AGENT SONYA by Ben Macintyre
AGENT SONYA by Ben Macintyre
AGENT SONYA by Ben Macintyre
AGENT SONYA
(Ben Macintyre)
Author:
Ben MacIntyre is a journalist for the Times, a BBC presenter, and the best-selling author
of several true spy stories, including The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among
Friends, Double Cross, and Operation Mincemeat. He is renowned as an expert on
spycraft during World War II and the Cold War.
Synopsis:
Agent Sonya (2020) is the biography of a respectable housewife, who also just happened
to be one of Soviet intelligence’s most intrepid and high-ranking spies. The book traces
the life of Ursula Kuczynski, code-name Sonya, from her birth in Berlin, through her
radicalization as a communist and her career as a spy who both foiled the Nazis and
arguably kicked off the Cold War.
She also happened to be one of history’s greatest and most infamous spies. Mrs. Burton’s
real name was Ursula Kuczynski and her Soviet code name was Sonya. From the 1930s
until the early 1950s, she worked as a Soviet agent. Ursula rose through the ranks of
Soviet intelligence, eventually passing nuclear secrets to Moscow and running a
sophisticated spy ring in Berlin that helped bring the Nazis down. you’ll learn
1. Ursula Kuczynski was born in 1907, into a Berlin family that was wealthy, intellectual,
and Jewish. The Kuczynskis’ social circle included great thinkers like the Marxist Karl
Liebknecht. The Kuczynskis themselves were left-leaning. In theory, they deplored
fascism, while they supported socialism and workers’ rights.
2. But Ursula was interested in more than socialist theory. She had a passion for political
activism. At just 17 years old, she was a card-carrying member of the communist party.
3. The key message here is: Before she was a spy, Ursula Kuczynski was a
committed communist.
4. As a young woman, Ursula distributed communist literature out of a cart and organized
protests. She even learned to use weapons for the revolution she and her comrades
were sure was coming. But her life wasn’t just activism. She also met and fell in love
with architect Rudi Hamburger who, while left-leaning, was no communist.
5. In 1930, Rudi accepted a job in Shanghai. Ursula decided to go with him. At the time,
China was governed by Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist Kuomintang party, but Chinese
communism was a growing force and Ursula was eager to take part in the communist
struggle in the country.
6. This was easier said than done. Expatriate society in Shanghai was stifling. As an
upper-class woman, Ursula was expected to rub shoulders with the other ladies at
7. But she did connect with one. Agnes Smedley was a journalist, a socialist, and, as
Ursula would later learn, a spy. The pair met over drinks at Shanghai’s ritzy Cathay
Hotel, and Agnes saw something in Ursula. She told the young woman to expect a
visitor soon.
8. Three weeks after she first met Agnes, a man who called himself Richard Johnson
visited Ursula at home. His real name was Richard Sorge and he was the highest-
ranking Soviet spy in China. Sorge knew Ursula was a communist, and he asked her
outright if she was prepared to support her Chinese comrades in their revolution.
Without hesitation, Ursula replied that she was. Sorge then asked to use her
apartment as a safe house. When Rudi was at work, Ursula stood guard while Sorge
conducted meetings with revolutionaries.
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9. Shortly after her first meeting with Sorge, Ursula gave birth to a son, named Michael.
Ursula and Rudi were thrilled. Richard Sorge, when he came to visit the new parents,
was pleased, too. Michael would be the perfect cover for Ursula’s revolutionary
activities. Who would suspect that this elegant, feminine, upper-class mother was
aiding and abetting the Soviets?
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1. Richard Sorge was dashing, charismatic, and a renowned ladies man. Perhaps it was
inevitable that Richard and Ursula soon turned from colleagues into lovers.
2. With increased intimacy came increased trust. Richard introduced Ursula to his circle,
and soon she was ferrying messages between agents, typing up intelligence he had
gathered, and mining her own upper-class expatriate social connections for useful
intel Richard could pass to Moscow. In his reports, he gave Ursula a code name:
Sonya.
3. The key message: Slowly, Ursula the wife and mother transformed into Sonya,
the secret agent.
4. A few months after they met, Richard asked Ursula to hide a Chinese comrade on the
run from the authorities. It was a hard test – to hide a fugitive in her house, Ursula
would have to come clean to Rudi. Rudi wasn’t pleased to learn his wife was mixed
up in a Soviet spy ring, but as a communist himself, he was sympathetic to the mission.
He grudgingly agreed, but the marriage was never the same again.
5. What’s more, Ursula’s relationship with her lover, Richard, soon came to an abrupt
end. In December 1932, Ursula received a phone call from Richard. He’d been called
back to Moscow, he said. The two never saw each other again.
6. But Richard continued to impact Ursula’s life. Shortly after his abrupt departure, she
was invited to Moscow for six months, as Richard had recommended her for further
training. This great opportunity also had a great cost, as Ursula was forced to leave
her young son Michael in the care of his grandparents, while Rudi stayed in Shanghai.
Nevertheless, she leaped at the chance to train as a Soviet spy.
7. She was sent to a training center in the village of Vorobyevo, outside Moscow. Here,
she was known only by her code name: Sonya.
8. At the center, Ursula learned about morse code, combat, short-wave radio,
explosives, and other elements of spycraft. She also promised, on pain of death, to
be loyal to the Soviet republic.
9. Her training complete, she was assigned first mission to the city of Mukden in
Manchuria, a Chinese province that had been invaded by Japan. Sonya was tasked
with connecting with the Chinese resistance and providing them with Soviet literature
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and resources to aid their struggle. She would travel undercover with another agent,
Johann Patra – code name Ernst.
10. Would she accept? Yes, on one condition. She was bringing Michael with her.
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1. In March 1943, Ursula and Johann sailed from Prague to Shanghai on the SS Conte
Verde. On the voyage, they acted out falling in love. By the time they docked, the pair
were known to be an item. Johann posed as a businessman whose work brought him
to the city of Mukden. For her cover, Ursula persuaded a bookseller in Shanghai to
allow her to act as its saleswoman in Mukden. Under this pretext, she sent crates of
books north by freight – along with an armchair containing the transmitter that Mukden
would use to communicate with Vladivostok.
2. Mukden, like all of Manchuria, was dangerous. The Japanese invasion of the region
had caused famine and unrest, and communist cells engaged in guerilla warfare
against the invaders. The Japanese were certain these cells were supported by the
Soviets. And they were right.
3. The key message is: Ursula was a critical connection between Manchurian
resistance and the Soviets.
4. An important mission awaited Ursula and Johann. Soviet intelligence was counting on
them to provide a link with Manchuria and establish connections with local
communists. Johann was older and more experienced, and therefore of more value
to the Soviets. Ursula, who was inexperienced, was expendable. This meant that she
was exposed to more danger more often.
5. While both Johann and Ursula reported to the Soviets and liaised with the resistance,
it was Ursula who crossed the border into China to get parts for their transmitter, which
she smuggled back in Michael’s teddy bear. Ursula made contact with an influential
communist rebel named Chu, then shopped for ingredients for the explosives that Chu
deployed in a railway attack.
6. Overall, Ursula and Johann were successful in their mission. In fact, they gathered
so much information they needed help transmitting it to Moscow. To this end, Chu
connected them with two communist rebels, Wu and Shushin; the two posed as
household help while they were being trained in transmitting intelligence.
7. Shushin and Ursula became close. Both mothers, they often spoke of children and, in
darker moments, wondered what would happen to their children if they were captured.
8. These fears weren’t unfounded. The Soviets’ success, in particular the increased
firepower of the resistance movement, didn’t go unnoticed by the Japanese. Ursula
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was briefly interrogated but released. In April 1935, however, there was a knock at the
door. A breathless boy shoved a note into Ursula’s hand then disappeared. Shushin
had been captured.
9. Ursula informed Vladivostok. Her instructions were simple: she and Johann were to
leave immediately, without telling anyone. Their projects were abandoned.
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1. Ursula’s audacious plan to assassinate Hitler was underway. Foote and Beurton were
planted in Munich, waiting for a chance to plant a suitcase bomb under the Führer’s
favored table at Osteria Bavaria. But the plan was brought to an abrupt halt. On August
23, 1939, Soviet and Nazi officials signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression
pact.
2. Ursula canceled the mission and recalled her agents, but she was devastated. She
had joined the communists, after all, to fight nazism. But she was also preoccupied
with practical matters. She realized, for instance, that a British passport would be very
useful. So she asked Len Beurton to marry her, then arranged a divorce from Rudi.
Ursula and Beurton’s marriage of convenience even became a lasting, loving
relationship. Life wasn’t all domestic bliss, though. Soviet intelligence still had work for
her to do.
3. The key message: Ursula did important work in Switzerland, until her cover was
blown.
4. In June 1940, Ursula was sent to meet Alexander Rado, the Soviets’ chief spy in
Switzerland. Rado had been smuggling microfiche reports hidden in books over the
French border, and he needed a skilled radio transmitter to wire the contents of these
reports to Moscow. Ursula dug up her radio, which was buried in a Swiss forest, and
was soon busy sending vital information to Soviet intelligence.
5. Then, disastrously, her cover was almost blown. Not by a counter-agent or one of the
spies in her own network, but by her nanny, Olga Muth. Olga had begun to suspect
that Ursula was a spy, and she worried that Ursula’s profession placed her children in
danger. She pleaded with Ursula to join the rest of her family in London – the
Kuczynskis had escaped Berlin in the nick of time. Ursula refused.
6. Olga, hoping that the children would be sent to safety, decided to denounce Ursula to
the authorities. But when she turned up at the British consulate, her English was too
poor for the staff to understand her. Next, Olga confided in Ursula’s neighbor. The
neighbor was shocked to learn Ursula’s true identity but realized the danger Ursula
would be in if she was found out. The neighbor revealed Olga’s plan to Ursula.
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7. With a heavy heart, Ursula informed Moscow. The reply was swift. Ursula, once an
asset, was now a threat. Too many people knew her true identity. She and Len were
ordered to depart Switzerland for England immediately.
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8. Her neighbors didn’t suspect a thing. Neither did any of the men in counter-intelligence
at MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service. But there was a lone woman working
for MI5 counterintelligence, and Ursula piqued her curiosity.
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into the early hours of the morning. Her neighbors in Summertown never suspected
a thing.
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autobiography, Sonya’s Report, revealing her life as a Soviet spy. It too became
an instant best seller.
8. But although she found safety and success in East Germany, Ursula was disillusioned
with its government. The state-sanctioned surveillance and oppression she observed
was a far cry from what she believed communism should be. In 1989, at 82 years of
age, she lent her voice to East Germany’s growing protest movement, addressing
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crowds of young protesters and voicing her support for them: yet one more act of
defiance.
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FINAL SUMMARY