He worked as a clerk in the Admiralty offices and was sent as an assistant to the naval attachŽ at the British Embassy in Moscow in 1954. Soviet Intelligence officers learned that Vassall was a enthusiastic homosexual and quickly compromised him, showing him photos they had taken of him and other homosexuals they had sent to seduce him.
Vassall became a Soviet spy in 1955, stealing classified information from the Embassy and passing these to his Soviet handlers. Returning to London in 1956, Vassall was assigned to the highly sensitive Admiralty's Naval Intelligence Division and later both to the office of the Civil Lord of the Admiralty and the Military Branch, where he continued spying for the Soviets.
He was paid so well that he was able to rent an apartment in the exclusive Dolphin Square district, one that he furnished with expensive antiques. In meetings with his Soviet controller, Nikolai Borisovich Rodin (alias Korovin) during a period of almost four years Vassall handed over thousands of highly classified documents on British and NATO Naval policy and weapons development. Interestingly, Rodin was also the handler for another British traitor, George Blake
Vassall was promoted in 1959 to a position of greater security, one that allowed him to steal Admiralty secrets concerning radar, newly developed torpedoes and anti-submarine devices. Further, he provided the Soviets with fleet operational orders and communications, as well as classified publications. When the Portland Spy Case broke and Gordon Lonsdale, Helen and Peter Kroger, Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee were exposed as spies stealing Admiralty secrets, his Soviet controllers ordered Vassall to cease operations only to resume his activities some months later. He was able to secure details of the new Invincible class carriers being built by the British and this information greatly aided the Soviets in the development of their helicopter carriers, Moskva and Leningrad.
In 1962, MI5 finally caught on to Vassall when the British Embassy in Moscow reported that the Soviets were in possession of information that could only have come from the British Admiralty Office in London. Several persons in the office were investigated and the hunt narrowed down to Vassall who was arrested by Special Branch officers. 176 Classified documents were found hidden in a secret draw in his apartment along with a miniature Praktina document copying camera and a Minox. He was sentenced to serve eighteen years in prison but was paroled in 1973. Vassall has expressed surprise in later years, that as an obvious homosexual he was not identified as a potential security risk when he was posted to Moscow in 1954
There is some reason to believe that the Soviet intelligence service 'Burned' Vassall, deliberately exposing him to divert attention from at least one other and far more important 'mole', who would have remained active and probably received promotion within the soon to be formed Ministry of Defence. |
