Ever zealous, Tolkachev took advantage when the gap in the cordon opened up. From February to June, he brought thousands of pages of secret documents home to photograph with the Pentax. He told Guilsher that he had 179 rolls of film in his briefcase. But Guilsher didn’t seem to be carrying anything to take it away.
Guilsher said he had a plastic bag, which he pulled out of his pocket.
Tolkachev shook his head. The film just wouldn’t fit. Tolkachev handed Guilsher his personal briefcase, laden with the 35 mm cassettes. Take the whole thing, he insisted.
Guilsher handed Tolkachev the CIA’s new, improved Tropel cameras, saying the agency was hopeful they would make it possible to photograph documents in low light, perhaps in his office. But right away, Tolkachev waved him off. He told Guilsher that it was just not possible to use the miniature Tropel cameras at work. There wasn’t enough time either at the start of office hours or at closing, when other people would not be around. He gave the older Tropels back to Guilsher and didn’t want the new ones.2 He seemed to have hit his stride with the Pentax 35 mm camera. Guilsher told headquarters that the Pentax “permits voluminous photography,” far more than using the Tropels.3 The Pentax had become Tolkachev’s most fearsome weapon in his effort to inflict damage on the Soviet Union.
Guilsher briefly sketched out the CIA’s latest offer to compensate Tolkachev. He emphasized that the proposed salary was higher than that of the president of the United States. He reminded Tolkachev that the CIA would have to bear the considerable expense of his resettlement in America if they went ahead with exfiltration. Tolkachev was stone-faced and showed no sign of reaction. Guilsher had seen that face before.
It was a bittersweet moment for Guilsher, whose family history had played out on these magical Russian summer evenings. His entire career had been devoted to the Soviet target, listening to tapes from the Berlin tunnel and debriefing defectors and agents. His gift had been his language skills. Now, with Tolkachev, as a case officer on the street, he had run one of the deepest penetrations of the Soviet Union ever accomplished.
As the moment came to say farewell, Guilsher knew he might never see Tolkachev again. They had met each other eighteen months earlier on a frigid Moscow street corner. They had only minutes remaining, and both men, reserved and stoic, struggled to find words.4
Tolkachev asked if Guilsher would return to Moscow. Guilsher said there was a limit to good things. It was unlikely he would ever come back. Tolkachev commented that he was reading the dissident books Guilsher had brought him as gifts, slowly, when the conditions were right. They shook hands and exchanged a final farewell. Tolkachev seemed nervous and eager to end the meeting. Guilsher told headquarters the next day the “main reason appeared to be desire to get home at a reasonable hour.”
It was nearly midnight.
The intelligence “take” from Guilsher’s meeting with Tolkachev was massive; the film carried about sixty-four hundred pages of secret documents. Hathaway sent a summary of the latest intelligence to Turner, the CIA director, marked “SECRET/SENSITIVE,” which reported,
cksphere was met on 17 June 1980 at which time he delivered 179 rolls of 35 mm film of sensitive documentary information on Soviet airborne radars and armament control systems. Specifically, the material includes:
—The first documentation on the technical design characteristics of the new Soviet AWACS (it was cksphere who first alerted us to the existence of this system and enabled us to locate it in overhead photography).
—extensive documentation on a new modification of the MIG-25, the first Soviet aircraft to be equipped with look-down/shoot-down radar; this aircraft, used in conjunction with the AWACS, will effectively extend the Soviet air defense perimeter against NATO aircraft and air-launched cruise missiles.
—documentation on several new models of airborne missile systems and technical characteristics of other Soviet fighter and fighter/bomber aircraft to be deployed between now and 1990.
Hathaway’s memo added, “This volume of documentary intelligence is double the totality of what cksphere has delivered in the past 18 months of our relationship.”5
Along with the documents, Tolkachev gave Guilsher a melancholy ops note. He said the permission sheet he had signed to get secret documents was at this point several times longer than that of other workers. “As long as the KGB has no suspicion of a leak of information on Soviet radar systems for interceptor aircraft, then my work at NIIR and my ‘permission’ card may possibly lay quietly. But if a suspicious signal is received from America,” he added, “my card will undoubtedly be the first one the KGB will pay attention to.” He went on, “I assume that before asking me why I took out such a large quantity of documents, the KGB will search my apartment. Things I can hide in the apartment from members of my family I can never hide from the KGB.” He was referring to a hiding place for spy gear he had created in his apartment.
Then he ramped up his demand for exfiltration. “Today, I am turning to you with specific request that my family and I be exfiltrated from the USSR. This is how matters stand.” Guilsher’s fears had come true; since the CIA had suggested exfiltration, Tolkachev’s hopes for it were soaring. However, Guilsher knew that Tolkachev had said nothing about revealing this momentous step to his family, so perhaps there was still time.
Tolkachev said he was “under a growing threat,” and with his signatures on the permission sheet “my future can be considered to be doomed.” He wanted planning for exfiltration to begin “as soon as possible.” He added, “I understand perfectly well that for you, the exfiltration of my family and me is tantamount to the death of an agent who provides good quality information. Unfortunately, this loss is unavoidable. It is just a question of time. Therefore, your sincere answer on whether you will attempt the exfiltration or will let fate decide this question is very important to me.”
Tolkachev’s ops note was tinged with sadness, suggesting that he felt his end was near. Referring to the next scheduled meeting, in the autumn, he said, “if it takes place and I am still functioning,” and “if I am not discovered by then.”6
Along with the ops note, Tolkachev enclosed a note titled “To Leadership of the Center,” his appeal for the suicide pill.
He pointed out that “my relationship with you developed neither simply nor quickly,” recalling the long delays before the CIA would meet with him and the disagreements over his compensation, and for “almost a year and a half” he had been seeking the suicide pill from the CIA “but always with negative results.”
Tolkachev added that since he began working as a spy, several years had passed. “During this time, despite the fact that there have been many distressing moments for me, I have never deviated from the outlined plan. I am reminding you of all this so that you understand that I have sufficiently strong nerves. I have enough patience and self-control to put off use of the means of suicide until the last minute. I insist that means of suicide be passed to me in the near future because my security situation must be considered precarious.”7
Besides, Tolkachev reminded the CIA, the reason he checked out so many documents was to answer their questions. He then spelled out details of the “traces” that remained of his espionage and said suicide was a way to keep the KGB from uncovering those traces. “Suicide, without any question marks, can protect the work I have begun, that is, can keep secret the volume of my activity and the methods by which I was able to carry out this activity.”
Guilsher was in the final weeks at the Moscow station and, with Gerber, wrote a lengthy cable to headquarters taking stock of the operation. They could afford to take a breather, because Tolkachev would be out of touch in the summer months, on vacation. The cable they sent on June 24 described Tolkachev as under “tremendous pressure and strain” in a “bleak” security situation. They outlined the various ways things could unravel. They said “leaks at our end pose serious threat” and could lead to an investig
ation “that would quickly uncover him.” Or, a routine check of document sign-out records would also expose him. An “alert First Department clerk” might notice the large number of records he had signed out. And “accidental discovery” of Tolkachev’s carrying out the documents under his coat—or even a recognition of the pattern in which he went home each day at lunch after checking out documents—“could blow” the operation, they warned. On top of all these “serious factors” affecting Tolkachev’s security, “there are undoubtedly others as well.”
“We reluctantly conclude there is little we can do,” they told headquarters. “We are dealing with driven man who dedicated to inflict most damage possible on Soviet regime. He will continue to produce, be it from First Department or secret library, and will probably not heed our urgings to slow down.”
In view of the security situation, “can we realistically expect operation to last several more years?” they asked. They did not think so. They added, “It appears cks is coming close to fulfilling production plan he proposed to us and we accepted.” Thus, they said, it was “critically important” to have a “clear-cut picture of where we stand” on Tolkachev’s work so far and what espionage he could carry out in the future. With Tolkachev’s pressing for exfiltration, Guilsher asked headquarters what the impact would be if Tolkachev were no longer in Moscow. Would it be a huge loss? Guilsher warned headquarters directly: the “operation cannot continue indefinitely.”
“Gloomy” was how Guilsher described Tolkachev’s letter seeking the suicide pill. “If uncovered,” he warned, Tolkachev “will have unpleasant dealings with security organs and will then certainly be shot. As death in case of compromise is inevitable, CKS should be given choice of using ‘special request’ and avoiding agony of facing authorities.” Having the suicide pill available “in case of need” would give Tolkachev “much needed psychological and moral support.” Guilsher cautioned headquarters yet again that “additional delays and rejections of ‘special request’ will alienate CKS at critical state of operation and could lead to serious handling problems or even end of production.”8
At headquarters, Hathaway was sympathetic. Unlike the last time Turner was asked to approve the suicide pill—when the request was watered down by the acting chief of the division—this time Hathaway didn’t mince words. He wrote a strong memo that echoed the thinking of his chief of station and case officer. Providing Tolkachev with the L-pill would be “a significant psychological boost to him,” Hathaway said, describing Tolkachev as “a mature, sensible and cautious individual” who needed an escape hatch in case he was arrested by the KGB.9
In July, Hathaway responded to earlier questions from the Moscow station about the value of Tolkachev’s intelligence. He said that even if Tolkachev departed the Soviet Union, “the value of his product would not diminish for at least 8–10 years.” Why? The weapons systems that Tolkachev had already betrayed to the United States were either just becoming operational or on the drawing boards, and they could not be easily replaced. On the other hand, if Tolkachev continued spying in Moscow, the yield could be even greater, as new weapons systems came across his desk year after year.
Tolkachev’s amazing haul of documents, blueprints, and diagrams was made available in its raw, untranslated form to very few people in Washington. One of them was a special assistant in the air force who had used the intelligence to “terminate or reorient” research and development programs of the U.S. military. Tolkachev was providing a road map to the United States for compromising and defeating two critical Soviet weapons systems: the radars on the ground that defended it from attack, and the radars on warplanes that gave it capacity to attack others. This was an incomparable advantage in the Cold War competition. Hathaway had asked the U.S. Air Force to estimate what Tolkachev’s intelligence was worth, in a broad way. Could they put a dollar amount on how much they had saved in research and development costs? The answer was “somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion,” Hathaway reported to Gerber. That was before they even looked at the 179 rolls of film delivered to Guilsher in the briefcase.10
Tolkachev was the billion dollar spy.
10
Flight of Utopia
On the day in July 1979 that he arrived in Moscow as a new case officer, David Rolph took the elevator in the U.S. embassy to the ninth floor, walked past the marine guards, through the chancery, then down a back stairs to the seventh floor. There, at the landing, the door on the right opened to the embassy political section. On the left, an unmarked door had a cipher lock. Rolph punched in the code. After the first door, he saw a second one that looked like a bank vault. It had a combination lock but was open during the day when people were inside. He walked down a short hallway, past the small alcove on the left with the paper shredder. Turning to the right, he grabbed the lever on another door and opened it with the soft whoosh of an air lock. He entered a windowless rectangular box of a room, with a low ceiling, shielded in corrugated metal and isolated from the embassy walls to avoid eavesdropping or penetration. This was the Moscow station.
David Rolph was thirty-one years old and filled with anticipation. He was beginning his first tour for the CIA, and he yearned for an operation of his own, to get out on the streets and run an agent.
At one end of the station, the station chief worked from a cramped office with a desk, a safe, and a small conference table barely large enough for the case officers to squeeze around. The rest of the station was jammed with their desks, lined up along each side, typewriters, file cabinets protected by combination locks, and maps of Moscow on the walls. One large map was covered with colored, numbered dots to indicate meeting sites, signal sites, dead drop locations, and who was responsible for each. Music drifted from a cassette player. Clipboards held the latest cable traffic. Rolph was assigned the desk closest to the chief of station’s office. Across the room sat Guilsher, who was running the Tolkachev operation. Guilsher always looked dignified and often wore a blazer and tie to work. “Guilsher always looked like a president,” recalled one of his colleagues. By contrast, when they weren’t working their daytime cover jobs, Rolph and the younger case officers often showed up in jeans. Rolph’s first impression was that Guilsher was a bit stiff and formal, but any doubts were dispelled when he saw Guilsher at work. He was totally preoccupied with Tolkachev and often returned from their meetings with a detailed recollection of what Tolkachev had said, despite the distractions, tension, and exhaustion. When Guilsher spoke, Rolph listened intently. There was much to learn.
Rolph’s own journey to the Moscow station had begun as a young boy on the front lines of the Cold War in Europe. When he was ten years old, he had tagged along with his father, Arthur, a lieutenant colonel who commanded a battalion of the Sixth Armored Calvary responsible for border security in West Germany, where it met Czechoslovakia. Arthur took his son to see a frontier that bristled with hostility: watchtowers, dog patrols, killing zones, and machine gun nests. If a real war ever broke out in Europe, this was the place that would be overrun by invading Warsaw Pact tanks and troops. For Rolph, the border left a deep impression: the land beyond the fences looked mysterious, and he was intrigued and fearful. Later, when his family returned to the United States, Rolph studied Russian at the University of Kentucky and was planning to attend graduate school to study Russian history, but the Vietnam War loomed. By lottery number, he was facing the draft, so he enlisted. For his initial training, he selected language study in Russian. Later, he became an officer. More than once, he was shoulder to shoulder with men destined for Vietnam, but he did not go. The army sent him instead to West Berlin as an intelligence case officer.
He wore civilian clothes and worked from a small office in the Berlin Brigade, the garrison for occupation forces of the United States. His mission was to take lists of recent refugees who had come over from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary and knock on their doors, seeking out tidbits of intelligence about the armies of the Soviet Unio
n and the Warsaw Pact. It was hard work, often frustrating. “It was really collecting ash and trash,” he recalled later. “We were trying to scrape together low-level fragments of tactical information. And when we found someone, and they were willing, then of course the big question was, would you go back for us? Do you want to visit your aunt and uncle in Prague? Would you be willing to drive by the base and take some pictures?” Occasionally, they came across a good source but not for long. The promising cases were quickly transferred to the CIA. The CIA base was in a building close by the Berlin Brigade. “All the routine cases they would say to us, ‘Good job, keep it up!’ Then a good one would float to the surface, and they would take it.”
Even so, Rolph relished the intelligence work. He had a competitive instinct to crack open secrets in the “denied areas” of the East, those dark lands he saw beyond the wall. But he concluded that clandestine human intelligence gathering was a backwater in the army and would never make much of a career. He left the military after a few years and returned to the United States for graduate school at Indiana University to earn a doctorate in Russian history, hoping to become a professor. On closer inspection, this, too, seemed a dead end. The job market was thin. Out of pragmatic concerns for his family—a second child was on the way—he went to law school instead, thinking it would at least be lucrative. Rolph earned a law degree from Indiana University and began to practice law, but after a year as an attorney his heart wasn’t in it. He felt the pull of those boyhood memories. When he heard a CIA recruiter was coming to a nearby town, he drove there for an interview and filled out the application. Nothing happened for a year; then suddenly he was offered a job. He reported to the CIA for training in 1977.
The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal Page 15