The spy who loved us - Oleg Penkovsky

Washington Monthly, May, 1992 by Tim Weiner

Not only was Khrushchev lying when he claimed Moscow was squeezing out intercontinental ballistic missiles "like sausages," but the Soviet Union's sausages were horsemeat. The economy was crumbling because "everything is subordinated to the armaments race." Penkovsky continued:

[In a land war in Europe] countless numbers of

officers and soldiers would simply desert to the

other side. This is because all of these ideals for

which many of our fathers, brothers, and relatives

died have turned out to be nothing but a

bluff and a deceit. There is always the promise

that things will be better, but actually nothing is

better and things are only getting worse. I swear

to you that only in Moscow and Leningrad can

one even purchase decent food.... [Outside the

cities] it is difficult to get bread. There are no

roads, which results in unbelievable transportation

delays and breakdowns; grain is rotting

since it cannot be delivered.

The enemy was really nothing more than Upper Volta with rockets-and not many rockets at that.

In some 50 hours of meetings with CIA officers in London and Paris during the next three months, Penkovsky produced a torrent of data: the command structure of the KGB, Soviet military intelligence, and the Communist Party central committee; the names of more than 300 Soviet spooks; KGB tradecraft; Red Army doctrine; barstool gossip; and minutiae about life inside the Soviet state. He also delivered more than 10,000 pages of military manuals and documents. Penkovsky unnerved his auditors by offering to plant dozens of small nuclear mines at strategic sites throughout Moscow, and by urging a preemptive war against Moscow. The CIA had never had a source quite like him.

The authors credit Penkovsky with providing the first reliable human intelligence of Soviet nuclear strength and, in so doing, giving the White House the backbone to stand up to the Soviets in the confrontations over Berlin and Cuba. That may be oversimplifying a bit. In February 1961, two months before Penkovsky's first debriefing, the newly appointed secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara, reviewed the first set of spy-satellite photographs ever taken of the Soviet Union and told the press that the missile gap did not exist-and if there was one, it was in Washington's favor. Penkovsky's revelations simply would not have been decisive without overhead reconnaissance, and without McNamara's reevaluation of the wisdom of a massive, spasmodic nuclear strike against the Soviets. While the take from Penkovsky was invaluable in the case of Cuba-his data on Soviet missiles gave the White House time to think-other factors were at least as important in helping Kennedy reach his decision. The U.S. knew it was far more powerful than the Soviets. The Soviets knew we knew. In crisis, both sides acted accordingly.

CIAo

At about the time Kennedy confronted the Soviets in Cuba, Penkovsky was arrested by the KGB. He had been under surveillance for months, burned by the CIA's inability to provide experienced contacts or safe sites where he could deposit information in Moscow. He continued to spy regardless, driven by his own desires and the demands of his handlers. He begged the CIA to exfiltrate him; the agency could not. He was tried as a turncoat and shot.