Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky codenamed "Agent Hero" (born April 23, 1919, Vladikavkaz, died May 16, 1963, Soviet Union) was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence (GRU) in the late 1950s and early 1960s who passed important secrets to the West. He is considered one of the best assets the West ever had in the Soviet Union. April 23 is the 113th day of the year (114th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Photo of Vladikavkaz cathedral mosque in 1912. ... May 16 is the 136th day of the year (137th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Soviet redirects here. ... For other uses, see GRU (disambiguation). ...

Early life

Penkovsky's father died fighting as an officer in the White Army in the Russian Civil War when he was only four months old, a fact that later became important in his life. Penkovsky had a negative experience with his superiors while working in the Soviet intelligence services in Turkey in the 1950s, and returned to Moscow. When his father's background was discovered by his superiors, Penkovsky's chances for any further promotion disappeared. This action was part of his motivation to decide to become a spy. He even approached American students on the Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow in July 1960 and gave them a package, which was delivered to the Central Intelligence Agency. CIA officers delayed in contacting him because they believed they were under constant surveillance. White army may refer to: The military arm of the White movement, a loose coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Civil War The Saudi Arabian National Guard The National Guard of Kuwait This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise... Combatants Red Army Latvian Reds Finnish Reds White Army Czech Legion Allied intervention UK France United States Japan Italy  Canada  Greece  Romania  Serbia New states Poland Finland  Latvia  Estonia  Lithuania Ukrainian Peoples Republic Green Army (Cossacks) Black Army (Anarchists) Blue Army (Peasants) Commanders Trotsky Mikhail Tukhachevsky Kamenev Budyonny Frunze... Position of Moscow in Europe Coordinates: , Country District Subdivision Russia Central Federal District Federal City Government  - Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov Area  - City 1,081 km²  (417. ... Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge (Большой Москворецкий мост) is a cоncrete arch bridge that spans Moskva River in Moscow, Russia, immeditely east of Moscow Kremlin. ... The Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) is an intelligence agency of the United States government. ...

Spy career

Penkovsky eventually persuaded Greville Wynne to arrange a meeting with two American and two British intelligence officers during a visit to London in 1961. Wynne became one of his couriers. For the following eighteen months he supplied a tremendous amount of information to his Secret Intelligence Service handlers in Moscow, Ruari and Janet Chisholm, and to CIA and SIS contacts during his permitted trips abroad. Most significantly, he was responsible for arming President John F. Kennedy with the information that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was much smaller than previously thought, that the Soviet fueling systems were not fully operational, and that the Soviet guidance systems were not yet functional. Greville Maynard Wynne 1919 was a British spy who was recruited to MI5 during World War II. He was transferred to MI6 and assisted with the 1959 defection of the Soviet intelligence officer, Major Kuznov. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6),[1] is the United Kingdoms external intelligence agency. ... Janet Chisholm (May 7, 1929 - July 23, 2004), born Janet Anne Deane, was a former British MI6 agent during the Cold War. ... For other uses, see President of the United States (disambiguation). ... John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also referred to as John F. Kennedy, Kennedy, John Kennedy, Jack Kennedy, or JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of the United States. ...

Penkovsky was arrested by the KGB on 22 October 1962--before Kennedy's address to the nation revealing that U-2 spyplane photographs had confirmed intelligence reports that the Soviets were installing medium range nuclear missiles on the Caribbean Island--code named Operation Anadyr (see Cuban Missile Crisis). Thus the President was deprived of potentially important intelligence that might have lessened the tension during the ensuing 13-day stand-off; e.g., such as the fact that Khrushchev was already looking for ways to defuse the situation.^[1]. Such information, arguably, might have reduced the pressure on Kennedy to launch an invasion of the island--an action which, it is now known, would have led to the use of Luna class tactical nuclear weapons against US troops, as the Soviet commander, General Issa A. Pliyev, in charge had been given permission to use the weapons without consulting Moscow first^[2]. The KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shield KGB (transliteration of КГБ) is the Russian-language abbreviation for Committee for State Security, (Russian: ; Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti). ... is the 294th day of the year (295th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The U-2 designation may refer to the: Lockheed U-2, US reconnaissance aircraft Polikarpov U-2, Soviet utility biplane This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Cuban Missile Crisis was the military confrontation, between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba when the Cold War threatened to become a nuclear war. ...

Penkovsky's fate

Penkovsky was tried and convicted of treason and espionage in a show trial in 1963. As to his fate after conviction, accounts differ. Some sources allege that Penkovsky was executed by the traditional Soviet method of a bullet to the back of the neck and cremated. GRU author Vladimir Rezun, "Viktor Suvorov" claims in Inside Soviet Military Intelligence that Penkovsky was bound to a board with piano wire and 'cremated alive'. A more graphic account states that he was slowly fed into a furnace alive, as his closest friends were made to watch on, as a warning to other potential moles, a punishment that "The Soviets meted out to only their worst traitors"^[3]. The term show trial serves most commonly to label a type of public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the accused: the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and... Categories: People stubs | 1947 births | Defectors | Russian writers | Ukrainian people ...

The spying career of Oleg Penvoksky was the subject of Episode 1 of the BBC series "Nuclear Secrets", entitled "The Spy from Moscow". The program featured original covert KGB footage showing Penkovsky photographing classified information and meeting with Janet Chisholm. The program was broadcast on January 15, 2007.^[4] The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ... Janet Chisholm (May 7, 1929 - July 23, 2004), born Janet Anne Deane, was a former British MI6 agent during the Cold War. ... January 15 is the 15th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...

Further reading

• Oleg Penkovsky, The Penkovsky Papers: The Russian Who Spied for the West, Doubleday, New York, 1966.

Note: Penkovsky's purported diaries, smuggled out after his execution, it is commonly believed not to have been written by him, but to be an American creation in diary form yet still based on his interviews with American and British intelligence services. In truth, it has been recently divulged that the CIA actually wrote the book as a covert operation intended as a propaganda device.

• Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992. ISBN 0684190680

Doubleday is one of the largest book publishing companies in the world. ... From The U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms - Joint Publication JP1-02 dated 05 January 2007: Covert Operation: An operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor. ... Charles Scribners Sons is a publisher that was founded in 1846 at the Brick Church Chapel on New Yorks Park Row. ...

References

[1] January 15 is the 15th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...