by David Wise
But that was not the half of it. The Russian had a sensational secret, one he had kept from the KGB and the SVR, and from everyone else.
To Rochford’s utter astonishment, he revealed that he had access to the crown jewel, the actual KGB file on the American mole.
But how could this be? The Russian had stayed on only briefly when the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, its foreign intelligence arm, was renamed the SVR after the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Then he had left the government and retired. Surely there was no way he could get back into SVR headquarters, remove one of their most sensitive files, and stroll out with it unchallenged by armed guards.
The answer was soon apparent. Before he retired, and while he still had full access, he said, he had thoughtfully removed the file from Yasenevo, the Russian foreign intelligence headquarters, as insurance against a rainy day. He well understood its potential value. He had stashed it away and he was the only person in the world who knew where it was.
He did not have the file with him in New York, of course, but if the price was right …
The news was far beyond what GRAYSUIT’S managers ever could have anticipated. The file! The actual mole file!
The Russian’s revelation that he possessed the file meant that the bureau, no matter how high the cost, would have to strike a deal with him.
Mike Rochford knew something about how important real documents and files could be. In 1992, after being turned away by the CIA, Vasili Mitrokhin had defected to MI6, the British secret intelligence service, with an unprecedented trove of documents he had copied while working as the chief archivist inside the KGB. The British had whisked him to London and given him a new identity.* Rochford, often with Bob Wade, a veteran FBI counterspy, had flown to London a dozen times during a two-year period to debrief Mitrokhin about the materials. Mitrokhin’s files revealed dozens of previously unknown KGB operations and unmasked two spies.
Now, in a New York hotel room, Rochford began the negotiations to buy the file. For Rochford, aided by his support team, it was essential to establish a bond of trust with the Russian. “You don’t just offer the money,” said one experienced FBI counterintelligence agent. “That can be insulting. You have to give some thought about each individual. You have to build a personal relationship. Of course the money comes up.”
As the talks proceeded, the Russian cautioned Rochford that the file did not contain the name of the mole, or reveal in which agency he worked, since he had never divulged either. But there were enough clues in the documents, the ex-KGB agent said, that he was confident the file would enable the bureau to identify “Ramon Garcia.”
There were several secret meetings over the better part of a week between Rochford and the Russian, as they hammered out the agreement, including how many millions of dollars the FBI would have to pay for the file—after the bureau had a chance to examine it, of course.
That condition was one of the first hurdles to be overcome, and it was a major one, because the FBI insisted that the Russian relinquish the file before he was paid. The bureau was not about to buy a pig in a poke.
“He wanted the money up front,” one FBI source said. “The guy said he could get a tape recording with the mole’s voice, but he didn’t know who he is. It sounded fishy. Is this guy trying to scam us? ‘This is going to be a dynamite tape,’ he says.”
A tape recording! Now the FBI agents wanted to get their hands on the file more than ever. But the Russian had to be persuaded to turn over the file first, and to trust the U.S. government to keep its commitments if the file, upon analysis, proved to be what he said it was.
It was a delicate dance, because the thought must have crossed the mind of the former KGB officer that once the FBI had the file, it could walk away and leave him sitting in Moscow with no payment at all, duped by the Americans. “His concern,” one FBI official recalled, “was that he not be squeezed like a lemon and just left.”
The million-dollar bounty that BUCKLURE had offered more than a dozen years ago was now far too low. Aside from inflation to consider, there was the unique value of the product.
“He wanted a great deal of money without producing anything,” the FBI official said. Both sides were wary. “It was like two scorpions. He wanted more and we wanted less.”
Finally, after intense negotiations, Rochford and the Russian settled on a price, and it was huge: the FBI paid a whopping $7 million for the file on the mole.
A good-faith initial deposit was placed in escrow in a U.S. bank. There would be a series of payments into the account over the next several months.
Aside from the negotiations over price, there were a host of other questions to be settled. Arrangements would have to be made for the file to be physically handed over in Moscow. But the FBI is largely precluded from operating overseas; the CIA would have to be brought in to manage this part.
The ex-KGB officer would then need to get out of Russia, with as many family members as possible. He would surely be imprisoned or shot if the SVR discovered what he had done.
There were details to be worked out about his life in the United States. He would have to be given a new identity, his personal safety and that of his family guaranteed for life. It would not be enough to settle him into a seaside mansion in La Jolla or some other pleasant spot; he would have to feel certain he was beyond the reach of the SVR. True, the KGB reportedly gave up assassinations more than two decades ago, but defectors, even if they do not spend every moment looking over their shoulder for a hit man from Moscow, are never entirely free of concerns about their security.
Officials were extraordinarily tight-lipped about many of the details involved in acquiring the file and getting it out of Russia.* But when, as planned, the former KGB man returned to Moscow after the negotiations in New York, the CIA established contact with him. When all the arrangements were complete, it was to the CIA that the Russian turned over the file.
Early in November 2000, the file, carefully guarded every moment of its clandestine journey from Moscow, arrived at FBI headquarters in Washington. According to a senior bureau official, “It came in one package, which was actually several smaller packages, all of which would fit into a medium-sized suitcase.” The file was able to fit into such a relatively small space because much of the material was on computer floppy disks.
Everything was taken immediately to the FBI laboratory on the third floor. The first order of business was a forensic examination of the file. The documents were carefully dusted for fingerprints, but there were no useful prints on them or on the floppy disks. Then every document, envelope, and disk was photographed.
One of the packages came with a note that said, “Don’t open this.” The FBI counterintelligence agents were itching to open it and overwhelmed with curiosity, but they waited. In a few weeks, they knew, the Russian would come out of Moscow and explain the mystery package.
In the meantime, there was work to be done. There were translations needed; some of the material was in Russian. For example, the KGB man had managed to compile an inventory and description in Russian of every document—six thousand pages in all—that had been passed to Moscow by the mole; the list would have to be translated back into English.
The file included the letters exchanged by the Russians and the mole over the course of fifteen years, some on computer disks, and many of the titles of the documents he had given to the KGB. The actual documents that the mole had passed to the Russians were not included in the package from Moscow. But the detailed notes taken by the KGB man described the documents in sufficient detail so that the FBI could retrieve them from its own files, as well as from the files of the NSA and the CIA.
FBI analysts began a thorough examination of the file, searching for clues that would confirm the identity of the mole at last. The letters and the disks nowhere identified the mole by name or by organization; he was referred to as “Ramon” or “B” or “Ramon Garcia.” But there were hints here and there: the KGB’s source
talked about new assignments and promotions on certain dates. GRAY DECEIVER, it was believed, would soon be arrested.
One of the packages contained the potential treasure that the Russian had first revealed in the meetings in New York, a tape recording of a conversation labeled July 21, 1986, between a KGB officer, Aleksandr K. Fefelov, and the unknown mole. The KGB officer, speaking from a pay phone, had taped part of the conversation.
Sometime in November, Michael Waguespack listened to the tape. Wags, as he was known, was a gray-haired, congenial Louisianan who grew up in the Cajun country near New Orleans and was regarded as one of the best counterintelligence agents in the bureau. He had worked espionage cases, including some major ones, for more than twenty years, in San Diego, Chicago, New York, and Washington. To hear the tape, Waguespack, with Mike Rochford and Tim Bereznay, went to one of the FBI lab’s secluded rooms tucked away in the basement of headquarters.
As they settled back to listen, they were certain that they would, at last, hear the voice of Brian Kelley, GRAY DECEIVER. “This was the piece we needed to nail it down,” Waguespack said.
No one expected to hear the voice that boomed out into the room.
“It was apparent to all three of us it was not him,” Waguespack said.
The agents were stunned and chagrined at the unexpected turn of events. Three years lost; all that effort, and now, just as Rochford was sure that the mole was within his grasp, the shocking revelation, on a fourteen-year-old snippet of magnetic tape, that the bureau had been chasing the wrong man.
But if the voice on the tape was not Brian Kelley, then who was it?
Waguespack recalled his frustration. “I kept listening and I said, ‘I know that voice. The inflection. I know that voice, but I can’t put it with anybody. That voice sounds familiar.’ We broke off that day still unsure.
“Bob King and the other analysts started to look at the material in the file. It had the Patton quote.” Twice in the KGB file, the mole had quoted General Patton as saying to his troops, “Let’s get this over with so we can kick the shit out of the purple-pissing Japanese.” And suddenly King knew where he had heard those words. “King recalled that Hanssen had used that phrase, ‘the purple-pissing,’ when King worked for him in the Soviet analytical unit,” Waguespack said. “He remembered it. He said, ‘I think that is Bob Hanssen.’
“We went back and listened to the tape again and this time I realized it was Hanssen. I said, ‘My God, that’s him!’ I went to Neil Gallagher and I said, ‘Strap on, because here we go.’ ”
On November 22, Gallagher received his first briefing on the contents of the file. The mystery package had still not been opened, but the voice on the tape had been recognized and the documents analyzed.
It was, clearly, time to shift gears. “We thought we had Kelley,” a senior FBI official admitted. Now everything had changed.
All the evidence made it plain that the mole was Robert Hanssen. Even aside from the voice on the tape, and the Patton quote, the analysis of the KGB file was persuasive. The mole’s first letter to the KGB was dated October 1, 1985, and mailed from a Washington suburb. Although Hanssen had been assigned to New York by then, FBI records showed he was in Washington on that day. The mole had said in May 1990 that he would be going on more trips, and that was the year that Hanssen began his travels as an agent in the inspection division, including his jaunt to Hong Kong with Priscilla Sue Galey. In November 1991, Hanssen had been promoted to unit chief at higher pay; in December he told the Russians he had received a salary increase and more authority. There were the references to Chicago, Hanssen’s birthplace, and the mole’s admiration of Mayor Daley. There were many other clues that made it plain who the betrayer was, and that it was not the CIA’s Brian Kelley.
Within the next forty-eight hours, GRAY DECEIVER was no longer the target of the investigation. Now there was a new code name: GRAYDAY.
There could no longer be any doubt about the identity of the mole. GRAYDAY was Robert Hanssen.
Within the small contingent of mole hunters, GRAY DECEIVER had often been referred to in shorthand as simply “GD.” By designating Hanssen as GRAYDAY, the agents could still informally speak of the new target as “GD.” That would give the impression that they were still talking about GRAY DECEIVER. The decision to keep the same initials was deliberate, so that even the official cryptonym, GRAYDAY, would be tightly held.
There was good reason for this. If Hanssen learned that the bureau had suddenly locked onto a new target in its search for the mole and given the suspect a new code name, there was always the risk that he might flee. He had, after all, asked for an escape plan in his first year as a spy for the KGB. In his briefcase, he carried a current passport.
By mid-December, the Russian was safely in the United States. Some members of his family had also gotten out. And the $7 million was his, to be paid out over a period of time.*
The FBI was now able to open the last package, the one that the source had cautioned not to unwrap.
The former KGB man explained the significance of the mystery package. Inside was an ordinary black plastic trash bag, of the kind that suburban homeowners use to dispose of leaves or garbage. When Hanssen filled a dead drop, he would wrap the documents and disks in a plastic trash bag and tape it up to waterproof it and protect it from the elements. Then he would wrap the whole package in a second plastic bag.
The Russian said that under normal procedure, someone else had opened the bags. He would then receive a pile of documents that had been handled first by others. “Only once did they drop off the outer bag with the documents,” an FBI official said. “When he removed the outer bag, he assumed that the only persons who had touched the inner bag were himself and Ramon. So he carefully put the inner bag in an envelope.” The plastic bag was to prove one of the most vital items in the file that the Russian removed from Yasenevo.
When the package was opened, the bag inside was taken to the FBI lab and processed. Two latent fingerprints were found on the bag. They belonged to Robert Philip Hanssen. And they were the only identifiable prints in the entire file.
The plastic bag sealed GRAYDAY’S fate. There had been no question for several weeks that the mole was indeed Bob Hanssen, but now the bureau had solid forensic evidence. It would have been difficult for even the most dexterous defense lawyer to explain what Hanssen’s prints were doing on a plastic bag that had been reposited in a secret file inside the KGB in Moscow.
The FBI had followed a false trail for three years, stumbling in the dark, but now it had pulled off an impressive and unprecedented counterintelligence feat. There had been defectors and walk-ins over the years who had provided valuable information, but nothing had ever happened like this. The bureau had engineered the source’s travel to New York and had managed to pull off the seemingly impossible—to extract a file on the most damaging mole in the history of the FBI from the most guarded building in Russia.
Gallagher put it this way: “The FBI was able to reach into the KGB back room and bring out what is usually the most difficult part of any espionage case, the evidence. Because the evidence is usually gone. In this case we were able to bring it out of Russia. We were proactive, it didn’t just happen.”
Although Gallagher would not talk about the money that the FBI had paid for the file, he indicated the source was happy with the outcome. “He was very satisfied with the financial arrangement. And a lot of security-related issues were taken care of. We have covered his financial security and his personal security and assisted him in the transition.”
The CIA kept silent about its part in getting the file out of Moscow, but Gallagher credited the intelligence agency with playing an important role. Historically the two agencies, with different missions, have often clashed. It took six years before they formed the joint task force in 1991 that resulted, three years later, in the arrest for espionage of the CIA’s Aldrich Ames.
“This was different from Ames; they worked with us on all aspects
of the investigation,” Gallagher said. “They handled a lot of the resettlement. They also worked with us on the recruitment effort and the success of the operation.”
Among the intelligence agencies, “resettlement” is the term used to arrange for a new life and a new identity for defectors, such as the Russian who provided the mole file. The CIA’s National Resettlement Operations Center (NROC) makes these arrangements from its secret location near Washington.*
The FBI was careful to say little about the KGB man. But officials confirmed that he lives somewhere in the United States and is well protected. And rich.
The SVR would have figured out fairly quickly who stole its file—certainly after Hanssen’s arrest, if not before. FBI director Freeh, in announcing the arrest on February 20, 2001, disclosed that the FBI had obtained “original Russian documentation.” By that time, the Russian source was long gone from Moscow. Since presumably only a limited number of KGB and SVR officers would have had access to such a sensitive file, the Russians could have ascertained who among them had suddenly left town—and had not been seen since. (Even months after Hanssen’s arrest, some FBI officials still were clinging to the thought that it was possible, if not likely, that the SVR was still trying to figure out who had absconded with the file.)
One of the unanswered questions in all this is whether the SVR ever realized, until Hanssen was apprehended, that its file was missing.* Because the file obtained from the Russian ends in December 1991, it is possible that it had been archived around that time. And the SVR may have had no cause to search for the file because Hanssen did not contact the KGB again for eight years after the Soviet Union collapsed.