A Full Court Press from the KGB

In the mid-1980s, New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy is attracting international attention. With the ANZUS alliance in crisis, the KGB see an opportunity.

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The world lived under the shadow of the nuclear bomb through the 1980s and New Zealand briefly took centre stage in the debate when it went nuclear-free in 1986. It angered the Americans and put pressure on the Five Eyes intelligence network. Soviet Russia saw an opportunity and, according to then-deputy prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, became "extremely active" in New Zealand.

After a year of investigation, Guyon Espiner and John Daniell reveal more stories of what the NZSIS and its enemies got up to during the Cold War.

In Episode 3, Palmer and reveals new details of Russia's "full court press" in this country, and former SIS officer Kit Bennetts explains the "frog kissing" they were doing at the time. Former Soviet diplomat Rouben Azizian gives Moscow's thinking, we delve into the stories of KGB colonel and defector Oleg Gordievsky and Wellington-based spy Sergei Budnik, and reveal what the SIS were doing to former Labour MP Richard Northey.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details