The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

This has all the makings of a great espionage book. Based on recently declassified material. The story of Adolf Tolkachev, probably the most important spy in the history of the Cold War. This is great material in the hands of a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and David Hoffman does not disappoint.It’s natural to compare this to another excellent Cold War Spy book - Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and The Traitor. That one was a first person account of the spy. This one is more about the people and the organisation which ran the spy. As a result, the first book was more edge of the seat and gripping. We know the emotions and the constant fear the spy is living with. What’s going on in his mind.This one is less gripping. Written more like a third person narrative. But a wealth of great information. The history of the Stalin and his purges. The American espionage establishment and its role in the Cold War. A lot of important characters are covered. There’s a lot of information about how the intelligence was put to use.Then there’s the story of the spy Tolkachev. His fierce determination to damage his country from the inside. How he turned. His need for validation. And the impact of his work. How we came to be known as the billion dollar spy. The last chapter about how intelligence from the spy impacted the battle in the skies in favour of America is very important.The best parts for me though are 1) all the details of how American spying evolved in Russia and Eastern Europe. About people like Gerber and Havilland Smith who were truly innovative and significantly advanced the craft of spying. So many lessons in creative problem solving actually. Just loved all the details.2) The running of the Moscow station of the CIA. Probably their most important station The fascinating people who operated it and their motivation for putting themselves at such risk, the spies they ran and the way they went about their work. How they figured out surveillance and ways to beat. Also the important role of the wives.There’s also the part about how all of this came to an end. It’s a spoiler so I won’t talk about it.All in all it’s a great book about espionage in the days of the Cold War. If you are a fan of the genre, you will love it.

In order to understand and appreciate this work, one has to read articles and books written about traitors within the CIA. To the uninitiated, the book at first may not hold as significance as it would if one were to see first the interview of Aldrich Ames by Ted Koppel.

Sometimes it feels like a report rather than a novel . May be because based it is based on true story and could not be like James Bond thriller. However, the pace could have been faster.

This is a very interesting spy story. How the us gained superior technology developed from information received from a spy in Moscow. Its fast paced and a very interesting story of adof tolcachev

The book gives you a chilling account of the spy game. It is very difficult to differentiate if this is real or work of fiction... So engrossing!!!

Absolutely spellbinding, a must read book for lovers of spy stories and the cold war, a simply mesmerizing book about heroism and revenge

Billion dollars information, must read..

Real page turner. Brilliantly written.

I came to this impressive book partly by extensive reading about the Cambridge spy ring and partly through the recommendation of Ben MacIntyre, whose writings I very much admire, especially: The Spy and the Traitor and The Last Word.David Hoffman’s account of Adolf Tolkachev is as gripping as any spy novel I can think of. It is rare that a non-fiction work is so totally unputdownable. By way of introduction Hoffman gives us a synopsis of the disasters that befell the CIA Russian agents. Popov and Polyakov. It is against this background that the tension surrounding the many years of liaison between Tolkachev and his handlers takes place.As time moves on and total confidence in Tolkachev becomes rooted, we witness the shifts in the leadership of the CiIA from the ultra-conservative and cautious James Jesus Angleton and Turner to the pressures on that organisation to obtain more and more information and documents from their mole. We see, too, how increasingly the FBI become involved and the highest reaches of government in America bring pressures to bear.Tolkachev and his family apart, Hoffman focuses most on the handlers, who are highly trained in avoiding the surveillance of the KGB, and the best of whom support Tolkachev and establish close friendships with him. The young, but exceptionally able and cool-headed, David Rolf, is the one with whom Tolkachev seems to establish the closest trust and friendship, but all the different handlers show exceptional skills and Tolkachev never wavers in his dedication to the cause.Edward Lee Howard is to play a vital role in the culmination of the American involvement with Tolkachev. To say more here would be to spoil the book for those not appraised of the outcomes. Hoffman writes with clarity, lucidity and most careful attention to detail. His sources are impressive.A superb book, totally compelling and wonderfully informative.

This book is a well referenced account of the CIA's work in Moscow during the cold war and not only is it an enlightening book explaining how espionage was carried out during the 1970s and 1980s, but it is also an enthralling story containing suspense, Love, duty, professionalism, ingenuity, jealousy and lots of betrayal.I can't help but feel a sense of sadness for the main Russian CIA operative, Adolf Tolkachev. He bravely supplied top secret information to the United States in an unprecedented way for so long, effectively saving the US military billions of dollars in research and development over two decades. He did this with little recognition and at little personal gain, more so to his personal detriment. But I am glad that at least posthumously this book brings Mr Tolkachev some recognition for his exceptionally brave work and sacrifice to inflict damage against a system of government he so deeply hated. The author also provides Mr Tolkachevs reasoning for why he acted as he did.Thank you to the author, David E. Hoffman, for so studiously researching this book which to me brings the realities of the hard work and sacrifices of many other people in the intelligence world that help provide the safety many of us enjoy.

This is an interesting and well research piece of work and chronicles the life and activity of Adolf Tolkachev, one of the most important Russian spies ever to work for the CIA. Rightly his employment at Phazotron and in particular the information he was able to provide on the fighter interceptor radar the Russians’ were developing are covered in great detail. However, there is a glaring omission in this story. It is the work Tolkachev was also conducting on the VA-111 shkval supercavitating torpedo for the Research Institute of Applied Hydromechanics (RIAH). Tolkachev’s area of special interest was in the development of the Fast Acting Repeat Torpedo (FART). Unlike early noisy FARTs which were easily detected by sonar. Tolkachev developed the silent FART which was considerably more lethal. However, this omission did not spoil my enjoyment of this excellent book.

I wasn't hooked straightaway, but then the story began to unfold and I became gripped by the Russian spy, his life and morals and the insight of the Russian way of life, at that time. I was utterly saddened by his betrayal and the actions of the CIA. I had no idea about the details of spying, a very good and true insight into espioage.

Fascinating and detailed account of Cold War spying. Almost reads as a thriller novel, the way the story unfolds. If there was anything missing it would be some more diagrams, maps and pictures describing what tolkachev passed across and how the operations were conducted.Wouldn’t surprise me if they made a film out of this!