Spycraft - Melton [79]
The compromise of the Tolkachev operation was not triggered by a lapse in tradecraft, but the treason of two CIA officers, first Edward Lee Howard and later Aldrich Ames. Howard, a disgruntled CIA officer, was dismissed in April of 1983, but had been briefed about Tolkachev in early 1983. Howard likely betrayed the invaluable agent to the KGB in September of 1984 in Austria. Ames confirmed Howard’s information when he passed the names of several other CIA assets including Polyakov to the KGB in May and June of 1985.
In February 1990 the Soviet newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya described the Tolkachev case in an article that was clearly the work of KGB officials. It contained a number of comments that offered grudging praise for the CIA:
CIA provided Tolkachev with a cleverly compiled meeting schedule. CIA instructors made provisions for even the tiniest of details . . . the miniature camera came with detailed instructions and a light meter . . . Let us give CIA experts the credit due them—they worked really hard to find poorly illuminated and deserted places in Moscow for meetings with Tolkachev. . . . Anyone unfamiliar with CIA’s tricks would never imagine that, if a light were to burn behind a certain window in the U.S. Embassy, this could be a coded message for a spy. . . . Langley provided touching care for its agent—if he needed medicine, everything was provided. . . . In every instruction efficiently setting out his assignment, they checked up on his health and went to great pains to stress how much they valued him and how concerned they were for his well-being.
The inventory of OTS contributions to the operation involved virtually every element of spy gear and capabilities used by the CIA, including:
Secret writing materials
Concealments
One-time pads
Multiple models of subminiature cameras
Light meters
Disguises
Surveillance detection receivers
Commercial cameras
Clamps for holding cameras steady
Duplicates of security passes
Duplicates of library sign-out cards
Exfiltration containers
Short-range agent-communication system
Commercial shortwave radio
Demodulator unit for radio broadcast
L-pill
The Jack-in-the-Box (JIB)
Special low-light film
During more than five years, case officers and Tolkachev met clandestinely more than twenty times. Never before had this number of personal meetings with an agent inside the Soviet Union been contemplated or securely executed. During the five years of Tolkachev’s active service, the fusion of tradecraft and technology demonstrated that there were no longer permanently “denied areas” for agent operations.
As early as March of 1979 a memorandum sent to the Director of Central Intelligence outlined the significance of the material beginning to flow from Tolkachev, concluding it to be “of incalculable value.”
From the first rolls of film containing technical data on Soviet aircraft, Tolkachev’s reporting was singular in both quality and detail. Especially significant was the window into future Soviet weapons systems that was unobtainable by technical collection programs. Tolkachev provided U.S. military analysts a perspective on Soviet capabilities a decade into the future. That information alone saved the U.S. government billions of dollars in military research and development.30 Tolkachev’s production in terms of volume and value was so significant that a special task force exploited it until 1990.
A senior CIA operations officer, after an exhaustive study of the case, characterized A. G. Tolkachev “a worthy successor to Penkovsky.”31
CHAPTER 11
An Operation Called CKTAW