John Daniel

Ironically, one of the people he's talking to is Aldrich Ames.

It's a big call, isn't it?

Now, David Lange pushes back on this at the time Gordievsky's book is published in 1995.

And there's a suggestion that Gordievsky, as an MI6 agent, is running an alarmist line that suits Margaret Thatcher's Britain.

But we looked at this in Episode 3 of The Service.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, the Labour Deputy Prime Minister at the time, talked about a full-court press from the KGB.

And this time, we actually have the notes from a two-hour meeting that Oleg Gordievsky held with Prime Minister David Lange on August 27, 1986.

These are from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

We'll put them up online.

I suspect they wouldn't have been released at our end.

And Gordievsky says that's not how it works.

Moscow doesn't imagine that it will turn New Zealand into a client state, but it is delighted about the nuclear-free zone in the Pacific, because that will limit American military effectiveness.

It's working on influencing the Labour Party, and he cites invitations to visit the Soviet Union that have been accepted by the Labour Party president and general secretary.

and says there'll be more like that.

Visits not just to the USSR, but also to Cuba and Nicaragua, places that are aligned with the Soviet regime.

By this point, Lange seems to be starting to get it.

He says the biggest problem he's having with his party is that the Soviets have recently declared a moratorium on nuclear testing, and he's under pressure now to issue statements supporting Soviet policy.

And he says the Pacific Islands will be particularly vulnerable to Soviet influence.

The notes end with him saying the New Zealand government will need to pay more attention to countering communist-inspired activities in the Pacific.

So over a number of weeks in Washington, Kit Bennett practices recruitment techniques on a former spy from the Eastern Bloc.