In October 1954 a clerk working at the British embassy in Moscow, John Vassall, was invited to a party. Vassall got into a taxi with a “dark-haired stranger” and found himself in the Hotel Berlin. There, he had dinner with a group of Russian men in a private dining room. Soon, he was naked and lying on a divan. Two men raped him. Another took photographs. At 3.30am they brought him home in a taxi.
The episode – organised by the KGB’s second chief directorate – was a classic honeytrap. A few months later Vassall had a consensual sexual encounter with a uniformed Russian military officer. KGB operatives burst in on them. They showed Vassall photos taken previously and laid out his options. He could spy for Moscow, or be ruined and exposed.
