Welcome to Spycast, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum.

I'm your host, Sasha Inber, and each week I take you into the shadows of espionage, intelligence, and covert operations across the globe.

Why does Vladimir Putin often say that the West is conspiring to weaken Russia?

Historian James Crossland traces this narrative back to a British intelligence officer

and a failed assassination attempt on Vladimir Lenin in 1918.

It's featured in his new book, Rogue Agent, from Secret Plots to attempt on Vladimir Lenin in 1918.

It's featured in his new book, Rogue Agent, from secret plots to psychological warfare,

the untold story of Robert Bruce Lockhart, out May 6th.

James takes us into Lockhart's psyche and lays out how a single moment in the dying days of Tsarist Russia helped fuel a century of paranoia and rifts. So from childhood to adulthood, who was Bruce Lockhart?

Robert Bruce Lockhart was a man of intense contradictions. He's both a self-indulgent

party boy who's always womanizing, always drinking, always getting into trouble. But on the other

hand, he's also highly intellectual, very thoughtful, very creative, and very good at the various jobs he

does throughout his life, being a writer or journalist, propagandist, or an intelligence

gatherer.

And this dichotomy of his character is there from the very start, his early career.

When he comes of age, he's 19, sent by his family to Malaysia. They put him in charge of a rubber plantation

and they say go make us a lot of money. Instead, he spends his time drinking gin and tonics,

shooting rats, which infest his bungalow. He seduces a Malaysian princess. As one does.

As one does. And in the process creates a massive scandal with the local Sultan.

Pledges to convert to Islam to try to nullify the scandal.

Never does it, but pledges it regardless.

Contrax malaria nearly dies.

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