Cocktails and tennis part of notorious British spy’s lavish Moscow lifestyle

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Cocktails, tennis, film evenings and skiing filled the lavish social diary of one of the KGB’s most notorious British spies, newly-released security service files reveal. John Vassall, who was blackmailed into passing vital defence secrets to the Kremlin, was at the centre of one of the century’s most bizarre and sensational cloak-and-dagger spy scandals. Newly-digitised MI5 files, published by the National Archives, also contain pictures of Vassall, as well as the cupboard housing a secret compartment in which films containing information copied from Admiralty files were found when police raided his London flat in 1962. lamentable case of espionage might have been avoided MI5 file The Admiralty was the government department that managed naval affairs at that time. In the newly-digitised MI5 files, it is noted on one document that had reported suspicions about Vassall’s sexuality been considered back in 1955, the “lamentable case of espionage might have been avoided”.