Spycraft - Melton [74]
The impact of the change was immediate as Tolkachev was again able to take documents home to photograph with his Pentax. Weather proved to be an unexpected, though important factor. During the winter, his heavy outer clothing allowed him to conceal more documents than during the summer. In June of 1980, more than 200 rolls of 35mm film were passed, the largest exchange of film in one meeting.
Despite the surprise change of security requirements at the institute, graphic artists at OTS continued work on the propusk reproduction. In October of 1980, Tolkachev then asked the CIA to reproduce the institute’s document sign-out card containing a running list of all documents he accessed. He was justifiably worried, since a leak could trigger an investigation leading to the institute and document cards. However, a clean sign-out card would sever all links between him and the compromised documents.
In the fall of 1980 Tolkachev was issued an emergency back-up communication system based on the SRAC technology originally developed for Polyakov. This second-generation BUSTER could transmit an entire typewritten page of text and partially eliminate the need for riskier personal meetings. The new SRAC, called DISCUS, consisted of two identical units—for case officer and agent—the size of two cigarette packs laid end to end. Each unit had a small detachable antenna, charger, battery pack, Russian or English key plates, and instructions. In advance of an exchange, the agent and case officer would key in their respective messages one character at a time. As each character was entered, the unit automatically converted it to a cipher before storing it. These new units exchanged messages in “burst transmissions” of less than three seconds. The DISCUS system also had a longer line-of-sight transmission range than BUSTER and, once received, a message was automatically deciphered and readable on a small screen built into the face of each unit.
Tolkachev received a DISCUS in March of 1981, but a malfunction necessitated a replacement unit and, some months later, a successful exchange of messages occurred.
Using this new technology required all the elements of disciplined tradecraft perfected for Moscow operations. For Tolkachev, the communications plan involved initiating the exchange by leaving a signal, such as a white chalk mark on a specific telephone pole along the route normally taken by CIA officers. Once the signal was laid down and acknowledged, the agent and case officer would move into that prearranged ELD (electronic dead drop) area at the same time for the exchange.26
OTS completed the fake sign-out card and passed it along with the duplicate propusk to Tolkachev in March of 1981. Wasting no time, he quickly swapped the new “clean” document sign-out card for the original, confident he was safe, at least for the immediate time being. The outside cover for the forged propusk, however, was a slightly different color than the original and returned. Fortunately, with the relaxed security procedures, he was still able to check out documents without having to surrender his building pass.
To ensure continued contact in case of emergency, Tolkachev was also given a commercially available shortwave radio, an OTS demodulator, and two OTPs. Part of an “Interim One-Way Link (IOWL),” the system was a technical upgrade version of what Penkovsky used twenty years earlier.27 However, because of limited privacy at his apartment and problems related to transmission times, the system had only limited operational utility for Tolkachev.
In November of 1981, the institute reinstated the security restriction that required building passes be surrendered when checking documents out. Fortunately, OTS had a new fake pass waiting,