Operation FOOT

{{Short description|Major British counter-espionage operation}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Operation FOOT was the expulsion of 105 Soviet officials from Great Britain carried out by Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Edward Heath in September 1971 as part of the Cold War.{{cite book|last1=Bennett|first1=Gill|title=Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy|date=August 5, 2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=123}} It is {{Nowrap|"[t]he}} largest expulsion of intelligence officials by any government in history."{{cite web|last1=Walton|first1=Calder|title=Why Obama Was Smart to Kick Out Russian Spies|url=https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/why-obama-was-smart-to-kick-out-russian-spies-214608/|website=Politico}} It "was a British response to the general Soviet plan to advance terrorist activities in the West."{{cite book|last1=Trahair|first1=R.C.S.|title=Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations|pages=220}}

Though Britain had engaged in "tit-for-tat" expulsions previously, the expulsion of 105 diplomats was "unprecedented" and "sent shock waves through not just the Kremlin, but through the international community as a whole."

The operation "marked the major turning point in Cold War counter-espionage operations in Britain" and "made Britain a hard espionage target for Soviet intelligence for the first time."{{cite web|last1=Andrew|first1=Christopher|title=The Later Cold War|url=https://www.mi5.gov.uk/the-later-cold-war|website=MI5 Security Service - History - Cold War}}