CHAPTER 11
The Man from the Caucasus
Penkovsky began. "A lot of this is over my head. I am not a scientist. I am an intelligence officer. I only have heard about nuclear materials. I went to a nuclear school but that does not make me an expert. That is one difficult field, nuclear weapons. Do you know about it?" George answered, "No, heavens no. I can say only a few words."
When the two began to talk about inertial guidance systems, semiconductors, and such, the team realized that they had to have a new dictionary for the new words in Russian. What is a space carriage? What is an oblating nose cone? All of these terms had different meanings in different languages. They had to create a glossary for the missile/space language. Getting intelligence was one thing. Understanding technical details was another matter. George did not try to pretend to know any more about nuclear missiles than Penkovsky did.1
The group especially wanted to know where Penkovsky had gotten the material he had given them, why it was in his possession, and why he was doing this. To make sense of these things, he had to tell them his whole life story, from the moment he was born to that moment. George's own account of what he learned from Penkovsky follows.
Oleg V. Penkovsky was an only child born in 1919 during the Counterrevolution by the Whites against the Reds, in a small town in the southern Caucasus by the name of Vladikavkaz, meaning "Empress of the Caucasus," like Vladivostok is "Empress of the East." It is in the south of Russia, midway between the Black and Caspian seas. His grandfather was an eminent judge in the tsarist days, presiding in the Stavropol district. The judge had a younger brother, Oleg's great-uncle, Valentine Antonovich Penkovsky. He was very well known in his own right and had little contact with Oleg. They did meet later in life for at least one very poignant meeting.
Penkovsky's father, Vladimir Florianovich Penkovsky, was a mining engineer in the White Army, a lieutenant who was married to a girl from that area. In 1920 he fought in the region north of the Caucasus Mountains toward the Black Sea. During the fighting, the father disappeared and was never heard from again. This battle was part of the campaign to take Tsaritsyn, later to become Stalingrad (now Volgograd). Joseph Stalin, then a Bolshevik political commissar, fought in the same battle. Thereafter, Penkovsky's mother told others that her husband died of typhus rather than in battle with the Reds, in order to protect the young Penkovsky. She withheld the truth from him as well.
Penkovsky went to middle school for ten years and then to the Second Kiev Artillery School. It was a lower-category military school, something like the American OCS or ROTC. He also joined the Komsomol, the youth Communist organization. According to his own statements, he was an enthusiastic member, in accordance with the propaganda of the times. He was a fine student. In 1939, at age twenty, he was graduated from the artillery school, becoming ajunior lieutenant. He became a Communist Party member at twentyone, the minimum age.
In September of 1939, the Germans invaded Poland. By previous agreement between Stalin and Hitler, the Soviets then attacked Poland from the east. Penkovsky's first military assignment was the occupation of the Lvov-Tarnopol area of Poland. There was minimal fighting in this operation, and he was promptly reassigned that fall to the Ninety-third Rifle Division of an artillery battery in Siberia. In January of 1940, the Russo-Finnish war began. The Soviets presumed that it would be a trivial matter to subdue Finland, but they were disappointed. It was winter and the Finns were adept on their skis, and they exhibited great nerve and tenacity. Penkovsky's division was placed in the Karelian Isthmus, the narrow neck of land in Russia between Leningrad and Finland. The division immediately suffered 90 percent casualties. With more experienced and heavily armed units from Siberia, masses of artillery, and tremendous loss of life, the Soviets eventually overcame the Finnish defenses. Penkovsky was physically unscathed but emotionally traumatized.
At the conclusion of this action, in the spring of 1940, Penkovsky's decimated division was pulled back in order to be reformed. He was temporarily put into a manpower reserve outfit back in Moscow. When the Germans and the Soviets went to war in June of 1941, he was assigned to the Political Directorate of the Moscow Military District. He met a young lady in Moscow, Vera Dimitrieva Gapanovich, who was very high on the social ladder. Her father, Lt. Gen. Dmitri A. Gapanovich, was prominent in the party, the political military chief in Moscow, and a two-star general. Penkovsky romanced her, discreetly and successfully. Now he began to meet important people and to have some influence on them as they had influence on him. His primary duty during this period was to work with the Komsomol.
In mid-1942, Penkovsky was transferred to the Military Council of the Moscow District, into a section for extraordinary missions. By November of 1943, he had seen many people coming from the front with decorations, and he became anxious to see front-line duty. He requested a combat assignment and was promptly sent to the First Ukrainian Front as a commander of a training center for anti-tank regiments. These units were being decimated right and left by very powerful tank actions by the Germans. In March of 1944, after completing his preliminary service with this training unit, he was assigned as the deputy commander of an anti-tank regiment. It was a tough proposition. His regiment of tank destroyers would either destroy the tanks or be destroyed. However, he was effective and he received awards for valor and military competence. He was promoted to major, then to lieutenant colonel. He became the commander of the regiment when its commander was removed for disciplinary reasons.
Penkovsky improvised ingeniously. For example, he realized that the howitzers in his unit were virtually useless against tanks because these weapons, designed for indirect fire over long distances, were not maneuverable in close combat. He had one mounted on mobile steel plates that were stacked on one another and lubricated with the oil from the recoil mechanisms of the guns. The weapon then could be spun around in various directions and the gun barrel depressed to the desired elevation by only two men in a matter of seconds. This idea converts the howitzer from an indirect-fire weapon into a directfire weapon, which aims straight away. Thus, howitzers that employ this modification can fire point-blank into the tanks. Penkovsky's improvisation in the field was very effective against German tanks and for this he earned the Order of Alexander Nevsky. He received other awards for inventiveness, valor, and military competence. Altogether, he received eight assorted decorations, four of which were battle orders.
In June of 1944, Penkovsky was hit by an exploding shell while fighting near the Rumanian border. He suffered concussions, his jaw was fractured, and he lost six teeth. He was taken to a hospital in Moscow.2 In that same hospital was a very prominent man, the commander of the artillery of the entire First Ukrainian Front, one of four major Soviet fronts during the war. These fronts altogether numbered 5 million men.3 This commander of the artillery, Col. Gen. Sergey Sergeyevich Varentsov, later became a marshal of artillery and eventually chief marshal of all artillery of the USSR. He would play a key role in Penkovsky's life as well as in the value of the intelligence information that the team later would receive from Penkovsky. Varentsov was suffering from a leg injury. He had been in a highway accident involving an American jeep and a Soviet tank. When he heard that Penkovsky, who was a commander of one of his regiments, was in the same hospital, he said, "Get him in here." To Penkovsky he said, "I want to be in touch with all of my artillery in the First Ukrainian Front, so I am appointing you to a new job. You are now my temporary aide-de-camp. When you get out of the hospital, I want you to be the contact between me and the front while I am in this hospital. When I am well enough to go over there myself, we will join up."
To become associated with a general was like a gift from heaven. Pcnkovsky and General Varentsov would eventually become intimate friends. This chance meeting, however, thrust them into an immediate close relationship. Varentsov had, by his first wife, a daughter, Nina. Although she had his whole heart, she was a willful girl and pretty much did what she wanted to do most of the time. She mar
ried someone he referred to as a jerk, even though the man was a major in the army. Varentsov heard that in the capture of the city of Lvov in Poland, her husband had been arrested for black-marketing and summarily ordered shot. He said to Penkovsky, "Go help my daughter, Nina. See what is happening there. They have arrested the jerk."
When Penkovsky got there, the son-in-law had already been executed, but he found the general's daughter and tried to help her in any way possible. She had been working there in a hospital. To his dismay, immediately after he found her she pulled a pistol out of someone's holster, and fatally shot herself. He sold his watch and everything else he had with him in order to provide for a decent burial. He came back with tears in his eyes and told the general what had happened to his daughter. Varentsov embraced him and said, "You acted like a son to me in my moment of woe and tragedy. I will never forget it." They became lifetime friends, which for the CIA and SIS was a godsend.
After the war ended, Penkovsky found himself in Czechoslovakia with the victorious First Ukrainian Front. He was liberating artifacts and china, all sorts of beautiful things, and doling them out to his buddies when Varentsov, now a marshal, called him in. He said, "Penkovsky, look, you're not the smartest guy in the world, although now you already are a lieutenant colonel. You should go to the Frunze Military Academy. It's the highest military school of the USSR."
"How do I get in?"
"I'm a marshal! I'll get you in. Here's a letter."
Penkovsky went to Moscow in 1949 and took an abbreviated course of study from this Russian West Point. He also married his girlfriend, Vera Gapanovich. His father-in-law, Dmitri Gapanovich, was a big political wheel and his good friend the marshal was nearby, so it looked as if he was doing fine. When Penkovsky was graduated from the Frunze Military Academy, however, the marshal again called him in and inquired, "How would you like to go to another academy and really get somewhere?" Varentsov was speaking of the Military Diplomatic Academy, the intelligence school for training GRU.
Penkovsky was graduated from the MDA in 1953, and, although he was not good at it, his language was English. But he now had a second degree and was a senior military officer, a full colonel. Soon thereafter, Marshal Varentsov was promoted to chief marshal of artillery of the USSR, in charge of both artillery and midrange, tactical ballistic missiles.4 Penkovsky seemed to be sitting pretty. With connections like that, he should get a good a job. So he fished around for an assignment abroad. Naturally, there were problems in one country or another, as to how many people were already assigned to each location vs. what was allowed through diplomatic channels. Pakistan was at first a possibility, but it did not work out. Eventually, even though he was an English-speaking graduate, he was sent, temporarily, to Turkey as the acting station chief for the GRU. Later he would be replaced by Maj. Gen. Nikolai Petrovich Rubenko, who was to be the permanent station chief, with Penkovsky as his deputy. Rubenko's real name was Savchenko, but he had gotten his hands caught in the cookie jar in Afghanistan and was going by the name of Rubenko in an attempt to conceal his GRU affiliation, which the Soviets feared might have been compromised.
In Turkey, Penkovsky met the American Army attache, Col. Charles MacLean Peeke. As counterparts, they became socially acquainted and got along quite well together. Vera Penkovsky could speak a little French; she loved the West and all of the Western goods in Istanbul. The Penkovskys were satisfied with the assignment and looked forward to an upwardly mobile career path. Although both Penkovsky and Peeke were charged with finding weaknesses in the other that could be exploited for intelligence purposes, neither made an overt attempt to recruit the other. Colonel Peeke must have impressed Penkovsky favorably, because Penkovsky later said he had thought of approaching Peeke with his services while in Turkey. Peeke abruptly returned to the U.S., however, due to a death in his family, and Penkovsky himself was recalled to Moscow shortly thereafter; so the opportunity never matured.
Unfortunately for Penkovsky, there was a young lieutenant colonel by the name of Nikolai lonchenko, a good friend of General Rubenko's, also at the Istanbul station. There was a certain rivalry there, and when Rubenko came, there was immediate animosity between Penkovsky and the general. The ill will deepened soon thereafter when the shah of Iran and his wife, the glamorous Soraya, came on a state visit to Istanbul. Cables came in from GRU headquarters in Moscow as well as the KGB saying, in effect, "Lay off all active operations because you are going to be infested with platoons of intelligence people from all countries hostile to the USSR. There will be Savak of the shah who are friendly to Americans, British SIS, Turkish Intelligence, Americans' CIA; all who don't like the USSR are going to be very active during this State visit. Lay off." lonchenko came to Rubenko and said, "General, I have a problem. I have a Turkish officer who is an agent of mine and I have an appointment to meet with him. I want to pay him certain payments I owe him. He also has ready for delivery certain American Air Force documents, which he has stolen from the Americans. He wants to pass them to me and collect his pay. Can I make the meeting? This hold-down was unexpected." The general said, "Go ahead. Go to Penkovsky, tell him to give you the operational funds you need, make your meeting, and pay off your agent."
When Penkovsky was apprised of this, he made a surreptitious telephone call to Turkish Intelligence informing them of the meeting, thereby setting up Ionchenko for apprehension. Upon being caught, Ionchenko was declared persona non grata, and the officer escorting him out of Turkey was Penkovsky. To make matters worse, Penkovsky argued with the general over this and then complained to Moscow, using KGB rather than GRU channels so that the general would not know. The incident reached the Central Committee of the Communist Party; it reached Khrushchev, who said, "Get both of those jackasses in here, both Penkovsky and Rubenko, and we'll thrash this out."
Penkovsky and General Rubenko were summoned before the Central Committee of the Communist Party, he for insubordination and the general for not properly following procedures. The general was removed from his assignment in Turkey, and Penkovsky was put on notice. Penkovsky was not actually found guilty of anything because they did not know that he had made the surreptitious phone call. They suspected something, however, and no general in charge of any big section wanted to have Penkovsky work for him.
Penkovsky had gotten himself into a beautiful doghouse. In addition, General Rubenko began to look for something about Penkovsky that would be viewed in a negative light. There might be something in Penkovsky's background that could be used against him. Evidently he found out that Penkovsky's father was a White Army officer. Did Penkovsky know? Did he not know? Rubenko started rumors. Penkovsky was told to walk the halls until a job was found for him.
To his rescue came Marshal Varentsov, who knew Penkovsky's boss, Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov, the chief of the GRU and the exchief of the KGB. Varentsov talked with Serov and had Penkovsky assigned to his school. He was given a nine-month refresher course in the marshal's missile academy in Moscow, the Dzerzhinskiy Artillery-Engineering Academy.5 This was a scientific course, not an intelligence course, and Penkovsky could have been out of his element. He was, however, pretty sharp in other ways and he dropped hints among the faculty that he was a friend of the marshal's. He then became the major-domo of this little refresher class. He was favored by all of the chief generals of the various departments, such as Fuels, Inertial Guidance Systems, Propellants, Power, Nuclear Devices, Range Activities, and Tactics. The heads of the various departments of the school brought him materials to study and to copy. These materials were a precursor of what he eventually brought to the CIA and SIS. He didn't know at that time what he had in his hands. He didn't understand the details or the value of the scientific aspects of the material. He knew that the material was important, but he was unaware of how valuable it might be to the CIA and SIS. Not even the case officers knew its full importance. Those who did were the air force experts at Wright-Patterson Field near Dayton, Ohio, and analysts at the army's Foreign Science and Technology Ce
nter at Huntsville, Alabama.6
Penkovsky graduated on 30 April 1959 from the ArtilleryEngineering Academy and prepared to return to the GRU. The date would prove to be significant. The ill feelings surrounding the Rubenko brouhaha apparently had blown over, and Penkovsky was assigned back to the Mid-East Intelligence Directorate. He began preparing for an assignment as the new station chief in India when quite suddenly the chief of personnel removed him from that position and confronted him: "We have a problem, Somebody is claiming that your father was a White Army officer. Call in your mother."
His poor mother was dragged in. She pled in every way a mother can. She said that Oleg never knew about his father's service in the White Army. "He was guilty of nothing. He was always loyal. He knew nothing. Why pick on him?" She signed an affidavit to that effect. So, they said, "All right, we'll keep it quiet; we'll find him another job. Penkovsky, how would you like to teach here?"
"Not a chance. I'll just walk the halls some more."
"Don't worry, we'll find something for you."
Penkovsky was put back into the reserves. This is near to the time that he first contacted the CIA through the two students in Moscow. It appears that his experiences with the GRU, along with his personal feelings about the Soviet system, were then weighing heavily on his mind. To get an idea of the solidity of Penkovsky's antiCommunist beliefs, it is useful to recall Oleg's great-uncle, Valentine Antonovich Penkovsky, who as a younger man went his own way. He also joined the Soviet Army. He also progressed. He became a one-star general, but he ran afoul of Stalin during the purges and wound up in a jail. Fortunately, he was not shot as many were. When the war against Germany began, Stalin resuscitated almost everyone in jail. The general thus came out. He went up the ladder to two stars, to three stars. He became a deputy chief to Rodion Malinovsky, the minister of defense. He earned three Orders of Lenin.
CIA Spymaster_George Kisevalter Page 17