Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed

267 Pages·2013·2.22 MB·English

by  Sandra Grimes

CIRCLE
OF
TREASON
CIRCLE
OF
TREASON
A CIA ACCOUNT OF
TRAITOR ALDRICH AMES
AND THE MEN HE BETRAYED
SANDRA GRIMES AND JEANNE VERTEFEUILLE
NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS
Annapolis, Maryland
Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
© 2012 by Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grimes, Sandra.
Circle of treason : a CIA account of traitor Aldrich Ames and the men he betrayed / Sandra Grimes and
Jeanne Vertefeuille.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61251-305-81.Ames, Aldrich Hazen, 1941– 2.United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
3.United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 4.Intelligence officers—United States—Biography.
5.Espionage—United States. 6.Intelligence service—United States.
I. Vertefeuille, Jeanne. II. Title.
JK468.I6G76 2012
364.1′31—dc23
2012024310
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
201918171615141312987654321
First printing
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official
positions or views of the CIA or any other U.S. government agency. Nothing in the contents should be
construed as asserting or implying U.S. government authentication of information or Agency endorsement
of the authors’ views. This material has been reviewed by the CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified
information.
To General Polyakov
And to the others
Who were executed or imprisoned
And to their families
CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter 1. Jeanne’s Story
Chapter 2. Sandy’s Story
Chapter 3. Overview of SE Operations
Chapter 4. The Polyakov Case—The Beginnings
Chapter 5. The Polyakov Case—The Middle
Chapter 6. The Polyakov Case—The End
Chapter 7. Early Major Cases
Chapter 8. Later Major Cases
Chapter 9. Things Begin to Go Wrong
Chapter 10. First Attempts
Chapter 11. CIC Formation
Chapter 12. Beginning of the Focus on Ames
Chapter 13. The Investigation Gets New Life
Chapter 14. Ames Emerges as a Major Focus
Chapter 15. The FBI Takes Over
Chapter 16. Reactions to the Arrest of Ames
Chapter 17. Ames the Person, Ames the Spy
Chapter 18. Hanssen and Ames—A Comparison
Chapter 19. Final Thoughts
Honor Roll
Selected Chronology
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
MANY BOOKS HAVE BEEN WRITTEN about Cold War espionage
in general, or about particular aspects, cases, or periods. The great
majority of these books suffer from the same deficiency—they are
written by outsiders with an imperfect knowledge of the main
organizations, methods of operation, and personalities involved in this struggle.
Other books, whether written by outsiders or insiders, also suffer from being
written by persons with an axe to grind, or who are besotted by a pet theory, or
are simply more interested in producing a marketable commodity than in
searching for truth and accuracy.
This book attempts to avoid these pitfalls. It is written by insiders. The
authors can speak with authority and in detail about the CIA’s operations against
the Soviet—and to a lesser degree, the East European—target. We were there,
starting at the bottom but working up into increasingly responsible positions.
Also, we were at the center of what became the Ames mole hunt. The book
mainly covers the period 1961–94, the years of our greatest personal
involvement.
The reader may wonder why we have chosen to air material previously
considered classified. We wish to emphasize that we are not “leakers.” All of our
contacts with the media stem from a project conceived by the Agency to tell its
side of the Ames story. After Ames was arrested in February 1994, the FBI, as is
customary for that organization, launched a campaign to let the public know of
their success. In the Agency’s view, the decisive CIA contribution to this roll-up
was getting lost. Therefore, it was decided that five of us—Sandy, Jeanne, Paul
Redmond, Dan Payne, and Diana Worthen—would be tasked to participate in
media interviews on the subject of the CIA’s operations against the Soviet target,
the devastation wrought by Ames, and our investigative efforts, which resulted
in his identification as a Soviet mole. All of our early contacts took place on
Agency premises and were monitored by an Agency official. Some were taped.
Initially this project made us quite uneasy because we are of the old school and
had been indoctrinated with the dictum that one was to avoid the media at all
costs. Later we became more comfortable with the idea and continued to
cooperate in selected interviews, but all of our media contacts were approved in
advance.
The reader may also wonder why we have chosen certain KGB and GRU
operations for extended treatment, while providing only a cursory summary for
others. Throughout we have tried to adhere to one criterion: Is the information
we are including already known to the KGB and its successors because of the
treason of Ames, Hanssen, Howard, and the others? When this holds true, we
have seen no reason to withhold it from the general reader. On the other hand,
when it comes to information we believe the opposition does not know or that
could prove harmful to certain individuals, we have suppressed it in our book
even though sometimes it would add useful background to our story.
With this limitation in mind, we generally chose those cases that were the
most significant in terms of intelligence and counterintelligence production,
those in which we had the most personal engagement, those that were
intrinsically the most interesting, and those where the Soviet participant paid for
his involvement with his life. We regret that, with the exception of Tolkachev,
we have not been able to give more coverage to the great majority of those cases
that did not involve intelligence officers. While some of them were significant in
the Agency’s overall Cold War effort, we in the counterintelligence world often
did not focus on them. We also have omitted East European cases, though some
of them were of major importance and some of their stories would make
fascinating reading, again because we did not focus on them on a continuing
basis.
On the reverse side, our discussion of the U.S. intelligence officers who
volunteered to the KGB is limited to Ames, Hanssen, and—to a lesser degree—
Howard. We have not covered Richard Miller and Earl Pitts of the FBI or Harold
(“Jim”) Nicholson of the CIA, despite the fact that all of them have served
prison time for their espionage activities. While they certainly did cause damage,
compared to Ames and Hanssen they are minor players.
The authors make no pretense of neutrality. We have our opinions, and have
expressed them as warranted. However, we have tried to be scrupulous about
separating fact from opinion and have made every effort to concentrate on the
former. Also, we have attempted to avoid writing a book overly concerned with
exposing or “getting back” at those whose beliefs and actions have, in our