Konstantin Volkov (diplomat)

Approach In late August 1945, Konstantin Volkov, Vice Consul for the Soviet Union in Istanbul, sent a letter to Chantry Hamilton Page, the vice consul in the British Consulate General in Istanbul, requesting an urgent appointment. Page decided the letter was a "prank" and ignored it. A few days later, on 4 September, Volkov accompanied with his wife Zoya arrived in person and asked for a meeting with Page. Page did not speak Russian, and so he brought in John Leigh Reed, first secretary at the consulate to translate for Volkov. Reed later reported: "I was serving in our embassy in Turkey in 1945.... One morning this Russian walks into reception looking very nervous and asks to see the acting consul-general, Chantry Page. The Russian is Konstantin Volkov, Page's opposite number in the Soviet embassy. I'd done my Russian exams so I get the job as interpreter. Anyway, it turns out that Volkov is really an NKVD officer and he has decided to defect. He says he wants a laissez-passer for himself and his wife to Cyprus and £27,500. In return he is offering the real names of three Soviet agents working in Britain. He says two of them are working in the Foreign Office, one the head of a counter-espionage organisation in London." Demands Volkov was specifically willing to expose 314 Soviet agents in Turkey and 250 Soviet agents in Britain, in return for £27,500 (roughly a £1 million in 2023) and a promise of political asylum. He also said he knew the names of two British diplomats (later revealed to be Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean) in the Foreign Office and a very high-ranking officer in the Counter Intelligence Section of MI6 of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) (later revealed to be Kim Philby) who were spying for the Soviet Union. Disappearance In the three weeks it took Philby to reach Turkey, Volkov and his wife had vanished and could not be found. Reports say he returned to the Soviet Consulate from where he quickly disappeared. He was last seen - as a heavily bandaged figure - along with his wife being hustled aboard a Soviet transport plane bound for Moscow. ==Aftermath==

Philby vigorously defended himself against the charges made by Consulate officials, who had met with Volkov, that his actions were criminally incompetent. Philby was quick to point out that his 21-day delay was first caused by the slow pace of couriers reaching London. Second that the SIS and the Foreign Office could not agree who should oversee the defection because the approach was made through diplomatic channels. Thirdly it was discovered that phone lines between the British Consulate in Istanbul and the British Embassy in Ankara had been tapped by Soviet intelligence, and that there had been calls where Volkov's name had been mentioned during this period. This evidence was enough to provide Philby with enough plausible deniability that he had failed Volkov. ==See also==