9 See https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2010-featured-story-archive/colonel-penkovsky.html. Penkovsky passed his messages in a park to a British diplomat’s wife wheeling a pram.
10 Next Stop Execution (Macmillan, 1995) is one of Mr Gordievsky’s many books.
11 ‘Cold War Spy Tale Came to Life on the Streets of Moscow’ by Matt Schudel, Washington Post, 20 April 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/4/19/AR2008041902071_pf.html
12 Bearden/Risen, p. 382.
13 Paul Goble, then at the CIA, deserves special mention here. His blog has been essential reading http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com
14 ‘Transitional Justice in the Former Yugoslavia’ http://ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-FormerYugoslavia-Justice-Facts-2009-English.pdf
15 Entitled Lähtealused Eesti eriteenistuste väljaarendamiseks (Guidelines on the development of Estonia’s special services), it is still classified and my requests to view it have been politely rejected. See Eesti nähtamatud mehed (Estonia’s invisible men) by Toomas Sildam and Kaarel Tarand, Postimees, 20 January 1997 http://www.postimees.ee/luup/97/2/top.htm
16 Interview with the author, March 2011.
17 ‘ Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament) Committee of Investigation to Ascertain the Circumstances Related to the Export of Military Equipment from the Territory of the Republic of Estonia on the Ferry Estonia in 1994, Final Report.’ Available at http://www.riigikogu.ee/public/Riigikogu/Dokumendid/estcom_eng.pdf
18 See ‘Death in the Baltic, the MI6 Connection’ by Stephen Davis, New Statesman, 23 May 2005 http://www.newstatesman.com/200505230019 and this report (in Swedish) by the judge Johan Hirschfeldt ‘Transport of military material on the MV Estonia in September 1994’ http://www.estoniasamlingen.se/textfiles/Fo_2004_6.pdf
19 ‘ In der Bermuda Dreieck der Ostsea’ (‘In the Bermuda Triangle of the Baltic Sea’), Der Spiegel, 23 December 1999 http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/,1518,57520,0.html. I am grateful to Jutta Rabe for her help.
20 I was the managing editor and major shareholder of the Baltic Independent, which in late 1994 merged with the Baltic Observer to become the Baltic Times www.baltictimes.com
21 A particular puzzle concerns the fate of the captain, Arvo Piht, and several other survivors. They include Lembit Leiger (chief engineer), Viktor Bogdanov (ship’s doctor), Kaimar Kikas (navigation officer), Agur Targama (fourth engineer), Tiina Müür (manager of the duty-free shop) and Hannely Veid and Hanka-Hannika Veide (dancers). All eight were seen by multiple witnesses leaving the vessel on the same life raft and were recorded as rescued in multiple lists compiled on shore. In several cases (including Captain Piht and the twins) their families received phone calls informing them that their relatives were safe – in the twins’ case using a nickname known only to close friends and family. The twins’ parents say they have received phone calls from their daughters; they believe they were until recently living in San Diego. Captain Piht’s rescue was also reported in the New York Times, in an article by Richard Stevenson on 1 October 1994 http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/1/world/investigators-cite-bow-door-in-estonian-ferry-s-sinking.html
In the confusing aftermath of a disaster, many mistakes happen, not least in record-keeping; bereaved parents’ grief can render them delusional. The idea that eight people could be abducted from Sweden as part of an international cover-up of a botched smuggling operation will strike many as outrageously implausible. I am not endorsing any particular theory and I am aware that some people speculating about the ‘real’ story of the Estonia are bigots and nutcases. Among the many sites dealing with the tragedy are http://members.tripod.com/mv_estonia, http://www.elaestonia.org/eng/index.php and http://www.estoniaferrydisaster.net Interviews with the Veide parents (in Estonian) can be found here http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/22560 (in which one of the supposedly dead twin daughters is said to have phoned) and http://www.parnupostimees.ee/?id=268822 (with the San Diego reference).
11 The Traitor’s Tale
1 I cannot find independent confirmation of this but Bo Kragh, a banker and government adviser at the time, terms the claim ‘very plausible’. Suitcases of cash crossing the Baltic Sea in those days were not unusual.
2 This and some other quotes come from Riigereetur (State Traitor) a film about the Simm case, originally in Estonian. It is available with English subtitles here as The Spy Inside http://www.javafilms.fr/spip.php?article427
3 In the 1990s, even Russian course members (from the GRU) took part in courses there. However this has ceased due to some clumsy attempts by those invited to spy. The museum at Chicksands is well worth visiting. http://www.army.mod.uk/intelligence/about/default.aspx
4 Its full name is the Kaitsepolitseiamet. www.kapo.ee/eng
5 A brief account of Scott’s meetings with Simm comes in Spionimängud (Spy Games) by Virkko Lepassalu (Pegasus, Tallinn, 2009), pp.106–109.
6 These and other details come from discussions with serving officials who prefer not to be mentioned in print.
7 Interview with Mr Savisaar, March 2010.
8 http://www.mod.gov.ee/en/1252. Other documents such as www.mod.gov.ee/files/kmin/img/File/palgad_2003.xls give his 2003 annual salary of 233715.95 Estonian kroons (in those days about £10,00); another shows him as one of the participants on the ‘Higher National Defence Course’ http://www.mod.gov.ee/et/i-krkk