https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames


Mugshot from the day of his arrest

Aldrich Hazen "Rick" Ames (/eɪmz/; born May 26, 1941) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer turned KGB double agent, who was convicted of espionage in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, United States. Ames was formerly a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer who committed espionage against the U.S. by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. At the time of his arrest, Ames had compromised more highly-classified CIA assets than any other officer in history until Robert Hanssen's arrest seven years later in 2001.

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Espionage

Replacement of the mailbox used by Ames: a horizontal chalk mark above the USPS logo would signal a needed meeting. Garfield St and Garfield Terrace NW. Original in the Spy Museum.

Ames routinely assisted another CIA office that assessed Soviet embassy officials as potential intelligence assets. As part of this responsibility, and with the knowledge of both the CIA and the FBI, Ames began making contacts within the Soviet Embassy. In April 1985, Ames provided information to the Soviets that he believed was "essentially valueless" but would establish his credentials as a CIA insider. He also asked for $50,000, which the Soviets quickly paid. Ames later claimed that he had not prepared for more than the initial "con game" to satisfy his immediate indebtedness, but having "crossed a line" he "could never step back".

Ames soon identified more than ten top-level CIA and FBI sources who were reporting on Soviet activities. Not only did Ames believe that there was "as much money as [he] could ever use" in betraying these intelligence assets, but their elimination would also reduce the chance of his own espionage being discovered. By 1985, the CIA's network of Soviet-bloc agents began disappearing at an alarming rate. The CIA realized something was wrong but was reluctant to consider the possibility of an agency mole. Initial investigations focused on possible breaches caused by Soviet bugs, or a code which had been broken.

The CIA initially blamed asset losses on another former CIA agent, Edward Lee Howard, who had also been passing information to the Soviets. But when the CIA lost three other important sources of information about whom Howard could have known nothing, it was clear that the arrests (and executions) were the result of information provided by another source. As one CIA officer put it, the Soviets "were wrapping up our cases with reckless abandon", which was highly unusual because the "prevailing wisdom among the Agency's professional 'spy catchers'" was that suddenly eliminating all the assets known to the mole would put him in danger. In fact, Ames's KGB handlers apologized to him, saying they disagreed with that course of action, but that the decision to immediately eliminate all American assets had been made at the highest political levels.

Meanwhile, Ames continued to meet openly with his contact at the Soviet embassy, Sergey Dmitriyevich Chuvakhin. For a time, Ames summarized for the CIA and FBI the progress of what he portrayed as an attempt to recruit the Soviet. Ames received $20,000 to $50,000 every time the two had lunch. Ultimately, Ames received $4.6 million from the Soviets, which allowed him to enjoy a lifestyle well beyond the means of a CIA officer. In August 1985, when Ames's divorce became final, he immediately married Rosario. Understanding that his new wealth would raise eyebrows, he developed a cover story that his prosperity was the result of money given to him by his Colombian wife's wealthy family. To assist with that fabrication, Ames wired considerable amounts of his espionage payments to his new in-laws in Bogota, to help improve their impoverished status.

In 1986, following the loss of several CIA assets, Ames told the KGB that he feared he would be a suspect. The KGB threw U.S. investigators off Ames's trail by constructing an elaborate diversion, in which a Soviet case officer told a CIA contact that the mole was stationed at Warrenton Training Center (WTC), a secret CIA communications facility in Virginia. U.S. mole hunters investigated 90 employees at WTC for almost a year and came up with ten suspects, although the lead investigator noted that "there are so many problem personalities that no one stands out".

In 1986, Ames was posted to Rome. There, his performance once again ranged from mediocre to poor and included evidence of problematic drinking. Nevertheless, in 1990–1991, he was reassigned to the CIA's Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group, providing him with access to "extremely sensitive data", including information on U.S. double agents.

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CIA response

The CIA mole hunt team, circa 1990. From left to right: Sandy Grimes, Paul Redmond, Jeanne Vertefeuille, Diana Worthen, Dan Payne.

In late 1986, the CIA assembled a team to investigate the source of the leaks. Led by Paul Redmond, and consisting of Jeanne Vertefeuille, Sandra Grimes, Diana Worthen, and Dan Payne, the team examined different possible causes, including the possibilities that the KGB had bugged the agency, or intercepted its communications, or had a mole in place.[25] By 1990, the CIA was certain that there was a mole in the agency, but could not find the source. Recruitment of new Soviet agents came to a virtual halt, as the agency feared it could not protect its current assets.

Prior to that, in November 1989, a fellow employee reported that Ames seemed to be enjoying a lifestyle well beyond the means of a CIA officer, and that his wife's family was less wealthy than he had claimed. Diana Worthen, who had known Rosario Ames prior to her marriage, had met with Rosario one day to discuss installing drapes in the Ames residence. Worthen, who had recently installed drapes in her own home, knew they could be expensive and asked which room to concentrate upon first, to which Rosario laughed and said "Do not worry about the price, we are going to have the whole house done at once!" Worthen also knew that Rosario's parents had little money, but a CIA contact in Bogota observed that her family was now well-off. Nevertheless, the CIA moved slowly. When the investigator assigned to look at Ames's finances began a two-month training course, no one immediately replaced him. Investigators were also diverted by a false story from a CIA officer abroad who claimed that the Soviets had penetrated the CIA with an employee born in the USSR.

In 1986 and 1991, Ames passed two polygraph examinations while spying for the Soviet Union and Russia, respectively. Ames was initially "terrified" at the prospect of taking the test, but he was advised by the KGB "to just relax". Ames's test demonstrated deceptive answers to some questions but the examiners passed him, perhaps, in the later opinion of the CIA, because the examiners were "overly friendly" and therefore did not induce the proper physiological response.

The CIA finally focused on Ames after co-workers noted his sharper personal appearance, including:

Cosmetic dentistry: Ames's teeth, which were yellowed by heavy smoking, were capped.
Attire: previously, Ames had been known for "bargain basement" attire, but suddenly changed to wearing tailor-made suits not even his superiors could afford.

The CIA also realized that, despite Ames's annual salary being $60,000, he could afford:

A $540,000 house in Arlington, Virginia, paid for in cash
A $50,000 Jaguar luxury car
Home remodeling and redecoration costs of $99,000
Monthly phone bills exceeding $6,000, mostly calls by Ames's wife to her family in Colombia
Premium credit cards, on which the minimum monthly payment exceeded his monthly salary.

Arrest
In March 1993, the CIA and FBI began an intensive investigation of Ames that included electronic surveillance, combing through his trash, and a monitor installed in his car to track his movements. From November 1993 until his arrest, Ames was kept under virtually constant physical surveillance. When, in early 1994, he was scheduled to attend a conference in Moscow, the FBI believed it could wait no longer, and he and his wife were arrested on February 21, 1994. At his arrest, Ames told the officers, "You're making a big mistake! You must have the wrong man!"

On February 22, 1994, Ames and his wife were formally charged by the Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. Ames's betrayal resulted in the deaths of a number of CIA assets. He pleaded guilty on April 28 and received a sentence of life imprisonment. As part of a plea bargain by Ames, his wife received a five-year prison sentence for tax evasion and conspiracy to commit espionage.

In court, Ames admitted that he had compromised "virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other American and foreign services known to me", and had provided the USSR and Russia with a "huge quantity of information on United States foreign, defense and security policies". It is estimated that information Ames provided to the Soviets led to the compromise of at least a hundred U.S. intelligence operations and to the execution of at least ten U.S. sources. Furthermore, Ames's betrayal of CIA methods allowed the KGB to use "controlled agents" to feed the U.S. both genuine intelligence and disinformation from 1986 to 1993. Some of this "feed material" was incorporated into CIA intelligence reports, several of which even reached three Presidents.

Ames said he was not afraid of being caught by the FBI or CIA but was afraid of Soviet defectors, saying, "Virtually every American who has been jailed in connection with espionage has been fingered by a Soviet source".

Additionally, when asked about the polygraph tests, Ames said, "There's no special magic. Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner. Rapport, where you smile and you make him think that you like him."

Post-sentence
Ames is Federal Bureau of Prisons prisoner #40087-083, serving his life sentence in the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The CIA was criticized for not focusing on Ames sooner, given the obvious increase in his standard of living. There was a "huge uproar" in Congress when CIA Director James Woolsey decided that no one in the agency would be dismissed or demoted. "Some have clamored for heads to roll in order that we could say that heads have rolled," Woolsey declared. "Sorry, that's not my way." Woolsey resigned under pressure.

Ames's attorney, Plato Cacheris, had threatened to litigate the legality of FBI searches and seizures in Ames's home and office without traditional search warrants, although Ames's guilty plea made the threat moot. Congress then passed a new law giving that specific power to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

CIA sources betrayed

Vitaly Yurchenko was a KGB officer in the Fifth Department of Directorate K, "the highest-ranking KGB officer ever to defect to the United States". In August 1985, he defected via Rome to the United States, only to repatriate to the Soviet Union three months later. Ames was privy to all information that Yurchenko gave to the CIA and was able to transmit it to the KGB, which allowed easy cover-ups of lost information. Yurchenko returned to the Soviet Union in 1985 and was reassigned to a desk job within the FCD as a reward for helping to keep Ames's spying a secret.
Major General Dmitri Polyakov was the highest-ranking figure in the GRU, giving information to the CIA from the early 1960s until his retirement in 1980. He was executed in 1988 after Ames exposed him. He was probably the most valuable asset compromised by Ames. One CIA official said of Polyakov, "He didn't do this for money. He insisted on staying in place to help us."
Colonel Oleg Gordievsky was the head of the London rezidentura (station) and spied for the SIS (MI6). Ames handed over information about Gordievsky that positively identified him as a double agent, although Gordievsky managed to escape to the Finnish border, where he was extracted to the United Kingdom via Norway by the SIS before he could be detained in the Soviet Union.
Adolf Tolkachev was an electrical engineer who was one of the chief designers at the Phazotron company, which produces military radars and avionics. Tolkachev passed information to the CIA between 1979 and 1985, compromising multiple radar and missile secrets, as well as turning over classified information on avionics. He was arrested in 1985 after being compromised by both Ames and Edward Lee Howard, and was executed in 1986.
Valery Martynov was a Line X (Technical & Scientific Intelligence) officer at the Washington rezidentura. Martynov revealed the identities of fifty Soviet intelligence officers operating from the embassy, and technical and scientific targets that the KGB had penetrated. Martynov's name was given to the KGB by Ames, and Martynov was executed.
Major Sergei Motorin was a Line PR (Political Intelligence) officer at the Washington rezidentura, whom the FBI tried to blackmail into spying for the U.S. He eventually cooperated for his own reasons. Motorin was one of two moles at the rezidentura betrayed by Ames and quickly executed.
Colonel Leonid Poleshchuk was a Line KR (Counter-intelligence) agent in Nigeria, also betrayed by Ames. Poleshchuk's arrest was attributed to a chance encounter in which KGB agents had observed a CIA agent loading a dead drop. After some time, Poleshchuk was seen removing the contents.
Sergey Fedorenko was a nuclear weapons expert assigned to the Soviet delegation to the United Nations. In 1977, Ames was assigned to handle him, and Fedorenko betrayed information about the Soviet missile program to Ames. The two men became good friends, hugging when Fedorenko was about to return to Moscow. "We had become close friends", said Ames. "We trusted each other completely." Ames was initially hesitant to inform on his friend, but soon after handing over the majority of the information, he decided to betray Fedorenko to "do a good job" for the KGB.[56] Back in the USSR, Fedorenko used political connections to get himself out of trouble. Years later, Fedorenko met his friend Ames for an emotional reunion over lunch and promised to move to the U.S. for good. Ames promised to help. Shortly after lunch, Ames betrayed him to the KGB for a second time.[56] Fedorenko escaped arrest, defected, and is currently living in Rhode Island.

In a 2004 interview with Howard Philps Hart, who was the CIA Station Chief of Bonn, West Germany in the late 1980s, it was revealed that in 1988, Ames also betrayed a Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau Engineer who had been working with the CIA for 14 years, and had provided complete technical, test, and research data on all of the Soviet Union's fighter jets. According to Hart, his information "allowed the US Government to prevent the skies from being blacked out by Soviet bombers, saved us billions of dollars ... since we knew precisely what they could do".

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