Adolf Tolkachev

A painting of Tolkachev by Kathy Krantz Fieramosca hangs in the CIA's Langley headquarters. Writer David E. Hoffman published The Billion Dollar Spy, about Tolkachev's life, in 2015.

However, contradicting Fischer's assertions, the Soviet Politburo discussed Tolkachev on September 25, 1986, and top Soviet officials stated that he "was caught with two million rubles" and "handed over very important military-technical secrets to the enemy". The conversation transcript states that Tolkachev had been executed the previous day for his espionage on behalf of the U.S. Historian Nicholas Dujmovic criticized Fischer's article as "speculative," saying that he makes "few factual statements". Hoffman rebutted Fischer's theory, reasserting that Tolkachev furnished genuine technical information. Fischer responded that the CIA has not released the intelligence provided by Tolkachev; that the Politburo transcript is "suspicious" and possibly falsified; and that the KGB, which ran other "dangles" providing intelligence on Soviet weapons technologies, was also in control of Tolkachev.

At some point in 1985, Tolkachev was compromised. While attempting to meet with Tolkachev, a CIA officer was arrested and questioned at the Lubyanka KGB headquarters and prison, and incriminating materials, including spy equipment such as cameras, were seized from him. The source of the exposure is believed to have been Edward Lee Howard, an ex-CIA officer who fled to Moscow to avoid treason charges. Aldrich Ames apparently also passed his name to the Soviets.

From January 1977 to February 1978, Tolkachev attempted to approach cars with U.S. 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. On his fifth attempt the CIA 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" value to US experts. The U.S. Air Force completely reversed direction on a $70 million electronics package for the F-15 Eagle as a result of Tolkachev's intelligence, although historian Benjamin B. Fischer says that this was "the projected overall cost, not a cost savings".

Adolf Georgiyevich Tolkachev (Russian: Адольф Георгиевич Толкачёв; 6 January 1927 in Aktyubinsk (now Aktobe), Kazakh ASSR, Soviet Union – 24 September 1986) was a Soviet electronics engineer who provided key documents to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) between 1979 and 1985. Working at the Soviet radar design bureau Phazotron as one of the chief designers, Tolkachev gave the CIA complete detailed information about such projects as the R-23, R-24, R-33, R-27, and R-60, S-300 missile systems; fighter-interceptor aircraft radars used on the MiG-29, MiG-31, and Su-27; and other avionics. He was executed as a spy in 1986.