When the KGB arrested Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on February 12, 1974, I was a young trainee in the Reuters bureau in Moscow. That night I was supposed to attend a dinner given by the American journalist and Pulitzer prize-winner Edmund Stevens. It had been a stressful day at the office and the arrest had devastated all of us. Now was not the moment to desert my colleagues, but they insisted that I should go to the dinner.

In those days there were far more lorries than cars on Moscow's streets. That evening the roads were almost deserted and it was not difficult to spot if KGB minders were following my brand new Soviet car. The only thing I could see in my rear mirror was a dark blue bus, which, apart from the driver, looked empty. I could not understand why it was turning into the narrow streets of old Moscow where Stevens lived. When I parked it dawned on me that the KGB was fully mobilised that day in case anyone tried to protest against Solzhenitsyn's arrest. The bus was all that was left to track my movements.

Stevens, who had married a Russian woman in the Thirties, lived in considerable style by the standard of the times and none of the Soviet intelligentsia he had invited would have dreamt of passing up an invitation. The tables groaned with food and drink. I sat opposite a vast lady who was gulping down caviar, sour cream and pancakes as though she would never have a similar chance again.

The evening passed as if the arrest had never happened, except that every time I went through the hall on my way to the lavatory, I could see a very agitated man pleading passionately on Stevens's black telephone. He was the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, one of the few people I recognised at the party. He was visibly upset and I never did see him sitting down to eat. Whenever I passed him he was repeating the same words about it being “impossible” and “unacceptable” - without any apparent effect on the person at the other end of the line. Later an Italian journalist published a story revealing that Yevtushenko had rung Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB and future Soviet leader, to protest at the arrest. Andropov told the poet to “go home and sleep it off”.

I had not met Solzhenitsyn before his arrest but was soon covering the story. In those days it was the practice of Moscow's foreign press corps to share all “dissident” stories to avoid reprisals against individual reporters or media outlets. We were to meet at Solzhenitsyn's flat, off Gorky Street in the city centre, at about 9am, ostensibly for a news conference with his wife, Natalya, but this was a special event because all available hands were needed to carry out Solzhenitsyn's personal archive, which was eventually smuggled to the West. Solzhenitsyn recounted the story in his book Invisible Allies, but thanks to me it almost went terribly wrong.

When we arrived at the flat, there were people in civilian clothes with the faceless look of KGB agents sitting in a car and watching us go in. They made no attempt to stop us. We certainly did not look at them. They were there to scare Natalya rather than us, but there was clearly a risk that if we were found with compromising documents, we would be expelled.

I don't think anybody was thinking about the risk because it would have been churlish to refuse to take part in getting the archive out. There was a tremendous feeling of solidarity among the journalists and what worried us more than anything was getting the stuff away safely.

We were all terrified of being stopped by the KGB and carrying out boxes of documents was out of the question. This is where my Donegal tweed jacket came into play. It had been made by Mr O'Mailley, a Galway tailor I greatly admired, and was specially fitted with a poacher's pocket all along the back lining. It was large enough to hide a hare in, and that is where I stuffed wads of Solzhenitsyn's papers.

I was in charge of driving the getaway car, my much-loved Lada Zhiguli with yellow numberplates marked K for (foreign) korrespondent. We left the flat much heavier and fatter than we had entered it, but still the KGB made no attempt to interfere. As I slowly pulled out into traffic, my colleagues were looking out for anyone following us. It looked as if we were going to get away with it when suddenly my car came to a halt - outside Moscow's main police headquarters.

As usual, the pavement was full of militsia (police). We were nearly panicking, and one of my companions pointed out in unprintable terms that my petrol tank was empty. I feebly explained that running a car on a minimum of petrol was an old student habit. My colleagues had to push the car while I explained to the police that I was a stupid foreigner who had forgotten to fill it up with petrol, and could I therefore please leave it for a short while where it was normally strictly forbidden to park. The police did not object and silently watched us waddle off in coats stuffed with notebooks and manuscripts to find another car. Luckily, Solzhenitsyn never found out.

We made it without further incident to the safety of the Reuters office. A Scandinavian journalist who had been a member of our raiding party took the papers onwards to a Scandinavian embassy, from where they were smuggled to the West in a diplomatic bag. Solzhenitsyn's work had been saved from the KGB.

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