Spycraft - Melton [71]
In his previous letter, Tolkachev had included a partial telephone number missing two digits. His instructions informed the CIA he would be standing in line at a designated bus stop at a certain time holding two pieces of plywood, each with one of the missing digits written on it. All the CIA officer had to do was drive by the bus stop at the designated time and copy the missing digits. The plan failed. An attempt to dial the completed number proved unsuccessful. However, if Agency personnel had any concerns that Tolkachev had given up, they were unfounded. The would-be agent was nothing if not dogged.
As the chief was walking with his wife in March, Tolkachev unexpectedly approached, and quickly handed over a package with eleven handwritten pages on airfield technology. Included in the package was detailed personal information regarding both himself and his family, along with an address, phone number, and other pertinent information. A case officer called the telephone number specified in the note, and this time made contact. If he was not a dangle, Tolkachev had taken an enormous risk in identifying himself and family while passing secret military information. Had that note fallen into the hands of the KGB, the consequences would have been dire.
Five months after the initial phone call, Tolkachev was directed to a Moscow dead drop site near his home. Ron had constructed a concealment using a locally obtained construction worker’s mitten. To give the appearance of an unusably dirty, well-worn mitten, he ripped and dirtied the glove so that it resembled a piece of litter. Dropped beside a phone booth near the would-be spy’s apartment, it would attract no attention, Tolkachev would find concealed within the worn fabric all the materials needed to begin his clandestine reporting.
The concealment contained special carbon paper for secret writing, three cover letters with nonalerting content whose blank reverse side would hold the SW message, accommodation addresses, a one-time pad to encipher and decipher exchanges, instructions for using the OTP, intelligence requirements, and operational instructions.16
A month later, three SW letters arrived at accommodation addresses outside the USSR. Once developed by OTS techs, their physical and chemical analysis revealed all three had been opened, but none showed signs that the SW was detected.17 The letters contained tantalizing information from Tolkachev, including the assertion that he had ninety-one pages of handwritten notes on subjects such as the new Soviet airborne radar and reconnaissance system and the status of a new Soviet aircraft weapons system. Soviet specialists judged the information to be so important that, despite the TRIGON roll-up, Langley authorized a high-risk personal meeting to establish an in-country communications plan between Tolkachev and his handler.
The meeting was scheduled for New Year’s Day 1979. Because it was a popular holiday, KGB surveillance tended to be light. A Moscow case officer, after determining he was “black”—that is, without KGB surveillance—called Tolkachev at his apartment to trigger the meeting at a predetermined location. They talked while walking outside in the frigid Moscow winter for less than an hour. Tolkachev passed nearly a hundred pages of highly technical aeronautical design data that included diagrams, electronic specifications, and material copied from official papers. In return, the case officer gave him a list of intelligence requirements along with “good faith” money. The case officer reported that Tolkachev was “calm, deliberate, and one of the few Russians sober on such a major holiday.”
CIA operational sketches of covert communications sites for use by A. G. Tolkachev in Moscow, circa 1984.
In Washington, Pentagon and Agency analysts marveled at the detail of the intelligence passed along at the meeting. The reporting was consistent