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

by David E. Hoffman

  Each night, from 7:00 until midnight, alone in the house in the woods, Sakharov worked on an essay about the future of mankind. It became his first significant act of dissent against the Soviet system. Finished in April, the essay was titled “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom.” Sakharov’s mind ranged far and wide, warning that the planet was threatened by thermonuclear war, hunger, ecological catastrophe, and despotism, but he also offered idealistic and utopian ideas to save the world, suggesting that socialism and capitalism could live together—he called it “convergence”—and the superpowers should not be trying to destroy each other. He wrote candidly of Stalin’s crimes. He insisted on a complete de-Stalinization of the country, the end of censorship, release of political prisoners, freedom of opinion, and democratization. The document was startling, visionary, and potentially explosive. Sakharov rewrote and polished his essay and at one point showed it to Yuli Khariton, the scientific director of the laboratory and a founder of the Soviet nuclear weapons program. The two of them were alone on Khariton’s private train. “Well, what did you think?” Sakharov asked Khariton. “It’s awful,” Khariton replied. “The style?” Sakharov asked. Khariton grimaced. “No, not the style, it’s the content that’s awful!” But Sakharov had already begun circulating the essay in carbon copies, told Khariton he believed everything he had written, and could not withdraw it. In July, the manifesto was published abroad, first in a Dutch newspaper and then in the New York Times on July 22. The essay also circulated widely in samizdat, hand-to-hand copies, inside the Soviet Union. Sakharov was then suspended—effectively fired—from his job at the nuclear weapons laboratory.28

  Only weeks later, on August 20–21, 1968, Soviet tanks and Warsaw Pact troops crushed the reform movement known as the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. Sakharov had been excited by the democratic experiment; the Soviet crackdown shattered his optimism. “The hopes inspired by the Prague Spring collapsed,” he said. For many, the prospect of any liberalization inside the Soviet Union vanished. The thaw was over.

  Among those who read Sakharov’s “Reflections” in samizdat was Solzhenitsyn, whose trenchant, penetrating novels had depicted the dark corners of Soviet totalitarianism. His novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, about the life of a man in the gulag, had been published in Russian during the thaw, but Solzhenitsyn’s more recent works, Cancer Ward and The First Circle, were banned, and he was increasingly a thorn in the side of the Soviet authorities. The week after the Prague Spring was crushed, Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov met for the first time. Sakharov had come from deep within the establishment and Solzhenitsyn from without, the scientist in coat and tie and the writer dressed casually in old clothes. They sat in the living room of a mutual friend, curtains drawn to hide from the KGB. Solzhenitsyn was charmed by Sakharov’s “tall figure, his look of absolute candor, his warm, gentle smile, his bright glance, his pleasantly throaty voice, the thick blurring of his r’s.” Sakharov, too, vividly remembered Solzhenitsyn: “With his lively blue eyes and ruddy beard, his tongue-twistingly fast speech delivered in an unexpected treble, and his deliberate, precise gestures, he seemed an animated concentration of purposeful energy.” Both men, each brilliant in his own way, became beacons of inspiration for Tolkachev.29

  In the early 1970s, Sakharov plunged more deeply into the struggle for human rights, taking up individual cases of persecution and forming a committee on human rights with two young physicists. He began broadening his personal contacts with Westerners, a move that infuriated Soviet officials who had, until then, treated him with restraint.30 In June 1973, Sakharov gave an interview to Olle Stenholm, a Scandinavian radio and television correspondent, and his remarks were published on July 4 in a Swedish newspaper. Sakharov was scathingly critical of the Soviet party-state for its monopoly on power—in politics, economics, and ideology—and most of all “the lack of freedom.” The interview made headlines around the world. The party-state took off the gloves. A sustained and ugly press campaign was waged against Sakharov. Forty academicians signed a letter saying Sakharov’s actions “discredit the good name of Soviet science.” Solzhenitsyn, who had won the Nobel Prize in Literature but was unable to receive it in person, urged Sakharov to keep a low profile; the regime was on the offensive against him and the broader human rights movement.31 But Sakharov could not remain silent. The KGB warned him not to meet with foreign journalists, but days later he responded by inviting foreign correspondents to his apartment for a press conference at which he repeated his views on democratization and human rights.32 Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn’s exposé of the Soviet prison camps, The Gulag Archipelago, was being readied for publication in the West. Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn had ignited a fire, and the KGB began to speak of them in the same breath. Yuri Andropov, the KGB chief, in September 1973 recommended taking “more radical measures to terminate the hostile acts of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov.”33 In January 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and deported from the Soviet Union. In 1975, Sakharov received the Nobel Peace Prize but was prohibited from leaving the country to receive it.

  These events left a deep and lasting impression on Tolkachev. When he later recounted his disenchantment to explain his actions to the CIA, he identified 1974 and 1975 as a turning point. After years of waiting, he decided to act. “I can only say that a significant role in this was played by Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, even though I don’t know them and have only read Solzhenitsyn’s works that appeared in Novy Mir,” he wrote in a letter to the CIA.

  “Some inner worm started to torment me,” he said. “Something had to be done.”

  Tolkachev’s expression of dissent began modestly, by writing short protest leaflets. He told the CIA he briefly considered sending the leaflets in the mail. “But later,” he added, “having thought it out properly, I understood that this was a useless undertaking. To establish contact with the dissident circles that have contact with the foreign journalists seemed senseless to me due to the nature of my work.” He had a top secret clearance. “Because of the slightest suspicion, I will be totally isolated or liquidated for safety.”

  Tolkachev decided that he would have to find other ways to damage the system. In September 1976, he heard the news of Belenko’s defection to Japan with the MiG-25. When the Soviet authorities ordered Phazotron to redesign the radar for the MiG-25, Tolkachev had a dawning realization: his greatest weapon against the Soviet Union was not some dissident pamphlets but right in his desk drawer, the top secret blueprints and reports that were the most closely held secrets of Soviet military research. He could seriously injure the system by betrayal—turning these vital plans over to the “main adversary,” the United States.

  Tolkachev told the CIA he had never even considered selling secrets, say, to China. “And how about America, maybe it has bewitched me and I am madly in love with it?” he wrote. “I have never seen your country with my own eyes, and to love it unseen, I do not have enough fantasy nor romanticism. However, based on some facts, I got the impression, that I would prefer to live in America. It is for this very reason that I decided to offer you my collaboration.”34

  Tolkachev was usually at his desk at Phazotron by 8:00 a.m., but he did a lot of his best thinking outside the office. He often had an inspiration at home or sitting alone in the early evening in the Lenin Library. He jotted down notes, then took them to work and copied them into a special classified notebook, which was turned over to the typing pool.

  His desk at the institute was in a large room on the fifth floor with twenty-four other persons. Fluorescent lights hung from a high ceiling. In front of him, two women sat, facing away. On his desk, he had two phone lines, one for internal calls, extension 159, and a city line; paper for taking notes; a notebook with a list of problems that needed to be solved; scrap notebooks for rough sketches; and reference works on radar. A file drawer held a set of papers about work schedules and copies of official notes he had sent to other institutes. Another draw
er held electronic assemblies and parts needed for final checks of equipment he had worked on.

  With secret documents tucked inside his coat, Tolkachev’s walk home at lunchtime was easy and pleasant. The city’s streets in 1981 were broad, but traffic was light. He often left the institute and cut through a neighborhood of boxy apartment buildings latticed with interior courtyards and small parks. He turned onto Novopresnensky Pereulok, a small lane, passing a kindergarten and a playground. Then he took Volkov Pereulok, a quiet backstreet that ran next to the Moscow Zoo, and his high-rise apartment loomed just beyond. It took him only twenty minutes to get home. The apartment was empty at lunchtime. He took out the Pentax camera, clamped it to the back of a chair, positioned a lamp nearby, and made copies of documents.

  One day in 1981, Tolkachev was careless. When finished, he usually stowed the camera and clamp in the entresol, where they would be well hidden. But he hastily left them in a desk drawer. They were discovered by Natasha, and she immediately guessed what Adik was doing. She confronted him when they were alone.

  Her concern was not the damage to the Soviet state. She hated the system even more than Adik did. Her lament was more personal. She did not want the family to get hurt in the way that her parents had suffered. She did not want to bring the wrath of the KGB upon them.

  Tolkachev confessed to her. She demanded that he stop his spying, to spare the family any difficulty, and he promised to quit. But he did not.35

  14

  “Everything Is Dangerous”

  David Rolph had not seen Adolf Tolkachev for eight months. Tolkachev was not using the kitchen light, the svet signal they had agreed upon to show that he was ready on the planned dates for a meeting. His kitchen window had been dark. On November 10, 1981, the next meeting date, Rolph went to the selected site, a park not far from Tolkachev’s apartment building, and was relieved to find him waiting by the fountain. Rolph walked briskly down a flight of stone steps and greeted him warmly in the chill air. Tolkachev, his face brightening, said he had bought a car and motioned to Rolph that they should go take a look at it.

  A moving car was a risky place to meet an agent; Rolph would have no control of where they were going. A parked car wasn’t great, either. It could attract the attention of a curious onlooker or militiaman. There were also the druzhinniki to worry about, a government-organized neighborhood watch that wasn’t always vigilant but whose members, wearing red armbands, might knock on the car window and demand identification. Still, there was no point in discouraging Tolkachev. He had a childlike excitement in his voice. They walked toward the car, talking, catching up.1

  When Rolph mentioned Tolkachev’s silence over the last few months, saying the Moscow station had been watching the kitchen light, Tolkachev interrupted him. He hadn’t wanted to meet in September. In October, he did want to meet and signaled on the proper date by parking his car near the market, as Rolph had suggested. The CIA gave him a map and instructions for the site, designated mashina, or “car”: park opposite the market between 12:45 and 1:00 p.m., back into the parking space, rear tires against the curb, go shopping for fifteen minutes.2 Tolkachev followed the instructions exactly, but Rolph didn’t show. Tolkachev had assumed the reason was an incident he read about in the newspapers. In September, the KGB ambushed a Soviet citizen while meeting an American and accused the American of being a spy. Rolph knew of the arrest—the station had indeed lost an agent, and a case officer had been expelled—but he reassured Tolkachev that wasn’t the problem. The real reason was that Rolph didn’t think the mashina site would be operative until November. He simply hadn’t checked it. He apologized for the confusion.3

  They reached Tolkachev’s compact Zhiguli, tucked in between other cars parked closely together. They climbed in, Tolkachev behind the wheel. Rolph was thinking to himself that this might not be a very smart move. But they had a lot of business to do. Tolkachev was relaxed, in good spirits, and he seemed to feel like talking. Before long, Rolph noticed the windows were fogging up. It was like this at the start of every meeting: Tolkachev was a bundle of anxiety but had no one to share it with other than his case officer. He needed a release.4

  Tolkachev passed twenty-three rolls of film to Rolph, fewer than last time but potentially carrying hundreds of pages of secret documents. One of Tolkachev’s Pentax camera bodies was not working properly, and he returned it. Rolph handed back a spare Pentax camera body; he remembered to bring it because of the six rolls of blank film in March. Rolph also presented Tolkachev with a new set of stereo headphones and music for his son and a package containing 32,400 rubles.

  Rolph explained that he brought Tolkachev a new, secure communications device, known as an IOWL, or interim one-way link. The gear included a commercially purchased shortwave radio, a smaller electronics block called a demodulator, and onetime pads. When Tolkachev tuned in to certain shortwave frequencies at specific times with the demodulator attached, messages could be downloaded secretly. Tolkachev appeared intrigued. In one of his first letters to the CIA, he had proposed using a modified radio for transmitting secret messages.5

  At first, everything seemed fine, but as they talked, Rolph realized it was not.

  The institute had once again imposed strict procedures on checking out secret documents. As before, the new rules required that Tolkachev turn in his building pass. Tolkachev glumly informed Rolph this meant he could not take documents home to photograph, which he had done so successfully for two years. The CIA’s attempts to replicate the building pass had, so far, not satisfied Tolkachev. The colors and the paper were not quite right.

  Tolkachev said he tried, and failed, to make the Discus work over the summer. He handed the device and instructions back to Rolph. He didn’t appear to be frustrated; he had experience with electronics and understood that things could malfunction. Rolph was far more skeptical. He thought the Discus device had yet to contribute a single ounce of positive intelligence.

  After the missed signals, Tolkachev proposed a new way to indicate that he would be ready to meet. Instead of the kitchen light, the CIA should look above the main window in his apartment, at the small, hinged window used for ventilation, known as the fortochka. They were common in all Russian buildings. On a meeting day, the fortochka would be open for a short period at midday if Tolkachev was ready. Rolph asked twice: Are you sure it will be visible from the street, nine floors below? Tolkachev assured him the open fortochka appeared as a black square above the reflective glass of the main window.

  Tolkachev had personal requests, too. He wanted the CIA to provide him with a pocket tape recorder, information about recent events in Poland, and My Life by Leon Trotsky, which was banned in the Soviet Union. After twenty minutes, Rolph climbed out of the car and said farewell.

  Tolkachev drove off. It was his eleventh meeting with the CIA. He said nothing to Rolph about his wife’s discovery of his spying or his promise to stop it.

  The next morning, back in the station, Rolph opened the ops note Tolkachev had given him. Of the forty-five questions the CIA had posed in March, Tolkachev had offered answers to only eleven and was apologetic. He wrote that his access to information was not unlimited, and he felt “sorrow” that he could not respond to the “wide themes” the CIA had asked about. Tolkachev said he couldn’t possibly answer technical questions about weapons systems “with which I am not directly connected.”

  Rolph suggested to headquarters that they needed to be more careful about the questions. He expressed worry they were trying to “overload” Tolkachev “in areas where he has no hope of meaningful response.” After two years of “prolific production,” Rolph said they ought to do better than eleven out of forty-five by tailoring the questions to topics Tolkachev might know about. But the demands did not slacken.

  In the autumn of 1981, Gerber flew back to headquarters and met Casey, the new director of central intelligence. Gerber had devoted much of his career to espionage against the So
viet target, and he was the kind of operations officer that Casey admired. In a letter to Reagan after becoming director, Casey confided a feeling that “I get better intelligence judgments from the streetwise, on the ground” operations people than the “more academic” analysts at headquarters.6 During their conversation, Gerber remarked the Soviets were a nuclear-armed superpower but an economic basket case. “This is a country that can’t even make toasters,” he said. “And while they can make missiles, they can’t feed their population.” Gerber was drawing on his own experiences in Moscow, but Casey waved him off. Casey said the Soviets were advancing in Latin America and Africa, and they had to be confronted everywhere.7 Reagan campaigned in 1980 on a promise to stand up to the Soviet Union, and he was now turning the promise into action.

  At the Ottawa summit in July 1981, President François Mitterrand of France told Reagan some startling news. The French intelligence service had been running a secret and highly productive agent inside the KGB, a forty-eight-year-old colonel, Vladimir Vetrov. The operation was still under way. Vetrov had turned over to the French four thousand pages of KGB documents about a global effort by the Soviet Union to steal high technology from the West, especially the United States. The KGB had a whole section, known as Line X, to carry out the heist. With Mitterrand’s approval, the French brought the documents to the CIA. The papers, known as the “Farewell Dossier,” showed in remarkable detail how the Soviet Union had hijacked Western advances in electronics and other technology to benefit its military machine. With Reagan’s approval, Casey launched a covert program, in cooperation with American industry, to rig hardware and sell it to Soviet buyers, matching the KGB’s shopping list, including contrived computer chips and faulty turbines. At the top of the Soviet list was oil and gas equipment to control a huge new gas pipeline to Europe. When the pipeline technology could not be purchased in the United States, the KGB bought it from a Canadian firm. With Reagan’s approval, the CIA engineered it to go haywire after a while, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to create pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The system exploded. The result was the most monumental nonnuclear explosion and fire ever seen from satellites in outer space. The Farewell Dossier was run right in Moscow. It reinforced something the CIA had concluded while running Tolkachev: it was possible to carry out penetrating spy operations under the nose of the KGB.8