Extraordinary espionage

In factual accounts of Cold War spy defections, or in movie and TV thrillers, there are a few basic reasons for deciding to undermine your own nation by providing secret information to the enemy: disillusionment with your government; getting a better life for yourself and family; adventure; fear for your life; money.

British author Ben Macintyre, in his account of how KGB Major Vladimir Kuzichkin supplied a treasure trove of intelligence to Britian’s spy service, MI6, before defecting, has discovered another, unusual reason: erectile dysfunction.

Yes, erectile dysfunction.

It’s true Kuzichkin was also disillusioned by the way the KGB was operated, but of greater concern was his wife’s disillusionment with his affliction, coupled with the fact the Soviets had no treatment for the condition; he saw defection to the West as the only way to get medical help and save his marriage.

Macintyre — a bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, among others, and a columnist and associate editor at The Times (U.K.) — knows his way around the murky world of espionage, and has written a powerful account of a case with vastly broader repercussions than the norm.

Kuzichkin did well in his KGB training and seemed destined for a successful career spying for his own country. At the same time, Ian McCredie was following a similar path in MI6; the two would meet in Tehran in the late 1970s, each spying on the Iranian regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini for their respective intelligence services.

By 1981, Kuzichkin was the best Soviet officer in the Iranian capital, running spies and working with a hidden network of Iranian communists who operated a front as the Tudeh Party, but whose ultimate aim was to overthrow the fledging Islamic regime.

The KGB agent was a godsend to the British; he knocked on the embassy door and asked to talk to McCredie, whose cover was a trade representative, and offered his services. Once MI6 was convinced Kuzichkin wasn’t a plant to trap the British, Kuzichkin began supplying crucial information about the Soviet spy network, internal politics as well as information gleaned from his own spies in Iran.

The British, and the American CIA with whom it shared the intel, were ecstatic at their good fortune in having an agent like Redwood, the codename Kuzichkin was given by McCredie (because at their first meeting he stood towering over his British contact like a mighty tree). Macintyre describes it as one of the biggest intelligence hauls in MI6 history.

Macintyre’s extensive research, his feel for the spy game and his captivating writing make Redwood both interesting and exciting. He captures the fear and danger of operating as spies in post-revolution Iran (especially a series of oh-so-close calls as Kuzichkin finally flees from Iran) and the exhilaration of outwitting your enemies.

Once Redwood is safely out of the country in 1983, the British and Americans decide it’s a good idea to share information on Soviet activities in Iran and the Tudeh with Iran, partly to thwart Soviet plans and to partly show goodwill to Iran.

The Western powers were pleased with the move as it wrecked the Iranian communist party, confounded the KGB and averted a coup that could have changed the course of the Cold War.

What they hadn’t predicted was the Iranian response of show trials, lynch mobs, mass arrests and executions (often televised). British agent Nigel McCoy admitted: “We didn’t make the leap of imagination. We were seeing the trees rather than the forest.”

Redwood settled in rural Britain, where he became an acupuncturist; he regained his sexual function from either surgery or the absence of extreme stress from the spying. He remarried and had a child. His first wife was in Moscow and was trapped there when he escaped from Iran. Kuzichkin died in 2009.

If Viagra had been approved for medical use in 1981 instead of 1998, Kuzichkin might never have approached MI6, and a Tudeh coup could have succeeded, backed by Soviet military force, Macintyre posits. Perhaps the U.S.S.R. would have won the Cold War by invading Iran, or have triggered a nuclear confrontation.

Predictions like that, he adds, are of course pointless. Suffice to say a Soviet KGB agent’s erectile dysfunction created a massive upheaval in global political and military affairs, with consequences far, far beyond what any of the protagonists imagined.

Chris Smith is a Winnipeg writer.