Spy Hunters - The Women Who Caught Aldrich Ames

tonight we will be hearing from sandy Grimes the co-author of the book circle of treason let me just ask you as a courtesy to the speaker before we get started if you turn off your PDAs or cell phones and so forth that would be a big help I'm Peter earnest the executive director and I just like to start by making one observation and that is that in so many of the of the films and so forth often there's a featured player featured actor and then you get the reviews and comments coming out but really it's not it's not it's not all done by one person the work in the agency and intelligence is done by many people and so it's not just all one person but I think my experience was that yes the were a lot of people who work faithfully and hard but often there were people who made it work there were the heroes there were the people who were truly out in front and who inspired the rest of us yes and there were people in the trenches not to take away from them but Jeanne vertefeuille Jean had gone into the agency in 1954 mmm she went in I was very junior person took typing classes mmm that was what women did that then and that's how they got in she came in at a very low GS rating for those of you know the government and she went on to serve in East and West Africa Helsinki and the Benelux she then went to SC division where she would spend most of her career particularly in counterintelligence work she eventually went out together West Africa as the chief of station a small station but nevertheless she went out as chief and there weren't many women who were going out as Chiefs of station she was brought back in 1985 two had a special taskforce designed to find out what happened to our agents we were losing agents and Jeanne jumped into that work and would head that task force even when she was facing mandatory retirement at the age of 60 in 1991 she asked if she could spend her last time in the agency working on those cases these were cases of people that she knew by name these were cases that had risen during her time in the division Jean died on the 29th of December of last year 80 years old it had happened fairly quickly her friend in her final days was of course sandy Grimes they had been friends for years very close friends and very close teammates and Mike Morell who was the acting director of CIA as you know while we wait a new appointee sent out a notice on her and described Jeanne vertifight as a true agency icon you will hear more about Jeanne from Sandy but I wanted to acknowledge Jeanne this evening she was so much a part of this they did this book together they were literally the closest of friends I had occasion to interview the mourn one occasion for a film and they insisted on being interviewed together was like dealing with twins and it was a great great experience it was a great experience to have known Jean and who have worked with her in the agency for me her co-author of course was sandy Grimes who is with us this evening sandy joined the agency later than Jeanne 1967 she studied Russian and college as a major and when she entered on duty she would serve an Essie Division Soviet East European that's what that stands for for most of her career she did a number of TD why's she did another assignment within the agency and served on other task forces but she would go on to serve on the task force with Jeanne vertefeuille intelligence work and so we'll let her tell her story I would say just to go back to Jeanne in the book itself and this is very very very very characteristic of Jeanne she says at the end of Gene's story because they each tell their story she said since my 1992 retirement this is Jeanne speaking I have received a great deal of ego gratification in public acknowledgement of the success our group had in uncovering Eames as a soviet mole while this appreciation is undoubtedly pleasant the approbation of trusted colleagues is far more important to me that is pure Jeanne Jeanne was very much the agency Mike Morell was right she was an icon sandy you have a great story to tell people have here waited a long time to hear it so please help me welcome Sandeep okay all right I take your boy I took your paper please that's telling I'm an intelligence officer yeah and Sandy will be here for signing the book afterwards I'm sorry that's you get over the Oh now you've got some of mine yeah I went through okay first off again as Peter said thank you all for coming and Peter thank you for inviting me to talk about circle of treason and as well the lovely comments about my good friend I must say to all of you that the past five months have been very difficult and all so sad Jeanne was so proud of circle of treason and while she lived to see it published both she and I knew that she would not be here to share in its success so that role has been left to me and I want to assure everyone that I am here to represent the both of us as I tell you the story about our journey to determine find out who and why we lost all of our Soviet assets in 1985 and in 1986 in 1991 this road led us to search for a mole in the CIA to make matters worse we knew he was not going to be a stranger he would be a co-worker probably somebody we had known for a very long time as well as someone we saw frequently in the hallways at headquarters circle of treason however is not just a story of identifying a traitor among us it's much more than that for the first time Jeanne and I are able to tell the history of CIA's operational contacts with our traitors victims with those who are arrested and executed as well as imprisoned many of their stories were ours as well we participated in the handling of some of these cases and we had to stand by and watch as we lost them now I have to say no one wants to go through with the burden that you might have done something wrong which resulted in their deaths but that's exactly what a number of us in the Soviet and East European division as well as other components and the Director of Operations had to do for the next eight years until our traitor was identified altogether in the book we tell the story of CIA's contact with 16 Soviet sources all but one were intelligence officers sadly most were victims but we did include several stories that we simply enjoyed and thought we should share them with everyone you may have noticed that I have yet to mention the name of our traitor we all know who he is Aldrich Ames or Rick as he was known to us and yes he was a co-worker and yes he was also a longtime colleague and for me personally he happened to be one of my former cult full members for my reason for ignoring Rick is simple I'm not so certain Jeanne and I would have ever written this book it if it were just the story of our involvement in what became known as the Ames mole hunt team our goal was to tell the story of his victims they are the heroes and Jean and I firmly believe that the dedication of this book states it perfectly Circle of treason is dedicated to general Polyakov and to the others who were executed or imprisoned and to their families this latter latter category I think we all tend to forget about but they were victims as well now I'd like to give you a little bit of background on circle of treason and the long road it took us nine years from the time we first put pen to paper we began in 2003 and we did not finish until 2007 there were interruptions for some serious medical situations as well as other things but finally in 2007 we submitted our first draft to the CIA's publications Review Board for approval I'll just say it was painful for three and a half years not three and a half a little over three years we went back and forth until finally they gave us the okay to share our manuscript with potential publishers but we were not finished with the review boy the galleys of the book also had to be approved before it could go to printing that occurred on August 15th 2012 yes 2012 and sadly and unknown unbeknownst to us at the time just six weeks before genes illness was diagnosed now to our story and our first visual do I hit the but perfect wait I don't have a clue okay this is the only organizational chart you're going to see but it's an important it's important for one reason this is where all the action took place from early 1985 until Rick's arrest in 1994 to these two organizations in the Director of Operations the Soviet East European division headed at the time by my friend and chief Burton Gerber longtime Soviet division operations officer and formerly chief in Moscow the second component the counterintelligence what did I Center okay the counterintelligence center at the time it was the counterintelligence staff headed by Gus Hathaway also for a long time Soviet division case officer and formerly chief in Moscow at the time excuse me I was working where was i working soviet East European division the worldwide targeting component I had responsibility for our operations against the target in Africa now Rick Ames was also working in the division and he worked in the counterintelligence component headed a branch that provided CI guidance to those of us in the targeting components as well as produced case studies and wrote papers at this time as Peter mentioned Jean was not at headquarters she was overseas in Gabon as chief of station she did not return to headquarters until 1986 all right 1985 and there's no other way to describe it our nightmare begins there are big changes in Moscow in the spring of 85 me hail Gorbachev is comes to power but it is really business as usual in the Soviet East European European division at Langley and business is very good we have been so successful against the KGB and the GRU that it is really not an exaggeration to state that we know more about these two organizations than perhaps any single individual in them as one KGB officer would say years later when talking about early 1985 CIA had three stations in Moscow they had the traditional one in the American Embassy they had a second one in KGB headquarters and we had a third one in GRU headquarter against this backdrop we have no I repeat no indication of the impending disaster late May 1985 GRU colonel Bach on whom were handling in Athens is ordered to return to Moscow to take care of a problem involving his son who's attending a military academy he contacts his brother in Moscow who knows of no such doesn't know of any problems we advise bo Khan to defect rather than to return to Moscow he agrees and we bring him safely to the United States early August 1985 KGB counterintelligence officer polish Guk who is assigned to Nigeria and the cases the responsibilities of my branch is arrested in Moscow during a home leaf not as this case is not only very personal to me because it's my branch is responsible for handling him but his and my association went back 11 years earlier to his time in Kathmandu Nepal where he volunteered to us sometime between late August and October of 1985 oops something just dropped GRU officer Smetana whom we are handling in Lisbon is also arrested in Moscow again also on home leaf November 6th KGB scientist I anticipate embassy here in Washington travels to Moscow for a short time serving as an escort officer for the infamous defector Reid effector Vitaly Yurchenko Martinov never returns now this operation was handled jointly by the CIA and the FBI early November 85kg be illegal support officer excuse me varenik tells us that he will be traveling to East Berlin to attend a three-day conference he never returns this case is particularly disturbing because we had only been handling him as an asset since March of that year so very few people were aware of the operation it's 1986 now and unfortunately our losses continue March Moscow station officer Mike sellers is ambushed trying to meet with Peralta who is a KGB Moscow City Directorate officer June or July 1986 as best as we can tell GRU colonel Vasily off' whom were handling in moscow is arrested in Moscow we had previous previously handled him during a tour in Budapest July 7th 1986 GRU general Dmitry Polyakov is arrested in Moscow one day after his 65th birthday Polyakov who is retired from the GRU at this time is the highest-ranking Soviet intelligence officer this government has ever run we have over a 20 year history with him and we considered him the crown jewel in CIA operational history against the Soviet target and on a personal note more than half of my career was intertwined with his case beginning from the second month after I joined the agency and unfortunately we have to go into 1987 February to be precise KGB colonel pabu's off' is arrested in moscow and what's unbelievable about this particular one is we have been out of touch with him since 1979 when he left Jakarta where he volunteered to us and returned permanently to Moscow now there's an important point I need to make about these are bests in a number of cases we did not know of the arrests until sometime after it had occurred and PAGASA is a perfect example although he was picked up in February 87 we didn't learn of it for six more years let's summarize and obviously the picture is not pretty by the end of 1985 early 1986 we have lost four agents in almost a little less than four months it's unprecedented obviously something is seriously wrong the leadership of the division Soviet East European division and the counterintelligence staff attacked the problem there are two theories each pretty obvious one is we got a mole the other is our communications have been compromised in other words the Soviets are reading our traffic I need to also make it a distinction at this point within CIA only the Office of Security and the counterintelligence center have investigative responsibilities the Soviet East European division has none its job is to recruit and handle sources now in jeans and my view the first move by the Soviet East European division was and remained the most important step it have taken at the time and it was triggered by the appearance of a new source in January 1986 at that time I'm called to the chief's office Burton Gerber he recounts our losses I was aware of only one that of Polish Duke because that was the one my branch was responsible for he tells me that we have a new source and it also tells me that I will be responsible for handling the headquarters end of this case and our attempt to keep this one alive additionally he wants me to continue operating or handling the duties of chief of the Africa branch next he says I'm to report only to him there only handful of people in the entire agency who are aware of this new source and then he says staff communications are out there will be no traffic no cable traffic between headquarters and the concerned field station so how are we going to communicate with our new asset our case officer will travel indirectly to the sources location he will not go near the US Embassy in the country he'll meet the asset in a safe house upon conclusion of the meeting he will return to his hotel room where he will excuse me where he will transfer his meeting notes into a laptop computer and then he will encrypt them he'll return to Washington where the meeting results will be decrypted now granted today a laptop with encryption capabilities is not out of the ordinary but I do have to say it was cutting edge in 1986 and at times it was not the most reliable device one has had to meanwhile were these while these changes are taking place in the Soviet East European division Gus Hathaway in the counterintelligence Center selects Jean to head up the task force to try to answer the question why did we lose these assets the task force becomes an analytical effort the cases are reviewed everybody's looking for patterns that we might that might lead us in the right direction as well as all of this material is put in digital format at the same time Jean and her personal task force are looking at the CIA losses the FBI also has instituted a task force and they're doing the same for their cases one example Martina who was a joint operation and the FBI as well had lost some some other cases in the same critical period 85 and 86 now the two group groups meet often they exchange information they exchange ideas however after each meeting there are far more questions than there are answers the bottom line is from the fall of 1986 until early 1991 jeans Task Force as well as the subsequent investing investing ativ unit are unable to come up with an answer as to our losses this is not to say there weren't numerous explanations but each was investigated thoroughly and each was discarded now I don't know if any of you have asked but I'm going to tell you where was Rick Ames during this entire period in July 1986 as our losses are mounting he has departed or is departing for an assignment in Rome he remains there until July 1989 when he and family returned to the United States and in September of 89 Rick reports to duty a position in the Soviet and East European division now I want to cover two stories that may seem unrelated but were at least a pretty important part of our investigation and these are the KGB attempts to deceive us as to our losses while we are trying to stop the hemorrhaging and determine why we had this disaster the KGB still busy with arrests and still busy with executions initiated the first of two deception operations against us the first one began in January 1986 just around the same time as our legitimate and new source appeared we called this man mr. X the second one began in June 1988 and lasted for approximately three years and we gave this individual the codename GT prologue first to mr. X he's a self-described KGB officer who volunteered to one of our case officers in Bonn via a letter in his initial letter as well as subsequent ones which he sent us he told us that we could the answer to our problem could be found in our communications component component located outside the Washington DC area per mr. X's instructions he was never met and we provided him money the dead-drops in East Berlin by the fall of 19 every 86 everybody was pretty much convinced that mr. X didn't exist so we severed contact while I don't like to admit it it is true the KGB deserves great credit for their second deception operation it was beautifully conceived it was well well-run and they read us perfectly as I mentioned it began in June 1988 when an unidentified Soviet male approached our chief of station Moscow on the train from Moscow to Leningrad and he passed our chief an envelope this male subsequently identified himself as Alexander Roma KGB internal counterintelligence officer who happened to be assigned to the component that ran operations against our Moscow station the envelope contained several KGB documents one was a particular interest especially to Jean at the time in this document this document was a KGB assessment of our Moscow station activities during the relevant period 1984 through 1986 the KGB's analysis was that the reason for their successes and our failures during this period was due to one thing and one thing only pork tradecraft by our Moscow station officers now the book covers this case in detail but in summary I will just say that before too long Jean and I began to think that Jill Moth GT prologue was nothing more than the son of mr. X however despite and unfortunately despite many tries over the next couple of years we were one unable to convince se division that this was a KGB controlled operation one thing that Jo Moff wanted in addition to money he wanted to he wanted us to take him out of the Soviet Union when he told us that time was right so SE division wouldn't believe us that this was a KGB controlled operation and now the exfiltration of Joe mob would take place Joe Moff was a no-show but he did send us a message and in this message he had said two things one our plan was too dangerous number two he would have to break contact so what do we lose in this operation in the end we pay mr. Romanov a great deal of money which ends up in the KGB Treasury secondly we give them our exfiltration plans for our assets from the Soviet Union and number three if this were not enough we make certain we give them an official US passport now you might be asking yourself well so by early nineteen by 1991 and the end excuse me and the end of the Joe Moffatt case we are no further we're no closer I'm sorry too determining why we lost our assets in 85 and 86 however many comfortably not all but many people come to believe that this now is largely a historical problem the answer might be nice to know but it has there has nothing to do with the cases we are currently running why did some come to this conclusion well it all goes back to those steps that were taken in 1986 to protect our news source there has not we have not lost a single case from January 1986 until early 1991 not one and the number of our new Soviet assets has continued to increase so there are those who believe that therefore whatever caused our problems in 85 and 86 no longer exists so why did we even need a mole hunting if everybody believed that to be the case well as I mentioned not everybody did not everybody believed the history camp inner gene vertifight it's early 1991 gene had bases mandatory retirement in the end of 1992 she still feels very guilty that she and her task force and all the other efforts that she was in charge of failed to answer the big question and she wants to take one more look before retirement looking at these operations she asked and receives the permission of her management now Jean viewed this as a solitary effort but that was soon to change next comes Paul Redmond who happens to be the newly arrived deputy chief of the counterintelligence center coming from position as deputy chief of the Soviet East European division several days after his arrival and jeans approval to take a new look at the cases she and Paul go down to the FBI on a matter totally unrelated to our 85 losses while there Redmond tells the bureau about jeans new project to take one more look would they like to join her they immediately say yes that afternoon I receive a phone call from Redmond telling me about gene and the bureau colleagues would I like to join them I say yes Redmond knew I was planning on resigning from the CIA and that only an opportunity to find out why we lost general Polyakov and my colonel would keep me working I left the Soviet East European division and join gene and our two colleagues from the bureau special agent Jim Holt Jim Holt and FBI Soviet analyst Jim Milburn now as an aside Jim hold happened to be the FBI case officer for Martina our joint operation so he had real skin in this game eventually we added Dan Payne also a valuable member of our team dan had worked for an office security employee who had worked vergine in her investigative component and he was the one who became the expert and handled everything regarding activities about Rick's finances so in the end you can see that what became known as the Ames mole hunt team really in many respects was the creation of Paul Redman he was the catalyst and he deserves a great deal of credit for our adventure success now obviously the book covers the work of our team in some detail and I won't bore you with those details but there are a couple of highlights that I'd like to touch and but the first thing is it's important that everybody understand at no time during any of our deliberations from the beginning all the way to the end we did not hide the fact that we were looking for a human penetration of CIA this was not a paper exercise the first thing though we had to do was we had to identify all those people who had access to one or more of our cases now surprisingly you know this sounds like a fairly simple thing to do and but surprisingly our approach to this simple problem which turns out not to be so simple was startling how something so basic could have helped us in the eventual identification of our of our spy so we end up our first cut we have a hundred and sixty people what how are we going to investigate 160 people it's absolutely impossible without an army inner gene again and it's Jane's idea and her approach was simple it certainly wasn't scientific moreover it was roundly criticized by a number of people after Rick's arrest what we did we had to prioritize so gene we asked everybody the four members of our team the mole hunt team as well as six other people including two from the FBI to please list the names of people who bother them for whatever reason five or six it's real scientific a little bit of intuition but real scientific so five or six people additionally we want them to prioritize the names the person who bothers you the most number one then number two number three the other as part of doing the list is we want to make certain not only that they bothered you but the one those people you thought you thought that we should take a real hard look at in the first cut so gene and I collect the list and then we assign a numerical value to the rank order you do not want to be first in this exercise as it turns out we totaled the number and you won't believe it what a surprise Rick Ames is number one he got the most points 21 points now I'm going to toot my own horn here and I will quote Jean on this so she won't be angry with me but she said of all those who voted only one gets the gold star sandy she had him number one thank you very much next was there a Eureka moment on this task voice yes there was for some it was more Eureka than others but there was a Eureka moment and that happened in August 1992 approximately just a little more than a year after we had started our work by this time Rick was getting our full attention and I had created a chronology of all of Rick's activities from 1984 until the present time as I was pulling together this information I came across reporting that in 1985 Rick was developing a Soviet arms control specialist assigned to the embassy here in Washington whose name was Chewbacca now he was doing so an alias this contact this developmental was sanctioned by the FBI by the CIA and was duly reported to each there was nothing unusual about this as with all information that I received on Rick I put it in the chronology just another piece of material at the same time dan Payne was working on a spreadsheet of Rick's finances that day that August day he had received from one of Rick's banks information on his checking account and in particular three that's it three deposit slips so Dan was entering this information onto a spreadsheet and after he finished with one of the deposit slips he pass it over the cubical wall to me and I just put it in the chronology and this is what I saw 17 May 1985 Rick has lunch with two Bakken 18 May now I say 75 18 May 1985 Rick makes a deposit to his checking account in cash and this one was $9,000 his next meeting with chuvakin was 5 July of 85 again it's a lunch that same day there's another cash deposit to the same Bank and the same checking account again cash and that's $5,000 the third slip the third meeting 31 July another lunch same day another cash deposit $8,500 this was the first this became the first link that would eventually lead to Rick's arrest and conviction now it was cash it was after his meetings with chuvakin and it was below the then required reporting the required reporting requirement that the banks had under $10,000 in cash they didn't have to tell the feds about it and finally was there ever a time that gene and I believed that Rick would get away with treason the answer to that question unfortunately is also yes and it happened in early 1993 as our task force was drawing to a close in December of 92 Jim Milburn Soviet FBI analyst began to draft our final report now this was not a CIA document it was an FBI document and while gene and I had some say-so in the draft stages we had no input in the final paper which which was released in March of 1993 as Jean and I understood it excuse me the report did not pinpoint aims as the primary suspect instead his name was listed on a short list with other possible suspects professionally and personally for Jane and myself this was probably some of the worst times we had ever gone through at that agency we were totally convinced and I mean totally that Rick was our mole that we had spent two years looking for and that our analysis proved that point to make it worse we also knew that the FBI did not share that belief we simply feared that Rick would fall into a bureaucratic hole and he would never be held accountable for the deaths he caused as Jean would often say and in some respects is very unlike Jean um he would Ric would simply retire from the agency he'd get on a plane he and his wife and child would travel to Bogota Colombia where her family was from they would live happily ever after and Jean always referred to it this way on his blood money fortunately luckily any adjectives you want to use in 1993 information became available which didn't identify Rick but it did point in his direction but most important this information forced the FBI to open a full-scale investigate Abra games the rest is pretty much history one year later February 24 1994 presidents holiday and a government holiday the FBI and that's important the FBI the FBI arrests Rick not too far from his house as he is on his way to work on a holiday to answer a cable the non-existent cable it worked perfectly it was wonderful shortly thereafter the bureau arrests his wife Rosario at their home they both plead guilty to espionage Rosario is sentenced to five years which she serves on Danbury federal facility in Danbury Connecticut Rick is sentenced to life he's currently serving continues to serve his sentence at the federal penitentiary in Allenwood Pennsylvania as I said at the beginning for Jean and myself the real story is not what we did it's a oh excuse me it's about none of those assets huh I think God the end in I need water and that's better I think yes there's my voice it's about those agents these are real stories real people real spying real sacrifices and sadly deadly consequences but now and personally I'd like to introduce you to two of them okay I think I'm gonna get this right alright here's one of our buddies this is these are all from the book but here's general Polyakov and his wife Nina this photograph was taken not too long after he was awarded his star he was so proud of what he had achieved in his organization and we were equally proud of what he had achieved in his organization here they are again with their two children this one was taken in the mid-1960s he I have to use two words here he volunteered was recruited in 1961 by the FBI here in this country the reason I use those two words is the FBI case officer John maybe really deserves a whole lot of credit for bringing this one on board he asked to be put in touch with American intelligence he pull you off and then got cold feet and if John maybe had not kept after him I'm not so certain we would have ever had this long relationship and the two kids Alexander and Peter they did have a child their first son who died a number of years before this photograph was taken oh that this one is kind of special if you'll see the data in the background here's the general and Nina to the left that's the generals dacha and he built most of that himself and this was his favorite place he loved he was a great outdoorsman loved hunting at least I shouldn't I shouldn't use the word probably world renowned but certainly renowned in the Soviet Union for his expertise and in all kinds of hunting and fishing and game and guns and things I knew nothing about but this photograph was taken not too long before his arrest and that pretty young blonde that's his granddaughter and here his the colonel with his wife ludmila and his as Jean and I always called him handsome Andre we saw the picture of this we went what and this was right before I think right before he came to Nigeria and this one is the saddest of them all this is Polish Dukes death certificate where the arrow is cause of death is left blank the thing that makes this and this is a copy of the original the thing that makes this so chilling is this is the document that was sent to the Polish Duke family all the while they thinking that he is still alive and the sentence has not been carried out it ends up in their mailbox one day that's how they were informed of the death of their father or husband these men are all buried in unmarked graves unmarked locations that's all thank you okay we'll go ahead with mm a Q&A session with Sandy obviously still very much of a heartfelt story for her sandy I'd like to take advantage for a moment of being the moderator as it were and having heard you tell your story let me just ask you if you will share with the audience because it's so powerful you mentioned at the beginning that you carpooled with Rick Ames you and I both knew Rick Haines and we knew him at headquarters we knew him from things he rode his briefings and so forth and we had a certain impression of him you changed that impression the day he came back from Rome I wonder if you could share that with the audience thank you I'd be more than happy carpooling with Rick Ames and knowing him we were young officers together we grew up together Rick was first a complete slob always late for everything even when he was driving he was late even when he was writing all he had to do was show up and he was late his hair was unkempt his fingernails were dirty but you just like Rick he was just good old Rick an absent-minded professor and I to this day I will never waver on this if you had told me those many years ago and I say this probably until early nineteen the early 1980s I didn't see brick during that period cuz he was in Mexico but certainly during the 70s and into the 80s if you had told me that he would turn out to be one of the worst spies this country has ever had I would have bet you a million dollars two million ten that you were wrong there is no way that the Rick Ames I knew could commit treason like that no way and particularly knowing what was going to happen to these sources he knew they were going to be arrested he knew they were going to be executed now when he comes back from Rome Rick Rick was very tall intent but he always walked like this always stoop-shouldered again absent-minded professor he walked in I'll tell the shoe story he had I swear to God $700 Italian loafers on this is a man who wouldn't even tie his shoelaces he had beautiful suits cufflinks hair done in the latest style his teeth were capped he was having manicures I know he was um the other thing that was so different about him he was held himself erect arrogant just arrogant he just had this air of self-confidence and satisfaction and this is a guy he wasn't he was doing all right in his career but he knew he was at a dead-end he wasn't going to go any further and I just couldn't understand why he was the way he was a different personality there was also one other thing that I just found a little spooky and whatever softness that Rick had as a human being at least for me it was gone it was just a cold fish just a cold fish some people would call it witchcraft David Bloo Blee did once so I and and we both remember and I think there's a picture in David wisest book that Rick wasn't an amateur actor in high school they loved that sort of thing in at one point you and gene did a bit of a survey with a number of the people that were of interest to you what happened in that survey well we interviewed a number of people I think about 40 with the FBI and I do have to say they were not happy when we use the word interview because interview to them means something totally different than interview does to us we had a set of questions again drawn up by Jean I think there were maybe 10 questions and the purpose was twofold as I said we asked everybody the same questions we wanted to find out how things worked during the critical period and SD Division simple things because you know you can look at a Manning table and it's flat it doesn't tell you how people react so we want to know how was the traffic really handled you know who said in your cubicle what cases did you handle do you think your roommate knew about those cases so that was really what we were getting at but there was one question and the reason this question was asked was we wanted to try to educate our FBI colleagues on how CIA case officers think we thought it might help them as they are reading our material as we're trying to find a spy in our organization and the question was if you were going to spy for the Soviet Union how would you go about it what would you do would you walk in to an embassy would you volunteer here would you be a write-in how would you select the officer to volunteer - well of course sandy and Jean thought we could imagine the answers from our case officers and they were correct as we imagined him you know these are what-if questions they love stuff like that this is the job they do there they're taught to think out of the box and Rick was also but not a good case officer he loved what if kept questions he stumbled he hemmed he hard were just thinking Rick Rick could spend all day answering what-if questions and that was a complete shock oh I don't know what I do it here would I do it abroad oh I'm not so certain Oh what I totally out of character for Rick and that certainly was that was a big surprise that was what another mark on that another mark always some other marks but okay well let's go to do all now with your questions if you'd be kind enough to wait for the mic everybody can hear the question right over here Amanda you know what while you were conducting your work with the Ames mole hunt team were you treated as pariahs by your colleagues I mean how much did they know about what you were doing and it seems like you may have been sort of sequestered and they might have been wondering what was up we weren't sequestered we were in this giant I swear it looked like a what life insurance policy company I mean it was cubicle after queue but keep a secret we were just in there with everybody else we were off in a corner and gene had her own little private office that was 8x8 three computers we have our meetings in there and if Redmond showed up somebody we had to turn the garbage can upside down and somebody had to sit on the garbage can no that way it was everybody they knew we were looking for a mole so if somebody tells you they're looking for a mole you don't want to ask any questions so we were sort of left alone there there's a wonderful statement that you made being interviewed about what Rick Ames thought of you and Jane he knoweth the hunt on for a mole he was well aware um I like to start that out by saying he respected us but we were still dumb brats yeah he what he felt comfortable that we were females now not I don't think that Rick was a male chauvinist he certainly wasn't to his two wives um both of them even though one ended in divorce they and his first wife was a former she was a CIA officer and she was one grade higher than Rick no he was very very proud of his first wife and very proud of Rosario but and I think he respected sandy and Jeanne acute I would always tell Jane well he respected you more than he respected me but but still you but still no yeah he was it made him a lot more comfortable that those from CIA looking for a mole in CIA were two female officers like that all right another one right here Amanda young when you were going through the process of ranking yeah were you looking for just a gut feeling kind of a holistic sense of the individual people on your list or did you actually ask people for specific sort of red flags in their minds nope we didn't ask anybody this was all private this was like the voting booth we did not ask one question nope exactly exactly exactly no obviously on the FBI's list didn't mean too much to us and not that they were at fault it was much easier for the rest of us to come up with a list we knew the people we had worked with the people we knew the organization we knew the politics so and as Jean and I always it would always say we couldn't find a spy in FBI we couldn't find a spy in state because we don't know the organization we might know it a little bit we also and it's an important thing we don't know how the game is played yet but no everybody no one counseled anyone that's what made it so beautiful right there Amanda there's two back there two back there now what made you pick Rick Ames is number one what was it about him that bugged you so to speak um I think I had an advantage first I knew Rick better than anybody simply because I knew him when we were young younger and I could see the difference and you know I was with him every day for over a year well not every day not weekend's um the other thing and this was terribly important in 1989 right after Rick and Rosario returned from Rome Diana Worthen who was a very close friend of mine and a person I depend upon tremendously his Burton knows and who had worked for me on and off for many years she also happened to be the Soviet analyst we selected to go to New Delhi when Polyakov returned there for his first tour as a general it was our case officer Paul and Diana were then so and she knew about all the cases we had lost she also happened to be very very close friends with Rick and Rosario having served with Rick during his tour in Mexico City where he met Rosario okay back to 1989 she comes to me and she's extremely upset and diana is the kind of person who is nothing she's very private nothing really upsets Diana and I asked her what was wrong and she said sandy Rick has money or is spending money that I just can't imagine I but I don't know if I want to tell you this I said well you know Rick had access to all of our cases and he's got money Diana also happened to be the only one who knew because she knew Rosario in Mexico City she knew that Rosario at least at that time didn't have any money so if Briggs telling people the money comes from oh sorry owes family well the bottom line is that information was investigated by Jane and her and her element Ric was polygraphed because of that reporting but he passes that poly so I stopped I believed any time were than told me that this bothered her she was not an ordinary individual who would come out and say that about anybody unless she truly believed it so that's why he from that time on he was my if we had to take in a vote in 1989 I would have voted the same way and then here were all these other things I noticed it was one other back there dear man that looks like - mmm um did you ever talk to Rick Ames after he was arrested to find out wire oh no no I don't care it's a waste of my time it's a waste of my effort I have no desire to hear from Rick see Rick he's out of my life I will say gene did have an occasion to talk to Rick and gee it's got well I don't know funny story it's an interesting story gene was selected as the CIA we see I a representative on the FBI to briefing team of Ames at Gene's first meeting with Rick and this is after he had been sentenced she's in the office in walks Rick he's in his orange jumpsuit prison jumpsuit he's in shackles the shackles are taken off Jay standing there here the FBI debriefers they walk over and shake Rick's hands Rick gene can't move and she is not going to shake his hand so and this is so typical gene what did you do gene hi Rick that was it he said hi gene and then they sat down to business so that's those are the exchanges I have zero exchanges and genes were very limited there was an an ironic twist to this wasn't there in that Ames Rick had fingered gene to the KGB as gene would be a good person to pin our losses on because so typical KGB as you told everybody gene was a female chief of station in Africa now at that time I think we had two or three others but the KGB and it's wise ways if you are a single female serving in Africa you've got to be a target because there are no men around for you so that played on the fact that gene was a single female in Africa and the KGB they didn't do anything with it but gene just laughed when she heard that from Rick huh so okay um one up here and one back there Yeah right where you are and then one up here in the middle sandy first I just would love to thank you for your service to the country oh thanks just too awesome how many officers you know in silence you know serve and thank you for that I can't wait to buy the book but I wanted to ask you Rick Ames is this big fancy spy guy he's been spying for a long time he saw all these Soviet offices go the way of the graveyard didn't he have an inkling I didn't he know to ask the his handler back in the Soviet Union to take him to the Soviet Union why is it that he was at arrogance that he thought he could continue to get away with us and didn't have Plan B to leave the country well I think he thought he did have Plan B because he had a lot of his meetings with the KGB in in Bogota and he had a reason to go there because his mother-in-law lived there and he visit quote-unquote frequently to handle her affairs but I do have to say Rick Ames was not a good case officer he was a crummy case officer however he was a good handler and that's basically where he made his name somebody else recruits him particularly if their intelligence officers Rick could debrief them and and he was good at that and I I would say again just based on my personal experience and belief you know after time you get away with this stuff right you're more comfortable they're not going to catch me you know I've been living the nice life for a number of years it will continue and I don't think he gave it a second thought surprisingly enough but I think that that's a lot of bricks personality you know why worry about it if everything is going swimmingly now Hansen was quite the opposite near the end he was fearful something would happen but he had also been working quite a bit longer than Rick yes one right here Amanda Oh Laura who's got it you don't know Mike okay right back here thank you yeah also thank you for your perseverance in this study it's an it is an enormous tribute to the to those who are lost a question is have been any contact with the families of these agents yes there has been and the CIA quite correctly as it as it does assist them assist any family who wants to come to the United States and I might add at least those Jean and I are aware of have done very well and I think their fathers would be very proud of them ok question over here sandy thank you I think it's interesting you point out that you were maybe criticized for developing the list that what they said it was unscientific but I think I read or heard somewhere where Soviet person now are taught to always trust their instincts and their gut gut instincts I was wondering I believe I would assume the CIA personnel have to get reinvestigated periodically just as a matter of keeping their jobs but there was there anything that might have been missed in your opinion could have been missed a red flag that perhaps to have shown that maybe something wasn't on up-and-up of mr. Ames I don't know I you know a big thing and he did have to come back for that the question of contact with foreign nationals but I just I throw this question back to you and everybody in this room you are a case officer and your target are Soviets or whatever nationality their foreign nationals of course you have contact with foreign nationals and separating these things out on a polygraph which I have to remember my opinion only it is a tool and a tool only you can have people who are not spying for the other side who have difficulty getting through Pauly's you have others may be like with games who is able to get through the poly he admits he had contact with foreign nationals don't forget his wife and all of her well she had become a naturalized US citizen she had to do that for him to marry her but all of her relatives are foreign nationals of course he has close and continuing relationships with him so it's a gray area well yeah that would have been wonderful but in order to get that you got to have a reason to get it right there has to be got to have enough c.i information you just can't say I don't like Rick games open his checking account he could have inherited the money right thank you first I've read the book and I congratulate you and Jean on what you've put together I think in particular I was taken and appreciated your honest appraisals of individuals within the agency and the bureaucracy itself and I congratulate you on that I also congratulate you on the theme of this the idea that there are officers that care about the people that are out there there are others that look upon it as a gold star in their career and the fact that you stayed with it I congratulate I think it's gross negligence on the part of the agency that they failed to give you the support and it could have been I know how quiet SB is about their things and about CI about their things but there were people that could have been brought in to help you in a lot of ways and I think it was gross negligence why didn't they give you the support I have to say now certainly not I see my job until 1991 was to help keep our new sources alive and I'm going to have to speak for Jean on this one that it wasn't a question of numbers of people or money in order to find this spy where we knew the spy had to be there weren't a whole lot of areas where people had access to this information you had to have people who basically could speak the same language and I mean by that who understood the enemy without knowing that and then what they were very very few very few Jean Sandee and some others who were in more senior leadership positions who were had other important duties to take care of I to this day I don't think any other resources oddly enough would have helped us find the spy sooner given the information that we didn't have at the time don't forget Rick Ames when he left in 1986 was still a perfect slob he had not used one bit of that money he was still driving that 1972 Volvo the windows wouldn't roll up you saw no indication of money and without that what do you have he's one of a 160 people no I'm just not so certain now I will say if we had paid more attention in 1989 when Diana warden gave us that gave us that information yeah we might have gotten a year or two but Rick everybody's got to remember he did his damage the big damage was done at what he always referred to as the big dump and that was in 1985 that's when the ceiling dropped we didn't know it had dropped but names and names everybody he knew I hope that answers your question you're welcome okay sandy Grimes thank you so much for your service and to the presentation receive me I think I think Jean would be very gratified oh she's yelling at me right now I tell case we'll go ahead and Santa will be available in the back for for assigning her book keeper up here okay all right think of it as your eight by eight office you're still up here thank you all so much for coming this evening we're happy you joined us stay warm out there

Channel: IntlSpyMuseum

Views: 271,524

Rating: 4.7361531 out of 5

Keywords: Spy Hunters (Sandy Grimes), Jeanne Vertefeuille, Alrich Ames, Spy Museum, CIA, Washington DC, Sandy Grimes, Mole, Betrayal, Traitor, operative, Clandestine

Id: MKLcKm9hKtk

Length: 78min 26sec (4706 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 18 2013