The Billion Dollar Spy by David E Hoffman *****

 The Billion Dollar Spy by David E Hoffman

“Everything we do is dangerous—Adolf Tolkachev, October 11, 1984.” A Chronicle of the Cold War in the 70s and 80s through the exploits of “the most successful and valued agent the United States had run inside the Soviet Union.” Patriotic praise for the CIA.

“His documents and drawings unlocked the secrets of Soviet radar and revealed sensitive plans for research on weapons systems a decade into the future. He had taken frightful risks to smuggle circuit boards and blueprints out of his military laboratory and handed them over to the CIA.” As a result, the US dominated the skies in the 1990s. “The aerial kill ratios went from six to one in Korea, and two to one in Vietnam, to forty-eight to zero for the wars in Iraq and the Balkans.”

Tolkachev operated until Edward Lee Howard uncovered him. Howard and Tolkachev were similar. Neither one was recruited. Both had to work to be accepted as a spy. Tolkachev contacted the CIA several times, and it took over a year for him to be accepted. Both were motivated by personal vendettas against their governments. Tolkachev’s feelings went back to Stalin, while the CIA fired Hoffman. Neither was suspected. Thus, significant espionage successes by the CIA and the KGB were a matter of luck.

Espionage is an activity of details…

How did the CIA recognize KGB surveillance vehicles? John also discovered the smaller surveillance cars, the Zhigulis, often displayed a telltale, small triangle of dirt on the grille, apparently where the brushes at the KGB car wash didn’t reach.

Small things differentiated the CIA from the KGB. “The whole time we were meeting, I wasn’t really sure whether you were actually CIA. The one thing that proved to me you were CIA and not KGB is when you gave me those medicines to test on my daughter. Because the KGB is heartless. They would have given me one pill and said, do it. I knew I was working with a humane organization when you gave me five medicines [to test].”

The CIA would try anything. The animal repellent was to keep out rodents. The CIA experimented with using tiger feces, actually acquired in India, thinking that the scent of tigers might scare away any animal. It didn’t work; the other animals didn’t seem to care whether there was a tiger in the woods or not.

This book puts a human face on the Cold War.

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