Moscow, near the end of the Cold War; paranoia, politics and perestroika. An embassy guard recalls life behind the Iron Curtain. Produced by Justin Gregory.

Moscow, 1983. The capital of the Soviet Union is at a crucial moment in the Cold War. The New Zealand Embassy needs extra people to guard it and keep both diplomats and documents safe. To know why, we need to go back to 1979 - and a diplomatic scandal.

"How would anyone in the military ever get to visit the Soviet Union and get the chance of living behind the Iron Curtain?"

Just before Christmas 1979, Ambassador Vsevolod Sofinsky, the Soviet Union's man in Wellington, met with George Jackson from New Zealand's Socialist Unity Party in a motel in Auckland.

Their room was bugged by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS).

They report back that Sofinsky had handed Jackson $10,000 in cash.

Our then-Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, took a pretty dim view of all this and he took action. Sofinsky is expelled from the country.

Before he left, the Soviet ambassador was almost incandescent in his denial of wrongdoing.

"Never. Never in my life. It is absolutely lie (sic), slander and nothing more!"

Moscow took it badly, too and retaliated by expelling our ambassador.

The scandal kicked off a tetchy time between the two countries. Just a few days earlier, New Zealand had announced a package of measures against Russia in protest at their invasion of Afghanistan, and in 1980 we send only a small team of athletes to the Moscow Olympics.

But life goes on and things eventually calmed down. New ambassadors were exchanged. We sent butter and mutton there - and they sent Lada cars here (which is surely the real crime).

Although relatively normal service had been resumed, it was felt that our diplomats in Moscow needed a bit more security. Defence Force personnel were to be deployed there to keep an eye on our hosts. It's volunteers only. And one man jumped at the chance.

"How would anyone in the military ever get to go visit the Soviet Union and actually get the chance of living behind the Iron Curtain?"

James - not his real name - is a former military policeman in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. He deployed to Moscow twice in the 1980s.

His first posting is planned for late 1983 and he prepares as best he can by getting in touch with colleagues who have been there before. They tell him what to expect and what to pack, while the SIS and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) brief all the team members on security issues.

"We would be persons of interest and could be followed. Common sense had to prevail."…

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