Spycraft - Melton [281]
27 Tolkachev used the updated OTS-provided demodulator to receive the ciphered message. At the predetermined time and date a ten-minute-long transmission would take place that could include both real and dummy messages. To keep the KGB guessing about the messages the airwaves were often filled with dummy messages; only the real agent would know the date, time, and frequency for the message intended for him. The newly developed demodulator was connected to the radio and captured the message as it was received. The agent could then later recall it and scroll it across the screen of the demodulator unit. The first three digits of the message contained an indicator that told Tolkachev if the following message was intended for him. If so, he could scroll out the reaming portion of the message, which could be as long as 400 five-letter groups. Tolkachev would then use his OTP to decipher the message. Tolkachev attempted to monitor the IOWL transmission, but was unable to do so because of the lack of privacy in his apartment. Shortwave transmissions usually took place at night when atmospheric conditions provided greater transmission ranges and clearer signals, but this also conflicted with the times his family was in the apartment. As a result, subsequent transmissions were moved to the daytime hours when Tolkachev could arrange to be home. Unfortunately his institute’s change in security regulations eliminated trips away from the office during working hours and in December of 1982 Tolkachev returned all of his IOWL equipment to his handler.
28 Royden, “Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky,” 27.
29 Unbeknownst to Tolkachev, the plan was modeled after the CIA’s first successful exfiltration of an agent from the USSR three years earlier. Victor Sheymov, a Soviet communications security specialist, and his wife and young daughter were hidden in the back of a van and secretly transported from a site near Leningrad to freedom in May 1980. The daring escape story is told in Tower of Secrets by Victor Sheymov. Then, an almost identical exfiltration plan was used in the summer of 1985 by MI6 (British Intelligence) to rescue their agent, KGB Col. Oleg Gordievsky, from inside the USSR. (see: Gordievsky, Oleg, Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky ([London: Macmillan, 1985]).)
30 Royden, “Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky,” 33.
31 Royden, “Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky,” 5.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1 Pronounced “See Kay Taw,” this operational code name would have no meaning to anyone who had not been briefed on the activity. CK initials referred to the Soviet/East European Division that ran the operation.
2 Jeffrey T. Richelson, The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2001), 239.
3 Ibid., 29.
4 Bearden and Risen, The Main Enemy, 28.
5 The specialized antennas and broad-spectrum radio monitors used from a listening post continuously searched the airwaves for three reasons: (1) to gain positive intelligence, (2) to monitor police and counterintelligence frequencies to identify levels of surveillance activity, and (3) to spot transmissions that might indicate the presence of hidden listening devices transmitting from within the Embassy. Once a signal of interest was spotted on the cathode ray display, every effort was made to locate and identify the source and purpose of the transmission. If the signal had intelligence value it would be tagged and recorded, otherwise the monitoring equipment ignored it and continued its search for new and unrecognized signals.
6 Bearden and Risen, The Main Enemy, 28.
7 Early satellites captured images on film that was jettisoned and recovered as it parachuted to earth. The film was then flown to a facility to be processed and analyzed. Depending on where the film was recovered, the process from satellite to analysis could take a week or longer. Real-time satellites,