Kim Philby, who was a spy for the Soviets working in the British government, caused much damage to western interests before defecting to the Soviet Union sometime around 1963. For his long service to their cause, the Russians gave him an apartment in Moscow, and a pension. He spent the rest of his life here. Once, years later, he told an interviewer that he had no regrets about what he had done. [I don't believe this. I'm sure he would have loved to have seen England again, and I can't think of anything more depressing than spending one's last years in a dingy, gray Moscow apartment.] He died sometime in the late 80s, during Gorbachev's administration.
But WI he had lived several years longer, say to about 1996? It would have been real poetic justice for him to have seen the demise of the Soviet Union, eastern Europe liberated, and communism declared one of the biggest disasters of the 20th century by historians. The question is, would the British govt. want him back, to put him on trial for treason? How would the Yeltsin administration respond to this? Would the British people scream for justice? I doubt the Russian people would care, one way or the other. Comments?