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1-Page Summary of The Billion Dollar Spy
Overview
The Billion Dollar Spy by David E. Hoffman tells the story of a Russian engineer who worked for the Soviet Union and gave secrets to the United States in order to destroy his country’s aviation program, which he was personally involved with. He had been working with American spies since 1979, but they were all caught by the KGB (Soviet secret police).
While the CIA was created to do analysis, its main focus became espionage and covert operations because of tensions with the Soviet Union. However, it was difficult for them to run spy operations within the Soviet Union because of heightened security measures and suspicion. For these reasons, they had trouble finding and securing agents in Moscow at first.
The CIA was in a state of mistrust and paranoia because its counterintelligence chief, James Angleton, believed that the KGB had deceived them. This meant they could not trust Soviet spies during this time period.
To improve the CIA, a case officer named Burton Gerber designed an approach to meeting with spies that would become crucial for managing Tolkachev later on. The CIA had been ignoring valuable opportunities to collect intelligence because all Soviets who approached them were assumed to be KGB agents. Based on his beliefs, the CIA began following certain rules called Gerber’s Rules and this signaled a turning point in which they could now accept volunteer intelligence within certain parameters.
President Jimmy Carter appointed Admiral Stansfield Turner to lead the CIA in 1977. He clashed with some of his staffers because he believed that technical intelligence was more credible than human-gathered intelligence, and ordered a complete stand-down in Moscow after the KGB arrested two agents who had been spying on behalf of the US.
A man named Adolf Tolkachev approached the CIA. He said he had information on ground radars and aircraft radars, but they ignored him at first because of a stand-down order. After that was lifted, the CIA gave permission to their Moscow chief to meet with Tolkachev.
The CIA began to communicate with Tolkachev in 1978. He delivered information and made demands over time, which led the CIA to believe he was trustworthy. In November of that year, they agreed to meet him in person. During their first meeting, Guilsher exchanged handwritten notes and diagrams for photographs of top-secret Soviet technology.
Tolkachev’s first intelligence deliveries were impressive to the CIA and its superiors. He explained in one of his letters that he wanted to inflict the greatest amount of damage on the Soviet Union as quickly as possible, despite having outlined a long-term plan for his involvement with the CIA.
Tolkachev also made requests for his family, including things such as medicine and Western music. He was adamant that he be given a suicide pill in case he was captured by the KGB. The CIA stalled on this request before eventually giving it to him. Over time, Tolkachev would make other requests for minor items like pencils or razors for his son.
The intelligence that Tolkachev provided was worth millions of dollars to the United States. The case officers were constantly worried about pushing him too hard, so they tried not to ask for information that would put him in danger.
As time went on, the security at Tolkachev’s office became more strict and then relaxed. The level of intelligence output was affected by this change in security policies. The CIA and Tolkachev were concerned about his name appearing on permission slips for checking out secret documents, so they came up with a plan to help him avoid getting caught. Sometimes the CIA thought that he took too many risks while trying to obtain intelligence; however, other times they felt that it was necessary because of how important the information would be for national defense.
