The Cold War and the Soviet KGB's Same-Sex Entrapment Operations in the 1950s and 1960s: The Perpetrator in Focus

This article explores a little-known practice of the Cold War: the use of same-sex entrapment by the KGB against male foreign visitors, diplomats, tourists, academics, to the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on recently declassified sources from the UK and US, this article reveals how the KGB routinely targeted Western men, particularly scholars, visiting the USSR, exploiting their vulnerability to same-sex entrapment, sometimes through coercive or even violent means. Once compromised, these individuals were pressured into cooperating with Soviet intelligence. Academics in Slavic studies were of particular interest, as the KGB believed they could serve as sources of influence and information, with their students potentially occupying positions across various branches of government. The article also shows how deeply the KGB was following domestic homosexual circles, using the threat of imprisonment—then a reality for homosexual men across all fifteen Soviet republics—as a powerful tool of blackmail and control.