An analysis of the operation – essentially picking apart the requirement, the planning, the utilisation of resources, the implementation, the inter-agency/international cooperation – or any other relevant factors.

Questions to answer:
– Management of Penkovsky as a spy. Entire framework (compare what was done with what exist now as we identify lapses)
– Who was his Case Officer?
– Analysis of the chain of command that existed for supply of information/intelligence?
– Level of security clearance he was given and possessed at both sides of the divide
– System of maintaining contact – dead drops, how convenient were they? How easy were they to access? Frequency of contact
– How did CIA and MI6 jointly handle him?
– What were the risks (tied to arguments against his genuineness)?
– How did the agencies deal with the risks?
– How was information from Penkovsky processed? What was the cycle? System of verification
– What operational level was Penkovsky placed? Strategic? Operational? Tactical? – – – And how was information dealt with at each level?
– How effective was the handling of Penkovsky? – Identify lapses and make key judgments
What lessons can be learned?

Literature:
The Spy Who Saved The World by Schecter
Spy Wars by Bagley
Schecter, Jerrold L.; Deriabin, Peter S. (1992). The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons. p. 284. ISBN 978-0-684-19068-6.
Oleg Gordievsky and Christopher Andrew (1990). KGB: The Inside Story. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-48561-2; cited from Russian edition of 1999,
Penkovskiy, Oleg, The Penkovskiy Papers, Doubleday & Co., New York, 1965
Peter Wright, Spy Catcher. William Heinemann Publishers Australia, 1987
Schecter, Jerrold L.; Deriabin, Peter S. (1992), The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War, Scribner, ISBN 0-684-19068-0
Wynne, Greville. The Man from Moscow. Hutchinson & Co., London, 1967
Spy Catcher,
Kalugin, Oleg. The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West (St. Martin’s Press, 1994). ISBN 0-312-11426-5.
Sakharov, Vladimir. High Treason (Ballantine Books, 1980),
Suvorov, Viktor. Soviet Military Intelligence. Grafton Books, London, 1986, p. 155
Tennent H. Bagley, Spymaster, startling cold war revelations of a Soviet KGB chief, Skyhorse Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-1-62636-065-5
Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 2006. ISBN 978-0-393-05809-3
David G. Coleman, The Fourteenth Day: JFK and the Aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012)
The Cold War. Prod. Jeremy Isaacs & Pat Mitchell. CNN, 1998. DVD
Suvorov, Viktor. Aquarium (Grafton Books, London, 1987),
The Newer Meaning Of Treason|New Republic
Ernest Volkman, Spies: The Secret Agents Who Changed the Course of History. ISBN 978-0-471-02506-1
Дорогой наш Никита Сергеевич : Дело Пеньковского (in Russian)
“Nuclear Secrets The Spy From Moscow”. IMDb. 15 January 2007. Retrieved 16 January 2007.

Espionage and the cold war: Oleg Penkovsky and the Cuban missile crisis: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684529908432551

Ghosts of the Spy Wars: A Personal Reminder to Interested Parties: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08850607.2014.962362
Britain and the Missile Gap: British Estimates on the Soviet Ballistic Missile Threat, 1957–61: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684520802560058
America and the world of intelligence liaison: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684529608432375