Vladikavkaz, Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus
Died
16 May 1963(1963-05-16) (aged 44)
Butyrka Prison, Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Cause of death
Execution by shooting
Alma mater
Frunze Military Academy
Criminal charge
Treason
Criminal penalty
Death
Spouse
Vera Gapanovich
Espionage activity
Country
Soviet Union
Allegiance
United States and United Kingdom
Service branch
GRU
Service years
1953–1963
Rank
Colonel
Codename
YOGA, HERO
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky (Russian: Олег Владимирович Пеньковский; 23 April 1919 – 16 May 1963), codenamed Hero (by the CIA) and Yoga (by MI6)[1] was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, including the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile program. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war.
Penkovsky was the highest-ranking Soviet official to provide intelligence for the West up until that time, and is one of several individuals credited with altering the course of the Cold War. He was arrested by the Soviets in October 1962, and tried and executed the following year.
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky (Russian: Олег Владимирович Пеньковский; 23 April 1919 – 16 May 1963), codenamed Hero (by the CIA) and Yoga (by MI6) was a...
transport top-secret information to London from the Soviet agent OlegPenkovsky. Wynne and Penkovsky were both arrested by the KGB in November 1962, when some...
by the CIA. He had some involvement with Soviet intelligence Colonel OlegPenkovsky, active in the 1960s, who had more direct relations with British MI-6...
List of Eastern Bloc defectors List of KGB defectors Vitaly Nuykin OlegPenkovsky "Heroes and Villains". MI6: A Century in the Shadows. Episode 2. 3 August...
Agency during the 1960s. The "Penkovsky Papers" were alleged to have been written by a Soviet GRU defector, Colonel OlegPenkovsky, but were in fact produced...
[page needed] Serov was removed from power in 1963 when his protégé OlegPenkovsky was exposed as a double agent. Serov was stripped of his position, Communist...
best known for the roles of Walter Redlich in Nowhere in Africa and OlegPenkovsky in The Courier. Merab Ninidze was born on 3 November 1965 in Tbilisi...
station in Moscow but worked under the guise of a visa officer. When OlegPenkovsky offered Soviet military secrets to MI6, she became the go-between. Outwardly...
joint operation with the American CIA, the MI6 recruited Colonel OlegPenkovsky. Penkovsky ran for two years as a considerable success, providing several...
1918 – Maurice Druon, French author and screenwriter (d. 2009) 1919 – OlegPenkovsky, Russian colonel (d. 1963) 1920 – Eric Grant Yarrow, 3rd Baronet, English...
may jointly operate an asset such as the joint U.S.–UK operation with OlegPenkovsky. The allied officer may not actually provide access to his assets, but...
connections to American spy OlegPenkovsky. He died in Moscow on 1 March 1971. During World War II American spy Colonel OlegPenkovsky served as the personal...
communications. Jeremy Duns stated in his 2013 book Dead Drop: The True Story of OlegPenkovsky and the Cold War's Most Dangerous Operation: In 1952, an electronic...
ideological reasons, to service B (actually two B's, SIS and CIA), was Col. OlegPenkovsky. Recruitment can be done through personal relationships, from casual...
Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0-684-19068-6. OCLC 909016158. About OlegPenkovsky. "Nonfiction Book Review: The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet...
killed, while The Guardian reported in 1965, citing information from spy OlegPenkovsky who had passed information to the West, that as many as 300 had died...
Robert Baer Ruth Fischer Yosef Amit Yuri Nosenko OlegPenkovsky Vitaly Yurchenko Dmitri Polyakov Oleg Gordievsky Adolf Tolkachev Agnes Smedley Al Sarant...
identification was made, in part, on the strength of reporting provided by OlegPenkovsky, a double agent in the GRU working for the CIA and MI6. Although he...
Kondrashev. In April 1961, GRU colonel OlegPenkovsky was recruited by the CIA and MI6 in London. Two weeks later, Penkovsky and his Moscow-based MI6 contact...
Whitehall and the CIA. This was especially true when MI6 recruited OlegPenkovsky, a GRU Colonel that led to the identification of MI6 officer George...
Victor Kravchenko, Vladimir Petrov, Peter Deriabin, Pawel Monat and OlegPenkovsky of the GRU. Among Western officials who defected to the Soviet Union...
information. OlegPenkovsky, a Soviet military intelligence colonel, who was a defector in place, was a joint US-UK espionage operation. Much of Penkovsky's product...
Soviet Embassy. British Intelligence (MI5) knew from the double agent OlegPenkovsky that Ivanov was an intelligence officer in the Soviet GRU. Ward and...