Circle of Treason (34 page)

Yet another operation concerned the FBI's recruitment of a Soviet official in New York and his subsequent compromise. The CIA had been informed of the case because it had important implications for the collection of intelligence. However, after the compromise it appeared as if the KGB had information about the case not available in the CIA.

The investigation of non-Ames-related indications that there was a penetration of the U.S. intelligence community started in 1994, soon after Ames' arrest. The FBI was the lead agency, and was convinced that the spy was to be found in the CIA. Eventually CIA officer Brian Kelley became the focus of suspicion and a broad array of the tools and techniques of an espionage investigation were employed over a period of years to prove that he was guilty. All of this was to no avail, however, because Kelley was innocent.

The FBI had made the mistake of narrowing their focus to one single person too early and ignoring the bits and pieces that did not fit. Not until late 2000 was the Bureau forced to admit that they had been wrong all along. The spy was one of their own: Robert Philip Hanssen. He had been working for the Soviets, first the GRU and later the KGB and its successor agency the SVR, since 1979. We find it ironic that the mantra of those criticizing our investigation of Ames was “What took you so long?” Yet, of the 1980s cases that caused major damage, Ames represents one of the fastest roll-ups. Hanssen spied successfully for more than twenty years. John Walker's espionage career lasted some eighteen years. The Clyde Conrad ring operated for almost as long. It is also interesting to note that in these cases the CIA provided leads that helped in their denouement.

A comparison between Ames and Hanssen provides food for thought. Both were born in the United States as were their parents, and from the heartland. Hanssen's father was controlling and abusive. Ames' father appears to have been more of a withdrawn, passive type. Hanssen's father was reasonably successful in his career on the Chicago police force, although there is some reporting that he retired under a cloud. Ames' father, on the other hand, was something of a failure in his career.
Hanssen's mother deferred to her husband, as well she might. Ames' mother was more assertive and outgoing.

Both Hanssen and Ames followed in their fathers' footsteps. Hanssen joined the Chicago police force in 1972 and worked there for three years before obtaining FBI employment in 1976. As has been recounted, Ames started his CIA career as a teenager, and never worked anyplace else except for a short period in Chicago.

Both Hanssen and Ames are intelligent. They had IQs higher than most of those around them. But neither had a stellar academic career. Hanssen was a somewhat better scholar. He had poor undergraduate grades but managed to get an advanced degree in accounting. Ames flunked out of the University of Chicago. He then redeemed himself by managing to get a BA degree in history at George Washington University, with reasonably good grades, especially in the subjects that most interested him.

In matters of religion, Hanssen and Ames were at different ends of the pole. Ames never showed any interest in organized religion in adulthood, and is probably best described as an agnostic or even an atheist. His second wife was a Roman Catholic, but he did not join her church. Hanssen also married a Roman Catholic, but the results were very different. He converted from the Lutheranism of his youth and became a super-devout Catholic, often attending daily mass. He also joined the conservative Opus Dei movement and was given to proselytizing.

When it comes to personal lifestyle, there are obvious differences. As far as alcohol consumption is concerned, Hanssen drank little; Ames drank a lot on occasion and could not control his binges. They also diverged in their attitudes toward pornography. Hanssen was interested in pornography, and surfed the Internet in support of this interest. He even involved his wife though she was unwitting. He described her in sexual terms on the net, going so far as to use her real first name. In this same vein, he allowed his friend jack Hoschouer to view the two of them having sex, which again she did not know. Ames on the other hand was not very interested in sex, and was impotent at times. In any event, it is difficult to imagine him treating his wife with the disrespect that Hanssen showed his.

In 1985 both Hanssen and Ames volunteered separately to the KGB in Washington, DC. It was their idea. Both were in it at least partly for the
money and neither was ideologically attracted to the USSR. However, both were interested in the Soviet Union and knew a fair amount about the country and its intelligence structure.

This was not Hanssen's first experience as a Soviet spy. He had previously volunteered to the GRU in 1979 but his wife found out about his activities in 1980 and persuaded him to cut off contact.

Ames, who preceded Hanssen by several months in 1985, identified himself but Hanssen did not. Indeed, Hanssen never met any of his handlers while Ames had personal contacts with Washington CI chief Viktor Cherkashin, who managed both cases in the early years. It must have been comforting to Cherkashin when he discovered that there was such an overlap in their access and knowledge. Otherwise the reporting from Hanssen, the unknown quantity, would have been highly suspect. And, as the cases developed, Ames established close relations with his KGB handlers and admired them.

The timing is noteworthy. Ames worked for the CIA for more than twenty years before volunteering; Hanssen volunteered after three years. He made his approach to the GRU almost as soon as he got access to information that would interest the Soviet Union. Ames had had at least some access for many years, and broad access starting in the fall of 1983. Possibly there was some trigger, such as an especially hefty Nordstrom bill or unpalatable feedback from an Agency guidance counselor, which took him across the line in April 1985.

Both Ames and Hanssen communicated with their Soviet handlers via dead drops in the Washington area. Hanssen had no other form of communication, but Ames also had personal meetings via a go-between in Washington and Rome, and direct personal meetings with his Moscow-based handlers in Europe and South America.

Ames was polygraphed twice after he began his espionage career. In both instances he managed to satisfy the operators that he was leveling with them. The polygraph was not an issue in the Hanssen case because he was never subjected to this kind of examination.

While Ames may have been nervous at the outset of his espionage activities, it seems that he gained confidence as time passed and he perceived no signs that he was under suspicion. When the SIU team interviewed him in 1992, he gave Sandy and Jeanne the impression that he thought that he was smarter than we were, and that he would have no
trouble pulling the wool over our eyes. As we used to say at the time, he viewed us as “two dumb broads.” According to the FBI, when he was finally arrested he was dumbfounded. He did not see it coming. Hanssen, on the other hand, became more and more uneasy in the final months of his treason. His last written message to the SVR showed that he knew that his activities were bound to end in a highly unpleasant way.

FINAL THOUGHTS

W
E HAVE OFTEN BEEN ASKED TWO QUESTIONS
about the Ames case. One is what were the lessons learned and the other is whether there are any basic tenets of a successful CI investigation. Beginning with the lessons learned, they were few in number, and none was edifying. In retrospect, we should have done more in the way of documenting our progress by preparing periodic progress reports for the official record. Moreover, every time we or our FBI colleagues briefed our respective managements, we should have written a memorandum recording the occasion, the names of those briefed, and the contents of the briefing. If we had done this, we would have been spared some of the attempts by those who knew better to minimize their knowledge and thus their responsibility for what was judged at the time to be an investigation that had taken too long. When the joint unit first went into business in the summer of 1991, Jeanne did set up a log of “things to do.” The log included notations of what had already been done. However, Jeanne abandoned this log after a while because it appeared to be unnecessary, and just one more thing to slow us down. In retrospect, this was a mistake. In this same vein, we should have written a separate final report in 1992, or at least a CIA addendum to the FBI's assessment, stating our conclusions as to who the spy was and who the spy was not and detailing the information that led us to that judgment.

Secondly, from the beginning we should have paid more attention to the dictum “follow the money.” We of course knew that the majority of spies were motivated by financial profit, and that it was usual for them to spend some of their ill-gotten gains instead of putting them away for a retirement nest egg. Yet it had never been the practice to pay special attention to sudden affluence. As a matter of fact, the Office of Security background investigations were aimed more at discovering who was in debt than to discovering who was in the clover. Such an approach made sense if one were trying to identify employees with potential vulnerabilities, but it was not likely to uncover someone who had already begun to profit from espionage. Luckily, we had Dan Payne as a member of our team. Thanks to his initiative and perseverance the right steps were taken to pin down the sources of Ames' substantial income.

As covered at length in earlier chapters, one of the most important mistakes made was the failure to inform Congress of the investigation, with periodic updates as to the progress being made. This was not the team's responsibility, but the failure to take these steps led to general Congressional animosity and suspicion of CIA's professionalism, which in turn led to subsequent overmanagement of espionage investigations by the legislative branch.

CI investigation is an art form carried out by experts. It is not a science, and throwing money and unqualified personnel or helpers at such a problem does not guarantee or even improve the chances of success. In many cases, quite the opposite result is achieved—analytical chaos with no resolution. Luck is involved—both in what you learn during the investigation and what you don't learn until the damage assessment is done—but in a wide-ranging and lengthy probe it probably does not play the defining role.

While there are several “must haves” for a successful CI investigation, knowledge of the target organization, in this case the KGB, is paramount. We had to be experts on the personnel, organization, tradecraft, and operational philosophy of the KGB to have a chance of success. Luckily, our previous assignments had allowed us to acquire the necessary expertise.

Personal knowledge of the personnel, organization, and methods of operation of the penetrated organization, in this case the CIA, is equally important. We had to educate our FBI colleagues on how CIA case officers thought and operated. Also, as we have always said, we would
have a difficult time finding a spy in the Department of Defense, or any organization other than our own, simply because we don't know the players or how the game is played.

Scattered throughout this book is a large amount of material concerning the relations between the CIA and FBI. This subject has been the theme of many books, most of them fairly nonsensical. They describe the exchanges between the two services in a fairly stark and negative fashion, often attributing many of the ills of the intelligence world to failures in cooperation. In fact, the relationship is much more nuanced and has varied from time to time and from target to target. Certainly it is partly personality-driven and turf-driven. In a general sense, differences are perhaps more acute at the upper levels. Those actually involved in the various cases have often been more attuned to getting the job done than trying to grab all the credit even when they didn't necessarily see eye to eye. The cooperation between Les Wiser's squad and our little group in the CIA was, as we see it, exemplary. Despite a few disagreements, some caused by stress and some by interference from management, we managed to keep our eye on the prize: getting Aldrich Ames arrested under circumstances that would leave no doubt as to his guilt and eligibility for the most severe punishment legally permissible.

Further examples can be found in past Soviet cases. When Piguzov produced information in 1978 to the effect that former CIA officer David Barnett had volunteered to the KGB, the FBI was informed, and was given access to the pertinent Directorate of Operations files. This lead from a CIA operation resulted in Barnett's 1980 arrest, conviction, and sentencing to eighteen years in prison, as described above.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, cooperation reached a new high. An integrated FBI/CIA unit called COURTSHIP was set up in the Washington, DC, area. It was this unit that was responsible for the recruitment in 1982 of KGB officer Valeriy Martynov, who was run jointly thereafter. Additionally, the FBI allowed CIA officers to participate in the debriefings of KGB officers who were under control of the Bureau. Examples are Boris Yuzhin and Sergey Motorin. From an earlier period there is of course the Polyakov case, recounted in detail in earlier chapters. Of course, less collegial inter-relationships also existed, as can be seen from the Kulak case and the sparring for credit in the wake of Ames' arrest.