hello i'm roger mudd welcome to the History Channel what is it that causes people to betray their country is it money is it politics is it the challenge of beating the system or is it the excitement of living on the edge whatever the motive in the 1980s there seemed to be an epidemic of traitors who had access to America's deepest secrets and who sold them to the Soviet Union our program looks at for traitors one from the Navy one from the FBI one from the CIA one from the NSA join us now as the History Channel presents traitors within the deadliest decade the intelligence community in assessing damage by the Soviet KGB and received a million dump spying has been called the second oldest profession in the world 1985 would become known as the year of the spy when four Americans committed treason every time you call it was worse than one before more astounding was the fact that they work for four different intelligence agencies each of these agencies never believed their own people the turn against the breadth of the penetration and the damage done to naval and military operations the loss of top secret codes and the execution of our own spies in Russia were catastrophic collectively the damages absolutely see and could have been disastrous at any time in the early 80s the Cold War had reached a critical stage tensions had ratcheted up between the Soviet Union and the United States President Reagan called for a moral crusade against the Soviets calling them the evil empire to protect against the threat of nuclear war Reagan proposed a missile defense system that became known as Star Wars I think this led to a great deal of the tension that existed between the Soviet Union and the United States at that time and it certainly led as we now know to a war scare in Moscow about what Reagan's intentions actually were the Soviet leadership was truly scared by President Reagan's new policies they considered these policies as aggressive militaristic and worth fraught with danger of real war and fear and distrust escalated on both sides the invisible war of spy versus spy intensify the Soviets were determined to learn America's secrets now they admit they weren't having much luck recruiting American spies but as luck would have it they wouldn't need any Americans with access to top secret and classified information were offering to spy for the Soviets or a price they were walking in off the streets offering themselves providing classified information upfront and receiving money in return and the promise of more money these spies were motivated by a fervent belief in communism like the spies of the 40s and 50s Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Rudolf Abel these spies were motivated by the oldest temptations in the book money and sex and sometimes revenge the first buy to be revealed in 1985 was Richard Miller an FBI agent it was the first time in history that the FBI had arrested one of their own for espionage before Richard Miller came along the idea the agent of the FBI could be disloyal to his country was inconceivable no it isn't Miller a 20 year veteran of the FBI was a far cry from James Bond or televisions version of an FBI agent as even his lawyer admitted he was certainly no Efrem Zimbalist jr. and he was in fact much closer to an overweight Inspector Clouseau Miller had been chastised by the agency for being obese and for selling Amway products out of the trunk of his car he was viewed as a loser by most of his fellow agents at age 47 Miller's private life was in shambles in 1983 he had been excommunicated from the Mormon Church for committing adultery and was separated from his wife and eight children I wasn't successful in my religion I wasn't successful in my marriage although I consider myself a good father and it wasn't very successful at work so come May of 1984 I'm sort of like a glob of silly putty waiting to be molded into whatever fashion anybody wants me to do in 1984 Miller's FBI job in Counter Intelligence included keeping tabs on Russian emigre in the Los Angeles area he'd been given a job that was supposed to be least likely to get him into trouble and that's where he met woman who persuaded him to do the things that he did in the course of doing his job Miller met Svetlana ogorodnik over a striking Russian emigre who lived in LA with her husband and young son she claimed to be a distributor of Soviet films but the FBI learned she had close ties to KGB agents soon their friendly chats over coffee turned into long afternoons at the beach in Malibu and tryst at Svetlana's apartment in Hollywood while her husband was at work he had been compromised by a Soviet man aheri after a few weeks for hello talk turned to persuasion as she convinced Miller to trade classified secrets to the Russians for money Svetlana contacted the Russian consulate in San Francisco and set up a meeting Miller brought along an FBI foreign intelligence manual offering to sell it for fifteen thousand dollars in cash and fifty thousand dollars in gold the Soviets were interested and proposed a second meeting with the KGB in Vienna Austria but the FBI had been tipped off by an informant about the couple's visit to the Russian consulate I can't really detail how he was found I think some of that still classified but his credentials showed up on in on some documents we were able to obtain by sensitive means and it didn't take long the FBI began surveillance on each of them and taps wet Lana's phone on October 3rd before their imminent trip to Vienna Miller and Svetlana were arrested when questioned by the FBI this rather pathetic wannabe spy broke down Miller defended himself claiming he was trying to demonstrate his value to the FBI by setting himself up as a double agent to spy on the Russians it was a last-ditch effort to save his career my overriding emphasis was hey Richard you're in trouble with your job this is your last chance to save your career and so forth so I pulled all the stops and nothing would deter me from my objective of trying to get myself back into good graces because I only had it a couple of years before I waited retired the jury didn't buy Miller story and found him guilty Richard Miller was sentenced to two life terms plus 50 years the sentence on appeal was reduced to 20 years in prison svetlana received 18 years and continued to deny she was a modern-day matahari I'm not guilty described like I say they accused Mata Hari before a hundred years ago now this is she's not guilty she's helped two friends I'm not guilty described after a Miller's arrest many wondered why he hadn't been fired by the FBI years ago a lot of people early on didn't want to look at it hard and long and with the kind of critical eye that is necessary in order to clean it up I don't regard the Miller case as being a particularly damaging case for the country but it was a real jolt to the FBI to think that one of their own would behave in that way the intelligence community seemed to view this as an isolated case but the next buyer arrested in 1985 would prove how disastrous a mistake that could be since World War two the United States has had the largest and most powerful Navy in the world or so we thought but in 1985 when former Navy man John Walker and his ring of spies were arrested the government was astonished to discover that the naval fleet had been systematically sabotage for 18 years the most damaging thing they really did was to provide the the Russians with real hard data on how good our submarines were and enabled for a long period the Soviets to know exactly where all of our submarines were at any given time if war had broken out thousands and thousands of American kids would have would have died as a result of that John Walker jr. began his espionage career in 1967 when he was a navy radio man in Norfolk Virginia at the largest Navy base in the world in his job he had access to coded messages between the fleet ships and submarines and the Navy command center most damaging he had access to key lists used to decipher the Navy's top-secret encryption codes thirty-year-old Walker was in debt he needed money and knew how to get it quickly selling secrets to the Soviets the motivation was not complex it was pure greed in late 1967 he traveled to Washington DC walked into the Soviet embassy offered his services as a spy John Walker wasn't walking he was one of those volunteers who came to the Russian embassy Soviet embassy in my time in 1967 Oleg Kalugin was then the KGB officer stationed at the Soviet embassy in Washington he would supervise Walker's meetings with his KGB handlers had the military conflict erupted between the two superpowers at the time the compromised cryptographic material provided by John Walker would have had war winning implications for the Soviet side eventually Walker provided the Soviets with the keys to the kingdom compromising u.s. naval forces including the strategic superiority of nuclear submarines an incredible coup for the Soviets Walker gave the Soviets daily code settings for the KL 47 encryption machine that encoded and decoded top-secret messages for the American fleet using the key list provided by Walker they could decipher the most highly classified communications of the US Navy if we intercept the orders coming from Washington even before the United States launches we have a an opportunity to make a preemptive strike which would make America indeed in a very bad situation during that same time the United States was waging a fierce war in Vietnam the classified information Walker gave to the Soviets enabled them to pass along u.s. naval communications to the North Vietnamese they provided to the North Vietnamese the secret daily codes for our AV ATAR says to where they would be going which targets would get hit what the rules of engagement were so that it enabled the North Vietnamese to emplace their anti-aircraft weapons and to set up traps for the American aircraft and as a result a lot of airmen died because of because of that during the during the Vietnam War in 1976 after spying for nine years Walker retired from the Navy with the rank of Warrant Officer three not the most prestigious rank in the Navy but he knew the Soviets ranked him number one as a spy he started his own private investigation firm in Virginia Beach but Walker wanted to keep his lucrative spy business going so he enlisted the help of his brother Arthur and his friend Jerry Whitworth both Navy men with access to classified information the same year he divorced his wife Barbara who moved to Massachusetts with their three daughters his son Michael chose to live with the father he idolized I had close a relationship with my father I was more like him I wanted to be like him John Walker flush with money was leading the high life he bought a plane and houseboat partied heavily and had lots of women I like the way he dressed I liked his cars I liked his boats his house as women well we were more than just father and son we were very good friends Walker was setting the stage for Michael to take over the lucrative spy business when he retired yeah I was burning out at that point and and looking to get out of it completely just just retire and quit he talked Michael into enlisting in the Navy and specializing in communications eventually Michael was assigned to the USS Nimitz as a radio man which fell right into his father's plans joined the Navy like he had done did all the things in the Navy he had done basically and it just there was a pattern everything was pointing in that direction there was no avoiding at it at a certain point it was to the point of no return amazingly onboard the Nimitz Michael without having security clearance had no trouble getting access to and stealing hundreds of classified documents which he dutifully hand it over to his father Michael hid the documents under his pillow and simply walked off the Nimitz with them in his duffel bag he was never searched incredibly Walker and his spy ring went undetected for 18 years from 1967 to 1985 the Soviets had paid him close to two million dollars he was considered their number one spy what a wonderful thing for a person having a rather mediocre career to be looking in the mirror each morning and saying mirror mirror on the wall who is the most famous the most dramatic the most heroic spy of them all and to know that while your bosses think you're a mediocrity you know you're the most important spy that the Soviets have ever recruited what finally brought Walker down it wasn't naval intelligence the Navy never suspected spies in their midst the tip that led to Walker's arrest came from a much closer source Walker's ex-wife she had known about Walker's espionage and even accompanied him on some of his dead drops to the Soviets I prayed he would be cut I also prayed that he would stop I knew there was nothing I could say that would stop him Barbara never knew that her son Michael was spying for her ex-husband I couldn't tell her because I was afraid it would hurt her and that maybe she might try something like killing herself my father or just going off the deep end I was really afraid for that in November in 1984 Barbara's daughter Laura told her mother that when she was in the Army her father had tried to enlist her as a spy outraged Barbara finally worked up the courage to call the FBI but they had a hard time believing her story Barbara I told this fantastic story but one FBI agent Joe Wolfinger in Norfolk Virginia did believe her apparently Barbara Walker had accompanied him to Washington to fill a drop clear drop she described that in a way in which I did not think a disgruntled vindictive former wife would be able to describe an espionage transaction she talked about seeing signals believing a prop in a particular place it really had too much rich detail to be completely disregarded so on that those facts we opened a case Wolfinger had no idea that the investigation would reveal a spy who many still believed to be the most damaging in American history On February 25th 1985 the FBI officially opened the case on John Walker but to convict him they would have to catch him in the act of making a drop to the Soviets at this point the FBI had never caught us by in the act the FBI tapped his phones at his home in Norfolk Virginia and his private investigation firm they hoped for a clue a hint of an upcoming delivery to the Soviets in the meantime they learned a bit about his personality from listening to his phone calls he would lie when the truth would serve him better he was totally self-centered the FBI tapped Walker's phones for a month and finally it paid off on May 16th 1985 they overheard a telephone call that sounded suspicious and it was his mother telling him that his favorite aunt had as she said cashed in her chips meaning of course that she had died and John's mom wanted him to come up to Pennsylvania and attend the funeral and he begged off and said that he just he couldn't come he had something to do that no one else could do well as an investigator that raises my my antenna that weekend Joe will finger and FBI investigator Bob hunter ordered surveillance teams and a helicopter cover walkers Cummings and that Sunday Walker came out packed his van with a duffel bag and backed out of his driveway the FBI hope this was the real thing and not a wild goose chase so now we're heading to DC it's getting very exciting at this point as they reach the state line Wolfinger and Hunter turned it over to another FBI team while they went to the FBI headquarters in DC to monitor the chase Wolfinger and I were in the command center about 20 minutes I guess when the words that you never want to hear under surveillance came piping through the radio anybody have the eyeball we've lost them so we agonize there in that command center for four hours we didn't know where John was finally they picked up sight of Walker's Chevy Astro van again at 7:45 p.m. everything was wonderful it was a wonderful day once again and the spirits were high and we were hard on the task immediately they followed Walker to an intersection in the back country roads of Maryland the Soviets had prepared obsessively detailed maps were Walker as well as photos of the signal and drop sites Walker's got out of his car at a stop sign and placed a 7-up can under it and left it was a signal to his KGB contact that he would make a drop later that night Walker drove off and the FBI continued its tight surveillance at about 8:30 he stopped under a tree and got out of his van put something down on the ground and we could see that after Walker left the scene the FBI rushed in agents found a brown paper bag filled with bottles and junk but buried under the garbage were reams of classified documents one of the agents came on the radio and there was some excitement and he said I've got it I've got it I can see it it's got secret stuff in it and at that point we had an almost perfect espionage case against John Walker when the agents searched the bag they found 129 classified documents from the USS nimitz where michael walker was assigned they had the evidence now they needed the spy they followed Walker back to the Ramada Inn in Rockville Maryland room 763 he was signed in under an assumed name John a Johnson at 3:30 a.m. an FBI agent posing as a desk clerk called Walker in his room mr. Johnson you driving a Chevy Astro man license so-and-so would you mind coming down to the desk someone just ran into it and we need to you know talk to please get the insurance whatever and of course when when he comes out we're going to effect the arrest Bob hunter and his partner were ready to nab him as he reached the elevator we know that we had probably the biggest spy that there has ever been in this country so the adrenaline is really flowing and the heart is is going and we are ready finally they heard Walker's door open and closed and saw him approach the elevator as he reaches for the elevator button with his left hand he heard us moved and he wheels around with his gun on we were close enough that I could see the bullets in the cylinder of his revolver you know how you hear things are slow motion in a some situations well that's what this was and I'm watching him with this pistol in his hand and I could see those bullets and it seemed like a long time before he finally did what we told him to which of course was to drop the gun John Walker's days as the perfect spy were over and he would suffer another humiliation as well as coluche is searching him he reached up and grabbed that toupee and pulled it off John's head and it made this loud sucking noise and he threw it on the floor and I sort of laughed to myself that was funny in this period of high drama that was that was funny in 1985 John Walker jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment as was his brother Arthur and his pal Gerry Whitworth his son Michael received 25 years evidence at trial and evidence before the grand jury testimony by distinguished intelligence and military experts they said that Walker's espionage gave the Russians war winning capability throughout his arrest and trial Walker showed no remorse excusing his actions by saying the Russians never could have won the war I sold secrets to a country that we were not at war with and have never have been at war with and never will be at war with that's all I'm saying don't make more of it than it is but the Soviets had given Walker's secret codes to the North Vietnamese who were at war with the US I've always thought that John Walker is responsible for many of the widows that I knew in Virginia Beach who lost their husbands in Vietnam who were Navy Navy pilots he did some devastating things to this country he put his his comrades at risk and caused some of them to die he has to live with that but I don't have to like him Walker's arrest was a major victory for the FBI but the year wasn't over yet two more spies would be arrested in 1985 but they would be talked through information received from a surprising source a Russian spy master who was a colonel in the KGB aftershocks were still being felt following John Walker's arrest when another bombshell hit the intelligence community in the fall of 1985 it would come from a very reliable but surprising source a senior officer in the KGB Vitaly Yurchenko on August 1st 1985 you're Chekhov is--it and Rome contacted the American Embassy and asked for asylum he claimed to want freedom and a better quality of life of what he didn't mention was then he also hoped to reignite a love affair with the wife of the Russian ambassador now in Canada the next day he was flown to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington DC it was a very festive atmosphere there we certainly were looking forward to getting a lot of information from Yurchenko the FBI and CIA started debriefing Yurchenko immediately at a safe house in Virginia the first question is always do you know of any imminence of war and then the second one usually is and always is is is there somebody that we should watch out for that you want to tell just the director of Central Intelligence and the implication everybody knows that I think is that is there a spy in the government your chunko would astonish them when he told them not one but two he didn't know their names but he described that and said one work for the CIA your chenko said it's his name is Robert which was his code name and he's being trained to go to Moscow well CIA knew right away that was had to be Edward Lee Howard Edward Lee Howard had been one of the bright young turks at the CIA before joining the agency in the 1970s he had been with the peace corps in Colombia in 1981 at 30 he applied for a job with the CIA only two years later in 1983 he was chosen for a select post in Moscow his job would be to recruit Russians to spy for the United States he is selected from all the officers trained at the farm to be in Moscow this is top gun for the agency as part of his training the CIA gave him detailed background information on the Russian spying for the United States at the 11th hour in April of 1983 only weeks before his departure to Moscow he still had to take one more polygraph test the CIA has great confidence in polygraphs it's almost a religious belief in the CIA he had already admitted to the CIA that in his 20s he had taken drugs including cocaine and had done some heavy drinking but this last polygraph showed deception on his part a deception the CIA has never revealed the CIA asked for his resignation Howard was devastated he's married and he has a son just born he's they're getting ready to go and suddenly the rug is pulled out from under him his whole world his whole world collapses after leaving the CIA Howard moved his family to Santa Fe New Mexico and tried to pull his life together he got a job with the state's Finance Committee as an economic analyst ed was a very hard worker he was a very capable analyst was highly thought of by not only the members of the legislative Finance Committee but other legislators also but underneath his pleasant demeanor there was still a raging anger toward the CIA and in Howard's mind the way to get revenge was to give away what the agency valued most intelligence he definitely had a problem with alcohol and I think it was probably one night while he was at a snootful he contacted the Soviet consulate here in Washington and said you know I'm a CI officer I have secrets I know what we do in Moscow and I'm available you know have have secrets we'll travel in September 1984 on the pretext of going on a business trip Howard went to Vienna the international capital of spies there he met for the first time with his Soviet contact Howard gave him names of some Soviets working for the CIA information he got while training for his aborted Moscow job any information that he was given by CIA headquarters he passed on to the Soviets and the Soviets are quite good at analyzing the activities of the intelligence officers who are there but Howard's greatest damage was revealing to the KGB the identity of a Russian scientist Adolf tolkachev Adolf tolkachev was involved in the stealth technology research for the Soviets aircraft in defense research toka chef was immediately arrested by the KGB and executed the CIA had no idea Howard was responsible for toka chef's arrest until your chenko defected and described the traitor in their midst because he had been such a loose cannon after his dismissal the CIA was certain that Edward Lee Howard was the spy your chunko described but still they waited valuable days before informing the FBI if he had gone into the embassy if we had seen him there would have been action that we could have taken at that time so why they did not tell us I don't know the CIA knew they should have shared their concerns about Howard sooner but there was a long-standing animosity and distrust between these two agencies they never get along they are like kids in a sandbox kicking sand in each other's faces and then when mommy or daddy comes along they pretend they're playing nice five days after you check OHS debriefing the CIA finally shared its suspicions with the FBI who immediately put surveillance on Howard's home but Howard had been well trained by the CIA and quickly picked up that he was being tailed he probably picked up their surveillance within two or three days of it being instituted Parker decided to confront Howard directly he telephoned him to come to the Hilton Hotel to answer some questions he declined to answer any of the questions that were put to him and denied any involvement whatsoever with any other foreign intelligence service that Friday Howard went home to plot his escape even though Howard's wife Mary later claims she hadn't known of her husband's spying she helped him escape together they jerry-rigged a dummy maid with a bruise wig and old clothes placing it on the floor of the front passenger seat they drove off to dinner the plan after dinner driving back in the dark Mary made a sharp turn powered rolled out of the car and Mary put the dummy in his place and when Mary returned home FBI agents monitoring their comings and goings on video saw two silhouettes enter the garage it worked like a charm I do think if the FBI had been told the truth by the CIA in the early 1980s Howard could have been stopped but the CIA didn't want to tell the FBI how they had botched the recruitment of Howard the training of Howard Howard made his way to Latin America then Europe and finally Moscow where the KGB welcomed him with open arms in late June of 1986 shortly after he appeared on Soviet television to tell his side of the story [Music] Howard has lived in Russia since 1986 his wife married didn't join him and they were divorced in 2000 Howard married a Czech woman and lives in a Dasha provided by the Russians with a housekeeper and gardener a man who betrays his country and gives away secrets and he virtually closed down the Moscow station of the CIA it becomes hard to argue that he really had no quarrel with his country but that's how he feels that somehow his fight was with the agency and not with America and in one of history's strange ironies Howard lives in the same country as the man who helped identify him to the CIA and FBI Vitaly Yurchenko only three months after defecting to the United States you check oh did an about-face and returned to Russia he claimed he had been drugged and kidnapped by American agents the KGB welcomed him back as a great PR coup even though the KGB knew the real reason for you chose return he hadn't been able to rekindle his love affair with the wife of the Soviet ambassador in Canada but before you check Oh return to Russia he had told his FBI and CIA debriefers about yet another spy within the US intelligence community a spy who had access to highly classified information from the most secretive agency of all the National Security Agency before Vitaly Yurchenko the ping-pong defector returned to Russia in 1985 he gave the FBI clues to a second spy this spy was compromising intelligence operations of the National Security Agency the NSA is the government's largest intelligence gathering agency and so secretive that for years the government didn't even admit it existent insiders would say NSA stood for no such agency the u.s. government gets actually very little intelligence from human spies run from the CIA most of it comes from electronic eavesdropping code-breaking and other activities done by the National Security Agency you chunko said the Americans selling NSA secrets to the Soviets had the codename mr. long he had met him once but did not know his real name the FBI went into its archives and found a wiretap of the Soviet embassy in 1980 with the voice of an American requesting a meeting NSA personnel quickly identified the voice as that of a former employee Ronald Pelton he had a very sensitive job he knew where a lot of the NSA's most sensitive eavesdropping activities were taking place in Russia Felton had worked for the NSA for fourteen years two months earlier he had declared bankruptcy and put the agency at 38 64,000 dollars in debt and struggling to support his wife and four children on his twenty four thousand five hundred dollar a year salary he thought he could earn more in the private sector he found a job selling yachts but in his new job he was actually making less than he had at the NSA On January 14th 1980 still desperate for cash he placed a call to the Soviet embassy well Pelton gave away was one of NSA's biggest secrets it was codenamed Ivy bells involving tapping an undersea cable in the Sea of Okhotsk the underwater cable connected important Russian military bases and missile testing ranges Ivy bells gave the u.s. an inside track on Soviet military strategy they had a submarine go to the very bottom of the sea and then they had divers go out of the submarine holding what looked like jumper cables basically and they attached these cables to the Soviet undersea communications cable using tape recorders onboard the submarine eavesdrop on those communications it was one of the most far-ranging and successful operations in NSA's history Kelton had bloomed this one billion-dollar reconnaissance operation the water for five years from 1980 to 1985 Helton revealed secret operations to the Russians when the NSA positively identified him the FBI put him on 24-hour surveillance and installed wiretaps they overheard he was planning a trip to Vienna fearing he might defect like Edward Lee Howard they called Pelton up on another pretext asking for his help I told him that we were FBI agents and this was a national security matter and we needed his assistance in clearing up some questions they told Pelton to meet them at the Annapolis Hilton where they had set up a room for the interrogation as soon as he arrived they started to grill him after a day and night of hard questioning Pelton finally broke and confessed she said that when when you're broken and your family's without any money and desperate you do desperate things unlike John Walker during Pelton's five years of spying he received only $37,000 from the Soviets but he would end up getting an even harsher sentence than Walker three life terms plus ten years much of Pelton's damage to national security was classified and never talked about publicly but the severe sentence he received reveals the depth and scope of the secrets he told 1985 an astonishing year in the annals of espionage formals within four different agencies the FBI the CIA Naval Intelligence and the NSA willing to betray their country for money sex and revenge the good news was that they had finally been caught and brought to justice the bad news was the damage they caused and the lives lost because of what they did and 1985 was the very same year that two of America's most infamous traitors Aldrich Ames and Robert Hensen were just beginning to spy for the Soviet Union in 1985 the FBI arrested seven Americans for leaking intelligence secrets to the Soviets most of them received life sentences but anyone who thought this put an end to such high-level treason was very wrong you would think because it was a year of spy because we caught people would have deterred people from going into spying I think it has exactly the opposite effect by 1985 the United States and Soviet Union had been involved in a clandestine chess game of spy against spy for almost 40 years and during decades of deceit fueled by threats of nuclear war there would be no checkmate just escalating military expenditures but the Soviet political landscape underwent a seismic shift in 1985 when 54 year old Mikhail Gorbachev came to power he introduced political and economic reforms and a policy of glass nose or openness towards the West this welcome flaw in the Cold War rapidly led to a meltdown of the Soviet dominated communist bloc on November 9th 1989 the world watched as thousands of Germans in a spontaneous explosion of emotion began to dismantle the Berlin Wall all of the problems of the Cold War the big ones were solved when the Berlin Wall came down when Germany was unified I think also there was a total rejection of the country Stein geography at that time it was clear that it had failed two years later the Soviet Union itself began to crumble when three Soviet republics declared their independence from the Soviet Union the Ukraine Belarus and Russia by the end of the year gorbachev pronounced the Communist Party and on December 25th resigned his presidency the next day the Soviet Union was declared officially dead once the totalitarian control of the Communist Party was broken and it was broken by Gorbachev not by Western pressure because the Cold War ended before the Soviet Union collapsed once that happened they couldn't hold that rear a tional system like that together anymore however even though the Soviet Union had collapsed the new Russian Confederation continued spying on the United States and recruiting Americans willing to betray their country Aldrich Ames one of the most infamous traitors in American history was a Soviet counterintelligence expert in the CIA his father Carlton had also worked for the CIA in Burma where Aldrich or Rick as he was called spent his teenage years after graduating from George Washington University in 1967 Ames entered the CIA training program nine years later he landed a choice post in America's spy Capital New York City at the time the CIA and FBI estimated there were over 300 Soviet spies working in Manhattan alone most operating under diplomatic cover at the United Nations and the Russian consulate some of these Russians disaffected with life in the Soviet Union offered their services to the CIA and FBI as double agents Ames became the CIA liaison to several of them one was the highest-ranking Soviet ever to spy for the CIA Arkady Shevchenko under secretary-general of the United Nations Ames was good at handling spies who had volunteered but he wasn't very successful at recruiting new spies Ames was considered bright but lazy he also had a drinking problem one of the fitness reviews for Ames after it had really a dreadful series of alcoholic exploits was something like social drinker who at times becomes overly enthusiastic well he was so overly enthusiastic he had to be taken home and didn't even recognize his own house and one occasion however the CIA never reprimanded Ames for his drinking the CIA was always a fraternity a secret Brotherhood a kind of a combination of Yale's secret Skull and Bones Society and the post office and within this fraternity once you were in you were in for life in 1981 the CIA assigned Ames to Mexico City considered a backwater post if a CIA career had stalled so had his marriage his wife Nancy was a successful lobbyist in New York City and refused to move aims went to Mexico alone it was a decisive turning point in his life one that would sow the seeds for his becoming one of America's most notorious spies he went to Mexico and became involved with Rosario who was therefore as a Colombian diplomat and the rest is history Rosario was attractive dark-haired single woman and they began a relationship eventually Eames was in love he divorced his wife he married Rosario Rosario deplete came from an aristocratic family that had fallen on difficult times she was cultured and appreciated the finer things of life and Eames tried to please her but Eames could hardly afford luxury cars or fine art on his salary he also had to pay alimony and in 1983 when he was transferred back to CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia the cost of living was much higher than in Mexico he soon found himself $50,000 in debt Eames knew that crossing his desk were secrets that were priceless that were worth millions to the Russians Ames was now head of the Soviet branch of the CIA's counterintelligence group he looked around his little pastel office they looked at the information that he had which included the identities of every Soviet secretly working for the CIA and he said to himself this would be worth a lot of money to Moscow in early April of 1985 44 year-old Aldrich Ames made a fateful decision he called a diplomat at the Russian embassy Sergei deechi vacant and invited him to lunch at the Mayflower Hotel the die was cast on the day of the lunch Ames down several martinis waiting for to bacon when the diplomat never showed up James marched over to the Russian embassy and demanded to see Jamaican aims handed the Russian an envelope inside were the names of two KGB agents spying for the US lieutenant colonel Valeri F Martino and major Sergei mo Turin they worked right there at the Russian embassy Amos said he had more information to give the Soviets and demanded $50,000 a week later he and Jeff akin met for lunch at Chadwicks a popular Georgetown pub after luck Jeff akin leaned over and gave Ames a packet saying here are some press releases I think you'll find interesting when he got into his car aims reached down into the package and found a tightly wrapped stack of $100 bills $50,000 worth he knew that as long as he continued providing information to the KGB that they would continue to pay him because for them to have someone not only inside the CIA but inside the Soviet counterintelligence the part of the CIA was like a dream come true or like the kid in the candy store Ames had tapped into a gold mine and there would be no turning back On June 13th 1985 Rick Ames met for the second time with his Russian contact Sergei to Vega Ames gave him five pounds of secret documents he'd walked right out of the CIA with her no one had searched the bag and said oh those secrets you're carrying Eric and he went over to Georgetown and had lunch in the course of the lunch he handed over the bag to his Soviet contact and that was it and the money kept flowing millions on that one day in an extraordinary act of betrayal Ames compromised all human intelligence operations in Moscow he gave Jeff akin the names of every Russian in Moscow spying for the US now estimated to be about two dozen people within months the KGB would arrest and execute ten people including Martino and Motorin the men at the Russian embassy who Ames had exposed in his first meeting those losses were severe your ability to attract other people it has to be in the light of your track record of protecting them people who come to you expect to be protected they do not expect to be exposed they expect your their identity to be kept as close hell as possible and if you lose that reputation you lose some of your ability to collect information those who weren't executed were sent to gulag in Siberia such as Vladimir's potash off a military analyst and missile expert who had been sharing secrets with the US that would prove vital in disarmament talks in 1986 polish off was arrested by the KGB I was picked up on the street immediately transferred into the car I was taken to the main KGB prison LeFort OA and then three KGB chairman deputies were interrogating me the whole night long after polish off was questioned for over 100 days and nights he was sentenced to 13 years in one of the most notorious prisons in siberia perm 35 in this frigid wasteland he lost all his teeth and was reduced to 95 pounds it was always hunger and hunger was not only physical but emotional but every everything you saw there was gray or white and black and white in the winter it was a cold our only dress which was a short jacket when Ames gave up names to the KGB he knew what their faith would be one of the things that Ames did somewhere along the line pretty early on he mentally changed sides in the Cold War he went over to the other side and once he had done that he thought I think perhaps well I'm gonna show them that I can be the best spy ever you know having having crossed this line why not give them everything of course he's still risk getting caught in May of 1986 Ames was due for a lie-detector test required every five years Ames Russian handler Jeff akin told him to get a good night's sleep and develop a rapport with the examiner Ames passed his polygraph he wouldn't be tested again for another five years in 1986 Ames was assigned to a prestigious overseas post-soviet branch chief of the CIA station in Rome located in the American Embassy meanwhile in his secret life he continued giving up intelligence secrets to his new Russian handler with his growing affluence he indulged his taste for stylish Italian suits and expensive foreign cars Ames and Rosario also celebrated the birth of their son Paul in Rome the money kept pouring in Ames flew to Zurich and opened up to Swiss bank accounts and deposited over time more than 1 million dollars eventually the Russians gave or promised Ames four point six million dollars that's a lot of money especially for a civil servant for anybody but to the Soviets the information Ames provided was definitely worth the money one of the spies he revealed was Dmitri Polyakov codename for 18 years he had provided the us with data on Soviet strategic missiles nuclear strategy and chemical and biological warfare in 1980 he retired to a dacha outside Moscow then in 1988 he got a call from the KGB they say that he dressed in his military uniform with all of his medals and then proudly marched off to his doom since 1986 the CIA and FBI had begun to realize that their spies in the Soviet Union were being rounded up and killed or were sent to prison initially they blamed former CIA agent Edward Lee Howard who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1985 for years the CIA thought maybe Howard is the cause of this disaster but then they realized there's no way you could have known the names of all these agents between Ames and Howard the entire stable of Soviet military and intelligence and scientific and technical people who were risking their lives to work for this country died they were all wiped out in 1989 when Ames returned to work at CIA headquarters he flaunted his new wealth he bought a new Jaguar and paid cash for a half a million dollar house in Arlington Virginia Rick James was almost a classic example of a conspicuous consumption spy he had Italian suits he had his teeth fixed he began to live higher he bought a house with half a million dollars in cash when he came back to the United States which was unusual talk to any real estate agent not many people plunked down that much money they'd go to a bank and get a mortgage and you would say well these would be things that would attract attention wouldn't it when old friends inquired about his lavish lifestyle he'd led them to believe that his wife's Colombian parents were wealthy the CIA never questioned him by December of 1991 the Soviet Union had disintegrated under the new Russian state the KGB became the SVR or foreign intelligence service Ames remained on the Russians payroll and continued to be paid handsomely Ames was recruited during the Soviet Union and no country is going to give up that kind of asset I mean would we have if we had had those two cups of Soviet neglects no of course not you're not going to betray the person who's been working for you as for the Soviet spies Ames had betrayed the CIA refused to consider that one of their own agents might be responsible they would not believe that the cause could be a mole it had to be a broken code they told themselves it had to be a bug it had to be a wiretap it had to be some snafu in the communication system of the US Embassy in Moscow not one of us it couldn't be one of us by 1991 when Ames had been spying for six years Paul Redman became the CIA's deputy chief of counterintelligence Paul Redmon revived the mall hunt it hadn't been getting very far Redmond believed there was a traitor inside the agency and he was determined to find him but he had no illusions it would be a tough job determined to find the mole within the CIA deputy chief of counterintelligence Bal Redmond put together a special team of four agents they started with close to 200 possible candidates who had known something about the Russians who were executed we narrowed the list down about 20 the criteria which were very informal there were a couple of people who went away mad who had some access there were some people who had had polygraph problems Ames was on the list because of the business of Diana were them coming in saying that he had much more money after he came back from Rome Diana Worthen had worked with Ames in Mexico City and was now on Redmon's team of investigators another agent on the team sandy Grimes after months of painstaking work found the critical clue that led directly to Rick Ames the clue was matching Ames bank deposit slips with the dates of his lunches with his Soviet contact Jeff akin in 1985 we had just received records from one of the bank's Rick had and Dan is reading these things off and I'm entering them in the in the computer and my god it was unbelievable on 17 May Rick would have had reported having had a lunch with his Soviet contact true bakken 18 May there's a deposit into his checking account for $9,000 I remember sandy coming in to see me and standing in the doorway saying we got the son of a [ __ ] and that's essentially an analysis in a nutshell as to how we came to the conclusion that Rick group Ames was probably the spy Redman believed they had found their mole and notified the FBI in Leh 1993 while Ames and his family were on vacation in Miami the FBI bugged his house we made an entry into Ames his house for the purpose of conducting a search and installing microphones and of course we had to do it right under the noses of his neighbors and we did it in the dead of night we sent a very small team in they searched his computers and searched for documents we also put a beacon on his car to help with the surveillance to do that Wiser's team set up a ruse Ames was asked to drive his CIA boss to FBI headquarters for a counter narcotics meeting Ames parked his car at FBI headquarters and we simply moved it down below the street level to a garage down there and put the beacon in while he was briefing FBI officials upstairs James was now being tailed around the clock on the September morning in 1993 Ames left his house and put a chalk mark on a mailbox at the corner of 37th and our streets in Georgetown a signal that he would be making a drop to his Soviet contact later in the day but that afternoon when Ames left work to make the drop the car vegan failed and the FBI lost him that day became known as Black Thursday Black Thursday was a very low point for us and for me personally and fortunately it wasn't long after that that we had a very important success weiser surveillance team had worked out a plan of picking up Ames trash while he's left they perfected this to the point where within 11 to 15 seconds they could drive up pull the trash can into the van put a replacement can out and drive away without being detected at a separate site they would go through the trash and later they switched them back so that Ames is trash was there when he went out in but they found that night in the garbage would ultimately become critical evidence against aims that note which was really on a piece of paper only this big arranged for a meeting in Bogota Colombia later that fall when Ames traveled to Bogota to make contact with the Soviet handler the FBI followed but Ames got the time wrong and missed making contact I was walking up and down wondering what had happened to my kid you be content who had been there an hour earlier I was reasonably alert but I didn't see the surveillance and I suppose it was frustrating for the FBI because they were scared to death of me seeing surveillance so they had to stay way back as a result they never saw me doing anything they had no evidence of any operational activity on my partner catching him in the act would have been the strongest evidence of Ames guilt but the FBI had already found incriminating evidence on his computer and by January of 1994 time was running out Ames was scheduled for a CIA counter-narcotics meeting in Moscow the FBI feared if he learned of their surveillance he would take that opportunity to defect like Edward Lee Howard they had only one choice to move fast on February 21st 1994 the Presidents Day holiday the FBI had Ames boss David Edgar phone ring and asked him to come into the office regarding his Moscow trip the FBI wasn't about to let him get on that plane and do an Edward Lee Howard so they intercepted his car only a couple of blocks from his house in Northern Virginia and arrested him Ames had spied for the Soviets for nine years and made 2.7 million dollars with another million and change put aside in an escrow account in Moscow that his arrest as the FBI put him in the car he had a hard time accepting that his lucrative double life was ending in the car being driven to a place where that he was questioned he was overheard saying think think think as though he might still somehow be able to get out of this fix he was in presented with the evidence gathered against him James made a deal he pled guilty so that is why force REO would get a reduced sentence it was apparent from the wiretaps that she had known about his spy sorry Oh Ames received a five-year sentence on April 28 1994 Aldrich Ames 53 was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole he took an objective view of this he said at the time you know this is the business of espionage there was took their chances I took my chances I think he used that expression Aldrich Ames is serving his time at the Allenwood federal penitentiary in Pennsylvania I spent about eight hours interviewing Aldrich Ames in prison in 1994 what's he like he's arrogant he is untrue estoy Lee in a kind of a sleazy charming way like a snake he's smart but he disguised that fact by being drunk for most of his career he is unrepentant and for those he betrayed even Ames arrests can never bring back their lost years what I would say to him in prison in his prison I would say that repentance or his confession as a human being is not sufficient as a result of the Ames case after years of animosity and distrust but joint FBI CIA team was formed to investigate future espionage cases with more cooperation between the CIA and FBI and the end of the Cold War many in government thought the worst days of spying were over until FBI agent Robert Henson proved what a dangerous assumption that could be Robert Hanssen a senior counterintelligence analyst with the FBI may turn out to be the most treacherous and destructive spy of the past century Hanson spied for the Russians on and off for 20 years even through the transition from the Soviet Union to the new Russian state the FBI arrested Hansen on February 18th 2001 as he made a delivery to the Russians at Fox Stone Park near his home in Vienna Virginia earlier in the day he had left a signal for the Russians a strip of white adhesive tape on the park sign as arranged he drove back to the park later in the afternoon walked over the small wooden footbridge and place the package of secret documents underneath the FBI had him under surveillance he didn't say a word not a single word but one FBI agent told me that his shoulders slumped and he just sort of went limp because he knew it was just over the FBI is still assessing the extent of the damage done by Hanson but what is now known is frightening especially in light of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon Henson had revealed to the Russians one of the US government's most highly guarded secrets the continuity of government or doomsday plan that is our ultimate disaster survival plan this is what you do at time of attack attack on the World Trade Center you saw that going to action where did the president go where did the leadership go where did the intelligence community go you heard about the fact that the CIA left the building well they didn't go out of business they relocated where that's a secret well that whole blow up ability to respond in time of a disaster is one of the greatest secrets that any government has Henson had also revealed sensitive satellite operations as well as a 250 million dollar tunnel the u.s. had built in 1985 under the Russian embassy in Washington DC the tunnel loaded with sophisticated eavesdropping equipment became worthless overnight when I look at Bob and I try to figure out what's motivating him to do all this the the thing that keeps crossing my mind is ambition this is not money it's not revenge this is about being the best spy that there ever was in history against the United States for the Soviet Union Hanson joined the FBI in 1976 two years later when he worked in New York City he began his spying activities he claims he approached the Soviets because he needed money to pay for his kids parochial school tuitions his wife Barney found out and confronted him she catches him counting out the money well she literally freaks she's very upset and she said you've got to give it back you mean you you you can't do this he goes to a priest and the priest says okay here's what you were going to do don't do it anymore donate the money to mother Teresa and all will be forgotten and that's what happened but seven years later in 1985 Henson started spying again he was not a happy spy dr. Alan salary who spent several hours with Hanson in prison after his arrest thinks Hanson returned to spying for reasons that had little to do with money internal demons because he was fighting other battles internally psychologically his biggest problem was not spying his biggest problem were other psychological issues Robert Hansen is an enigma a man who led two completely separate lives each constantly at war with the other he said in the course of our discussions that that this whole activity was sort of like a Jekyll and Hyde our situation where the bad guy took over at times it seems like he had a bifurcated personality almost a split personality one side of them could be completely church-going moral and patriotic and the other side of them can be the mirror image the person who doesn't care that he's getting other people killed unlike Ames who flaunted his wealth Hansen did everything he could to hide the millions he was making from the Russians at the time he was arrested he was living with his wife Bonnie and six children in a modest middle-class community in Vienna Virginia his family friends and neighbors thought him the epitome of an upright and moral man it's just boggles the mind that Bob Hansen on one hand could rail against communism say it's the worst thing in the world be so patriotic always espoused conservative moral values on the other hand of course he's delivering material to the most sensitive material nuclear materials though the the strongest material he had to communism Hansen seemed more at home in a world of extremes a convert to Catholicism he attended daily Mass and became a member of the ultra conservative Catholic group Opus Dei but at the same time the conservative moral minded Hansen was spending thousands of dollars on a stripper Priscilla Gaelic who we had met in 1989 and a Washington DC striptease joint called Joanna's 1819 she claimed they never had a sexual relationship even though Hanson bought her a Mercedes a diamond in Emerald Necklace and took her on a trip to Hong Kong he wanted me to go to a priest and confess I guess he thought I had some deep dark secret sins maybe that I need to get off my chest to change my life he certainly gave more money to priscilla sue Gailey than he ever gave to Opus Dei which shows you how twisted his mind became Hansen's twisted behavior became even more apparent when investigators learned that he had sent naked pictures of his wife Bonnie to his best friend Jack Ho shower and he installed a closed-circuit television camera in his bedroom so that Jack could view the Hansons lovemaking when he visited their home Hanson also created an adult website writing erotic stories using his own name and Bonnie's Hansen would quit spying again in 1991 and stayed dormant for eight years but in 1999 he resumed spying once again he needed a thrill he needed a rush maybe the six hundred thousand dollars that he had gotten had run out and seven years had gone by and his name had never come up he had checked the computers of the FBI no one seems to be looking for him no one seems to be suspecting him so why not start again Hansen seem driven by a compulsion that went far deeper than money and would send him back to his secret life of spine some clues to Hanson's complex personality would come to light as investigators started looking into his past the roots of Hansen spying they go back to his family roots as an only child he idolized his father a Chicago policeman but he never lived up to his father's expectations Rob Hansen's father I think we're finding is turning out to be quite a brute who really was treated Bob very shamelessly bob who was a high school science guy who was not a good athlete his father is a Chicago Police big tough guy and bob is not the kind of son he wants he's the only son he has all his life Robert Henson was an outsider some people have called Bob Hanson a geek he was always a loner a little bit strange in 1966 Henson graduated from Knox College near Chicago he went on to study dentistry at Northwestern University there a fellow dental student Robert Loren remembers Hanson being a bit eccentric bob dressed as weirdly as anyone could have at Northwestern dental school because he wore all the time a black suit usually a wolf suit I think a white polyester shirt and a black and blue or black and red rep striped tie invariably the same outfit even under his gowns when we were dissecting cadavers even under his gowns when we were doing really very dirty lab work he also recalls Henson's obsession with a book on kim Philby the famous british traitor who spied for the Soviet Union during and after World War two and when I saw the pictures above Hansen on the cover of a magazine my mind immediately meant to the Flint of the Philby book because that wonderful smile of his those great white big rectangular teeth of his that I remembered when he was smiling with what could be done in what you could get away with something like what kim Philby did and then when I saw his head it's like thirty years later it was like oh my god he really did it Hansen dropped out of dental school after two years and followed and his father's footsteps joining the Chicago Police Force if he seemed a bit strange in dental school he was considered the perfect candidate for the police elite c5 on to cover team he was exceptionally bright you know he looked to be an honest hard-working bright policeman who came to me with excellent recommendations and excellent credentials after three years with c5 Hansen joined the FBI in 1976 Freddie Rizzo a fellow undercover cop believes even back then he had become addicted to the rush of an undercover life I think somewhere along the line he went over the edge from the normal high and just completely lost it but I couldn't understand where it's it's a high and when you're working undercover all your life you you just see how far you can go it's like Michael Jordan shooting baskets you know how many baskets can you shoot then I can't give this up I'll come back out of retirement five times just to prove I can still do it same mentality so spying was def kind of complication before Bob Hansen and he knew that it was destructive it was horrible but it was giving him temporary relief from the inner pain that he was experiencing Hansen's career as a spy began to unravel during millennium year 2000 a former KGB agent whose name remains classified turned over Henson's file to the FBI Bob Hansen made one huge mistake every time he delivered and made drops to the Russians he wrapped it in a plastic bag he probably thought oh well they'll throw away the garbage bag and just keeps the documents oh no the Russians they kept the the garbage bags and his fingerprints was on the garbage bags after his arrest and only weeks before his scheduled retirement 57 year old Robert Hansen was indicted on 21 counts of espionage the government dropped its attempts to get the death penalty when Hansen agreed to tell all in exchange for his wife and children getting his pension in return the government agreed to life imprisonment without parole when Hanson was captured arrested in the United States someone called me and said what a coup I said wrong the coup was the Russians they had aims and they had Hanson but ironically it's the Russians who can be credited with helping uncover American traitors since 1985 former KGB agents have tipped off their American counterparts that the American spy agencies were unable to find spies themselves was a subject of criticism by Congress makes you wonder does anybody have a fire out at that place seriously that was my question and that's gonna be my question of the director tomorrow when he comes up here what do you have to do to be fired President Bill Clinton before leaving office issued a directive establishing a new office to coordinate the different counterintelligence agencies in the hopes of identifying spies sooner we realized that we weren't sharing intelligence we weren't working together we weren't cooperating and the more spies we had the more Congress in particular was saying hey there's a problem here and we don't want to stop it after the fact we want to start stop it before it happens in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon it's obvious the temptations are greater than ever today for would-be spies rogue states terrorists and even allies are all vying for American intelligence both military and technological one of the best analogies I ever heard came from Jim Woolsey the former DCI we slayed the dragon and as we cut him open a thousand poisonous snakes fell out and that's exactly what we're faced with today since the early late 80s in the early 90s the numbers of countries and numbers of non-state actors as we say that have become interested in the United States and its technology its economy its academia has risen exponentially and we are faced with one of the biggest challenges in our history and former KGB general Oleg Kalugin believes it would still be wise to keep an eye on our old adversary Russians have preserved Imperial mentality as a nation they feel humiliated people who served in the KGB in the party hierarchy and even thousands of maybe millions of ordinary people who lost faith in the future because of the impoverishment and dismemberment of the former USSR these people feel nostalgic about the old days and they want to restore the old great Russia even today for some money sex and revenge and overcome patriotism and it's likely that spying will continue to be the second oldest profession you'd have to say that with aims operating the way did for decades with Hanson at the FBI for over a decade with the walkers penetrating the no sensitive secrets of all for over 15 years I don't think you could say with any assurance that we've gotten everyone which is why they call this business the wilderness of mirrors after Robert Hansen was finally caught an independent commission headed by former FBI director William Webster was asked to investigate how Hansen had escaped detection for so long Hansen claimed that any file clerk could download classified material from the FBI's computerized case system and simply carry it out the front door the spy called FBI's internal security pathetic the Commission agreed with him for the History Channel I'm Roger Mudd thanks for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
Ha. I remember seeing that statue when we were there but forget who it is. Little help?