Portland Spy Ring
How did they spy for the Soviets?
4.1 (10)
58 mins
Explore how an apparently ordinary group of people became involved in a sophisticated Soviet intelligence operation operating from Britain. Discover the secret meetings, dead drops, coded communications, and surveillance that eventually brought investigators closer to the network.
Ep 1:
The Prize at Portland
Inside Britain's most devastating Cold War breach: a revolutionary sonar, a disgraced clerk turned traitor, ignored warnings, and the booksellers who weren't booksellers at all.
Ep 2:
The Ghost and the Sniper
A Canadian businessman who never existed, a defector codenamed Sniper, and MI5's painstaking surveillance operation that finally began closing in on the Portland network.
Ep 3:
The Trap at the Old Vic
January 1961: watchers, codes, and a shopping bag full of stolen secrets converge at Waterloo as MI5 springs its trap—followed by trials, hidden losses, and staggering strategic damage.
Ep 4:
Spies Swapped, Secrets Buried
Spy swaps, Soviet medals, and institutional reckoning: how Portland's traitors were traded, honored in Moscow, and how Britain's failures finally forced reform decades too late.
Discussions (5)
Asher
Level 4 · 1 week agoPeggy Houghton literally walked into the Admiralty and told them her husband was a spy and they called her a jealous wife 💀 she handed them everything and they just threw it in the bin
Rhett
Level 10 · 1 week agoThe 1000% advance in underwater warfare claim checks out, naval analysts confirmed this post arrests
Lee
Level 3 · 1 week agoBunty sent Houghton a Christmas card saying 'ours is a dangerous business' one month before they were arrested. She KNEW.
