Richard Clements (journalist) - Allegations of Spying

Allegations of Spying

In 1999, he was named by the Sunday Times as a Soviet "agent-of-influence". Basing its story on documents from the Mitrokhin Archive, the paper alleged that Moscow regarded Clements, operating under the code-name of "Dan", as "its most reliable propaganda tool in Britain". Documents from the archive purportedly show that the KGB provided Clements with text which he then published in the Tribune and that he also published articles based on information supplied by a Russian organisation known as "Service A". Although Clements acknowledged meeting Russian officials, he denied being a spy, pointing to the large number of anti-Soviet articles published by Tribune under his editorship. In his opinion, "They may have thought they were controlling me, but they were not. I suspect they exaggerated their reports to Moscow. Perhaps they were boosting their expenses."