Guyon Espiner

When I was in Washington one time, I said, does he ever come up?

And they said, yeah, well, he does.

We can always get him up if you'd like to meet him.

So he and I went off and had lunch together.

It was good.

I really liked him.

There were a number of these Soviet defectors who came out to New Zealand to meet with the SIS over the years.

But Kit Bennett says they weren't all as chatty as Nisenko.

Another KGB officer who had defected to Britain's MI5 in 1971 was Oleg Lialin.

Lialan posed as a textile buyer while actually belonging to Department V, responsible for sabotage and assassinations.

Apparently, he had a different vibe.

And Lialan came out.

I didn't like him.

And he didn't like me.

I just didn't kind of warm to the man.

One of the things that you often think about in this is, you know, they always say everybody has their price.

And, you know, I often used to think about what is my price?

What is it that would make me turn?

What would have turned me to work for the Russians?

What was your answer?