Chris Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. A new film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, The Courier , tells the story of the salesman, Grenville Wynne, caught up in the murky world of espionage during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
This follows recent news that David Smith , a year-old and apparently normal security guard at the British embassy in Berlin, has allegedly been spying for Russia. So why do seemingly ordinary people become spies? Officials in debt are ripe targets for recruiters. He was estranged from his wife, harboured expensive tastes, had a son and mistress to maintain, and only took home a small salary β and no pension. As such, he proved a ripe target for recruitment by Soviet intelligence.
He was approached by Henri Pieck, a Soviet spy, who pretended to be a businessman and high-society flyer. Pieck convinced the cypher clerk that, if he wished to support his family, money was required. King agreed to supply Foreign Office secrets, which he was led to believe would be used to provide Pieck and a Dutch bank a stock market advantage. King was arrested in and sentenced to ten years in prison.
Some people are willing to risk life and limb for their beliefs. One such individual was Donald Maclean, who attended the University of Cambridge. In his final year, in , he was recruited by the NKVD a Soviet secret police agency, a forerunner of the KGB and instructed to give up on his political activism and enter the British establishment.
He soon sat the civil service exams and joined the Foreign Office, where he acted as one of the most damaging spies of his generation. Each of whom was recruited into Soviet service during or shortly after their time at Cambridge.
