I knew the poisonous nature of the new military doctrine, which was to strike first at all costs.
The peaceful coexistence advocated by Khrushchev and apparently accepted by Kennedy, only worked if both players were equal, or that is, if their armed forces were both equal. It must be remembered, however, that in 1962 the Soviets did not miss an opportunity to showcase the power of their weapons. Penkovsky's revelation might prove disastrous for them if the Americans no longer believed in the omnipotence of their Soviet rockets. They therefore needed to be given tangible proof that not only did the rockets exist, but that they were very formidable indeed. Hence the installation of the missile base in Cuba.
To begin with, the Russians began to use Penkovsky without his knowledge. They allowed him access to a document detailing the installation of intercontinental missile launchers. As he had been doing for the past eighteen months, Penkovsky dutifully photographed the documents and passed them to the West. At the same time, Soviet engineers began to build ramps in the Cuban jungle without any form of camouflage. These facilities were meant to be seen and as expected, a U2 aircraft which regularly flew over the site, photographed the construction works. The Americans then compared the photographs with the documents provided by Penkovsky. The similarities were obvious: the Soviets were clearly building intercontinental missile launchers near the Florida coast, and their military arsenal must have been a great deal bigger than previously thought.
In reality, Khrushchev was really only flexing his muscles and once the demonstration had been successfully observed, he quietly backed down and the crisis only lasted for one week. The Soviet warships that were supposed to have delivered the missiles to Cuba never actually faced the American Navy, and instead turned back in the mid-Atlantic. What is more, the Kremlin even ordered that some boats allowed themselves to be inspected by the Americans. Similarly, the ramps in Cuba were dismantled.This was the real proof that they had only been bluffing, even if later on, the Soviets could have turned it into a real threat, had the Americans decided not to respond. The fact is that Khrushchev also had compelling political reasons for doing this.
Back in Moscow, the Kremlin leader was in trouble. He remained in power, riding the myth of de-Stalinisation, while in reality, little had changed in the USSR. The economic situation was not improving and no one believed his predictions of a brighter future. Worst of all, his political rivals were getting restless. He had to act. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the communist propaganda presented him as being the champion of peace. Indeed, Fidel Castro had hardly enjoyed this organised retreat by the USSR. But he was wrong: thanks to this deal, the US had been forced to abandon any further attacks on Cuba.
There still needs to be evidence to support the relationship between Penkovsky's revelations and the Cuban Missile Crisis.There are no documents that link the information provided by the spy and the crisis in Cuba, and no confirmation that Penkovsky passed on information about the missile sites to the West; a report that would have allowed the CIA to make a link to the work being carried out in the Cuban jungle.
There is one aspect that does stand out: in mid-October 1962, the Americans discovered that the Russians were installing missile launchers in Cuba. Kennedy and his advisors spent a week trying to work out how they should react. The missile crisis became public knowledge on 22 October, when the American president announced the issue on television and warned the Russians. That same day, 22 October, Colonel Penkovsky was arrested. This is a strange coincidence and no doubt signifies that he had served his purpose and was no longer of any use. He now needed to be silenced.
Six months later, when the Soviets usually gave some publicity to this kind of business, the press wrote that Penkovsky had been found guilty of treason, sentenced to death and immediately executed. It is not impossible to interpret this move as a sly wink by the Russians to the Americans, indicating that they had known Penkovsky was a spy and that they too could play a role in this elaborate game of poker. Penkovsky's contact, Greville Wynne, also fell into the KGB's hands. He was kidnapped while visiting eastern Europe, sent to Moscow, and also put on trial. He was shortly afterwards traded for a Soviet spy, a man called Lonsdale, who belonged to the Rudolf Abel network.
Penkovsky's unfortunate story does not end with his execution. In 1965, two years after his death, an American publishers released his memoirs. It was violently anticommunist and extremely pro-western, in which the spy particularly described the widespread corruption that existed in Soviet echelons of power. It accused the leaders of warmongering and also claimed, much to the interest of the French authorities, that Soviet intelligence agencies were working closely with French communists, in order to uncover the military secrets of NATO. This denunciation was improbable as the Russians had long since given up on using communist militants. The memoirs were, in fact, false and had been completely fabricated by the CIA. The main proof of this is that according to the books, Penkovsky said that he had typed up his ‘pseudo-confession' secretly at night. How could he have done that in the tiny two-roomed apartment that he shared with his wife, daughter and mother? What is more, why would a spy, who had to be constantly on his guard, write his memoirs at the risk of them being one day discovered by the police?
Some time
