Alex Deane Profile picture
30 Jan, 16 tweets, 3 min read
This is the 21st instalment of #deanehistory.

In this challenging time people are understandably reflecting on things & realising that there are things that they regret.

Looking back, I realise that I was insufficiently rude to two people. The first was Geoffrey Howe.
I partially owe that conclusion, and the existence of this thread, to the brilliant “The Spy & the Traitor,” by @BenMacintyre1, which you should read.
In the dark days of Soviet Russia, Oleg Gordievsky spied for us for a generation. He was blown because of a CIA traitor. Whilst he thought he was probably discovered, he still went back to Moscow from London (where he could have claimed asylum and all would be fine) because…
1) there was a chance he wasn’t blown; and 2) there were more secrets potentially to be had, and 3) he was one of the bravest men the world has ever seen.
The KGB, having promptly detained and questioned him and shown their hand to him, wrongly tried to play a long game to get more evidence of guilt, letting him go home to his flat (which was bugged) and so on. They were trying to break him down slowly.
It might take time, they reasoned, but they were sure of their position as nobody had ever escaped the USSR. This was logical, but false, confidence… First, OG managed to give his signal to the MI6/diplomatic team at our Moscow embassy that he was going to try to escape Russia.
A plan had been in place for years for this, with British diplomats posted to Moscow accustomed to walking past certain places at certain times with distinctive carrier bags and confectionary as the signal that they were always there to protect him.
But having a plan is different to executing it.
To actually be carried out, to rescue this man who had done so much for us, needed sign off at the highest level.
Regrettably, Geoffrey Howe was at the highest level and said, gosh, it all sounds like it could be a bit awkward with the Russians, sod him, he can die.

Fortunately, above highest level is the Thatcher tier.
Margaret Thatcher said, thanks for that Geoffrey; but he has helped prevent nuclear war and served the democratic west my whole political life. We are going to get him and we are going to bring him home.
Hence the famously escape with Gordievsky in the boot of a diplomat’s car, with said diplomat’s wife changing the nappy of said diplomat’s baby on top of the boot to put off the sniffer dogs (which worked). No thanks to Howe, Gordievsky is alive & well somewhere in the UK today.
Howe was a Bencher of my Inn of Court, Middle Temple– one of various great institutions I’ve been lucky enough to drift through. I met him & loathed him for his anti-Thatcherism but, callow youth, I failed to voice it beyond surliness & now realise I had all the more reason to.
Still, I'm reminded by the ever excellent @JeremyBrier that, on the all too few occasions I attended Hall at Middle Temple, on the toast to “absent friends” I would always bellow, in the silence as everyone was dutifully sipping, “EXCEPT GEOFFREY HOWE.” So there’s that at least.
The other person I was insufficiently rude to was Edward Heath. That’s a story that can wait for another day.
It occurs to me that, given that unlike me Jeremy has a distinguished legal career, such was all my doing, not his. He was present, but not involved.
Sometimes writing something down brings back a memory with great clarity.

So it was here: I really want to stress how good MacIntyre’s book is.

I read it late into the night as the escape unfolded. I remember actually punching the air & exclaiming aloud when they pulled it off.

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More from @ajcdeane

31 Jan
This is the 22nd instalment of #deanehistory.

If you are of a squeamish disposition, look away now.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Leonid Rogozov served as the doctor on the 6th Soviet Antarctic Expedition, September 1960 to October 1961. This expedition established the Novolazarevskaya Station, on the Schirmacher Oasis- nominative false advertising if ever there was.
They’d come by ship from Russia; it took over a month. The ship wouldn’t be back for a year.

Setting up the base was OK; winter struck by February & the dozen men hunkered down to see it out, hoping not to recreate The Thing no doubt.
Read 14 tweets
29 Jan
This is the 20th instalment of #deanehistory.

We’ve all - until these recent, housebound times - enjoyed the occasional “night on the tiles.”

But the Day of the Tiles was quite different & (depending on how you spend your nights, I suppose) rather more painful.
The ancient city of Grenoble was the capital of the old, proud French region of Dauphiny in the southeast. (Possession of the region by French royalty came with the condition that the heir to the throne be called “Dauphin” after it. Obvious parallel with “Prince of Wales.”)
Louis XVI did not have a good run of things, what with being the only French monarch to be executed, presiding over the end of a thousand years of royal rule and so on. But he could hardly have appreciated things would kick off in the southeastern corner of the realm at Grenoble.
Read 17 tweets
28 Jan
This is the 19th instalment of #deanehistory.

Die Hard is the best Christmas film. This truism is well known.

But the phrase “Die Hard” actually has a much longer history.
In the early 1800s, Spain & Portugal fought the Peninsular War against the invading / occupying French. As usual, in any given scrap in the last millennia or so, the British were on board, against the French.
At the Battle of Albuera, quite near the Spanish/Portuguese border, in 1811, a British/ES/PT force fought Napoleon’s Armée du Midi (included some Poles from the Duchy of Warsaw). In sum: heavy losses on both sides, result a score draw. Such conclusions belie the human stories.
Read 12 tweets
27 Jan
This is the 18th instalment of #deanehistory. It’s a request job, from @diventpanicpet.

We stay in Prague, & with a Jan.

Jan Palach was 20 years old when he set himself on fire.
In 1968, the “Prague Spring” took place. Alexander Dubček became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; he was a reformist & hopes amongst those desiring more liberalisation were high. Such hopes weren’t misplaced- as far as Dubček were concerned.
But they were doomed as far as the Soviets were. Dubček began lessening restrictions on the media & speech, on travel & the economy. Such things were embraced in CZ by people willing him on. It was all too much for Moscow.
Read 11 tweets
26 Jan
This is the 17th instalment of #deanehistory.

Jan Masaryk was the son of the founding President of Czechoslovakia.

Coincidentally, his civil service career really took off after his dad took office.
He was posted to the CZ Embassy in the USA after the First World War. Then he became aide to the Foreign Secretary (Benes, who succeeded his father as President). Then he became the longstanding Czechoslovakian Ambassador to the UK, perfect for an Anglophile such as he.
Whilst in the UK, he became Foreign Minister in the CZ government in exile during the Second World War. When conflict finished, he returned to his country, under Soviet occupation of course, & stayed in that role – remaining in it after a CZ Communist government formed in 1946.
Read 16 tweets
25 Jan
Grand Designs. A nice Victorian terrace row. Two... people erect a monstrous glass, steel, plastic pile of boxes. A “house” that dominates & insults & screams at everything around it, “I hate you, I hate history, I hate beauty, I hate myself, I hate.”
The host moons over their vandalism & asks questions about ideas in the “design” as if their behaviour wasn’t the stuff of violence, aggression, pathetic posture, madness indulged & rewarded. It’s revolting. The building. The show.

The poor neighbours. Oh, the poor neighbours.
Oh, the house is a talking point! It’s like we’ve walked down the street naked!

No. It’s like you’ve reverted to toddler years, defecating noisily in the most awkward place & inviting applause for it.

And getting it.
Read 7 tweets

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