³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

The ongoing spy scandal between USA and Russia has made me think about the ominous nature of the KGB.

There are institutions which embody the different mentalities nations. They reflect their ideologies, define their psyche, or - in a word - personify them. Think for instance of France and its CNRS. Do you know what CNRS stands for? It's the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. One has to be French to understand the Holy Grail-like status of its existence. Basically it's a ticket to a life-long academic grant to indulge free-thinking curiosity at the expense of the state. I admit wholeheartedly and faithfully: I've never known a clever Frenchman or Frenchwoman who hasn't dreamt of ending his or her life being a professor of CNRS. For the same token think about Hollywood for an American - or dare I say - the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ for the English.

In the Soviet Union, the KGB was the institution. Don't think of it just in Western terms (as a secretive, totalitarian, omnipresent and ominous organization), but imagine what this institution meant for the Soviets themselves. Ask any former non-dissident Soviet intellectual, and many of them probably would tell you that in their youth they dreamt of becoming spies.

The secret services are called "intelligence" in the West, so for many intelligent and curious Soviet people these "intelligence services" represented a rare opportunity to become "more equal" among equals. And the organisation allowed their agents to live legally Western style "capitalist" lives, while remaining normal - and also heroic - Soviet citizens in the admiring eyes of other compatriots.

Possessing power above the law, invisible invincibility and wild adventurism in a society where everything was prescribed and uniformed - being a spy was quite appealing. The best Soviet films, first soap-operas, thriller-books - all of them were about triumphant Soviet spies. Even jokes and songs glorified Major Pronin - a heroic fictional spy like James Bond.

But the intrinsic license to lie was obvious in the way the KGB glorified its actions abroad while keeping completely silent on its silencing of dissidents within its own country.

You could argue that it was one-sided socialist romanticism that famously sucked even the brightest products of Cambridge like double agent Kim Philby and co into the KGB. But with the communist ideology nearly dead in today's Russia, one wonders what made today's knights of cloak and dagger want to work for the FSB?

I once asked a former colleague from the Russian service the difference between how the people viewed the Communist party and the KGB, and he came up with an unexpected comparison:

"How could you compare that visibly corrupt and worn out institution to the invisible and therefore gloriously imaginative force of the somber KGB?! It's like comparing dim TV pictures to the divinely anonymous sounds of radio. Look in your eyes", he said, "Reflections stop on the surface of your pupil, whereas the audacious waves enter the very caves of your soul..."

Next week I'm going to go further into this spy stuff and write about the life and death of one of Bush House's very own legends - Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov.

Robert Baum, lawyer for accused Russian spy Anna Chapman