Former colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Oleg Penkovsky is considered one of the most famous "moles" in the history of the special services. Through the efforts of Soviet and Western propaganda, he was elevated to the rank of super-spy, allegedly playing a key role in preventing the third world war. As if it was Penkovsky's information that helped the Americans learn about Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Counterintelligence of the KGB of the USSR arrested Penkovsky on October 22, 1962, on the day of the apogee of the Caribbean crisis and the beginning of the blockade of Cuba. Three months later, even before the completion of the investigation into the "Penkovsky case", General of the Army Ivan Serov was dismissed from his post as head of the GRU with the wording: "For the loss of political vigilance and unworthy actions." The commander of the missile forces and artillery of the Ground Forces, Chief Marshal of Artillery Sergei Varentsov, was also injured, who was removed from his post, demoted to Major General and stripped of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Varentsov's sins are beyond doubt. Penkovsky at the front served as his adjutant and was indebted to the marshal for his post-war career, including service in the GRU. As for Serov, in his notes he denies any connection with Penkovsky. According to him, Penkovsky was a KGB agent who was deliberately framed by Western intelligence services to drain disinformation, which was of extreme importance in the context of the Cuban missile crisis.
Dozens of volumes have been written about Penkovsky's double or triple life. But the "Penkovsky case" is not only the Cuban missile crisis, it is also the most confusing, most mysterious case in the history of intelligence. More than 40 years have passed since then, but many questions have not been answered. The main secret remains, for whom did Penkovsky work - for the British, Americans, for the GRU or for the KGB of the USSR - and who benefited from this betrayal?
Ivan Serov claims that not the West, but the Soviet Union. Judge for yourself: the third world war, for which the USSR was not ready, never began, the United States kept its word - left Cuba alone and removed its missiles from Turkey. And now let's list the Soviet "losses": after Penkovsky's exposure, three hundred scouts were recalled from behind the cordon, which he could have surrendered, but not a single failure occurred and not a single GRU or KGB agent was injured …
ON THEIR OWN INITIATIVE
Once upon a time there was a military intelligence officer Penkovsky, in the past a dashing front-line officer, awarded five military orders, graduated from the Military-Diplomatic Academy, where the future Chief Marshal of Artillery Varentsov was attached to his adjutant. But after the first trip to Turkey, Penkovsky was dismissed from the army for lack of talent. However, under the patronage of Varentsov, they were soon restored and sent under the "roof" to the State Committee for Science and Technology. It was at this time that the "offended" Penkovsky allegedly decides to "sacrifice himself for the salvation of mankind" and, on his own initiative, offers his services alternately to the Americans and the British.
On August 12, 1960, on Red Square, he approaches two students from the United States and asks them to submit to the CIA a proposal for "technical cooperation." But overseas, such an initiative was considered a provocation by the KGB. However, Penkovsky does not calm down and makes several more attempts, until the English merchant Greville Wynn, who has long collaborated with MI6 intelligence, turned up to him. From that moment on, Penkovsky began to work for both the British and the Americans.
Western intelligence historians claim that Penkovsky was motivated by the lofty and noble ideals of humanism. And they themselves admit that this "humanist" in all seriousness offered to install miniature warheads in the largest cities of the USSR in order to activate them at X-hour. Former CIA Operations Officer D. L. Hart literally quotes the "doctrine" of Colonel Penkovsky: "3 and two minutes before the start of the operation, all the main" targets ", such as the General Staff building, the KGB, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, should be destroyed not by bombers, but by charges placed in advance inside buildings, in shops, residential houses ". Indeed, a humanist …
So what secrets did Penkovsky actually pass on to the intelligence services of the United States and England? There is no reliable answer. And the versions are dark. Most common: Penkovsky told the Americans that the Soviet Union was deploying missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States. There are great doubts on this score. To begin with, Penkovsky was simply not allowed to access such classified information. Only a few knew about the operation, code-named "Anadyr". Another "merit" of Penkovsky was told by the head of the British intelligence service MI6, Dick White. According to his version, allegedly thanks to intelligence received from Penkovsky, it was decided that the United States should not launch a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union, since the nuclear power of the USSR was too exaggerated. But what, one wonders, could Penkovsky tell the Americans if, since 1950, US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft made more than 30 unpunished flights over Soviet territory and photographed most of the missile ranges, air defense bases, including the strategic air base in Engels and nuclear submarine bases?
Move on. Okay, Penkovsky transferred to the West five and a half thousand secret documents re-filmed. The volume is truly gigantic, but what followed? As already mentioned, not a single agent was injured, not a single illegal was "spotted", not a single intelligence officer was expelled or arrested. But when in 1971 KGB officer Oleg Lyalin refused to return to the USSR, the effect was completely different. 135 Soviet diplomats and employees of foreign missions were expelled from England. There is a difference, and what a difference!
SUITCASE VERSION
Another mysterious page of the spy puzzle that has not yet been solved is the story of Penkovsky's exposure. It is known that Penkovsky got under the hood of counterintelligence quite by accident: the surveillance officers were brought to Penkovsky by his messenger - the wife of the British resident Annette Chisholm. At this time, the CIA and MI6, in the event of the failure of their valuable agent, continue to develop a plan to escape Penkovsky. He is sent a set of false documents, and the KGB counterintelligence, using operational technology, fixes a spy when he is examining a new passport in his apartment.
When it becomes clear that Penkovsky will not be released abroad, new ideas arise: Greville Wynn, a liaison of the British intelligence MI6, delivered to Moscow, allegedly for an exhibition, a van with a secret compartment camouflaged inside, where Penkovsky was supposed to be hidden in order to secretly take him from Moscow to England. …
But the plan didn't work. On November 2, 1962, the KGB counterintelligence caught the archivist of the American embassy, Robert Jacob, red-handed at the moment when he was emptying an espionage cache at the entrance of a residential building, allegedly laid by Penkovsky. On the same day, in Budapest, at the request of the KGB, the Hungarian security service also arrested Greville Wynn, the British intelligence officer MI6.
And three months later, the head of the GRU, Ivan Serov, will lose his position, who was not only demoted in rank and deprived of the Golden Star received for the Berlin operation, but also sent into humiliating exile - the deputy commander of the Turkestan military district for universities. In 1965, Serov was transferred to the reserve, and then expelled from the ranks of the CPSU. And none of the attempts to rehabilitate himself succeeded, although the Marshal of Victory Georgy Zhukov himself was fussing for Serov.
Recall that Ivan Serov, before becoming the head of the GRU, was the first chairman of the KGB of the USSR. So why was he so guilty before his homeland?
First claim. Serov allegedly reinstated the traitor Penkovsky in the GRU. However, Ivan Aleksandrovich strongly disagrees with this accusation. Here is what he wrote: “It is known that Marshal of Artillery S. Varentsov has repeatedly asked me to transfer Penkovsky from the Rocket Forces back to the GRU. He contacted me by phone, but I refused Varentsov and, on the certificate provided to me by the head of the GRU Personnel Department, wrote: “Without changing the certification written by the military attache General Rubenko (Penkovsky’s chief in Turkey, who considered him mediocre. - N. Sh.), it cannot be used in military intelligence. " Moreover, no one else approached me on this issue. And then the following happened. The deputy chief of the GRU, General Rogov, signed an order to transfer Penkovsky to the GRU, and then the same Rogov changed the certification to Penkovsky. At a meeting of the CPC (Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the CPSU), he himself announced this, adding that a penalty was imposed on him for this - he was reprimanded."
In this context, one very important circumstance can be traced. A tense relationship developed between Serov and his deputy Rogov. Rogov was a protege of the Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky, with whom they fought together, and the marshal hoped to seat him in the chair of the head of the GRU. But Serov's appointment confused them all.
In a suitcase that Ivan Serov hid until better times, a manuscript was found with his version of the Penkovsky case. The former head of the GRU, in particular, wrote: “Rogov enjoyed the special patronage of Comrade. Malinovsky. Therefore, he often visited Malinovsky without my agreement and received “personal” instructions, which I learned from him later or did not know at all. He often signed orders for the GRU without informing me, for which I made comments to him more than once. (Let's clarify. Rogov signed the order to reinstate Penkovsky in the GRU when Serov was on vacation. The Party Control Commission established this officially. - N. Sh.) his name is among the officers assigned to serve the exhibition in Moscow. I asked the head of the personnel department where Penkovsky had come from, to which he replied that the cadres dealt with him and Comrade. Rogov signed an appointment order."
Second claim. Allegedly, Penkovsky was close to the Serov family. This is perhaps the most scandalous accusation. The reason for it was the following fact: in July 1961, Serov's wife and daughter were in London at the same time as Penkovsky. Much has been written about the joint voyage of the Serovs and Penkovsky. Up to the point that Serov's daughter Svetlana allegedly became the spy's mistress. Moreover, very authoritative authors wrote about this.
V. Semichastny, “Restless Heart”: “Penkovsky tried in every possible way to get closer to Serov. He "accidentally" met Serov abroad, when he and his wife and daughter were in England and France, and with the money of the British special services arranged for them "a beautiful life", presented them with expensive gifts."
A. Mikhailov, “Accused of espionage”: “Penkovsky climbed out of his skin to please Madame Serova and her daughter. He met them, took them to shops, spent part of his money on them."
N. Andreeva, "Tragic Fates": "CIA officer G. Hozlewood wrote in his report: “Penkovsky began to flirt with Svetlana, and when we met, I had to beg him almost on my knees:“This girl is not for you. Don't make life difficult for us."
Serov's daughter Svetlana, who allegedly flirted with Penkovsky, categorically refutes all this. Moreover, her story, together with the notes of the former head of the GRU, makes us look at the London trip in a completely different way: “In July 1961, my mother and I went with a tourist group to London. Father accompanied us to Sheremetyevo, kissed us and immediately left for the service. At the airport, we queued up. Suddenly a man in uniform comes up to us: “Sorry, there was an overlap, two extra tickets were sold for your flight. Could you please wait a couple of hours? Another board will go to London soon."
We were not indignant. We approached the KGB officer who was accompanying our tourist group and told him everything. He shrugged his shoulders: okay, I'll meet you at the airport upon arrival. And after a while they announced a landing on another plane - a special flight with a ballet troupe, departing for a tour to England.
A man was sitting next to us in the cabin. He immediately tried to strike up a conversation: “You know, I am in the service of Ivan Alexandrovich. If you wish, I will show you London. " Mom, like the wife of a real security officer, instantly turned to stone: "Thank you, we don't need anything."
This was Penkovsky. The day after arrival, he appeared at the hotel. It was after dinner. Knocks on the room: “How did you get settled? How is London?"
A regular courtesy visit. The next day Penkovsky invited the Serovs to take a walk. We sat in a street cafe, wandered around the city. The walk did not last long. Some time after the London trip, Penkovsky called the Serovs: "I have just returned from Paris, brought some souvenirs, I would like to bring them in." And he brought it. Typical small things: the Eiffel Tower, some kind of keychain."
And further: “We sat down to drink tea in the living room. Soon my father returned from service. It seemed to me that he recognized Penkovsky. He greeted coldly and locked himself in his office. Penkovsky felt this and instantly disappeared. I never saw him again. I saw it again only in a photograph in the newspapers, when the trial began over him …"
The British and American intelligence knew in advance that the Serov family was flying to London. Penkovsky's contact, G. Wynn, clearly states in his book: "We learned that in July Alex (Penkovsky's pseudonym) is to return to London for an industrial exhibition of the USSR, where he will, in particular, be Madame Serova's guide." The CIA and the ICU could learn about this only from one source - from Penkovsky himself, who, of course, was profitable to increase his worth by talking about his exceptional closeness to the head of the GRU.
In his memoirs, the then chairman of the KGB Semichastny makes it clear that it was at his filing that Serov lost his post. Preparing for the Central Committee a report on the investigation of the "Penkovsky case", Semichastny also added a reminder of Serov's share of guilt for the eviction of "peaceful" Kalmyks, Ingush, Chechens, Volga Germans and made a proposal to punish Serov.
There is such a term in jurisprudence - proportionality of punishment. So if Penkovsky's betrayal had been considered and studied intellectually, then Serov would have nothing to punish for …
Oleg Penkovsky was arrested on October 22, 1962 on his way to the service. The show trial started in May 1963. Together with Penkovsky in the dock sat his courier, a subject of Her Majesty G. Wynn. But for some reason, the hearings did not last long. Despite the seemingly gigantic volume of secret documents handed over to the Penkovsky foreign intelligence services, it took only eight days to sentence the traitor to death. "The Soviet people greeted with great approval the just verdict in the criminal case of the traitor, the agent of the British and American intelligence services Penkovsky and the spy of the messenger Wynn," wrote the newspaper Pravda in those days."The Soviet people express a sense of deep satisfaction that the state security officers resolutely suppressed the dastardly activities of the British and American intelligence services."
… The hype in the press, the quick investigation - it seems that the skilled conductors did their best to make the maximum impression on the West. Why not? After all, it was only after the arrest and sentence that the Americans and the British finally stopped doubting the sincerity of Penkovsky's intentions. This means that their fears about the authenticity of his materials also disappeared. But if the alleged version has a basis, then all this espionage whirlwind around Penkovsky, perhaps, is nothing more than a gigantic special operation of the KGB. With quite obvious goals: a) instilling in the West a false sense of superiority in the arms race over the USSR; b) discrediting the head of the GRU I. Serov. Both goals were achieved.
THE KGB TRACE IS ALMOST NOT SEEN
Information for thought. After returning from an overseas mission in 1957, Penkovsky was dismissed from the GRU and was appointed head of the course at the Academy of the Missile Forces solely thanks to Marshal Varentsov. It is then that the KGB calculates the inconsistency in his profile. It turned out that Penkovsky's father did not disappear without a trace, but fought with weapons in his hands against the Soviet regime. As the saying goes, the son is not a defendant for his father, but if it were not for the assistance of the Lubyanka, with such a "pedigree" Penkovsky would never have been restored to the GRU.
Here is what Ivan Serov wrote about this: “If Varentsov had not dragged Penkovsky into the missile forces, he would not have ended up in the GRU. If the KGB, in the presence of this signal, would not have "warmed" Penkovsky, he would not have been appointed head of the course at the academy. If the KGB had taken at least one trip of Penkovsky abroad, the issue would have been resolved immediately. However, this could not be done. Therefore, the GRU officers' talk that Penkovsky was an agent of the KGB have sufficient grounds."
Recall that in the GRU, Penkovsky had nothing to do with operational work. He was sent to the State Committee for Science and Technology, a department that works closely with foreigners. Under this "roof" Penkovsky was able to establish "the necessary connections with foreigners." A case in the history of intelligence is unique: two intelligence services start working with Penkovsky at once - the CIA and MI6. They were amazed at the volume of information of the newly-minted "mole" and call him "the agent of the dream." For his curators, Penkovsky gets everything he is asked for: materials on the Berlin crisis, performance characteristics on missile weapons, details of Cuban supplies, information from Kremlin circles. “Penkovsky's spectrum of knowledge was so wide, access to secret documents was so simple, and his memory was so outstanding that it was hard to believe,” writes Philip Knightley.
There is practically no doubt that Penkovsky received all these materials from his KGB curators. Carefully selected, sifted through a counterintelligence sieve, they were a clever symbiosis of disinformation and truth. And the insignificant grains of truth that reached from him to the West could not cause any serious damage. For example, what was the use of hiding the locations of missile bases if American spy planes had already photographed them from all angles?
Penkovsky's main task was different - to convince the West that the Soviet Union was lagging behind in the missile program. The Soviet leadership feared the pace at which the United States mastered missile technology. In just three years, the Pentagon, for example, managed to develop the Thor intercontinental ballistic missiles, which in 1958 were deployed on the east coast of Britain and aimed at Moscow.
If it was possible to assure the Americans that the USSR does not keep up with them, and therefore are forced to rely on other types of weapons, the costs of the main enemy on missile programs would sharply decrease, and this timeout would allow the USSR to finally get ahead. Which is exactly what happened.
It must be said that Penkovsky was far from the only participant in this operationally refined operation. Almost simultaneously with his recruitment, the FBI officers red-handed Soviet intelligence officer Vadim Isakov. With the same ostentatious zeal with which Penkovsky was recruited as spies, Isakov tried to buy secret components for intercontinental ballistic missiles - accelerometers. An amazing thing: even feeling the tail behind him, Isakov still did not slow down, almost deliberately allowed himself to be drawn into contact with an outright set-up, and at the time of the transaction, he seemed to be caught …
A small educational program. Accelerometers are precision gyroscopes that measure the acceleration of an object. They allow the computer to accurately calculate the location and speed of separation of the warhead from the missile. The capture of Isakov convinced the Americans that Soviet scientists had not yet developed their accelerometers. And if so, the conclusion followed: Soviet missiles do not differ in accuracy and cannot hit point targets, for example, missile silos of a potential enemy.
In addition, the head of the USSR department in the BND (intelligence of the Federal Republic of Germany) Heinz Felfe, as ordered, gave the CIA data that the Kremlin prefers more strategic aviation than intercontinental missiles. But then the Americans did not yet know that Felfe was working for the KGB. He was only exposed in 1961.
So what type of weapons - medium-range missiles or ICBMs - did the USSR stake on? The main thing depended on the answer to this question - what first of all should be developed by the Americans themselves, where and in what way they are inferior to Moscow. Penkovsky convinced his overseas masters that the USSR was betting on the RSD, specifically on the P-12. He gave the Americans the tactical and technical data of these missiles (albeit with minor inaccuracies, which the United States will learn about many years later). But when the Cuban missile crisis broke out and American reconnaissance aircraft confirmed the presence of Soviet P-12 missiles on Cuban territory, Penkovsky's information seemed to be confirmed …
For many years, the West continued to believe in the sincerity of its "dream agent". Until at the beginning of 1970, the Americans accidentally found out that all this time they were simply being led by the nose, that Soviet ICBMs were in no way inferior to their American counterparts. It turned out that the SS-9 (R-36) missile adopted by the Strategic Missile Forces is capable of delivering a 25-megaton charge over a distance of 13 thousand km and hitting it with an “accuracy” of 4 miles.
If John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis had known for sure that the USSR possessed more accurate ICBMs, his reaction could have been completely different. But then he was firmly convinced that Khrushchev was bluffing, that Moscow did not have the opportunity to adequately respond to the West, that 5 thousand American nuclear missiles were opposed by only 300 Soviet ones, and even then - poorly controlled, unable to hit pinpoint targets. And if so, Khrushchev will definitely go to negotiations. Moscow is not going anywhere.
But it turned out that the USSR possesses intercontinental ballistic missiles, the error of which does not exceed 200 meters. That is, for at least 10 years, American missile silos were absolutely defenseless.
SHOT DUPLET
But Penkovsky not only supplied the West with disinformation. With his hands, the Lubyanka managed to realize another "strategic" task: to remove the head of the GRU, Ivan Serov, who posed a certain threat to the then leadership of the KGB. He was a man completely outside their circle, shunned party friendship and hunting spree, but at the same time he strictly bent his line. And most importantly, he was personally devoted to Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Before the war, Khrushchev was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and Serov was with him the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR. It is no coincidence that Khrushchev appointed Ivan Serov as the chairman of the KGB in creating a new department on the debris of the Beria NKVD - it was mortally dangerous to entrust such a "farm" to a random person.
However, Khrushchev, experienced in Kremlin intrigues, eventually ceased to trust his "trusted comrades." And the old guard also went under the knife. First, Georgy Zhukov, Marshal of the Soviet Union, four times Hero of the Soviet Union, lost his post as Minister of Defense. In December 1958, it was Ivan Serov's turn. A dashing Komsomol team entered the house on Lubyanka: first Shelepin, then Semichastny. But Khrushchev did not finally give up Serov for scrap. I put him on a different, albeit not so important, but also not the last place - the head of the GRU. And this is not only foreign residencies and radio centers. In the direct subordination of the chief of the GRU there are special-purpose brigades scattered throughout the country, capable of starting the task at any moment.
And when the clouds began to gather over Khrushchev's head, when the comrades-in-arms began to ponder a conspiracy to overthrow him, they first of all remembered Serov, who is unlike Shelepin and Semichastny, who had been the Komsomol leader throughout the war, and political instructor Leonid Brezhnev, the hero of the then unknown Little Land, had real combat experience. In a word, without removing Serov, it was useless to plan a conspiracy against Khrushchev. Then, very timely, the case of the traitor Penkovsky arose. Therefore, in the fall of 1964, when Brezhnev, Shelepin, Semichastny and those who joined them took up Khrushchev, the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee no longer had any loyal people.
THE VERDICT HAS BEEN ENFORCED
According to official figures, Oleg Penkovsky was shot on May 16, 1963. Just two days after the end of the trial. Such a rush sowed doubts among many in the West about the veracity of this information, the chief military prosecutor Artyom Gorny even had to publicly, through the press, come out with a refutation of the rumors that appeared on the pages of foreign publications. For example, the Sunday Telegraf argued that the death sentence to Oleg Penkovsky was a mere phony, that Penkovsky's execution "consisted in the fact that his passport was destroyed, and in return he was given another." But then other rumors appeared: allegedly Penkovsky was not just shot, but for the edification of others they burned alive in the crematorium. Another defector from the GRU, Vladimir Rezun, better known by his literary pseudonym Viktor Suvorov, made a significant contribution to the creation of such a legend.
In his book Aquarium, he described Penkovsky's execution, allegedly captured on film: “Close-up camera shows the face of a living person. Sweaty face. It's hot near the firebox … The man is firmly fastened to the medical stretcher with steel wire, and the stretcher is set to the wall on handles so that the person can see the firebox … The firebox doors parted to the sides, illuminating the soles of patent leather boots with white light. The person tries to bend the knees to increase the distance between the soles and the roaring fire. But he does not succeed in this either … Here the patent leather boots caught fire. The first two stokers jump aside, the last two push the stretcher with force into the depths of the furious firebox …"
However, it didn't cost anything to imitate Penkovsky's execution if he was an unspoken KGB officer - they issued new documents, concocted a fake certificate of execution, and that's it …
But, be that as it may in reality, the trial of Penkovsky and Wynne was a tangible blow to the CIA and MI6. And in order to somehow rehabilitate itself, in 1955 the CIA concocted a fake called "Penkovsky's Notes". And here is the opinion about this opus of a professional intelligence agent - a former CIA officer Paul Plaxton, published in the Weekly Review: “The assertion of the publishers of the Notes … that he is being watched closely, I would not put myself in danger. " And on this in the "Penkovsky case" it is still possible to put an end to it. But a comma is better, because the KGB archives have not yet said the last word.
