This Spy Saved The U.S. $2 Billion

An identity card created by the CIA in an attempt to replicate Adolf Tolkachev’s building pass to facilitate removing secret documents from his Soviet military institute. Despite much effort, the plan worked only briefly in the summer of 1982. (Courtesy of H. Keith Melton and the Melton Archive/From the book “The Billion Dollar Spy”)

Washington Post: How the CIA ran a ‘billion dollar spy’ in Moscow

The spy had vanished.

He was the most successful and valued agent the United States had run inside the Soviet Union in two decades. His documents and drawings had unlocked the secrets of Soviet radars and weapons research years into the future. He had smuggled circuit boards and blueprints out of his military laboratory. His espionage put the United States in position to dominate the skies in aerial combat and confirmed the vulnerability of Soviet air defenses — showing that American cruise missiles and strategic bombers could fly under the radar.

In the late autumn and early winter of 1982, the CIA lost touch with him. Five scheduled meetings were missed. KGB surveillance on the street was overwhelming. Even the “deep cover” officers of the CIA’s Moscow station, invisible to the KGB, could not break through.

WNU Editor: The $2 billion number comes from here ....

.... The Air Force estimated at one point in the operation that Tolkachev’s espionage had saved the United States $2 billion in weapons research and development. Tolkachev smuggled most of the secret documents out of his office at the lunch hour hidden in his overcoat and photographed them using a Pentax 35mm camera clamped to a chair in his apartment.

Thirty years later .... a hacker does the same thing and more once he gains access to your computer network. Yup .... the times have changed.