Spycraft - Melton [70]
A month later, Tolkachev was back. This time he slid into the chief’s car as it was parked. The two had a brief conversation and Tolkachev left another note. Headquarters again directed that no response be made. Two weeks later, Tolkachev returned a third time, leaving a note that provided additional personal and professional information. Headquarters considered the proposal again, but determined that counterintelligence concerns overrode any meeting. Then, in May, Tolkachev made a fourth approach, spotting the car and pounding on it to get the American’s attention. He was ignored, and that summer the CIA chief left Moscow for another assignment.
Six months passed until December 1977 when an Italian national working for the Americans was approached by an unknown Soviet and handed a note at a local grocery store. In this note, Tolkachev volunteered to work as an agent and included two pages of technical data on Soviet aircraft electronic systems to establish his access to sensitive information.
Langley continued to forbid contact. There were now even more reasons to be cautious than before. A few months earlier in August of 1977—barely a month after the arrest of Martha Peterson and loss of TRIGON—a fire in the embassy, which some claimed was suspicious, destroyed three upper floors, including the roof. And other operations were compromised that autumn.
The fire had been a physical disaster for much of the embassy. Ron Duncan, a TOO, was having an evening drink at the bar in the Marine House when reports arrived about smoke in the embassy. A few moments later, a Marine cadre discovered the fire already burning out of control on the upper floors. As calls went to the Moscow fire department, Ron rushed to his post and, with water from fire hoses pouring through the ceiling, acted as a guard throughout the night to prevent documents and equipment from being taken by the Russian firemen swarming through the building.
“The Russian firemen, I have to commend them, they were super. They were superb firefighters,” said Ron. “The Russians came in with a lot of fire trucks. They poured water on the fire from ten o’clock Friday night until eight Saturday morning. And I swear, they were so efficient with their aim that not one drop of water hit the sidewalk. It was all concentrated on the fire in the building. But the combination of fire, water, and smoke wiped out several offices. Almost everything was destroyed.”
The fire presented a myriad of security problems. Damaged documents and photographs could not be thrown into the trash, which would likely be searched by the KGB. Nor, for the same reason, could the damaged furniture or office equipment be hauled to the Moscow dump. Security required that chairs, desks, typewriters, and other furnishings not locally procured had to be returned to the United States. A simple thing, such as the number of discarded chairs, might provide KGB’s counterintelligence with an estimate of the number of Agency personnel.
It would, Ron knew, be a massive cleanup and reconstruction project. Virtually every piece of office furnishings was damaged beyond use and would have to be disassembled for shipment. The restoration work would go on seven days a week, eighteen hours a day, for more than a year.
So Ron Duncan found himself with a third full-time job—“ODA”—Other Duties As Assigned. Cleaning up, disassembling, packing, shipping, and reconstruction occurred alongside his cover work and his TOO responsibilities of building concealments and deploying technology. “At least I had some training,” Ron recalled. “My tech skills, electrical, painting, carpentry, all came in handy.”
Tolkachev, unaware of the disruptions caused by the fire, persisted in attempting to secure a meeting with an Agency officer. It was not until February of 1978 that Headquarters finally approved contact with the determined volunteer. Information