The Soviet spy who couldn't love
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What sparked Vladimir Kuzychkin’s decision to walk into MI6 in Tehran?
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In 1981, a Soviet spy walked into Mi-6HQ in Tehran and offered to defect to Britain, if, in return, Britain could help him improve his performance in bed. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Ben McIntyre introduces Spencer Mizen to an extraordinary agent with a sexual secret. A secret that changed the course of Iranian history and may, just may, have averted nuclear war. Hi Ben, it's a pleasure to have
you on the History Extra podcast today. Your new book is called Redwood, the untold story of the Cold War's most extraordinary spy. And this man truly was an extraordinary spy because in the early 1980s he defected from the KGB to the West and in the process might just have saved the world from nuclear war. Now we'll kind of dig into that in a bit more detail a bit later, but first I wonder if you could introduce us to the spying question. His name was Vladimir Kuzychkin and he was a fascinating, complex character, wasn't he? And he was very much a product of What I guess was a pretty troubled upbringing. So I wonder if you could tell us about that upbringing and give us an insight into how it shaped Kositchkin's later life.
Of course, and it's a
great pleasure to be on the programme. Thank you. So Spencer, I mean, Kuchitchkin is an extraordinary spy. I mean, he's quite unlike any spy I've ever written about before, because his motivations are completely different. And he was a Huge, he was six foot four, he was very handsome, very senior, highly trained KGB officer. He had come up through the ranks, but he had, as you say, a a terrible childhood, really. He had an alcoholic stepfather. In fact, he thought he was his real father, and the man posed as his real father, but he wasn't, in fact. It wasn't until Kazitchkin was in his early twenties that he discovered his father was someone completely different. So his own self- Sense of his self was was kind of unmoored, if you like.
He was not a very particularly stable but person, but he was a brilliant KGB officer. And at the time that he comes into our story, Kositchkin had been posted to Iran, to revolutionary Iran. And so he was there throughout the revolution in 1979 and there in 1981, by which time he had risen to become effectively deputy head of the KGB Resident Euras in Tehran, which was the biggest in the Middle East. So he had access to really the kind of crown jewels of what the Soviet Union was up to. too in the Middle East. And it's at this point that he decided to throw in his lot with MI six. He decided to offer himself the technical term in spy parlance is a walk-in. He offered himself to The British Intelligence Service, the External British Intelligence Service, but his reason for doing so is quite different from any SPY that I've ever come across before.
Because there's an old fashioned acronym that he's often used in these cases, which is MICE, which stands for money, ideology, coercion, and ego. Those are theoretically the four elements that that motivate someone to change sides to spy as a double agent. The only one of those that applies to Kuzichki in his ideology, he was alienated from the regime. He felt that the communist regime, the party was corrupt, the KGB was kind of filled with kind of alcoholics and time servers. But his main reason for wanting to spy for the West, and this is where the story gets extraordinary, was because he suffered from erectile dysfunction. And he believed that the West had made Medicines that would cure it. He was quite recently married.
His marriage was on the rocks because of this problem, a problem that many men experience at some point in their life. Even today, it is still a taboo.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What sparked Vladimir Kuzychkin’s decision to walk into MI6 in Tehran?
0:00–5:47
2
How did Kuzychkin’s troubled childhood shape his later life as a KGB officer?
5:47–10:52
3
Why did Kuzychkin offer to defect in exchange for help with his erectile dysfunction?
10:52–15:53
4
How did the first secret meeting between Kuzychkin and Ian McCready unfold?
15:53–20:38
5
What intelligence did Kuzychkin reveal that threatened a Soviet‑backed coup in Iran?
20:38–25:57
6
How was Kuzychkin’s daring escape from Iran planned and executed?
25:57–30:35
7
What medical solution finally cured Kuzychkin’s problem and how was it arranged?
30:35–34:57
8
What lasting impact did Kuzychkin’s story have on Iran’s regime and modern espionage?
34:57–40:18