In Saturday’s Daily Mail, best-selling author Ben Macintyre began the extraordinary story of the Soviet spy who switched sides in a desperate search for a cure for his sexual impotence. In return he offered a stunning and unprecedented insight into KGB operations.
The Russian spymaster launched into a detailed description of the KGB network and the cover identities, codenames, real names and locations of every illegal agent, how they were handled and by whom.
On the morning of October 1, 1981, Sue Biggins, a secretary in what remained of the British diplomatic corps in the Iranian capital of Tehran, buzzed the intercom to inform her boss, Nicholas Barrington, that a very large Russian was in the gatehouse requesting a meeting on ‘urgent consular business’. His card announced him to be the Soviet Vice Consul. ‘He insists that he discuss his business with you,’ Biggins reported. Reluctantly, he told her to show him in.
A few minutes later, a large man entered Barrington’s office, extended a meaty hand and introduced himself as Vladimir Kuzichkin. He squeezed himself into an elegant Queen Anne chair and launched into a prepared speech, in passable English. ‘I am KGB. I wish to defect to UK.’
In the preceding days, Kuzichkin had several times screwed up his courage to make his move, before pulling back. Would the British assume he was a deliberate ‘dangle’ to lure them into a compromising situation and send him packing? What if someone in the Soviet Embassy spotted him entering the British Embassy next door? That morning, he waited until the rest of the consular staff were on a coffee break and sauntered out of the Soviet Embassy as casually as he could and up to the gate of the British Embassy. He was now inside the enemy camp, talking to the man he believed to be the MI6 chief in Tehran.
Barrington stopped him with a finger to the lips and ushered the man downstairs and into the garden. Striding fast and talking faster, Kuzichkin explained that he was head of the KGB section in Tehran running undercover agents. He had become ‘totally disillusioned with the corruption and hypocrisy of the Soviet Union and the KGB in particular’.
On October 1, 1981, Russian intelligence officer Vladimir Kuzichkin left the Soviet Embassy and strolled up to the British counterpart, where he told Nicholas Barrington he wanted to defect
Although suspicious, upon hearing Kuzichkin’s story British diplomat Nicholas Barrington (front centre) passed his details on to the real MI6 man on his staff, Ian McCredie (front right)
Vladimir Kuzichkin and his wife Galina in the early 1970s. His marriage was the driving force behind his choice to defect, as he hoped western medicine could cure his erectile dysfunction
He also referred to personal problems, Barrington noted. He was unhappy in his work and also in his marriage. ‘I am close to breaking point,’ the Russian had said, his hands trembling. ‘I need to defect. I can supply you with important information.’
Every instinct told Barrington to be wary. ‘It might be a trap designed to provide an excuse for the Iranians to throw us out of the country.’ The skeleton British staff was only there under the sufferance of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his militant Islamic regime and on condition they refrained from espionage activities.
‘I think you have the wrong person,’ Barrington said. ‘I’m not an intelligence officer, but I’ll do my best to find some way of helping you.’ The Russian left, leaving his card with a contact number on it.
Barrington was unsure what to make of this startling approach and already resentful at having to make anything of it at all. He disapproved of espionage. Diplomats tend to see spies as trouble waiting to happen. While straight diplomacy is built on negotiation and orderly process, espionage deals in darker, dirtier arts. KGB defectors were certainly not his remit but he passed on the approach to the real MI6 man on his staff, Ian McCredie.
New to Tehran, McCredie was working full time as First Secretary, Commercial, with ‘intelligence activity in my spare time’. He was starting from scratch. ‘There were no dead drop sites, no safe houses, no emergency evacuation plans.’ And now this had dropped into his lap.
McCredie was elated but anxious. Some walk-ins are genuine and result in extremely useful intelligence. Others turn out to be frauds, fantasists, decoys or traps. Kuzichkin had walked into the British Embassy simply by crossing the road from the Russian Embassy. That felt suspiciously easy.
A trawl through MI6 files and databases in London produced no trace of him. He had never been ‘flagged’ as a potential informant or target by MI6, the CIA or any allied agencies. He was an unknown quantity, a self-professed senior spy suddenly emerging out of thin air. Kuzichkin seemed too good to be true.
But if this was a dangle, it was an alluring one. Should Kuzichkin turn out to be genuine, he could provide insight into the most mysterious arm of the KGB, its shadowy and powerful network of undercover illegals. He might be privy to intelligence of the greatest value on the situation in Afghanistan and Soviet intentions in an Iran roiling with religious revolution. He might know of Soviet spies in Britain, or even inside MI6.
Though suspicious, MI6 in London gave permission to McCredie to go ahead. Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington – very possibly after discussions with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – personally overruled the forcibly expressed objections of Barrington, that if anything went wrong the Iranians would have an excuse to close down the embassy and hold its staff as hostages. Despite the risks of it all blowing up in their faces, here was a potential treasure trove of intelligence not to be missed. It was sanctioned from the very top.
They met at the Chattanooga, a restaurant that had once been the trendiest hangout in Tehran, where female patrons dressed in miniskirts rather than hijabs and the bartender sold dope. It survived the revolution despite the stern disapproval of the religious enforcers. It was ideal for the rendezvous: never crowded, half an hour’s drive north of the embassy and with only one entrance to the dining room. With a table near the door, McCredie would see everyone coming in. The enormous 6ft 4in Russian with blue piercing eyes and heavy brow was unmistakable.
The Englishman introduced himself. ‘I’m a British intelligence officer. We should talk.’ Kuzichkin’s expression relaxed. ‘Yes, but not here,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘Too many people.’ ‘Shall we go to the park?’ suggested McCredie. ‘No,’ replied Kuzichkin. ‘There are religious police there looking for boys and girls holding hands. To stop immorality.’ The Russian smiled, a wide, engaging grin. He seemed taut but in control.
‘We will walk,’ he said, getting to his feet. Once they were outside on the street, Kuzichkin said, ‘We are not being followed. I check when I park. There is no surveillance in this neighbourhood today.’ He explained that the KGB monitored the radio frequencies of the Iranian security services and had done so for years. McCredie was impressed: the KGB possessed technology that could conduct surveillance on the very people carrying out surveillance on the KGB. Kuzichkin had spilled his first secret, a big one.
In a mixture of Persian and English, the Russian explained that he could no longer work for the KGB, a corrupt organisation enforcing an ideology he rejected on behalf of a party he despised. He was prepared to spy for Britain but only for a limited time, before being exfiltrated and resettled in the UK. He offered up information that only a KGB insider could know, convincing McCredie that was genuinely who he said he was. They agreed to another meeting, this time at McCredie’s home in the embassy compound.
‘Halfway along the street is a sharp corner, with a blind spot. Enter that dead zone, walking south, at seven in the evening. I’ll drive up in a green Land Rover and stop. Get in the back immediately and pull the blanket over you. I’ll then drive us to the compound. The guards know me. They won’t search the car.’
On the day of the meeting both men were in a state of high anxiety. McCredie couldn’t help wondering if he was heading into a trap. ‘I did not know if I was going to be ambushed or caught in a roadblock by Iranians or Russians. This pickup was very, very fraught.’
For Kuzichkin, the stakes were much higher. If it was discovered what he was up to, he would be seized, sedated and shipped back to Moscow on a stretcher, swathed in bandages to hide his identity. His entire family would be arrested. In the bowels of the dreaded Lubyanka prison, he would be interrogated, tortured until he had fully confessed his treason and finally executed. Not necessarily a clean death with a bullet in the brain. In the 1960s a previous double agent had been cremated alive, as a warning to potential traitors.
What drove him to risk everything was his increasingly desperate search for a cure for his inability to get an erection and satisfy the demands of Galina, his wife, in bed. He was convinced that Western medicine would solve his sexual problems, save his marriage and change his life.
Galina had no inkling of the measures her husband was taking. An unquestioning Soviet patriot, she supported the Party, the system and the KGB. When she found out, she might even turn him in. One day soon, he would explain everything to her and she would know that he was prepared to commit treason, betray his country and risk his life for the sake of their marriage. One day, she would understand that he had done it all for her.
The green Land Rover stopped, and the Russian jumped into the back and pulled the blanket over him. McCredie heard a muffled voice from behind him. ‘Go! Drive!’ At the compound, no one saw the tall man emerge from the back seat and look around uncertainly. Once in the house, Kuzichkin said: ‘I have something to show you,’ and, reaching into his jacket, pulled out three sheets of paper with Cyrillic typing, stapled together. It was the Soviet Embassy telephone directory, a list of over 100 Soviet diplomats and officials in Iran. As McCredie scribbled feverishly, Kuzichkin read out the names, their job title, cover and affiliation.
This was high-grade intelligence: the entire rezidentura staff contained in a top-secret document smuggled out of the embassy. The directory was Kuzichkin’s initial offering, an indication of his commitment. ‘He knew he had to convince us he was real, and he did so spectacularly.’
Nothing in McCredie’s MI6 training had prepared him for the challenge of handling a spy with erectile dysfunction. But he responded straightaway. ‘I’m sure we can help you. I’ll sort it out’
McCredie had felt an instinctive connection with this big, likeable Russian, and the more time he spent with him the more he was drawn to him. ‘He had a loud voice, a ready smile…’
Galina (centre) had no inkling of the measures her husband (left) was taking. An unquestioning Soviet patriot, she supported the Party, the system and the KGB. She might even turn him in
He then launched into a detailed description of the KGB network across Iran and the Middle East and the cover identities, codenames, real names and locations of every illegal agent, how they were handled and by whom. From there, without a pause, he listed from memory the Soviet spies inside the Iranian government and every asset under KGB control in Iran, Afghanistan, Europe and the West. ‘This is the real deal,’ thought McCredie, as his pen flew taking notes. ‘He really is betraying the KGB, his colleagues and his country.’
Kuzichkin then broached a new topic – the Tudeh, the Iranian communist party, and its secret plans, backed by Moscow, to oust the Ayatollah and replace him with a pro-Soviet Union government. He described the weapons caches, the training of communist agents, the secret underground military network, the money funnelled to party leaders. McCredie was getting hand cramp: ‘It came tumbling out of his mouth so fast I struggled to understand. I wrote down what I could.’
An hour and a half had passed with Mr Kuzichkin barely pausing for breath. Finally he paused and, summoning his strength, said: ‘I have something personal to ask you.’ ‘Go ahead – anything at all – you can trust me.’ Kuzichkin gave McCredie a searching look. ‘Now that I have proved myself to you, we have a bond of secrecy between us, yes?’ ‘Yes, we do.’
Kuzichkin placed his hand on McCredie’s knee. ‘I have big problem. I have no power in bedroom. I cannot make love to my wife.’ From the pain on Kuzichkin’s face, McCredie could see ‘he had obviously screwed up every ounce of courage to tell me’.
‘My wife is making my life a misery, calling me “less than a man”. There is something wrong with me, need your help. Western medicine is superior. A cure…’ He wanted his ‘power’ back, and believed McCredie had the means to restore it. ‘If you can do it, I will thank you from bottom of my heart,’ he said, with a deep sigh.
The scene was bizarre. A half-drunk Russian spy revealing his sexual problem to a British spy in the midst of the bloody civil war that was engulfing Iran as the Ayatollah Khomeini’s militants wiped out all opposition, a civil war in which Britain was perceived as the enemy, scheming to derail the revolution.
Nothing in McCredie’s years of MI6 training had prepared him for the challenge of handling a spy with erectile dysfunction. But he responded straightaway. ‘I’m sure we can help you. I’ll sort it out.’
McCredie’s last remaining doubts about Kuzichkin evaporated. ‘I could see he felt a hundred times better already for having told someone. He could see I was on his side. The bond between us was sealed. I knew it and so did he.’ Kuzichkin almost crushed him in ‘a tremendous bear hug’.
Two hours later, having dropped off Kuzichkin in a back street near his parked BMW, McCredie was still driving around Tehran, pondering what had just taken place. As the adrenaline ebbed, the enormity of it all began to sink in. Kuzichkin’s knowledge of the KGB and its personnel was encyclopaedic and he was offering to crack it all open.
He had also described, in detail, a potential communist takeover in Iran, a coup with Soviet backing, a long-standing nightmare feared by Western intelligence because it would give the Soviet Union control all the way to the Persian Gulf.
The next morning McCredie typed the longest, strangest telegram of his career to send to MI6’s headquarters in London. The section describing Kuzichkin’s erectile dysfunction and his request for help required language that had never featured in any previous MI6 report.
It took him four hours to compose and encrypt the telegram. He concluded with a comment: ‘Kuzichkin appeared totally genuine and his identification of his station and contacts in the Tudeh seem to confirm his bona fides. Please provide traces on any of the names. Please also give me some guidance on the medical problem and what I should say to him.’
In Century House, MI6’s London base, its Kremlinologists pored over this astonishing telegram. What Kuzichkin had so far revealed was tantalising in its promise. It might well be the tip of a vast intelligence iceberg. But the case would not be straightforward, as McCredie acknowledged. ‘Running such a sensitive but valuable asset in Iran was very high risk.’
McCredie had no back-up and none of the standard intelligence infrastructure. In normal circumstances, a Russian-speaking expert would have been sent to Iran to interview Kuzichkin and assess the situation before proceeding.
None of this was possible with Redwood, the codename MI6 had given Kuzichkin in acknowledgement of his exceptional height. McCredie was the first and only MI6 officer deployed in post-revolutionary Iran. This had to be a one-man show: ‘Head office had no option but to trust my judgement and let me run the case.’
McCredie drew up a schedule for future contacts: a car pick-up and meeting in his house once a month; every fortnight, a brush contact in a selected dead zone where messages could be secretly passed. ‘Redwood was being followed and possibly I was too,’ McCredie recalled. ‘Tehran was riddled with Revolutionary Guard checkpoints and patrols. Any movement on the streets was highly risky. If we were seen together or, worse, arrested, the case would be over.’
For the next meeting in McCredie’s home, Kuzichkin arrived with a fresh trove of memorised material and two requests: a camera and vodka. With a small camera he could photograph KGB documents and bring out rolls of undeveloped film in his pockets. These would be far easier to conceal than bulky papers. As for the vodka, Kuzichkin said the homebrew made in the KGB garage was an evil potion. Could the British government run to a few bottles of the good stuff?
As an afterthought, he had another request: some eyedrops, preferably the American brand Visine, which worked best. ‘That will take the red away from my eyes after drinking. And that means every morning!’ A huge laugh reverberated around the room.
McCredie had felt an instinctive connection with this big, likeable Russian, and the more time he spent with him the more he was drawn to him. ‘Redwood was tactile, came close to you when talking, and would grip your arm or shoulder. He had a loud voice, a ready smile and would joke about serious matters, then laugh.’
He would veer from hilarity to melancholy, and vice versa, in the blink of an eye or the clink of a glass. ‘He loved to tell stories, with hand gestures, twinkling eyes, guttural sounds in the back of his throat.’ When he described how his marriage had ‘gone to s***’, his bloodshot eyes filled with tears.
Kuzichkin repeatedly described himself as a ‘highly trained and very professional intelligence officer’. He always grinned when he said it, but the self-praise was true. ‘Redwood was a disciplined and experienced intelligence officer,’ McCredie discovered. ‘I did not need to explain the mechanics of a brush contact, the routine of meetings, fallback arrangements, cover stories, telephone protocols. They were as natural to him as they were to me. We both knew the game – our tradecraft training had been almost identical.’
The man’s memory was phenomenal. At their second meeting, Kuzichkin described in detail the structure of the KGB hierarchy and the locations of its various headquarters around Moscow. He knew the make of the locks on KGB safes, and the elaborate security procedures at the end of each day, when each file was secured with a tamper-proof wax seal.
He recalled the name of almost every KGB officer he had ever known, the clever ones and the idiots, the ambitious and the lazy, who was corrupt and who sober, who was on the up and who had made mistakes. He even trawled up gossip, the loose talk and titbits of intelligence picked up at the KGB canteen or after-work drinks.
MI6 had been locked in battle with the KGB for decades, and yet the vast Soviet intelligence machine was shrouded in legend, much of it exaggerated. It was, Kuzichkin revealed, a lumbering giant, an organisation vast but inefficient, still formidable but rotting from within. ‘At its best the KGB can be brilliant, ruthless, skilful and subtle,’ Redwood explained. ‘At its worst it can be crude, clumsy, naive and foolish.’
Meanwhile, Century House was pondering the delicate matter of Kuzichkin’s erectile dysfunction. Air Marshal Charles Soutar was MI6’s clandestine Chief Medical Officer, advising the spooks on health issues. In the RAF, he had seen this happen with fighter pilots as a result of stress. The treatment was to take them off flying and put them behind a desk for a while. ‘After three weeks the wives are begging us to put their husband back in a jet. Problem solved.’
It was an interesting assessment and no doubt spot on in its conclusion about the cure. But it could hardly be applied to Kuzichkin. Finding a quiet, stress-free desk job for him was not an option. Soutar decided the best way to ‘put some lead in Redwood’s pencil’, as he put it, would be to send him a special pen.
Air Marshal Charles Soutar was MI6’s clandestine Chief Medical Officer, advising the spooks on health issues. In the RAF, he had seen this happen with fighter pilots as a result of stress
It arrived in Tehran in the diplomatic bag, an ordinary black ballpoint inside of which, wrapped tightly around the ink cartridge and invisible to the naked eye, was a letter from Soutar echoing his medical advice to fighter pilots and suggesting ‘relaxation breathing’.
The tablets were vitamins with iron, medically valueless but psychologically helpful. ‘We hoped they might have some placebo effect,’ McCredie recalled. Kuzichkin immediately downed two and seemed relieved to be receiving medical advice from a senior British doctor. But he was also realistic about the likely effect. ‘He was smart enough to know there was no magic bullet and that we were being as supportive as we could,’ McCredie said.
Kuzichkin was less impressed by McCredie’s next offering. Instead of some whizzbang gadget from a James Bond film, the camera was a 30-year-old miniature Minox camera. ‘We have these in museum!’ Kuzichkin scoffed. For all his disdain, in just a week the Russian would shoot five rolls of film, each with 36 exposures, photographs of 180 documents taken inside the Soviet Embassy, with many more to follow.
He also got some high-quality vodka, plus the Visine for his bloodshot eyes. Kuzichkin was drinking at least half a bottle a day, McCredie estimated. ‘Not a lot by Russian standards but enough to quell his nerves. The booze did not seem to affect him. He could concentrate. He followed all instructions about meeting places and telephone protocols. He could find the right street in the maze of Tehran – there was a sharp mind there.’
Finally, McCredie explained that MI6 had opened a bank account for him in London and were depositing £1,000 a month. Kuzichkin had no desire and little use for money, but both knew financial compensation was a signal of intent, sealing their mutual dependency.
But he returned repeatedly to the subject of his erectile dysfunction, the possible causes and how it might be alleviated. The red pills were not working, nor were the breathing and relaxation exercises recommended by the MI6 doctor. He still could not make love to Galina and his marriage was deteriorating further, anxiety and humiliation gnawing at his soul.
He had come to MI6 with an affliction that was partly tension-related, thereby placing himself in an even more stressful situation. ‘We were actually putting a lot more pressure on Redwood by asking him not only to spy against the Iranians for the KGB but also to spy for us against the USSR. We made his condition worse.’
But not once did Kuzichkin try to renege on his deal with McCredie. ‘I continued to take a close personal interest in him and he felt obligated to me to carry on spying.’ His betrayal of the KGB had forged absolute loyalty to MI6. But there remained a vital question. How long would it be before he lost his nerve?
Adapted from Redwood by Ben Macintyre (Viking, £25). © Ben Macintyre 2026. To order a copy for £22.50 (offer valid to 27/09/26; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
