Alexander Foote Allan Alexander Foote ( b . 13 . April 1905 , d . 1 . August 1957 ) was a radio operator for a Soviet espionage ring in Switzerland during World War II . Foote was originally from Yorkshire in England , and had spent some time in Spain working for the Republican side during the Civil War in the 1930s . He decided to continue his efforts against Fascism ( and , perhaps , for Communism ) and volunteered for clandestine work with Red Orchestra . He was put into contact with Ursula Kuczynski in Switzerland . He became a radio operator for the Soviet espionage operation run by Alexander Rado and was one of those who passed information to Moscow from the Lucy spy ring run by Rudolf Roessler . Foote was one of those arrested when the Swiss police shut down most of the operation and was detained for a time . After the War , he spent some time in the Eastern Bloc and then returned to the West and published his book , " A Handbook for Spies " . He died in the 1950s . Because of the implausible veracity of the intelligence ( fast , plentiful , and accurate ) and never explained source of the Lucy Ring ' s information , suspicion attaches to all those associated with it . Since Foote , as the Lucy Ring ' s radio operator was a central cog in the chain of supply and therefore in a position to know much , his subsequent account has been thought to be rather dubious in places . This and the fact that he seemingly managed to return to the West rather easily , has led some to suggest Foote was a British Secret Service double agent and one conduit ( perhaps even the main one ) of intelligence from Britain to Roessler and thence to Moscow . According to various sources , Foote was indeed a MI6 ( SIS ) double agent unbeknownst to Rado . After the destruction of Rado ' s network and his escape from Switzerland , Rado met Foote in Paris and both were ordered to return to Moscow immediately . They took off aboard a Russian military aeroplane on January 6 , 1945 , taking a circuitous route ( due to the war being still in progress ) via Egypt . Their plane landed to refuel in Cairo , where upon Rado defected . Continuing alone to Moscow , Foote was subjected to intensive interrogation in an attempt to determine his loyalty and the possibility of his being a penetration agent . Upon successfully getting through the questioning , he was given a false identity under the alias of Major Granatov . Posing as a German , Albert Müller , he inserted himself into post war Berlin to establish this alias with the aim of being sent by Moscow Centre to Argentina , to attempt to identify and infiltrate groups of escaped high ranking Nazis . Journalist , broadcaster and author Malcolm Muggeridge , himself a wartime MI6 officer , " got to know Foote after the war " ( pp 207 – 08 ) when Foote paid Muggeridge " regular visits " at his flat near Regents Park , London . Foote at this time was working as a clerk in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries , work he found , according to Muggeridge , " very tedious " . Muggeridge is firmly of the opinion that the information Foote sent " could only , in fact , have come from Bletchley " . In March 1947 , following the defection of a Soviet agent who had been involved with British Intelligence , Foote ' s allegiance to the British may have been confirmed . Foote himself defected from his Russian control in Berlin , escaping to the British sector .