An ExceptionalEspionageOperation
Tolkachev, A WorthySuccessor to Penkovsky
Barry a Royden Editor sNote: Thisunclassified In October1985, The Washing
articledrawsextensively on ton Post ran a storythat Directorate of Operationsfiles, describedTolkachev as one of which, ofnecessity,remainclassi CIA smostvaluablehuman fied. BecauseTolkachev sstory assets in the SovietUnion. to FBI affidavits serves as an importantcasestudy According related to the Howard of Cold Warintelligenceopera espionage tions, it is beingmadeavailable casethatweremadepublic, Tolkachev had informa to scholarsand to thepublic in as provided tion on Soviet cruise muchdetail as possible,despite avionics, and other minimalsourcecitations. missiles, technologies. The Sovietssubsequentlypub The of brave story a liclyconfirmedthatthey had researchedand anddedicatedman BarryRoyden executedTolkachev in 1986 for wrote this articlewhileteaching who for overseven hightreason. as a CIA Officer-in-Residence at yearsprovidedtheCIA the Joint MilitaryIntelligence the fact that than with a hugevolume of Despite more College. He recentlyretiredafter sensitive 15 yearshavepassed,littleaddi extremely decades in the last serv four CIA, tionalinformation has surfaced andvaluable Director ing as AssociateDeputy aboutAdolfTolkachev and his Soviet Counterintelli intelligence on of Operations for work for the CIA. The following He is currentlyteaching militaryresearchand gence- is the story of a brave and dedi Counterintelligence at a Director development. catedmanwho for overseven ate of Operationstrainingfacility. yearsprovided the CIAwith a hugevolume of extremelysensi tive and valuableintelligence on Sovietmilitaryresearch and development(R&D)activities. It On 20 September1985,interna is also the story of a well-con tionalwire servicereports ceived and executed CIA carried a statementdistributed intelligenceoperation run in the officialSovietnews by agency Moscowunder the nose of the TASSthat one A. G. Tolkachev, KGB.
whom it described as a staff
member at one of Moscow s researchinstitutes, had been TheBeginning arrested the previousJune try materials of ing to passsecret a In January1977, on a typically defensivenature to the United depressingwinterevening in States- Subsequentnewsstories Moscow, the local CIAchiefleft
saidTolkachevwas an electron his office and drove to a nearby ics expert at a militaryaviation gas stationused by diplomats. institute in Moscow who was Whilewaiting for gas, he was Barry G. Roydenserved in the compromised by formerCIA surprisedwhen a middle-aged CIA sDirectorate of Operations. officerEdward Lee Howard. Russianapproachedhim and
5 Tolkachev
66
CIAheadquarterswas loath to complicate otheractivities] bythe asked him in English if he was valuableinformation Soviet possibility of getting on an American. When the CIA political and militaryplans and chiefanswered the caught in a KGB affirmatively, intentions. He alsopasseddata Russianplaced a foldedpiece of dangleoperation. on Sovietmissiledeployment paper on the car seat and methods and operationsthat departed. The CIAchieflater 99 provedcritical to the United noted that his was the only Statesduring the Cubanmissile American-plated car at the gas station, and it appearedobvious crisis. All substantivemeetings with that the man was waiting for an Agencypersonnel so thatthey Penkovsky,however,were held in the American to appear. The man could be expelledfrom the coun West,takingadvan was calm andclearlyhadthought try and to obtainimportant tage of his travelabroadwith his out approach. information on the CIA smeth Sovietdelegations. ods of operation.
Thenote,written in Russian,was The point in timewhen short and to the point. The On the otherhand,many of the Tolkachevchose to try to estab writer saidthat he wanted to CIA sbestagentsthrough the lish contactwith the CIA in discussmatters on a strictly yearshavebeenintelligence vol Moscowwas a particularlysensi confidential basiswith an unteers. One of the Agency s tive one. CIA appropriateAmericanofficial. mostfamousSovietagents, Col. personnel in Moscow had He thensuggested a discreet OlegPenkovsky of the Sovietmil severaloperational meeting at a giventime and itaryintelligenceservice(GRU), activitiesscheduled to takeplace place in the car of an American volunteered to the CIA in Mos over the nextseveralmonths official or at a Metrostation cow in 1960. He alsoexperienced thatthey and CIAheadquarters entrance. The writeralso in sug greatdifficulty establishing wereloath to complicate by the gested a signal aparked car at contactwithWesternintelli possibility of gettingcaught in a a certainplace and time,facing gence. Penkovskypassedletters KGBdangleoperation. In addi either one direction or the to twoAmericanstudents, a Brit tion, CyrusVance, the Secretary other toindicatewhichmeet ish husinessman, and a of State-designate in the admin ing arrangement was preferred. Canadianbusinessmanover a istration of elected The notecontainedsketches of period of severalmonthsbefore newly the ~xactlocations of the two he succeeded in usingBritish PresidentJimmyCarter, was scheduled visit optionalsites and where the car businessmanGrevilleWynne to to the USSRsoon should be parked to trigger a open a channel to US and Brit to lay the basis for bilateralrela meeting. ish intelligence.1 tions, and it was clearthat the
new US administration did not It would be and a long tortuous The CIA ran Penkovskyjointly wantanythinguntoward to roil processbeforesecurecontact with the British for a littleover a the watersbetween the two coun would be establishedbetween the year, and he providedimmensely tries. As a result,given the CIA and this intelligencevolun absence of any identifyingdata teen The KGB had established this i The basicfacts of the on prospectivevolunteer, the a pattern in the SovietUnion of Penkovskycase are set lack of indication of his running dangles (ostensible forth in Jerrold L. Schecter and any Peter S. Ijeriabin s The Spy WhoSaved intelligencevolunteersactually access to sensitiveinformation, the World(NewYork;CharlesScribners controlled by the KGBj,which and the difficultcounterintelli Sons,19921. The authorsweregiven ac made it to to gence (CI) CIA risky respond any cess to the CIAfiles on the case andcon environment, potentialvolunteer.Dangles ductedinter-viewswithmany of the headquartersdecidedagainst wereaimed at flushing out peopleinvolved. replyingto,thenote.
6 Tolkachev
TheCIAchiefwas impressedwith the man stenacity. MoreApproaches he wanted to do whatBelenko did. 2 Again, he providedsome On 3 February1977, the volun contactscenarios.Hathaway teer againapproached the local sent a message to Washington, CIAchief, this time as he got into urgingthat he be allowed to fol his car. (Although the chief s car had beenindicated in the note, so low up and contact the volunteer. was parkednear the US that the writercouldpasshim a Thistime CIAheadquarters ten Embassy, it wasblockedfrom the letterwithmoredetailsabout tativelyconcurred,pending an view of the Sovietmilitiamen who he was and whatinforma evaluation of the intelligence guarding the Embassy by high tion he wanted to share. sample. snowbanks, a factthat Headquarters,however,contin Tolkachevlater said he had ued to demur,citingoverriding In earlyJanuary1978,however, takeninto account.) He again CI concerns, and forbade any pos headquartersagaindisapproved spokebriefly,dropped a short itiveresponse. contact. It cited the factthat an noteinto the car, and departed. Americanofficial had been notereiterated the writer s In the volunteer The May, approached declaredpersona nongrata by establishcontactwith chieffor the fourth desire to the CIA time, the Sovietgovernmentjust one AmericanofficiaL Based on his car to his an banging on get weekpreviously, as well as the the previous CIAheadquarters attention. Thechiefignoredhim. fact that the CIAhad had to send action taken to decision, no was home two caseofficers the previ to the note. respond Morethan six monthspassed ous year,whencasesthey had before the volunteerappeared beenhandlingwerecompro Twoweekslater, the CIAchief again. In December1977, he mised. Headquartersconcluded was approachedafterwork by the spotted an individualwhohad thattheycould not afford to lose sameindividual, whodropped gotten out of an American-plated anotherofficer in Moscow,should anothernoteinto the car. This car and was shopping in a local the latestcontactprove to be a note saidthat the writerunder market. The volunteergave a let Sovietprovocationattempt. stood the concernabout a possible ter to this individual and pleaded Meanwhile, the evaluation of the provocation. He claimed that he that the letter be handdelivered informationprovided by the vol was an engineerwhoworked in a to a responsible US official. The unteershowed it to be highly closedenterprise andwas not letterwas passedunopened to the interestingbut not likely to do knowledgeableabout secretmat US Embassy sassistantsecurity gravedamage to the USSR a ters, so he might not be going officer,who in turngave it to the criterionthatapparentlyhad to aboutthis the rightway. He said localCIAchief. be met in headquarters view that he had not includedspecific before it wouldapprovetaking informationabouthimself In the letter, the volunteeragain the risk to meet the volunteer. because he worriedabouthow his providedinstructions and accom handled. letterswould be He panyingdrawings for an initial By fortuitouschance, in Febru repeated his requestthat he be contactwith an Americanoffi ary 1978, the Pentagonsent a contacted, and he providednew cial. He wentfurther this time, memo to the CIAciting the US instructions for establishing and included two however, type military shighinterest in any contact. written of pages intelligence intelligencethatcould be pro the electronic regarding systems vided on Sovietaircraft the CIAchief for a Soviet which con By now, was aircraft, electronics and weaponscontrol impressedwith the man stenac vinced the newlyarrivedlocal ity and askedheadquarters for CIAchief,Gardner Gus Hatha permission to respondpositively way, that a seriouseffortshould 2 ViktorBelenko was a Soviet pilot who flew his MiG-25 in 1976. by parking his car in a spotthat be made to respond. He saidthat LoJapan
7 Toikachev
Thevolunteer swifeanswered the call, however,forcing
Guilsher to break offthe conver sation. Guilsherrepeated this
exercise on 28 February,with the
samelack of success.
On 1 March1978,Tolkachev againapproachedHathaway and
his wife on the streetafterwork.
Thistime, he passed 11 pages of handwrittenmaterials, the bulk
of which was detailedintelli
gence on SovietR&Defforts in the militaryaircraftfield. In this note,Tolkachevfinallyidentified
himselffully,providing his name, -~ address,exactemployment, and
Constructionworker sgloveused as a container. cleaddrop a greatdeal of personalback groundinformation. He noted systems. As it turned out, this instructed the recipient of the that he had spent hours and was precisely the type of informa notethat at a certaintime at a hoursroaming the streets in tion,albeit in limitedquantity, certainbus stop he would be search of US]diplomaticcars, that the volunteer had passed in standing in line holding two and,havingfoundone, had December1977. pieces of plywood,eachwith a returned tens of times without singlenumber on it. These would be the last twodigits in his passinganything,because of PersistencePays Off phonenumber. At the indicated unfavorableconditions. He said time,Hathaway swifedrovepast that he was nowalmostdesper On 16 February1978, the volun the bus stop in question,recog ate for a positiveresponse to his nized the teer approachedHathaway and volunteerholding the efforts, and, if he did not get one two of and his wife at their car on the street pieces plywood, this time, he wouldgive up. afterwork and passedanother recorded the numbers. notecontainingadditionalintelli Tolkachev had clearlygoneabove information. He gence wrote Hathaway sent a immediately and beyondwhatcould be that he seemed to be caught in a cable to CIAheadquarterspush expected of trying to vol viciouscircle: I m afraid for anyone ing for a positiveresponse to the unteer to help the UnitedStates. securityreasons to put down on volunteer. Thistime,headquar The CIA, on the otherhand, for a papermuchaboutmyself, and, ters concurred. On 26 February, variety of goodreasons had had withoutthisinformation, for aftercarefulplanning,John to be cautiousaboutaccepting securityreasonsyou are afraid to Guilsher, a caseofficerfluent in contact contactwithhim. Fortunately, me, fearing a provoca Russian,conducted a lengthy tion. He then aftermuch soul it had suggested a surveillance-detection run to searching, secure to beendecided to meethim. Once way pass key identify determinethat he was free of any ing data on himself. In his note, Sovietsurveillance and then thatdecision wasmade, a spec he provided all but two of the dig called the volunteer shome tacularintelligencesuccessstory its in his number. phone He phonefrom a publicphonebooth. began.
8 Tolkachev
On NewYear sDay 1979, thefirstpersonal meetingwasheldwhile MakingContact The SW containeduse walkingthe streets of messages ful intelligence on suchsubjects Moscow in cold At about 10 p.m. on 5 March bitterly as a newSovietairborneradar 1978,Guilsher,afterdetermin weather. reconnaissance and guidance sys ing that he wasfree of surveil tem, the results of performance lance,calledTolkachev at home tests of new Sovietaircraftradar from a publicphone at the systems, and the status of work BolshoiTheater and spoke to him on the weapons-aimingsystems for the firsttime. Guilsheriden for variousSovietaircraftunder tifiedhimself as Nikolay, as Tolkachev sprotection, he also development.Tolkachev also Tolkachev had suggested in his would be passed a one-timepad indicatedthat he had 91 pages of 1 Marchnote, andconfirmedthat (OTP). The one-time pad (a handwrittennotes that he the properpeople had received series of numbersrandomly wanted to pass. Theintelligence all the materialsTolkachev had keyed to letters that can be put contained in theselettersfinally provided. The purpose of the call intocleartextonly by someone tipped the balance,convincing was to assureTolkachevthat his having an identicalOTP)would senior CIAmanagersthat securitywas intact and that US be used to encipher his secret Tolkachevshould be considered a intelligencewasinterested in writingmessages. validvolunteer. As a result, learningmoreabouthim and his Hathawaywasgiven the go- work. He was told that he would On 24 August,Guilsher con ahead to arrange a personal be calledagainwithfurther tactedTolkachev by phone and meetingwithhim in order to instructionsregardingfuture directedhim to a deaddrop site construct an in-countrycommu contacts. locatednext to a phonebooth nicationssystembetween him nearTolkachevsapartment. The and the CIA.
It was not untilAugust,how materials for Tolkachev,hidden ever, that the detailsfinallywere in a dirtyconstructionworker s On NewYear s Day 1979, the worked out on how the case mitten,consisted of an opera CIAtookadvantage of Soviet hol was to be pursued.Despite tionalmessage, a series of idaylaxness to arrange its first Hathaway sdesirethatpersonal intelligencerequirements, an SW personalmeetingwithTolkachev. contact be establishedwith carbonpaperwithinstructions Afterinsuringthat he was free Tolkachev in the USSR, CIA for its use, threepre-written fromsurveillance,Guilsherused headquartersopted as cover letters(apparentlyinno a publicphone to call Tolkachev safest tohave the necessary centletters, on the reverseside of at his apartment,triggeringcon materials and directionspassed which the SWwas to be con tact at a predeterminedmeeting to Tolkachev via a deaddrop (an cealed), and an OTPwith site. He remindedTolkachev to impersonalexchange of informa accompanyinginstructions. The bring the 91 pages of noteswith tion) so that he couldprepare a CIAlaterdeterminedthat him. A 40-minutemeetingwas series of letterswithadditional Tolkachev had retrieved the heldwhilewalking the streets of informationabout his access and materials. Moscow in bitterlycoldweather. his work. Theseletterswere to be prepared in secretwriting In September, all threecover let Tolkachev was wellprepared. He (SW),instructions for whichwere tersfromTolkachevwere delivered the voluminousnotes, contained in the deaddrop, and received, and their SW contents whichcontained a detailed were to be sent to variousaccom successfullybroken out. All description of the highlysensitive modationaddresses(apparently threelettersshowedsigns of hav work in which he wasinvolved, as innocuousaddressesactually ing beenopened,presumably by well as exactformulas,diagrams, controlled by the CIA). At Hath the Sovietauthorities, but the drawings of oscilloscopepresenta away sinsistence, to enhance SW had goneundetected. tions,preciseweapon and
9 Tolkachev
Thedatathattheagent providedsavedthe UnitedStates] up to electronicsystemsspecifications, The writer is intelligent, five of R&Dtime. pur charts, and quotesfromofficial years poseful, andgenerallyself- documents. He had carefully confident. He is self-disci drawnvariousdiagrams and plined but not overlyrigid. charts on oversizegraphpaper. He has wellaboveaverage GuilsherpassedTolkachevaddi intelligenceand hasgood tionalintelligencerequirements organizingability. He is andoperationalquestions, as well observantandconscientious tionsources for manyyears, if as a payment of goodfaith andpaysmeticulousatten ever. The completedocumenta money. He wasimpressedwith tion to details. He is quite tion on thesesystems,which the Tolkachev scalmmanner. He also self-assuredandmayplow agentprovidedevenbefore the notedthatTolkachevwasproba ahead at times in a way systemswerefullyoperational, bly one of the few soberRussians which is not discreet or sub was described as ofincalculable in Moscow on thismajornational tle. All in all, he is a value. holiday. reasonablywell-adjusted individualandappearsintel In May 1979, the CIAhosted a lectuallyandpsychologically three-dayseminar for a small ImpressiveProduction equipped to become a useful, group of seniorcustomers of versatileasset. Tolkachev sproduct.Representa TheinformationthatTolkachev tivesincludedsenioranalysts provided in his firstmeetingwas After his earlyreluctance to iden frombothcivilian and military quicklydisseminated to a lim tify himself to the US officials he intelligenceagencies. This ited number ofseniorcivilian and was trying to contact,Tolkachev group sconsensuswasthat militarycustomers. It had an overtimeprovided a greatdeal of Tolkachev sinformation was immediateimpact, as reflected in informationabouthimself. He impressive.Militaryrepresenta a March1979memorandumsent wrotethat he born in 1927 in tivesattending the seminar was to the Director of CentralIntelli Aktyubinsk (in what is now statedthat the data he provided gence(DCI) by a high-ranking Kazakhstan), but moved to Mos had savedthem up to five years of the two later and had lived militaryrecipient of R&Dtime. cow years Tolkachevinformation. This thereeversince. He did not pro memostatedthat all the infor vide any informationabout his Tolkachev was on his way to mationprovided by the special parents. The onlysiblingmen becoming one of the mostvalu source had correlatedfullywith tioned was a brother,Yuri, who able and productiveagents in the from and born in 1938 and described existingholdings photo history of the CIA. was communicationsintelligence col as a trainmechanic. lection.Regarding the new data concluded reported, the memo AssessmentandBackground Tolkachevidentified his wife as that the Sovietswouldjudge it NataliaIvanova née Kuzmina.
quitedamaging to theirinterests Before the firstpersonalmeeting She wasborn in 1935 andworked in for Washington to be posses withTolkachev, one of his hand as an electronicsengineer at the sion of this information. writtennotes had beenpassed to sameinstitutewhere he
the CIA sOffice of Technical Ser worked hedescribed her as an
The memocontinued by stipulat vice (OTS)handwritingexperts antennaspecialist. He wrote ing that the primaryvalue of the for analysis. The analysis,done that his wife smother hadbeen source sreporting was that it pro in May1978, was positive,accu executed in 1938, but he said videddetaileddata on newSoviet rate, and evenprophetic. The nothingabout the reasons for her weaponsystemsthatwould not reportmade the following execution. He notedthat his be availablefromtechnicalcollec observations: wife sfather had spentmany
10 Tolkachev
Moscowstandards. These years in a laborcamp,typically In detailing his technicalcreden by the fate of enemies of the Soviet tials,Tolkachevwrotethat he crampedquarters,however,were state. Freed in 1955, he had hadcompleted optical-mechani to limit his ability to carry out returned to Moscow, but died cal radartraining in 1948 and his clandestine role for the CIA. shortlythereafter.Tolkachev graduatedfrom the Kharkov Institute in 1954. commented a number of times to Polytechnical Varioushealthproblemsbothered worked at least one of his caseofficers Sincethen, he had at Tolkachevduring his collabora that the brutaltreatmentthat NIIR(ScientificResearchInsti tionwith the CIA. At onetime or of Radio He his wife sparentshadsuffered tute Building). another, he indicatedthat he had was a factor in his motiva describedhimself as a leading key highbloodpressure,peritonitis, the at thisinsti tion to workagainst Soviet systemsdesigner and gastritis. He also had trou He nevershed tute and saidthat he worked in a regime. any light ble breathing at night due to a on the authorities had taken officewith 24 other why largeopen brokennosethat he had suffered theseactions his wife s people. (In writingthis, he against as a youthplayinghockey. None but once that seemed to recognizethatthere parents, suggested theless, he described an active his wife and her were would be interest in knowinghow parents life. His hobbieswerejogging, much he had in his Jewish. Given the Stalinists privacy office, skiing,reading,listening to Voice of his to steal anti-Semitism,this factormay in terms ability of America and WestGerman have a role in their secrets.) played newsbroadcasts, and watching persecution. TV. He also said that he and his Tolkachev led a relativelycom familyenjoyedcamping out in the fortable life. He saidthat he Tolkachevapparentlywaa summer. devoted to his family and took earned 250 rubles per month, theirinterests into account in plus a 40 percent secrecybonus, that he did. He wrote whichwouldgivehim a normal everything Motivation that he helped his wifewith the salary of some 350 rubles(about housework and liked to go shop $110 at the officialexchangerate Tolkachev was not a member of pingwith her. He said that she at thattime). His wife ssalary the CommunistParty. He said would not questionwhere he got wouldhavedoubledthisamount. had lost his inter addedthat he occasion that he early reasonablesums of money. He He later est in politicsbecause it had explained: I got married at 30 allyreceivedmonetaryawards enmeshed in such an inventions in his field. An become and havelivedwith my wife for dema Soviet at that impassablehypocritical already 22 years. I am 52 and average salary His theater had timewasestimated at 120 rubles gogy. going my wife is 44. Apparently, I declined, he wrote,because all belong to thosewholoveonly per month. the plays had become too once. I considerthat I have the ideological. normalattachment to the family Tolkachev and his familylived on thatexists in mankind. The the 9th floor of an apartment his first couple had one child, a son buildingonlysome 400 meters Whenaskedduring per namedOleg,born in 1966. In from the US Embassy. He noted sonalmeetingabout his US 1979,Olegwas described as that this location had allowed motivation for approaching going to art school; by 1982, he him to walkunobtrusivelynear intelligence,Tolkachev saidthat at was studying at an architectural the Embassywhen he was seek he was a dissident heart, institute.Tolkachevmade it ing to establishcontact. The whocould best contribute to the clearfrom the beginningthat he apartmentconsisted of two cause by takingadvantage of his had not told, and would not tell, rooms, plus a kitchen,bath, and access to uniqueinformation of his wife or son about his work for toilet. Althoughmodest by US value to the West. In April1979, US intelligence. standards, it was quiteluxurious he explained his motivation in a
11 ToIkaciiev
Tolkachevwrote:
Someinnerworm
started to tormentme. writtennote, of which the follow the car he chose to approach had Somethinghas to be ing is an excerpt: to be an American and not a Rus done. sianchauffeur due to hisbright
I can a and . that only s~v beggarlyclothing trousers which had irOn significant role in this was ,, neverseen an played by Solzhenitsyn and no Russianchauffeur of a diplo Sakharov, even though I do maticvehiclewouldeverdress not knowthem and haveonly like that. unseen I do not haveenough readSolzhenitsyn sworks fantasy or romanticism. whichwerepublished in However,based on somefacts, NoviyMir. Someinnerworm TheOperationTakes Off Igot the impression that I stafled to torment me;some wouldprefer to live in Anier thinghas to be done. I The firstmeetingwithTolkachev ica. It is for this very reason started to writeshortleaflets in January 1979was a water that I decided to offeryou my thatIplanned to mail out. shedevent. Theinformationthat collaboration. But lam not But, later, havingthought it he passedconvinced all but the an altruistalone. Remunera. outproperly, I understood mostdiehardskepticsthat the tion for me is notjustmoney. that this was a uselessunder CIAwas in contactwith a volun It is, even to a greaterextent, taking. To establishcontact teerwithimmensepotential. the evaluation of the signifi withdissidentcircleswhich TheAgencynow movedintohigh canceand the importance of havecontactwithforeign gear to put the operation on a my work. journalistsseemedsenseless soundfooting. to me due to the nature of my that work. (I have a top secret Tolkachevfurtherexplained The CIAwasbreakingnew
clearance.) Based on the he had decided five or six years ground in severalways. slightestsuspicion, I would be ago to cooperate, but that he Tolkachevprovidedaccess to
totallyisolated or liqui. waiteduntil my son grewup. information of a sortneverbefore dated. Thus was born my He wrote, I understandthat in seen in its Sovietoperations, in plan ofaction to which I have case of a flap my familywould terms of both its hugevalue to resorted. face a severeordeal. At first he US militaryplanners and its thoughtabouttrying to establish highlytechnicalnature. In
I havechosen a course contact at a US exhibit, but addition,Tolkachevwas to be this whichdoes notpermit one to decided would not be secure. handledextensively via face-to-
movebackward, and I have He thenstartedtakinglong facemeetings in Moscowrather
no intention of veeringfrom walksaround the Embassyarea. than by deaddrops,whichwere this course. My actions in the Havingspotted cars withdiplo normallyused for Russianassets
futuredepend on my]health, maticlicenseplates, he looked for handled in country. and changes in the nature of an opportunity to approach an my]work. Concerningremu Americangetting in or out of his TheJanuarymeetingstarted a neration, I would not begin to car. He observedthatsome of pattern of successfulencounters establishcontact for any sum these cars had Russiandrivers withTolkachevheldevery two or of moneywith, for example, and realizedthat he wouldhave threemonthsover the next 18 the ChineseEmbassy. But to be carefulwhich car he chose. months of the operation. The how aboutAmerica?Maybe (Tolkachevclearly had no idea firstmeetingswerededicated not it has bewitched me, andJam that he had stumbled on the local only to receivingTolkachev s madly in love with it? I have CIAchief as the target for his ini immenselyvaluableintelligence, not seenyourcountrywith my tial approaches. He notedthat but also to working out the criti own eyes, and to love it he had decidedthat the driver of callyimportantoperational
12 Tolkachev
detailsthatwouldensurethat he ;__ ..~.. _.-r?-~a~n~r .-~~ w.~r-c,s~~ could be handledsecurely and productivelyover the longterm. Thismeantconstructing a viable agentcommunicationsystem, coming to agreementwith the agentover a compensationpack age and a way to deliver it, and working out the means by which he couldbesttakeadvantage of his access to obtainSovietsecrets for delivery to the CIA in a securemanner.Tolkachev con tinued to deliverlargequantities of highlyvaluableintelligence while the details of the arrange mentwerebeingworked out.
AgentCommunications
- ~ ,,~tthnk~s4~~- a at...~, Subminiature not much than its film in for document Considerableplanningwas camera, larger cassette, use copying or cite casingphotography. needed to establish a contactrou tine for the Tolkachevoperation. In thiscase, the CiA did not have Tolkachevcouldphotographdocu whichwouldtrigger a personal the luxury of beingable to pro mentsclandestinely at his office. meeting at a prearranged site vide the agentwith any external one hourfrom the time of the training in the use of deaddrops The notepassed to Tolkachev in call. before the initiation of his agent the samedeaddropcontained a role. Sincepainstakingefforts communicationsplan that pro Once a month, on the datethat had already led to a personal vided for a variety of methods of corresponded to the number of meetingwithTolkachev, the door contact. For example, the monthplus 15 days 18 was opened to the possibility of Tolkachevcould be called at March, 19 April, 20 May,etc. usingface-to-faceencounters on homeonce a month, on the date Tolkachevwas directed to appear an ongoingbasis. thatcorresponded to the num at one of severalprearranged ber of the month, that is, 1 sites, at a specifiedtime accord In February1979,afterseveral January, 2 February, 3 March, ing to the month, and to wait for exchanges ofmessageswithCIA and so forth. Tolkachevwould five minutes apassword and headquartersregardingthetype of cover the phonebetween6p.m. recognitionsignalwereincorpo communications to be used in this and 8 p.m. on thosedates to ratedinto the plan in case
case, a deaddropwas put down for await a wrong-number call. someoneotherthan the regular Tolkachevcontaining a small spy Dependingupon the name caseofficershouldmake the camera, a lightmeter,camera asked for by the caller, meeting. instructions, and an operational Tolkachevwould be directed to note, all concealed in another one of threeprearrangeddead- Onceeverythreemonths, on the dirtymitten. The spy camera drop sites: Olga, Anna, or last weekend of the month, wasmatchbox-sized andhad been Nina. The caller also had the Tolkachevwouldhave the oppor of for fabricated by OTS so that option asking Valeriy, tunity to passmaterials via
13 To!kachev
In morethan 20 encounters,Tolkachev handedoverhundreds deaddrop.Tolkachevwouldlook pool, it could not ofrolls ofexposedfilm manpower to see whether a ready to maintainsurveillance on all for andhundreds of receive signal had beenmade; if pages eigners all the time, so it was so, he was to put down a package of writtennotes. important to try to convince sur in a prearranged site. A recov veillanceteams,whentheywere ery signalwould be put up the covering a givencaseofficer, that nextday so that he couldcheck to the officerwas not involved in ensurethat his packagehadbeen any operationalactivitieswhen received. He was alsogiven theyweremovingabout the city. instructions on how to package documents he providedcould be and conceal any drop of materi tracedback to him. As part of this process,every als for passage to the CIA. He caseofficerwent to greatlengths also couldtrigger a deaddrop Hathawayagreedwith to establish a routine thattook delivery by making a marked sig Tolkachev sreasoning, as ulti him to variousparts of the city officer nal on any Monday; a case mately did CIAheadquarters. As on a regularbasis, to do shop in turnwouldsignalreadiness to a result,beginning in April1979, ping, run errands, take part in receive his package,using a personalmeetingswith recreationalactivities, go sight parked-carsignal the following Tolkachevwereusedalmost seeing,take the children out, that Wednesday, and night exclusively.Severalwereheld walk the dog, and so forth.
Tolkachevcould put down his withhim in the secondhalf of Theseroutineswerecarefully deaddroppackage. A recovery 1979, and morethan 20 took constructed to try to bore the signalwouldthen be put up the placeover the next five years. KGBsurveillanceteams, to the following day to signal the suc Thesepersonalencounters pointwheretheywould be cessfulrecovery of his drop. allowedTolkachev to handover moved to other,presumably
to his CIAcaseofficerhundreds moreproductive,targets. If and Tolkachev,however,resisted of rolls of exposedfilm and hun when the officers did find them usingdeaddrops. In an April dreds of pages of writtennotes selves free of surveillancewhile 1979writtenmessage, he said containing an enormousamount on thesepersonaltravelsaround that he did not understandwhy of valuableintelligence. the city, theywould take advan the CIAwanted to use dead- tage of this situation to look for drops to communicate. He said prospective new deaddropsites, thatpersonalmeetingswould be SurveillanceDetectionRuns to servicesuchsites, or to carry no moreriskythanusingdead- out otheroperationalactivities. droppasses,because in both To ensurethat the caseofficer
cases a CIAofficer had to be free wasfree fromKGBsurveillance Thismethod of actionmeantthat
of surveillance to carry out the beforecarrying out any element a series of alternativecontacts communicationsplan. Given this of the communicationsplan, the had to be builtintoeveryagent fact,Tolkachev saidthat it officerwouldconduct a surveil communicationsystem,because
seemed to him thatpersonal lancedetection run. This a caseofficercouldneverknow meetingswere to be preferred, involvedcaseofficersmoving ahead of timewhether he would because theywould be much about the city in an apparently be free of surveillance on any moreproductive. He alsonoted innocentfashion,whileunobtru given day. Because of the heavy that psychologically he pre sivelychecking to determine surveillancenormallyused ferred to exchangematerials via whethertheywereundersurveil againstCIAcaseofficers,another personalmeeting,because he lance. Although the 17th part of any agentcommunica worriedthat a dropcouldacci Department of the KGB,respon tionssystemrequiredthat dentally fall into the wrong sible for counterintelligence severalcaseofficers be read in on hands andthat in such a case the inside the USSR, had a large the case, so that any one of them
14 Tolkachev
LThecaseofficer] put on a Russianhat and working-classclothes, who was able to determinethat thatstage onehadbeencompleted took a heavydose of he was surveillance-free on a with the passage of the extensive given daywould be capable of garlic, andsplashed materialsthat he had delivered in communicatingwith the agent. somevodka on himself. January,added to what he had beenable to passbeforethattime
Anothertechniquethatwas used via his SWmessages and written to defeatKGBsurveillance was notes. He went on to say that he to disguise the identity of the did not feel that he hadbeenade caseofficerbeingsent out to quatelycompensated for his first meetwithTolkachev. Thistech Tolkachev scaseofficerssuccess yearand a half oflonelyefforts to nique was firstused in this fullyused this technique,with breakdown the wall of distrust operation in June1980. John somevariations, for a number of and for the significantinformation Guilsherdrove to the US meetingswith the agentover the that he had provided to date. He Embassybuilding at about7:20 course of thisoperation. provided a range of figures in the p.m.,ostensiblyhavingbeen tens of thousands ofrubles,which invited to dinner at the apart he said he believedwould be fair ment of an Embassyofficerwho AgentCompensation compensation for the information livedthere. Onceinside, he dis that he had provided so far. guisedhimself so thatwhen he As is the casewithmostagents, later left the compound in remunerationwas a subject of Tolkachevstatedthat he could anothervehicle, he would not be greatimportance to Tolkachev eitherjustpassinformation as he recognized by KGBsurveillants and an operationallydifficult hadoutlined in his seven-stage waitingoutside.Checking to matter to resolve. As the details plan, and ask for a sum of money ensurethat he wasfree of sur wereworked out overtime, it in six figures equal to what veillance,Guilsher,while still in becameevidentthat he was pri Belenkogot, or he could go the vehicle,changed out of his madlyinterested in obtaining a westernclothes and madehim salary as a demonstrationthat selflook as much as possible like the CIAhighlyvalued his work, a typical,working-classRussian ratherthan as a means to enrich by putting on a Russianhat and himself working-classclothes,taking a heavydose of garlic, and splash The dialogueregardingcompensa ing somevodka on himself tionbeganwiththe second Guilsherthen left his vehicle and personalmeeting in April1979. proceeded on foot and by local During a 15-minutewalkingcon publictransportation to a public tact,Tolkachevturnedoverfive phonebooth,where he called the rolls of filmthat he hadtakenwith agent out for a meeting at a pre his miniaturecamera andmore arranged site. than 50 pages of handwritten notescontainingintelligence of After the meeting,Guilsher both a substantive andopera returned to his vehicle, put on tionalnature. In the notes, he normalWesternclothes, and proposed to passinformationover droveback to the Embassy a 12-yearperiod,dividedinto There he resumed his owniden sevenstages; he wanted to be paid tity and then left the compound a set amount at the end of each Caseofficer in disguise as a Russian and returned to his apartment. stage. He saidthat he considered worker for meetingwithTolkachev.
15 Tolkachev
Hewastoldthathewas to be paid an annual salary equivalent to beyond this and keeppassing realizedthat his salarydemands the salary of the US newinformation as it developed wereunrealistic. He said he had President. and he got access to it.a madethembecause he wanted to Tolkachevwrotethat, if he were ensurethat he got appropriate cooperatingjust for the money, he recognition for his work. On probablywouldfollow the first accepting the over100,000rubles course,but,because he had that he was passed at this meet taskedhimselfwithpassing the ink, Tolkachevcommentedthat In Tolkachev sfirstmeetingwith maximumamount of informa this wasmuchbetterthan the Guilsher in January1979, the tion to the UnitedStates, he did few thousandrublesthat he had latterhad told him that his supe not intend to stophalfway, and previouslybeenpaid. He went riorswereworriedthat, if the only the secondcourse of action on to say that he did not really agentweregiven a substantial is viable. need the money andthat he amount of money, he wouldstart wouldjuststore it; he addedthat throwing it around.Returning to he did not want anymoney at the In October1979,Tolkachev this topic,Tolkachevwrote in his nextmeeting. He said he just returned to the subject of his Aprilnotethat the subject of wanted the money as proofthat reimbursement.Subsequent to recklesshandling of sums of the CIAreallyvalued his work. the Aprilletteroutlining his sal money can neverarise. He ary demands, he had beentold statedthat he already had the By May 1980,Tolkachev ssalary that the DCIhad approved the means to buy a car and an expen had finallybeenagreed on. He passage to him of an amount of sive dacha. Although he said was told that he was to be paid rublesequivalent to almost that he neverwanted a car, he an annualsalary equivalent to $100,000 for the informationthat planned to buy one when his son the salary of the US President he had provided to date. In turned 15 or 16 depending on for his work in 1979 and an even response to this,Tolkachevnow how his relationsdevelopwith highersalary for each there wrotethat,when he said he his growingson. He also said year afterthat he was in place and wantedcompensation in the six thatneither he nor his wife had productive. Thebulk of these figures, he meant six zeroes! any inclination to be saddled fundswould be held in escrow, to He went on to say that he had with a dacha,althoughtheywere be available to him at some heard on the Voice of America consideringeventuallybuying a futuredatewhen he determined that Americanspecialists esti smallhouse and someland. that he wanted to be exfiltrated matedthat the Sovietswould to the UnitedStateswith his have to spend $3 billion to that Perhapsrealizing his salary family. Meanwhile,thesefunds reequip the MiG-25 as a result of demandsmightseemexorbitant, wouldearn8.75 percentinterest, the Belenkodefection. If that Tolkachevwent on in his April and he would be able to draw the he on were case, reasoned, sev note to that emphasize his basic them at his discretion. eralmillion dollars is not too goal in workingwith the CIA] fantastic a price for the informa consists of passing the maximum Tolkachevsuggested in one of his tion that he had provided to the amount of information in the notesthat he wanted to consider CIA on the newtechnologywith shortesttime. He wrotethat he some of his to the which the Sovietswould donating salary reequip knewthat the end come at may Russiandissidentmovement. He this aircraft. any moment, but it does not saidthatpreviously he had not frighten me and I will work to raisedthispossibilitybecause he the end. had In his note,Tolkachevclaimed thrn he had not yet worked out the mat learned how muchBelenko was paid from Se ter of his CIAcompensation and cornypersonnel who periodicallybriefed the In the nextmeeting in December that, I would not like to divide scienhlsts at his institute. 1979,Tolkachev saidthat he up the hide of an unkilledbear.
16 Tolkachev
Theonlysecure
mannerwas to photographdocuments Nowthatagreement had been changing the film,Tolkachevwas in the men stoilet. reached to payhimcertainfunds, to return the entirecameraeach however, he saidthat he wanted time that he completed a roll. to considerhow some of these fundsmight be madeavailable to the families of dissidentswho NewSecurityPractices at had beenrepressed by the Soviet photographingsensitiveinsti Work authorities. Thehardpartwould tutedocumentswould be for him be to find a way to do this to takethemhomeover the lunch The forethought in issuing securely, and he asked for the hour,while his wifewouldstill be Tolkachev the new spy cameras CIA sideas. As it turned out, no at the office and his son would be provedworthwhile.Tolkachev s sucharrangement was ever at school. As a result of this sug instituteinitiated new security made,presumablybecause no gestion, in June1979 he was procedures in December1979. In waycould be found to do this passed a Pentax ME 35-mmcam the past,institutestafferscould withoutpossiblycompromising era andclamp to hold the camera check out an unlimitednumber of Tolkachev. steady by attaching it to the back sensitivedocumentsfrom the
of a chair. institutelibrary, as long as they
werereturnedbefore the close of
DealingWith a Camera Theresultsimmediatelyjusti businessthatsame day. Now, Problem fied the change in cameras. In suchdocumentscouldonly be the April and June 1979meet checked out by leavingone s Anothervitallyimportantissue ings,Tolkachevhadpassedover buildingpass at the library. thattooksometime to work out a dozenrolls of filmtakenwith Tolkachevwas no longer able to concerned howTolkachevcould the miniaturecamera,butalmost take the documents to his apart bestcollect the largequantities of all wereunreadable. in meet ment to photograph,because he highlytechnicaldata to which he ingsheld in October and could not leave the buildingwith had access. The miniaturecam December1979,after the receipt out showing his pass. era passed to him in February of the Pentax, he providedmore 1979 had a number of limita than 150 rolls of film shot at Forseveralmonths,Tolkachev tions. Although it allowed for home, all of excellentquality. wasreduced to photographing 70 to 80 exposures per roll, it Accompanyingnotesincluded documents at his instituteusing requiredmorelightthan was newintelligence and explana the new spy cameras. He normallyavailable for the pho tions of the documents he had informed the CIAthat the only tographydone by Tolkachev at photographed. securemanner of doing so was to his office. Moreimportant, its photographdocuments in the small size made it almostimpos CIAheadquarterscontinued, men stoilet. Despite the danger sible to holdsteady,frequently meanwhile, to work on giving and the difficulty, he exposed all resulting in blurredphotos. Tolkachev the capability to pho the frames of four of his six min Tolkachevalsocomplainedthat it tographdocuments at his office, iaturecamerasduringthis clicked too loudly, and that he shouldthatprovenecessary. In period,which he passed to his in had to stackseveralbooks October1979, the agent was CIAcaseofficer in a personal at order to get the camera the passed two updated spycameras meeting in February1980. right13-inchheight to take fabricated by 0Th; in December, photos. he receivedfourmore. The cam Nonetheless,Tolkachevpre eras,disguised in a suitable ferred to do his photography at Tolkachevsuggestedthat he be concealmentdevice, had a capac homewith his 35-mmPentax. given a regular35-mmcamera. ity of some 100 shots per roll of He continued to be dissatisfied He saidthat the bestmethod for film. Given the intricacy of with the CIA sminiature
17 Tolkachev
cameras,sayingthat the low amount he was everable to turn no action was taken on such an lightconditionsweredifficult to over in one meeting. initiative.) overcome and that he had a hard timetrying to hold the camera An April 1980internal CIAmem still while In shooting. addition, RaveReviews orandumcalledTolkachev s the camerasperiodically information onjam-proofingtests malfunctioned. for Sovietfighteraircraftradar Meanwhile,customersatisfac systems unique suchdata, tionwithTolkachev sreporting To dealwith the new security sought for manyyears, was not remainedextremelyhigh. A restrictions,Tolkachevsuggested obtainable by nationaltechnical December1979DefenseDepart that the CIAfabricate a copy of means. In June1980,Tolkachev mentmemorandum to the DCI his buildingpass. He couldthen was creditedwithproviding saidthat, as a result of leave the fakebuildingpass at uniqueinformation on a new Tolkachev sinformation, the Air the librarywhenchecking out Sovietaircraftdesign,extensive Force had completelyreversed its documents,whileusing his real information on modifications to direction on a multi-million dol pass to exit and reenter the anotherSovietfighteraircraft, lar electronicspackage for one of buildingover the lunchhour. He and documents on several new its latestfighteraircraft. Fur suggestedthat he could lose his models of airbornemissile sys thermore, in March1980, a pass so that he couldturn it over tems. The nextmonth,another preliminaryinternal CIAevalua to his caseofficer to be copied. internalmemorandumstated tionhighlypraisedTolkachev s Instead, for his protection, he that,even if Tolkachev sspying information on the latestgenera was asked to takecolorphotos werediscovered, the value of the tion of Sovietsurface-to-air and provide a physicaldescrip informationthat he had pro missilesystems,stating: We tion of the pass,whichOTScould videdwould not diminish for at neverbeforeobtainedsuchdetail use to try to make a duplicate. leasteight to 10 years itwould and understanding of suchsys take the Sovietsthatlong to temsuntilyearsaftertheywere Meanwhile, by goodfortune the design,test, and deploynewtech actuallydeployed. The evalua newsecurityrestrictionswere nology to replace thatwhich the tion alsonoted that the canceled in February1980. The agent had compromised to the informationjibedwithdata change in procedures had worked pro CIA. duced by nationaltechnical a hardship on the womenwho means, but that it addedimpor worked at the institute, whocon The kudoscontinued. In Septem tantdetailsthatothercollection stituted a majority of the staff. ber 1980, a memorandumfrom systemscould not provide. Thewomencomplainedthatthey the DefenseDepartmentstated: needed to leave the institutedur Theimpact of Tolkachev sJ ingthe lunchhour to do their Also in March1980,consider reporting is limitless in terms of shopping, but theycould not ationwasgiven to havingcleared enhancing US militarysystems return any sensitivedocuments DefenseDepartmentpersonnel effectiveness, and in the poten thattheymighthavechecked out work on the translation of back tial to savelives andequipment. from thelibraryandretrievetheir loggedmaterialsprovided by It alsocalled the information buildingpasses,because the Tolkachev, due to the inability of instrumental in shaping the librarywas closed for lunch. This CIAtranslators to keep up with course of billions of dollars of US enabledTolkachev to resumepho this task. It was estimatedthat R&Dactivities, and described the tographingdocuments at home. it would takeeightclerks and value of Tolkachev sinformation Thebenefits to the operationwere threeRussian-languagetransla to theseprograms as immense. immediatelyvisible: In June tors,workingfull time for seven 1980,Tolkachevpassedalmost to eightweeks, to processthese FromJanuary1979untilJune 200rolls of film, the largest materials! (In the end,however, 1980,Tolkachev had provided an
18 Tolkachev
Tolkachevreiterated his but the request. . . DCIrefused to extremelyhighvolume of incredi thingthe KGBwould do would be authorizetheissuance bly valuableintelligence to the to search his apartment, and of a US military. Thisinformation poisonp111. athings that I can hidefrom my couldhavemeant the difference family I can neverhidefrom the betweenvictory and defeat, KGB. Given this situation, he should a militaryconfrontation saidthat it should be easier to with the USSRhaveoccurred. understand his efforts to obtain
the means of defense as soon as Alterbeingtold of this decision, possible. By having a means to Tolkachevwrote a letter to the Plans for Contingencies commitsuicide,Tolkachev said DCIpleading his case; he gave that he would be able to keep the letter to his caseofficerdur In the earlystages of the opera secret thevolume of his activity inghis June1980meeting. In it, tion, the CIAhad to considerhow and the methods by which he was he detailed the risks he wasrun and whenultimately to end it. able to carry out this activity. ning and insistedthat he be Thisincludedpotentialexfiltra Incredibly,Tolkachev was not given the means to commit sui tionarrangements,given the onlythinkingabout his personal cide, if necessary,because of his tremendousvalue of Tolkachev s situation, but he was pointing precarioussecuritysituation. information and the highrisks out the importance of preventing Because of the largenumber of that he was running.Headquar the Sovietsfromfinding out intelligencerequirements he had tershadquicklyconcurred in exactlywhat he hadpassed to beengiven, he saidthat he could offeringexfiltration to Tolkachev the Americans,whichwould not answermany of themwith and his family, but it wanted to greatlycomplicatetheirefforts to out obtainingdocuments to delay any actualdeparturefrom carry out a damageassessment, which he did not normallyhave the USSR for severalyears, if when and if he were access. To satisfytheserequire possible, to takemaximum compromised. ments, he had to check out advantage of his access. quantities of sensitivedocu In thisJune1980note,Tolkachev mentsfrom the institutelibrary. Tolkachev had alsobeenthink alsoresponded to the CIA ssug Eachtime he did so, he had to ing about the eventual end of his gestion that a dialoguebegin on sign out the documentswhich relationshipwith the CIA, but in the subject of his eventualexfil hadoriginatedwith his institute somewhatdifferentterms. In the tration to the UnitedStates with but whichwereoutside of the notethat he passed in April his wife and son. He specifically purview of his ownwork. Worse, 1979, he had requestedthat he requestedthattheseexfiltration he had to obtainpriorwritten be issued a poisonpill,writing, I preparations be made as soon as permissionfrom anyotherSoviet would not like to carry on a con possible, and he asked to be noti researchinstitutes or agencies versationwithorgans of the fied of what he had to do to whosedocuments he wanted to KGB. He reiterated this request support this planning. obtain. in his October1979note and made it a steadytheme in his messages to the CIAfromthat Tolkachevemphasizedthat, if the Turnover pointonward. The CIAofficers KGBever for anyreason sus handlingthiscase at first pectedthatinformationwas Thehandingover of an agent resistedtheserequests, but grad beingleaked on the research from his firstcaseofficer to a suc uallyconcludedthatTolkachev activities on which he waswork cessor is always a signalevent in would not be put off. The matter ing, a review of the document any agentoperation.Although was thenreferred to the DCI, sign-outpermissioncardswould JohnGuilsher had not actually whorefused to authorize the quicklyfingerhim as the leading recruited Tolkachev, he had issuance of a poison pill. suspect. He saidthat the next been the agent sfirsthandler and
19 Tolkacttev
Headquarters proposedtheuse ofthe latestandbestShort- he had moved the operationfrom tive unit one letter at a time. RangeAgent its initial,haltingsteps into a Themessageswereautomati Communication smoothrelationship. He had callyenciphered as theywere madeTolkachev feel confident System. keyedinto the units. The units that he could be depended on to had a capacity of severalthou protect his security, and the two sandcharacters. With no major had becomecomfortablewith physicalobstructionsbetween eachother in the dangerous them, the units had a range in endeavor in whichtheywere the hundreds of meters. They involved. It was time,however, out walking.Gradually,meet wereprogrammed to exchange for Guilsher to leaveMoscow, and ings in Tolkachev sparked car messages in a bursttransmis the CIAhadsomeconcernthat wereincorporatedinto the meet sion thatlastedonlyseconds. Tolkachevmightreactnega ing plan and usedthroughout the The messagescouldthen be read tively to the introduction of a duration of the operation. by scrolling the deciphered text newcaseofficer. Nonetheless, on across the unit ssmallscreen. 14 October1980,Tolkachevmet for the firsttimewith his new AlternateCommunications The use of this communications caseofficer and showed no hesi method was highlystructured. tation in acceptinghim. An In September1980, CIAhead In this operation, it would be up importantmilestone had been quarterssuggestedthatplanning to the agent to initiate any SRAC passed. begin for the possible use of exchange. To start the process, Short-RangeAgentCommunica Tolkachevwould be directed to
Tolkachevtold his newcase tions(SRAC)withTolkachev, as mark a predeterminedsignal site officer at theirfirstmeetingthat an emergencybackupcommuni (a chalkmark on a utilitypole) in he hadpurchased a new car, a cationssystem. It could be used accordance with a periodic(nor RussianZhiguli; and he insisted if Tolkachevwanted an emer mallymonthly)timetable. A case that the meeting be held in the gencymeeting or therewere a officerwouldmonitorthis site, car, which was parkednearby. need for a briefexchange of data whichwould be on a streetregu He suggestedthat, in the future. without the risk of a personal larlyused by the officer. othermeetingscould be held in meeting. the car. If the agentmarked the signal, Headquartersproposed the use of this wouldinitiate a sequence of The CIAultimatelyagreedthat the latest and bestSRACsystem eventsleading up to a SRAC personalmeetings in Tolkachev s available at the time. It con exchange. Both the agent and a of parked car were a sensiblecom sisted two identicalunits, one caseofficerwould go to prear plement to walkingmeetings. for the caseofficer s use and one rangedelectronicletterdrop Although the car slicenseplates for the agent s use. Theseunits (ELD)sites at a predetermined weretraceable to the agent,there wereabout the size of two ciga time. Thesesiteswould be close was no reason for the KGB to pay rettepacks laid end to end. Each enough to allow a SRAC particularattention to these unitcamewithdetachableanten exchangewhilebeing far enough plates,shouldthey see the car nas,Russian or Englishkeyboard apart so thattherecould be no parkedwith two peoplesitting in plates,batterypacks and batter apparentvisualconnection it. TheCIAcaseofficersmeeting ies, chargers, and instructions. between the caseofficer and the withTolkachevalwaysdressed agent. Primaryalternatesites like workingclassRussians. In Before any plannedtransmis and times for ELDexchanges cold weather, it wouldappear sion,both the agent and the case werebuiltinto the communica morenatural for two people to be officerenteredtheirmessages by tionssystem. Therewere also seated in a warm car than to be keyingtheminto theirrespec prearrangedsignals for the agent
20 Tolkachev
to conveythat he did or did not an unscheduledpersonalmeet this system,Tolkachevcould receive the messagetransmitted ingjustthreedaysafter a receiveover 400 five-digitgroups to him. In the Tolkachevopera regularmeeting. The purpose of in any one message. tion,thesesignalswere to be this unscheduledmeeting was to parked car signals(PCS) that allowhim to provide a critique of Tolkachevtried to use this IOWL is, the agentwouldpark his car a the first cut of the fakebuilding system, but he laterinformed his certainway at a certainplace at passthatOTS had made. Anx caseofficerthat he wasunable to a given time to indicatethat he ious to obtainthispass so that he securelymonitorthesebroad did or did not successfullyreceive couldsafelycheck out sensitive casts at the timesindicated the SRACtransmission. In documents,Tolkachevresorted to (eveninghours)because he had return, the CIAwould use a PCS using the SRACsystem. no privacy in his apartment. He to convey the sameinformation alsosaidthat he could not adhere to the agent. SRAC was not the onlyalternate to a differenteveningbroadcast communicationsmethodintro schedule by waitinguntil his wife Theidea of usingSRAC was ducedintothis operation. In and son went to bed,because he broachedwithTolkachev in a November1981,Tolkachev was alwayswent to bed before they notepassed to him in the Octo passed a commerciallypur did. ber 1980meeting. He responded chasedshortwaveradio and two positively in December1980, one-timepads,withaccompany As a result, the broadcastswere and, in March1981, a SRACunit ing instructions, as part of an changed to the morninghours of and the accompanyingparapher Interim-One-WayLink (IOWL) certainworkdays,duringwhich nalia and communicationsplan base-to-agentalternatecommu Tolkachevwouldcomehomefrom werepassed to him. nicationsystem. He was also workusing a suitablepretext. passed a demodulatorunit,which Thissystem also ran afoul of bad Sometechnicalbugs had to be was to be connected to the short luck and Sovietsecurity. worked out beforethis system waveradiowhen a message was Tolkachev sinstituteinitiated could be usedsuccessfully. As it to be received. new securityproceduresthat developed, it was decided not to made it virtuallyimpossible for meetTo]kachev for an extended Tolkachevwas directed to tune him to leave the officeduring periodafter his March 1981 into a certainshortwave fre workhourswithoutwritten per meeting to decrease the fre quency at specifictimes and days mission. In December1982, quency of contactwithhim and with his demodulatorunitcon Tolkachevreturned his IOWL thusreduce the chancethat the nected to his radio to capture the equipment,broadcastschedule, KGBmightstumbleonto his messagebeingsent. Eachbroad instructions, and one-time pad to activities.Consequently, the castlasted 10 minutes,which his caseofficer. The CIAwas agentwas not met againuntil included the transmission of any never able to use this system to November1981, at whichtime he live message as well as dummy set up an unscheduledmeeting returned his SRACunit,saying messages. The agentcouldlater withhim. that he could not get it to work. break out the message by scroll The unitwasrepaired and ing it out on the screen of the Excellenttradecraft and good returned to him later. demodulatorunit. The first luckconspired to allow the CIA threedigits of the messagewould to continue its pattern of unde In March1982, the agent sig indicatewhether a live message tectedpersonalencounterswith naled for a SRACexchange, and was included for him, in which Tolkachev. Over 10 suchmeet a successfulexchange of SRAC case he wouldscroll out the mes ingswereheldbetweenOctober messages wascarried out on 13 sage,contained in five-digit 1980 and November1983. There March. Tolkachev had asked for groups, and decode the message weresomeinstanceswhereheavy the exchangebecause he wanted using his one-timepad. Using KGBsurveillance on CIAofficers
21 Tolkachev
Defeatingthe phonel habits of a typical teenagerwasmore forced a givenmeeting to be suspected CIApersonnel in gen thaneitherthe CIA or aborted, but for the mostpart eral would be increased the could theywereheld as scheduled. agent temporarily.Nonetheless, at manage! times the use of this technique The periodicallyheavyKGB sur was the onlywaythat a case veillance on variouscaseofficers, officercould get free to meetwith oftenwithout any apparentlogic, Tolkachev. did, however,force the CIA to becomemorecreative in its per Thecommunicationsplanwith the sonal-meetingtradecraft. A new car. The JIB, againcon Tolkachev had to be adjusted in cealed in a would countersurveillancetechnique largepackage, otherways as well. In Novem thatwasused for this operation then be removedfrom the car. At ber 1983,Tolkachevaskedthat that the officerwould involvedwhatwas called a Jack point, case he not be called at home to set up in-the-Box (JIB). A JIB (a almostcertainly be missed by the unscheduledmeetings,because KBG he popupdevicemade to look like surveillants,because the phonewas nowlocated in his the upperhalf of a person) would not get out of the car, but son sroom and it was his sonwho wouldhave of locat allowed a caseofficer to make a they no hope alwaysanswered the phone. meetingwith an agenteven ing him until he returned to a Although the CIAcoulddefeat whileundervehicular known site. KGBsurveillance,defeating the surveillance. habits of a typicalteenagerwas Meanwhile, the caseofficer, hav morethaneither it or the agent Typically, a JIB would be smug ing exited the car wearing a couldmanage! gledinto a car disguised as a Russian-stylecoat andhat, largepackage or the like. Sub wouldproceed by foot and public sequentlyTolkachev scaseofficer transportation to the meeting Favors for Oleg and otherstationpersonnel site, afterassuringhimselfthat would set out in the car many he indeed was free of surveil Tolkachev sdesire to satisfysome hoursbefore a plannedmeeting lance. Afterconducting the of the needs of his son was high with the agent. Following a pre meeting, he would use public on the agent s list of reasons for plannedroute, the driver at some transportation to return to the maintaining his relationship pointwouldmake a series of Embassy or to his home. This with US intelligence. Olegliked turnsdesigned to provide a brief method of avoidingsurveillance Westernrock-and-rollmusic. In periodwhen the trailingsurveil was usedsuccessfullyseveral the notethatTolkachevpassed to lance car wouldlose sight of the times for meetingswith the caseofficer at his October car containing the caseofficer Tolkachev. 1980meeting, he asked to be pro and otherCIApersonnel. After videdwithsomepopularrecords one of theseturns,Tolkachev s It was preferable not to overuse for passage to his son. He also caseofficerwouldjumpfrom the this techniquebecause the KGB requestedWesternstereoequip slowlymovingvehicle, at which would be well awarethat the ment. Finally, he asked for tine the driverwouldactivate caseofficerhadeludedsurveil advice on how he coulddepend the JIB. The JIB wouldgive the lance and thatalmostcertainly ablyreceiveWesternradio appearance to any trailingsur someoperational act had been broadcasts,whichwere fre veillanceteam of being the carriedout. Typically iii such sit quentlyjammed by Soviet missingcaseofficer. The car uations,someKGBretaliation authorities. wouldthencontinue its route, could be expected such as air let eventuallyarriving at a given out of the caseofficers tires, cars In response, the CIAprovided destination,usually the home of blocked on the street, or other sevencassettes of tapedrock one of the otherCIApersonnel in harassment andsurveillance of and-rollmusicduring a March
22 Tolkachev
Considerationwas given to thepossibility ofcompensatinghim in 1981meeting,despiteconcerns black-marketrate (which in his partwithexpensive thathavingsuchcassettescould mind was the real rate of or coins. pose a securitythreat.Tolkachev jewelry gold exchange)ratherthan the offi said that the CIAshould not cial rate. By his calculations, he worry,becausesuchmusicwas shouldhavereceivedmorethan available in the Russianblack four times the amount of rubles market, but he himselfdid not that he had beengiven. want to be botheredtrying to books on architecture for Oleg, as track it downthere. He then well as otherWesternbooks, CIAofficialsmanagingthis case requestedstereoheadphones for whichapparentlywere for both agreedthatTolkachev sinforma his son, somealbums, and the him and his son. Thebooks tion was well worth the sums he words of the songs in these includedHitler sMeinKampf a was seeking, and it was decided albums in English. He also copy ofthe Bible (in Russian), the to meet his requeststarting the askedthat he be given the words hApublicationSovietMilitary followingyear. Therewas, how to the songs on the seven cas Power, the memoirs of Golda ever,greatconcernabout the settesthathadbeenpreviously Meir, and a Solzhenitsynbook. largeamounts of fundsthat he taped for his son. He also asked for biographies of would be receiving. Any unusual famousworldfigures and a selec spending by Tolkachev or his Thiseffort to do favors for Oleg tion of popularWesternfiction. familycouldeasily be noticed by continued. In March1982, Although all indications are that the Sovietauthorities and lead to Tolkachev reluctantly asked his son was nevermadewitting a securityinvestigation.Because morepersonalfavors. He of Tolkachev s CIArole, he of the fears thatsuchlarge requested a Walkman for his son, clearly was a beneficiary. amounts of rublescouldcause as well as a set of pencils of vari securityproblems,consideration ous degrees of hardness for Oleg wasgiven to the possibility of to use for mechanicaldrawing. MoreMoneyMatters compensatinghim in partwith He also asked for somenon- expensivejewelry or goldcoins. Sovietrazorblades,writingthat Tolkachev sremunerationcontin blades shavingwithSovietrazor ued to be a subject of negotiation. In laterwritten is an unpleasantoperation. He In December1980, he askedthat exchanges, apologized for asking for such the 8.75percentinterestthat his Tolkachevagreedthat he might unfor be with trivialthings,notingthat, escrowsalary was accumulating partiallycompensated fine Russian-made tunately our personal life be paid to him in rubles at the very gold from the late 19th or consists also of all types of small end of eachcalendaryear. jewelry exert 20th He noted thingswhichsometimes an Despite the obvioussecuritycon early century. of thatsuch could be rea influence on the generalmood cerns, this requestwas granted. jewelry life. CIApersonnel in Eastern In November1981,Tolkachev sonablyexplained as havingbeen tasked left to him his mother. CIA Europewereultimately waspassed an amount of rubles by and con withpurchasing a localrazor equivalent to over$40,000,which headquarterssubsequently search of a year ssupply of razorblades for was the amount of interest to ducted a antiqueshops in passage to Tolkachev. which he would be entitled as of and otherpossiblesources 31 December of thatyear. Even London,Rome,Paris,Helsinki, In February1983,Tolkachev this,however, did not satisfyhim. Munich,NewYork, and Washing asked for variousdraftingmate ton, to locate and purchasesuch rials for his son, including In February1982,Tolkachev pieces. Thisproved to be quite specializeddraftingpens,inks, wrote the CIAthat the conver difficult, but eventuallysome erasers, and pentips. In April sion of his interestfromdollars itemswerefound and passed to 1983, he asked for someWestern to rublesshould be done at the Tolkachev.
23 Tolkacbev
In December1982,Tolkachev sonnel in the SovietUnionwere ciallyconstructedhidingcavity againraised the subject of his tasked to deviseworkableexfil in the vehicle. The secondary remuneration, butwith a differ trationscenarios,including the optionwould be a vehiclepickup ent twist. He said that he would casing of signalsites and agent on the outskirts of Moscow, the like to create a relativelylarge pickupsites,while CIAhead smuggling of Tolkachev and fam reserve of money in case of quarterstook on the task of ily into a secureholdingarea, unforeseenevents. He noted manufacturingcontainers in and theirsubsequentremoval that, if a fullbreakdown which the agent and his family from the country by controlled occurred in his activity, no could be smuggled out of the aircraft or overland by specially amount of moneywouldhelp. If, USSR. modifiedvehicle. however, a partialbreakdown occurred such as a co-worker Tolkachevappearedhighlyinter Therewas somediscussion of him catching hidingmaterials or ested in this subject,once it had actuallyissuing an exfiltration takingclassifiedmaterials beenbroached. One of planwithsuitablealternatives to home he be to bribe might able Tolkachev sformercaseofficers Tolkachev at his nextmeeting, in his CIA way out. headquarters recallsthatTolkachevwould March1983, but it wasdecided to neverlikedthis and ulti idea, periodicallybrainstorm on the discuss the subjectwith him in it discarded. mately was subject,suggestingwildly depth at thattime to ensurethat improbablescenarios, such as the CIA stentativeplansmade having the CIA fly a specially sense to him and to seekmore ExfiltrationPlanning madelightaircraft into a rural informationfrom him to aid in area of the SovietUnion,where the planning for this eventual
The CIA was alsofocused on the Tolkachev and his familycould ity. This was done in a written need to construct a viableplan be picked up. Whendiscussing note,which was passed to for removingTolkachev and his thatparticularpossibility, he Tolkachev at the Marchmeet from family the USSR in the notedthat the onlyproblem ing. In this note, it was proposed event of a perceivedthreat of might be thatsuch an aircraft to meetagainwithTolkachev in arrest. This subject had first designed to evadeSovietaircraft April to get feedbackfrom him beenraisedwithTolkachev in detectionsystemsmighthave and to allow for in-depthdiscus December1979. He responded in troubleaccommodating his wife, sions of an exfiltrationplan. February1980that he had never due to her weight! considered but leaving the USSR, Tolkachevwas met in April 1983 if the CIAcould him and that, get The subject of exfiltrationcame as planned. He refused,how his out of the he family country, up again in January1983,follow ever, to accept an envelopethat would like to for pursueplanning ing the initiation of new security had beenprepared for him out such an At this eventuality. regulations at Tolkachev sinsti lining an exfiltrationplanwith point,however, he informed the tute,whichsuggested at least the variousalternatives. He said CIAthat his wife and son were possibilitythat the Sovietsmight thatbecause of his currentfam totallyunwitting of his intelli havebecomeaware of the leak ily situation, he did not want to and thus the whole gencework, age of sensitiveinformationfrom considerexfiltration at thattime. of their exfiltra question possible thatinstitute. It was agreedthat tionwouldtake some a Leningradoptionwould be In a writtennote,Tolkachev deliberation. preferable if Tolkachev and his explainedfurther his unwilling familywere able to get out of ness to accept an exfiltration After the June 1980meeting, Moscow. Thiswouldinvolve a plan. He wrotethat he and his planning for the possibleexfiltra vehicularpick up in Leningrad wifehad someacquaintances tion of Tolkachev and his family and subsequentsmugglingacross who had left the SovietUnion for proceededsporadically. CIAper- the borderinto Finland in a spe Israel, and eventuallyended up
24 Tolkachev
I cannotthinkabout exfiltrationsince I
wouldneverleave my in the UnitedStates. The woman OTS was given the task of family. repro in this family had subsequently ducing this sign-outcard as well written to Tolkachev swifeabout as his buildingpass. Bothwere how much she missed her home completed by early1981 and land. Tolkachevsaid that his passed to Tolkachev. He substi wife had commentedthat she tuted the fakesign-outcard for couldneverleaveMoscow, let his real card in March1981, alone the SovietUnion,because greatlyrelieving the pressure he Meanwhile, CIA headquarters she wouldsuffer too muchnos felt, at least for the immediate continued to work on a fake talgia. Similarly,Tolkachev future. He had returned his fake buildingpass for Tolkachevthat wrotethat his son had com buildingpass,however,because he could use to check out docu mented(presumably in response the color of the outsidecoverwas ments,shouldtightersecurity to an elicitationeffort by his not quiteright. Fortunately at restrictions be re-imposed. In father)that, It would not be too the time, the institute was still October1980,headquarters bad to travel to the West for two undersomewhatrelaxedsecu reportedthatOTShoped to have or threeyears, but he could rity procedures, and Tolkachev a finalversion of the fakepass in neverleave the SovietUnion for was able to sign out documents November. goodbecause all his friendswere withoutleaving his buildingpass. there. Thatsamemonth,Tolkachev In November1981,however, he passed to the CIA a document that Tolkachev saidthat,giventhis reported his institutehad sign-outpermissioncardfrom his reinitiated the situation, I cannotthinkabout procedure by institute sdocumentlibrary. He which the had to be exfiltrationsince I wouldnever buildingpass askedthat the Agency stechni left at the documentlibrarywhen leave my family. Nonetheless, cal experts also try to duplicate signing out documents. By then, he providedwrittenanswers to this card. He wanted to use it to OTS had the fake the questions thathadbeen completed the real replace one surrepti buildingpass and it was included posed, so thatexfiltrationplan tiously,because the card in the materials to the ningcouldcontinue,against the passed contained a full listing of the heldthat day that his familysituation agentduring a meeting largevolume of sensitivedocu The somehowchanged. month. followingmonth, that ments Tolkachev had signed however,Tolkachevcalled for an out, most of which he had unscheduledmeeting to return obtained for the to photograph the fakepass again thecolor ProtectingProduction The CIA. agent had longwor was still not right. He notedthat riedthat, if and when any leak he would not need his original in By mid-1980, the operation had occurred the UnitedStates passwhile on extendedvacation settledinto a regularroutine, thatindicatedthatsensitive in January and February and withTolkachevtakingdocu informationfrom his institute could lend it for use in fabricat mentshomeduring his luncheon hadbeencompromised, the ing the fakepass. He stressed break for photographing. The KGB sfirstrecoursewould be to his concernthat his production mainlimitingfactor at thistime check the documentsign-out would fall off if thisproblemwere was the weather. In winter, cards, and, in so doing,they not solved. Thecaseofficer Tolkachevwas able to smuggle wouldquicklyfingerTolkachev resisted the temptation to take largequantities of documents out as a likelyculprit. If, however, he his pass at the meeting,reason of the instituteunder his heavy couldsubstitute a clean sign- ing thattherewas no guarantee clothing. In summer,lighter out card,therewould be nothing that a caseofficercouldmake a clothingrestricted howmuch he on the record to point to him as a subsequentmeetingwith the couldsneak out. possiblesuspect. agentwithin a giventimeframe
25 Tolkachev
Tolkachevgave the caseofficer a piece torn offhis so that to the pass return pass,whichmade theirbuildingpassanytimethey OTScouldworkwith giving up his pass too risky. left the building. To reenter,they Tolkachev told the exactcolors to was that a fall off needed to go to the maindesk in productionwould be prefera make a duplicate]. and givetheirpassnumber to ble to his that doingsomething the guard to reclaimtheirpass. could dramaticallyincrease the Evenworse,because the new chance of his beingcompromised. passesweredifferentfromtheir predecessors, the fakeOTSpass Despite the increasedsecurity was nowuseless. restrictions at his institute and provideadditionalfeedback on the difficulties in fabricating an the fakebuildingpassthatOTS In addition,Tolkachev and all exactreplica of his buildingpass, had produced. Thistime, he gave otherstaffers at the institute
Tolkachevcontinued the caseofficer a that he to produce piece nowneeded to get signedpermis documentaryintelligence,albeit had torn offhis pass so thatOTS sion slipsfromtheirbosses to at a reducedrate. In December couldwork with the exactcolors. leave the instituteduringwork 1981, he passedseveralrolls of ing hours,except for goinghome 35-mm in film; February1982, he A number of meetings had been for lunch. Thismeantthat it was providedmorethan a dozenrolls. heldbetweenNovember1981 virtuallyimpossible for Askedhow he had managed to and May 1982,primarilyinsti Tolkachev to go to his apartment do continue to this photography, gated by Tolkachev in an effort to on the indicatedmornings to lis the given securityrestrictions in solve his buildingpassproblem. ten to his shortwaveradio for Tolkachev place. said he was It was decided in Maythat, for possibleIOWLmessages. He able to resort to variousruses, securityreasons,thesepersonal requested a camerathat he could too complicated to explain in contactsshould be halted for sev use to photographdocuments at theirentirety. eralmonths. Later,heavy, but his office,despite his pastdiffi apparentlyroutine,KGBsurveil culties in doing so. Subsequently,Tolkachevpro lance of CIAcaseofficers in the videdanotherstorythat he had latterhalf of 1982forcedseveral CIAheadquartersspeculated concocted to bypassthesesecu plannedmeetings to be aborted. that the Sovietsmighthave rityregulations. He notedthat It was onlythrough the CLNs learnedthatsensitiveinforma first sometimes,afterleaving his use of its JIB techniquethat tion on the projectsbeingworked buildingpass and checking out a theywere able to reestablish per on in thisinstitutehadleaked to document, he wouldreturn to get sonalcontactwithTolkachev in the UnitedStates. It recom his pass so that he could go home December1982. mendedthatTolkachev be for lunch,explainingthat he directed to standdown for six could not return the documents At this Decembermeeting, the months(latermodified to sev he hadchecked out because his agentsaidthat for the firsttime eral months ).Headquarters boss was currentlyreviewing he had successfullyused the alsoopposedissuingTolkachev a them. He wouldthentake the OTS-fabricatedbuildingpass to specialcamera for use in his documentshome and photo smugglesensitivedocuments out office as being too risky, but said graphthem. When the case to photograph at his home. that the agentshould be officercommentedthat this was Nonetheless,Tolkachevwas informedthat he would be kept dangerous, Tolkachevlaughed depressedbecause his produc on full salaryduring any stand and said, Everything is tionwas down, as a result of a down in his operational dangerous. new,two-tieredbuildingpasssys activities. tem set up at the institute. Now, Tolkachevcalled for an unsched he and all but a few of the most At meetingsheld in February uled meeting in March1982 to seniorofficershad to turn in andMarch1983, the CIAcase
26 Tolkachev
officercontinued his discussions reduced the agent sproductivity requested. All the physicalsigns withTolkachevregardinghow to until his arrest at somestill- fromthis meetingwerepositive, keep the operationproductive in undetermineddate in the first except for the agent sinability to the face of the heightenedsecu half of 1985. photograph any documents. rity restrictions. At the March meeting,Tolkachevprovided a BetweenSeptember and Novem from his strip newbuildingpass ber 1983, five attempts to hold a SecurityThreat and a photograph of it so that meetingwithTolkachevfailed. OTScould try to duplicate it. He On threeoccasions, the agent sig WhenTolkachev swrittennotes saidthat he hadsmuggled his naled a readiness to meetbut did fromthis meetingwere pro 35-mmcamera into his office on not appear at the meeting site at cessed,however, the CIAofficers threeconsecutivedaysuntil he the appointedtime. On two involved in the casewere couldphotograph it clandes otheroccasions, the agent sig stunned to readthat a serious tinely at his desk! naled a readiness to meet, but no securitythreat to the agent had
appropriate CIAcaseofficerwas occurred the previousspring
Tolkachevcontinued to do some able to shakesurveillance and one that had frightenedhim to documentphotography in spite of show up at the meetingsite. the pointwhere he had beencon the securityrestrictions. He Tolkachevlatersaidthat he had vincedthat he would be arrested turnedovermorethan a dozen beenunable to make the three at any moment. rolls of 35-mmfilm at the March meetings he missed due to minor meetingwith his caseofficer and butunavoidableproblems, but he In his note,Tolkachevsaid that a anotherdozen-plusrolls at an hadgone to the meeting site for majorsecurityinvestigation had Aprilmeeting. the two meetingsthat the case beenconducted in his office in officer had had to abort. April1983,apparentlyregarding To dealwiththeserestrictions possibleleaks of classifiedinfor while at the sametimeheeding Finally, in mid-November, mationabout a particularSoviet the agent sdesire to remainpro Tolkachev and his caseofficer fighteraircrafttarget-recogni ductive, CIAheadquarters met. Theagentappearedrelaxed tion system.Tolkachev said that decided in May to issue him at and happy to be back in touch. securitypersonnel in his insti the nextopportunity the latest He provided 16 pages of hand tutehadrequested on a priority miniaturecamera in its inven writtennotes but no film, noting basis a list of all personnelhav tory,whichwas the third that for securityreasons he had ing access to information on this generation of suchcameras. beenunable to photograph any subject.BecauseTolkachev had Meanwhile, for securityreasons documents. Thecaseofficergave passedinformation on this sys Tolkachevwould be directed to Tolkachev a notediscussingsecu tem to the CIA the previous standdowncompletelyfromtak rity matters,some new month, he was convinced that ing any documentshome to requirements, two new concealed any leakwouldalmostcertainly photograph. minicameraswithaccompany be tracedback to him. ing instructions, a lightmeter, someadditionalquestions Tolkachevwrotethat,afterhav TheBeginning of the End regarding the efforts to duplicate ing beeninformed of this his documentsign-outcard, a investigation, he had asked for The summer and earlyautumn proposedmeetingschedule for the next day off. He had driven months of 1983wereharbingers the future,somepieces of gold to a dacha,taking all of his espio that the bestdays of the jewelry of the type he had speci nageparaphernalia including Tolkachevoperationwereover. fied, and somebooks of fiction his SEACunit,Pentaxcamera, Fromthen on, variousproblems and architecturethat he had and deaddrop and signal site
27 Tolkachev
He drove to a dacha, taking all of his spy paraphernalia...Land] instructions aswell as the the Agencyitselfcouldhave burnedeverything. books and moneythat had been takenplace somethingthatwas passed to him.1 At the dacha, he unthinkable in CIAeyes,until had burnedeverythingthat the treason of CIAofficerAldrich wouldburn. He had thrown the Ames.~ remainingcharredmetalparts out of the car on the driveback Over the nextseveralmonths, into Moscow. mationaboutsensitive intensediscussionstookplace documents. inside the CIAregardinghow At thatpoint,Tolkachevsaid best to protectTolkachev,while that he had startedcarrying stilltrying to keep the operation Tolkachev had prepared his writ everywherewithhim a poison going. It was agreedthatmeet ten account of theseAprilevents pill that he had obtained. He ings in the futureshould be held in the expectation of a meeting reasonedthat the most to a minimum,probablyonly likely with the CIA in September. With scenario for his arrestwould be a twiceyearly, with a possible re eachmissedmeeting, he added a call to his boss soffice, at which issuance of a SRACcapability. In few pages,each timeshowing addition, a revisedcommunica point he would be seized. As a increasedconfidencethat he had for the several tionssystemwas There result, next days, weathered the storm and would planned. time he called this was also a greatdeal of discus any was to be able to continue his work for office, he first the sion about the problem of trying placed poison the CIA. Meanwhile, as noted to get the funds to Tolkachevthat pill under his tongue, so that if above,Tolkachev had actedquite seized he could bite wereowedhim (theyearlyinter immediately calmly at his 16 Novembermeet it. Giventhesecircumstances, est on his escrowaccount), in ing, giving no sign at thattime light of the physicaldifficulties of wroteTolkachev, he wouldhave that he had suffered this tremen sums of to to standdown on document passinglarge money any dousscare. A subsequent CIA for the time him and the possiblesecurity photography being. messagefromMoscow to head threatposed by his havingsuch He said,however,that he would quarterscommentedthat continue to writteninfor sums in his possession.Finally, provide Tolkachev scontinuedsangfroid, it was agreedthat a complete despite the events of April,dem exfiltrationplanshould be pre onstratedthat this is indeed a 4 This was the firstinformation on pared and passed to the agent at drivenmanwho is determined to record to indicatethatTolkachev had the nextmeeting. continue to produce, by whatever purchased a dacha presumably at leastpartlywith the fundsthat he had means he deemsnecessary,right directed earnedfrom the CIA. Such a purchase up to the end,even if that end is Headquarters that tended to belie his earlierassertions his death. Tolkachev be advised to exercise
that he would not spendmoneyrashly extremecaution in his intelli and had no real desire to have a dacha activities. He CIA in turnnoted gence-gathering of his own The new car that he showed headquarters was not to take docu in any more off when he met with his case officer in a messagesent to Moscowthat mentshome to photograph. The October 1980presumably also was pur the informationprovided by CIAdecidedthat he should be chased at leastpartly with CIA funds. Tolkachev in March on the Soviet told to limit his activities for the Despite his protestationsthat his fighteraircrafttargetrecogni spendinghabitswould not compromise tion system had not been his CIArole, Tolkachevapparently did disseminatedoutside of the CIA want, at least to somedegree, to enjoy Ameswasarrested in March1994. He untilJune, and thus no leak of the fruits of his CIA labors. There is no ultimatelypleadedguilty to committing this informationcouldhave indication,however,thatthesepurchas espionage for the SovietUnionover a
es played any part in his eventualcom occurred. Thisignored, of course, longperiod and was sentenced to life in promise. the possibilitythat a leakfrom prison.
28 Tolkachev
Headquarters
reaffinnedthat it was too dangerous for mostpart to writingdown at eras all 90 framescame out him to be given homenotes on sensitivedocu clearly andturnedoveranother another35-mm mentsthat he hadread in the 22 pages of writtennotes. The officethat day. It was decided to camera. agent in turn was passedthree continue the practice of passing newminiaturecameras, a note, miniature CIAcameras to the variousmedicines,architects agent, but to tell him to use them drawing ink for his son, and some only if he felt completelysecure intelligencerequirements. in doing so. Tolkachevsaidthateverything twice a year, and he asked for was normal at work and that his In April1984,Tolkachevagain severalnewmini-cameras and health had improved. He again signaled his readiness to meet. for the re-issuance of his Pentax insistedthat he be given a Pen- At the meeting, the agentgave 35-mmcamera. Theonlynega tax; whentoldthat it was too the caseofficer the miniature tive noteappeared to be his dangerous, he repliedthat he ha l cameras he hadbeengiven, hav health hewrotethat he had requirements to meetand that he ing shot full rolls of filmwith beendiagnosed as having was anxious to get on with his both, and some 39 pages of hand chronicgastritis and that his work. writtennotes, 26 of which peritonitis had worsened. He containeddetailedintelligence. asked for medicines for both DespiteTolkachev sinsistence, He alsohandedoversomesche problems.Tolkachev scase CIAheadquartersreaffirmed officerwrote far matics on Sovietradarsystems. that, as as that it was too dangerous for him All Tolkachevwas it but a handful of the 96 concerned, to be givenanother35-mmcam that the framesthat he had takenwith appeared operation was era. CIApersonnel in Moscow back his spy cameraswere of excel to normal. agreed, but theyworriedthat he lentquality. justmight go out and buy a cam era himself It was agreedthat Risks Tolkachev, in turn, was passed Weighing andGains he should be passedmorethan two new spy cameras, a revised two miniaturecameras at future communicationsplan, a note, BetweenApril and October1984, meetings to try to keep him somemedicines and booksthat the internal CIAdebatecontin happy and to discourage any he had requested, and over ued regarding the appropriate effort to obtainanother35-mm
100,000rubles. He againrefused balancebetweenproductivity and camera. to accept the exfiltrationplan, security for this case. The insistingthat he would not be agent ssecuritywas deemed to be There was also a continued dis able to use it. the primaryconsideration. As a cussion of whatshould be done to
Tolkachevwas not to be result, pay Tolkachev the funds he reissued Pentax At this meeting,Tolkachev s a camera, would be owed as of 31 Decem because it would be moraleseemed to be high. He too danger ber. Based on his escrowaccount
ous for him to to saidthateverythingappeared try carry holding of over a milliondollars, documentshome be calm at his office, with no fur to photo whichrepresentedsalarythat in the future. The therdevelopmentsrelating to the graphed agent had beenaccumulated as of suddensecurityinvestigation of could be metmorethantwice a December1983,Tolkachevwould the previousyear. In his note to year, but only if he insisted that be owedseveralhundredthou
it was safe. the CIA, he wrotethat he was sandrubles,just in interest sorry to haveoverreacted and alone. His rubleinterestpay destroyed his spy gear. He also AnothermeetingwithTolkachev ment was based on the amount of saidthat he thoughtthat he tookplace in October1984. He his accumulatedsalary at the could be met safelymorethan returned the two miniaturecam- end of the previousyear.
29 Tolkachev
Business as Usual satisfy all theserequests, and he sistentwithwhat he had proposedthatsomeone be hired previouslyprovided in terms of In January1985,anotherseem full-time, to be paid out of his subjectmatter,quality, and quan inglyroutinemeetingwas held escrowfunds,just to takecare of tity. In addition, the caseofficer withTolkachev. He returned his theserequests. had not seen any change in KGB threeusedminiaturecameras surveillancehabits or patterns. and passed 16 pages of handwrit Tolkachev alsoexplained how he Although it is still not known ten notescontainingboth was currentlydoing his docu exactlywhenTolkachevwas com intelligence and operational mentphotography. He saidthat promised, it almostcertainlywas information. The caseofficer he usuallytook the documents to at somepointafter this meeting. gavehim five newminiature the toilet of an officebuilding in cameras,intelligencerequire the institutecomplexthatwas ments, new communications adjacent to his officebuilding. MissedMeetings sfgnalsites,some100,000rubles, He did thisbecause the lightwas and threeRussian-language betterthere (a biggerwindow) As a result of the failedphotogra
booksthat he had asked for. Per and it was used less often. He phyfrom the Januarymeeting, it Tolkachev srequest, the case said that he usuallyarranged to was decided to signal for an officer alsoreturnedsometechni make a coverstop at someone s unscheduledmeetingwith cal notesthat the agent had office in the otherbuilding to Tolkachev in March to ask him to passed to the CIAearlier. explain his presencethere. Nor try to rephotograph the docu mally, the wholeprocesstook no ments on the frontlinefighter. In Tolkachevagain saidthat aH was morethan 20 to 25 minutes. addition,OTShadrecentlytested calm at his office, and he immedi a new film thatcouldfunction in
- atelyaskedwhether his Pentax When the filmthatTolkachev low-lightconditions,whichcould be used in the had beenincluded in his pack had returned in January was miniaturecam film age. When he wastoldwhy this developed, it was unreadable, eras; this was to be given to had not beendone, he saidthat almostcertainly due to the lack him at this nextmeeting. he disagreed butwouldabide by of light he had written in his the decision.Although he said notethat he had done the photog In earlyMarch,Tolkachev scase that his overallhealthwas bet raphy on a cloudy day, and he officer put up a visualsignalthat ter, his teethwere still bothering worriedthat he had not had suf he wanted a meeting.Tolkachev,
him. He suggestedthat the next ficientlight. Thiswas however,failed to signalthat he meeting be held in June, andthat particularlyunfortunatebecause couldmake a meeting. In mid- plans be made for an average of he had notedthat the photo March, he appeared to signal his threemeetings per year. graphedpapers had included readiness to meet thiswas the veryimportantdocuments con secondoption for a possiblemeet
At thismeeting,Tolkachev had a cerningfrontlinefighters for the ing in March byopening one of long list of personalrequests; 1990s. Tolkachev did, however, the transomwindows in his includingmedicines,transcripts providesomeusefulinformation apartmentbetween12:15 p.m. of officialstatementsmade by on this subject in his notes. and 12:30p.m. Sovietleaders as reported in the Westernpress;books,albums, Nothinghappened at the Janu In retrospect, it may be notewor and soft-tippedpens for his son; ary meetingthatindicatedthat thy that he opened a transom and English-languagematerials the operation at thatpoint had windowthat he normally did not (written and cassette) for his son beencompromised.Tolkachev s use and which was less visible and one of his son sfemale demeanorwas consistentwith from the street. Tolkachevmay friends.Tolkachevrecognized that of previousmeetings, and havebeentrying to indicatethat that it wouldtake a lot of work to the writteninformation was con- he was in trouble,althoughthere
30 Tolkachev
At the exacttime set for the meeting, the caseofficerwas is no otherevidence to support medicine; a bookconcealment suddenlyjumped by thishypothesis. In any event, he devicethatcontained 250 pages morethan a dozen did not appear for the meeting. of Westernnewspaper and maga The thirdalternatemeetingwas KGBpersonnel. zine articlesrequested by set for late March, but he failed Tolkachev; and an envelopewith to signal a readiness to meet so thousands of rubles. no meetingwas attempted. For securityreasons, it was decided An accompanyingnotethanked not to try again to signal for an the agent for the veryimpor unscheduledmeetingbut to wait somenearbybushes.Several tantwritteninformation that he for the nextscheduledmeeting, well-dressedmen,apparently had provided at the lastmeeting, which was set for June. seniorsecuritypersonnel,quickly but statedthat it had not been appeared to direct the seizure. possible to recover the docu The caseofficerwasbundled into mentsthat he hadphotographed. Disaster a van and taken off to Lubyanka It discussed a newlow-lightfilm Prison. Tolkachevwas not seen that it was hopedwould be ready On 5 June,whichwas the first at the meeting site nor later at for passage to him soon, and option for a meeting in that the prison. described his photographyfrom month,Tolkachevsignaled his the previoussummer as excel readiness to meet. During the The treatment of the caseofficer lent. Themessageraised the indicatedtimeframe, he opened duringhis arrestfollowedstan possibility of providinghim with the middletransomwindow in dardKGBprocedures for such a newdocumentsign-outcard so his apartment,whichwas the situations. He was physically that he could use it to replace the window he normallyused. How restrained and thoroughly original as we did in 1980. It ever, the caseofficerwhoplanned searched but not physically cited the CIA sreluctance to pro to make the meeting was forced abused. At Lubyanka, he was videEnglish-languagematerials to abortwhen he encountered accused ofbeing a spy. In front of for his son and his femalefriend heavysurveillancebefore the him, and whilebeingvideotaped, because of concernabouthow he meeting, and it was not possible the packagethat he had planned wouldexplainthese to his unwit to send an alternatecaseofficer to pass to Tolkachev was opened tingson. And,finally, the note on this occasion. piece by piece, withsomerun statedthat the enclosed ningcommentaryfrom the KGB pay ment of thousands of rubles was On 13 June, the secondalternate questioners.Getting no reac partialpayment of the interest meetingdate,Tolkachev sreadi tion, the KGBultimatelynotified due to you in 1985. ness-to-meetsignal was again the US Embassy of his arrest. seen. The caseofficer had not Detained at 9:40p.m., the case detected any surveillance in pro officerwasfinallyreleased at The arrest of the CIAcaseofficer ceeding to the meetingsite. As 12:20am. washighlypublicized in Moscow, he approached the site, the only but no mentionwas made of unusualthing he notedwas a The caseofficer had beencarry Tolkachev by name or position. womantalkingloudly on a radio ing five miniatureconcealed As expected, the caseofficer and taxi phone in the area. At the cameras; fourpages of handwrit his familywereforced to leave exacttime set for the meeting, ten materialsthatwerebeing the country the weekfollowing however, the caseofficerwassud returned to Tolkachev at his the arrest. It was not until Sep denlyjumped by morethan a request; two architecturalbooks; temberthatTolkachevwas dozenKGBsecuritypersonnel 20 French and 20 Germandraw publiclynamed as havingbeen dressed in militarycamouflage ing pens for Tolkachev s son; a arrested in June for complicity uniforms whohadbeenhiding in largequantity of periodontal in this intelligenceoperation.
31 Tolkachev
Takingdismissalfrom the CIA]badly, EdwardLeeHoward Behind the Compromise The KGB is known to investigate placedphonecalls to carefully and systematically any Moscow. According to overtreporting, allegations of treason so that Edward Lee Howard, a disgrun they can build an airtightcase tied formerCIA officer, is beforetheymake an arrest. stronglysuspected of havingcom Thus, it is possiblethatHoward promisedTolkachev to the KGB. betrayedTolkachev at his first Howard had beenmadeaware of meetingwith the Soviets,result as possibleindicatorsthat the Tolkachevoperation in early ing in the initiation of a time- Howardmightultimatelybetray 1983 as part of his preparation consumingKGBinvestigation. CIA secrets in retaliation for his for a plannedassignment to Mos Howardalso not have dismissal. may cow thatsummer.Although this recalled the exactname and posi wouldhavebeen his firstover tion of the agent,whichcould According to articles in the US seastour as a CIAofficer, his havemade it initiallydifficult for press,erstwhileSovietdefector clean background he had the KGB to zero in on Tolkachev. VitaliyYurchenkotoldAmerican servedoverseaswithboth the On the otherhand,Howardcould officialsthat a formerCIAoffi PeaceCorps and the Agency for haveheldback on providing the cial determined to be InternationalDevelopmentprior (quickly mostimportantinformationthat Howard)contacted the KGB in to joining the CIA made him a he had at his disposal,which Austria in 1984 and goodcandidate to handle the September wouldinclude his knowledge of providedinformationregarding Tolkachevoperation in Moscow. the Tolkachevcase. He might CIA to operations.~According havewanted to probe the Soviets theseaccounts,Howardtraveled Howard,however, had problems at his firstmeeting to confirm to Europeagain in April 1985 during a routinesecurityreinves theirwillingness to payhimwhat and metwith the KGB in Vienna, tigation in early1983,prior to he thought he wasworth. where he providedadditional his planneddeparture for Mos information on clandestine cow. He reportedlymadesome As it turned out, Tolkachev s operations.7 admissions of inappropriate dayswouldhavebeennum
behavior, and still failed to sat bered,even if Howardhad not There littledoubtthatHoward isfy securityinvestigatorsthat he is betrayedhim. According to overt but it is not wasbeingfullyhonestwith betrayedTolkachev, accounts,AldrichAmes also clearwhetherthis was donedur them. Based on theseproblems, passedTolkachevsname to the 1984 it was decided to terminate his ing his September or Aprii KGBwhen he volunteered to 1985 with the Soviets. employment,which was done in meeting work for them in 1985. Ames
April1983. claimsthat he did not provide a full dump regarding all the sen 6 Yurchenkowas a KGBsecurityofficer Takingdismissalbadly,Howard sitive CIAcases of which he was whodefected in August1985. He subse started awareuntilJune; he reportedly drinking quentlyre-defected to the SovietUnion however, had been couldhave this informa heavily heapparently in November1985,leading to an intense provided
a periodicbingedrinker for some debate as to whether or not he hadbeen tion to them in April1985,when time, a fact that CIAmanagers a validdefector in the firstplace. None he firstpassedclassifiedinforma theless, all the evidencethat has wereunaware of. He placed tion to the Soviets. emergedsincethenstrongly phonecalls to Moscow in the supports the suppositionthat he was a legitimate summer of 1983 on morethan defector. one occasion, to Marksfrom the KGB asking speak Howardsubsequentlyfled to the Soviet ugh with the CIAchief These evi Union. According to pressreports, he dentlywereharassmentcalls, died in an accidental fall in Moscow in An article in the Sovietnewspa and the chiefcorrectly sawthem 2002. per SovetskayaRossiya in
32 Tolkachev
Tolkachev s
informationwas so
voluminousand so February1990discussing the 1981,commented in retrospect on valuablethat,even Tolkachevcasewas clearly the the value of Tolkachev sproduc hewasarrested work of KGBofficials. It con though tion. The analystnotedthat tained a number of comments in 1985, the taskforce Tolkachev sinformationwas so that can be taken as only grudg continued to exploit voluminous and so valuablethat, for the CIA: ing praise his informationuntil eventhough the agent was 1990. arrested in 1985, the taskforce CIAprovidedTolkachev with continued to exploit his informa a cleverlycompiledmeeting tion untilapproximately1990. schedule. CIA instructors
madeprovisions for even the Fortunately, no indication has tiniest details the of . . . surfacedthateitherTolkachev s miniaturecameracamewith out his assignment, they wife or his son was everimpris detailedinstructionsand a checked up on his healthand oned or suffered any long-term meter Let went to to stress . us light . . give greatpains effectsfrom his treason. CIAexperts the credit due how much they valued him Tolkachevclearlytookinto them theyworkedreally andhow concernedthey were account the need to shieldthem hard to findpoorlyillumi for his well-being. from his CIA natedanddesertedplaces in fully activities, so Moscow for meetingswith thattheywouldsurvive any com Tolkachev. A Final promise. At least one report . . . Anyoneunfa Accounting miliarwith CIA Stricks indicates thatOlegTolkachev is
now a Russianarchi wouldneverimaginethat, if A seniorCIAanalystwho had prominent tect. To the that his son a lightwere to burnbehind a been a member of the small, degree certainwindow in the US highlycompartmentedDepart and his wifesurvived his arrest, AdolfTolkachevwouldhavebeen Embassy, this could be a ment of Defensetaskforce coded formed in 1979 to review contentthat he had accom message for a spy. . -. Langleyprovidedtouching Tolkachev sproduct and make plished his goal of seriously care for its agent ifhe recommendations on the best damaging the Sovietsystem neededmedicine,everything ways to exploit it, and who had whileprotecting his family and
was In continued to work on thesemate provided. . . . every allowingthem to leadnormal instructionefficientlysetting rialsafter he came to the CIA in lives.
33