John Daniel

When it comes to his relationship with Vladimir, he'd like to keep thinking about that in a positive way.

I don't want to know.

Right.

You'd rather not know.

Rather not know.

This is the moment when the penny drops for Glyon and me.

Not just that we don't know what happened to Vladimir, but that for 40 years, Kit Bennett has had to live with a heavy uncertainty.

The brutal truth is that if the operation was successful, if the guy Kit Bennett had handed off to had managed to get the GAU entangled in a messy program revolving around dead-end technology, or even the best prize, he'd managed to recruit him in place, within a year or two, the Soviets almost definitely found out about it through a fellow CIA officer who was selling secrets to the KGB.

Original music by Anthony Tonnen.

Graphic design by Oliver Wall.

For RNZ, sound production and final mix was by Mark Chesterman.

Production coordinator was Brianna Euretich-Greek.

Thanks to Steve Burridge, Ali Marsden, Jeremy Ansell and William Saunders.

Thanks to Megan Whelan and thanks also to Susan Baldacci.

Thanks also to CNN, TVNZ, BBC, the ABC, Universal and Paramount.

To read more about the documents and articles we've mentioned, you can go to rnz.co.nz forward slash the agency and you can see the links in the show notes.

Previously on the agency.

This is New Zealander Kit Bennett.

He was in Manila under non-official cover for CIA.

For Kip Bennett, working in Manila was a bit different to picking up the trail of the KGB in Karori.