Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky | Page 6

write short leaflets that I planned to mail out. But, later, having thought it out properly, I understood that this was a useless undertaking. To establish contact with dissident circles which have contact with foreign journalists seemed senseless to me due to the nature of my work. (I have a top secret clearance.) Based on the slightest suspicion, I would be totally isolated or liquidated. Thus was born my plan of action to which I have resorted. . . . I have chosen a course which does not permit one to move backward, and I have no intention of veering from this course. My actions in the future depend on [my] health, and changes in the nature of [my] work. Concerning remuneration, I would not begin to establish contact for any sum of money with, for example, the Chinese Embassy. But how about America? Maybe it has bewitched me, and I am madly in love with it? I have not seen your country with my own eyes, and to love it unseen, I do not have enough fantasy or 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. But I am not an altruist alone. Remuneration for me is not just money. It is, even to a greater extent, the evaluation of the significance and the importance of my work.
Tolkachev further explained that he had decided "five or six years ago" to cooperate, but that he waited until "my son grew up." He wrote, "I understand that in case of a flap my family would face a severe ordeal." At first he thought about trying to establish contact at a US exhibit, but decided this would not be secure. He then started taking long walks around the Embassy area. Having spotted cars with diplomatic license plates, he looked for an opportunity to approach an American getting in or out of his car. He observed that some of these cars had Russian drivers and realized that he would have to be careful which car he chose. (Tolkachev clearly had no idea that he had stumbled on the local CIA chief as the target for his initial approaches.) He noted that he had decided that the driver of the car he chose to approach had to be an American and not a Russian chauffeur due to "his bright and beggarly clothing--trousers which had never seen an iron--no Russian chauffeur of a diplomatic vehicle would ever dress like that."
The Operation Takes Off
The first meeting with Tolkachev in January 1979 was a watershed event. The information that he passed convinced all, but the most diehard skeptics, that the CIA was in contact with a volunteer with immense potential. The Agency now moved into high gear to put the operation on a sound footing.
The CIA was breaking new ground in several ways. Tolkachev provided access to information of a sort never before seen in its Soviet operations, in terms of both its huge value to US military planners and its highly technical nature. In addition, Tolkachev was to be handled extensively via face-to-face meetings in Moscow rather than by deaddrops, which were normally used for Russian assets handled in country.
The January meeting started a pattern of successful encounters with Tolkachev held every two or three months over the next 18 months of the operation. The first meetings were dedicated not only to receiving Tolkachev's immensely valuable intelligence, but also to working out the critically important operational details that would ensure that he could be handled securely and productively over the long term. This meant constructing a viable agent communication system, coming to agreement with the agent over a compensation package and a way to deliver it, and working out the means by which he could best take advantage of his access to obtain Soviet secrets for delivery to the CIA in a secure manner. Tolkachev continued to deliver large quantities of highly valuable intelligence while the details of the arrangement were being worked out.
Agent Communications
Considerable planning was needed to establish a contact routine for the Tolkachev operation. In this case, the CIA did not have the luxury of being able to provide the agent with any external training in the use of deaddrops before the initiation of his agent role. Since painstaking efforts had already led to a personal meeting with Tolkachev, the door was opened to the possibility of using face-to-face encounters on an ongoing basis.
In February 1979, after several exchanges of messages with CIA headquarters regarding the type of communications to be used in this case, a deaddrop was put down for Tolkachev containing a small spy camera, a light meter, camera instructions, and an operational note, all concealed in