MI6 has little money. Unlike the CIA, it cannot offer potential recruits huge sums to come to talk. Its greatest asset is that people have believed that it is secure: if you worked for MI6, you would not be found out. It was that reputation which persuaded me to take the gigantic risk of working for the organisation when I was in the KGB. Now that reputation has been seriously damaged. By its actions, The Sunday Times has aided and abetted Tomlinson in his desire to inflict maximum damage on MI6 and on Britain. The paper has always insisted that it is loyal and patriotic. But in its obsession with mere sensation, which led the paper to publish Tomlinson's shameful story, it seems to have forgotten the meaning of those two words.