About the book: 2013 / Half a century ago, at the height of the Cuban crisis, when the world was on the brink of a nuclear disaster, GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was arrested in Moscow. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced: “.. to be found guilty of treason and... to be subjected to the death penalty - execution... The verdict is not subject to cassation appeal or protest.” To immediately immerse the reader in the essence of the problem, the following must be said: in the West, his betrayal is called the “Penkovsky phenomenon” and for forty-five years he has been presented as the “spy who saved the world” in the interests of Western democracy. But this is one side of the coin, and the main evidence of his betrayal is the trial in Moscow in May 1963. Then Penkovsky was sentenced to death for transferring to the West many documents revealing state secrets. And the other side? It is deeply hidden from prying eyes in the former Soviet archives and only indirect evidence suggests that everything is not so clear in this high-profile “case”: betrayed - exposed - convicted - executed?!