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): Barry Hawkins • Chaeyoung • Dale Houston • Gail Goodrich • J. P. Donleavy • Jesse Lee Soffer • Jim Fixx • Joerg Deisinger • John Miles (musician) • Lucius D. Clay • Michael Moore • Nicole Vaidišová • Sheila Scott Macintyre • Valerie Bertinelli

Born in the same month (April 1919): Carl Lindner Jr. • Edoardo Mangiarotti • Finn Helgesen • Gilles Lamontagne • Howard Keel • Joseph Murray • K. Saraswathi Amma • Lester James Peries • Ministry of Culture and Sports (Greece) • Nilla Pizzi • Roger Lemelin • Roland Gaucher • Sol Kaplan