10 Real-Life Spies More Badass Than James Bond

8. Oleg Penkovsky Stopped A Nuclear War

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the hottest the Cold War ever got, with the US discovering Russian weapon silos off the coast of the nearby Communist state and assuming the worst. Thankfully, the nuclear stand-off was halted and the entire world wasn't decimated leaving it free for hyper-intelligent monkeys to take over.

But if the American government had remained in the dark about the enemies to the East and their weapons capabilities, it could've been much worse. So thank the good Lord for Oleg Penkovsky, the man who informed JFK's people about the missiles in the first place.

Codenamed HERO, Penkovsky was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence who leaked information to both the British and Americans. And he did it over the course of decades, too, risking his life to try and even out the Cold War. The CIA believed him to be under constant surveillance, which made the transmission of materials difficult, but he helped with a lot of anti-Soviet spy work in the era and was the guy who drew attention to those Cuban missiles in the first place.

Ultimately, Penkovsky died for his cause, having been apprehended by Soviet authorities, questioned, shot, and cremated.