Sex, Spies & Honeytraps - The John Vassall Affair | Ep.61 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast

03/13/24 • 57 min

1 Listener

'Spy mania' was at its height in the early 1960s when a junior clerk in the Admiralty was revealed to be spying for the Soviet Union, after he had been drugged and then secretly photographed by KGB agents in Moscow while being raped by at least two men.

At a time when sexual relationships between men were illegal, John Vassall was jailed and publicly humiliated, while tabloid newspaper ran stories such as ‘How to Spot a Homo’.

Writer Alex Grant joins Andrew and Phil to discuss his book on John Vassall, and what his life story tells us about both espionage and the social history of the 1960s.

You can buy Alex's book, and books from the other authors we feature here, in our own Scandal Mongers bookshop - along with thousands more. Andrew’s own book on the spy Guy Burgess is also available here.

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/sex-spies-and-scandal-the-john-vassall-affair-alex-grant/7392845?aid=12054&ean=9781785907883&

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers

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The Scandal Mongers Podcast is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJgy7_rHwpE&t=23s

Andrew Lownie

https://twitter.com/andrewlownie

Phil Craig

https://twitter.com/philmcraig

Scandal Mongers

https://twitter.com/MongersPodcast

You can get in touch with the show hosts via...

[email protected] (place 'Scandal Mongers' in the heading please).

This show is part of the PodcastWorld.org network. For your own show please get in contact via the email address above.

Production by

Theo X

Kerem Isik

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At a time when sexual relationships between men were illegal, John Vassall was jailed and publicly humiliated, while tabloid newspaper ran stories such as ‘How to Spot a Homo’.

Writer Alex Grant joins Andrew and Phil to discuss his book on John Vassall, and what his life story tells us about both espionage and the social history of the 1960s.

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/sex-spies-and-scandal-the-john-vassall-affair-alex-grant/7392845?aid=12054&ean=9781785907883&

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

The Scandal Mongers Podcast is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJgy7_rHwpE&t=23s

Andrew Lownie

https://twitter.com/andrewlownie

Phil Craig

https://twitter.com/philmcraig

Scandal Mongers

https://twitter.com/MongersPodcast

You can get in touch with the show hosts via...

[email protected] (place 'Scandal Mongers' in the heading please).

This show is part of the PodcastWorld.org network. For your own show please get in contact via the email address above.

Production by

Theo X

Kerem Isik

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Prince Andrew, Royal Money Scandals & our right to know! | EP. 60 | Scandal Mongers Podcast

According to the court reports last week, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, pocketed more than £1 million from an allegedly corrupt financier acting on behalf of a Turkish millionaire. And nobody can say why. It’s one of many obscure stories of cash flowing into royal coffers that our Andrew - Lownie - has been trying to investigate for years.

In this special episode Andrew shares some of his theories about what has been happening here - and asks questions about Prince Andrew’s time as a ’trade envoy’. Just who was he representing on these expensive foreign trips? His country or his own family? We also discuss the wider issues of royal finance and the public’s right to know about it.

Andrew has spent many frustrating months battling for access to royal and other official documents about Prince Andrew and others, but Britain’s Freedom of Information system does not appear to be very helpful.

Later in the episode we talk to the guru of freedom of information (in Britain and elsewhere) about all this - ex BBC journalist Martin Rosenbaum.

Martin Rosenbaum has also written a guide book to your rights to information

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-Info...

You can buy Andrew and Phil’s books, and work from the other authors we feature here, in our own Scandal Mongers bookshop - along with thousands more.

https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/scandalmongers

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

The Scandal Mongers Podcast is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJgy7_rHwpE&t=23s

Andrew Lownie

https://twitter.com/andrewlownie

Phil Craig

https://twitter.com/philmcraig

Scandal Mongers

https://twitter.com/MongersPodcast

You can get in touch with the show hosts via...

[email protected] (place 'Scandal Mongers' in the heading please).

This show is part of the PodcastWorld.org network. For your own show please get in contact via the email address above.

Production by

Theo X

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

William, Kate and THAT Photograph - with Valentine Low + Spies 2 | Ep.62 | Scandal Mongers Podcast

This was meant to be the second of our two spy episodes, and it still is - but first Andrew and Phil were able to speak with our friend, the VERY well connected royal reporter Valentine Low, about the speculation that's swirling around the prince and princess of wales? Phil also references this article of his about the psychological roots of our interest in monarchy.

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-kings-touch/

Then writer Robert Verkaik joins to explore the dark and controversial story of the dead British spy Gareth Williams - the notorious 'body in the bag' case from 2010. Was this a Russian 'hit', an imaginatively staged suicide or the result of a bizarre sex game gone very wrong?

You can buy books from the authors we feature - including Courtiers by Valentine Low - in our own bookshop. All profit are shared between podcasters and independent booksellers.

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/courtiers-valentine-low/6755938?aid=12054&ean=9781472290908

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you'd like to get scandalous with? We're here to help.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

The Scandal Mongers Podcast is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJgy7_rHwpE&t=23s

Andrew Lownie

https://twitter.com/andrewlownie

Phil Craig

https://twitter.com/philmcraig

The Scandal Mongers

https://twitter.com/MongersPodcast

You can get in touch with the show hosts via...

[email protected] (place 'Scandal Mongers' in the heading please).

This show is part of the PodcastWorld.org network. For your own show please get in contact via the email address above.

Production by