The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal (19 page)

Rolph often repeated the words “when you’re black, you’re black.” In his mind, it meant that when you are black, you can do anything, because nobody is watching you.

Nothing. No sign of anyone in the park. Rolph let his shoulders drop and took a deep breath.

When you’re black, you’re black.

Rolph circled the meeting site once on foot, still alert to any signs of surveillance. The site was designated
olga
, not far from the German embassy. He recalled the scare over those two men he’d seen in the playground sandbox on that first night with Sheymov, six months earlier. But he saw nothing. It was 9:00 p.m., and Rolph thought it was a good place for a meeting, with a few apartment buildings, some low-lying shabby garages, not many people on the street.

Then he spotted Tolkachev. Rolph had read the entire file and was briefed by Guilsher. He felt that he would recognize Tolkachev upon seeing him the first time and imagined a warm hello, face-to-face. But now Rolph was walking
behind
a man who was shuffling along. He looked as if he might be Tolkachev. Rolph had almost overtaken him. The man was stooped a bit. The plan was to exchange greetings, and if the response was correct, Rolph would know he was Tolkachev. Rolph was uncertain what to do. He might be looking at the wrong man, but there was no harm in using the greeting. If it was the wrong man, the Russian would probably just look quizzically at him and ask what the hell he was talking about.

From behind, Rolph said out loud, “Privet ot Kati!” Or, “Hello from Katya!”

The man turned around and said clearly, “Peredaite privet ot Borisa.” Or, “Send regards from Boris.”

That was the coded answer. Rolph smiled slightly, looked at Tolkachev, and extended his hand. Tolkachev shook it. He was wearing a black jacket and a brimmed cap and seemed even smaller than Rolph had anticipated, no more than five feet six inches tall. His face was chiseled, the nose aquiline, but Rolph noticed it was dented at the top. Rolph’s watch said 9:00 p.m. It was Tolkachev’s eighth meeting with the CIA.

Rolph knew that his most important goal at this moment was simply to build the kind of trust that Tolkachev had in Guilsher. He kept his first remarks light and reassuring, and he gave Tolkachev an ops note that he had painstakingly drafted in the Moscow station.
3
He noticed right away that Tolkachev did not respond emotionally. His face was impassive.

Then Rolph delivered some good news: Tolkachev’s “special request” for the suicide pill had been approved by the CIA in response to his written appeal in June. Gerber had pushed headquarters. “What we must not do,” Gerber insisted, “is allow this question to dominate the operation and we are frankly concerned that the longer the giving of the special request is delayed that is what we are going to face.”
4
At the news, Tolkachev finally seemed to relax. Rolph said he would deliver the pill at their next meeting. The CIA could put it into a pen or something else that Tolkachev normally carried in his pocket. The Moscow station had been fretting over the choice of concealment. It had to be good enough so it could never be discovered but easy enough to carry in case of dire emergency. When Rolph asked about it, Tolkachev replied indifferently, saying he didn’t have a preference. In the ops note, Rolph said of the suicide pill, “I can only hope that it will give you the peace of mind you desire.”
5
In the note, Rolph also gave Tolkachev a list of questions to answer that would help in planning for exfiltration, such as clothing and shoe sizes, what medicines he and his family used, what cities or places they were permitted to visit, and when they would go on vacation.

Tolkachev was apologetic: in the summer months, it was harder for him to sneak documents out of the institute because he didn’t wear an overcoat. He had photographed only twenty-five rolls of film since the last meeting with Guilsher in June. He passed them to Rolph, along with a nine-page note.

Tolkachev was still very worried about the library permission sheet, which carried his signature for so many top secret documents. He knew it would incriminate him, and he offered a new idea. Earlier, he suggested that the CIA fabricate his building pass in order to defeat the security procedures. Now he wondered, could the CIA also fabricate a copy of his library permission sheet, with just a few signatures? He could find a way to substitute the fake sheet for the real one. Tolkachev handed to Rolph some written diagrams and notes and a photograph to help the CIA make a copy of it.

The minutes were ticking away, but Tolkachev had more to say. He told Rolph he had purchased a car, a small, ocher-colored Zhiguli, the Soviet Everyman car modeled on the boxy Italian Fiat. Tolkachev wanted to use the car for future meetings. They might be able to talk for a longer stretch without being detected. Who would suspect two friends sitting in a car? Tolkachev told Rolph, briefly, that he was still unhappy with the money the CIA was giving him and promised to write about it later. He reminded the CIA of his patience, however, in the letter he handed to Rolph. “I only want to note, one more time,” he wrote, that the “gradual and dragged out approach from your side to the questions of finances does not affect the general process of my cooperation with you.”

Fifteen minutes had already passed, and Tolkachev had one more request. He handed Rolph a piece of paper. When Rolph looked down, he saw it was printed in English in block letters:

1. LED ZEPPELIN

2. PINK FLOYD

3. GENESIS

4. ALAN PARSONS PROJECT

5. EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER

6. URIAH HEEP

7. THE WHO

8. THE BEATLES

9. THE YES

10. RICH WAKEMAN

11. NAZARETH

12. ALICE COOPER

Tolkachev wanted the CIA to obtain rock music albums for his son, Oleg. He had copied the names down by hand, although he apparently did not know them well. “My son, as many of his contemporaries in school, has a passion for Western music,” Tolkachev wrote. “Besides, I too, in spite of my age, like to listen to this music.” He said the records were only available on the black market, but “I do not want to use the black market, because you can always end up in an unpredictable situation.” He added that the list was to indicate the “tastes of my son,” but he wanted “the most popular musical groups in the West, including the USA.”
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Rolph was nervous because of the squelch he had heard in the park before the meeting. He knew that he and Tolkachev had been together only briefly but decided to cut the meeting short. Tolkachev did not object. They shook hands and departed. Rolph walked away quickly. At this hour in the city, there were not many people on the streets. Rolph returned to the parked VW van, which was waiting for him at a rendezvous point. The chief tech had taken a small surveillance detection run of his own before arriving at the point, just to make sure the KGB was not waiting for them. Once in the van, Rolph gave a thumbs-up, wordlessly. The tech reached down to the floor and grabbed a bottle of beer for each of them, a small ritual at the end of every run. It was so cold the beers had nearly frozen. They snapped off the tops, and Rolph, his throat dry from hours on the street, savored the icy beer. Then he put on the beard and wig, and they drove back to the embassy. The last feint in the identity transfer deception was important: they had to close the loop, crossing back into the embassy, undetected. The guards didn’t give them a second glance. The gate opened, and Rolph’s run was over.

A little while later, the Soviet militiamen in the shack took note that David Rolph and his wife left the embassy dinner party for home.

A
t last, Tolkachev would get his suicide pill. It arrived at the Moscow station by the regular secure delivery a few weeks after the October meeting in a package about the size of a cigar box. Rolph opened it. Nestled inside was the fountain pen with the L-pill, held in place by foam inserts, cut in the shape of a pistol.
1

He gingerly examined the pen, then put it back and locked the box in a file drawer. Soon after, headquarters sent a cable with instructions, in Russian, on how to extract the fragile capsule from inside the pen and bite down on it.
2

In the close-knit Moscow station, everyone shared everything. In Gerber’s small office, they talked over plans for a surveillance detection run and new meeting sites they had cased the previous weekend. Sometimes they sketched on a chalkboard or rehearsed how they would handle a phone call in Russian with an agent. In advance of a major operation, wives would join them in the cramped station, sitting on the desks and floor, double-checking disguises and packages, examining maps and routes.

When Rolph told the others about Tolkachev’s request for Western rock music for his son, they nodded knowingly. They’d seen it all over Moscow—young people yearning for consumer goods from the West: cassettes for tape recorders, magazines, nail polish and remover, Polaroid cameras, Scotch tape, T-shirts with English lettering, turtleneck sweaters, running shoes, and countless other things they could not find at home.
3
Tolkachev had also requested a catalog of Western stereo equipment. Why not give it to him? It seemed like such an inconsequential favor for an agent who was delivering massive volumes of intelligence. But Gerber was cold-eyed and not immediately swayed. What if Tolkachev, leading designer at a top secret Soviet military research institute, was seen by a neighbor carrying albums by Uriah Heep? Or what if the records were spotted in his apartment? Wouldn’t that look suspicious?

Rolph wrote to headquarters that “sudden acquisition” of the records might raise eyebrows and demand “uncomfortable explanations.” He added, “We know that records of the type he has requested are occasionally available in Moscow (on the black market) but the cost is generally high. If we knew his son already had a sizeable collection, adding a few more (cut by European companies) would probably do little harm. We would not, however, want to be his son’s sole supplier.” The stereo catalog might be easier to hide, he added, but “how his son might handle this ‘windfall’ is a big unknown.” Would Tolkachev next ask them for a turntable and speakers? The tussle over the L-pill was still fresh in everyone’s mind. The Moscow station did not want to reject such a simple request from Tolkachev, but they were worried about his security. They decided to pause, tell Tolkachev of their concern in December, and ask him how the records would be handled and stored. If Tolkachev could obtain a reel-to-reel tape player, they thought, the CIA might provide the music on tapes. That would be harder to trace.
4

Day after day, with his Pentax camera clamped to the back of a chair, Tolkachev copied documents. The rolls of 35 mm film he gave to Rolph in October produced 920 frames containing 817 pages. Soon, headquarters was pressing Moscow for more at the behest of the “customers” of intelligence, primarily the air force, the navy, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. When he met Guilsher in 1979, Tolkachev had turned over five circuit boards from the RP-23 radar project and schematic drawings to go with them. The schematics were rushed to headquarters for translation and the electronics sent elsewhere for inspection and analysis.

Now, in the fall of 1980, headquarters wanted Rolph to ask Tolkachev for some additional circuit boards, or pieces of electronic equipment. The military customers were becoming insatiable, Rolph thought. He worried they were pushing so hard they might endanger Tolkachev’s security. Rolph had always respected the logic in Tolkachev’s method: removing documents, then returning them the same day. Nobody was the wiser once the papers were safely back in the files. But hardware was another story. If a piece of hardware was missing—because it could not be replaced—an internal investigation would most certainly result. This demand for electronics and spare parts could sink them.

Gerber resisted a suggestion from headquarters that they give Tolkachev a wish list of electronic parts. Just because Tolkachev had “passed a piece of equipment one time in the past does not shed any light on his continued access, his ability to remove such equipment safely or the degree of risk involved,” he wrote. If they pressed Tolkachev for more spare parts, Gerber added, “he might consider that we are squeezing him and consequently become either more demanding or more difficult.” Or, Gerber speculated, Tolkachev might get reckless and take chances to steal more circuit boards, endangering his security. “Armed with a list of specific material requirements, CKS is type of person who may manufacture transparent and dangerously insecure means to procure the items.” Gerber suggested that they simply ask Tolkachev at the next meeting whether he could get his hands on any more electronics and added, “We believe it is of major importance to ensure that [Tolkachev] does nothing to harm his security.”
5

On Monday, December 8, 1980, at 8:25 p.m., Rolph went to see Tolkachev in a wooded park at the Moscow Zoo, located near Tolkachev’s apartment building. Tolkachev often passed the zoo while walking to work. They had planned the meeting months earlier, and Rolph wanted to stick to the schedule, even though superpower hostility seemed to be ratcheting up again. On November 4, Ronald Reagan had been elected fortieth president of the United States. Then, in early December, there had been a scare over a possible Soviet invasion of Poland. In the end, Soviet troops didn’t cross the border, but the Moscow station was braced for heavy KGB surveillance. Rolph was determined to go ahead with the meeting. “Just get it right on the street,” Gerber told Rolph.

That night, the park seemed empty. Rolph intended to spend more time with Tolkachev than he had during the hurried meeting in October. Rolph carried with him a shopping bag, typical for any Russian on the street, with parcels wrapped to look like ordinary purchases of a Muscovite on the lookout for food and goods.

Tolkachev seemed relaxed. They strolled in the park like two old friends. Rolph was listening for surveillance on his SRR-100 radio but heard nothing; his eyes scanned the park for unwanted attention, but all was quiet. The park was so close to Tolkachev’s apartment tower that Rolph could see it rise above the tree line.

Rolph reached into his shopping bag and gave Tolkachev the wrapped pen. Inside was the L-pill and the instructions. “This is what you wanted, the means for self-destruction,” he said. He did not see the point of emphasizing once again that he hoped Tolkachev would never have to use it. Tolkachev looked pleased that at last he had the suicide pill in his pocket. Rolph asked him to examine the concealment at some later date and tell the CIA if he wanted something different from a fountain pen.

The CIA’s technical division had worked for months to replicate the library permission sheet and the building pass for Tolkachev. Rolph gave Tolkachev the fakes, based on the drawings and photographs Tolkachev had provided in October. It was too dark to see them, but Rolph asked Tolkachev to examine them and report back later. The CIA had replicated the library permission sheet with just a few signatures. The fake building pass was not as urgent, but Rolph still hoped it might prove useful. He also remembered to bring batteries for Tolkachev’s Pentax camera, small flat disks that were scarce in Moscow. Tolkachev was delighted. Rolph felt that his reaction said a lot about the man. Tolkachev was intent on photographing as much as possible, and the batteries would allow him to keep working without interruption.

Worried about Tolkachev’s security, Rolph proposed some new procedures. On the day of a planned meeting, he said, Tolkachev must first signal he was ready by turning on the light in his kitchen between 12:15 and 1:00 p.m. The Moscow station would send someone out—maybe one of the wives—to check. The signal was code-named
svet
, or “light,” and visible from the street. If the light was off, the CIA would not come to a meeting. Rolph also gave Tolkachev new plans for an “emergency call out” once a month, to be used for an impromptu meeting only if absolutely necessary. It was dangerous, but if Tolkachev had urgent developments or faced a real threat, it might be worth the risk. Rolph also suggested they set up a signal site at a market near the zoo. When Tolkachev’s car was parked in a designated spot by the market at a preordained hour, it would indicate he was ready for a meeting.

For the first time, Rolph described to Tolkachev the capability of Discus, the CIA’s agent communications device. He explained that the handheld units would allow them to send burst messages on the street while standing some distance away from each other, say several hundred meters apart. The device gave them a way to pass intelligence wordlessly and without actually meeting each other. Tolkachev brightened at the prospect of using it. Rolph said he would attempt to have Discus ready for the next meeting.

As they walked, Rolph asked Tolkachev whether he could get more circuit boards or electronic parts like those he gave to Guilsher a year earlier. Would it even be possible? Was it safe? Instead of brushing off the request, as Rolph assumed he might, Tolkachev said matter-of-factly that it was possible. He asked Rolph if the CIA could prepare a list. As it happened, Rolph already had one—sent from headquarters in the weeks before—and he gave it to Tolkachev. Rolph didn’t ask him to look at it; they could barely see in the dark.

Rolph then spoke to Tolkachev about the CIA’s worries over the rock music, approaching it gently, not wanting to trigger any anger or disappointment. If the albums were discovered, Rolph said, he was afraid they could get Tolkachev into trouble. How would he explain them? Are they available on the black market? Where do you plan to keep them? Will you have to hide them from friends and visitors to the apartment? Would your son’s friends start asking uncomfortable questions?

Tolkachev grew animated, and his eyes flashed self-confidence. He told Rolph that he would have no difficulty explaining the presence of the albums in his apartment. They are all available on the black market in Moscow, he explained, but he was personally reluctant to go there. Tolkachev said he would accept the music on tape, if necessary, and told Rolph he already owned a Hitachi cassette player, about three years old, which he had purchased at a
komissiony magazin
, a store where people could sell their possessions on consignment, usually clothes but occasionally electronics.

Time was running out. Tolkachev gave Rolph a ten-page handwritten note, in which he proposed to finally settle the issue of his compensation.
6

At the last minute, Rolph remembered there was an urgent question from headquarters. In August 1980, the United States had revealed the existence of “stealth” technology, making airplanes nearly invisible to radar. What did Tolkachev know about the Soviet response to the American “stealth” airplanes? And was there a Soviet stealth? Tolkachev said he had heard of the “invisible airplane” but didn’t know the answer and didn’t want to pass on information to Rolph about which he was uncertain.

They had been walking for twenty minutes. Rolph reached into his bag and pulled out two slender books in Russian as New Year’s gifts from the CIA. One was a tract by Andrei Sakharov, the nuclear physicist turned dissident, whom Tolkachev admired. The other was a thin volume by Anatoly Fedoseyev, a prominent Soviet radar and electronics designer who had developed the vacuum tubes that were used in land-based radars that ringed the Soviet Union. Fedoseyev had received the highest state awards, including Hero of Socialist Labor and the Lenin Prize. He went to France in May 1971 as a ranking member of a Soviet delegation to the Paris Air Show, then defected to the United Kingdom. His disillusionment with the Soviet system had closely paralleled Tolkachev’s—the shortages, the dysfunction, the failures of socialism. Fedoseyev described it in a book, titled “Trap,” that Rolph now handed to Tolkachev.

Sakharov had defected, ideologically, from the Soviet system. Fedoseyev had defected physically. Tolkachev had defected, too, in his own way, landing hammer blows from within.

He thanked Rolph, but his voice trailed off. The hour was late. They shook hands, and he disappeared.
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At CIA headquarters, a turning point came in early 1981. Reagan entered office determined to ignite a sense of activism and renewed energy in the CIA, an instrument in his larger campaign to aggressively confront the Soviet Union. In a shift from the doubts of the Carter years, Reagan’s approach to the world was unapologetically muscular and grounded in a belief in American exceptionalism, that the United States was the “last best hope of man on earth,” as he often declared. Those who risked their lives for the United States around the globe—sailors, soldiers, aviators, and intelligence officers—carried a special mystique for Reagan; he believed, as the aviation pioneer General James Doolittle had suggested a generation before, that it was worthy to go to almost any length to protect freedom in the face of totalitarianism. To lead the CIA, Reagan chose William J. Casey, a New York lawyer and Republican stalwart who had served in the Office of Strategic Services in London during World War II and been chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Nixon years. Casey, who served as Reagan’s 1980 campaign manager, was a rumpled, slightly stooped figure with wisps of white hair. His speech was often slurred and hard to decipher. But he was possessed of a rigid certainty about what he wanted to do. His appointment signaled a desire for espionage that was more daring and forward leaning. While Turner had sought to minimize risks, Casey relished taking them; while Turner had distrusted human sources, Casey demanded recruitment of more agents.
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Casey also shared Reagan’s enduring antipathy toward Soviet communism, which dominated his thinking and drove his judgments.