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Trevor Barnes

New Cold War papers show just how far Britain has come on LGBT issues

MI5 KGB Britain Cold War Admiralty National Archives Kew MI6 Moscow

John Vassall
(Picture: Getty Images)

Today MI5 is releasing a massive number of its historical files into the National Archives at Kew. Among them are papers telling for the first time the inside story of its investigation of John Vassall — the notorious KGB spy in the Admiralty until his arrest in 1962.

The Vassall files disclose that he was a far more important agent for Russia than previously realised, and the government of the day dared to reveal. He was cleared for access to the most highly classified atomic information and passed these secrets to Moscow.

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