by Doug Raber
Among the behaviors and inappropriate conduct that seem to have been overlooked by his superiors, Pollard was a vocal advocate for more active U.S. support for Israel, going back to his undergraduate days when he claimed to have worked for Mossad.
He eventually made formal contact with Israeli intelligence in 1984 after working for the U.S. Navy for five years. During the next year and a half, he conveyed many thousands of classified documents to the Israelis, divulging American knowledge of both Arab and Soviet military equipment and capabilities. Eventually, one of his superiors questioned why Pollard was handling large amounts of classified information unrelated to his assigned duties. An investigation quickly confirmed improper behavior, and he was soon arrested.
The Israeli government did not cooperate with Pollard’s prosecution, and much of his illicit activity remains shrouded in secrecy. However, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and received a life sentence. He remains in federal prison in spite of extensive and continuing campaigns by Israel and pro-Israel groups to secure his release.
I must admit to a certain level of sympathy for Pollard, in part because we are of the same age, but overall, I cannot admire his career as a spy. His motive was not a love of secrets but more so one of politics. He did not maintain his loyalties, and most important, his betrayals of one country for another were tainted by money, the most convincing evidence one could demand to show that he lacked the ethos so fundamental to my own life and career.
• • • • •
Perhaps the most well-known case of an American spy in recent history is that of Aldrich Ames,* the CIA agent who passed secrets to the Soviets for a decade starting in 1984. His motivation, like that of many other conspirators before him, was monetary. He first contacted the Soviets during a time of financial difficulties that were compounded by an ongoing extramarital affair that would soon lead to divorce and remarriage.
His CIA assignment was in counterintelligence, permitting him to make open contact with the Soviets, and he initiated his activities by going directly to the Soviet Embassy. He offered the names of several individuals who the CIA believed were attempting to betray the KGB to the Americans, and the Soviet response was a payment of $50,000 and an overture for Ames to continue supplying such information. The arrangement was profitable to both sides, with Ames receiving more than $5 million over the course of the ensuing decade and the Soviets — later, the Russians — acquiring the names of many of the most valuable U.S. assets. The CIA’s operations inside the Soviet Union were crippled.
It took years for the CIA to unravel the mystery. It was soon apparent that someone had betrayed the identity of those working as American agents. Some were executed and others simply disappeared, but none provided any further intelligence to the United States.
False steps, inconclusive polygraphs, Soviet countermeasures, and willful ignorance conspired to prevent Ames from being unmasked in the interim. Insufficient attention was paid to reports that his lifestyle was much more extravagant than what could reasonably be expected for a CIA agent, and investigators looked in the wrong directions or simply overlooked the right directions. The KGB used their agents to plant fabricated stories implicating other individuals, and the resulting inquiries led only to dead ends.
By the time Ames became a bona fide suspect in the case, nearly seven years had elapsed, but FBI surveillance made it only a question of time before he would be arrested. A key piece of evidence was documentation of the method he used to signal his Russian contacts. He would drive to a site in Georgetown and make a chalk mark on the side of a mailbox. I find this to be a delightful coincidence, because the mailbox was only a mile away from the one I used myself as a dead drop when I needed to contact Dieter.
Ames pleaded guilty to spying for the Soviets, and he received a life sentence in federal prison. I find little to commend him in his betrayal of his country. He did it only for the money, and he was caught.
• • • • •
Robert Philip Hanssen* was yet another American who spied for the Soviets in the 1980s. Like Aldrich Ames, he was born in the first half of the 1940s, and the background of his formative years was afforded by the Cold War. After completing his undergraduate studies, he earned an MBA and joined the Chicago Police Department with expertise as a forensic accountant. After five years, he left to become a special agent in the FBI.
Only three years into his career, Hanssen made contact with the GRU and began sharing highly classified documents and disclosing the identities of U.S. intelligence sources. These actions compromised multiple investigations and counterintelligence operations and revealed critical sources and methods. The individuals whose identities were unmasked were arrested by the Soviets, and many were imprisoned or executed.
Lapses in security and failure by authorities to follow up on leads and suspicions about Hanssen’s behavior prolonged the time in which he was able to carry out his espionage activities. Efforts to identify the source of damaging information given to the Soviets was further complicated by the activities of Aldrich Ames, who was working for the Soviets during the same period, but even after Ames was arrested in 1994, counterintelligence agents were unable to identify the second U.S. spy.
Four years later, arrangements were made to purchase the KGB file on the American spy from a Russian businessman who had previously worked for the KGB. Information in the file pointed to Hanssen, and FBI surveillance yielded incriminating evidence that led to his arrest. He subsequently pleaded guilty to multiple counts of espionage and was sentenced to fifteen consecutive terms of life imprisonment.
Does Hanssen deserve my respect or approval? I think not. His success was limited, and the secrets he gave the Russians were not his own. They were only pieces of information that he had stolen from FBI files and databases. Even worse, he told authorities that all of his spying for the Soviets, and later for the Russians, had been done only for the money. He escaped detection for twenty-five years, but there was nothing admirable in his activity.
• • • • •
Finally, I turn to someone who may be the most well-known of those who gave classified information to America’s geopolitical adversaries. His name is Edward Snowden,* and using access through employment as a contractor for the National Security Agency, he released an enormous quantity of sensitive and classified material to The Guardian, The New York Times, and other media outlets throughout the world.
His case is different from the others I have described. The documents he disclosed were not the sort of information that would be used by the Russians, at least not in the way that they had been able to take advantage of documents provided by Ames and Hanssen. On the other hand, they disclosed not only the methodology but also the existence of a vast surveillance operation that the United States had employed to monitor electronic communications around the globe.
Snowden’s disclosures resulted in massive controversy about the NSA monitoring efforts. Those on one side argued that it was an essential exercise in the fight against terrorism, while advocates of personal freedom and privacy have contended that the activity was a fundamental violation of human rights.
Snowden himself remains a free man, if living in Moscow can be described in that way. When he released his trove of classified documents, he fled first to Hong Kong and then to Moscow, not intending to remain there. But asylum in Russia turned out to be his only way to avoid being taken into custody by American law enforcement, and he has remained there since 2013.
So, what is my evaluation of Snowden’s exploits? In the first place, I reject that word, which carries the connotation of heroism. I take no position on the debate of fighting terrorism versus violating privacy, and describing him as heroic in any way would be anathema to me.
I have little respect for this man because he was not consistent. He claimed he disclosed the information for noble purposes, for the good of the American people. But he kept talking about how smart he was and how he had planned everything. It
was only for the fame. If he had turned himself in it would have been different. I could have respected that. Or if he had hidden his actions and released them without claiming all the credit, that might have been a worthwhile alternative.
Perhaps the worst thing was that the documents he released weren’t secrets. The first thing he did was to share his information with those reporters. He knew they would go to their editors. So, it wouldn’t be a secret. Long before they put the documents in the newspapers, they stopped being secrets. He was a fool, self-righteous and self-aggrandizing. I have no respect whatsoever.
• • • • •
This analysis of others who have engaged in espionage and spycraft brings me back to the question of evaluating my competition. When all is said and done, I conclude that I had none.
My career, now coming to an end as I depart with a reputation that remains fully intact, has been one marked entirely with success. It has been devoid of failure.
I’m still the best. I was never caught.
* * *
36
Retirement Celebration
A fervent thrum pervaded the lobby, the intensity of sound rising and falling as conversations waxed and waned. Individual voices were lost in the background noise, and conversations could be understood only when a listener was within a foot or two of the person speaking.
The clusters seemed to move as individuals joined or left, the group swelling to a dozen or decreasing to only three or four. To an onlooker, this motion gave the crowd the look of a living organism or a colony of protozoa when seen through a microscope. The individual groups seemed as though they could ingest new entrants to become larger or undergo fission to produce smaller collections of people.
More than two hundred individuals had congregated late that afternoon, a larger crowd than was normally found at such gatherings. However, that surprised no one, for this was a special occasion. Conversations ran the gamut, sometimes focusing on the individuals talking as the interactions took the form of a networking event. Those in attendance ranged from recent hires to senior executives, and they moved freely from one group to another, saying hello to old friends and colleagues, introducing themselves or being introduced to those whom they had not previously met, and in some cases moving on to seek out those they had not yet located but who were certain to be in attendance.
But eventually, the topic always returned to the same man. He was the reason they were all there.
• • • • •
“Did you know him at Andover?”
“No, he was about five or ten years ahead of me.”
“Were his accomplishments still well known when you were there? I heard he was a real star, both in sports and in the classroom.”
The response was somewhere between a grunt and a cough.
“Maybe not as much as he always liked to suggest. A few years back, someone went back to check the old records. Probably when his clearance was up for renewal, but I’m not sure.”
“What did they find?”
“Exaggerations. Not lies, just a bit of overstatement. And I’m not sure he was even the one who started the stories. Like with rowing crew. We’ve all heard how he was a real star. Turns out not to be all that accurate. Sure, he rowed, and he did well, but not quite the superstar we’ve heard about.”
“What about academics?”
“Nothing special. His grades were good, but it wasn’t as if people thought he was the next Einstein.”
“So, he was making up those stories?”
“I don’t think so. I think other people made assumptions, or maybe they embellished what he had told them in the first place. In our business, a little hyperbole isn’t all that unusual.”
• • • • •
The conversations in most of the clusters was animated, something to be expected, as the purpose of the gathering was one of celebration. There was an ample supply of food and drink that marked this occasion as very different from the end of a normal business day at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Often, only fragments of a conversation could be deciphered by those on the outer edge of a circle, and this encouraged additional movement from one group to another. And, of course, such translocations made it even more difficult for a newcomer to fully appreciate the substance of whatever story was being told.
• • • • •
“Have you ever met Mr. Hayes?”
“Hayes?” The answer was accompanied by a snort of laughter. “There is no Mr. Hayes. Never has been. They just needed a second name to make the firm sound more … prestigious.”
The first man, younger by about twenty years, was embarrassed.
“Oh. I just thought … I mean, everyone has always …”
“Exactly. No reason to feel foolish. It was simply a harmless deception. And if you think about it, it worked quite well. It was all about secrets, and there was no reason for anyone to ever question it.”
“No, I suppose not.”
The younger man looked around the room before asking his next question.
“But Biggers is real, is he not? I was told that he would be here this afternoon.”
“He is, indeed. The tall gentleman over there in the blue blazer. Still refined and polite. And I’m told he’s still as sharp as a tack. Quite amazing, given his age. Must be in his nineties.”
“He was there at the beginning?”
“He was the beginning. Jonathan Biggers was the architect.”
• • • • •
A half-dozen men stood around a small table chatting earnestly. They were mostly in their sixties, although one or two were older, their age showing in their waistlines and the color of whatever hair still covered their heads.
“What about you, George. You worked with him the longest. You must have known him pretty well.”
“I did. Ever since he was in his twenties. Right after he finished school. Back in the eighties. This was his first job. I’d been here about ten years then, and I was the one who officially made the hire. I was never disappointed. He worked hard, never made mistakes, and brought in new business. That’s why he was put in charge of developing new accounts. Especially the international ones. It got so he seemed to spend more time traveling than he did in his office.
“And he was one of the first to develop contacts behind the Iron Curtain. Almost as soon as he started with us. It put him in perfect position to develop new contracts when the Soviet Union fell apart in the early nineties. He built up commercial relationships that were the foundation for everything. It gave him a reason to be over there. It gave us access.”
• • • • •
“Did you ever meet his friend Josef?”
“I’m not sure ‘friend’ is quite the right word.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He was his ‘Joe’ according to my old boss.”
“You mean he was an agent? Working for us?”
“I probably shouldn’t say anything else. Even in this crowd. But I guess I can answer your question. I never met him.”
• • • • •
“I heard someone across the room talking about how he had contacts in the Soviet Union, but it was too noisy for me to understand it all. Do you know the story about the briefcase?”
Several heads tilted. There were a few nods, but others shook their heads to indicate the opposite.
“Tell the story, Nick,” one of them said.
“Okay. He was on one of those trips to Moscow when there were negotiations going on. I can’t remember what, but it doesn’t matter. It was back in the time that we were always pretty certain that our rooms were bugged, and there was surveillance everywhere. Each of us would be assigned a minder, usually a woman, but it was clear there was more to it.”
“So, she was actually a watcher.”
“Yeah, that seemed clear enough to all of us. Low level. Their job was to report anything we did that was considered inappropriate. Anyway, he told me how it was driv
ing him crazy. Anything he wanted to do, anywhere he wanted to go, she was always with him. According to the story, one of the latches on his briefcase was screwed up. The kind where you push a button and the latch springs up.”
“The kind the Germans used to call a ‘James Bond’? An attaché case.”
“Exactly. the combination lock still worked, but the spring on one of the latches had broken. He decided he would fix it himself. He had a pocket knife with a little screwdriver attachment, but he needed a new spring. All he needed was a hardware store.”
“They had hardware stores in Moscow back then?”
“No, of course not. But there were little shops that had junk. The point is, he wanted to go by himself. He sneaked out the back door of the hotel by using the service elevator, and he found the right kind of shop not too far away.”
“His watcher didn’t know about this?”
“Not until he got back. He decided to needle her, and he walked back into hotel by way of the front entrance, right past his minder, who was just sitting in the lobby waiting for him to come down from his room. Apparently, she was so surprised, she almost fell off her chair. But there was nothing she could do about it without making herself look incompetent. So, it was never reported.”
“So, did he fix his briefcase?”
“That’s the funny part of the story. He’d locked the briefcase before he left the room, so the first thing he did was to dial the combination lock. But when he pushed the buttons, both latches popped open.”
“You mean, it wasn’t really broken in the first place?”
“It was broken all right. It’s just that it had already been fixed. The repair had been completed before he even had the chance to start making it”
“So, who outsmarted whom?”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
• • • • •
“Did any of you know him in college? He must have been quite the big man on campus back then. President of his fraternity, star of the heavyweight crew, and all those things.”