All countries engage in spying and counterespionage, none more so than the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The three major targets for each superpower were the adversary's military technology, the status of the adversary's economy, and the nature of the adversary's political decision-making at the highest levels.
The “billion dollar spy” of this new book is Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet engineer who worked secretly for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in aviation technology from 1978 until his sudden arrest in 1985. No, he was not paid a billion dollars. But he saved the United States a billon in research and development costs. He was awarded an escrow account of some $4 million—the highest recompense for a spy in U.S. history—but he managed to use only a fraction of it before his arrest. His contributions helped the United States for many years to understand developments...