Cold War? I'll say it was!

British spook tells how KGB heavies 'debagged' him at minus 27 for snapping secret site

A British spy endured the frostiest treatment the Soviet Union could deliver at the height of the Cold War.

The naval attaché was pounced on and debagged at minus 27 degrees by KGB agents who spotted him spying in Leningrad.

The incident in February 1979 was deemed so sensitive that confidential reports, including references to the removal of the attaché's trousers, were sent to the then Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan.

The spy who came a-cropper in the cold: Lieut-Cmdr Aubone Pyke in Moscow in 1977. His file has been released under the 30-year rule

Cabinet papers released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule this weekend show how the episode involving Lieutenant-Commander Aubone Pyke was hushed up before a visit to Moscow by the Duke of Edinburgh.

Speaking for the first time about the incident last night, the retired officer said the KGB had been watching him after he had notched up intelligence coups including obtaining details of a new MiG fighter, a battle tank and a top-secret submarine.

The career military officer, an assistant attaché at the British Embassy in Moscow and a Russian speaker, had also irritated the Soviets by driving around in a battered blue Volga car with the number plate '007'.

Lieut-Cmdr Pyke said he had taken a newly arrived colleague, Lieut-Cmdr Ian Clapham, and their wives on a tour of Leningrad, now called St Petersburg, which was a centre for warship and nuclear submarine construction.

They strolled along taking innocent photographs of tourist attractions. But when Lieut-Cmdr Pyke decided to snap a sensitive military installation, a group of 'heavies' surrounded them.

Speaking at his home in Dorset, he said: 'We'd had a lot of success as agents, so I knew that the Sovs wanted to make a point. Ian Clapham had just arrived in Russia so I was showing him the ropes. In fact we were just taking tourist snaps.

'Then we saw something unusual at a military boatyard and took a photo. In hindsight, I think the KGB put it there to trap us.

'Next thing, about 25 goons were on us and they pulled my trousers straight down. It was to stop me running away or struggling and it was very effective. I can tell you it was bloody cold and my wife was very worried about the obvious effects.

Irony curtain: Lieut-Cmdr Pyke's daughter Charlotte plays a Russian agent in Spooks

'Three women among the KGB team took care of our wives. We were hustled off to a nearby hall and held for some hours until they processed 18 films they'd taken from us.

'Then an officer looked at each one in turn, dismissing them as "everyday pictures" until the last film, when he declared "military object".

'We were eventually released and expected a diplomatic incident, but it never materialised. Instead everything was smoothed over.'

His wife Judy said: 'I was worried for Aubone and I was frightened about what was going to happen, because I had three young children back at home in the Embassy.'

One of those children is their daughter Charlotte, a successful actress who trained at the St Petersburg Academy of Dramatic Art. She recently played a Russian agent in the BBC series Spooks, in which the modern equivalent of the KGB plans a nuclear attack on London.

Her father, now 66, said: 'It is a delicious irony because, as a child, she was held twice by the KGB with her mother as part of their harassment of diplomatic staff, which was constant and often serious.'

In a secret communiqué seen by Mr Callaghan, the British Ambassador, Sir Curtis Keeble, said the four 'observers' had been 'thrown to the ground and robbed'.

A Foreign Office assessment of the diplomatic implications, requested by Mr Callaghan, said the incident was 'an exceptionally large-scale and carefully planned operation'.

But the note added that the Soviet authorities were 'keen not to play the incident up', probably because the Duke of Edinburgh was visiting Moscow the following week on Equestrian Federation business connected to the Olympic Games.