Taken from the interviews and historical accounts contributing to the RED FILES, read through the quotes and notable excerpts presented below.

Cecil Philips, U.S. Signal Intelligence Service
During the 1930's and 1940's there was a great deal of sympathy for the Russians and particularly during the war, I think. Even before the war there were a lot of people who looked upon Communism as a great new idea of government and sort of utopian government. Then that carried over into the wartime period.

People were very disillusioned with Capitalism in the 1930's, I for one was, my family was. We were damn close to being destitute in the early 30's because of the depression. So the theory is that caused a lot of people to turn toward Communism. Of course that's an excuse that some people give for turning toward Communism. They hoped that it was going to produce a better world, but it obviously didn't.

Morris Cohen, KGB spy
We had a special radio, which was in contact with Moscow, and we kept it under a fridge in the kitchen.

We wrote with invisible ink a few times. Writing above the printed line. Also we used letters with invisible ink. We rarely, I don't think ever, sent any post direct to Moscow. We did send some materials to people, for example, in Switzerland, to an address. We didn't know the people.

We did not know that, but we did have a strange feeling that something was not going the way it should. And we wondered what could we do about it.

We opened up the door, and there was a strange man, heavy set. I felt from the very beginning, that's the security -- he had that almost stamped over him. He was very polite, very punctual within the gradients, or degrees of British society.

What Helen intended to do was to get rid of some papers, in plain words, she couldn't get rid of them.

He said, "Let's pull a milt on them." Milt meant MILT Milton. Why? "Pulling a milt" meant that we would say nothing. Understand now? So that we said nothing at all about any of these activities, nothing at all.

From his dress, and the materials he carried, she understood that was the one she wanted. They met. He spoke as if someone else had made a mistake, not him. Well they patched it up, and he gave her the material. This is, well, quite important.

Every person has a handbook. It tells the prisoner what he or she can do, what they cannot do. I tried to read it. I couldn't understand it.

This is where I first ran into the train robbers. I think you know about the train robbers. The train robbers were a gang of fifteen who had stolen from a post train, a postal or mail train about three million pounds.

So one day in the fairly decent dining room, she (Helen) closed the door, locked it from the inside, and she stood in front of the door and said to the woman prisoners that certain ones were circulating rumours about her, and they're going to settle her hash. You may know of this expression, to settle your hash. Well it means they would try to give a beating unless you did as they told you.

In the month of October the weather became very rainy, and this is when it happened. Night came, evening came about five o'clock. So he (George Blake) was able to use that in order to break through the window, fall on the roof of a little cabin, then fall to the ground, and he climbed up on the wall. On the wall there was a bed sheet. A big bed sheet that was sewed together with needles, big needles. This man helped him to get up to the top. He jumped down from the top of the wall. Hurt himself, but he got into the car that was waiting for him.

Then the Polish Consul got up and said, "Gentlemen, the situation has changed."

George Blake, Soviet spy
George Blake: I come from rather an international, or in other words, a cosmopolitan background.

George Blake: As soon as I finished the Russian course, I was sent to Korea with the task of trying to establish an agent network, a network in the so called maritime provinces.

No, I was never brain-washed at all.

Made me feel ashamed of belonging to these overpowering, technical superior countries fighting against what seemed to me quite defenseless people.

It has not been possible to build that society. It set very high standards, because not only would life in the Soviet Union or in any other country which adopted that system, have to be just as good as in the Capitalist world, it would have to be better. So that other peoples, other nations would want to join it, and obviously we have failed in that.

Vladimir Semichastny, former KGB chairman
There was an intervention of the foreign states in the Russian Far East, Archangel of the West border of Russia. The foreign troops were participating in the attempts to stamp out the revolution. It's not just propaganda, because there are mounds of documents in the archives relating to these events and to the foreign espionage cases.

I believe that they were brave people. One should be of courageous character to do what they had done, not only this, one should be a person of strong character and bravery -- not ordinary people. That what I would call them. It's not like some petty official or something that decided to defect to the other side. For them it was a very serious moment.

KGB was inseparable part of the Soviet Union and the whole structure of the Soviet society. We believe that the achievements of the Soviet Union and of the Soviet society, it's main achievements until the split in 1991, it was at the same time the main achievements of the KGB, because it was working for the same cause.

Igor Prelin, KGB Colonel
Soviet intelligence officers believe that the atomic espionage is the greatest achievement of the Soviet External Intelligence. It's not only we at KGB believe so, but also the former deputy director of the CIA has said, quote: "The atomic espionage and the success of the Soviet Intelligence in obtaining the atomic secrets of the United States is the greatest achievements of all the intelligence services of all the times."

Robert Lamphere, former FBI agent
It wasn't until we received an anonymous letter in about 1943, I'm not exactly sure of the date, that it galvanized the FBI into opening many investigations on suspected Soviet agents.

We became much more aggressive against them, and we now know that it paid off. By 1946 the KGB couldn't get information in the United States anymore.

I wanted them to co-operate with us and not to die.

Robert Lou Benson, National Security Agency
In Soviet intelligence usage, a legal would be a KGB or GRU Officer, intelligence officer, operating under a legal cover, let's say in the United States, perhaps on the staff of the Ambassador, -- perhaps on the staff of TASS or Amtorg, or the Consulate, as a First Secretary of the Consulate.

There were at least just say one hundred and twenty-five Americans who were Soviet Agents to the KGB or the GRU (military intelligence).