Forbidden History - America's Billion Dollar Spy: The Betrayal

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

In this episode, we are joined by former CIA officer Lindsay Moran to explore the extraordinary story of Adolf Tolkachev, the Soviet engineer who secretly passed some of the USSR’s most closely guarded military secrets to the CIA. Cast List: Eric Meyers: Narrator Lindsay Moran: Former CIA Officer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with zero extra costs. Go to the Games tab and play FIFA World Cup launch edition now, only on Netflix. Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. Our Patreon is now live. Head over and become a forbidden historian to unlock brand new exclusive episodes. Thanks for supporting the show. It's January 1977 in the midst of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

And on the streets of Moscow, a 50-year-old Russian man called Adolf Tolkachev attempts to make contact with America's CIA. Tolgachev first tried to reach the CIA in the late 1970s, and the way he did it, it's almost comical. He would approach American diplomats' cars in Moscow and slip notes inside them. At first, the CIA wants nothing to do with this mysterious stranger. But he keeps coming back, relentless, impossible to ignore. When the CIA finally agreed to hear him out, they think he's going to hear him out, they think, stumble into one of the greatest intelligence coups of the 20th century, a man whose information would become so valuable to the United States that he'd be known as the billion-dollar spy.

To unpack this story, we'll be joined by former CIA officer Lindsay Moran, whose primary job was to spot and recruit foreigners willing to work with America's intelligence agency. From a counterintelligence perspective, a walk-in is, it's the perfect setup for a trap. He turned into the most productive human sources that the agency had ever handled. His contributions have been likened to billions of dollars in military advantage. Welcome to the podcast series that explores the past's darkest corners, sheds light on the lives of intriguing individuals, and uncovers the truth. buried deep in history's most controversial legacies. I'm Eric Myers, and this is forbidden history.

1970 sits at a fragile moment in the Cold War. While in theory the world's two superpowers are at peace, in reality, the Soviet Union's growing footprint in conflicts across the third world is setting off alarm bells in Washington. While the Kremlin sees America's new President Jimmy Carter and his forceful emphasis of human rights as a direct challenge to Soviet legitimacy. And so while the Cold War remains cold, beneath the surface the war between spy agencies

is very much a hot one. Moscow is a pressure cooker of surveillance and suspicion, and it's into this atmosphere that Adolf Tolkachev steps, a man taking a great personal risk by making contact with the CIA. It was incredibly dangerous for him to do this. I mean, Moscow then, and to this day, is one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world. The KGB monitored embassy personnel constantly, their cars, their apartments, their social contacts. If a Soviet citizen was caught trying to pass information to an American, the consequences could have been, would have been catastrophic. Tolkachev is not the only one taking a big risk by making contact.

The CIA is alert to the possibility that the KGB could be playing a game of their own. The prospect of a trap is something Lindsay was all too aware of during her time with America's intelligence agency. If an adversary wants to expose or compromise your officers, they can simply send someone pretending to be a defector or a defector. volunteer spy. And I encountered this when I was a CIA officer and when there was a walk-in, I always used an alias. I would use a disguise, not an elaborate disguise, but I would definitely use a disguise before handling a walk-in. And that's because we had no idea. Was this person showing up as a way to kind of flush out who are the intelligence officers? Walk-ins have to be handled with

suspicion because there's always a case that someone pretending to be a defector is really just bait. The CIA decide at the risk Tolkachev is a trap laid by their Soviet counterparts is simply too great and so they ignore his approach. But Talkechew is persistent. He attempts to make contact again. Once more, the CIA do not engage. He goes on to make three more approaches and it's It's only on the 5th in February 1978 that the CIA reconsidered. In the case of Tolkechav, I think it's worth noting that he, like, approached the CIA many times. And that both rose the suspicion at the CIA, but also was part of what made the CIA ultimately believe him. Key to the CIA's decision to take Tolkachev seriously is the fact that he passes them handwritten data on Soviet radar and weapons systems.

This information suggests that Tolkachev is no ordinary Russian citizen. He must be highly placed in the Soviet industrial complex. And with the potential rewards now beginning to outweigh the risk, the CIA assigned John I. Gilcher, a Russian-speaking officer, to meet with him. In a series of short secret meetings, they build a picture of who Adolf Talkechever really is. So Tolkachev was a Soviet radar engineer, and he was working in Moscow for an institute connected to advanced aviation and defense technology. From the outside, he looked like a fairly typical Soviet professional. He was educated. He was technically skilled. And he was, by all accounts and observations, living within the constraints of the Soviet system, which of course was very repressive.

but internally, he was deeply disillusioned with that system. It turns out that Tolkachev is a leading design engineer at Fazotron, the Soviet Union's premier radar and avionics design bureau, where blueprints for the electronics of the USSR's latest fighter aircraft routinely cross his desk. His disillusionment with the Soviet Union goes back a long way. His wife's parents had been arrested and imprisoned under the rule of Joseph Stalin, and over the next three decades, his resentment had brewed. He read banned books and observed corruption firsthand at work.

For the CIA, he embodies that most valuable of combinations. Incredible access to secret information, with an incredible ideologically driven desire to hand it over. Typically, when we see someone approach a foreign intelligence service, they're doing it because they want money. You know, our most notorious moles in the United States or in history have been people who were motivated by money and they went to the Soviets or the Russians and they sold our secrets. Tokachev was someone who was really motivated by ideology and by his desire to bring down a political system that he despised. He refuses any payments for his services, knowing they would draw suspicion. Instead, he asks for art supplies and music for his son, items that are hard to come by in the Soviet Union.

And so in 1979, Tolkachev becomes a recruited agent of the CIA. He takes advantage of lack security at work to take classified documents to secluded locations, where he photographs them with miniature cameras before replacing them before anyone notices. Getting the film reels to the CIA, however, would be much more difficult. The KGB monitored embassy staff, tracked their vehicles, followed them throughout the city,

you know, sometimes even overtly so. And, of course, used both physical and technical surveillance as a way to monitor their methods. And so even small mistakes turning the wrong corner or staying too long in one place, repeating a pattern that could expose both the officer and Tolkachev. And an environment like that, running an agent like Tolkachev required exceptional discipline and also patience from everyone involved. The favored CIA technique for handing over secret information was and is the dead drop. A dead drop is a rudimentary tradecraft trick that we used all the time during the Cold War, and people are surprised to realize that we still use it today because it's incredibly lacking in technology.

And what a dead drop means is that the intelligence officer and his or her source find in agreed upon place where that source will store or hide information. It's a pre-arranged place where it could be under a bridge, it could be in a park, it could be in an abandoned building. But when the CIA suggests this long-proven technique to Tolkachev, he refuses. As a man living inside the Soviet system, he believes that the lingering in a single location, even for a short period of time, would be far too obvious in KGB-infested Moscow.

He insists on something bolder, but faster. Very brief human exchanges. And it's through this unconventional exchange mechanism that Tokachev begins feeding information to the CIA. The next step is for the CIA to assess not only its intelligence value, but to double-check its not false information fed through by the KGB. Just taking a step back, I've handled different kinds of sources, and I've had sources who've passed over documents, who've passed over technological information. But I've also handled sources where, you know, I had to ask myself, and I would caveat the intelligence reports that I wrote with like, this is what he or she told me, but I assess that some of this information might have been intended to influence us as much as it is to inform.

us. And that's kind of the degree of skepticism that even after you have a recruited source, you still have to vet what they're telling you. The CIA compared Tolkachev's intel with signals intelligence, satellite imagery, and assess whether what he is showing them is plausible from an engineering standpoint. They soon come to a verdict. Well, in the case of Tolkachev, he was providing the goods. He passed to the CIA thousands upon thousands of pages of classified technical documents relating Soviet radar systems, avionics, air defense capabilities.

And this was really a treasure trove. Not only is the information accurate, it's also incredibly useful. The kind of intelligence that Tolkachev was providing, it was extraordinarily valuable, not only because it revealed so much about Soviet technology, but what that kind of intelligence does, it actually allows U.S. engineers and U.S. military planners to design countermeasures. With the information Tolkachev gathers, U.S. engineers and tacticians can model Soviet aircraft accurately, designing countermeasures and tactics that exploited Soviet weaknesses

before the aircraft ever meet in combat. While insight into Soviet weapons still in development means the U.S. can adjust its own aircraft design to stay ahead. That enabled us to kind of, I don't want to say cut corners, but make advances in our own technology that are completely catered to what our foreign adversaries' plans and existing technology is. The U.S. Air Force reverses direction on a $70 million weapons package for the F-15 Eagle due to the information Tolkechyev provides. And such is his value to the agency that he would be given a nickname. Tolkajef earned a nickname, the billion-dollar spy,

and that is precisely because the intelligence that he provided us saved us, the United States, billions of dollars, because we were able to adjust our strategy, and we were able to do so with confidence. Tolkachev's information puts the U.S. in a position to dominate the skies should the Cold War turn hot, and it confirms that Soviet air defenses are vulnerable to low-flying American missiles and aircraft. On a more personal note, declassified CIA documents reveal that Tolkachev was described as principled, courageous, and self-sacrificing by his case officers,

revealing a bond between asset and handler that the public never gets to see. At its core, espionage is built on human relationships. A case officer might spend years building trust with someone who is risking imprisonment and death. And it can sound very clinical, sources, assets, reporting, but whether you like it or not, you become close to these people. You care about them. In some ways, these relationships are the most intimate relationships in your life because handling a clandestine source is one of the most intimate, deep connections you can have. It's the perfect collaboration. For Tokachev, he gets to undermine the system that killed his wife's family

and continues to inflict misery upon its inhabitants. And for the CIA, he becomes the asset, one of their most valuable in decades. But despite all his caution, there's one risk over which he has. has no control. The shifting unpredictable loyalties within the very organization he is risking his life to help. In June 1985, after six years of service, he is betrayed. Tolgachev was ultimately exposed because of a betrayal within the U.S. intelligence community itself. There was a former CIA officer named Edward Lee Howard. Edward Lee Howard had once been the ideal CIA recruit. Born in New Mexico in 1951, his father was a U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant

and Electronics Specialist working on guided missiles. Due to his work, the family moved frequently during Howard's childhood, including postings in Europe, where he became fluent in German and Spanish. After studying business at university, he had spent two years in Colombia as a Peace Corps volunteer, before working on USAID project. in Peru. The combination of an upbringing in a military family, fluency in foreign languages, and his field experience abroad made him incredibly attractive to the CIA. And so, when he applied in 1980, he ticked every box.

For two years, he was groomed for a posting to Moscow. But just weeks before he departed America, his career came to an abrupt end. The CIA would use sometimes a lie detector test. We now know lie detector tests to be scientifically debunked. They don't actually tell if someone is lying. But they do show people's stress level. Howard was given a lie detector test before his scheduled trip to Moscow. The machine registered stress responses during questioning about his personal conduct.

The examiner dug deeper, and Howard admitted to pass drug and alcohol abuse as well as to lying on security forms. The CIA judged him unfit for a sensitive posting to Moscow, and Howard spiraled out of control. He drank heavily, behaved erratically, and became a security concern. In 1983, he was formally dismissed from the CIA. Bitter and humiliated, he became determined to exact revenge, and in the person of Adolf Tolkachev, he found him.

the means. Howard had been dismissed from the agency, but he still possessed sensitive operational knowledge, and he provided that to the KGB. And that information, it wasn't Tolkachev's identity itself, but the information that Howard provided to the KGB, that helped the KGB identify Tolkachev as a CIA source. Tulkachev is placed under KGB surveillance. His movements are watched and his communications intercepted. In June 1985, he heads once more to a routine information exchange with the CIA, with the latest batch of intelligence materials to hand over.

For six years he has walked through Moscow undetected, but this time the KGB are there first. And as he approaches the meeting point, they step out of the shift. shadows and arrest him. Given the incriminating materials he is carrying, there is no possibility of denial. And after interrogation at Lafortova, the KGB's notorious interrogation fortress, he admits to everything, including his motives. He's tried in secret, and on the 24th of September 1986, executed. The era of the billion-dollar spy is over. For the CIA, this loss was devastating, not only because this trove of intelligence that stopped flowing, but it also represented the ultimate nightmare for a case officer. That is, you know, a brave source, someone who was

ideologically motivated, someone who trusted you with his life being captured and killed. And I can say as a CIA officer who's handled sensitive sources, that was my worst fear. And I would venture to say that the CIA officer handling Tolkachev and the officers that recruited him, that would be psychologically devastating. And I think have a real impact on them for the rest of their lives. The story of Adolf Tolkachev offers a rare window into the world of espionage before the internet and before digital surveillance. An era when understanding an adversary's deepest secrets depended on human beings, on individuals

willing to risk everything, armed only with courage, ingenuity, and the hope that their handlers would keep them alive. It's also a reminder of how fragile human intelligence truly is. Espionage relies on trust, discipline, and the absolute integrity of the system protecting the source. When any part of that chain fails, the consequences can be catastrophic. Tolkachev paid for that fragility with his life.

Edward Lee Howard did not. He slipped through the cracks, fled to Moscow with KGB help, and became the only CIA officer ever to defect to the Soviet Union. living under its protection until his death in 2002. Tokachev's fate and Howard's escape stand as stark opposites. One man who gave everything, and another whose betrayal ensured the tragedy that followed. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, don't forget to leave a comment below,

and feel free to leave us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners like you. Thanks for listening.