Chapter 7

Penkovsky: Luring Cuban Missiles

The Cuban Missile Crisis took place fifty-four years ago. For one week in 1962, atomic war was nearly a reality and the world appeared on the brink of nuclear annihilation. However, the game played by the world’s two superpowers at the time was largely a game of bluff: neither of two ‘Ks’, Kennedy and Khrushchev, were particularly eager to push the red button.

Yet this same dramatic week in which the whole world trembled also conceals an extraordinary spy story. In reality, the cards were already marked from the beginning, and each player in this game of poker knew much more than he was letting on.

The key man in the affair was Oleg Vladimirovitch Penkovsky, a colonel in the Soviet Army’s intelligence agency. But firstly, let us consider a brief review of the crisis itself.

On 22 October 1962, President Kennedy made an appearance on US television. He was unusually stern; telling his compatriots that he had evidence of the Soviets installing ballistic missile bases in Cuba. These rockets were equipped with nuclear warheads and once operational, could be a threat to American territory. As far as Kennedy was concerned, this was unacceptable. America, he said, would fight back! He announced the immediate establishment of a blockade around Cuba that would prevent anymore weapons from being delivered and that this blockade would remain in place until the weapons had been removed. He held the USSR responsible and declared that should anything untoward happen, then US rockets would be launched in the direction of Russia.

The world was stunned by what was happening: if the Soviet leaders did not comply with America’s demands, then nuclear war would no doubt follow. While Kennedy received the full support of the western allies - de Gaulle was the first to offer his backing - it is interesting to note that US forces were put on high alert all over the globe. Meanwhile, it was reported that Soviet warships were heading for Cuba. While in Moscow, Khrushchev denounced what he saw as US piracy and the unyielding madness of imperialism, even declaring that there was no crisis in Cuba. What would happen now if the US Navy boarded a Soviet ship? The world held its breath as the crisis dragged on for a week. The longest week of the entire Cold War.

De Gaulle proved himself a particularly loyal friend to France’s American and British allies during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet they often kept Paris in the dark from what the secret services were actually doing during the crisis. This was in spite of the fact that France had shown itself willing to collaborate with other intelligence agencies when the fate of western democracy was on the line. The Farewell dossier was a clear example of this: thanks to this incomparable spy, controlled by French agencies, hundreds of Soviet agents had been unmasked throughout the world during the early 1980s.

The consequence of this sidelining of the French secret services meant that once the crisis had ended, they were able to rebuild the hidden side of the affair without anyone knowing. But what evidence is there to suggest that the Cuban Missile Crisis actually conceals a spy story?

We must first remember that after Kennedy’s dramatic announcement on television, the Pentagon released a series of documents. These included photographs taken over Cuba by a U2 spy plane, similar to the one flown by Francis Gary Power that had been shot down over the USSR a short time before. It was these photographs that allowed America to claim that the Russians were in the process of installing rocket sites on Cuba. The photographs showed storage buildings, launch pads and even two long tubes, which naturally, had to be missiles. US intelligence agencies seemed to know everything about Soviet rocket technology. For reasons that shall be discussed later, the Russians wanted to install rockets pointing towards some 300kms of the US coastline. The place chosen for the rocket base was in the jungle. This afforded them greater camouflage, especially as they were fully aware of the U2 spy rocket’s capabilities. However, they took no other particular precautions: it was almost as if the Kremlin wanted the Americans to discover the facilities and the nuclear warheads that were trained on their territory. It remains to be seen why this was the case.

Before we discuss that, however, let us look at a man who was probably one of the most important spies of the second half of the twentieth century: Oleg Penkovsky, a textbook product of the Soviet system. He served as an officer during the Second World War and was decorated several times. An intelligent man, he was introduced into the circles of power and became a missiles expert. He also gained access to the highest levels of the GRU, the intelligence agency of the Soviet Army and a rival to the KGB. Colonel Penkovsky was charged with gathering intelligence from the western world, particularly regarding scientific espionage and technology. Under diplomatic and commercial pretexts, he made many contacts in the West and when any such delegates came to Moscow, Penkovsky made sure to meet them.

Everybody who knew him agreed that Penkovsky was a bon viveur, and a man who never turned down vodka. At that time, the Soviet nomenklatura³⁸ drank heavily in the evenings, and Penkovsky was no exception. His drinking buddies included Serov, the head of the GRU, and Marshal Varentsov. This world of beautiful people must also include members of the government. But Penkovsky did show some restraint during these drinking sessions. Unlike his peers, he was a relatively secretive man who enjoyed his solitude, despite his friendships with those in high places. Although he held a high-ranking post, he lived in a modest two-roomed apartment on Gorky Street, with his wife, daughter and mother. The fact that there were four people living in a two-roomed apartment is of some importance.

From the beginning, Colonel Penkovsky viewed Soviet society with a very clear head. In his position he was well aware of the official corruption, general nepotism and the cynicism of the Kremlin masters. Moreover, he knew that the standard of living in the West was much better than that experienced by the Russian population, despite what the USSR tried to tell them. However, even if he was under no illusions as to his situation, he nevertheless benefitted from the system and the advantages reserved for the privileged within the regime.

Unfortunately for him, a zealous KGB agent discovered that Penkovsky’s father had fought for the Whites against the Red Army after the Revolution, which posed a serious threat to his career. Was this an accidental discovery? It is hard to believe so. The police system installed in the USSR at the time meant that there was no way the KGB would have been unaware of this information. So, if they did already know, then the time had clearly come for them to use it against Penkovsky.

Two explanations are possible here: either Penkovsky was overshadowing somebody, or the KGB were keen to show this brilliant GRU officer that he did not know everything. Either way, the sudden revelation came as a shock to Penkovsky. All the hatred for the regime that he had with-held for so long, but had been afraid to express, was now unleashed and his bitterness is reflected in his overwhelming desire for revenge.

Oleg Penkovsky:³⁹

In my early life I strongly believed in the Soviet system. During the last war, I began to understand that this was no longer the Communist Party that had inspired us as we travelled along the road from Stalingrad to Berlin. There was something we had left behind: Russia! Yet more than the war, it was my work in recent years that opened my eyes. I have lived among the high society and the officers of the Red Army. As fate would have it, I married a general’s daughter and found myself and became a privileged member of the Soviet upper-classes. I began to see that the commitment of these people to the Party and to communism was purely a facade. In their private lives, they would lie, cheat, conspire, complain and stab each other in the back. They would denounce their friends and colleagues to the secret police in exchange for money or social advancement. Their children hated all things Soviet, were only interested in foreign films, and despised their ordinary fellow citizens.

Despite his disgrace, Penkovsky’s role allowed him to easily contact the West without attracting much attention. On day in Moscow, in 1960, he met with a British businessman called Greville Wynne. Penkovsky was cautious: in his position he knew that Russian trade missions abroad were full of Soviet spies. He imagined that the same must have been true for western trade delegations, and that Wynne was a secret agent. In this instance, he was right! Wynne occasionally provided information for MI6, proving that even the Soviets had legitimate reasons to be cautious.

During the meeting, the Russian suggested that he had lost faith in his country and hated the Soviet system. Wynne, who was unsure of how to deal with such a controversial confession, let him talk. However, he could not have failed to be interested. After all, he knew that Penkovsky was a big catch. So when the colonel asked him to inform the western authorities about what was really happening in the USSR, Wynne was all ears.

The two men met again in London during a Soviet trade mission in spring 1961. During his two-week stay in London, Penkovsky was subjected to several interrogations by MI6, as well as the CIA. The two secret service agencies had little to hide from each other, especially as the British, when faced with such an important decision, preferred to have the collaboration of their big brother on the other side of the Atlantic.

Penkovsky was clearly not the only member on the Soviet trade mission and therefore had to hide these meeting from his fellow delegates. During the day he would fulfil the mission he was supposed to be undertaking: collecting commercial and scientific information for Soviets. In short, fulfilling the role of a spy. Then every evening at his hotel, he would discretely leave his room and visit those of his British and American counterparts.

The western authorities were quickly convinced of Penkovsky’s sincerity. They analysed the information he gave to them and after comparing it with their own findings, realised that he was telling the truth. This meant that a fantastic opportunity was now open to them: if they were able to maintain contact with the Russian spy after his return to Moscow, they would have an agent in the Soviet secret service for the very first time. When other Soviet agents had defected to the West in the past and revealed their secrets, they were no longer of any use. In Penkovsky’s case, however, the British and Americans were hoping they had found a permanent source of information. It was almost a ‘Philby’ in reverse.

Yet the information still needed to be collected, which meant that contact with Penkovsky had to be maintained. This was obviously going to be much harder after Penkovsky had gone back to Moscow. In this respect, Greville Wynne would be available to help as he was able to meet Penkovsky in Moscow without arousing suspicion. However, he was only able to get to Moscow every four days, which meant that as well as using dead-letterboxes, they had to think up even more complicated and risky procedures that would enable them to exchange the documents that Penkovsky had copied.

These furtive encounters in the street had to be carefully planned, but what did they involve? One way was for two people to brush past each other and without stopping, discretely pass an envelope from one hand to another. However, this method would not work if it was always the same two people as one or both of them could already be under surveillance. This was one of the reasons why the secret service had to have a large staff, which was luckily the case for the western authorities in Moscow. For several months, Penkovsky worked hard delivering his information. According to some estimates, by the end of the operation he had passed over more than 5000 documents to the West.

In September 1961, Penkovsky once more went on an ‘official’ trade mission, but this time to Paris. Once more, his friend Greville Wynne was waiting for him. Penkovsky handed over numerous documents but informed him that he believed he was being watched in Moscow. The English businessman wisely advised him to remain in the West. However, the colonel was concerned about his family: if he defected, the KGB would likely arrest his wife or mother. So in spite of the danger, he returned to the USSR.

His suspicions were justified: Penkovsky was under surveillance. Thanks to their own agents who had infiltrated the British secret service, the KGB now knew that the intelligence agency had a highly-placed informant. However, their identity remained a mystery. Consequently, all senior intelligence officers who might have had contact with westerners were put under surveillance. They also increased their surveillance on all western diplomats, as they were convinced that the traitor must have a case officer who was working under cover within the diplomatic corps.

Penkovsky was under no more suspicion than the others, but this extraordinary surveillance operation had to bear fruit sooner or later. The KGB observed that Penkovsky often met with the wife of a British diplomat, Janet Chisholm, and so the colonel was put under constant surveillance. The apartment immediately above his own on Rue Gorsky was immediately taken over by the KGB, who proceeded to drill a hole in the ceiling and install a small camera. In order to safely search his apartment and install more microphones, the KGB managed to poison Penkovsky, who was consequently hospitalised as a result. During his absence, the KGB searched his apartment and found photography equipment that had been given to Penkovsky by the intelligence agency.

The traitor that they had been trying for months to track down had now been discovered. However, the KGB did not arrest Penkovsky as they wanted to find out who his contacts were and what information he had passed on. Last but not least, the they wanted to try and use Penkovsky to provide false information to the western authorities. But how would they do this? Penkovsky was an expert in missiles, and so there was every reason to believe that he had disclosed Soviet secrets on this matter. Yet, the greatest of these secrets was itself based on a bluff as the Russians had managed to successfully convince the Americans that they had intercontinental rockets equivalent to their own. This was completely untrue. In fact, at this time the Russian arsenal was around four times smaller than that of the US, with only seventy-five intercontinental missiles. Penkovsky was obviously aware of this and had no doubt told the US as such. This meant that the Soviets had to come up with a plan, and quickly. And so, the origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis can be traced back to the betrayal of one man.

Oleg Penkovsky

I lived my life surrounded by the leaders of the Soviet Union and I wanted them to die as a result of their black hearts. Khrushchev‘s government was a government of adventurers, which wrapped itself in a banner of peace. Khrushchev had never accepted the end of the war and was perfectly willing to start another if he thought the circumstances were in his favour. This could not be allowed to happen. I lived in a nuclear nightmare in Moscow. I knew the poisonous nature of the new military doctrine, which was to strike first at all costs.

The peaceful coexistence advocated by Khrushchev and apparently accepted by Kennedy, only worked if both players were equal, or that is, if their armed forces were both equal. It must be remembered, however, that in 1962 the Soviets did not miss an opportunity to showcase the power of their weapons. Penkovsky’s revelation might prove disastrous for them if the Americans no longer believed in the omnipotence of their Soviet rockets. They therefore needed to be given tangible proof that not only did the rockets exist, but that they were very formidable indeed. Hence the installation of the missile base in Cuba.

To begin with, the Russians began to use Penkovsky without his knowledge. They allowed him access to a document detailing the installation of intercontinental missile launchers. As he had been doing for the past eighteen months, Penkovsky dutifully photographed the documents and passed them to the West. At the same time, Soviet engineers began to build ramps in the Cuban jungle without any form of camouflage. These facilities were meant to be seen and as expected, a U2 aircraft which regularly flew over the site, photographed the construction works. The Americans then compared the photographs with the documents provided by Penkovsky. The similarities were obvious: the Soviets were clearly building intercontinental missile launchers near the Florida coast, and their military arsenal must have been a great deal bigger than previously thought.

In reality, Khrushchev was really only flexing his muscles and once the demonstration had been successfully observed, he quietly backed down and the crisis only lasted for one week. The Soviet warships that were supposed to have delivered the missiles to Cuba never actually faced the American Navy, and instead turned back in the mid-Atlantic. What is more, the Kremlin even ordered that some boats allowed themselves to be inspected by the Americans. Similarly, the ramps in Cuba were dismantled. This was the real proof that they had only been bluffing, even if later on, the Soviets could have turned it into a real threat, had the Americans decided not to respond. The fact is that Khrushchev also had compelling political reasons for doing this.

Back in Moscow, the Kremlin leader was in trouble. He remained in power, riding the myth of de-Stalinisation, while in reality, little had changed in the USSR. The economic situation was not improving and no one believed his predictions of a brighter future. Worst of all, his political rivals were getting restless. He had to act. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the communist propaganda presented him as being the champion of peace. Indeed, Fidel Castro had hardly enjoyed this organised retreat by the USSR. But he was wrong: thanks to this deal, the US had been forced to abandon any further attacks on Cuba.

There still needs to be evidence to support the relationship between Penkovsky’s revelations and the Cuban Missile Crisis. There are no documents that link the information provided by the spy and the crisis in Cuba, and no confirmation that Penkovsky passed on information about the missile sites to the West; a report that would have allowed the CIA to make a link to the work being carried out in the Cuban jungle.

There is one aspect that does stand out: in mid-October 1962, the Americans discovered that the Russians were installing missile launchers in Cuba. Kennedy and his advisors spent a week trying to work out how they should react. The missile crisis became public knowledge on 22 October, when the American president announced the issue on television and warned the Russians. That same day, 22 October, Colonel Penkovsky was arrested. This is a strange coincidence and no doubt signifies that he had served his purpose and was no longer of any use. He now needed to be silenced.

Six months later, when the Soviets usually gave some publicity to this kind of business, the press wrote that Penkovsky had been found guilty of treason, sentenced to death and immediately executed. It is not impossible to interpret this move as a sly wink by the Russians to the Americans, indicating that they had known Penkovsky was a spy and that they too could play a role in this elaborate game of poker. Penkovsky’s contact, Greville Wynne, also fell into the KGB’s hands. He was kidnapped while visiting eastern Europe, sent to Moscow, and also put on trial. He was shortly afterwards traded for a Soviet spy, a man called Lonsdale, who belonged to the Rudolf Abel network.

Penkovsky’s unfortunate story does not end with his execution. In 1965, two years after his death, an American publishers released his memoirs. It was violently anticommunist and extremely pro-western, in which the spy particularly described the widespread corruption that existed in Soviet echelons of power. It accused the leaders of warmongering and also claimed, much to the interest of the French authorities, that Soviet intelligence agencies were working closely with French communists, in order to uncover the military secrets of NATO. This denunciation was improbable as the Russians had long since given up on using communist militants. The memoirs were, in fact, false and had been completely fabricated by the CIA. The main proof of this is that according to the books, Penkovsky said that he had typed up his ‘pseudo-confession’ secretly at night. How could he have done that in the tiny two-roomed apartment that he shared with his wife, daughter and mother? What is more, why would a spy, who had to be constantly on his guard, write his memoirs at the risk of them being one day discovered by the police?

Some time earlier, the Soviets had set the tone by allowing the publication of a book by Konon Molody, aka Gordon Lonsdale, the spy who had been exchanged for Penkovsky’s contact, Greville Wynne. This book was naturally full of praise for the Soviet secret service and so the publication of Penkovsky’s book was seen as a matter of tit for tat.

In their book dedicated to the history of the KGB, Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky⁴⁰ state that Penkovsky was arrested on 22 October 1962, after the camera that had been installed in the ceiling of his apartment showed him supposedly manufacturing fake passports. Fearing that he may have been planning to escape to the West, the KGB had thus decided to arrest him.