Spies in America who stole and sold U.S. secrets | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

tonight we're going to tell you a story you've probably never heard before because only a few people outside the FBI know anything about it it's a spy story unlike any other and if you think your life is complicated wait till you hear about Jack barskis who led three of them simultaneously one is a husband and father two is a computer programmer and administrator at some top American corporations and three is a KGB agent spying on America during the last decade of the Cold War the FBI did finally apprehend him in Pennsylvania but it was long after the Soviet Union had crumbled what makes Jack barsky's story even more remarkable is he's never spent a night in jail the Russians declared him dead a long time ago he's living a quiet life in Upstate New York and has worked in important and sensitive jobs he's now free to tell his story as honestly as a former spy ever can so who are you who am I that depends when the question is asked right now I'm Jack barsky I work in the United States I'm a U.S citizen but it wasn't always the case how many different identities do you have I have two main identities a German one and an American one what's your real name my real name is Jack barsky it wouldn't name it were you born with uh say that three times real fast let's just say it went slowly how Albrecht Dietrich became Jack barsky as one of the Untold Stories of the Cold War an era when the real battles were often fought between the CIA and the KGB arsky was a rarity a Soviet spy who posed as an American and became enmeshed in American society for the 10 years he was operational for the KGB no one in this country knew his real story not even his family did she think you were going to get away with this yeah otherwise I wouldn't have done it what barsky did can be traced back to East Germany back to the days when he was Albrecht Dietrich a national scholar at a renowned University in Yana Dietrich was on the fast track to becoming a chemistry professor his dream job didn't work out that way because I was recruited by the KGB to do something a little more adventurous spy we called it something different we used the euphemism I was going to be a scout for peace a KGB Scout for peace that is correct the Communist spies were the good guys and the capital spies were the evil ones so we didn't use the words by he says his spying career began with a knock on his dorm room door one Saturday afternoon in 1970. a man introduced himself claiming to be from a prominent Optics company he wanted to talk with me about my career which was highly unusual I immediately there was a flash in my head and said that's Stasi East Germany East German secret police yeah it was a Stasi agent he invited Dietrich to this restaurant in yena where a Russian KGB agent showed up and took over the conversation the KGB liked dietrich's potential because he was smart his father was a member of the Communist party and he didn't have any relatives in the west Dietrich liked the attention and the notion he might get to help the Soviets and what did you think of America who was the enemy and and the reason that the Americans did so well was because they exploited all the third world countries that's what we were taught and that's what we believed we didn't know any better it was I grew up in an area where you could not receive West German television it was called the Valley of the Clueless for the next couple of years the KGB put Dietrich through elaborate tests and then in 1973 he was summoned to East Berlin to this former Soviet military compound the KGB he says wanted him to go undercover at that point I had passed all the tests so they wanted they made me an offer but you've been thinking about it all along that's true with one count of weight and that you didn't really know what was going to come is how do you test drive becoming another person it was a difficult decision but he agreed to join the KGB and eventually found himself in Moscow undergoing intensive training a very large part of the training was operational work determination as to whether you're being under surveillance Morse code shortwave radio reception I also learned how to do micro dots a micro dot is uh you know you take a picture and make it so small with the use of a microscope that you can put it under a an opposite stamp the Soviets were looking to send someone to the U.S who could pose as an American Dietrich showed a command of English and no trace of an East German accent that might give him away he learned a hundred new English words every day it took me forever I I did probably a full year of of phonetics training the difference between Hot and Hot right that's very difficult and most Germans don't get that one do you want to go to the United States oh yeah sure it was New York San Francisco and we heard about these places your horizons were expensive absolutely now I'm really in the big league right you know Dietrich needed an American identity in one day a diplomat out of the Soviet Embassy in Washington came across this Tombstone just outside of DC with the name of a 10 year old boy who had died in 1955. the name was Jack Philip barsky and they said guess what we have a birth certificate we're going to the U.S and that was the Jack barsky version birth certificate that somebody had obtained and I was given I didn't have to get this myself did you feel strange walking around with this identity of of a child no no when you do this kind of work some things you don't think about because if you explore you may find something you don't like the newly minted Jack barsky landed in New York City in the fall of 1978 with a phony backstory called The Legend and a fake Canadian passport that he quickly discarded the kgb's plan for him was fairly straightforward they wanted the 29 year old East German to get a real U.S passport with his new name then become a businessman then insert himself into the upper echelons of American society and then to get close to National Security advisor it's a big niev Brzezinski so that he could spy on him that was the plan it failed right because I was not given very good instructions with regard to how to apply for a passport when he went to apply for a passport at Rockefeller Center barsky was thrown off by the list of questions specific details about my past for which I had no proof so I walked out of it did the KGB have a pretty good grasp on the United States and how things work there no no absolutely not they made a number of mistakes in terms of giving me advice what to do what not to do they just didn't know left to fend for himself in a country the KGB didn't understand he got himself a cheap apartment and tried to make do with the birth certificate and six thousand dollars in cash the Soviets had given him his spying career at that point Moore resembled the bumbling Boris badenoff than James Bond so you were working as a bike messenger right that doesn't sound like a promising position for a spy no but there were a lot of things that I didn't know so how close did you ever get to Brzezinski not very to get a Social Security card which he would need if he wanted a real job barsky knew he would have to do some acting it was unusual for a 30 plus year old person to to say you know I don't have a Social Security God give me one so in order to make my story stick I made my face dirty so I looked like somebody who just came off a farm it worked the lady asked me she said so how come you don't you don't have a card and when the answer was I didn't need one why well I worked on a forum and that was the end of the interview the social security card enabled him to enroll at Baruch College in Manhattan where he majored in computer systems he was class valedictorian but you won't find a picture of him in the school yearbook in 1984 he was hired as a programmer by Metropolitan Life Insurance where he had access to the personal information of millions of Americans you were writing computer code right yes lots of it and I was really good at it what he didn't write he stole on behalf of the KGB what was the most valuable piece of information you gave them I would say that that was the computer code because there was a very prominent piece of industrial software still in use today this was IBM code no comment you want to say no it was good stuff it was this way yeah it was helpful to the Soviet Union it would have been helpful to the Soviet Union and and their Runnings organizations and factories and so forth how often did you communicate with the Russians I would get a radiogram once a week a radiogram meaning a radiogram means the transmission that was on a certain frequency at a certain time every Thursday night at 9 15 barsky would tune into a shortwave radio at his apartment in Queens and listen for a transmission he believed came from Cuba all the messages were encrypted that they became digits and the digits would be sent over as in groups of five and sometimes that took a good hour to just write it all down in another three hours to decipher during the 10 years he worked for the KGB barsky had a ready-made cover story when somebody asked you that you know where are you from Jack what'd you say I'm originally from New Jersey I was born in Orange that's it American nobody ever questioned that people would question mine you have an accent but my comeback was yeah my mother was German and we spoke a lot of German at home you had to tell a lot of lies absolutely I was living a lie were you a good liar the best you had to be a good liar to juggle the multiple lives he was leading every two years while he was undercover for the KGB barsky would return to East Germany and Moscow for debriefings during one of his visits to East Berlin he married his old girlfriend gerlinda and they had a son did that complicate matters initially it wasn't complicated at all it got complicated later because because I got married in the United States to somebody else did she know about your other wife in Germany no did your wife in Germany know about the not at all so you had two wives I did I'm I was officially a bigamist that's that's the one thing I am so totally not proud of being a spy was all right being a bigamist s in hindsight you know I was by for the wrong people but but I this one hurt because I had promised my German wife that you know we would be together forever and I broke that promise and the one way I can explain that to myself is I had I had separated the German the Dietrich from the barsky to the point where the two just didn't know about each other not only did he have two different identities and two wives he had a son named Matthias in Germany and a daughter named Chelsea in America and by November 1988 a radiogram from the KGB would force him to make an excruciating choice I received a radiogram that is essentially said you need to come home your cover May soon be broken and you are in danger of being arrested by by the American authorities barsky was given urgent instructions from the KGB to locate an oil can that had been dropped next to a fallen tree just off this path on New York Staten Island a fake passport and cash that he needed to escape the United States and return to East Germany would be concealed inside the can I was supposed to pick up the container and go on leave right not even go back home to the apartment just disappear the container wasn't there I don't know what I would have done if I had founded but I know what I did when I didn't find it I did not tell them repeat the operation I made the decision to stay why because of Chelsea your daughter yes if Chelsea is not in the mix that's a no-brainer I'm out of here barsky had chosen Chelsea over Matthias I had bonded with Hall it was it was a tough one because on the one hand I had a wife and a child in Germany but if I don't take care of Chelsea she grows up in poverty this may be a little harsh but it's it sounds like the first time in your life that you thought about somebody besides yourself you absolutely right I was quite an egomaniac I was Jack barsky was still left with the not insignificant matter of telling the KGB that he was staying in America in a moment we'll tell you how he duped the KGB and how the FBI changed his life at the end of 1988 Jack barsky's 10-year run as a clandestine KGB agent in the United States was about to come to an end he had ignored Soviet warnings that his cover had been blown and decided to remain in America and not return to his native East Germany he was taking a chance that no one in America would ever find out who he really was and he was taking a bigger chance that the KGB wouldn't retaliate for disobeying an order the urgency with which the Soviets seemed to view the situation became clear one morning in Queens Jack barsky says he was on his way to work in December 1988 standing and waiting for an a train on this subway platform When a Stranger paid him a visit there's this character in a black coat and he Saddles up to me and he whispers in in my ear says you got to come home or else you're dead and then he walked out Russian accent yes that's an incentive it's an incentive to go I mean spies get killed all the time they do but not me the entire time I always had this childlike belief that everything would be all right so what are you going to tell the Russians well I I sent them this Dear John Letter the goodbye letter in which I stated that I had contracted AIDS and that the only way for me to get a treatment would be in the United States you just wrote them a letter and said I can't come back I've got AIDS there's three things I'd I tell people that the Russians were afraid of uh AIDS Jewish people and Ronald Reagan and they were in that order I think Ronald Reagan took the top spot they thought he would push the button the AIDS letter apparently worked because in East Berlin the Soviets told his German wife gerlinda he wasn't coming back they went to galinda and told her that I had died of AIDS so I think they just wrote me off completely you were officially dead in East Germany after five years he was able to declare me as dead once the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union fell apart barsky was a man without a country no one would want him back he felt his secret was safe in America he became a family guy with a wife two kids Chelsea and Jesse and a job he burrowed himself into Suburbia keeping a low profile I was settling down I was living in the NaVorro Pennsylvania at the time in a nice house with two children that was like typical middle class existence and his life would have stayed quiet if a KGB archivist named Vasily matrokin hadn't defected to the West in 1992 with the Trove of notes on the Soviet spying operations around the world buried deep in his papers was the last name of a secret agent the KGB had deployed somewhere in America barsky we were concerned that he might be running an agent operating in the federal government somewhere who knows in the FBI the CIA the state department we had no idea Joe Riley was an FBI agent when the bureau got the metrokin tip and the barsky case quickly became serious enough that FBI director Louis free got personally involved the FBI didn't know who or where he was but the best leads seemed to be a jack barsky who was working as an I.T specialist in New Jersey with a Suburban home across the border in Mount Bethel Pennsylvania aside from his name was there anything else that made you suspicious and make you think that this was the guy you were looking for yes one thing was the fact that he had applied for a social security number late in life especially someone like him who was educated and intelligent the FBI began following barsky and when this surveillance photo caught him talking to a native of Cuba the bureau grew increasingly concerned there were some indications that I could possibly be the head of a International Spy ring because I had a friend who was originally from Cuba and it so happened that this friend owned an apartment that was rented to a Soviet Diplomat so that one raised all kinds of flags and they investigated me very very very carefully yeah and Joe Riley went so far as to set up an observation post on a hillside behind barsky's house this is a picture he took of his view I got a telescope and binoculars as if I was a bird watcher but I was looking at his backyard and at him over time I learned a great deal about him that's why just watching him well I became convinced that he loved his children uh and that was important because I wanted to know if he would flee there was less chance of that if he was devoted to his children and he was but that wasn't enough for the FBI the bureau bought the house next door to get a closer look at the barskis did you get a good deal I think we paid what he was asking and we had agents living there so that we could be sure who was coming and going from his house without being too obvious in our surveillance you had no idea the FBI was living next door to you no never saw it um no Joe Riley up on the hill with the binoculars absolutely not when the FBI finally got authorization from the justice department to bug barsky's home the case broke wide open within I'd say the first two weeks that we had microphones in his house he had an argument with his wife in the kitchen and during the course of that dispute he readily admitted that he was an agent operating from the Soviet Union it was all the FBI needed to move in on barsky they set a trap for him at a toll bridge across the Delaware River as he drove home from work late one Friday afternoon in May of 1997. I'm being waved to the side by a state trooper and he said we were doing a routine traffic check would you please get out of the car get out of the car and somebody steps up from from behind and and shows me a badge and he said the FBI we would like to talk to you his face just dropped and we told him that he had to go with us the first words out of my mouth were am I under arrest and the answer was no now that took a big weight off of me so I figured there was a chance to get out of this in one piece in the next question I asked so what took you so long the FBI had rented an entire wing of a motel off Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania for barsky's interrogation but on the way to the motel I remember turning to him and I told him that this didn't have to be the worst day of his life and he immediately realized that he had an out and I said to them listen I know I have only one shot out of this and that means I need to come clean and be 100 honest and tell you everything I know the FBI questioned barsky throughout the weekend and gave him a polygraph test that he passed convinced that his spying days were over and that his friendship with the Cuban was just that the FBI decided to keep the whole thing quiet and allowed barsky to go back to work on Monday morning was he charged with something no even though he had confessed to being a Soviet spy yes that seems odd well we wanted him to cooperate with us we did want to put him in jail he was no use to us there barsky continued to meet not only with the FBI but with the National Security Agency to offer his first-hand insights into the KGB and the Russians I was able to provide him with a lot of valuable information out of the KGB operated the only people who were aware of his secret were the FBI and Penelope his wife in America who subsequently filed for divorce his daughter Chelsea then a teenager knew only that he wanted to tell her something when she turned 18. that day finally arrived on a four-hour drive to Saint Francis University he started chuckling to himself and he said well I'm I was a spy I was a KGB spy I was like what really Jack also revealed to Chelsea why he had decided to stay in America he said that you know he fell in love with me and my My Curls when I was a little baby and then I cried did he tell you everything no he didn't he didn't tell me 100 to hold truth he left some things out at that point I told her everything that you can tell in four hours that is age appropriate he was still a teenager I may not have told her that I was married in Germany he waited another two years before he matter of factly dropped another bombshell about his past he just looked Straight Ahead at the TV and he said did I tell you you have a brother and I turned my head I'm like what are you serious the half-brother was Matthias the boy Jack had left behind in Germany Chelsea was determined to find him jack didn't like the idea I did not feel comfortable uh getting in touch with him I did not feel comfortable with my acknowledging my German Past after a year of trying to track him down online Chelsea finally got a reply from Matthias the subject line said dear little sister and when I saw dear little sister I just started weeping because that meant everything to me that meant that he accepted me and this is me a month later Matthias was in Pennsylvania visiting Chelsea and her brother Jesse they hit it off Matthias wasn't interested in seeing his father and changed his mind was it awkward I just remember he stared at me for a couple of minutes you just stared at me when he had reason to be angry with you when I told him the Dilemma that I was faced with he actually said I understand Ian what's your relationship like with Matthias now he feels like he is my son gerlinda the wife in Germany who thought he was dead wants nothing to do with Jack today or with 60 minutes he has remarried and has a four-year-old daughter they live in Upstate New York where Jack has worked as director of software development for a company that manages New York's high voltage power grid a critical piece of U.S infrastructure when he told his employer recently that he had once been a KGB spy he was placed on a paid leave of absence before becoming an American citizen last year he had been given a clean bill of health by the FBI and U.S intelligence agencies but in the world of Espionage it's often difficult to tell what's true and what's Legend are you telling the truth right now I am absolutely the truth as far as I know it yes as far as you know it well you know sometimes memory fails you know but I am I am absolutely not holding back anything why tell the story now I want to meet my Maker clean I need to get clean with the past I need to digest this fully all right take your Mulligan already the FBI agent who apprehended him Joe Riley still believes in barsky and in yet another Twist of the story the two are good friends and golfing buddies he's a very honest person and if you want to find out how honest someone is play golf with them but you're a former FBI guy and he's a former spy yeah what's the bond is personal he credits me for keeping him out of prison after nearly 30 years Jack barsky went back to visit a unified Germany first in October then again last month so that was essentially the very beginning of my career he showed his kids where this improbable tale began and some other key settings in his Odyssey and he caught up with old classmates who knew him as Albrecht Dietrich when you're here in Germany yeah are you Albrecht or are you jack no I'm Jack I am 100 Jack you know I let the other way out and sometimes he interferes but they get along very well now the Berlin Wall which once divided East and West is now gone except for a section that has been turned into an art display Checkpoint Charlie once the epicenter of the Cold War is now a tourist attraction full of catch statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels still stand in the eastern part of Berlin relics of another era as is the man who straddled Two Worlds and got away with it everyone who knew him at the FBI thought Robert Hansen was a quiet unassuming computer nerd but it turns out this FBI agent gave away more secrets than any spy in the history of the Bureau for six hundred thousand dollars in cash and diamonds from the Russians Hanson compromised among other things the existence of a top secret surveillance tunnel under the Russian Embassy in Washington DC secret U.S war plans and the identity of Russians working as spies for the U.S for over 22 years he went undetected as he worked his way up to chief of the Soviet analytical unit which has been described as a supermarket of classified information on U.S operations against the Russians what's more he not only betrayed his country he also betrayed his church and his wife in an almost unimaginable way betrayal was at the very core of his soul Pulitzer prize-winning author Norman mailer and filmmaker Lauren Schiller have spent the last 10 months investigating the Hanson case for an upcoming CBS Television movie and a book called into the mirror here he is with one of his sons teaching him how to shoot James Bond for their research Schiller and mailer have gone through a family album that depicts an image of your normal healthy middle class All-American family man now this is the picture of them getting married look how happy he is and he's tall and handsome and she looks like Natalie Wood this is the perfect couple here's the whole family look at that just gorgeous all six uh members of his family by all outward appearances Hanson was devoted to his kids and Bonnie his wife of 33 years they sent their children to private religious schools so they could be instilled with solid Christian values but this was all an illusion Bob Hansen wasn't just a double agent he had multiple secret lives at the office and at home just right after being married uh he started to photograph his wife he started taking pictures of her nude pictures a little more risque uh pretty strong pictures that may not sound all that strange but what was even stranger was that he was sending those nude pictures unbeknownst to his wife to his best friend now retired U.S army officer Jack horschauer and if that's not enough Hanson showed his best friend even more he had immense knowledge of technology so he was able to put a closed circuit television camera in his bedroom hidden away behind a photograph with a little hole in the photograph and it was piped into a television set someplace else in the house and when Jack kershawar would visit he'd say just turn on the television and if you want to watch something interesting let me know and he would watch Robert Hansen making love to his wife his wife didn't know about it you're telling this in the most matter-of-fact tone of voice as if hey he set up a camera and let his friend watch him in bed with his wife but this is over the top it's not only over the top but then he would ask uh Jack Kershaw or would you like to see me do something else in bed what else would you like what do you call that is that what I call it Wicked and there's even more incredible as it sounds Hanson published stories about his sexual life with his wife on adult oriented websites and used his own name he lived a life of treachery and betrayal and he betrayed everyone nobody knows more about spies and their peccadillos than John Martin he oversaw the investigations and prosecutions of some 76 spies when he was a senior official at the justice department out of government now he has followed the Hanson case closely do you know that Hanson wrote pornographic stories on the internet I did not know that until recently if the bureau had found out about that would that have wrong about he would have been removed from access and an investigation would have been conducted now he used his own name and the name of his wife how come that wasn't caught they just weren't looking or I don't know if the FBI is surfing the pornographic net looking for spies they may be doing it after this case Hanson began feeding the Soviets valuable information in 1979 just three years after joining the FBI he communicated with the Russians in writing this is a copy of one of his actual letters sent in 1985 to his Handler Victor chikashin soon I will send a box of documents to Mr digtr they are from certain of the most sensitive and highly compartmented projects of the U.S intelligence community in his letters he gave up the identity of Soviet Spies Like Top Hat a high-ranking and highly productive Soviet officer who was on the CIA payroll when you give up the names of live sources you're doing the maximum damage that you can were they really the top of the lines they were top of the line sources and they were pulled back and two of the three sources were executed after he gave them up do you think that was deliberate that he knew exactly who he was absolutely he was getting rid of his competition the treachery of it a treachery but Martin tips his hat to Hanson for his shrewdness in covering his tracks he was as much a mystery to the KGB as he was to the FBI never allowing his Russian handlers to meet him he communicated with them only in writing they didn't know he was with the FBI and they assumed probably assumed that he was with the CIA that's because he threw them off his Track by often signing his message with the pen name Ramon Garcia which ends quite deliberately with the letters CIA and the information he gave up concerned the CIA as well as other intelligence agencies but never the FBI where he worked so what kind of man would betray his country so secretly and his wife so publicly Jonah Carey could not write a novel about Hansen Graham Greene he couldn't even Norman Miller couldn't it takes Dostoevsky no he's the most complex um probably the most complex real character that I've ever had to contend with as the contradictions involving his wife alone were extraordinary by the way he had to order he worshiped her he loved her you can't imagine how much he loved her but he's a man of parts so not only did he love her and adore he also had a betray her you see what you find there is that next to his most noble and loving emotions are his most evil emotions and they alternate the alternate how does he keep from going insane good question since he was also betraying the church he was seemingly devoted to Hanson was and still is a member of a conservative order within the Roman Catholic Church called Opus day Latin for work of God a group dedicated to fighting communism he attended mass and took communion daily so he'd go to church this very conservative Opus day order and pray and deal with it I got his knees bring his knees right and and incredible while he prayed so while he was praying are you saying that he didn't he was laughing at it no I think he almost demands that you come up with a new kind of psychology to explain him he is an absolutely devout man prayed with intensity uh brought up his children he was a model father and and he would help them write essays about how good America was and that and here was a man that was always talking about fighting communism uh which was you know one of the things that Opus day was very much involved in he is at the same time giving the Soviet Union those Secrets which are the most important this is the epitome of the amoral human being you have to find a new word it's sort of dramatically a moral Dr Alan solarian a psychiatrist hired by Hansen's legal defense team whose spent 30 hours interviewing him says Hanson is an amoral he's ill suffering from a severe psychological disorder he is driven by demons he's driven by thoughts unwanted thoughts solarian says Hanson shared his whole secret life with his Opus day priest he tells the priest not only is psychological demons on top of this he tells this a priest that he's also spying and look the kind of advice he got lousy advice he was told to pray more and to turn the money to Mother Teresa to me that's outrageous they basically said if you give the money to Mother Teresa everything will be okay yes exactly Hanson has told the government that indeed he gave his spy money in the early 80s about twelve thousand dollars up to that time to Mother Teresa and then went on to spy some more with Bob Henson the church dropped the ball they fumbled it the church's position is that a priest cannot reveal what he learns in confidence but solarian thinks the church should have encouraged Hanson to seek psychiatric help and turn himself in instead of using his six hundred thousand dollars in spy money to bail his family out of debt Hanson has three mortgages on the house he spent much of the money on Priscilla galey whom he met at a strip club where she performed because he goes out with this stripper it was beautiful and had won awards for being the best strip of the year in this city in that City including Washington DC and it was a Charming intelligent woman and um he spent a year with her spent some like eighty thousand dollars on her in that year which was almost equal to his yearly salary and um never made a pass at her right never she made a pass at him but he never made a pass at her he wanted to convert her when she rejected her yes there's no question he rejected her uh but you know he still tried to convert her to Catholicism and this was not the only girl that he did it with there were several other strippers one I think he even succeeded in converting he the exhibitionist trying to save an exhibitionist you're right on that but there's another angle Bob Hansen was not trying to say Priscilla Bob Henson was trying to save himself it was maybe it's too much psychobabble but in society we call it projective identification he put himself onto somebody else and tried to help something else Dr solarian believes Hansen did was use his spying as a way to fend off his demons his Espionage was an escape from his sexual demons that when he found himself in an exciting dangerous position such as Espionage and spying he found that his demons slow down they calm down you're not going to be able to dismiss Hanson by speaking of his psychiatric categories he goes beyond that he is crazier than crazy he comes out of the other end because his behavior is so rational you see under immense stress and tension think of taking these secrets out of the FBI week after week month after month year after year he gave the Russians you know the average big spy like like Walker or one of those would give two or three drops a year and one year Hanson gave something like 13 or 14 drops and here's what's unheard of the Russians were just going on who is this man he is a genius you said that he liked the game he liked living she found Adventure in it and he looked upon himself as someone who is smarter than everybody else and he looked down upon his colleagues but eventually the game caught up with him when a Russian spy turned over the entire KGB file on the Man known as Ramon Garcia while the file did not contain Hanson's name it did include a tape recording of his voice and his fingerprints lifted from this plastic garbage bag that he once used to wrap classified documents the perfect spy was not so perfect after all he got a little sloppy and so on February 18 2001 about a month before he was set to retire from the FBI Hansen's whirls all three or four of them Came Crashing Down is this a tragic figure is this somebody we need to reserve just an ounce of pity for or is this just outright pure evil pure criminality how about having the difference oh a little pity and he probably is pretty damn evil Hanson who will be sentenced in May has agreed to plead guilty to Espionage and cooperate with the government in return He avoids the death penalty and assures that his wife Bonnie will collect most of his pension from his 25 years with the FBI and finally what about Bonnie we're told that she still loves him and completely forgives him we're used to spy novels about the Russians but today's reality in Espionage is different China has just as good a spy Network in the United States and tonight you are going to see a Chinese spy caught red-handed taking American Military secrets from an employee of the defense department if China is the Asian Dragon then it has awakened to compete with the United States all around the world for resources markets and strategic Advantage the Chinese are also shopping for information ranging from U.S nuclear weapons designs to the inside deliberations of the Obama white house because of the nature of Espionage you never get a look at this clandestine underworld but recently the FBI recorded a Chinese agent stealing America's secrets and we're making the video public for the first time there's a nice oh okay okay this is what Espionage looks like the man driving the car is Greg bergerson he's a civilian Analyst at the Pentagon with one of the nation's highest security clearances His companion is Tai Shin guo a spy for the People's Republic of China this is guo in an FBI surveillance photo he was born in Taiwan but he's a naturalized American citizen who owns a number of businesses in Louisiana and this is bergerson who worked at the pentagon's defense security cooperation agency which manages weapons sales to U.S allies bergerson knew a secret that the Chinese desperately wanted to know what kind of weapons was America planning to sell to Taiwan the rebellious Chinese Island that mainland China wants to reclaim it's July 2007 they're driving outside Washington and neither man knows that what they're about to do is being recorded by two cameras the FBI has concealed in their car [Music] oh are you sure that's okay yeah you sure we watched the tape with John Slattery the FBI agent at headquarters who oversaw the case he recently retired as a deputy assistant director what's happening there information has been passed prior and this is reward for that or there is expectation that passage of information is forthcoming so that's what that's what's happening right here how much money is he holding in his hand um I think we're probably looking at about two two thousand dollars uh thereabouts Tai Shin Groves money and contacts came to the FBI's attention while the bureau was investigating a different Chinese Espionage case they followed him tapped his phone watched his email and all of that led to bergerson in the car the Pentagon employee and Chinese spy were plotting the Handover of secret documents that listed Future Weapons sales to Taiwan and details of a Taiwanese military Communication System um I'm very very very very very Radisson to let you have it because it's all classified and but I I will let you see it and you can take all the notes you want which I think you can do today but ever fell into the wrong the world's not good whatever okay that's plus then I would be fired for sure I'd go to jail because I violated all the rules he just described them as classified documents exactly he knows precisely what he's doing exactly he's almost going down your list of requirements for an indictment by a grand jury and we thank him for that when it comes to espionage against the United States is China now the number one threat that we face I would be hard-pressed to say whether it's the Chinese or it's the Russians but they're one two or two one Michelle Van Cleave was America's top Counter Intelligence officer working for the Director of National Intelligence she was in charge of coordinating the hunt for foreign spies from 2003 to 2006. the Chinese are the biggest problem we have with respect to the level of effort that they're devoting against us the level of attention we are giving to them what do the Chinese want from us virtually every technology that is on the U.S control technology list has been targeted sensors and Optics and biological and chemical processes these are the things information Technologies across all the things that we have identified as having inherent military application the Chinese have stolen technology used in the space shuttle and in submarine propulsion systems in the late 1990s a congressional commission found that China now holds the most closely guarded Secrets America had we learned and the Cox commission reported that the Chinese had acquired the design information for all U.S thermonuclear weapons currently in our inventory make sure I understand the Chinese are in possession today of the designs of all of our nuclear weapons yes how did they get that the questions of how they acquired it remain to some extent unknown how the U.S lost its Atomic Secrets may be unknown but there are fewer mysteries in the case of taishin guo and Greg bergerson the FBI says that guo wanted to expand his Louisiana businesses into China and when he sought permission from Beijing the Chinese asked for a few favors for their intelligence service the two thousand dollars was only part of guo's development of bergerson guo wined and dined his spy and bergerson seemed to have an appetite for Espionage at one dinner guo's tab came to 710 guo took Ferguson to Las Vegas for some shows and the day of the ride guo brought a box of expensive cigars all the while guo lied to bergerson telling him that the information was being passed to Taiwan the U.S Ally does that make any difference in the law whether you're spying for a hostile government or a friendly one of course not classified information is not allowed to be passed without you know certain approvals to any foreign government but I think when you see the information you can get out of it what you need you know you can write all the you can take all the notes you want it's just I cannot never let anyone know because that's my job man I get fired for sure on that well not even get fired I'm going to jail the recruitment of bergerson has a familiar ring to finji Li recruited spies for China as an officer in the ministry of State security the MSS is their CIA give me a sense of all the different ways you would persuade someone to spy for China that should be a long story I've got time okay in our interview Lee switched between English and Mandarin he worked for Chinese intelligence 14 years recruiting spies in Russia he's now seeking political asylum in the U.S let me say this intelligence work is different from other kind of work when I Target a hundred people even if 99 people have refused me if there is one I persuade that's enough that's enough yeah Lee told us that he recruited spies through blackmail and sometimes greed especially if someone wanted to do business in China once he says his agents recruited the official photographer for a European head of state that he still won't name would you say the MSS spends most of its effort on the United States how will you win definitely without a doubt what would some examples be of the kind of information that MSS was interested in getting a hold of for example what the President Obama thinks right now they want to know what President Obama thinks yes thanks to Greg bergerson the Chinese were about to find out just what sort of weapons America intended to sell to Taiwan the day of that car ride bergerson drove guo and the secret documents to a restaurant outside Washington D.C inside the restaurant guo copied the secrets by hand out in the parking lot bergerson waited with a glass of wine one of those cigars and the FBI in tow as they left bergerson just couldn't stop talking but I I will be very attractive just like these documents no fingerprints was my job later guo left the U.S for Beijing but while he waited for his flight federal agents got into his bags photocopied his handwritten notes and put them back guo's notes matched the secret document on the right but John Slattery who oversaw the case for the FBI told us the bureau didn't make arrests until six months later but I mean this is Drop Dead evidence and Espionage is occurring why didn't you arrest them sooner than that well these these investigations are tremendously complex and tremendously difficult to begin with the Department of Defense wants you to stop it right away sooner than later but but the FBI says listen we want to make sure we can sustain a conviction here and and are there other players in this turns out there were other players guo had another source inside the Pentagon and guo was connected to spies on the west coast who were giving up U.S space and Naval technology presumably the U.S is doing the same kind of spying in China but Michelle Van Cleave says America has so much more to lose I think we're a real candy store for the Chinese and for others in in terms of technology and Commercial products or other proprietary information and so we will always be the Principal Target for them what is the most serious damage that Chinese Espionage has done to the United States it's the totality of the collection effort take a case like this or cases like like this traditional Espionage penetration of the of the interior couple that with industrial and economic collection couple that with cyber it it greatly concerns me it greatly concerns me bergerson kept saying I could go to jail and both men did in 2008 prosecutors showed them this tape and they pled guilty bergerson got almost five years for communicating National Defense information guo a naturalized American citizen is in a U.S prison doing 15 years for espionage prison may have been the best option bergerson had because after he left the car guo pulled out his own tape recorder we'll never know why he taped the damning conversation but it is classic spycraft to use blackmail to get it ever deeper and deeper secrets for every case that is broken like the bergerson case for example how many others are there that we have no idea about oh isn't that the important question you never know what you don't know but certainly we have seen such an extensive uh range of activities by the by by the Chinese that it it should make you very uncomfortable

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 2,154,072

Keywords: jack barsky, robert hanssen, 60 minutes, spy, russia, spy ring, Gregg Bergersen, crime, fbi, cia, spies, spy stories, spy documentary, kgb, cold war, china

Id: HrKZtIBYx3I

Length: 54min 51sec (3291 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023