If the Grand-Mata Hari revelation wasnt particularly salacious, the vices of a former vice squad cop set pulses racing. Former Scotland Yard pornography squad officer John Symonds turns out to have been employed by the Soviets to seduce lonely women with access to embassy secrets - and to have been trained for the role by bodacious KGB experts. "I was taught how to be a better lover...," Symonds told the BBC, "by two extremely beautiful girls." The Mitrokhin files also tell of the sexual entrapment of British journalist and member of parliament Tom Driberg, a gay man who was blackmailed into Soviet service after attempting to seduce a KGB plant in a public toilet in Moscow.
While both the tabloid and serious media are lapping up the salacious espionage tales, politically the scandal may be no more than a storm in a teacup. "Most of these people are now in their eighties and unlikely to be prosecuted," says TIME London bureau chief Jef McAllister. "And the British government has had this information since 1992 this is just the first public airing, to coincide with Mitrokhins book. But there is a minor political storm, with the Conservatives demanding an investigation as to why various ministers werent informed and why none of those named has been charged." Further revelations are expected, concerning more agents in high places and elaborate Soviet plans for sabotage and assorted other malfeasance in Western Europe and the U.S. "But remember," says McAllister, "the Soviet Union has collapsed. This stuff is mostly of historic interest." Still, itll stay on the front page for a while yet in a society that loves both a dash of politics in its sex scandals and a dose of sex scandal in its politics.