John Daniel

So let's take a moment and get into it.

Now, one thing we haven't said is that we have a second source for almost all of what Kit Bennett has told us so far.

Yeah, they play a long game, but it would be like decades on an off chance that I get into making podcasts.

That's right.

Wherever it's been possible to cross-check, Kit and the second source have concurred.

Except in one area.

Money.

But the second source says that isn't right.

In fact, Kip Bennett, on the instructions of a CIA handler, began relatively early to make the move into a transactional relationship, pushing for money to change hands, and that this was a deliberate ploy to increase his credibility as a source of good material.

Yeah, totally.

And the second source makes the point that, in fact, Vladimir repeatedly asked Kit Bennett about his finances because that was seen as an obvious thing they could offer him.

And we put that to Kit Bennett, and he agreed that he must have misremembered this angle.

And in fairness, it is 40 years ago, and he could easily have forgotten this, because in any case, he couldn't keep the money.

He couldn't keep any money, because while the Americans funded his expenses generously, they always took any of the cash his businesses brought in.

So if Uncle Sam kept it, you can see why he wouldn't necessarily remember any money coming in 40 years later.

Because for Kit Bennett, this relationship with Vladimir is built on trust and friendship.

The money is just from one government to another.

Yeah, look, it fits the pattern of what had been going on until now.

The Soviets had been doing exactly this kind of thing for years, using Russian intelligence officers attached to embassies to build up a network of dozens of agents embedded in Western companies specialising in high-end engineering.

Exactly, but in the early 1980s, a KGB colonel, Vladimir Vetrov, codenamed Farewell, had passed on their names to French intelligence via an ordinary French businessman who travelled to Moscow for work.