Oleg Penkovsky

Oleg Penkovsky
Photograph of Col. Penkovsky
Born	Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky (1919-04-23)April 23, 1919 Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, Imperial Russia
Died	May 16, 1963(1963-05-16) (aged 44) Soviet Union
Other names	HERO
Occupation	GRU Colonel for the Soviet Union and agent for the United States and United Kingdom
Criminal charge	Treason
Criminal penalty	Execution

Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky (Russian: Олег Владимирович Пеньковский; 23 April 1919 – 16 May 1963), codenamed HERO, was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence (GRU) during the late 1950s and early 1960s who informed the United Kingdom and the United States about the Soviet emplacement of missiles in Cuba.

Penkovsky's father died fighting as an officer in the White Army in the Russian Civil War. Penkovsky graduated from the Kiev Artillery Academy in the rank of lieutenant in 1939. After taking part in the Winter War against Finland and in World War II, he had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. A GRU officer, Penkovsky was appointed military attaché in Ankara, Turkey in 1955. He later worked at the Soviet Committee for Scientific Research. Penkovsky was a personal friend of GRU head Ivan Serov and Soviet marshal Sergei Varentsov.

There are two very different opinions about Oleg Penkovsky. While the majority of observers seem to feel that he was a genuine defector as described in The Penkovskiy Papers,Peter Wright, a scientist with MI5 in Britain, was convinced that Penkovsky was a Soviet plant designed to lead the United States to the conclusion that the USSR's intercontinental missile capabilities were much less developed than they actually were.