Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky | Page 8

were carefully constructed to try to bore the KGB surveillance
teams, to the point where they would be moved to other, presumably
more productive, targets. If and when the officers did find themselves
free of surveillance while on these personal travels around the city, they
would take advantage of this situation to look for prospective new
deaddrop sites, to service such sites, or to carry out other operational
activities.
This method of action meant that a series of alternative contacts had to
be built into every agent communication system, because a case officer
could never know ahead of time whether he would be free of
surveillance on any given day. Because of the heavy surveillance
normally used against CIA case officers, another part of any agent
communications system required that several case officers be read in on
the case, so that any one of them who was able to determine that he was
surveillance-free on a given day would be capable of communicating
with the agent.
Another technique that was used to defeat KGB surveillance was to
disguise the identity of the case officer being sent out to meet with
Tolkachev. This technique was first used in this operation in June 1980.
John Guilsher drove to the US Embassy building at about 7:20 p.m.,
ostensibly having been invited to dinner at the apartment of an
Embassy officer who lived there. Once inside, he disguised himself so
that when he later left the compound in another vehicle, he would not
be recognized by KGB surveillants waiting outside. Checking to ensure
that he was free of surveillance, Guilsher, while still in the vehicle,
changed out of his western clothes and made himself look as much as
possible like a typical, working-class Russian by putting on a Russian
hat and working-class clothes, taking a heavy dose of garlic, and
splashing some vodka on himself. Guilsher then left his vehicle and
proceeded on foot and by local public transportation to a public phone
booth, where he called the agent out for a meeting at a prearranged site.

After the meeting, Guilsher returned to his vehicle, put on normal
Western clothes, and drove back to the Embassy. There he resumed his
own identity and then left the compound and returned to his apartment.
Tolkachev's case officers successfully used this technique, with some
variations, for a number of meetings with the agent over the course of
this operation.
Agent Compensation
As is the case with most agents, remuneration was a subject of great
importance to Tolkachev and an operationally difficult matter to
resolve. As the details were worked out over time, it became evident
that he was primarily interested in obtaining a salary as a demonstration
that the CIA highly valued his work, rather than as a means to enrich
himself.
The dialogue regarding compensation began with the second personal
meeting in April 1979. During a 15-minute walking contact, Tolkachev
turned over five rolls of film that he had taken with his miniature
camera and more than 50 pages of handwritten notes containing
intelligence of both a substantive and operational nature. In the notes,
he proposed to pass information over a 12-year period, divided into
seven stages; he wanted to be paid a set amount at the end of each stage.
He said that he considered that stage one had been completed with the
passage of the extensive materials that he had delivered in January,
added to what he had been able to pass before that time via his SW
messages and written notes. He went on to say that he did not feel that
he had been adequately compensated for his first year and a half "of
lonely efforts to break down the wall of distrust" and for the significant
information that he had provided to date. He provided a range of
figures in the tens of thousands of rubles, which he said he believed
would be fair compensation for the information that he had provided so
far.
Tolkachev stated that he could either just pass information as he had
outlined in his seven-stage plan, and ask for a sum of money "in six
figures" equal to "what Belenko got," or he could go beyond this and
keep passing new information as it developed and he got access to it. [3]

Tolkachev wrote that, if he were cooperating just for the money, he
probably would follow the first course, but, because he had tasked
himself with passing the maximum amount of information to the
United States, he did not intend to stop halfway, and "only the second
course of action is viable."
In October 1979, Tolkachev returned to the subject of his
reimbursement. Subsequent to the April letter outlining his salary
demands, he had been told that the DCI had approved the passage to
him of an