The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

by David E. Hoffman

  The question was taken to Turner, the CIA director, on January 17, 1980, in a memorandum carried by hand to his seventh-floor office. It was signed by Warren E. Frank, who was acting chief of the Soviet division until Hathaway arrived. In his memo, Frank predicted that Tolkachev “will probably continue to press hard” for the suicide pill, and he offered an excerpt of Tolkachev’s note in December saying the suicide pill was becoming “more essential for me.”

  The Moscow station had made a strong appeal for the L-pill, but it was watered down by Frank before reaching Turner. Frank proposed that Guilsher “make another effort” to persuade Tolkachev “of the inadvisability of having an L-pill.” Guilsher had already done this. Frank laid out four “talking points” that Guilsher could use in talking with the restive agent. Guilsher had already received similar talking points from headquarters eight months earlier. However, in this list, a new point was included: “The Director of our organization has very strong, personal reservations, on both moral and operational grounds, against the issuance of this capability.”

  The Moscow station wanted a clear and straightforward decision to give Tolkachev what he demanded. Instead, headquarters responded with fog and caution. Frank proposed giving the spy a vague promise the CIA would deliver the L-pill later. This was another way to stall. Even if Turner approved the L-pill in February, Frank suggested, “we will still easily be able to defer the issuance of the pill until winter of this year, based on the summer hiatus as well as manufacturing and concealment delays.” Frank’s memo asked for Turner’s approval for what was essentially a compromise—a vague promise to provide the pill someday, but only if Tolkachev “continues to feel it is necessary.”

  Turner was unhappy with all of it. As Frank had written, Turner opposed the L-pill on both moral and operational grounds, and on the memo he scribbled the operational reasons. “We are concerned (in part from experience) that availability of L-pills can encourage an agent to take risks that are not prudent.” He also wrote, “The KGB is well aware of our distribution of L-pills to an agent and would doubtless be thorough in searching.”

  At the bottom of the memo, the division had typewritten “APPROVED” with a space for Turner’s signature. On January 24, Turner wrote “Not” in front of “APPROVED” and said Guilsher should keep stalling and attempt once again to dissuade Tolkachev.

  “Do not make commitment on this exchange.

  “Stan.”9

  Guilsher and Hathaway were sorely disappointed. Guilsher felt he understood Tolkachev’s thinking and feared an angry reaction. He archly reminded headquarters that “talking points” had already been covered with Tolkachev and further discussions along those lines “will only alienate him.” Moreover, he said, if Tolkachev were told the request was still pending, it could “lead to loss of this valuable asset.”

  “Do we want to risk this?” he asked plaintively.

  Guilsher also reminded headquarters that Tolkachev had warned them in October not to play games with him and had threatened to quit. At the time, Tolkachev had written, “I understand perfectly that I will only be able to end my cooperation by committing suicide.” Guilsher pointed out that he wouldn’t need the CIA’s suicide pill to take his own life. It was a very tough message to headquarters, suggesting the operation could collapse and they might forever lose Tolkachev, both the man and the espionage operation, because of Turner’s refusal to approve the suicide pill. Guilsher offered one last-ditch idea. In the next meeting, he said, he could tell Tolkachev that he should write a “personal letter” to the head of the CIA, appealing for the L-pill.

  That would at least keep the “special request” alive.10

  Beyond the suicide pill, Guilsher and Hathaway faced a troubling dilemma in January 1980. Tolkachev was producing extremely valuable intelligence but taking too many risks. To improve his security, they might have to slow down his spying. That trade-off would be hard enough, but there was another factor: any effort to slow down Tolkachev would collide with his personal desire to damage the Soviet Union as much as possible. They might not be able to slow him down.

  The Moscow station and headquarters wrestled with this knotty problem day after day. The library permission sheet was the biggest danger. If it was ever examined closely by the authorities, they would immediately spot the excessive number and scope of the documents Tolkachev signed out. On January 12, headquarters told Guilsher and Hathaway “we certainly share your deep concern” about it. “Unfortunately, the damage has been done, as the log sheets in the First Department are there for the checking.” Headquarters suggested Tolkachev invent a cover story, “however thin,” for why he needed all the extra documents he had checked out.11

  But the problem ran deeper than covering past actions. Tolkachev was taking more and more risks, including his daring “ruse” to spirit documents out of the institute in December. On January 16, headquarters acknowledged, “Clearly we have to try to improve his security, slow him down.”12 Headquarters suggested they withhold a replacement 35 mm Pentax camera from Tolkachev so that he could not take any more documents home to photograph. This could alleviate some of the security concerns: he wouldn’t be carrying top secret papers out of the institute. But it would also mean a loss of productivity. Tolkachev had already delivered to the CIA thousands of pages of valuable intelligence using the Pentax camera. Tolkachev, his enthusiasm undiminished, raised the prospect in his December note of a “quick delivery” of documents in January. Headquarters threw cold water on that idea, telling the Moscow station, “At all costs we must avoid any hurried, possibly suspicious act like a ‘quick delivery.’ ”13

  Guilsher’s instinct was that withholding the Pentax camera would be a mistake. He and Hathaway were “convinced,” he wrote to headquarters, “all our urging will go unheeded,” because “nothing will deter” Tolkachev “from his goal of doing maximum damage in shortest time.” In a flurry of messages, headquarters expressed concern that Tolkachev was heading toward disaster.14 Guilsher replied that they must brake Tolkachev softly, “without damaging his motivation, offending him, or having him lose faith in us.”

  Aside from Tolkachev’s immediate security risks, Guilsher had a nagging worry about a longer-term danger. As Tolkachev turned over more and more documents, additional military and intelligence experts in the United States would see them. Over time, the design of U.S. weapons would change, battle tactics would be revised, and countermeasures would be created, all based on what Tolkachev had provided. Guilsher wrote to headquarters, “It is not inconceivable word will eventually trickle back to Soviets that we are in possession of certain types of information. Investigation of possible leaks at Soviet end could quickly point finger at cksphere.”15 The first thing the Soviets would look at was the permission sheet with all Tolkachev’s signatures on it.

  Guilsher felt squeezed and impatient. Headquarters wanted to reject Tolkachev’s demands for the L-pill. Headquarters wanted to reject Tolkachev’s request for the 35 mm camera. Headquarters wanted to slow down the agent who, if anything, was racing ahead.

  The CIA’s miniature Tropel camera, while an ingenious feat of engineering, was not foolproof. In January, headquarters reported to the Moscow station that film from the black Tropel, which Tolkachev exposed in the fall—one of the two for “testing”—was unreadable. All the frames were underexposed, and precious intelligence was lost.16 The Tropel cameras required a minimum of thirty-five to fifty foot-candles to get a clear photograph.17 Tolkachev told them he had taken special care in using the Tropels. He had fashioned a knitting needle on a small chain, hanging from his wrist, to help him judge the exact distance for good focus, and CIA analysts spotted the shadow of the knitting needle in his pictures. At home, where he could control the lighting, Tolkachev was still having difficulties. He said there was an ample thirty-five to fifty foot-candles for the first eighty frames he had shot, and somewhat less for the other forty frames, yet the exposures from
the black Tropel were unreadable. The CIA’s technical experts had been working on an experimental, improved version with a wider lens opening that would work better in low light. But this was still being built, not in Tolkachev’s hands.

  On January 28, the Moscow station asked headquarters to send two Pentax 35 mm camera bodies and a clean lens—without delay. This time, headquarters said yes.

  The Moscow station held a going-away party for Hathaway in January, but he didn’t like such festivities and excused himself to go to the industrial-sized paper shredder in the hall just outside the station. It was more than a paper shredder: it was a monster that turned documents to dust and could destroy them fast, just in case they ever had to get rid of everything suddenly. There, Hathaway stood in his final hours in Moscow, feeding documents into the rumbling, vibrating machine.

  His successor was an old friend, Burton Gerber, who had been among those ambitious officers who joined the CIA in the 1950s and pursued a more aggressive approach to espionage. Gerber subsequently served in Tehran, Sofia, and Belgrade and developed the “Gerber rules” for vetting potential agents. Given the shifting rotations and promotions, Gerber wasn’t sure if he would ever be in line for the coveted Moscow post. When the offer came, he eagerly accepted it—chief of the most important station in the world.

  Gerber arrived in Moscow the third week of January 1980. He was a demanding boss, a no-frills and no-nonsense workaholic, known for pushing people hard and letting them know when something wasn’t up to his standards. But he was also considerate of the hardships endured by officers and their families—long hours, disappearances, and constant tension about surveillance and secrecy. Gerber knew by heart all the names of the wives and children of his case officers and asked about them, even as he drove his officers to work harder and longer. His lifelong hobby was the study of wolves, and he kept a picture of a wolf in his office. He also put up a photograph of Rem Krasilnikov, the chief of counterintelligence for the KGB. Gerber wanted to remind himself that Krasilnikov’s presence was always out there, his men lurking on the streets. Gerber would have to defeat them.

  Instead of the sleek IBM Selectric typewriters used by some others in the station, Gerber brought an old manual typewriter—and he typed fast on it. He believed that case officers should know their city and know their targets. One officer in the station recalled that Gerber would occasionally buy propaganda picture cards of leading Communist Party members, then mischievously come up to case officers in the station and hold up a card. “Say you are on the street and you see this guy,” he would ask a case officer. “Who is it?”

  Guilsher had been meeting Tolkachev for a year and acutely felt the burdens of keeping him safe and the operation alive. Getting ready for the next rendezvous, he drafted a very long ops note that he knew Tolkachev would read after they had parted. The letter allowed Guilsher to say more than was possible during a short encounter. Guilsher warned Tolkachev that the invasion of Afghanistan could prompt the KGB to tighten surveillance on the streets, and they might have to use dead drops to communicate, even though Tolkachev disliked dead drops. Guilsher reassured Tolkachev that the CIA would understand if he could not provide as many top secret documents as before, at least for a while. “Please do not feel badly about this situation, work quietly, and don’t remove from the first department those materials which are not connected to your work,” he wrote.

  At the same time, Guilsher’s letter conveyed an entirely different and unmistakable message: the United States was hungry—absolutely starving—for more of Tolkachev’s valuable intelligence. Guilsher sketched out a wide array of secrets that Tolkachev might purloin. “We were very glad to receive from you electronic components,” Guilsher said, asking Tolkachev for more, such as pieces of metal from airplanes and technical devices. The “alloys from which they build airplanes present a great interest,” he wrote. “We will be very grateful.” He added, “I remind you that we wish very much to receive telephone and other hand-books of the institutes, ministries and other institutions with which your institute works.” Guilsher said the CIA wanted to know about individuals and “who goes abroad, if you know this.” The CIA wanted to know what Soviet engineers had learned about American technology—“please give details” about which “data, materials and information” were making their way to the Soviet defense industry institutes. The CIA wanted Tolkachev to concentrate on more about future weapons systems, including the nascent Soviet effort to build an airborne warning and control system plane and a vertical takeoff and landing fighter, both then on the drawing boards. The CIA wanted to know about “further new developments of systems in phases one through five” of research and development. “I remind you that we are interested in everything you know about civil defense, in your institute and also in the country in general. Let’s say, are there signs that more attention is now paid to civil defense?”18 The wish list went on and on. The CIA wanted to know everything possible about what was contained in the secret library in the institute, including how materials could be taken out, how the permission sheet worked, and how long the documents could be kept out. The CIA wanted to know what levels of secret documents were kept there, whether they concerned future or present weapons systems, and whether the library contained information on aviation and radars, materials that airplanes were built from, design of airplanes and rockets, lasers, directed-energy research, aerosols, alloys and special metals, air strike tactics, electro-optics, tactics of forward air control and close air support, and command-and-control systems. The CIA wondered if Tolkachev could take a light meter reading in the secret library and maybe photograph several samples of the kinds of documents “which you can logically remove for your work.”19

  Guilsher also was puzzling over a new idea for obtaining the secret documents. Under the new security procedure, Tolkachev was required to turn in his building pass while checking out secret documents from the First Department. This meant he could not leave the institute and smuggle the papers out of the building, because he would not have a pass to come and go. But Tolkachev had come up with an idea: What if the CIA could fabricate a replica of his building pass? He could leave one pass with the First Department when he checked out documents and show the replica at the building entrance. Guilsher again wondered, what could go wrong? Would it look odd if Tolkachev had left his building pass at the First Department at the time of signing out documents but was seen holding up an identical pass on leaving or entering the building a few minutes later? Could he get caught that way? Still, the idea of a fake building pass was appealing to the CIA. If successful, it would be a splendid act of deception in service of their most valuable agent.20

  In the letter, Guilsher gave Tolkachev a fresh schedule for meetings over the next twelve months and new instructions for how to signal readiness for a meeting after a long pause. The instructions reflected the case officer’s attention to detail. On the first day of any month, Tolkachev should make a mark at a certain site “with that yellow wax pencil which I gave you—such a mark will be more dependable than chalk which can wash out or be erased. I remind you that the signal is a horizontal mark 10 cm. long at waist height.”

  On the evening of February 11, 1980, Guilsher set off on a long surveillance detection run. He arrived twenty minutes early at the site for his sixth meeting with Tolkachev, a spot near Leningradsky Prospekt, a major thoroughfare that heads northwest out of the center of the metropolis. Guilsher circled around the site, casing it carefully. After Tolkachev showed up, they talked as they walked, crisply running down their agenda. Guilsher gave Tolkachev the two Pentax 35 mm cameras. In exchange, Tolkachev passed back the four Tropel cameras, blue, gold, silver, and green, which he had used to photograph documents. Tolkachev also handed Guilsher a nine-page ops note.

  Tolkachev said that from now on, to confirm a meeting date, he would turn on the kitchen light in his apartment between noon and 2:00 p.m. The light was clearly visible from the street. They agreed to mee
t again in May. Guilsher warned Tolkachev of increased KGB surveillance.

  Tolkachev then asked about the suicide pill. Guilsher told him, reluctantly, that the “special request” had been turned down by headquarters.

  Tolkachev was shattered. He mumbled that this would be a major psychological blow to him. Guilsher saw that Tolkachev, who up to that point had stood erect and alert, suddenly changed. He looked crushed and spiritless.

  Guilsher immediately shifted gears. He urged Tolkachev to write a letter to the “highest level” in the United States, requesting a reconsideration.

  Guilsher then told Tolkachev that his tour was ending and he would be leaving Moscow in late summer. They parted after only twenty minutes. Guilsher walked away in the darkness, the Tropel spy cameras and letter in his pocket, brooding at the image of Tolkachev crumpling before his eyes.21

  The next morning, Guilsher arrived early in the Moscow station, and Gerber was waiting for him. Guilsher described how Tolkachev had nearly collapsed at the rejection of his request for a suicide pill. The reaction was even more severe than he had expected. In a cable to headquarters, Guilsher and Gerber reported that the agent “has suffered a major psychological blow that will adversely affect the future of operation if we do not reverse decision.” But there was little more they could do until Tolkachev wrote his appeal letter. They told headquarters the setback was made worse by Guilsher’s request that Tolkachev “limit his production and lie low” and by Guilsher’s impending departure. Guilsher was the only face Tolkachev had known from the CIA for more than a year.

  Guilsher opened Tolkachev’s ops note. It was businesslike and well organized, with precise details about his use of the color-coded Tropels to photograph documents. Tolkachev numbered everything; for example, “Document RE10 was photographed with the gold camera.” He also reminded the CIA that he was way out on a limb because of the long list of documents he’d taken out of the First Department. If there was a leak from the United States, he wrote, “then my situation will become hopeless.” Guilsher certainly agreed.