In August 1960, a Soviet colonel called Oleg Penkovsky tried to makecontact with the West. His first attempt was to approach two Americanstudents in Moscow. He handed them a bulky envelope and pleaded withthem to deliver it to the American embassy. Inside was an offer to workas a 'soldier-warrior' for the free world. MI6 and the CIA ran Penkovsky jointly, in an operation that ran through the showdown over Berlin andthe Cuban Missile Crisis. He provided crucial intelligence, includingphotographs of rocket manuals that helped Kennedy end the Cuba crisisand avert a war. Codenamed HERO, Penkovsky is widely seen as the mostimportant spy of the Cold War, and the CIA-MI6 operation, run as theworld stood on the brink of nuclear destruction, has never beenbettered. But how exactly did the Russians detect Penkovsky, and why did they let him continue his contact with his handlers for monthsafterwards? Could it be that the whole Cuban Missile Crisis was part of a Soviet deception operation - and has another betrayal hidden in plainsight all these years? Thrilling, evocative and hugely controversial,Dead Drop blows apart the myths surrounding one of the Cold War'sgreatest spy operations.