comte
JF-Expert Member
- Dec 11, 2011
- 8,222
- 5,946
27. US Intelligence Misses Numerous Clues About a Major Mole in Their Midst
Central Intelligence Agency official Aldrich Ames rose to high rank within the agency’s Soviet and East European division, which gave him access to sensitive information. He decided to cash in on that by turning traitor, and sold his services to the KGB as a deep mole within their enemy’s camp. Before long, Ames became one of the Soviet Union’s, and later Russia’s, most effective double agents in the US.
He was helped by numerous mistakes, as the CIA kept missing – and sometimes ignoring – glaring clues that all was not right with Ames, the son of a CIA analyst whose family connection paved the way for his joining the agency in 1962. Notwithstanding heavy drinking, drunken run-ins with the police and drunken brawls in public with foreign diplomats, and sloppiness that once led him to forget secret documents in an NYC subway car, Ames rose steadily through the CIA’s ranks.
26. Ames Begins His Career as a Traitor
Aldrich Ames spent a stint in Turkey recruiting Soviet spies in the 1960s, before returning to the US in the 1970s. He was posted to Mexico in the early 1980s, where he met his second wife, a Colombian whom he had recruited. They wed in 1985, and that same year, the couple began selling secrets to the KGB. During their run of treason, which lasted until they were finally unmasked in 1994, Ames and his wife were paid over $2.7 million by the Soviets, and after 1991, the Russians.
There were warnings aplenty, but they were ignored. They included conspicuous consumption and extravagant spending; a big $520,000 house paid for in cash; luxury vacations; premium credit cards whose minimum monthly payment exceeded Ames’ salary; and luxury cars that stood out in the CIA’s parking lot. Those were things that no honest public servant could afford on government pay, but no suspicions were aroused for years.
25. The CIA Turns A Blind Eye to Aldrich Ames’ Activities
When suspicions were belatedly aroused, it still took years – until 1993 – before Aldrich Ames’ employers took a serious look. In the meantime, he had passed two polygraphs while spying. Ames needed no high tech means or complicated capers: he simply stuffed whatever documents he wanted to give his KGB and FSB handlers in a briefcase or in trash bags, and brazenly carried them out of the CIA headquarters at the end of the workday, without anybody questioning him.
As a result, at least 12 CIA spies in the Soviet Union were captured, of whom 10 were executed. By the time Ames was finally unmasked, he and his wife had revealed to the Soviets and Russians the identity of every CIA spy operating in their country. After his arrest in 1994, he cut a deal with prosecutors that spared him the death penalty, and ensured that his wife got no more than five years behind bars. He is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Central Intelligence Agency official Aldrich Ames rose to high rank within the agency’s Soviet and East European division, which gave him access to sensitive information. He decided to cash in on that by turning traitor, and sold his services to the KGB as a deep mole within their enemy’s camp. Before long, Ames became one of the Soviet Union’s, and later Russia’s, most effective double agents in the US.
He was helped by numerous mistakes, as the CIA kept missing – and sometimes ignoring – glaring clues that all was not right with Ames, the son of a CIA analyst whose family connection paved the way for his joining the agency in 1962. Notwithstanding heavy drinking, drunken run-ins with the police and drunken brawls in public with foreign diplomats, and sloppiness that once led him to forget secret documents in an NYC subway car, Ames rose steadily through the CIA’s ranks.
26. Ames Begins His Career as a Traitor
Aldrich Ames spent a stint in Turkey recruiting Soviet spies in the 1960s, before returning to the US in the 1970s. He was posted to Mexico in the early 1980s, where he met his second wife, a Colombian whom he had recruited. They wed in 1985, and that same year, the couple began selling secrets to the KGB. During their run of treason, which lasted until they were finally unmasked in 1994, Ames and his wife were paid over $2.7 million by the Soviets, and after 1991, the Russians.
There were warnings aplenty, but they were ignored. They included conspicuous consumption and extravagant spending; a big $520,000 house paid for in cash; luxury vacations; premium credit cards whose minimum monthly payment exceeded Ames’ salary; and luxury cars that stood out in the CIA’s parking lot. Those were things that no honest public servant could afford on government pay, but no suspicions were aroused for years.
25. The CIA Turns A Blind Eye to Aldrich Ames’ Activities
When suspicions were belatedly aroused, it still took years – until 1993 – before Aldrich Ames’ employers took a serious look. In the meantime, he had passed two polygraphs while spying. Ames needed no high tech means or complicated capers: he simply stuffed whatever documents he wanted to give his KGB and FSB handlers in a briefcase or in trash bags, and brazenly carried them out of the CIA headquarters at the end of the workday, without anybody questioning him.
As a result, at least 12 CIA spies in the Soviet Union were captured, of whom 10 were executed. By the time Ames was finally unmasked, he and his wife had revealed to the Soviets and Russians the identity of every CIA spy operating in their country. After his arrest in 1994, he cut a deal with prosecutors that spared him the death penalty, and ensured that his wife got no more than five years behind bars. He is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
