The Spy Who Couldn't Spell

by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

  Brian Patrick Regan, at about fifteen years of age, pictured in the 1977 Mill Lane Junior High yearbook.

  All photos courtesy of the FBI unless otherwise noted.

  FBI special agent Steve Carr, with his wife, Michelle.

  Courtesy of Michelle Carr

  FBI supervisory special agent Lydia Jechorek.

  Courtesy of Lydia Jechorek

  FBI cryptanalyst Daniel Olson.

  FBI intelligence analyst Marc Reeser.

  FBI special agent William C. Lace.

  Courtesy of Dawn J. Langston

  Bret Padres, an agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, helped trace Regan’s digital footprints on Intelink.

  Courtesy of Jill Padres

  FBI special agent Kathy Springstead.

  Courtesy of Treasured Images by Jeffrey, LLC

  Gary Walker, an agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, was instrumental in helping to identify Regan as the prime suspect.

  Courtesy of Bradley Wilson

  FBI surveillance of Brian Regan visiting the Crofton library, where he conducted an Internet search for foreign embassy addresses on June 13, 2001.

  In the FBI’s video surveillance of Regan, he was seen writing into a spiral notebook at his NRO cubicle the morning of August 23, 2001. He was arrested later that day.

  Brian Patrick Regan on the day of his arrest.

  Regan kept a running tally of balances due on his numerous credit cards, but his financial state just kept spinning out of control.

  Courtesy of the author

  A cryptic note found in Regan’s wallet at the time of his arrest.

  One of four sheets of trinomes Regan had in a folder he was carrying when he was about to leave Washington, D.C., for Europe on August 23, 2001. They turned out to be encrypted coordinates of sites in Pocahontas State Park, Virginia.

  Regan’s code for the burial sites in Patapsco Valley State Park in Maryland, marked up and decrypted.

  On a whiteboard in the NRO’s Signals Intelligence Applications and Integration Office, Regan noted when he was going on leave to Orlando. In fact, he had planned to visit embassies in Europe to sell secrets.

  Artist Dana Verkouteren’s sketch of a moment from the first day of Regan’s trial, January 27, 2003. Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Haynes made the opening arguments for the prosecution.

  Courtesy of Dana Verkouteren

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book could not have been written without the generous cooperation of more than a dozen individuals from the U.S. intelligence community, most of all Steven Carr, the lead FBI agent for the Brian Regan espionage case. When I first interviewed Carr in 2009 for an article in Wired magazine, I did not know that he had beaten cancer a few years earlier. Steve wasn’t one to draw attention to his triumphs. I might have never learned of his illness but for a relapse of his leukemia in the spring of 2011, when I was interviewing him again to write a proposal for this book. Steve got a bone marrow transplant and, over the next several months, made a miraculous recovery, which we celebrated with one of his favorite lunch dishes: a Greek salad at a restaurant in College Park. By the summer of 2013, when the book proposal was doing the rounds of publishing houses in New York, Steve had fully regained his health, and the cancer seemed like a distant memory.

  Unfortunately that fall, on the very day that I called Steve to share the good news about having found a publisher, he told me that the leukemia was back. Sensing despair in my voice, he reassured me that he was going to fight it with all his strength. Knowing that death could be hovering in the near future, he began sitting down with me for interviews in between chemotherapy sessions. Although he was proud of having led the Regan investigation, I knew that he was accommodating me only because of his commitment to support me in writing the book.

  My admiration for Steve grew over the next year as he continued his battle. He got a second bone marrow transplant and went into remission once again before the disease struck back at the end of 2014. He fought, a fourth time, with invincible hope and an iron will, undergoing cancer immunotherapy in Seattle. Through all of the struggles, he never lost his good humor, fortifying the spirits of his well-wishers with a string of jokes, delivered with a perfectly deadpan expression. Updating his friends from Seattle through the Web site CaringBridge, he wrote, in May 2015:

  As a Cancer patient, you get asked a lot of routine questions by medical folks on a regular basis. In my ten years of treatment, I have developed an entire repertoire of smart-assed responses. I do this to lighten the mood, and to build rapport because nurses treat pleasant patients better and because it is just the way I am. For instance, when asked my birth date for verification, I often respond “why you asking, you gonna send me a card?” When asked how much I am drinking each day my pat answer is “2 or 3 scotch and sodas each night” (a BIG no-no). When asked if I smoke—“I just started” I say, “up to three packs a day, now. How am I doin?” I won’t share my responses to the question—How’s your poop?—but I have numerous depending on the crowd.

  The immunotherapy did eliminate Steve’s cancer, and he returned home in the middle of the summer in 2015. Days later, he was back in the hospital fighting an infection. Any other person would have had no time for a reporter in such circumstances, but Steve answered my questions from his hospital bed at Johns Hopkins.

  “You’ll be better soon, and we’ll go get a Greek salad from that restaurant in College Park,” I said before leaving.

  “Heck, we’ll just make one at home,” he answered.

  The only condition that Steve had laid down for the project was that the book give appropriate credit to his colleagues at the FBI who had worked on the case. A significant contributor to the investigation was the cryptanalyst Daniel Olson, to whom I am especially indebted for patiently explaining and reexplaining Regan’s complex codes to me. The person who facilitated these interviews for me at the FBI Lab in Quantico was Special Agent Ann Todd: she deserves a big thank-you, not just because she set up those conversations with Dan but more so because she was the one who first drew my attention to the Regan case. I owe a big debt of gratitude to many others at the FBI who collaborated with Steve Carr on the investigation, and subsequently granted me dozens of hours of their time to share their recollections of the case: Lydia Jechorek, Bill Lace, Kathy Springstead, and Marc Reeser. These interviews would not have been possible without the support of the FBI’s public affairs specialists—beginning with Betsy Glick, Beth Lefebvre, and Susan McKee at FBI headquarters, as well as Perryn Collier at FBI Phoenix and Amy Thoreson and Richard Wolf at FBI Baltimore.

  The book has also benefited immensely from the help of Joshua Stueve, public affairs officer at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, who helped me sit down for interviews with one of the nation’s top national security prosecutors, James P. Gillis. I also couldn’t have done without the cooperation of Gary Walker and Bret Padres, both of whom were part of the Regan investigation, and the interviews provided by Michael Rochford, former head of the espionage section in the FBI’s counterintelligence division, as well as former FBI special agent Tom Reilly. I’m grateful also to Keith Hall and Marty Faga—former directors of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)—and Major General Robert Rosenberg, a veteran of the national security space program, for educating me about the history of the NRO. I am indebted as well to David Kahn, author of the classic The Codebreakers, for his generous advice on researching the history of cryptology and ciphers.

  I might never have thought it feasible to delve into Brian Regan’s character—and, consequently, write this book—had it not been for the help of David Charney, a forensic psychiatrist who was hired by Regan’s defense team. Charney’s insights into Regan’s psychology and motivations—derived from his many hours of interviews with Regan—were key to my research into what shaped Re
gan’s personality and what drove him to plot espionage. I’m thankful also to the handful of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues of Regan—some named in this book—for helping me understand him. I am especially grateful to Michael Gould, Bob Florio, Cliff Wagner, and Peter Klopfer, who helped me learn about Regan’s growing-up years.

  The book would not have seen the light of day but for the editors at Penguin who believed in the story, starting with Charlie Conrad, who acquired the book, and followed by Brent Howard, who edited it. Brent’s deft touch and enthusiastic support were invaluable assets that many authors can only dream of. I’m thankful, in equal measure, to my agent, Lydia Wills, whose insightful comments helped to shape the proposal into a viable book. A special note of thanks, also, to Nicholas Thompson, my former editor at Wired, who edited the January 2010 piece in the magazine that became the seed for this project.

  I’m also indebted to the Wilson Center, the nonpartisan think tank that supported me with a five-month public policy fellowship in 2015. Having an office at the center to work at, and having the opportunity to interact with its talented pool of staff and scholars, was invaluable to me. I also benefited greatly from the research assistance I got from Hannah Armenta, my intern at the Wilson Center, who transcribed several hours of audio interviews.

  Writing one’s first book is a nerve-racking experience, and I wouldn’t have been able to go through it without the help of my wife, Jen. A managing editor at Aviation Week, Jen spent countless hours listening to me talk about the story. Her feedback saved me time and again from taking a wrong direction in structuring the narrative. I could not have written the book without her support.

  On September 11, 2015, after Steve had come back home from the hospital, I went to interview him again for the final chapters of the book. Even with an oxygen tank, he was having trouble breathing. His lung infection was proving to be stubborn. I told him I could come back another day, but he waved me into the house and had me turn up the oxygen flow so that he could answer my questions. After we’d gone for about two hours, I got up to leave. He smiled when I offered to bring him a Greek salad on my next visit.

  It was the last time I saw him. Ten days later, he decided to go into hospice care, and he passed away—cancer-free—on September 25, 2015, at the age of fifty-three. At his funeral service, one of his friends read out a message that a fellow leukemia patient had posted on Steve’s CaringBridge site.

  Six years ago, right about this time of year, an FBI agent, a complete stranger, appeared in my hospital room at Johns Hopkins. I had just begun chemotherapy for A.L.L. Steve made periodic visits to that floor and asked the nurses if any newly diagnosed people had come in. He told me not to lose heart, that there was more living to do, that remission would give me time to know my kids, to live the kind of life you very often only learn you want to live when you’re next to death. His buoyancy and gentle toughness were stalwart examples to me; he taught me how to do what I didn’t think was possible. Steve and I relapsed at roughly the same time and spent many days together having conversations that we really couldn’t have but with each other. He called me his brother in this illness and rarely have I been so proud. I learned so much from him about grace and kindness, about strength of character and holding on to hope. None of us knows how many days we have left. Not one of mine remaining will go by in which I won’t think of him with love and admiration. See you on the other side, brother.

  Thank you, Steve, for being the person that you were. If there is a heaven, you must surely be lounging there somewhere, enjoying a Greek salad.

  A NOTE ON SOURCES

  The material for this book has come from numerous sources: interviews with FBI agents and prosecutors and others involved in the investigation and trial of Brian Regan, court documents—including previously sealed documents that were unsealed by the court at the author’s request—and a variety of government records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. I’ve also had access to some of the notes and letters written by Regan while he was awaiting trial. My account of his growing-up years and adult life comes from multiple interviews with his friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and one family member, some of whom chose to speak on the condition of anonymity. The book has also benefited from my access to unclassified video recordings of the searches in Pocahontas and Patapsco.

  Much of the dialogue in the book comes from the recollections of the individuals I interviewed. I’ve reproduced the recollected exchanges verbatim. The rest of the dialogue has been sourced from videos, letters, documents, and trial transcripts.

  INDEX

  The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.

  Air Force Computer Emergency Response team, 52

  Air Force Intelligence Support Agency, 76

  Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), 35, 36, 51, 53, 138

  Air Intelligence Agency, 74

  Alexandria, Virginia, 12

  Alexandria Detention Center, Virginia, 198–200, 257, 271

  Ali Khamenei, 231

  Al-Kindi, 174–75

  American Civil War, 25

  American Revolution, 184–85

  Ames, Aldrich, 104, 133, 273

  Amityville, New York, 171

  Anderson, Maynard, 216

  Archaic encryption system, 16

  Arlington National Cemetery, 24

  Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), 69–70

  Arnold, Benedict, 184–85

  Automated Security Incident Measurement (ASIM), 52

  Back doors, 243–45, 257, 258

  Bailey, Nathan, 185

  Baker, James, 152

  Bellaso, Giovan Battista, 16

  Bellows, Randy, 169–70, 186–88

  Bern, Switzerland, 126, 128

  Blackstone, William, 185

  Bletchley Park, 176

  Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C., 96–97

  Bond movies, 65, 69

  Book codes, 184–85

  Boone, David Sheldon, 10

  Bowie, Maryland, 14, 27, 44, 91, 107, 117, 119, 145, 172, 208

  Boyce, Christopher, 87

  Brausch, Glen, 68, 100

  Brevity codes, 9, 12–13, 20, 109

  Buckmeier, Anthony, 152, 156

  Bush, George H. W., 75

  Bush, George W., 191–92, 207, 211

  Caesar, Julius, 174

  Caesar shift, 186

  Carr, Michelle, 26

  Carr, Steve, 35, 54, 124, 159, 161, 201, 219, 263

  ad in Washington Post placed by, 30–31, 273

  background of, 7, 12, 24

  childhood of, 24–25

  education of, 25

  800 number and, 29–30

  interviews with Regan, 154–56, 229–32, 237, 240, 250, 252, 255, 272

  joins FBI, 25–26

  physical appearance of, 7, 253

  Regan’s codes and, 162–64, 183, 240

  Regan’s computer and, 187–91

  Regan’s letter to Libyan embassy and, 8–16, 19, 20, 29, 155, 190

  at Regan’s trial, 218, 222, 226

  religion and, 8, 26

  searches for stolen materials and, 209–10

  searches for stolen materials by, 170, 173, 232–39, 245, 249–50, 260–62, 264–71

  tracking and surveillance of Regan by, 26–31, 38, 40–42, 45–50, 53, 117–18, 125, 126, 130–33, 138–39, 142, 143, 147, 148, 151–53

  Carter, Jimmy, 87

  Cast About, 38

  Central Command (CENT-COM), 9

  Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 9, 10, 20, 26–28, 37–46, 79–82, 85, 94, 104, 125, 229, 233

>   Central Virginia Regional Jail, Orange, Virginia, 160

  Chantilly, Virginia, 27, 91, 231, 232

  Chester, Virginia, 120, 231

  China, 105, 140–42, 162, 164, 165, 191, 214–16, 224, 273

  Cifra del Sig. Giovan Battista Bellaso, La, 16

  Ciphers, 178

  defined, 16–17

  history of, 174–76

  Clark, John, 223

  Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), 212, 213

  Coast Guard, 175

  Codes

  defined, 16–17

  history of, 173–76, 184–85

  used by Regan, 108–9, 148–49, 156, 159, 161–64, 168, 173, 177, 182–86, 200, 206, 230, 232, 239–45, 250–60, 274

  Cold War, 86, 87, 105, 138, 176

  Commentaries on the Laws of England (Blackstone), 185

  Corona satellites, 82–86

  Crete, 70–72

  Crofton, Maryland, 14, 27

  Crofton Community Library, Maryland, 123–26, 168, 222

  Crownsville, Maryland, 204, 205

  Cryptanalysis, 16, 19–20, 174–78, 184