Ben Macintyre

That's not the case in today's book, though.

Ben Macintyre's new book is titled "Redwood," about a Cold War KGB spy who ends up working for Britain.

Why? He tells NPR's Scott Simon after the break.

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Ben Macintyre has become known as a master of espionage stories that are true.

Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends, and more.

[gentle music] In 1981, a Soviet spy walked into MI六 HQ in Tehran and offered to defect to Britain if, in return, Britain could help him improve his performance in bed.

In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Ben MacIntyre introduces Spencer Mizen to an extraordinary agent with a sexual secret, a secret that changed the course of Iranian history and may, just may, have averted nuclear war.

Hi, Ben.

It's a pleasure to have you on the History Extra podcast today.

He said, "I was sent to Pakistan with one job, and that was to kill Soviet soldiers." He was a real hard-line cold warrior ex, par excellence, and he plays a critical part in our story a bit later on.

Okay, here's a note for our listeners.

If you'd like to hear more from Ben MacIntyre on the History Extra podcast, why not listen to the episode in which he tells the incredible story of Oleg Gordievsky, the double agent who was sensationally exfiltrated from the Soviet Union in 1985? I'll leave the link to that episode in the notes for this show.

Okay, Ben, Kozichin is being described as a spy who may have saved the world from nuclear Armageddon.

Vladimir Kozichin took a deep breath before explaining it all to a British MI6 agent when they met secretly in a bathroom on the top floor of a house, and what happened next arguably changed the course of history, not only in Iran, but in the entire Middle East and beyond.

The bestselling author Ben Macintyre tells this story in his latest book, Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy.

Ben Macintyre is in our London studio.

Ben, hello.

Hello, Matt.

In the meantime, Ben, thank you very much.

It's been a pleasure.

Ben Macintyre's new book is Redwood, The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy.

But at least part of the reason he did it was personal, a sexual secret which, if it were revealed, might destroy him.

Here to look back at this gripping history of sex, nukes, and ayatollahs, I'm joined by the journalist and preeminent chronicler of modern espionage, Ben Macintyre.

His new book is Redwood: The Untold Story of the KGB's Most Extraordinary Spy.

Ben, welcome to The Bunker.

Uh, we left off with Redwood, this Russian KGB officer, uh, who's been recruited, or really volunteered, to work for MI6 in Iran, in part because of some ideological motivation, in part because of some very personal problems.

He's begun to pass intelligence to MI6, and we are still joined by Ben MacIntyre, who is with us today to speak about Agent Redwood and his wonderful new book of the same name.

So Ben, thank you so much for being back with us.

Thank you both.

Some stories are so wild, so far-fetched that they can scarcely be believed, and that's what I love about history.

You get to be blown away by the strangest, most unlikely, and bizarre things that have ever happened on this planet, and those are exactly the kinds of tales that Ben MacIntyre writes about.

He is the celebrated historian, the writer, who so brilliantly finds these stories and then tells them to us.

And every time he does so, he comes right here on the podcast with a glint in his eye, assuring me that yet again, he's got a yarn more extraordinary and consequential than the last.

This is a wild ride.

It's the story of Vladimir Kouzichkin, Agent Redwood, right here on Dan Snow's History Hit.

[dramatic music] Ben MacIntyre, great to have you on.

What's going on? What's going on? I mean, 1981, it's the forgotten little mini freeze at the end of the Cold War, isn't it?

I'm slight- wearing my sort of conspiratorial hat, I'm, I'm now slightly suspicious of, uh, oh, the, the, the kind of books that, that n- nice chap from The Times, uh, he used to be a Times journalist, writes about, uh, s- secret agents-

Oh, Ben Macintyre

...

in World War II.

What's his name? Ben, Ben Macintyre and stuff.

I- it's-

Ben Macintyre, yeah

... whose father, I think, was ...

Um, I tell you what I was gonna say, they're great.

They're, they're not really a story of UK foreign policy, but if you read the Ben Macintyre books on Kim Philby, who's the Soviet spy in MI6, I think it's called, what is it called? A Traitor and a Spy or something like that.

And then, um, the book on Oleg Gordievsky, who is the KGB guy who turns out to be a British spy.

Those two books tell you so much about MI6, the interaction with foreign policy, the Cold War.