Are Gordievsky and Kalugin false defectors?
Given the fact that Gordievsky insists Nosenko, Kochnov and Yurchenko were true defectors, I can only conclude that he’s a false one.
Afterall, in his 2007 Yale University Press book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries and Deadly Games, former CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley says those three guys weren't true defectors and goes to great length to explain why.
Bagley doesn’t say much about Gordievsky in his book but does point out that he spread the false idea in the 1980s that the KGB had tried to find and assassinate both (true defector) Anatoliy Golitsyn and (false defector) Nosenko.
Regardless, are we really to believe that the KGB, suspecting Gordievsky of treason, recalled him from London, interrogated him, failed to surveil him upon release and allowed him to escape the country?
I feel the same way about Oleg Kalugin, by the way.
An anecdote:
As intelligence-savvy author Allen Weinstein pointed out in a conference several years ago, “I’ve just heard Oleg’s twelve reasons for Yurchenko’s redefection, and it has opened my mind on this once again. At least each one of them sounds in its own way somewhat persuasive, but I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s obvious that you’ve thought about this a lot yourself, but it may be that there’s something you still don’t want to tell us.”
Kalugin: “Why would I try to fool you?”
Weinstein: “Why not?”
What really seals the deal for me regarding Kalugin is that he says Spy Wars is “absurd trash.”
You can read Bagley’s book for free by Googling “spy wars” and “archive“ simultaneously.