KGB DEFECTOR CONFIRMS U.S. INTELLIGENCE FIASCO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403600001-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403600001-1
WALL STREET JOURNAL
12 APTI"LF. APPEARED 1 17 October 1985
ON PAGE dP?P
KGB Defector Confirms U.S. Intellioence Fiasco
By WILLIAM Kuczwicz - "He saved us billions of dollars in develop- was 11Tred. In April 1982, Mr. -McMahon
The KGB took the unusual step last ment costs" by telling the U.S. about the was named by President Reagan to re-
month of issuing what can only be called a direction of Soviet aviation efforts. In that place Adm. Bobby R. Inman as deputy in.
press release. In a statement distributed way, American researchers could more telligence director.
by the official TASS news agency, the So- precisely target their own work toward In spring 1983, Mr. Howard was told to
viet intelligence agency accused a Soviet countering future Russian military resign or he'd be fired. Mr. McMahon took
citizen of spying for the U.S. and also an- threats. this step despite Mr. Howard's privileged
nounced the expulsion of a U.S. Embassy U.S. intelligence experts believe that knowledge of U.S. intelligence operations
official. Mr. Tolkachev is fated for execution, if he in Moscow, and what his continued drug
The KGB named the suspected spy as is not already dead. But how was he dis- use said about his emotional stability.
A.G. Tolkachev. He was identified merely covered? And why did the KGB wait three (Later, in February 1984, Mr. Howard was
as a staff member of a "Moscow research months before announcing his arrest? arrested for brandishing a pistol at three
institute." No other details about his back- Mr. Tolkachev wasn't merely caught in men in downtown Santa Fe. N.M.; in a
ground were provided. His arrest appar- the act of passing secrets to the U.S. Em- plea bargain, he pleaded guilty to an as-
ently took place sometime in early June. bassy's Mr. Stombaugh, as the KGB sault charge and was sentenced to proba-
The announcement maintained that Mr. claims. In fact, as U.S. intelligence sources tion.) Instead of firing him, intelligence ex-
Tolkach
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mation to an American diplomat. Paul M.
Stombaugh, of the U.S. Embassy's political
section. Mr. Stombaugh was ordered to
leave the Soviet Union June 14. The KGB
statement gave no explanation for the
three-month delay in announcing Mr. Tol-
kachev's arrest and Mr. Stombaugh's ex-
pulsion.
Western news correspondents in Mos-
cow interpreted the belated announcement
as one-upmanship by Soviet authorities. A
week earlier. Britain had expelled 31 So-
viets for spying and the Soviet Union re-
sponded in kind by ousting an equal num-
ber of Britons in Moscow. This exchange
had been triggered by the defection of a
Soviet spy in London, who had apparently
worked as a double agent for the British
for years. The Tolkachev announcement
was seen as just another spy maneuver.
Valuable Human Asset
That wasn't the real story, however. Ac-
cording to high-level U.S. intelligence
sources, Mr. Tolkachev was one of the
Central Intelligence Agency's most valua-
ble human assets in the Soviet Union. And
his exposure and arrest stand as indict-
ments of gross mismanagement and inepti-
tude reaching to the highest levels of U.S.
counterintelligence operations.
Mr. Tolkachev was an electronics ex-
pert at a military aviation institute in Mos-
cow. Over several years, he had passed in-
valuable information to the U.S. about the
Soviet Union's latest research efforts in
new aircraft technology-especially avion-
ics, or electronic guidance and counter-
measures; advanced radar: and so-called
"stealth," or radar-avoidance, techniques.
Such research is at the cutting edge of mil-
itary aircraft breakthroughs, both for the
Soviets and the U.S. Mr. Tolkachev, one
source hinted, may have also tipped the
U.S. off to the large phased-array radar at
Krasnoyarsk-a treaty violating facility in
the south-central part of the country aimed
at completing a nationwide anti-ballistic-
missile defense.
"He was one of our most lucrative
agents," said another well-placed source.
Edward Howard, an untried and untested trainee
suspected earlier of drug use, was, inexcusably, told about
critical U. S. human intelligence operations in Moscow.
tell it, he was betrayed by a former CIA
agent, Edward L. Howard. And the KGB's
peculiar September announcement was ap-
parently a ruse to try to put U.S. counter-
intelligence officers off the scent of this
turncoat.
Mr. Howard, who is now 33, joined the
CIA in January 1981. An initial polygraph
test indicated that he was an occasional
drug user. Agency officials told him to end
his drug-taking or face dismissal. He then
promised to give up drugs.
Shortly thereafter, he entered an inten-
sive, 2k-year training program to become
a "deep cover" case officer in the U.S.
Embassy in Moscow. One of his assign-
ments would be to "run" Mr. Tolkachev:
in other words, he was to. collect Mr. Tol-
kachev's materials at "dead drop" sites
in Moscow and to care for his needs. In the
course of his training, this untried and un-
tested trainee was, inexcusably, told about
critical U.S. human intelligence operations
in Moscow; he was even informed about
anti-Soviet operations in the U.S. Mr. How-
ard was also trained for several months by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation in sur-
veillance techniques and evasion.
perts suggest, a more sensible course
might have been to cancel Mr. Howard's
transfer to Moscow but retain him in a
nonsensitive area of the agency where his
actions could be closely monitored.
(Mr. McMahon didn't return a phone
call yesterday requesting comment.)
In September 1984, Mr. Howard told two
of his former colleagues at the CIA that
he was thinking of passing his information
to the Soviets as an act of revenge, accord-
ing to documents filed in a Justice Depart-
ment criminal complaint against him.
These agents then told the proper CIA au-
thorities about Mr. Howard's threat. But
the agency's only response was to get a
psychiatrist for Mr. Howard in New Mex-
ico, where the CIA had helped him find a
job as an economic analyst with the state
government back in June 1983.
Meanwhile, a momentous event was oc-
curring a continent away that would
darken further the profile of Edward How-
ard. On July 28 of this year, in Rome, a
visiting Soviet official was taking a stroll
with some colleagues. He told them that he
would meet them back at the embassy af-
ter he toured the Vatican museum
His So-
.
Before being dispatched to Moscow, Mr. viet compatriots never saw him again, and
Howard was given another polygraph test, a month later he was in the U.S. being de-
which suggested that his drug use had con- briefed by the CIA. The Soviet official is
tinued and also indicated at least one in- Vitaly Yurchenko of the KGB. By many
stance of petty theft outside the govern- accounts, he is one of the most important
ment. According to sources who have long Soviet defectors in recent history.
been critical of shortcomings in U.S. coun- The State Department officially an-
terintelligence capability, Deputy Director nounced Mr. Yurchenko's defection last
of Central Intelligence John N. McMahon P WI week. He was deputy chief of the North
at this point decided he wanted Mr. How- American department of the KGB's First
and out of the agency. Mr. McMahon, a ca- Chief Directorate, which is in charge of the
reer intelligence officer for more than 30 Soviet Union's world-wide spy operations.
years, had been the CIA's executive di- He was "specifically responsible for the di-
rector, responsible for the day-to-day man- rection of KGB Intelligence operations in
agement of the agency, when Mr. Howard the U.S. and Canada," the State Depart-
Continued
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ment's announcement said. In addition, he
held a senior position in the KGB's coun-
terintelligence program, which aims to
root out any Russian moles working for the
U.S. or other foreign governments. Pre-
viously, Mr. Yurchenko served as a spy in
the Soviet Embassy in Washington from
1975 to 1990. As a result of these positions,
Mr. Yurchenko was able to gain a broad
understanding of the highly compartmen-
talized operations of the KGB.
Mr. Yurchenko gave his debriefers a
code name for a former CIA agent who
had supplied valuable information to the
KGB. While he did not have the real name
of the agent, Mr. Yurchenko did provide
enough information for U.S. authorities to
"sift through" the relevant data and fi-
nally pinpoint Mr. Howard as the sus-
pected spy, said law-enforcement sources,
who asked not to be identified. According
to other sources familar with the debrief-
ing, Mr. Yurchenko said that this former
CIA agent had provided the KGB with de-
tails about U.S. human intelligence activi-
ties in Moscow, including the identity of
A.G. Tolkachev. Mr. Howard's revelations,
therefore, prompted Mr. Tolkachev's ar-
rest and likely execution.
Major Foul-Up
FBI agents were instructed to interview
Mr. Howard but not to arrest him. Ex-
plained a law-enforcement source: "The
information provided by the defector,
standing alone, was not sufficient to estab-
lish probable cause." After he was quizzed,
FBI agents kept Mr. Howard under sur-
veillance. In a major foul-up, however, no
one ever told the FBI agents that Mr. How-
ard had been schooled by the bureau itself
in surveillance and evasion tactics.
On the moonless night of Sept. 21, Mr.
Howard escaped his FBI watchdogs. On
Sept. 23, the FBI issued a warrant for his
arrest, but It was too late. U.S. intelligence
finally succeeded in tracing Mr. Howard's
trail to Finland and then to Moscow, where
he is now presumably being debriefed on
all he knows about U.S. spying operations
in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.
"The United States has virtually zero
counterintelligence capability," Sen. Mal-
colm Wallop (R., Wyo.) said recently in
criticizing the CIA's and FBI's failures in
the Howard case. Some experts are pre-
dicting a major shakeup in intelligence
management due to the Howard-Tolka-
chev-Yurchenko affair. What will remain
after blame is assessed, of course, is that
the U.S. has lost one of its most valuable
human assets in the Soviet Union and his
alleged betrayer has fled safely to Mos?
cow.
Mr. Kueewicz is a member of the Jour-
nal's editorial board.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403600001-1