Blake, as an MI-6 insider, operated for years undetected, providing to the KGB identities of more than 400 individuals – staff officers and assets of the Western Services, resulting in many of the individuals being executed by the Soviets. One piece of information which he shared with the KGB was a list of MI-6 targets for assessment and possible recruitment in Warsaw, Poland. This document was shared by the KGB with the Polish UB (Polish security service) circa 1958.
An insider within the Polish UB, identified as Col. Michael Goleniewski, provided the list to the U.S. via an unsolicited letter mailed to the U.S. Embassy in Bern. Goleniewski was volunteering information to the West via a series of 14 anonymous letters which provided counterintelligence tidbits on KGB activities. Goleniewski was not known as the source until his own defection to the West in late-1960.
When the U.S. shared the list with the British, MI-6 told the U.S. interlocutor they thought it a fabrication. Subsequently, an operational analyst within the CIA‘s Eastern European division remembered seeing the identical list in a liaison communication from MI-6 (perhaps for deconfliction or counterintelligence purposes). It was then confirmed that the secret list had an MI-6 provenance, and therefore there was a benevolent insider within MI-6 providing the KGB secret documents – the hunt led to George Blake
Repeatedly throughout his later years, when asked how helpful he was to the KGB, he would respond that he gave the KGB everything his fingers touched. He always referenced his compromise of the Berlin Tunnel as his greatest singular accomplishment. He measured success by his betrayals.
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