Oleg Penkovsky, British Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis

This chapter contributes to a collection that assesses cases studies in British intelligence and explores what broader lessons for understanding the role of intelligence can be learned. It provides a systematic and authoritative analysis of the role of Penkovsky based on analysis of British and American primary sources. It illuminates problems in interpretation of intelligence documentation, and some of the challenges facing those conducting operations and analysis. It demonstrates the challenges of reliance on only one source of intelligence. It is based on primary sources and provides an original interpretation. It is rigorous in historical method. Ranking: 3*