A Football player. A Party man. A spy? Some touches to the portrait of Agustin Gomez

The article explores and explains the newly uncovered details of the biography of Agustin Gomez (1922—1975), a famous Soviet and international soccer player of Spanish descent and an outstanding figure of Spain’s Communist party. Special emphasis is put on Gómez’s relationship with intelligence services with HQs in Moscow, his training at a special intelligence school of the Communist International during WW2 in Bashkiria and his ties with alleged Spanish participants of Operation “Orange” within the “Pickaxe” scheme, carried out by the intelligence branch of Soviet NKVD/NKGB and Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE). The article is based upon declassified documents of the National Archives (TNA) of the United Kingdom and newly discovered material from the Comintern files of the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History (RGASPI). A valuable addition is the official reply by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) to a request from the All-Russian State TV and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK).

Keywords

Gómez, soccer, Spain, intelligence, Comintern

Received

03.03.2020

Publication date

11.03.2020

Number of characters

26482

Cite

GOST	Brilev S. A Football player. A Party man. A spy? Some touches to the portrait of Agustin Gomez // Latin America – 2020. – Issue 3 C. 64-77 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://latamerica-journal.ru/S0044748X0008393-1-1 (circulation date: 20.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S0044748X0008393-1
MLA	Brilev, Sergey "A Football player. A Party man. A spy? Some touches to the portrait of Agustin Gomez." Latin America 3 (2020):64-77. DOI: 10.31857/S0044748X0008393-1
APA	Brilev S. (2020). A Football player. A Party man. A spy? Some touches to the portrait of Agustin Gomez. Latin America (3), pp.64-77 DOI: 10.31857/S0044748X0008393-1

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