In the double-cross hairs

SHOULD I ever be offered the chance to become a spy (I’m guessing that I’m a bit late, but you never know), I’d have to be one of those double-agent types.You know, the ones who secretly work for both sides.

Not because I’m twice as deceitful as the average chap but purely because life as a double agent must be easier. Over the years, I’ve watched goodness knows how many spy thrillers and if there’s one thing they’ve taught me it’s that spying is really, really confusing.

I can rarely keep track of who’s on whose side, nor of what in the name of heck is going on. It’s way more complicated than Emmerdale, that’s for sure.

As a real-life agent, I’d imagine my muddleheadedness would make me something of a liability.

But if I were secretly spying both for the West (hurrah!) and for the East (boo, hiss!) then it needn’t matter. Whatever dark deeds I became involved in, whatever terrible stuff I did, I’d always be pleasing one or other of my employers, would I not? Plus I’d be bringing in two wage packets. That would be lovely.

In episode one of SECRETS AND SPIES: THE NUCLEAR GAME, a new documentary series starting tonight on BBC2 (9pm), we hear about a double agent called Oleg Gordievsky, who was plying his trade in the early Eighties.

A Soviet agent for a good many years, Oleg had come to the conclusion that he hated his country’s political system but rather than go to his bosses and say: “Excuse me, guys, but I’m starting to think this whole Communism thing might be a wee bit evil, what with all the oppression and the killing and that” he wisely chose to keep his mouth shut, to carry on, and then to offer his services to us lot on the quiet.

This would have been a major coup whatever the political climate, but given the desperate state of East-West relations at the time (US President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as “the focus of evil in the modern world”), Oleg’s timing, as you’ll discover, would prove hugely significant.

Secrets And Spies really is fascinating stuff.And I have to admit, now and again it’s good to watch a programme about the Eighties which doesn’t bang on about Boy George or the Sinclair C5 or have Rustie Lee popping up every five minutes to laugh her head off at a crispy pancake.

Sometimes it’s important to be reminded just how scary life really became back then on a global scale.

In November 1983, this programme points out, the world came arguably as close it’s ever been to a nuclear war between Nato and the Russians.

Thanks goodness we’re all such good chums now.