Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky | Page 7

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 another "dirty mitten." The spy camera was
matchbox-sized and had been fabricated by OTS so that Tolkachev
could photograph documents clandestinely at his office.
The note passed to Tolkachev in the same deaddrop contained a
communications plan that provided for a variety of methods of contact.
For example, Tolkachev could be called at home once a month, on the
date that corresponded to the number of the month, that is, 1 January, 2
February, 3 March, and so forth. Tolkachev would cover the phone
between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on those dates to await a "wrong-number"
call. Depending upon the name asked for by the caller, Tolkachev
would be directed to one of three prearranged deaddrop sites: "Olga,"
"Anna," or "Nina." The caller also had the option of asking for
"Valeriy," which would trigger a personal meeting at a prearranged site
one hour from the time of the call.
Once a month, on the date that corresponded to the number of the
month plus 15 days--18 March, 19 April, 20 May, etc.--Tolkachev was
directed to appear at one of several prearranged sites, at a specified
time according to the month, and to wait for five minutes--a password
and recognition signal were incorporated into the plan in case someone
other than the regular case officer should make the meeting.
Once every three months, on the last weekend of the month, Tolkachev
would have the opportunity to pass materials via deaddrop. Tolkachev
would look to see whether a "ready to receive" signal had been made; if
so, he was to put down a package in a prearranged site. A recovery
signal would be put up the next day so that he could check to ensure
that his package had been received. He was also given instructions on
how to package and conceal any drop of materials for passage to the
CIA. He also could trigger a deaddrop delivery by making a marked
signal on any Monday; a case officer in turn would signal readiness to
receive his package, using a parked-car signal the following
Wednesday, and that night Tolkachev could put down his deaddrop

package. A recovery signal would then be put up the following day to
signal the successful recovery of his drop.
Tolkachev, however, resisted using deaddrops. In an April 1979 written
message, he said that he did not understand why the CIA wanted to use
deaddrops to communicate. He said that personal meetings would be no
more risky than using deaddrop passes, because in both cases a CIA
officer had to be free of surveillance to carry out the communications
plan. Given this fact, Tolkachev said that it seemed to him that personal
meetings were to be preferred, because they would be much more
productive. He also noted that "psychologically" he preferred to
exchange materials via personal meeting, because he worried that a
drop could accidentally fall into the wrong hands and that in such a
case the documents he provided could be traced back to him.
Hathaway agreed with Tolkachev's reasoning, as ultimately did CIA
headquarters. As a result, beginning in April 1979, personal meetings
with Tolkachev were used almost exclusively. Several were held with
him in the second half of 1979, and more than 20 took place over the
next five years. These personal encounters allowed Tolkachev to hand
over to his CIA case officer hundreds of rolls of exposed film and
hundreds of pages of written notes containing an enormous amount of
valuable intelligence.
Surveillance Detection Runs
To ensure that the case officer was free from KGB surveillance before
carrying out any element of the communications plan, the officer would
conduct a surveillance detection run. This involved case officers
moving about the city in an apparently innocent fashion, while
unobtrusively checking to determine whether they were under
surveillance. Although the 17th Department of the KGB, responsible
for counterintelligence inside the USSR, had a large manpower pool, it
could not maintain surveillance on all foreigners all the time, so it was
important to try to convince surveillance teams, when they were
covering a given case officer, that the officer was not involved in any
operational activities when they were moving about the city.

As part of this process, every case officer went to great lengths to
establish a routine that took him to various parts of the city on a regular
basis, to do shopping, run errands, take part in recreational activities,
go sightseeing, take the children out, walk the dog, and so forth. These
routines