Career
Working at the Soviet radar design house Phazotron as one of the chief designers, Tolkachev gave the Central Intelligence Agency complete information about such projects as the R-23, R-24, R-33, R-27, and R-60, South-300. Fighter-interceptor aircraft radars used on the MiG-29, MiG-31, and Su-27. And other avionics. The United States considered the most advanced airborne radar among the systems Tolkachev compromised was the passive phased array radar used by the MiG-31 Foxhound fighter.
He was executed as a spy in 1986.
He told the Central Intelligence Agency he was inspired by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. Tolkachev attempted five times from January 1977 to February 1978 to approach cars with United States. diplomatic license plates in Moscow, coincidentally approaching the Central Intelligence Agency Moscow bureau chief Gardner Hathaway at a gas station, but the Central Intelligence Agency was wary of counterintelligence operations by the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security). On his fifth attempt the Central Intelligence Agency assigned a Russian-speaking officer named John I. Guilsher to make contact with him.
Eventually Tolkachev established his bona fides with intelligence data that proved to be of "incalculable" usefulness to United States experts. The United States. Air Force completely reversed direction on a $70 million electronics package for the F-15 Eagle as a result of Tolkachev"s intelligence.
Because Tolkachev resisted the use of traditional Central Intelligence Agency methods including dead drops, preferring personal meetings, he was able to transfer a much larger volume of classified data, much of it collected using various matchbox-sized cameras.
The need for these meetings necessitated several innovations in Central Intelligence Agency tradecraft such as signals and concealment. Although he demanded money for his cooperation, he seemed to insist that he only wanted payment as proof of the value of his effort and risk. He was eventually paid a salary "equivalent" to the United States. President, at the time $200,000 annually, most of which was to be held in escrow until he defected.
At some point in 1985, Tolkachev was compromised.
While attempting to meet him, a Central Intelligence Agency officer was arrested and questioned at the Lubyanka Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) headquarters and prison, and incriminating materials including spy equipment such as cameras was seized from him. The source of the exposure is believed to have been Edward Lee Howard, an ex-Central Intelligence Agency officer who fled to Moscow to avoid treason charges.
Aldrich Ames apparently also passed his name to the Soviets. Tolkachev was arrested by the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) while on his way to meet his Central Intelligence Agency contact, and was later executed, but he had carefully compartmentalized his spy work and his family, so they were not punished.
The arrest of Tolkachev was carried out by the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security)"s spetsnaz group, Alpha.
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Nikolaevich Zaitsev was the direct commander of the operation. Zaitsev also says that the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) kept Tolkachev"s arrest secret in order to feed the Central Intelligence Agency disinformation over the course of 10 months.
The case was discussed at a 1999 post-Cold War intelligence conference.
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) General Oleg Kalugin said that Tolkachev"s wife worked with him and was put in prison, but later released under Gorbachev or Yeltsin. When she tried to contact a United States embassy, Kalugin says she was ignored. Panelist Paul Redmond doubted this story, and said that the Central Intelligence Agency had gone to "incredible lengths to find the son, to get money to him and help him out.".