be able to go and discover quite what the Rothschilds are offering Mr. Darcy, and what he is likely to need to be persuaded otherwise? It's probably Riley's biggest assignment yet. I immediately took a train to the French Riviera, where the Rothschilds were based. Very sensibly, they had elected to conduct negotiations on board their own very well-appointed yacht, no doubt to impress Mr. Darcy.

but probably most importantly to keep him away from prying eyes. I remember standing on the waterfront in Cannes, watching that enormous yacht floating just out of reach, where the future of the British Empire might be being decided at that very moment. And at moments such as this, I pride myself on a certain decisiveness. A very simple plan came to me.

A day or two later, the Rothschilds receive a surprise visitor on board the yacht. I can tell you I've spent enough time around the very rich to know that they expect to be plagued by charitable requests. But also that those requests are the most successful when they appeal to their vanity as great men.

The visitor is a priest, fundraising for a local orphanage. Apparently there had been some confusion and the reverend's invitation to come on board had been mislaid. But by then I was already in the middle of the harbour in my little rowing boat, alongside their beautiful yacht. The staff were quite firm at first, but when they saw the dog collar, the rosary, the literature about the little orphans, a message was put through. And the response comes back, a reluctant yes.

The priest may indeed come aboard and discreetly approach the guests after lunch. I entered. I was careful not to go immediately to Mr. Darcy or die. I spotted him easily across the drawing room. He was deep in conversation with one of the Rothschild lieutenants. I knew his face. I've studied photos of them all. The challenge was now to detach Darcy from the rest of the group without causing undue suspicion.

there would only be limited time to make contact. I circled. I'm pleased to say that the poor orphans brought out some surprisingly generous cash donations from the other guests. But eventually I got tired of waiting, so I broke into Darcy's conversation quite firmly, and I simply asked him whether he might spare a minute or two for the less fortunate. And he seemed startled, but he let himself be led to one side.

And on the cover of the pamphlet that I pushed into his hands, there was a small note informing him that I was acting on behalf of His Majesty's government and that London would be prepared to double whatever offer was being presented to him by the Rothschilds. If Darcy wanted to expose Riley, this was his moment. Well, to his credit, he took it very calmly. And I asked whether he would care to meet me that evening to, uh,

inspect the orphanage in person. And he replied that he would find that very interesting. In fact, Riley was lying again. There was no guarantee from London to double the Rothschild's offer, particularly as it was impossible to say what the offer would eventually be. I had to let him down gently on that point when we met that evening in Cannes. But nevertheless, I got him to agree to hold off from signing any deal for ten days.

I know that would give us time to put together a counteroffer. Melville was impressed. Later that year, Darcy signed an agreement with a consortium organized by the British government, giving Britain access to the oil fields. Oil was struck a few years later, a breakthrough that led to the creation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later known as British Petroleum, or BP. I'm afraid the orphanage donations didn't last long. I had a bad run at the casino in Nice a little while after.

We're back in Russia, Petrograd or St. Petersburg, 1918. Over a decade has passed since the Darcy affair on the yacht. This is the beginning of Riley's greatest mission. At the Moscow Grand Theatre, Lenin takes the stage. The theatre is packed. Whatever one thinks of the Bolsheviks, and I regard them generally as frankly the scum of the earth, but I will say that they do have a sense of occasion.

Behind Lenin's lectern there was this huge, crude, dramatic tableau showing the triumph of the Russian proletariat. All, you know, framed by flags, slogans, red stars. Riley is at an event for Communist Party members and officials, a coming together of the party to learn from the leadership. A contact had smuggled me in.

This was around the time I started using papers identifying me as Comrade Walensky, member of the Cheka. Remember Riley's Comrade Walensky disguise from the beginning of this episode? I will say it was also quite extraordinary to see Lenin up close. Completely different from reading his words. Yes, the inflections, the big sweeping arm gestures, the chin jutting forward...

And you got the sense of this one man's charisma just filling that theater. It's almost inspirational, but also quite. Every single word of it. The early years of Lenin's rule see the emergence of a fledgling police state, arbitrary arrests, torture, disappearances, and it coincides with starvation and food shortages in every major Russian city.

The contrast between Lenin's words to his followers, his promises of justice and progress, and the death and all the suffering on the streets just outside was unspeakable. Riley is now a veteran agent in his mid-40s, one of the more experienced in the British Secret Service, and he has been entrusted with a crucial mission. The communist revolution in Russia is less than a year old, and London is deeply worried.

Russia had been Britain's military ally against Germany in World War I, but under Lenin they had made peace with their old enemy. Riley's mission is to gather intelligence on the likelihood that Russia could be persuaded to rejoin the war against Germany. That was my original mission. But as I sat watching Lenin, I, well, I began to conceive of a very different, much, much more ambitious plan. I started thinking, what if...

What if one day something serious were to happen in a theater like this? Because gathered in front of me were not just the communist leadership, but also their entire upper bureaucracy. What if the soldiers guarding the exits on my left and right were to turn on their new masters? And what if we were to smother the entire idea of communism and Bolshevism in its cot once and for all?

Riley puts his plan for a coup to his contact at the British Embassy, a young embassy official called Bruce Lockhart. Riley claims he is given a green light, although that will later be disputed by London. It's true the embassy wanted to be kept at arm's length, but they nodded it through in principle. Riley's plan requires several elements. First, a strike force.

Call it a spear point to take physical control. Now my sources suggested that the Bolsheviks' support amongst their own military was wavering, above all due to the food shortages. In fact, it seemed that only the Latvian regiments were still considered reliable. They'd lost their homeland to Germany and so they had nowhere to go if Lenin were to fall.

I learned that Lenin and Trotsky's personal bodyguards were always comprised solely of members of these regiments. I suspected that even their loyalty to the party might be undermined. I had the good fortune to meet a Colonel Burzin, one of the three most senior Latvian officers, and he had a family to feed. And with money from London,

I was able to put him and his troops on our payroll. Second, intelligence from within the regime. Well, by this point, I mean the cities like Petersburg and Moscow were being ruled mainly through fear. Now, fear is a medicine that only works in small doses. And now the patient was beginning to reject the treatment. Many Russians were sick of communism.

There were, of course, you know, the true believers, the true Bolsheviks, but these tended to be opportunists. You know, illiterate factory workers suddenly given a taste of power, or a chambermaid who found herself living in her former employer's apartment. To manage the country, the Leninists, they still needed the help of professionals. The old bourgeoisie. Some of my most useful sources were loyal. They swore loyalty to the Soviet Union, but...

They were secretly only too happy to risk everything to support our plans. An example? There was a charming young ballerina I had begun to get to know who also happened to share a flat with two young actresses. One of their brothers was the Bolshevik military chief of staff, a man who was also only too happy to betray the revolution.

And London received a stream of top secret military documents as a result. And quite soon my network began to grow. Dozens, hundreds and eventually thousands of people who were pledged to the cause if we could first eliminate the Bolshevik leadership. Of course, having this many people signed up for a subversive organization is in itself a risk.

It never felt too difficult to turn these people, and that was perhaps the root of my own downfall. I operated the five system, so each member of a cell would only ever know the names of four other counter-revolutionaries, and only I possessed the names and addresses of every member, and even then I had not met them all, but I was quite aware that I was taking every one of their lives in my hands.

The third essential element, a moment of opportunity. In early August, the same young actress brought me some remarkable news. She had learned that Lenin and Trotsky would be addressing the Grand Committee of the Soviet Union in a few weeks' time, and the venue would be the very same Grand Theatre where I had first heard Lenin speak. The head and shoulders of Bolshevism gathered together in a single space, guarded by troops from the Latvian regiments.

According to Sydney, Bruce Lockhart at the British Embassy is aware of the plan. Riley also moves to inform staff at the embassies of Britain's allies, the US and France. There was an unfortunate incident there. I remember as I was briefing the French consul on our plans, we were interrupted and...

Unfortunately, I believe, overheard by a young French journalist. And he was a gentleman who was known for his socialist sympathies. And had it been possible, I might have disposed of him myself. His disappearance would only invite further attention. The plan for the attack is meticulous. Once Lenin and Trotsky were on the stage, I'd make a signal to the Latvians to lock the doors and turn their rifles on the audience.

Then, with a group of riflemen alongside me, we would take the stage and arrest Lenin, Trotsky and the leaders of the revolution in front of their followers. I was of course determined that violence would only be used if unavoidable. Not for sentimental reasons, violence creates marches. Indeed, I had a rather original plan of my own. The entire leadership would be taken into custody and then marched through the streets of Moscow without their trousers.

Yes. Yes, in their underwear. I wanted them not dead, but a laughing stock. We would then invite anti-communist forces into Moscow to establish order. And if the Bolsheviks in the theater resisted? Well, I was prepared to die. Every member of our party would be carrying grenades. In a packed theater, the effect would be considerable. Six weeks before the meeting at the theater, something begins to change. I was in Petersburg, traveling...

on foot between safe houses when I realized something unwelcome. I was being followed. A tall fellow. He wasn't particularly good at his job. He fell for some of my simpler tricks, like double-backing and suddenly crossing the street. Now, of course, being tailed is not in itself unusual for a foreign national in Russia, but so soon before our event, it made me uneasy.

A month before the event, one of Riley's safe houses in Petersburg is raided by the checker. Similar. Again, none of our supporters were caught and no incriminating documents discovered, but it was concerning. Then, three weeks before the attack, Riley calls his trusted second-in-command using a secret private phone line. I'll never forget how his voice sounded.

He spoke slowly, very slowly, and he refused to acknowledge me when I introduced myself under a codename. Then, in Russian, he said this. The doctors have operated too early. The patient's condition is serious. I reached his apartment soon after, taking care to observe it carefully from the outside before entering. When I arrived, he was frantically burning documents in the fireplace. He explained, independent of us...

A young anti-communist army officer. He'd assassinated the head of the Petersburg Cheka. He was seeking revenge for the execution of his male lover, we discovered later. And in response to that assassination, raids and mass arrests were spreading through all the major cities. What would you do if you were in Sidney's position? Call off the theatre attack. Use your embassy contacts to flee the country immediately.

Or stay and try to hold your network together long enough to have a shot at bringing down the regime. Well, I didn't consider running.

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Perhaps it was vanity, but I had a vision of myself on that stage, looking Lennon in the eye as I handcuffed him. Riley goes to ground, moving from safe house to safe house. I always had my revolver by my side. I never stayed more than a day in one place. I was often an unwelcome guest. Some well-meaning supporter who had agreed to join our network in easier times would receive a knock on the door. Me...

and the assassination attempts from other anti-regime groups continue. Lenin is severely injured in a pistol attack in August. The Cheka are ordered to implement the first Red Terror to stamp out any opposition. You could say our real mistake was to underestimate quite how many Russians wanted to shoot a Bolshevik at that time. Around then I was walking through central Moscow in uniform as Comrade Walensky, Cheka member, criminal division, and all at once...

I began to hear the sound of multiple motor cars. Now, only the red guards and the checker still retained access to petrol, so the sound of any motor vehicle was greeted with concern by most people. These cars were driving at high speed towards the embassy district, and I followed. In front of the steps of the British embassy, they had something like ten bodies,

As part of the Red Terror, soldiers and Czechists have stormed the British Embassy.

A British naval intelligence officer had died trying to hold them back with his pistol, giving staff time to destroy documents. The gun battle had been intense. Standing there, surrounded by the checker, I had to maintain my pose as a passionate Bolshevik. But inside, you know, I recognized that this might be the end. With the embassy in ruins like that, I was cut off from any easy escape from Russia.

or even access to any funds. And who knew what incriminating evidence might be found in that building by Lenin's troops. So, the mission had to change to save what was left of our network. And, if I could, save myself too. In fact, we now know the network was already deeply compromised. Colonel Burzin, the Latvian commander who had promised to support the coup, was a Cheka informant.

And the French journalist who had overheard the plans had also spoken to the checker. A net was closing around Sydney. It was a few weeks after that that I found myself on the platform at a clean station with a bayonet and a Bolshevik commissar coming towards me on the platform. The newspapers in my hand confirmed that I was now one of the most wanted men in Russia. The commissar is about a hundred yards away now.

Sidney is disguised as Comrade Rylinski, a Cheka officer. But will the illusion hold? My Cheka officer's revolver was loaded in a holster under my coat. There were only two Bolsheviks approaching and I would have the benefit of surprise. No, no, no. Instead, I took two steps smartly towards the edge of the platform and slipped down, down onto the tracks under the waiting train. None of the passengers on the platform reacted.

No doubt. Many of them envied me. I crouched down and I began moving beneath the carriages, getting as far away as I could from the station concourse. To my surprise, I was far from the only one. Here and there I could see little knots of other huddled figures, each of them with their own reasons to avoid a conversation with a commissar. It's not the safest place of refuge. The train is due to depart for Moscow at some point soon.

I could, I suppose, have crossed to the opposite platform, but then I would still have to pass the checkpoint at the station exit. So I began to move faster under the train. And eventually I saw what I was looking for, a little patch of trees and undergrowth just past the edge of the station platform. Now, timing is crucial in these situations. And as the whistle blew, I made a leap and landed in the bushes.

I didn't wait to find out if I'd been seen. From there, I scrambled through a fence and I was away into the back alleys again. Comrade Rylinski is no more. A swap of clothes, different papers in my jacket pocket, and there, in his place, stood Mr. Konstantin, a Greek-speaking businessman from the Levant, resident in Moscow, with a firmly supportive view of the revolution. I hitched a ride on a farmer's cart heading towards Moscow.

Sidney escapes Russia a few months later, smuggled aboard a Dutch cargo ship. He is unable to save many of those he'd recruited from falling victim to the terror. Many of the people who gave him shelter die at the hands of the Cheka. The ballerina and actresses in St. Petersburg are among them. According to one account, eight different women questioned by the Cheka claimed to have been married to Sidney.

The Soviet Union sentences Sidney Riley and Bruce Lockhart, his British Embassy contact, to death in absentia. If either entered Russian territory, they could be shot on sight, which makes the final chapter in this story all the stranger. Seven years later, in the mid-1920s, Sidney is contacted by Ernest Boyce, a former British intelligence service chief in Moscow.

By then, I was living in New York, and I'd left the espionage game. I'd married again. It had become a habit. And I was trying to make it in business, but times were hard. The letter from Boyce is in thinly veiled code. It speaks of a group of Californians who are keen to meet Sidney and who bring news of a potential major business concern which may affect European markets soon.

Would he be interested in becoming involved? Californians was our term for Russians, and a business concern meant a political movement. In other words, would he like to meet a new group who were preparing to attempt to overthrow communism? They promised to bring a poem by Omar Khayyam to the meeting, so that would have been another basis for a corded message.

I was intrigued. The underground group calls itself The Trust, and they bring news of growing discontent across the Soviet Union. For the first time since Sydney's network, a large number of powerful people are committed to ending the tyranny of the Communist Party. Of course, I was sceptical.

I thought they weren't to be trusted. It seemed too obvious a way for Moscow to bait its hook for me. But the more I spoke to my old contacts and I read their analysis, the more intrigued I became. It reminded me so, so strongly of what we had built in 1918. The courtship by letter continues. The trust suggests a face-to-face meeting at Vyborg in Finland, just across from the Russian border.

Sydney buys a ticket back to Britain and then on to Finland. The meeting is set. It was good to be back in the old world again and to speak Russian again and to hear it spoken. The Trust had even smuggled two of their operatives off the border to meet me in Finland. They insisted that with their network, that kind of border crossing was safe and easy. I was impressed. One of the Trust's operatives, using the name Alexander, has a suggestion.

It was after dinner and we had begun the toasts with vodka. And he began speaking about how this meeting was so unfortunate. Something like, "What a shame it would be for you to have traveled all this way from America to stop here, only at the threshold, and for you not to dare to take the final step." And everyone went very quiet. But he carried on, "What a shame.

Before making his impromptu trip into Russia with the Trust, Sidney writes a letter to his new wife, Pepita.

It explains where he is traveling to for a few days and says there is almost certainly no risk at all in the journey. And if he should be detained for any reason, it will only be for a short while. A week or two, Sidney Riley was never seen outside Russia again. Archives from the Russian Secret Service show that after crossing the border with Sidney, Alexander and the other agents maintained the fiction that they belonged to an anti-communist group for some time.

hoping to provoke Sidney into giving away valuable information. Then, at an appointed time, the handcuffs went on and he was taken by car to the dreaded Lubyanka prison in Moscow. The trust organization had played its role. Sidney Riley was eventually shot in the back after months of interrogation, mock executions and psychological torture.

His execution was never publicly acknowledged by the USSR and remains disputed by some to this day. I have always found danger addictive and I never was a coward. There are many books on the life of Sidney Riley, many with deeply conflicting theories as to who he was and what he did.

For this episode, we made use of Robin Bruce Lockhart's Riley, Ace of Spies and Andrew Cook's Ace of Spies, The True Story of Sidney Riley. Riley's own account of his work in the Soviet Union is available as Adventures of a British Master Spy, The Memoirs of Sidney Riley. Thank you so much for tuning in to True Spies, The Classics from Spyscape Studios.

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As the men step beyond the bollards, they enter the Republic of Ireland.

As he stumbles along the path, the man considers his situation. He knows that the people around him have told him that he's going to be taken home. But what he doesn't know is whether he can trust them. After a few minutes of walking, this man, who cannot see where he's going, is stopped. With his eyes still covered, the man is unable to see as the gun is lifted and pointed directly at him.

True Spies from Spyscape Studios. Search for True Spies wherever you get your podcasts.

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That's Airwave History Plus, available now on Apple Podcasts. Airwave History Plus, the essential audio destination for history lovers.