hello again or welcome to spot like the m.t.v. show on r t i'm al going on and today my guest on the show is michael smith the british intelligence service now as the m i six or simply the six has started revealing its secrets many notes in the archives of the service have been x. files for decades and now some of them will make the world with its history former british intelligence agent michael smith has already started by publishing a sensational book. written secret intelligence service or m i six has been involved in many operations across the world top secret files from its archives made public to shed light on events and crimes that made history in the twentieth century among them is the matter of rasputin the clear it can clairvoyant

who had an almost magical influence with the family of the last russian impera m i six suspect rasputin of trying to persuade the tsar to quit the first world war which was contrary to british interests the service is part of his death adds to the mystery of the man six also plan to assassinate joseph stalin in nine hundred eighteen but the very last moment the mission failed what are the intriguing revelations are we to expect the former british intelligence officer michael smith is here to sign the arsenal. hello michael and welcome to the show thank you very much for being with us. thank you. michael you published a book devoted to the history of the british intelligence and the first part of the book is about the period from nineteen zero nine to nineteen thirty nine where you

the first research chair who got access to the m i six archives. i didn't actually have our current access to the m i six the visual archives their internal archives where we got our material from was a number of archives but mainly from the british national archives where other departments like the foreign office of the morty or the war office had put their documents which had come to them from my six into the archives and my six doesn't release its files and they have only once allowed an official historian to look at their files and that's just happened and he's an official historian so he's dealing with it from an official side mine is an unauthorized biography so to speak of m i six during that period from one thousand nine hundred thirty nine this is

myth your latest book contains quite a few sensations for historians and the first and foremost at least for russians is the the assets the nation of responded and the fact that it was organized by british intelligence they're well is it true and what was the reason for the u.k. to want to assassinate respirators. the british were very worried. that the rust putin would pursue would persuade the czarina to persuade the tsar to pull out of the on taunt and to. become neutral in a war or worse join germany in a war that would have released about sixty more than sixty german army divisions that were on the eastern front to fight on the western front and that was

a major problem obviously for the british so that's why they were so keen to be involved in this incident they wanted to know what recipe to miss doing so so so are you sure that all may we be sure that this wouldn't have happened without the british involvement and i mean the the attempted arrest wouldn't life. no it's not clear whether it wouldn't have happened whether prince use the paf and his accomplices whose whose role has been widely of course reported not least by you support himself would have had the courage to go ahead it isn't entirely clear but they certainly had the anger and the hatred of rasputin that drove them forward what happened was the use of power of a friend of use of power when he was studying the oxford man called oswald rayna was a member of british a british intelligence in russia at the time he obviously was still close to use

a path and a plan was there for hatched between them whereby both sides would get what they wanted miss smith we we always knew that respondent didn't die quickly but so far we read that that the explanation for this was his extraordinary strength of this extraordinary man now you explain it differently you said you're right that he was actually tortured before he was shot so so why was he tortured was there any information they wanted to get from this man. yes i think what they wanted to get from him are certainly what the british wanted to get from him as i say is whether it was his involvement with the germans they believed that they believed russia putin was involved in some way with the germans either on their pay or as some sort of alliance in order to persuade the czarina to get the czar to pull out of the war

that's what that was the belief in russia at the time. among british intelligence officers in russia at the time that's that stood up by documents in. the papers of a couple of those officers one of them john scale and the other stephen ali and those those documents show very clearly that the british were involved in this this myth the evidence you've got this killing i'll state the rasputin savage act while. says that the bullet that actually killed the man was fired from the rare gun from a british gun and they done that was standard issue of the british intelligence service does that does that now can we take it as sufficient evidence that a response in actually was killed by by

a british agent named. rayna the. the the evidence points to it it isn't absolutely come from a tree but there is no doubt the rain was present and that rain i had the the where billy a where billy revolver and it was a where billy point four four five which actually killed russ beauty and i should. stress here that i'm not the first to touch on this b b c time watch program did something on this quite a while ago and. a friend of mine who is a former. senior detective in the metropolitan police here in london was an advisor on. that documentary program and he went to moscow and he talked with forensic experts in moscow and these people together did

a lot of work on this and it's a result of their work rather than any research of mine i have to say that is represented in books so. you know they did extensive research and richard cullen this former detective has been working on this for a number of years and he has in fact recently published his own book on him have you ever asked yourself why would the russian conspirators like for example prince use super why do they keep the secret of the british involvement in the murder of respond in until their very death why didn't they tell anybody when in writing anything on that. because any involvement by british intelligence in any operations requires that the people are keep it secret just as. was the case with the k.g.b. and is still the case with the f.s.b. and e.s.b. are if they carry out a secret operation they don't expect the people involved to go telling everyone that they did it you support. of course readies own version of what happened and we

have that rather strange bizarre. history of what happened from him where by people what russia putin was given. given poisoning cakes which you know he would he could not have survived and it was nothing to do with some. superhuman strength rasputin wasn't superhuman he just wasn't given poison at all he was given out of all he was plied with out of he was beaten up very very badly tortured and then he was shot well you can't keep me so you keep me so fascinated by the sense that so i'll stick i'll stake you has been just for one other question and rescued and well listen you came wanted to to to prevent russia from signing an armistice with germany as you said they suspected rest put in there that he was part of this plan now now we know it and you should

agree that responded wasn't part of that plan he wasn't guilty of what british intelligence suspected him had and for what it is the british killed him so studying the history of intelligence how often did you come across with that cessations which in the end proved to be mistakes. there were there was another attempt as is well known to kill the soviet leadership in the so-called lockhart plot which never came to few ition because it was it was discovered by by the bolsheviks before it even even happened there were there was in the archives in the memoirs of stephen ali it was one of the leading british intelligence officers in petrograd during that period he said that he was he was sacked from m i six or as it now is known.

he was sacked because he refused to kill stalin refused to get involved in the murder of stalin was stalin as is well known was one of those backing the armistice with germany and an influential figure within the leadership although obviously not as influential as he later became says says michael smith the former british intelligence agent and we'll continue this interview in less than a minute after a short break sal stay with us and. almost seventy years of the red machine which so many people wanted to leave in the . to make changes these are some.

but was it possible to change the country's regime so quickly. with. one of those only fundamental changes in the state people's minds. on. forty two thousand americans die each year six thousand. seven hundred thousand people. and thirty two thousand will kill themselves cancer in all its forms kills five hundred sixty thousand of us here part is easy or devastating it kills over eight hundred seventy thousand americans every year.

welcome back to spotlight i'm algor novena just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is former british intelligence agent michael smith who's joining us via satellite link from london we're talking about his recent recent book where he writes a couple of fascinating things since ational things well. one of them is an episode about somebody mom who he says who michael says was pretty teligent agent in nineteen seventeen he was in russia and he reported back to london that that the bolsheviks what never come to power that the existing government was very strong which turned out to be a mistake so so michael do you recall a lot of such as so when when british agents were where mistaken but to such a huge proportion. i think this was probably and i say in the book it's probably

the worst prediction ever given by a british intelligence officer in the whole of the history of british intelligence because as some of the morning actually admitted when he was writing his memoirs are you know the reader will already know that i failed spectacularly in my attempt to stop the bolsheviks taking power and to be absolutely can do it the plans that were in place were. pretty hopeless there was a belief that they the czechs who were heavily involved obviously the czech army was involved on the eastern front. the czechs would help the british prevent the bolsheviks taking over some of that more and came with a very large sum of money. which we have which to buy people but he didn't he didn't really get anywhere and as i say and as you refer obviously

know there in moscow. he says his mission was a complete failure this is. how do you think did made the most serious mistake in history and more are found this secret agents themselves to send in wrong or false reports or whatever or the politicians who ignored the reports what would you say i would say that intelligence is a very different difficult thing to do to collect that it is very very difficult to produce the intelligence when you've got a good piece of intelligence which the intelligence agencies whether they're russian or british are very competent in than a politician politician should follow that no nation should take note of that and i think in the the competition if set up there between the politicians and the intelligence agents i think the politicians lose hands down because they frequent.

ignore what the intelligence officers and they frequently do very very stupid things well then tell us about tell us about more and more recent stuff for example who would you hold. who are responsible for spreading false information about iraq's weapons of mass destruction program in two thousand and three was it the m i six always blamed war or is it the blair's government that. i think there's a combination iraq thing was was it was very much a combination of the two you had a perfect storm where both the intelligence chiefs in britain at the time and the politicians in britain at the time wanted to believe something and therefore put more. more reliance on the intelligence than the intelligence could actually survive. they were using you probably know they were using agents in

iraq who didn't know much about nuclear and biological and chemical weapons their expertise was elsewhere and they were probably very good agents in in other areas other military areas but they these agents then had to go to other people and ask other people the questions and at that point you don't have a great reliance on these people big you can't have a great reliance on these people these new agents of come in sub agents of your own reliable parts agents you are in the hands of your agent and you have great difficulty in knowing whether these subagents are telling the truth or not and that's pretty much what happened and then when the intelligence chiefs went to blair they wanted to give blair what he wanted and of course blair wanted the evidence. that iraq had weapons of mass destruction so you you end

up with people providing intelligence which isn't reliable to politicians who don't know the difference between what is reliable and unreliable bot are and any of them very very eager to get any information that backs up their course also based on what you just said can you tell me frankly what's the clue to a fast and a good career and intelligence saying saying what really happens what you really think what really either you believe is the facts or trying to to to report what the politicians want to hear. well i would say that the the the good thing to do is to report what is actually the truth of what you know to be the truth it isn't just during the iran. incident that we

have instances where. british intelligence officers of told politicians what they wanted to hear there is the famous inobvious letter which back in one nine hundred twenty four again which in this particular case was deemed to show that the navi of was trying to win the russians and the communists in russia were trying to interfere with british trade unions and get british trade unions to rise up against the government and to bring in a labor government this was complete nonsense of well it was an entirely new certainly the russians would have liked to have done but the there was a complete forgery and yet again. you see the intelligence officers telling politicians what politicians want to hear precisely as we did when richard dearlove the then head of british intelligence was turning in tony blair that yes iraq did

have weapons of mass destruction model there are still many scandals implying the involvement of my sex into the russian affairs for example there is asking ever of the litvinenko case well and there's things that are often suspected to be connected with the british intelligence unlike in the time your book is dedicated to there's no major war are going on today so why is russia still so high on the priorities list of the m i six what's at stake now. what's. at stake now i guess is what is russia going to do what is russia going to do in terms of gas resources and its control through gas resources over eastern europe what is russia going to do in terms of countries like georgia and estonia where russia still sees itself as having a controlling interest whereas the states see themselves as being independent

states so that sort of thing is important and it has to be said that my five the british security service the equivalent of the f.s.b. over here they say that the number of russian intelligence officers has not dropped since the cold war there are still that many russian intelligence officers operating in london and we saw recently with the ana chapman of their and the sleeper agents russian sleeper agents that there is the intelligence services on both sides are still preparing and keeping themselves ready to collect intelligence if it should be needed having said that of course there is an awful lot of cooperation it goes on particularly over al qaida where both sides russia and the west certainly have a great deal of interesting cooperation on things like terrorism and al qaida

speaking of cooperation the british government suspended cooperation between the british and russian special services after the death of a little in elko do you think it was the right thing to do. do i think it was right thing to do i i guess it probably was actually at the time i mean do you think it was the right thing to do for the first serve intelligence to send someone to. and kill a russian emigre who is living in london. here it was clearly retribution to someone who had who was seen as having betrayed the the cause of the former k.g.b. . so as you know as a sovereign state i don't think britain could allow russia. russia north orate is to to reach into britain and kill someone in that way. do you think it

was all because litvinenko was really an m i six agent. i have no idea whether living younger was an m i six agent it is entirely possible that he was passing intelligence on to my six and it certainly wouldn't surprise me in any way whatsoever but i think the it was it was a great deal to do with the russian politics with the rise of the former k.g.b. in russia and i think the need to show that. a certain degree of power. and the need to show people that we can reach out and get you if we need to. america last question i know you want to write a book about the work of m i six in afghanistan and iraq in the modern times

today could this account be accurate until all the archives are open. no it's a simple answer and it can't be entirely accurate because it can't tell you everything that happened and it relies on people who will tell you stuff that they want you to hear in some cases but it so it at least gets close to what is happening and will at least actually give you some idea and i have to say you know . one of the things about my book is that i have used archives but of in russia and the u.k. and i i have a friend too there's a very very good researcher in the same area i was working in in one thousand one thousand nine hundred thirty nine in russia who helps me produce him for information from russian archives and i get stuff from for him from the british archives and so you get some way to to getting as close you can i think it's

similar within afghanistan you got to start somewhere and other people will come along later with more information as more information is revealed no doubt and long after i'm dead perhaps we'll start to see our kind of sightseeing archives on what the british were doing in afghanistan pakistan. ok thank you thank you very much michael for being with us and just a reminder that my guest in the studio today was former british intelligence agent and author michael smith who is has joined us via satellite link from london and that's it for the hour from of us here if you want to have your say on spotlight or have someone in mind though you think i should interview next time just drop me a lot more than that with boy until then stay on our team and take care.

fifteen adventure is marooned on a piece of ice in the arctic that's the beginning of a year long mission to find proof of russia's claims over the riches of the north pole. russian polar explorers small spend a year on floating ice trying to find answers as to why the melting what was that hides and who will rule the ice in the future stay with me you can see the great show full on. also this new york new records the number of homeless people in america's most populous city is the highest since the great depression the u.s. government claims the economy is back on track. to take center stage.

with the twenty four hours a day this is live in central moscow good to have you with us one of the coldest the most desolate places on earth the north pole is turning into a hot spot for scientists so to do with the vast untapped natural riches hidden beneath its waters a group of russian researches are already feeling at home on the ice in a brand new science station. was at the house warming party. there are only fifteen of them and the majority are in their twenty's russia's budding ocean knowledge is oceanographers and antony as well spent a year on floating eyes in the arctic they'll be trying to shed light on why b. arctic is melting how to reach its gas and.