Handling HERO: joint Anglo- American tradecraft in the case of Oleg Penkovsky

Abstract

The remarkable case of GRU (Glavnoe Razvedyvatel’noe Upravlenie, Soviet Military Intelligence) Colonel Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky is the best example available to researchers of intelligence liaison between the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). The purpose of this chapter is to examine joint CIA/ SIS Human Intelligence (HUMINT) tradecraft in terms of agent meeting sites (internally in Moscow, externally in London, and in a third country, France), agent communication plans, agent management philosophy, reporting and compartmentation of agent information, and disseminating Penkovsky’s information to ensure internal source protection within their own intelligence bureaucracies. This chapter argues that the joint tradecraft used in the case was insufficient to protect Penkovsky and thus he met an untimely end after less than two years of clandestine service. Yet, paradoxically, this chapter will also demonstrate that the case was as productive as it was, during its short tenure, because of the joint nature of the tradecraft. Specifically, neither SIS nor CIA would have been able to accomplish as much as had been done by running Penkovsky unilaterally. It is a paradox that the both the success and demise of Penkovsky as an intelligence agent comes, at least partly, from the liaison relationship in which context he was run. It is clear that Penkovsky could not have been initially met in person or successfully debriefed and tasked without vital contributions from both liaison partners. Yet, the operational schizophrenia with which his case was marked may have directly contributed to his remarkably short tenure as an intelligence agent. The Penkovsky case deserves examination because it is arguably the most significant joint HUMINT case of the Cold War. George Kisevalter’s biographer, Clarence Ashley, argued that, ‘The [HERO] operation developed by the CIA and its British partner, the SIS, to capitalise on the opportunity has rightly been termed the most successful in the history of espionage.’1 As Len Scott observed, ‘The case of Penkovsky further illustrates the British-American intelligence relationship. CIA documents provide details of SIS-CIA collaboration as well as insights into the roles(and identities) of SIS officers, though relevant SIS files remain classified.’2