Oleg Penkovsky

Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed Hero and Yoga was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, including the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile program. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war.

23 April 1919

Born on the same birth day (23 April): Afonso II of Portugal • Amira Medunjanin • Arnold Alexander Hall • Barry Shepherd • Bertil Ohlin • Bram Schmitz • Dorian Leigh • Ed Stewart • George Lopez • Jim Bottomley • John Oliver • Martín López-Zubero • Maurice Druon • Sandra Borch • Unity Dow • Urmas Ott • Yiannis Moralis

Born in the same month (April 1919): Ervin Drake • Finn Helgesen • Ian Smith • Nilla Pizzi • Raymond Carr • Richard Hillary