The Truth About The Spy Who Saved The World | True Life Spy StoriesColonel Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky was a senior military intelligence officer working for the GRU in the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. A joint operation between the CIA and MI6 was established, and Penkovsky would for the next 18 months, and with the help of ‘courier’ Greville Wynne, supply top-secret Soviet documents and information to the West.
For decades it was believed that the intelligence provided by Penkovsky allowed the United States to determine that the U.S.- Soviet missile gap was in its favour, discern Nikita Khrushchev's intentions in Berlin, and ultimately identify Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Few names have been as mythologized in spy history as that of Oleg Penkovsky. According to popular lore and even mainstream media, he is the "spy who saved the world" during the Cold War's most perilous moments, the Berlin and Cuban missile crises.
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