The former head of MI5 has described how Russian agents attempted to recruit her at the height of the Cold War - not realising she already worked for British intelligence.

Dame Stella Rimington began a celebrated career of spycraft at the British High Commission in New Delhi in the late Sixties, where she was an MI5 typist.

The Indian capital was “full of spies at the time” as tensions between the Soviet Union and the West mounted, she said, meaning the hunt was on for human sources.

Dame Stella revealed during a talk at the National Archives that she and her husband, who was also posted at the commission, were briefly courted by the Kremlin.

They were unexpectedly introduced to a senior figure from the Soviet embassy while attending a dinner hosted by a “very left wing couple” with whom they had become friendly.

It was not long before the future spy chief realised the Russian man was from the KGB, the Soviet Union’s security service.

She said: “My husband and I were the subject of a failed recruitment operation at one stage.

“We were very friendly with a young couple from Delhi...we invited each other to dinner and one day we went to dinner with them at Delhi university and we were having a nice conversation when all of a sudden the door opened and in came a couple from the Soviet embassy.