‘Ace of Spies’ walks into OGPU trap

November 5 1925 — Secret agent Sidney Reilly, 51, the first “super-spy” of the 20th century, is executed by the OGPU, the secret police of the Soviet Union. Known as the “Ace of Spies”, the Ukraine-born adventurer and secret agent was employed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and later by the Foreign Section of the British Secret Service Bureau. Documentary evidence indicates that he was involved in espionage activities in 1890s London among Russian émigré circles, in Manchuria on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) and in an abortive 1918 coup against Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik government in Moscow. In September 1925 Reilly met a group of men in Paris who discussed how they could make contact in Moscow with a “pro-monarchist, anti-Bolshevik” organisation known as “The Trust”. In reality, “The Trust” was an elaborate counter-espionage deception created by the OGPU. Reilly travelled to Finland and was taken over the Sestra River to the Soviet side where he was handed over to OGPU officers. He was interrogated at Lubyanka Prison and executed in a forest near Moscow on Thursday November 5. In his 1932 book “Memoirs of a British Agent”, British diplomat and journalist RH Bruce Lockhart recounts his and Reilly’s 1918 exploits, with others, to overthrow the Bolshevik regime. The book becomes an international bestseller and garners global fame for Reilly. The 1983 Thames Television miniseries “Reilly, Ace of Spies” wins the 1984 Bafta TV Award. Sam Neill, who portrays Reilly, is nominated for a Golden Globe.