Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky | Page 5

an electronics engineer at the same institute where he worked--he described her as an "antenna specialist." He wrote that his wife's mother "had been executed in 1938," but he said nothing about the reasons for her execution. He noted that his wife's father had spent many years in a labor camp, typically the fate of "enemies of the Soviet state." Freed in 1955, he had returned to Moscow, but died shortly thereafter. Tolkachev commented a number of times to at least one of his case officers that the brutal treatment that his wife's parents had suffered was a key factor in his motivation to work against the Soviet regime. He never shed any light on why the authorities had taken these actions against his wife's parents, but once suggested that his wife and her parents were Jewish. Given the Stalinists' anti-Semitism, this factor may have played a role in their persecution.
Tolkachev apparently was devoted to his family and took their interests into account in everything that he did. He wrote that he helped his wife with the housework and liked to go shopping with her. He said that she would not question where he got "reasonable sums" of money. He explained: "I got married at 30 and have lived with my wife already 22 years. I am 52 and my wife is 44. Apparently, I belong to those who love only once. I consider that I have the normal attachment to the family that exists in mankind." The couple had one child, a son named Oleg, born in 1966. In 1979, Oleg was described as going to "art school;" by 1982, he was studying at an architectural institute. Tolkachev made it clear from the beginning that he had not told, and would not tell, his wife or son about his work for US intelligence.
In detailing his technical credentials, Tolkachev wrote that he had completed "optical-mechanical radar training" in 1948 and graduated from the Kharkov Polytechnical Institute in 1954. Since then, he had worked at NIIR (Scientific Research Institute of Radio Building). He described himself as a "leading systems designer" at this institute and said that he worked in a large open office with 24 other people. (In writing this, he seemed to recognize that there would be interest in knowing how much privacy he had in his office, in terms of his ability to steal secrets.)
Tolkachev led a relatively comfortable life. He said that he earned 250 rubles per month, plus a 40 percent "secrecy bonus," which would give him a normal salary of some 350 rubles (about $110 at the official exchange rate at that time). His wife's salary would have doubled this amount. He later added that he occasionally received monetary awards for inventions in his field. An average Soviet salary at that time was estimated at 120 rubles per month.
Tolkachev and his family lived on the 9th floor of an apartment building only some 400 meters from the US Embassy. He noted that this location had allowed him to walk unobtrusively near the Embassy when he was seeking to establish contact. The apartment consisted of two rooms, plus a kitchen, bath, and toilet. Although modest by US standards, it was quite luxurious by Moscow standards. These cramped quarters, however, were to limit his ability to carry out his clandestine role for the CIA.
Various health problems bothered Tolkachev during his collaboration with the CIA. At one time or another, he indicated that he had high blood pressure, peritonitis, and gastritis. He also had trouble breathing at night due to a broken nose that he had suffered as a youth playing hockey. Nonetheless, he described an active life. His hobbies were jogging, skiing, reading, listening to Voice of America and West German news broadcasts, and watching TV. He also said that he and his family enjoyed camping out in the summer.
Motivation
Tolkachev was not a member of the Communist Party. He said that he had lost his early interest in politics because it had become "enmeshed in such an impassable hypocritical demagogy." His theater going had declined, he wrote, because all the plays had become too ideological.
When asked during his first personal meeting about his motivation for approaching US intelligence, Tolkachev said that he was "a dissident at heart," who could best "contribute to the cause" by taking advantage of his access to unique information of value to the West. In April 1979, he explained his motivation in a written note, of which the following is an excerpt:
. . . I can only say that a significant role in this was played by Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, even though I do not know them and have only read Solzhenitsyn's works which were published in Noviy Mir. Some inner worm started to torment me; something has to be done. I started to