News of Penkovsky’s arrest had been kept secret, so there was no obvious reason for Wynne not to attend a trade fair in Budapest at the beginning of November 1962. He was arrested there on 2 November. The Hungarians handed him over to the Soviet authorities and he was flown to Moscow to stand trial.
‡
Serov continued to lead the GRU until March 1963 when final preparations for the trials of Penkovsky and Wynne were under way, though he was not allowed to become involved in those proceedings. Frol Kozlov – the Second Secretary of the Communist Party, seen by some as Khrushchev’s heir apparent – prevailed upon Khrushchev to get rid of Serov. On 12 March 1963 – nine years to the day after his appointment as chairman of the KGB – Serov was dismissed as head of the GRU and demoted from Field Marshal to Major-General. He was given the lowly appointment of Assistant Chief of Staff of the Volga Military District, though it seems he did not bother to take up this appointment.
By now it was clear that the intelligence Penkovsky had passed to the West had been an important factor in how Kennedy handled the Missile Crisis and this aggravated Serov’s mental wounds. Serov – the ruthless, tightly focused workaholic who thrived on action at the highest level – would have been emotionally upset, perhaps for the first time in his life. He was considering what he might do to rehabilitate himself. It was too late to do anything further in Cuba: the Soviet offensive missiles had been dismantled and were already on their way back to the Soviet Union together with the mass of GRU personnel who had accompanied them to the Caribbean.
Serov’s hatred of Kennedy – the figurehead of the ultimate enemy – became an obsession. In this state of mind, it seems likely that he would have sought solace in the company of his like-minded associates Yuri Andropov and Vladimir Kryuchkov, both of whom had been towers of strength in crushing Nagy’s Hungarian Revolution. Andropov had recently been promoted to an influential post in the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU: the committee that controlled the KGB. Ever since his days as Ambassador in Budapest he had been a strong advocate of using military force to prevent the loss of Soviet control over the socialist republics and the satellite countries. He was as upset as Serov at Khrushchev’s capitulation (as they saw it) in Cuba. So was Kryuchkov who had also moved to the Central Committee after leaving Budapest, thus remaining close to his mentor, Andropov.
All three of these figures – Serov, Andropov and Kryuchkov – were men of action and risk-takers. They had schemed together to persuade a reluctant Khrushchev to invade Hungary and taken part in the subsequent battle. It would have been natural for them to meet, have a few drinks, and discuss the circumstances of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Serov would have floated the idea of taking revenge on Kennedy.
The world would once again be brought to the brink of nuclear war if the Soviet Union were found to be responsible for the death of the President of the United States. That would not have worried Serov, who may even have rejoiced at the thought. But he lived in a world of secrecy and would be confident those responsible for the act would not be discovered.
One can only speculate on these matters, as Serov vanished after Penkovsky’s trial.
The Soviet system catered, at will, for lies and deceptions to hide the results of the less wholesome decisions it made. Disgraced senior politicians and officials could be made to disappear. Records could be changed or destroyed. News of anyone or anything could be blacked out or fabricated.