What happened in this episode?
Jack Carr interviews British author and Times columnist Ben Macintyre about his approach to narrative non-fiction and his body of work on espionage. Macintyre describes his method as archive-led and tightly sourced, while aiming for novel-like pacing, and recounts being approached by MI6 on his last day at Cambridge — an encounter he says did not progress further.
Much of the discussion centres on Macintyre’s forthcoming book, "Redwood", which he presents as a largely untold Cold War case set in revolutionary Iran. He says a senior KGB officer, Vladimir Kazichkin (code-named “Redwood”), walked into the British embassy in Tehran in 1981 offering to spy for the West, motivated in part by a belief that Western medicine could treat his erectile dysfunction. Macintyre claims Kazichkin provided intelligence alleging a Soviet-backed plan to use Iran’s communist party to stage a coup, enabling Soviet forces to secure oilfields and the Strait of Hormuz.
Macintyre further alleges that MI6 and the CIA decided to share the agent’s reporting — including names and addresses — with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, precipitating mass arrests and executions of Iranian communists and strengthening the Islamic regime. He also recounts purported US contingency planning that included extreme measures, up to and including nuclear options, to prevent Soviet control of Iranian oil.
Elsewhere, Macintyre touches on Kim Philby and Oleg Gordievsky, the Iranian embassy siege, and why MI6’s secrecy makes some histories dependent on interviews rather than declassified files.
