The KGB Double Agent Who Stopped Armageddon with Ben Macintyre

Dan Snow interviews historian and author Ben Macintyre about his new book 'Redwood,' detailing the story of Vladimir Kouzichkin, a KGB officer codenamed Agent Redwood. Stationed in revolutionary Iran in 1981, Kouzichkin collaborated with British intelligence to reveal Soviet operations in Iran at a time when Washington feared a Soviet takeover could trigger military intervention and nuclear war. His motivation for becoming a double agent was not ideological but deeply personal: he sought treatment for a private medical problem. The episode explores the unlikely friendship between spies on opposite sides and how one man's personal vulnerability may have shaped Cold War history.