Oleg Penkovsky(1919-1963)

Oleg Penkovsky was a colonel in the Soviet army, assigned to military intelligence. A graduate of the Soviet Military Academy, he was a trusted operative in the Soviet intelligence service, and in 1955 was posted as the Assistant Military Attache at the Soviet Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, an extremely important position for an intelligence officer at the height of the Cold War. In 1961 he contacted the British intelligence service and offered his services as an agent in exchange for money. A deal was struck, and Penkovsky used his position to obtain and pass along valuable Soviet military and political documents and photographs--approximately 5,000 altogether--using a British businessman stationed in the Soviet Union as his go-between. He continued his espionage activities until October of 1962, when Soviet authorities discovered what he had been doing and arrested him. He was tried for treason, found guilty and executed on May 16, 1963.