Exactly 50 years ago, GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was arrested on charges of collaborating with foreign intelligence services.
According to some experts, Colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces Oleg Penkovsky passed information about Soviet missiles to the British and American intelligence services, and this made it possible to prevent a third world war, which could result in the Caribbean crisis of the early 60s of the last century. A book was even published in Europe called The Spy Who Saved the World. But in Russia, as before in the USSR, Penkovsky, who was shot in 1963, is still considered a traitor and traitor to the Motherland. Nevertheless, many legends and myths still circulate about the identity of the former intelligence officer. So, another defector, former GRU officer Vladimir Rezun, known under the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov, wrote in the book "Aquarium" that Oleg Penkovsky was allegedly burned alive in a crematorium.
About the most famous Soviet agent of foreign intelligence "FACTS" told an expert in the history of special services, a former foreign intelligence officer of the KGB and SBU Vladimir Palivoda.
- Vladimir Alexandrovich, was Oleg Penkovsky really burned alive?
- I want to say right away that Suvorov's book "Aquarium" can easily compete with the epic of Ian Fleming about James Bond. Both writers, no doubt, have a literary gift and at one time were related to the special services. But they created completely delusional novels about intelligence. The GRU is not a funeral home, and there are no crematoria there. And the court sentenced Colonel Penkovsky to death, which they carried out in accordance with the then existing procedure. Do not forget that these events took place during the so-called Khrushchev thaw, when some kind of socialist legality was observed in the country.
- It is believed that it was Colonel Penkovsky who inflicted the most significant damage on the Soviet state.
- In 1992, the CIA declassified more than 200 documents in the Penkovsky case. From them it follows that on the eve of the Caribbean crisis, he handed over to the British intelligence service MI-6 and the American CIA more than a hundred films containing five and a half thousand documents captured by the Minox microphoto camera. There was, in particular, secret information about Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, the degree of their combat readiness, the sequence of checks, statistical data on the accuracy of missile hits, and so on. During three business trips to London and Paris, Penkovsky was interviewed for a total of 140 hours, the transcripts of his answers took up more than a thousand pages of typewritten text. On a tip from a traitor, 600 agents and regular employees of foreign intelligence “burned out”, of which 50 were GRU officers.
But in the Soviet Union, the extent of the damage inflicted by Penkovsky was always considered greatly exaggerated. So, the chairman of the KGB in 1961-1967, Vladimir Semichastny, who, by the way, was the first to interrogate Penkovsky, wrote in his memoirs: “Some pass him off as almost a resident and coordinator of the entire intelligence network of the West in the USSR. We agreed that he prevented a nuclear war by stealing Soviet top-secret rocket fuel, after which the United States allegedly immediately managed to catch up with us in the field of strategic missile weapons. None of this happened! He used only the library of the Main Intelligence Directorate. The question is: what top-secret documents can be kept in a library, even in the GRU? The fact is that the American and British intelligence services simply needed to inflate their successes with a super agent in the USSR in order to get additional finance for their activities. This is one of the motives why the imaginary merits of Penkovsky were so inflated in the West. And the second is that such a hype covered the real agents of the Western intelligence services in the USSR. After all, at different times much higher and eminent ranks became defectors. This is the GRU resident in India, Major General Dmitry Polyakov, son of the former Minister of Shipbuilding of the USSR, and counterintelligence officer Yuri Nosenko, personal assistant to the USSR Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, as well as UN Deputy Secretary-General Arkady Shevchenko and others.
- I wonder what motives guided people who occupied such a high position when they decided to cooperate with a potential, as they said then, enemy?
- There was even one Hero among the defectors Soviet Union- an employee of the New York KGB residency Alexei Kulak. He received a Hero's star during the war for "exemplary performance of combat missions of command and the courage and heroism shown in doing so." And they found out that he was a traitor ... only after his death. Kulak worked in the United States under the pseudonym "Fedora", engaged in scientific and technical intelligence. In the same year that Penkovsky was arrested, he volunteered his services for the US FBI and worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation until 1970. After returning to the Soviet Union, he retired with the rank of Colonel of State Security. He died in 1984 and was buried with military honors. And in 1985, the American intelligence officer Aldrich Ames joined the KGB, and he said that Kulak worked for the FBI. After that, Alexei Kulak was posthumously stripped of all titles and awards, including the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Former US CIA director Richard Helms once said that he did not know a single Russian intelligence officer who would cooperate with the Americans for ideological reasons. That is, in the case of Penkovsky, there is no need to talk about any noble motives and high motives. From a legal point of view, a person who worked for foreign intelligence, sold state secrets of the Soviet Union and was convicted according to the laws in force at that time, is still a traitor and traitor to the Motherland. And today there are no grounds for its legal justification.
- I read that the future GRU colonel heroically fought at the front. How did such a tried and tested cadre become a defector and a traitor?
- Indeed, on the fronts of the Finnish and Great Patriotic War Penkovsky was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of Alexander Nevsky, Orders of the Patriotic War, I degree, Red Star and eight medals. In 1945, at the age of 26, Oleg Penkovsky was appointed commander of an artillery regiment, and he received the rank of colonel at the age of 31, when he studied at the Frunze Military Diplomatic Academy. At the same time, he married the daughter of Lieutenant General Gapanovich, deputy commander of the Moscow Military District for political affairs, and had friendly ties with the generals of the Armed Forces and the KGB.
It must be said that he was very vain and ambitious person. He was especially patronized by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, General Ivan Serov, and the head of the Main Directorate of Missile Forces and Artillery, Marshal Sergei Varentsov, whose adjutant Penkovsky was during the war. Perhaps one of the reasons for his betrayal was that in his youth, during the war, the career of the future colonel was rapidly going up, but then suddenly stopped. They write that Penkovsky's quarrelsome character and excessive careerism are to blame. Yes, and acquaintance with the generals of the Armed Forces and the KGB could also influence the formation of motives for betrayal. Have marshals and generals as friends and be just a colonel! It's a shame indeed. In addition, these generals told such things for which any intelligence was ready to pay good money.
By the way, after the arrest of General Serov Penkovsky in February 1963, he was dismissed from the post of head of the GRU with the wording "for the loss of vigilance." And Marshal of Artillery Varentsov in March 1963 was stripped of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and demoted to Major General.
- How true is the version that the GRU colonel avenged his father by betrayal - a lieutenant of the tsarist army, who either disappeared in Stalin's camps, or died in battles against the Red Army?
- Oleg Penkovsky, who was born in 1919, simply could not know his father. As well as the one in which of the armies or gangs in the North Caucasus, Lieutenant Vladimir Penkovsky fought. Interesting fact: the origin did not prevent the son of a tsarist officer from entering the Kiev Artillery School in 1937, at the height of the repressions, and then making a career in intelligence.
- Is it true that Penkovsky himself went to Western intelligence?
Yes, he was a so-called initiator, he made contact himself. According to scouts, Penkovsky had an internal recruitment - he independently decided to cooperate with foreign intelligence services. By the way, the first time the colonel tried to contact the Western intelligence services in 1955 in Turkey, but then they didn’t believe him, considering the KGB a “setup”, and in 1960, when he had already contacted the CIA, the contact was successful.
- How did you discover the betrayal of the GRU colonel?
- Alas, by accident. At the end of 1961, while spying on the wife of an English diplomat and part-time British intelligence officer, Janet Chisholm, her contact was recorded with an unknown man, who was later identified as a GRU officer. Then they started leading him. In 1962, a miniature camera was installed on the ceiling of Penkovsky's apartment and it was recorded how he used the camera, codes and one-time cipher pads. When I worked in the KGB, we were shown a training film with footage of the operation to detain Penkovsky. In order to conduct a thorough search in the apartment, the chair on which he usually sat was treated by KGB toxicologists with a poisonous compound, and ... the traitor was taken to the hospital. A few days, while he was brought to his senses, was enough for a thorough search and confiscation of all spy equipment. On October 22, 1962, when US President John F. Kennedy announced a blockade of Cuba, Penkovsky was arrested.
By the way, the colonel, apparently, felt that the clouds were gathering over him, and was preparing to flee abroad. At the trial, Penkovsky said that foreign intelligence services were going to organize his departure from the Soviet Union. Various options were discussed: an escape in a submarine, a fishing schooner, an airplane. He was allegedly even sent a fake passport so that at the right time he could go into an illegal position. This touched Penkovsky so much that in another cipher he wrote: “My dear friends! I received your letter with a passport and a description of it. I firmly shake your hands, thank you very much for taking care of me, I always feel you next to me. Your friend".
- They wrote that Oleg Penkovsky was awarded the rank of British colonel and that he almost got an appointment with the Queen of England?
- No one awarded him titles, but, indulging his ambitions, Western curators sewed two colonel's uniforms for Penkovsky - the British and American armies - in which he was photographed. This, by the way, is one of the elements of securing recruitment. Then these pictures appeared in court as evidence of the guilt of the traitor. And Penkovsky really asked for an appointment with the Queen of England, but, of course, he did not get it. He arranged a meeting with some lord, who conveyed to the defector ... greetings from Elizabeth II.
- Did his cooperation with Western intelligence agencies affect the family?
— No, the wife and daughter were not injured. In the early 60s, family members of the traitor to the Motherland were no longer sent to Kolyma. In addition, during the war years, Khrushchev and the father of Penkovsky's wife, General Gapanovich, were members of the Military Councils of several fronts and therefore knew each other well. The investigation also found that the next of kin knew nothing about his espionage activities. After the execution of Penkovsky, his wife and daughter changed their last name to Gapanovich and moved to another apartment. Penkovsky's daughter Natalya graduated from high school and entered the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, and then got a job in the 1st Main Directorate of the KGB, which, by the way, was engaged in foreign intelligence. And the wife worked as an editor in one of the publishing houses of foreign literature.
The confrontation between the USSR and the USA began almost immediately after the end of World War II. It included military, economic and ideological components. This war, invisible to the naked eye, was called the Cold War. It lasted from 1946 to 1989. It involved the allies of the USSR and the allies of the United States, and the basis of this global battle was the cardinal contradictions between capitalism and socialism.
the greatest tension cold war reached in the early 1960s. It was at this time that the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred (October 1962). The world was on the brink of nuclear war, and only the sense of self-preservation of the leaders of the great powers saved it. After that, the nuclear and other types of arms race continued, which by no means contributed to the improvement of international relations.
Two powerful alliances fought for dominance over the planet, but such a struggle would not have been possible without intelligence. Both the US and the USSR had powerful intelligence apparatuses. Their task was to obtain a variety of information about the enemy. But scientific and technical data were of the greatest value, since it was success in science that ensured military superiority.
To obtain such information, it was necessary to recruit people who had access to it. This method was considered the most effective, and the success of any intelligence officer was based precisely on recruitment. The more he could recruit the right people the higher his status. Soviet intelligence in this direction acted very successfully. But the Americans also did not sit still. In early 1961, they recruited GRU Colonel Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky.
Oleg Penkovsky - GRU colonel, traitor, arrested by Soviet counterintelligence on October 22, 1962
This personality raises many questions to this day. More than half a century has already passed since those times, and it is still unclear: Oleg Penkovsky - a hero or a traitor? Was he really a spy or a courageous man trying to save the world from a nuclear holocaust? But let's get to know this person in more detail and try to form a general opinion about her.
This man was born in Vladikavkaz on April 23, 1919. His father was an officer in the White Army and died during the Civil War. Therefore, the boy was raised by one mother. In 1937 he graduated from the Secondary School in Ordzhonikidze, and then in 1939 from the Kiev Artillery School. He participated in the campaign against Poland and the Winter War with Finland.
During the Great Patriotic War, he was engaged in Komsomol and staff work. At the same time, he took part in the fighting and was wounded twice. In 1948 he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy. Then he served at the headquarters of the Moscow Military District and at the headquarters of the Ground Forces. In 1949 he received the rank of colonel. At that time, Oleg Penkovsky was 30 years old.
A successful officer was sent to study at the Military Diplomatic Academy Soviet army. He graduated in 1953 and was sent to serve in the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate). In the same year he left as a resident in Turkey. In 1956, Penkovsky was urgently recalled from Turkey for reasons that are not entirely clear. According to the official version, he allegedly tried to sell jewelry. Colleagues described him as a vicious person, capable of meanness and dreaming of making a career by any means.
This characteristic is not very linked with the work of Penkovsky in the GRU.. This organization was not only serious, but absolutely secret. They didn't take anyone into it. Experienced psychologists made a detailed report on any employee. Therefore, an evil, envious, vengeful, quarrelsome person would not be accepted into such an organization. He would have been weeded out at the first interview.
And then the unthinkable happened. The colonel came to the Union, and he was fired from the GRU, and then taken back. It already looks like a fairy tale. Even today, workers who have made a mistake are not accepted into reputable firms again. And then a powerful secret organization, carefully conspiratorial (no one in the USSR knew about it at all) and takes the dismissed colonel back to work. In principle, this could not be. Even the most powerful patrons would not return him to the service in the GRU. But the official facts for some reason say otherwise.
And our hero, instead of spending the remaining years of service in the position of division intelligence chief somewhere on Far East or in Altai, remains in Moscow in the GRU. In 1959, he graduated from the higher engineering and artillery courses at the Dzerzhinsky Military Academy and became the head of the course at the Academy of Missile Forces. In 1960, he went to work in the State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific Research. While working in these positions, Oleg Penkovsky remains an employee of the GRU.
A successful officer has a 3-room apartment in the center of the capital, a family, a prestigious job, but he suddenly begins to yearn for overseas life. The longing becomes so unbearable that in June 1960, an experienced intelligence officer approaches two young American tourists on the Moskvoretsky Bridge, whom he sees for the first time in his life, and gives them a package with classified information.
It concerns the downed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, which was flown by the American pilot Powers. In addition, Penkovsky offers the Americans cooperation: he will collect secret information and transfer it to the CIA resident. All this is in the package, and dreaming of overseas life Soviet officer asks tourists to hand over the package to the embassy.
Oleg Penkovsky at one of the court hearings
Oleg Penkovsky himself admitted in court that he was recruited on April 20, 1961 in London when he was there on a business trip. Greville Wynne, a British intelligence officer in the USSR, acted as an intermediary. With him Soviet colonel met in Moscow at public receptions. In London, Greville introduced Penkovsky to two American and two British intelligence officers.
The colonel received the pseudonym "Hero". They explained to him how to use a portable camera, talked about the technique of receiving radio transmissions from the intelligence center, taught secret writing and encryption. It was agreed that communication would be maintained through Greville Wynn. He would regularly appear in the USSR as a businessman. On May 6, Penkovsky returned to Moscow and began collecting classified information.
The second trip to London took place on 18 July 1961. On it, the GRU colonel handed over more than 20 microfilms with secret materials to the Anglo-American intelligence officers. The material conditions of his work as an agent of the American and British special services were also discussed. At the end of intelligence activities, Oleg Vladimirovich was promised American citizenship, a job with an income of 24 thousand dollars a year and 1 thousand dollars for each month of intelligence work in the USSR.
I must say that these are not mountains of gold at all. In terms of our time, this is about 140 thousand dollars a year. A doctor in a public clinic in the United States receives 220-240 thousand dollars a year. A taxi driver in New York earns about $70,000 a year. It turns out that the undercover work of the GRU colonel was estimated only 2 times higher than the work of a taxi driver. And why did Oleg Vladimirovich need all this?
But our hero enthusiastically accepted such an initially unprofitable financial offer and, full of bright plans, left for the USSR. His contact was Anna Chisholm, the wife of a British intelligence officer who worked undercover in Moscow. He served as second secretary of the embassy.
While in London, Penkovsky met the wife and daughter of Ivan Alexandrovich Serov, who at that time was the head of the GRU. This acquaintance continued in Moscow. The colonel came home to the Serovs several times and brought them gifts. Subsequently, contacts with a traitor cast a shadow on the head of the GRU and became the reason for his resignation. It is possible that this shadow was predicted in advance by some secret and powerful force.
At the end of September, Oleg Vladimirovich went on a business trip to Paris. There he again met with representatives of foreign intelligence and handed them microfilms with classified materials. That is, we see a person who extremely often traveled abroad, which at that time in the USSR only a few could afford. In the country of the Soviets, our hero had a very high status, belonged to the nomenklatura and enjoyed such benefits that millions of Soviet people did not even dare to dream of. But in the USA, he would become an ordinary official with a low salary, and would not stand out in any way from the general mass of Americans.
Until October 1962, Oleg Vladimirovich was engaged in espionage activities in favor of the enemies of the USSR. But the Soviet authorities found out about his double life at the end of December 1961. A GRU colonel was burned as a result of meetings with Anna Chisholm in Moscow. This lady was under surveillance as the wife of a member of the British diplomatic mission. And after she began to often intersect with Penkovsky, he was put under surveillance.
It must be said that the GRU colonel soon felt the surveillance, which he reported to Greville Wynn. They met in Moscow at an official reception in June 1962. But Oleg Vladimirovich did not stop his espionage activities, he continued to obtain secret information and in total handed over to the Anglo-American intelligence about 40 microfilms with data that were state secret.
The traitor planned to fly to the United States on a business trip in the fall of 1962 and stay there. However, he was not allowed to go abroad, and the apartment was searched and a secret cache of spy equipment was found. Oleg Vladimirovich was arrested on October 22, 1962. The arrest was made by KGB officers and the detainee was taken to Lubyanka.
After 10 days in Budapest, the main liaison officer, Greville Wynn, was arrested. He was brought to Moscow and an investigation began. Court hearings were held from May 7 to May 11, 1963. Moreover, at the trial, Oleg Penkovsky was presented as a colonel in the Soviet army, but his work in the GRU remained classified. This is explained by the fact that the Main Intelligence Directorate until 1990 was considered a secret organization. The Soviet people did not know anything about the GRU and did not even know about its existence.
On May 11, 1963, the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky to the highest measure of social protection by execution. According to TASS the sentence was carried out on May 16 of the same year at 16:17 Moscow time. Greville Wynn was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 8 years in prison. But already in April 1964, the Briton was exchanged for the Soviet intelligence officer Konon Trofimovich Molodykh, who was serving a 20-year sentence in a British prison.
Greville Wynn, released after 18 months in a Soviet prison
So who is Oleg Penkovsky - a hero or a traitor? Peter Maurice Wright, chief scientist at the British counterintelligence agency MI5, argued that Penkovsky was not a traitor to his country. He worked for the GRU, and supplied the Anglo-Americans with disinformation. He did not mention a single name of an illegal Soviet intelligence agent who lived in the West. His information concerned mainly organizational details, which were already known. And the colonel of the GRU simply could not get some of the especially valuable documents provided by him by virtue of his position.
Peter Wright also stated that the CIA was initially very suspicious of Penkovsky. But Greville Wynn was convinced that the GRU colonel was a real traitor. And that the Briton's 18-month imprisonment was well-deserved, and not a farce in the GRU intelligence game.
There is also the opinion of Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky (KGB colonel, defector). He claimed that, thanks to Oleg Penkovsky, the Cuban Missile Crisis was averted. The GRU colonel named the type and number of missiles stationed in Cuba. From his information it turned out that the Americans greatly overestimated the capabilities of the USSR. In reality, the Soviet Union was much weaker. This gave the Kennedy administration a reason not to rush to destroy Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, but to negotiate with a sense of strength. The crisis ended, after all, with a reasonable compromise.
These are the opinions that exist about the espionage activities of Oleg Penkovsky. Some historians even believe that this whole betrayal game was started in order to remove the head of the GRU, Serov, from his post. He was Khrushchev's man, and a conspiracy began to ripen against Nikita Sergeevich. Therefore, many were interested in removing one of the key figures and thereby facilitating the removal of the head of the Soviet state from power.
But if we assume that Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky was not a traitor, but was just the main actor in the intelligence game, then how can one explain his execution? And there was no shooting. The trial and the verdict were just part of a well-directed spectacle. After graduation, our hero was given a different name, different documents, provided with money and sent to live in one of the countries of Latin America. There he ended his days, rooting in soul and heart for great Russia..
On May 11, 1963, an unusual trial took place in Moscow - over Colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Soviet Army Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky. After some time, if you believe the official report, the fate of the exposed spy was put to an end - a bullet in the head. However, is this true?
Volumes have been written about Penkovsky, who worked for the British and Americans for nothing - less than two years. Mostly in the West. And mostly as a person who played almost a key role in preventing the third world war. One two-volume book was called “The Spy Who Saved the World.” The leitmotif of the book is simple: if Penkovsky had not informed the United States about the true state of the nuclear missile potential of the Soviet Union, war would not have been avoided. True, there is an opinion that Penkovsky was also a setup for the KGB. But to answer the question, what this case is true, and what is fiction is hard.
In support of this unusual version, there is, although indirect, but rather convincing evidence. Penkovsky completely neglected his own safety, which was not at all characteristic of his then position (if one did not regard his work as dummy). He tried to establish contact with the Americans even in the Kremlin area, although he knew, of course, how hard surveillance works there. He handed over 5,000 frames of photographic film, which would have been enough, but he also brought original documents, which was practically impossible in the USSR. Penkovsky, as a high-ranking employee of the State Committee for Science and Technology (cover position), could transmit materials during foreign business trips or through a messenger (English merchant), but he did this through hiding places in his own country.
An apple from an apple tree...
Actually, we must start with the fact that Penkovsky's father was a white officer. With such a "spot" in his biography, he simply would not be allowed to go abroad. And if they let him in, it means that he worked under the control of the committee. Interestingly, after the exposure of her father, Penkovsky's own daughter worked in the information service of the First Main Directorate of the KGB, as it was then called. foreign intelligence. Knowledgeable people It was said that influential people in the special services helped her get settled. It is quite possible that this was the condition of Oleg Penkovsky himself, who agreed to become a set-up.
Now about the most important thing - why was the "Hero" (Penkovsky's operational pseudonym) substituted? By 1962, the Americans had developed their next plan for a preventive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. To suppress Cuba, a group of troops numbering almost half a million people was prepared. The USSR, according to the CIA, at that time had about 400 nuclear warheads, but the first American satellite detected only 25 missile sites. The fact is that the Soviet Union tried to pretend to be weak so that, knowing this, the Americans would not go forward in development. nuclear weapons- usually, as soon as the USSR caught up with them, they immediately broke away.
Penkovsky's information was needed in order to show the "weakness" of the Union, and the USSR would continue to build its full-fledged nuclear shield behind this screen (which, by the way, was done later). According to those who call Penkovsky a savior, the picture was similar: when they saw that the USSR was weak and could not harm the Americans, they changed their minds about fighting. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to intelligence officer Maksimov, Penkovsky's information about the Soviet military potential in Cuba was needed to legalize the very fact of the deployment of Soviet missiles there. There was a big bargaining, the meaning of which is simple: Americans, leave Cuba alone. For a big bargain, a big bluff was needed.
Lost Hero.
Penkovsky was arrested in mid-October 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis was at its peak. The then head of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny, already said today that the arrest could have happened earlier, but he was ordered to leave Penkovsky alone for a while. Perhaps this was done in order not to frighten off the Americans who worked with him. If only because, according to the tasks that were set for him, it was possible to determine the interests of that side, its awareness of us. In addition, Penkovsky had to "gather" more compromising material for a powerful political anti-American campaign. As a result, a dozen employees of the American embassy were expelled from the USSR.
Some scientists are sure that Colonel Penkovsky was not shot, even if the global intelligence game had to be brought to its logical end. There are many examples when the participants of such games disappeared, and after a long time they suddenly “surfaced”. In Operation Trust (1921-1927), the head of the frontier post, Toivo Vähe, who dragged the English spy Sidney Reilly on himself, was shot. And 40 years later, in 1965, he appeared on TV screens under the name Petrov, then wrote books.
The purpose of Operation Snow (1940-1941) was to push the Americans and the Japanese in the Far East. It became known about it from the book of a participant in the operation, General Elisey Pavlov, only in the mid-90s, and even then the author was reproached for incorrectness. In the operation "Monastery", which went on throughout the Great Patriotic War, the agent "Max" among the Germans was considered a model for the penetration of the Abwehr into the Soviet special services. And only in the mid-90s of the last century, the “main saboteur of the country”, General Pavel Sudoplatov, said that it was not “Max”, but the Soviet agent “Heine”.
In preparation for the role of a double agent, Anatoly Maksimov was asked if he was ready to play the role of a traitor - with all the ensuing consequences. He was ready. And when the Canadian intelligence services failed in this story, they were forced to follow this line of behavior: take everything upon yourself, let the government have nothing to do with it. Canadians until the very end believed that their agent Anatoly Maximov worked honestly and was tortured in the cellars of the Lubyanka.
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, whom many publicists consider the most successful spy in the USSR, was executed in 1963. There is a version expressed by Viktor Suvorov in the book "Aquarium" that Penkovsky was not shot, but burned alive. Is it so? Why could he have been so cruelly punished?
Career
Oleg Penkovsky, colonel of the GRU of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, was born in 1919. During the Polish campaign and the Soviet-Finnish war, as well as at the beginning of the Second World War, he was a political commissar and instructor on the Komsomol line. Then he became an officer for special assignments. In the middle of the Great Patriotic War in 1943-1944. Penkovsky commanded an artillery battalion. After that, his career rapidly went uphill, and in the 60s he already became a senior officer in the GRU. For the last two years before his execution, Penkovsky worked undercover as deputy head of the Foreign Relations Directorate under the Council of Ministers.
Spying activity: some questions
Having taken the position of a senior officer at the Main Intelligence Directorate of the USSR, Penkovsky almost immediately offered his services to British intelligence. He then approached the British Counterintelligence Security Service (MI5) and the US Central Intelligence Agency with the same proposal.
And here the question arises: is it really a person, past war, who survived the Stalinist "purges", ideologically hardened and tested for loyalty to the CPSU and the USSR, could for no reason become a spy, moreover, of two enemy powers at once? A man who saw the executions and it is possible that he himself denounced the unreliable, suddenly suddenly switched sides? Unlikely.
It is striking that the Chisholms were the liaisons throughout the entire time that Penkovsky worked for foreign intelligence. The GRU of the USSR was aware that Rolanger Chisholm was a spy as early as 1960. And Penkovsky came under surveillance only in 1961. Has the Soviet intelligence department “flapped its ears” for a whole year?
Almost every person who had contact in one way or another with foreigners was at that time “under the hood”. Unreliable people became restricted to travel abroad. During this period, Penkovsky traveled to both London and Paris.
It is also surprising how the contact with the messengers took place - in the city center, in a crowded and busy place. In his book "Secrets of the Lubyanka" A. Khinshtein, journalist, adviser to the director Federal Service troops of the National Guard of the Russian Federation, cites an excerpt from the transcript of the interrogation:
“Prosecutor: What was the password stipulated for?
Penkovsky: I had to walk along the embankment with a cigarette in my mouth, and in my hand hold a book or a package wrapped in white paper. I was supposed to be approached by a man in an unbuttoned coat, also with a cigarette in his mouth, who would say: "Mr. Alex, I'm from your two friends who send you their big, big hello."
Prosecutor: In what language should the conversation take place?
Penkovsky: In English.
It looks like a scene from a comedy about spies, but not like the actions of an experienced intelligence officer who went through more than one military company and served in one of the strongest intelligence departments in the world at that time. The opinion was strongly imposed on the townsfolk that Penkovsky was greedy and narrow-minded. He himself spoke of himself as follows: “I was the bearer of many shortcomings: I was envious, selfish, conceited, had careerist tendencies, loved to court women, had women with whom I cohabited, went to restaurants - in a word, I loved the easy life.” In the Western press and journalism, he was described as an intelligent and erudite person.
During his contacts with foreign intelligence, Oleg Penkovsky handed over 5,500 documents, in total occupying more than seven and a half thousand pages. It turns out that Soviet intelligence allowed its officer to freely transmit information subject to strict secrecy in an open way.
The question of what this information was also remains open. For example, Penkovsky handed over the layout of Soviet missile silos. However, in those years, there were already many more spy satellites in Earth orbit than research satellites, and this data had long been at the disposal of US and British military intelligence.
It is alleged that the surveillance of Oleg Penkovsky began in December 1961 (or January 19, 1962), and he was arrested, according to some sources, in October, and according to others, as early as December 1962. Again, a discrepancy: he fell under suspicion officer calmly transmits strategically important information for 9-12 months, and the KGB is silent?!
Was it a boy?
The scene of the burning of the spy is no less surprising than how amateurish the work of the KGB officers was. Why burn it, and even shoot it on film? To scare young employees? The burning version exists in one source - Vladimir Rezun (Viktor Suvorov), an employee of the GRU who fled to the UK in 1978 and wrote his bestseller "Aquarium" there.
The book did indeed describe such a scene, but there is no direct indication that the person closed in the coffin and burned in the crematorium is Penkovsky. This version was put forward by Joseph Brodsky, based on the fact that Penkovsky was the only GRU colonel executed for espionage.
Striking is the time that has passed from the moment of the verdict to the execution - only two days. Where were you in such a hurry? Maybe a person who was “suitable” in terms of parameters just turned up and was executed instead of Penkovsky? And was there really an execution, not to mention burning? It is likely that there was no execution. A. Khinshtein suggests that the option is not ruled out in which Oleg Penkovsky, who fulfilled his mission, was presented new life- with new documents and a new "legend".
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky. Born on April 23, 1919 in Vladikavkaz - executed on May 16, 1963 in Moscow. Former colonel of the GRU of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. A traitor who worked in favor of the United States and Great Britain. Shot for espionage and treason.
His mother raised him alone. In 1937 he graduated high school in Ordzhonikidze.
In 1937-1939 he studied at the 2nd Kiev Artillery School. Then in 1939-1940 he was a battery political instructor, participated in the Polish campaign and the Finnish war.
In 1940-1941 he was assistant to the head of the political department for Komsomol work of the Moscow Artillery School. In 1941-1942 he was a senior instructor in Komsomol work of the Political Directorate of the Moscow Military District. In 1942-1943 he was an officer for special assignments of the Military Council of the Moscow Military District.
In 1943-1944 he served as head of a training detachment and later commander of an artillery battalion of the 27th artillery regiment of the 1st Ukrainian Front. In 1944-1945 he was adjutant to the artillery commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front S.S. Varentsov. With the latter, Penkovsky was associated with many years of official and personal relations, including in the post-war years.
In 1945 he was appointed commander of the 51st Guards Artillery Regiment of the 1st Ukrainian Front. At the front, he was wounded twice, received heavy and light wounds.
In 1948 he graduated from the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze. Then he was a senior officer of the mobilization department of the headquarters of the Moscow military district. In 1948-1949 he was an officer of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces.
At the age of 30 he was promoted to colonel.
In 1953 he graduated from the Military Diplomatic Academy of the Soviet Army (VASA), after graduation he was assigned to the 4th (Middle East) Directorate of the GRU.
In 1953-1955 he was a senior officer of the 4th Directorate of the GRU. In the middle of 1955, he was preparing for his first foreign trip to Turkey as a military attache and resident of the GRU.
In 1955-1956, he was a senior assistant to the military attache at the USSR Embassy in Turkey, he acted as a GRU resident in this country. In the official description of the Penkovsky period of his activity in Turkey, it is written: "A vengeful, vicious person, an unparalleled careerist, capable of any meanness."
From Turkey, he was recalled to Moscow after an unpleasant episode in Istanbul, when an embassy employee caught Penkovsky in a bazaar trying to sell jewelry. According to other sources, already in Turkey, Penkovsky tried to offer Soviet military secrets to Western diplomats, but they began to shun Penkovsky as an obvious provocateur.
For some time, Penkovsky's career stalled, and he was fired from the GRU, which caused him annoyance and irritation, a desire to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of his superiors.
For some time, Penkovsky was at the disposal of the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Defense. The secondary admission of Colonel Penkovsky to serve in military intelligence was authorized by the deputy head of the GRU, Alexander Rogov, who, as a colleague from the war years, had a trusting relationship with the Minister of Defense Malinovsky, and often, bypassing his immediate leader Ivan Serov, was in charge of personnel matters in the GRU. Serov himself, according to his memoirs and memos, did not know him before Penkovsky's appearance in the GRU, did not know him by sight, after studying the candidate's biography he was against such an appointment and did not give any instructions to Penkovsky during his service.
In 1957-1958 he was a senior officer of the 5th directorate of the GRU.
In 1958-1959 he studied at the Higher Engineering and Artillery Courses of the Military Academy of the Strategic Missile Forces named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky. Then, on the recommendation of Marshal of Artillery Varentsov, he became the head of the course at the Academy of Missile Forces. It was this knowledge of Penkovsky that turned out to be most in demand by foreign intelligence services.
In 1959-1960, he was a senior officer of the 4th Directorate of the GRU, preparing for the post of military attache in India, but another officer was sent there, which caused Penkovsky's disappointment.
In 1960 he was a senior officer in the special department of the 3rd (scientific and technical) directorate of the GRU.
In 1960-1962 he worked "undercover" as deputy head of the Foreign Relations Department of the State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific Research under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. This Soviet organization, whose leadership positions were held by senior officers of the special services, specialized in international contacts in the scientific, technical and economic spheres. The Committee arranged visits of numerous Soviet scientific delegations to the West and the reception of foreign scientists, engineers and businessmen in the USSR. An important goal of these exchanges of specialists was to conduct scientific and technical intelligence - in order to put the technological secrets of the West at the service of Soviet industry, primarily in the defense and rocket and space sectors.
Spy activities of Oleg Penkovsky
At one of the receptions in Moscow for a delegation of British businessmen, Penkovsky met Greville Wynne, who turned out to be a businessman connected with the British intelligence service MI6. This event became the starting point of Penkovsky's espionage activities.
During the investigation, it was established that Penkovsky had proactively and persistently offered his services to American intelligence in Moscow. According to some reports, in June 1960, on the Moskvoretsky Bridge, Penkovsky turned to two American students from a tourist group and asked them to send a letter to the US Embassy, which described in detail, with details known only to the special services, how on May 1 an American reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Sverdlovsk U-2, flown by American pilot Powers.
According to other sources, in the fall of 1960, Penkovsky handed over a package with proposals for collecting classified information for the CIA to the residence of the American ambassador in Moscow, Spaso House. With British intelligence, Penkovsky tried to get in touch in November 1960 at the Canadian embassy in Moscow.
According to some data, his first contacts with Western intelligence services date back to 1958.
Penkovsky himself admitted in court that the act of recruitment took place on April 20, 1961, during his first posting to London. There, through Greville Wynn, known to him from a meeting at a public reception in Moscow, he met and had a long conversation at the Mount Royal Hotel with two British and two American intelligence officers who introduced themselves as Griller, Michael, Alexander and Oslaf (later Raj joined them) . Intelligence officers told Penkovsky that his letter had reached the CIA leadership.
Penkovsky received spy aliases - Young and Alex, and a little later - Hero. Penkovsky was instructed on how to use the Minox portable camera, microfilm technology, the technique of receiving radio transmissions from the intelligence center through a transistor receiver, the rules for using cryptographic carbon paper, and special notebooks for encrypting and deciphering messages.
At the first meeting, Penkovsky was shown several thousand photographs of Soviet citizens that attracted the attention of Western intelligence services, of which almost 700 were identified by the new agent as KGB and GRU officers, some of the employees identified by Penkovsky, in particular the assistant naval attaché Evgeny Ivanov, worked in the Soviet embassy in London. We agreed that if Penkovsky could no longer be sent to Western countries, then communication will be maintained through Wynn, who will regularly come to the USSR under the guise of a businessman and organizer of exhibitions. On May 6, Penkovsky returned to Moscow and began collecting undercover information.
At first, Penkovsky microfilmed and sent to the UK the scientific reports of specialists from the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on Science and Technology (SCST) who had been on business trips abroad, reported on rumors and scandals in the leadership of the USSR, giving his own assessment of the events.
In particular, Penkovsky reported that the USSR was far behind the Western states in terms of armaments and was completely unprepared for a war with the West. Penkovsky reported that only a third of the million members of the CPSU remained loyal to the party and carried out its directives. Young people, Penkovsky informed, have no desire to fight, instead the younger generation expresses dissatisfaction due to an acute shortage of food and things in stores. At the request of British intelligence, Penkovsky gradually switched to information of a military-technical nature.
The second time Penkovsky arrived in London through the SCNT on July 18, 1961, he stayed there until August 8, having held five secret meetings. During the second trip, Penkovsky again met with the American-British "team" of intelligence officers, handed over to them 20 photographic films of classified materials filmed in various Soviet military institutions, where he could visit without hindrance. At a secret meeting with the chief of the Russian section of MI6, he expressed a desire to be introduced to the British Prime Minister.
After the end of the spy mission in the USSR, Penkovsky was promised citizenship, a high position in intelligence structures of the choice of the United States or Great Britain, with a salary of $ 2,000 per month and $ 1,000 for each month of undercover work in the USSR.
Penkovsky tried on the colonel's uniforms of the American and British intelligence services, and was also photographed in them.
This time, Penkovsky was instructed to collect secret information among the military personnel of the missile forces, information about Soviet troops located in the GDR, on the preparation of a new treaty between the USSR and the GDR, on Soviet-Chinese relations, and other secret information of a political, economic and military nature. At a secret dacha near London, Penkovsky was instructed about the devices and rules for working on special long-range and directional radio transmitters.
At a meeting in London, Penkovsky was introduced to Anna (Jeanette) Chisholm, the wife of a British diplomat and career intelligence officer for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), who worked in Moscow under the cover of the post of second secretary of the British embassy. Chisholm became Penkovsky's liaison between visits to Moscow by Greville Wynne, who was the main channel of communication. On the plane, on the way to London, Penkovsky proactively met the wife and daughter of the head of the GRU, Serov, who were on their way to a tourist trip, then he forced himself to accompany them on a walk around the English capital. And later, upon his return to Moscow from Paris, Penkovsky visited the Serovs with gifts. These facts, which at first no one attached importance to, subsequently gave rise to assumptions about some informal connections between Penkovsky and Serov, which the general always completely rejected.
On September 20, 1961, Penkovsky flew to Paris as part of the Soviet delegation, at the Le Bourget airport handed over 15 microfilms with spy materials to Greville Wynn, who was among those meeting. In Paris, Penkovsky held meetings in safe houses with British and American intelligence agents, received new assignments to select 10 new caches for impersonal communication with agents in Moscow, and to collect classified materials, in particular, about rocket technology.
In total, in the course of Penkovsky's cooperation with MI6 and the CIA, two large meetings of Penkovsky with Western intelligence officers took place in London and one in Paris, where he went on business trips through the SCST. All other contacts and transfer of information according to the instructions received took place in Moscow.
According to information, "all British diplomats and Englishmen living in Moscow were monitored." The fact that the Chisholms were engaged in not only diplomatic activities in Moscow was warned by the KGB by George Blake, who had worked for Soviet intelligence inside MI6 for a long time.
The first contact, however, was successful: in the first days of September, Penkovsky, passing by Chisholm, walking along Tsvetnoy Boulevard with a baby in a pram, quietly handed over a small box of sweets, inside of which there were 22 microfilms.
For more than three months, Penkovsky managed to go unnoticed. He fell under suspicion of the KGB on December 30-31, 1961. The operatives recorded, as it were, an accidental brief intersection of Penkovsky with Anna Chisholm at the entrance of the house along Maly Sukharevsky lane, 11 near the Arbat, which aroused suspicion.
As it turned out from further observations, through "instant meetings" Penkovsky weekly transmitted intelligence information to the West through an Englishwoman. Including - the departmental magazine "Military Thought", which was called "top secret" abroad, although in reality it had the signature stamp "For Official Use". Penkovsky copied part of the sent materials, bringing them home from the special libraries of the GRU, the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
After Penkovsky's contacts with Chisholm were recorded, he was no longer allowed to go abroad, however, in June 1962, when meeting with a contact, British businessman and intelligence officer Greville Wynne, who arrived in Moscow, Penkovsky was able to convey to him that he felt being watched.
During 1962, already under the supervision of operatives, Penkovsky, in addition to communicating with Winn, held at least six more meetings with foreign intelligence officers in Moscow. A spy disguised as an employee of the SCST visited foreigners in their hotel rooms, visited the American and British embassies, once paid a visit to the apartment of a Western diplomat.
All this time, Penkovsky put information in caches, some of them were located in the entrances of residential buildings in the area of Tsvetnoy Boulevard, Pushkinskaya Street and Arbat, and one cache was disguised in the tombstone of the poet Yesenin at the Vagankovsky cemetery. In 1962, Penkovsky sent about 30 microfilms with classified documents to the British and Americans. All these months the Chekists followed Penkovsky, but did not take him red-handed, trying to reveal all the connections of the agent - it was assumed that a whole spy network was operating in Moscow.
Penkovsky lived at 36 Kosmodamianskaya Embankment (then - Maxim Gorky Embankment), together with his wife, two daughters and his mother. In order to obtain accurate and convincing evidence of Penkovsky's espionage activities, the KGB carried out a technical operation unprecedented in the practice of the special services: a cable was stretched along the bottom of the Moskva River to the attic in the house opposite, on Goncharnaya Embankment, controlling a movie camera in a box for flower seedlings, located on the balcony one floor above Penkovsky's apartment. With the help of a movie camera, the agent was filmed at the moment when he was filming secret documents on the windowsill.
Arrest and execution of Oleg Penkovsky
In the autumn of 1962, according to the plan of business trips to the State Committee for Science and Technology, Penkovsky, who became excited and continued his espionage raids in Moscow, was supposed to fly to the United States, from where he planned not to return. However, the KGB set up an opportunity, as a result of which Penkovsky received a mild infection on sensitive organs and ended up in the hospital for some time, due to which the trip abroad fell through as if by itself. At this time, operatives secretly entered Penkovsky's apartment and searched it, found a cache of secret materials ready for transfer to the West, portable filming and copying equipment, cipher pads and means of secret communications.
The investigation and detention of Penkovsky was led by the first deputy chairman of the KGB, Colonel-General Pyotr Ivashutin.
Oleg Penkovsky was arrested on October 22, 1962 on the way to work and was immediately taken to the KGB building in Lubyanka. In the very first four days of interrogations, Penkovsky admitted numerous facts of cooperation with foreign intelligence services, expressed remorse for what he had done, offered his services as a double agent and asked for help and trust in the hope that his confession and frankness would be taken into account and he would get a chance. be rehabilitated "at the cost of the greatest benefit that I now still have the opportunity to bring."
10 days after the capture of Penkovsky in Budapest, employees of the Soviet special services captured and delivered by plane to Moscow Penkovsky's liaison Greville Winn.
The motives of Penkovsky's espionage activities were subjected to in-depth analysis both during the investigation and trial, and in later domestic and foreign studies - since in the USSR of the early 1960s, Penkovsky outward signs He was a very prosperous and even privileged person. He had a prestigious job in two departments at once and a high salary for each of them, a three-room apartment in the center of Moscow, the rank of order-bearing colonel, regularly went on business trips to capitalist countries, which was rare at that time even for high-ranking military and statesmen. His personal life also developed successfully: according to evidence, despite episodic "male adventures", Penkovsky was attached to his family - his wife and daughters.
According to the materials of the investigation and court, Penkovsky was a man of an extremely low moral level, very narrow-minded, a careerist and an opportunist, a lover of the “beautiful life” and a womanizer (he was mentioned in London with a prostitute), prone to feasts and drinking, mercenary and with limited interests who dreamed of getting rich and escaping to the West - all this together was the reason for his betrayal.
The military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR considered the case of Penkovsky and Winn in an open court session from May 7 to 11, 1963. During the trial, Penkovsky was presented as a colonel in the reserve of the Soviet Army, an employee of the State Committee for Science and Technology, he was dressed in a strict business suit and tie; his belonging to the GRU was not disclosed (it became known only 30 years later, in the 1990s). The process had all the hallmarks of a demonstration. About 300 “representatives of the public” were present in the hall with special passes, foreign observers were not allowed, transcripts of the hearings were published in Soviet newspapers (then published in a book of 100,000 copies), a rich newsreel was filmed about the process.
Television filming at the trial was carried out with elements of cinematographic techniques: polished dialogues between the prosecutor and the defendant, Penkovsky's deliberately literary speech and acting diction, reminiscent of a radio play, showing the face and facial expressions of the convict at the time of the announcement of the verdict, in which historian Alexei Kuznetsov saw elements of directorial participation. The manner of behavior of Penkovsky, who observed the process, the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR A.F. Gorkin called "arrogant, arrogant and self-confident." Penkovsky hoped, according to Gorkin, that he would be given 10 years in the camps, and the American intelligence services would be able to negotiate with the Soviets on the exchange of a valuable agent, and he would be free again.
The public trial was presided over by Lieutenant General of Justice Borisoglebsky, people's assessors - Generals Marasanov and Tsygankov, the prosecution was supported by the Chief Military Prosecutor, Lieutenant General of Justice A.G. Gorny, well-known Moscow lawyers Apraksin and Borovik defended Penkovsky.
Most of the court sessions were open, but some sessions were held behind closed doors, and their minutes are classified until now.
Oleg Penkovsky during the trial
In the verdict, the court found that in the course of 18 months of work for the intelligence of the United States and Great Britain, Penkovsky handed over to the West more than 5,000 secret documents relating to Soviet missile weapons and military strategy, personal information about more than 600 Soviet intelligence officers of the GRU and KGB, information about the positional areas of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, data on the scientific developments of the Soviet military-industrial complex. During the trial, Penkovsky admitted his guilt, in the last word he asked for leniency.
On May 11, 1963, O. V. Penkovsky was found guilty of treason by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and sentenced to death. The death sentence was a shock for Penkovsky, according to an eyewitness of the last minutes of the process, the convict "covered his face with his hands and did not lower them for a long time."
He had awards: 2 Orders of the Red Banner (1945,1945), Order of Alexander Nevsky (1945), Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree (1944), Order of the Red Star, 8 medals (“For the Defense of Moscow”, “For the Victory over Germany” , "For Military Merit", etc.). According to the verdict of the court, Penkovsky was deprived of his military rank and all government awards.
Penkovsky's appeal was immediately rejected by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
The sentence was carried out on May 16 at 4:17 pm, as reported by TASS in the Soviet media on May 17. The original handwritten act on the execution of the sentence, signed by the chief military prosecutor Gorny, the head of the Butyrka prison, the executor, a doctor and other persons, was published in 2015. Greville Wynne is found guilty of espionage and sentenced to eight years in prison: three years in prison and five years in camps. In April 1964, Wynn was exchanged for the Soviet intelligence officer Konon Molodoy, who was serving a 20-year sentence in an English prison for espionage. The Chisholms, who had diplomatic immunity, as well as a number of British and American diplomats involved in the case, were expelled from the USSR.
Historians noted that the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR completely ignored the circumstances mitigating Penkovsky's guilt, namely: his military path during the Great Patriotic War, marked by wounds and orders (including two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Star), other government awards, active remorse and active cooperation with the investigation, assistance in exposing foreign intelligence agents, provided positive references from the place of service, the presence of two minor children, including a one-year-old daughter, as dependents.
The story with Penkovsky was the reason for the dismissal, demotion to major general and deprivation of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union of the head of the GRU, General of the Army Ivan Serov - his commanding post in the GRU on March 18, 1963 was taken by the head of the investigation team in the case of Penkovsky, the first Deputy Chairman of the KGB Pyotr Ivashutin.
Was demoted in officer rank and deprived of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union Chief Marshal of Artillery Sergei Varentsov.
Severe disciplinary measures were taken against the military leaders, despite the fact that they were not involved as defendants, only Varentsov was held as a witness, while the court did not establish that Penkovsky obtained any secret information from Serov and Varentsov.
Who exactly provided Penkovsky with information constituting military and state secrets, and even in a colossal volume and in detailed details, remained unclear or unpublished in court. None of the Soviet citizens, in addition to Penkovsky himself, was prosecuted as accomplices in his case.
Experts expressed doubts that Penkovsky, given the level of his position as deputy head of department at the State Committee on Science and Technology, could have such secret information or independently, without the help of high-ranking and influential persons, obtain it.
Information about Penkovsky, his work in the GRU and cooperation with the special services of the United States and Great Britain is still classified as secret, therefore most of the assessments are based on circumstantial facts, official information disseminated at the time by the USSR, Great Britain and the United States, and on those published in the United States in 1965 in the autobiographical notes of Penkovsky himself (the authorship of which is disputed).
Personal life of Oleg Penkovsky:
Wife - Vera Dmitrievna Penkovskaya (nee - Gapanovich). They got married in 1945. Father-in-law - Lieutenant General Dmitry Afanasyevich Gapanovich (1896-1952), head of the Political Directorate of the Moscow Military District.
Two daughters were born in the marriage, the eldest - Maria.
After the arrest of Penkovsky, in a letter dated October 30, 1962, addressed to the KGB, Vera Dmitrievna asked for material assistance and mentioned that she had two daughters, the youngest was 8 months old. There is no information about the fate of Penkovsky's second daughter.
After it was confirmed that Penkovsky's wife and eldest daughter knew nothing about the espionage activities of the head of the family, they had no problems finding employment. Both women changed their last names to Gapanovich and moved to another apartment. The spy's widow worked as an editor at a foreign literature publishing house. The daughter graduated from the philological faculty of Moscow State University, served in one of the departments of the KGB.
Vera Dmitrievna - wife of Oleg Penkovsky
Penkovsky called his uncle General of the Army Valentin Antonovich Penkovsky (1904-1969), chief of staff of the military district in the Far East, and then in Belarus. However, this "kinship" was invented by him. Chairman of the KGB of the USSR in 1961-1967 V.E. Semichastny explained that Penkovsky needed fiction in order to raise his importance in the eyes of Western partners.