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The Shadow Dossier — The Ring Inside a Suburban London House · The Shadow Dossier

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  the shadow dossier act i a tip from the east
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  in the late 1950s a senior officer in polish
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  intelligence began secretly sending letters to
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  western intelligence services he signed himself
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  sniper he was michael golenuski And among the
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  information he offered was a warning that the
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  Soviet Union had a source inside the British
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  naval establishment, someone with access to secrets
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  about submarine detection and underwater weapons.
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  MI5, Britain's security service, followed the
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  lead to the Admiralty underwater weapons establishment
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  at Portland on the Dorset coast. It was one of
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  the most sensitive research sites in the country,
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  working on how to find and track submarines,
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  at a time when Soviet submarines were one of
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  the greatest threats to the West. Act II. The
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  Clerk and the Filing Clerk. MI5's attention settled
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  on a clerk named Harry Houghton. Houghton had
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  served in the Royal Navy and later worked as
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  a clerk at the British Embassy in Warsaw. Where
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  it later emerged, he had been drawn into selling
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  black market goods and had come to the attention
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  of Polish intelligence. After his return to Britain,
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  he was posted to Portland. On a clerk's salary,
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  he was spending far more than he should have
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  been able to afford on a house, a car, and nights
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  in the pub. Houghton was in a relationship with
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  Ethel Gee, known as Buntari, who worked in the
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  records office at Portland and had access to
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  classified documents. MI5 came to believe that
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  Gee was taking documents out and that Houghton
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  was passing them on. Watchers began following
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  Houghton on his trips to London. On those visits,
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  he was seen meeting a man who called himself
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  Gordon Lonsdale. Act 3, The Bungalow in Ryslip.
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  Lonsdale presented himself as a Canadian businessman.
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  He ran companies renting out jukeboxes and vending
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  machines, and he was a popular, sociable figure.
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  In reality, he was con on malady. a Soviet intelligence
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  officer living under a borrowed identity, taken
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  from a real Canadian named Gordon Lonsdale who
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  had died as a child. Malady was an illegal, a
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  spy working without diplomatic cover. Following
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  Lonsdale, MI5 was led to a modest bungalow in
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  the London suburb of Ryslip. It belonged to Peter
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  and Helen Kroger. a friendly couple who ran an
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  antiquarian bookshop and were popular with their
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  neighbors. The Krogers were in fact Morris and
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  Lona Cohen, Americans who had already served
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  as couriers for Soviet atomic spying in the United
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  States in the 1940s and had disappeared from
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  New York around the time the Rosenbergs were
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  arrested. Their bungalow was the Ring's communication
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  hub. It was where material from Portland was
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  photographed, reduced to tiny micro dots, and
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  sent on to Moscow, sometimes hidden in the bindings
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  of books. And it had a radio transmitter. On
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  January 7th, 1961, police arrested Houghton,
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  Gee, and Lonsdale in central London, just after
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  Gee had handed over a shopping bag holding secret
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  documents. The Kroger's were arrested at their
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  home the same day. When investigators searched
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  the bungalow, they found the equipment of a Soviet
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  spy station. Cipher pads, microdot equipment,
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  forged passports, thousands of dollars in cash,
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  and a powerful radio transmitter hidden in a
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  cavity beneath the kitchen floor. In March 1961,
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  all five were tried at the Old Bailey. Lonsdale
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  was sentenced to 25 years, the Kroger's to 20
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  years each, and Houghton and Gee to 15 years
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  each. None of the Soviet agents served anything
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  like their full terms. In 1964, Lonsdale was
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  exchanged at a checkpoint in Berlin for Greville
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  Wynn. a British businessman who had been arrested
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  in Moscow for his role as a courier for the Soviet
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  spy Oleg Penkovsky. In 1969, the Kroger's were
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  exchanged for Gerald Brooke, a British lecturer
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  imprisoned in the Soviet Union. Houghton and
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  Gee were released in 1970 and married the following
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  year. The Portland spy ring showed how Soviet
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  intelligence could weave together very different
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  people. A clerk with money troubles, a woman
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  with access to records, a professional spy under
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  a dead child's name, and an American couple running
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  a bookshop. And it showed how ordinary a spy
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  ring could look from the outside. For years,
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  one of the most important Soviet intelligence
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  stations in Britain was a quiet bungalow on a
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  suburban street. This concludes declassified
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  file number 0047 of the shadow dossier. The ring
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  inside a suburban London house. What dangerous
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  This is the shadow dossier. Thank you for listening.