KGB’s old boys: Double Irish

IT IS said that, in today’s world, only a dog provides lasting loyalty. 

One exception might be Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, which continues to take life-long care of the KGB’s old boys. One of them is George Blake, the Cold War double agent given a 42-year prison sentence in 1961 and sprung from Wormwood Scrubs in 1966, ably assisted by a petty criminal from Limerick, Seán Bourke.

Mr Bourke got Blake to Moscow, and stayed on for a while before declining a KGB pension and returning to Ireland, Soviet Russia not being to his taste.