Original subtitles

(tense music)

He pursued a brilliant career

in the Soviet army, among the most

influential members of the USSR.

He's a poster boy, he's an emblem of the Soviet regime.

But in 1960, he betrays his country

to offer his services to the American enemy.

I have at my disposal very important

materials on many subjects of exceptionally great interest

and importance to your government.

Colonel Oleg Penkovsky,

a spy embedded in the vaults of Soviet power.

The amount of material he brought out was just staggering.

But can he be trusted?

Is he who he says he is,

and is he doing it for the reason he said?

The fate of the world is in his hands.

You can't help but to think

what would have it been like differently.

Here is the surprising story

of America's secret weapon, a prolific spy

who, almost single-handedly,

pulled the world from the brink of nuclear war.

(dramatic music)

(foreign language)

Aggression and subversion will not for profitable roots.

(foreign language)

And the right of self-determination for all people.

Who can best stand up to Khrushchev?

In the early 1960s,

U.S. President John F. Kennedy

and Soviet Union Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev

berate one another in their public speeches.

(foreign language)

It's the height of the Cold War,

and the world is ideologically torn in half:

in the West, the liberal block led by the U.S.,

in the East the soviet block, headed by the powerful USSR.

Separate by an iron curtain, the two giants

provoke each other with the threat of atomic weapons.

Suddenly, in the heart of the Caribbean,

a small Soviet enclave turns up the heat on the Cold War.

It's name: Cuba.

Good evening my fellow citizens.

Within the past week, unmistakable evidence

has established the fact

that a series of offensive missile sites

is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.

On October 22nd, 1962, President Kennedy

declares the immediate establishment of a naval blockade

around the island to halt any new weapon deliveries.

The news hits like a shockwave.

Will the two world powers attack each other,

triggering World War III?

If Premier Khrushchev decided to ignore

the naval quarantine, there's every realistic expectation

that we would have had war.

And given the circumstances in 1962,

the chances that that would have escalated

to a thermonuclear war are very, very high.

One path we shall never choose,

and that is the path of surrender or submission.

Our goal is not the victory--

While the world holds its breath,

President Kennedy remains remarkably calm.

His secret: a fortuitous source of information

located in the heart of Soviet power, in Moscow.

That goal will be achieved.

Thank you, and goodnight.

(tense music)

The key to averting nuclear war

begins one summer night, when strangers meet

on the Moskvoretsky Bridge.

A man enjoying the view and two American interns,

Eldon Ray Cox and Henry Lee Cobb,

returning from the Bolshoi Ballet.

The gentleman asks for a light,

and then approaches them with a more unusual request.

He says, "I have a package here.

"I want you to take it to a particular man."

The man he identifies is the security officer

at the American embassy in Moscow.

"And I want you to take this package to him right away."

The man hands the students two envelopes.

Then he disappears into the night.

Cox and Cobb are sitting there

and saying, "What should we do?"

Well Cox says, "I'm gonna take it down."

Cobb says, "No, this is a setup.

"I want nothing to do with this."

I'm gonna go back to my hotel room.

So they parted ways, and then Cox took a taxi

and he went to the American embassy.

Here, at CIA headquarters,

the most sensitive archives

of American history are preserved.

Most are classified top secret.

But among the documents handed off

by the mysterious man on the bridge

were two identical typewritten letters

made public a few years ago.

Originally written in Russian,

they were translated into English by the U.S. embassy.

My dear sir,

it is your good friend who is turning to you,

a friend who has already become your soldier-warrior

for the ideal of a truly free world

to which your, and now my, President, government,

and people are sacrificing so much effort.

I ask that you believe the sincerity of my thoughts.

At the present time I have at my disposal very important

materials on many subjects of exceptionally great interest

and importance to your government.

The letters aren't signed.

Who is this mystery man?

And what does he really want?

Enclosed with the letters is a single photograph.

Still classified today,

it gave the CIA a lead to pursue his identity.

When they open up the package in the American embassy,

they find a photograph of a man in a military uniform

with the head cut off, and an arrow that goes down

and says "I am," and in there also is the photograph

of an American military officer

that had been a military attache in Turkey.

He knows that, by having that picture,

we're gonna be able to look back

at the diplomatic record from the time,

we'll be able to reach out to the army colonel,

and we'll be able to figure out who's in the picture.

It was a good ploy on his part.

(dramatic music)

Thanks to the photograph

and the students' descriptions,

the CIA quickly tracks down the mysterious informant.

Colonel Oleg Penkovsky.

During World War II, this brilliant Soviet officer

rose through the ranks of the Red Army.

In 1949, he enrolled in the Military Diplomatic Academy,

where future agents are trained for the GRU,

the Soviet intelligence agency.

At just 30 years old, he is promoted to colonel.

Then, after starting his career in Turkey,

he becomes Deputy Director of Coordination

for Scientific Research at the Soviet Committee.

His mission: to gather technical knowledge

from countries in the West.

On paper, he most certainly is a poster boy,

he's an emblem of the Soviet regime.

His rise, if you look at his resume,

is very consistent with many people

in senior levels of military and intelligence,

and in that effect, he's a kind of regular product;

he's a shining example of the Soviet system.

So the initial reaction of particularly the CIA

is this guy's gotta be a plant.

He's gotta be, in effect, feeding disinformation.

He's working for the KGB or the GRU against us.

It's too good to be true.

Despite the risk of a trap,

the CIA sends an intelligence officer to Moscow

to contact Oleg Penkovsky.

If the man's motivations are honest,

the West would have its first mole

in the heart of Soviet power,

an opportunity impossible to let slip by.

In the spring of 1961, the meeting finally happens.

The businessmen and British MI6 contact Greville Wynne

hosts a delegation of engineers and scientists in London.

At the head of this small group is Oleg Penkovsky.

At the Mount Royal Hotel,

Greville Wynne informs the Soviet colonel

he's expected in suite 360 by Western officers.

There are two CIA officers there:

Joe Bulik and George Kisevalter.

George Kisevalter will be kind of key,

because he was famous for his incredible Russian skills

but also his way of connecting with Russians.

And then there was Shergy Shergold and Michael Stokes

on the MI6 side.

So you had four very experienced officer meeting with him.

The interrogation begins.

In every human operation run by any intelligence service,

you get a new source, your first question is:

is this man bonafide?

In other words, is he legitimate?

Is he who he says he is?

And is he doing it for the reasons he says?

Or has he been sent as a deception operation to deceive us?

In the business, we call this asset validation.

So they're gonna start the process

of a very thorough, very friendly debriefing

as to how he comes to be that he wants to be in the room

with these four intelligence officers.

During this first meeting,

the officers learn that Colonel Penkovsky's rising career

with the GRU has recently stalled.

His problems started four years earlier, in 1956.

While on assignment in Turkey,

he denounced the head of the GRU

stationed in Istanbul for corruption.

But instead of listening to Penkovsky's complaints,

Moscow buries the case and brings Penkovsky home.

Soon after Penkovsky returned to Russia,

the KGB launched an investigation on him,

and what they discovered jeopardized

any chance for promotion.

About a year ago,

I was called up by the Chief of the Personnel Directorate

who questioned me about my father.

He said, "This is what you have declared

"your background to be, and this is what

"we have found out about your father.

"You said your father simply died."

This is because my father was a White officer.

The KGB discovered that Penkovsky's father

had fought alongside the Tsar

against the Bolshevik revolutionaries in the late 1910s.

It's a serious offense.

Had this come out earlier,

he never would have ended up in the GRU.

Once it came out in his KGB reinvestigation,

they determined he and his family

could never go overseas again.

Penkovsky was coming up on 25 years of service

and had this tainted White Russian background.

He was gonna get retired, he believed.

He was never going to be promoted to general.

He was never going to be among those

that really had access to the best

that there was inside the Soviet Union.

And so, Penkovsky saw himself in this race against time,

that he had to build up such a credit

within MI6 and CIA, that when and if he got retired

and lost all of this access, that he would be able

to eventually defect and have a good life.

During the first meetings,

the officers try to unravel Oleg Penkovsky's

very intricate personality and complicated motivations.

Still today we have great questions

about what Penkovsky's motivations were.

Not every expert on Penkovsky would necessarily agree

what was the principle trigger.

Oleg Penkovsky is a curious figure.

He was profoundly arrogant.

He may have had delusions of grandeur

about both his own importance

and where he could serve the Americans and the British.

And we know from almost every account,

especially his interrogators,

that one of his motivations became the idea

that he was treated unfairly in the Soviet system.

And there's no question that was accelerated

once Khrushchev became the official.

He detested Khrushchev;

he didn't like anything about the man.

It's not well-documented how well he knew Khrushchev,

if at all, but he came to the assumption

that Khrushchev was reckless and dangerous in his behavior,

of foreign affairs in particular.

So between those two things there was this initiative,

if you like, or motivation to betray.

He's very concerned about Khrushchev,

so he's very concerned of what he's gonna do

with nuclear weapons.

So he's very concerned about where he's country is going.

He sees himself as a patriot, and he says

somebody needs to know what is happening in this country.

During his stay in London,

Penkovsky holds a series of meetings with the CIA and MI6.

16 interviews take place over 15 days, 52 hours altogether.

The reason Penkovsky was able to go and meet

for 52 hours and not be missed

was, every time he came to the West,

he would would with this giant shopping list,

not just for his family but for all of their friends.

And so what we would do to help account for his time

is we would fill his shopping list,

and then he would spend his time giving us secrets,

and then he would come back to his room,

and he would have this shopping bags.

Okay, everybody understands what he's been doing:

he's out buying all of those things

that everyone back in the Soviet Union wanted

and couldn't get.

These hundreds of pages of transcribed conversations

reveal specifics about the GRU,

the heart of USSR intelligence.

It's an organization that Penkovsky knows inside and out,

because he's inside.

The technical documents he brought out

were amazing, were great.

He compromised over 300 KGB and GRU officers:

names, photographs later on.

That was wonderful.

If we had never had another meeting with him after

that first group, he still would have paid for himself.

I mean, the amount of material

he brought out was just staggering.

The Americans and the British are absolutely stunned

about what they're hearing from him.

He is the golden goose.

He has a wealth of information and insight

that they've never had before.

(moving vocal music)

But as his time in London comes to an end,

he must also wrap up his meetings in suite 360.

At the end of the 52 hours, the four officers realize

that they had a tremendous resource here.

But they also had a resource

who was soon gonna go back in

to the most difficult handling environment you can face.

Immediately it was decided that they need to have

a collection capability in Moscow

so that they could pass information,

receive information from him in Moscow.

This is very, very dangerous to do,

because there's 7,000 people in the surveillance team

of the KGB in Moscow alone, so it's very difficult

to run a human source in Moscow,

but the decision was they had to do it.

(tense music)

Back in the Soviet capital, despite the risks,

Oleg Penkovsky continues working for his new Western allies.

With his official passes, he can access

the special collection at Artillery High Command Library.

This is where the regime keeps

its most confidential documents

about their military arsenal development.

(tense music)

The CIA provided him with a Minox,

a miniature camera, a tiny, technological marvel.

During World War II, the Minox camera

became the perfect spy camera

for copying documents for a couple reasons.

Number one, it was very small.

It was easy to conceal.

Number two, at a time in which cameras

were typically very large, something so small

to fit in your hand was certainly non-threatening.

The third thing was that it had incredibly sharp lenses,

and it could focus easily, where at 20 centimeters

you could take a picture of a full page of documents

with between 36 or 50 exposures per cassette.

It could go from your pocket, simply open it,

it automatically would cock the shutter when you do,

you look at a document, get it the proper height,

snap the picture.

This is literally done in seconds.

And it was used by all of the major intelligence services

during World War II.

For days, the spy photographs

countless documents in total secrecy.

Penkovsky sends the microfilms to his contact,

Greville Wynne, the organizer

of the first meeting in London.

The British industrialist often travels

between the East and the West, so for MI6 and the CIA,

he's the ideal go-between.

In 1961, between early May and late June,

Penkovsky delivers highly important tactical documents.

The originals are still classified as top secret.

But these lists issued by the CIA

illustrate their wealth of information.

He had access to this document

called Soviet military thought, a journal.

And that top-secret level journal,

which we have thousands of now,

was where the army and the KGB and the GRU

would truly debate the future of the Soviet Union,

and tactics, and where things should go,

and how they should be done, so that was unique.

It was so good that, here at the CIA,

we continued to use that material through the 1980s

to help train young analysts on how to look at a country,

how to consider the entirety of a country.

The CIA officers decide it's time

to disseminate the information from Oleg Penkovsky.

But in order to protect their invaluable source,

under no circumstance can they reveal his identity.

From here on out, the spy's name

must remain an absolute secret.

The intelligence he has provided

is separated into several categories,

as if from different informants.

We separated the information into one compartment

called Ironbark, which was the Soviet military thought,

the documentary material that he photographed,

and another one called Chickadee,

and Chickadee was some documentary material,

it was the GRU material, it was also his comments

on various aspects of the Soviet Union.

And we would create lists, they were called bigot lists,

that said these people have access to Ironbark,

these people had access to Chickadee,

some people had access to both.

And even in discussions internally

or in messages back and forth we never used his name.

We would use cryptonyms.

And he had a variety of cryptonyms.

Even internally, even among the most trusted sources,

we kept trying to ensure that people

didn't connect the dots and see that this one guy

is producing all this information.

Among the information

delivered by Oleg Penkovsky,

one topic will turn the tide of the Cold War:

the range and power of the Soviet military arsenal.

According to the new double agent,

the US has highly overestimated Russia's strength.

(dramatic music)

By the late '50s, both the USA and the USSR

possessed the atomic bomb.

Each side is also racing to construct

the most powerful missiles possible,

with the longest range and the greatest precision.

The U.S. is convinced of Soviet superiority

in what the leaders call the missile gap.

In 1960, before Kennedy takes office,

the United States is basically blind.

It has no real understanding of Soviet military capacity,

nuclear capacity.

It doesn't know anything about systems,

and it has this belief that Soviet missiles

must be in the tens of thousands, that they are

way further ahead than they actually are, and, importantly,

that they're further ahead of the United States.

So this missile gap psychosis, I think you could call it,

this conviction that a missile gap exists

and the Russians are ahead of us,

is what Kennedy assumes when he takes office.

Oleg Penkovsky suggests

that the dreaded missile gap is an illusion.

He claims the majority of the Soviet nuclear missiles

aren't even operational.

Nikita Khrushchev is just an extremely talented liar.

In such large questions

of strategic rockets and attacks with strategic weapons,

he lies and puts out what he wants

as if it were true, believe me.

He lies like a gray stallion.

Penkovsky's information

on the weak Soviet arsenal makes its rounds

to prominent figures in the CIA

and other government agencies.

But the secrecy surrounding this new source raises doubts,

especially as Penkovsky's disclosures contradict

the most deeply held beliefs about Soviet strength.

The orthodox interpretation of the Soviet Union

up until Penkovsky's revelations

are that we are trailing the Soviet Union in its capacity,

that the Soviets have a far better

particularly missile system capacity than we do,

and that goes all the way through the American military,

all the way through American intelligence,

all the way to the electorate.

So now, in effect, you're asking all of that to flip,

everybody to change their viewpoints,

and some people aren't prepared to do that.

There are members of the U.S. military

who say no, this has to be false.

It has to be either disinformation by the Soviets

or, at the very least, is really dubious information.

And I suppose it's fair to say in some of their minds,

they don't want to hear any different;

it doesn't serve their interests.

In the 1960s there's a massive economic infrastructure

behind the U.S. military and its acquisition

of more and more weapons.

So nobody in that complex really likes to hear

that Penkovsky has flipped the idea

of the Soviet Union no longer being

the number one but the number two.

Because of this pushback,

in June 1961, intelligence authorities decide to withhold

Penkovsky's revelations from President Kennedy.

But at the same time,

Penkovsky continues to work in the shadows.

Penkovsky now has a new contact

to pass his covert documents to.

Janet Chisholm, 31 years old, mother of three,

and married to a member of MI6

stationed at the Moscow embassy.

Janet had been a secretary earlier at MI6,

so she wasn't totally a trained officer,

but, on the other hand, it was very common,

especially in those days, for families

and spouses to play a role.

On this day, Penkovsky

is supposed to pass Janet Chisholm a letter

with seven microfilms hidden inside a box of chocolates.

They did this pass very smoothly,

where he came out, sees the kids,

brings out the box of chocolates.

She takes the box, leans back, puts them in her purse,

and immediately brings out a real box

identical to a real box of chocolates,

and he goes on his way,

and it was beautifully done, quick pass.

The CIA analyzes the microfilm and letter.

The contents pertain to a city beset

by major tensions since World War II: Berlin.

After the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945,

the victors divide the country.

Berlin, the capital, is enclosed in the Russian zone,

but the Allies decide to cut the city into four:

to the east the Soviets; to the West

the Americans, the British, and the French.

Berlin is the only place on the globe

where the two world superpowers stand face to face.

Basically what you have are two camps,

two ideological and political and economic camps

facing off over a couple of streets in downtown Berlin.

It's a strange situation, a very strange situation.

And the only reason that there's a sense of normalcy

in Berlin is because they become somewhat used

to a four-party rule in their city,

complete with police vehicles that have

one member of each police force: a British, a French,

an American, and a Russian, traveling around the city.

The abnormal and the unusual becomes the normal.

But that doesn't negate the fact that

ultimately you have tow colossal superpowers

looking at each other across city streets

in a very small location in downtown Berlin.

(tense music)

But one morning in the summer of 1961,

the world wakes up astounded to discover a wall

running 97 miles long and 13 feet high

through the heart of Berlin.

The German capital is literally cut in two.

(dramatic music)

Friends, couples, entire families are separated by the wall.

The outrageous move shocks the Allies.

After Russia's unexpected move in Berlin,

Oleg Penkovsky gives to the CIA a hint about their next one.

Nikita Khrushchev plans to kick the Western Allies

out of the German capital.

A recent report from a source,

judged at this time to be reliable,

states that Soviet and satellite forces

will be brought to a high state of combat readiness

in exercises of unprecedented scope

beginning in early October.

What Khrushchev had threatened in Berlin

was basically war, that he was going to sign

this peace treaty with the East Germans,

that he was going to close off the roads and airports again,

that this was literally a high potential for war,

and he was gonna do it within a year.

But in his reports, Penkovsky goes further.

After revealing Nikita Khrushchev's goal for Berlin,

he asserts that the United States should stand firm

against Russia's saber rattling.

Considering the high risk of a third World War,

Allen Dulles, head of the CIA,

decides it's time to inform President Kennedy.

Chief amongst that information

was the idea that Khrushchev was bluffing.

And repeatedly, Kennedy heard from Penkovsky's information

that Khrushchev was full of bluster,

that everything that Khrushchev had ever said and done

was, in effect, just a giant bluff

to disguise the fact that the Soviet Union

was far weaker than it actually was, militarily weaker,

and also that he, Khrushchev, had no real intention

of resolving the situation by force.

So in that light, Kennedy went into this entire crisis

with a kind of confidence.

For a city or a people--

The Americans are now convinced

that Soviet military superiority is fiction.

President Kennedy finally decides

to follow Penkovsky's advice and take a stand.

The people of West Berlin today have that freedom.

It is the objective of our policy

that they will continue to enjoy it.

On October 21st, 1961,

the US Deputy Secretary of Defense

gives a public statement in Palm Springs, California.

It was not filmed.

But the text has been carefully preserved in CIA archives.

Berlin is the emergency at the moment,

because the Soviets have decided to make it so.

We have called up 150,000 reservists,

increased our draft calls.

Our forces are so deployed and protected

that a sneak attack could not effectively disarm us.

We have a second strike capability

which is at least as extensive

as what the Soviets can deliver by striking first.

The speech by the American Secretary of Defense

in October 1961 is really a landmark occasion.

It articulates the fact that the American position

has changed, one from a conviction

that they are behind the Soviet Union

to the reality that they are in fact in the lead.

And this is really one of the first times

that the public, both American and international,

is introduced to that idea.

The Americans officially announce

that they no longer believe in the missile gap.

On the Soviet side, it's a reality check.

If the U.S. no longer believes their lies,

it's because someone has been feeding them intelligence.

In the most watched over city in the world,

the vice slowly starts to tighten around Colonel Penkovsky.

At the end of 1961, Penkovsky continues sharing intelligence

with his contact, Janet Chisholm, unaware of the intense

surveillance on him by the Soviet secret service.

Was he exposed by a Soviet spy

who infiltrated Western intelligence agencies?

There are numerous hypotheses, but no one knows for certain.

In January 1962, Penkovsky sends a memo

alerting his case officers that Janet has been followed.

They end their rendezvous in the street,

opting for brief, less frequent encounters at public events.

But what Penkovsky doesn't realize

is that the KGB's target isn't Janet.

It's him.

(tense music)

The Soviet secret service follows him everywhere he goes.

They have his apartment under permanent surveillance

and even search it when he's out, in total secrecy.

How do they go into the apartment and do it securely?

I heard this from Yuri Nosenko,

who was the second chief director of the KGB officer

who actually was involved in the case.

He defected to the United States and is now dead,

but he told me personally, he says,

"Yeah, we put black medicine on his seat."

I said, "What's that?"

He says, "We painted it on his seat.

"It absorbed in through his clothing,

"onto his butt, and made him sick.

"And so we had to get him to go to the hospital.

"So when he's in the hospital,

"we can get free access into his apartment."

When the KGB entered his apartment,

they were able to find his camera

that had been provided by the CIA.

They were able to find the one-time paths

that were used by him to encrypt communications

to and from the CIA, so they were able to find

that kind of trade graph that only

a spy organization would have.

The trap closes around

the traitor colonel of the USSR.

But despite the risks, Oleg Penkovsky

continues his work for the Western intelligence agencies.

And he seems to have reached a peak

in his frenetic attempt to feed them more information.

You couldn't really restrain him.

He did too much, he produced too much.

When you think about the fact that he stood

inside a study room inside the library

at the military academy, taking 8,000 photographs

with this little camera.

He was so convinced that he could get away with this.

He was so driven to be recognized as the best,

and he was gonna prove he would be the best,

he lost that self-preservation sense

until it was far too late.

He said famously in one of his debriefs

he wanted to be the greatest spy in history.

Fortunately, Penkovsky had

enough time to share thousands of pages

of high-level intelligence with the West.

Because, as his treason comes to light,

one of the biggest crises of the Cold War is about to erupt

in a small country of growing concern

to the western block: Cuba.

(upbeat Latin music)

In 1959, the Caribbean island becomes a thorn

in the side of the U.S.

when Fidel Castro and Cuban guerrillas

depose the pro-American dictator Batista.

The new regime angers Washington

by nationalizing American goods.

And in 1960, as Castro and Khrushchev become allies,

they cut off all diplomatic relations with the U.S.

On October 14th, 1962, an American reconnaissance airplane

takes aerial photos of the island of Cuba.

In one of the shots, there appears to be

what looks like missile launch sites hidden in the jungle.

In total secrecy, the USSR is arming the island

with the blessing of Fidel Castro.

In the days that follow, U.S. reconnaissance planes

capture new photos over Cuba.

Along with the launch sites,

the Soviets brought several bombers and nearly 40 missiles

that have a range of more than 930 miles.

Good evening, my fellow citizens.

This government, as promised, has maintained

the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup

on the island of Cuba.

Within the past week,

unmistakable evidence has established the fact

that a series of offensive missile sites

is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.

(dramatic music)

Kennedy has to make a choice,

and Curtis LeMay and all of these advisors

are telling him to invade.

They're saying, "Look, you have every reason now

"to invade Cuba.

"We should invade Cuba before these missiles become active

"and become true threats to the U.S."

Kennedy argued that, "If we just suddenly invade Cuba,

"isn't that a lot like Pearl Harbor?

"How's the world going to look at us?"

Kennedy is looking for an option,

some other way other than direct invasion.

When deliberating between strategies,

President Kennedy relies on daily reports by the CIA.

Many of them are stamped Ironbark,

which indicates they are based on intelligence

provided by Oleg Penkovsky.

There are now 22 surface-to-air

missile sites located in Cuba, nine of which are believed

to be individually operational at the present time.

The initial firing can take place any time after an alert.

Refire from a single launcher

will take approximately three to five minutes.

The nature of the missiles, their power,

their range, their technical specifications.

Because of Penkovsky, the American authorities

can evaluate the extent of the threat.

It is a direct result of Penkovsky's information

that allows the United States to know

what the range of these missiles are,

which is almost every part of the Unites States

except Seattle.

And he also knows how these operational missiles

will come to be; in other words,

how long it's gonna take to make them operational.

So it is Penkovsky's information

that allows Kennedy to know how much time he has

to negotiate the withdrawal of the missiles.

Kennedy knows he has, most estimates are,

between three and eight days

before the first set of missiles is going to be active.

Now, down the road he still had an option.

If he tried to quarantine and we couldn't work things out,

he could still go forward with the invasion.

A strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment

under shipment to Cuba is being initiated.

I have directed the armed forces to prepare

for any eventuality.

It shall be the policy of this nation

to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba

against any nation in the Western hemisphere

as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States,

requiring a full retaliatory response on the Soviet Union.

(dramatic music)

On October 22nd, on live television,

Kennedy announces a quarantine on Cuba

and a blockade of the island by the U.S. Navy.

Kennedy decides that he has to come up with a way

that is face-saving for the Soviets

to pull their missiles out.

So that's when they come up with the idea of a blockade

to stop any more missiles being sent in to Cuba.

We knew, through imagery, that there were more ships

on the way, that it wasn't over yet; they still had coming.

So he said we gotta stop the delivery of these ships

before they get to Cuba.

So that's when the Navy was given the mission to stop them.

The U.S. authorities draw a virtual line

in the ocean and forbids any Russian ship to cross it.

Violation would be considered an act of war.

President Kennedy's decision to implement

a naval quarantine, is what he called it,

in effect a naval blockade,

is really a fairly unprecedented challenge

both to international law and particularly,

given the context of Russian missiles coming into Cuba,

basically drawing a line in the sea.

The problem, of course, is that, once you put it into place,

you actually have to honor it.

So the likelihood of a Russian vessel

approaching that quarantine, that blockade,

escalates the risk of war.

The entire world holds its breath.

But a diplomatic solution is still possible,

mostly thanks to Penkovsky.

Because, in all of his memos, Colonel Penkovsky is adamant

Khrushchev is bluffing.

Kennedy should be firm.

Khrushchev is not going to fire any rockets.

He's not ready for any war.

I respect and love the United States,

and I certainly, in Kennedy's place, would be firm.

Penkovsky's constant message,

through everything Penkovsky tells the Americans,

is this notion that Nikita Khrushchev is bluffing,

that, in almost every single respect, the Soviet Union

is basically a paper tiger to a large degree.

Now, it's a paper tiger with nuclear missiles,

so you can only take that so far.

But at its core, it changes the dynamic

of Soviet-American relations.

I call upon chairman Khrushchev

to halt and eliminate this clandestine,

reckless, and provocative threat to world peace,

and to stable relations between our two nations.

Our goal is not the victory of might

but the vindication of right,

not peace at the expense of freedom,

but both peace and freedom here in this hemisphere,

and we hope around the world, God willing,

that goal will be achieved.

Thank you, and goodnight.

As Kennedy delivers his famous speech,

the spy Oleg Penkovsky is arrested by the KGB in Moscow.

The Americans have just lost their greatest ally,

but they don't know it yet.

(dramatic music)

Two days later, on October 24th,

at Khrushchev's order, 12 boats turn back.

The rest stop in their tracks.

The tension reaches a peak.

This line drawn around Cuba represents the final border

before a thermonuclear war.

On October 26th, the Soviet leaders

ask to negotiate behind closed doors.

They wanted to set up a back-channel communications

with the United States to find out

if we could negotiate a way to save face,

that we'll pull away, but you've gotta give us something.

And so they activated a KGB resident in Washington D.C.,

Alexander Feklisov, and they set up a back channel

that they can exchange information

without the public knowing about it,

and we basically say we will stop the blockade

if you'll pull your missiles out.

You're just gonna stop your armada,

you're gonna turn around, you're gonna take 'em back.

And then quietly we'll take our weapons out of Turkey.

(dramatic music)

Secret negotiations keep on for several days.

But during this time, the confrontation continues,

and each side holds its position.

Everyone is on alert,

ready to act at the slightest aggression.

Finally, on October 28th, the USSR withdraws its ships

and promises to dismantle all facilities in Cuba.

In exchange, the Americans agree not to attack the island.

And secretly, Kennedy also promises to dismantle

15 nuclear warhead missiles based in Turkey,

Italy, and Great Britain.

The crisis is over, and the world takes a breath.

(dramatic music)

Kennedy comes off as the winner.

He stayed calm in the face of hostility.

On the other hand, Khrushchev is seen as weak,

accused by his own side of retreating.

But the one truly defeated in this story

is without a doubt Oleg Penkovsky.

In May 1963, Penkovsky was tried in a tremendous show trial.

At the end of the hearing, the spy is sentenced to death

and executed on May 16th, 1963.

(gun firing)

This brilliant Soviet officer

gave his life for a cause he defended.

In just 18 months, he rattled powerful USSR

and radically changed the balance of power

between the East and the West.

(dynamic music)

Experts are unanimous: Oleg Penkovsky played a crucial role

in resolving the most dire crisis of the Cold War.

What Penkovsky did was allow the Americans,

at the most critical moment in human history,

the Cuban missile crisis, to have an understanding

they previously didn't have.

So what that means is that you're not far off

if you say Penkovsky helped avoid a thermonuclear war.

He paid the ultimate price.

But the ambitious colonel Oleg Penkovsky achieved his goal,

becoming one of the greatest spies in history,

the one who helped save the world from nuclear war.

This guy was at the right place at the right time,

and had the right motivation to give us

lots of very important information

actually in a very short period of time.

Having taught espionage my whole professional life,

I know of no human source who is more important

than Oleg Penkovsky.

He has to be considered one of the greatest,

if not the greatest, spy of all time,

for all that he contributed.

(dramatic music)