The Labor party's leadership in Britain has reacted with disdain to the content of a new book where the author claimed that Michael Foot, who led the party in the early '80, was a paying agent of the Soviet KGB.
Foot, a faithful and convinced representative of the post-war British Left, was a member of parliament for over 40 years, and later, Head of the House of Commons. After succeeding Jim Callahan he became head of the Labor Party in the 1980 and then resigned in 1983 in the aftermath of Labor's biggest electoral defeat in over half a century.
Two years later, in the 1985, Oleg Gordievsky, a colonel of the Soviet KGB, deserted in Britain and revealed that he had been a spy for the British from the 1974. In 1995, Gordievsky recounted his years as an officer of the KGB and his espionage for Britain in a memoir entitled Next Stop Execution. The book has been shortened and serialized in the Times newspaper in London.
In it Gordievsky claimed that Foot had been a Soviet "influence agent" and that the KGB had the code name "Agent BOOT". Foot sued the Times for defamation, after the newspaper published a leading article titled "KGB: Michael Foot was our agent". The Labor Party politician won the case and obtained financial repayment from the newspaper.
Last week, however, allegations about Foot's connections with Soviet intelligence re-emerged with the publication of The Spy and the Traitor, a new book about Gordievsky's life and deeds. In the book, the editorialist and author of the Times Ben Macintyre claims that Gordievsky's accusations of 1995 on Foot were accurate and that Gordievsky sent them to the British intelligence services before declaring openly in Britain.
According to Macintyre, Gordievsky informed Baron Armstrong of Ilminster, a senior official and cabinet secretary of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Lord Armstrong, an experienced veteran of British politics, in turn communicated the information to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in the summer of 1982. The Times editorialist claims that MI6 has received specific information from Lord Armstrong, according to whom Foot had been in contact with the KGB for years and had been paid the equivalent of £ 37.000 ($ 49.000) in today's money for his services.
The spy agency eventually established that Foot could not have been aware of the fact that the Soviets were using him as an agent of influence. But MI6 officials observed Gordievsky's allegations of significant significance to justify a warning given to Queen Elizabeth II, in case the Labor party won the 1983 general election and Foot became the British prime minister.
The latest allegations have resulted in a flurry of condemnations from current and former Labor Party officials. Its current leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who like Foot also hails from the Party left, denounced Macintyre for tarnishing the name of a dead man, who successfully defended himself against the same accusations while he was still alive.
Labor Vice President John McDonnell criticized the Times for "debasing the standards of journalism in this country." Neil Kinnock, who succeeded Piedi in the leadership of the Labor Party in 1983, said that Macintyre's accusations were "dirty" and described Piede as a "passionate and ongoing critic of the Soviet Union."