About this episode
The episode discusses the KGB's use of same-sex honey traps during the Cold War, featuring insights from historian Irina Roldugina.
One of the most salacious and storied methods of KGB spycraft during the Cold War was the honey trap. Agents would get an informant to seduce a target, usually a Westerner deemed important. Then use that encounter as blackmail. We’re all aware of this thanks to movies and television. What we know nothing about are same-sex honey traps. The KGB’s use of homosexual men to seduce other men, whether said men were gay or not. Officials, academics, businessmen and other power positions were targets. How do we know about these operations? Well, because of the intrepid research of historian Irina Roldugina. Roldugina got access to KGB files related to same-sex operations and found more information in, of all things, declassified US government documents related to the Kennedy Assassination. How did these operations work? Who did the KGB tap for same-sex seduction? What do these documents tell us? And what did the KGB think of homosexuality in general? The Eurasian Knot spoke to Irina about her recent article, “ The Cold War and the Soviet KGB's Same-Sex Entrapment Operations in the 1950s and 1960s: The Perpetrator in Focus ” published in the Fall 2025 issue of Journal of Cold War Studies…
People in this episode
Host: The Eurasian Knot
Guest: Irina Roldugina
Topics covered
- KGB
- same-sex honey traps
- Cold War
- blackmail
- queer history
- spycraft
Keywords
- KGB
- honey traps
- Cold War
- blackmail
- queer history
- Irina Roldugina
- Soviet Union
- seduction
- intelligence operations
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Bristol, Journal of Cold War Studies
Books & works: The Cold War and the Soviet KGB's Same-Sex Entrapment Operations in the 1950s and 1960s: The Perpetrator in Focus
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