According to Hansen, Aksel Larsen feared retaliation from the KGB and, suspecting the American agent of being a KGB assassin, brought a friend with a gun to the first meeting to act as bodyguard. Poul Dam, a party colleague of Larsen, has reported that he had made preparations to go into hiding in the case of a Soviet invasion. Hansen speculates that Aksel Larsen's cooperation with the CIA was part of a trade-off, where the CIA got information on communists and Larsen in return would be protected from the KGB.