In 1974, the KGB underwent a massive shakeup in its top echelons as agency chief Yuri Andropov and his five most senior deputies, along with the KGB's London station chief and western European regional director of operations, were all fired for their respective roles in the chain of events leading to the assassination of Harold Wilson and the subsequent collapse of the agency's spy network in Britain.

KGB Shake-up by Chris OakleyPost-Cold War historians would cite the shakeup as the beginning of the end for the KGB; the loss of so many experienced executives, with the collapse of Soviet intel operations in the UK, would compromise Soviet covert activities in the West to such a degree that Reagan administration CIA director William Casey would later compare the KGB to "a truck with three flat tires and both headlights broken".

The shakeup also seriously disrupted KGB efforts to combat foreign espionage on Soviet soil - and last but not least, it effectively ended Andropov's political career. Before the Wilson fiasco Andropov had been one of the most powerful men in the Kremlin and was considered in some circles a possible successor to CPSU general secretary Leonid Brezhnev; after his firing, however, Andropov would effectively become persona non grata in Moscow. His dismissal is thought to have been a factor in his death from cirrhosis in 1979 at the age of 65.