23 Facts About Adolf Tolkachev

Adolf Georgiyevich Tolkachev was a Soviet electronics engineer.

Adolf Tolkachev provided vital documents to the United States Central Intelligence Agency between 1979 and 1985.

Adolf Tolkachev told the CIA he was inspired by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.

From January 1977 to February 1978, Adolf Tolkachev attempted to approach cars with US diplomatic license plates in Moscow five times, coincidentally approaching the CIA Moscow bureau chief Gardner Hathaway at a gas station, but the CIA was wary of counterintelligence operations by the KGB.

Adolf Tolkachev resisted the use of traditional CIA methods, including dead drops and radios.

Adolf Tolkachev preferred personal meetings, as he enjoyed meeting with agents.

Adolf Tolkachev found that many of the procedures provided by the CIA were ineffective and risked giving him away.

Adolf Tolkachev developed many different ways to bypass Soviet security despite routine changes that interfered with his activities.

Adolf Tolkachev repeatedly found holes in security, finding ways to check out documents without leaving a record and finding ways to take documents home or to areas of the facility where he had access to better light and more privacy.

Adolf Tolkachev developed his own procedures that greatly increased the output and quality of his work.

Adolf Tolkachev included detailed notes and explanations of the information within the photos to assist in understanding the documents.

Adolf Tolkachev initially refused any payments for his service, knowing they would draw suspicion.

Adolf Tolkachev requested art supplies, music, and other items for his son.

Adolf Tolkachev refused to leave the Soviet Union because his wife believed she would become homesick.

Adolf Tolkachev eventually requested that the interest from his accounts be paid to him in rubles so that he could attempt to bribe any coworkers who might discover his activity.

In case he could not bribe his way out of a situation, Adolf Tolkachev requested a cyanide pill to commit suicide in case he was captured and to limit the information the KGB could acquire from interrogating him.

The payments were made despite Adolf Tolkachev knowing that he would never be able to access the remaining funds.

Adolf Tolkachev went beyond anything required by his payment agreement and provided information any time it became available to him, not only when he was scheduled to receive compensation or care.

Adolf Tolkachev was arrested by the KGB while returning to Moscow from the countryside and was later put on trial and executed.

Fischer questions the value of the intelligence furnished by Adolf Tolkachev, asserting that since CIA HUMINT only constituted "one small ingredient" of the Pentagon's decision-making process, Adolf Tolkachev cannot be credited with saving billions of dollars.

Adolf Tolkachev concludes that Tolkachev was a "dangle" agent run by the KGB to obtain CIA technical equipment such as spy cameras, project a false image of Soviet military and economic vitality, and absorb the CIA in a resource- and time-consuming operation.

The conversation transcript states that Adolf Tolkachev had been executed the previous day for his espionage on behalf of the US Historian Nicholas Dujmovic criticized Fischer's article as "speculative," saying that he makes "few factual statements".

Hoffman rebutted Fischer's theory, reasserting that Adolf Tolkachev furnished genuine technical information.