Putin's librarian

The Mitrokhin Archive is a collection of handwritten notes made secretly by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate. When he defected to the United Kingdom in 1992 he brought the archive with him Mitrokhin Archive

Disillusioned Soviet archivist whose extraordinary diligence revealed nearly 70 years of KGB secrets to the west ~ Vasili Mitrokhin is that rare creature like john hatton and Vaclav Havel who believe that truth matters and sunshine is thebest disinfectant Putin's archivist

IN DECEMBER 1992, MI6 ran a secret undercover mission to spirit a former KGB officer, Colonel Vasili Mitrokhin, and his wife out of Russia. MI6 was skilled at this. The former London KGB station chief Oleg Gordievsky had been brought out in the boot of a Saab by MI6 in the 1980s.

But the defection was hampered by the need to bring six large trunks buried in the garden of Col Mitrokhin's dacha outside Moscow. MI6 officers, including renegade officer Richard Tomlinson, posing as workmen loaded them into a van. Mr Tomlinson was jailed two years ago after attempting to publish a book about his secret service exploits. He was released in April last year.

Spy Scandal behind Mitrokhin archive : how MI6 stole details of KGB plots