Penkovsky was a high-ranking Soviet military intelligence (GRU) officer who spied for the UK and the U.S. during the Cold War. He became the U.S.’s best human intelligence asset in the Soviet Union, providing valuable information about the Soviet placement of missiles in Cuba, including details that allowed the U.S. to identify the missile sites. After surveillance, Penkovsky was arrested by the KGB on October 22, 1962 and was later executed for treason.
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center has created this site as a resource for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Designed to help policymakers, students, and interested citizens draw lessons from these critical events half a century ago, this site not only provides background on the crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster in October 1962 but also offers tools to understand how it can inform contemporary policy.