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Warr- The Billion Dollar Spy (Characters (Adolf Tolkachev (Oleg, Natasha),…
Warr- The Billion Dollar Spy
Themes/Essential Questions
Suicide pill
the CIA doesn't like to give it to agents bc they might use it rashly or when its not needed
informant that got caught before tolkachev used a suicide pill hidden in a pen and now the KGB are very wary of them
Tolkachev is very concerned with acquiring a suicide pill, which was most likely because he was taking so many risks to smuggle information to the US. In the end, he never got the opportunity to use it as the KGB searched him upon arrest
Stealing documents and secrets
Mistrust of all volunteers
No trust in such a career, all the agents are constantly living in lies and facades, trying to get information, and not get caught
Betraying your country for money
Happened to multiple people on both sides, but others betrayed their country for things like revenge, power, or significance
Death penalty for those caught spying
Both the United States and the Soviet Union had a death penalty for those that they caught defecting and feeding information to the opposite side
Characters
Janet Chisholm
Oleg Penkovsky
Turner
Mari Peterson
Alexander Ogorodnik
Guilsher
Robert Fulton
George Kisevalter
Pyotr Popov
James Angleton
Anatoly Golitsyn
Alexei Kulak
Dmitri Polyakov
Burton Gerber
Haviland Smith
David Forden
Helms
David Blee
Adolf Tolkachev
Oleg
Natasha
Rolfe
Morris
Thomas Mills
Edward Lee Howard
Mary Howard
William Bosch
Aldrich Ames
Michael Sellers
Plot
Got information from refugees and defectors (Pyotr Popov and Oleg Penkovsky)
Popov got them valuable information about Soviet intelligence officers, politics, and weapons. He was discovered and then later killed June 1960
Penkovsky obtained tons and tons of information, secret documents, plans, journals, and more. He was one of the most productive CIA agents of the time.
He was discovered, searched, tried, and ultimately killed on May 16, 1963
Dmitri Polyakov was a military intelligence officer for the Soviet union
Alexei Kulak was a KGB scientist and technical officer
CIA created after Pearl Harbor - unified and connected intelligence instead of having it scattered about
Very dry information from Moscow, bc they couldn't get a good footing. This was in part the fault of one CIA director, James Angleton. He wouldn't let the station there recruit informants bc he was extremely cautious and paranoid
His choke hold on Moscow intelligence didn't extend to Eastern Europe, and agents like Haviland Smith and Burton Gerber were forming new mentalities and practices
The Gerber rules helped break the hold on Moscow. Burton Gerber analyzed all the past files on informants there, and created rules to determine if a volunteer was genuine. They ended the Angleton thinking
A new director of Soviet intelligence was appointed, David Blee
He reopened the Moscow office, and CIA operations began
Alexander Ogorodnik was one of the first informants. He was an economics officer and the son of a high-ranking naval officer. He got the CIA lots of information and pictures of secret documents and plans.
Adolf Tolkachev
Tried to contact CIA in Moscow several different times
CIA didn't trust him and so they didn't respond to the first 4 attempts
They finally made contact and looked him up when they got his name, it took them around 2 years to finally make him an agent
Was a Soviet engineer that had access to top secret plans, documents, and secrets that the CIA needed
The information he got to the CIA was valued, and saved the United States, hundreds of millions of dollars
He fought with the CIA about what he would be payed for a long time
He managed to smuggle the US several circuit boards, as well as thousands of photos of classified military documents
At first he asked for tons of money in return for his service, but he eventually backed down and asked for less money and Western stuff for him and his son
His wife found some of his camera gear when he got sloppy about hiding it and she told him to stop spying for the safety of their family. Her parents were killed and imprisoned for dissenting from the Soviet Union
His facility had KGB interrogations and he got scared and destroyed all evidence and supplies that the US had given him
They also tightened security protocols
Two CIA agents, one a recruit that got spurned and the other a retiring agent, both turned to the Soviet side of the war, to get revenge and money. They revealed lots of information to the Soviets, including the existence of a mole, who had passed billions of dollars of information to the United States
This led to more searches, and the CIA station in Moscow decided to exfiltrate Tolkachev
This mission ultimately failed, and Tolkachev was captured by the KGB while trying to escape with his family in their car