Great Spies of the 20th Century

by Patrick Pesnot

  A month after Nicholson's arrest, the FBI had to admit to a spy in their own midst, a man called Earl Pitts. Charged with supervising KGB agents stationed at the UN, he had now come back. Driven by greed, like Nicholson, he also needed money and so for $200,000 he handed over to the Soviets a list of federal agents who were watching them. However, Pitts was unmasked in 1996, several years after the collapse of the UUSR. His wife, who also worked for the FBI, had suspected that he was engaged in dubious activities and no doubt overcome with remorse, she finally denounced him. Pitts was not arrested immediately as the FBI preferred to catch him in the act. They set up a trap by using federal agents who pretended to be Russian; and because Pitts was always greedy, he fell into it head first.

  However, the two examples of Nicholson and Pitt are relatively minor, even if the first led to the CIA director, John Deutch, being fired. On the other hand, Hanssen's betrayal was seen as a disaster because the entire US intelligence network was shaken to the core when the affair was revealed.

  By the time he was arrested, Hanssen was just about to retire. He had been born in Chicago at the end of the war and his father had been a police officer, who had spent most of his life tracking down Communists, while his son would later work for the KGB! Did he do this out of rebellion? It would appear that Hanssen's motives, despite appearances, were much more complicated. He had been raised in a very Christian family and was considered by most who knew him at the time as a very polite teenager who was a disciplined student and worker. The only negative was that he was a loner and never involved himself in any outside activities. He studied chemistry and graduated successfully - even choosing Russian as a second language. He then began his dentistry studies, before branching off again into accounting. After easily obtaining his qualifications as a chartered accountant, he worked in a law firm before entering the Chicago Police Department and working as a finance investigator. In 1976 he was recruited by the FBI, which saw the start of a brilliant career with the federal police. He was first assigned to financial crime, but soon enough thanks to his IT skills, he joined the department specifically responsible for counterintelligence. He was given high-level clearance and asked to design a database of all US intelligence officers. Although he now had access to top-secret information, at the time he did not envisage betraying his country, even if, according to a letter he later wrote to his Soviet correspondents, he claimed that he always wanted to be like Kim Philby.120

  Hanssen later confessed that he took great pleasure in spying, even though he was well-aware of the risks he was taking, such was the psychological makeup of this amazing character. This austere, very religious man, who despised many of his contemporaries, had found an outlet in the life of a double agent. He was playing with fire by challenging his superiors and colleagues to one day unmask his true identity.

  Johanna McGueary121

  At thirty-two, he was more mature than most young recruits, was often condescending towards his colleagues and maintained a very strong religious faith. ‘People who are very religious and for whom God alone is worthy, do not have time to devote to mere mortals’, recalls a retired agent and a former employee in the Soviet division in New York, where he worked with Hanssen from ‘78-81 and then ‘85-87. ‘He thought he was mentally superior to his colleagues and probably his seniors’, says Robert Bryant, the former assistant director of the FBI. As a result of this subtle arrogance, he had few friends in the bureau and was nicknamed ‘the Undertaker’ because of his sallow complexion, black hair, dark suits and his humourless eyes. As he was very awkward in his relationships with others, he was never entrusted with recruiting Soviet agents. ‘He was not good with human contact’, according to a former colleague, who wondered if the cruel nickname he was given might have pushed Hanssen into his betrayal.

  Did Robert Hanssen act out of ideological reasons? It was not really possible that this fundamentalist Catholic could commit to an atheistic communism. Money must therefore have been his principle motivation and the Soviets knew well that the best way to keep a spy was to reward him.

  Hanssen was paid for the services he rendered to the KGB and the SVR, which had succeeded the former after the collapse of the USSR. Yet he did not make the most of the hundreds of thousands of dollars he received, and took care not to change his lifestyle. On the other hand, he could have earned even more money in exchange for the information he provided to the Soviets, which means that money cannot have been the only reason behind his betrayal.

  Hanssen's attitude never aroused suspicion. He was interested in everything: computer systems, of course, but also anything related to electronics, such as miniaturised cameras and hidden microphones. He even devoured any available literature on the subject and

  it was true that his hunger for knowledge was sometimes quite shocking. However, this was usually just put down to his curiosity, nothing more. He was the perfect FBI agent, which explains his meteoric rise within the bureau and why he was given increasingly important roles, all in connection with counterintelligence and especially regarding the fight against Soviet activities in the United States.

  It was actually Hanssen who offered his services to the Russians, probably in 1985, when he sent a letter to the private home of a Soviet officer stationed in Washington. Hanssen was well-placed to know where and how the KGB were being watched and was therefore not taking any considerable risk: he knew for sure that his letter would not be opened. Inside was a second sealed envelope, which was to be hand-delivered to the head of counterintelligence at the Soviet embassy, a man called Cherkashin, a KGB colonel and an expert in handling double agents. The letter itself was anonymous: Hanssen had simply signed it ‘B'. In the letter he demanded $100,000 in exchange for providing classified documents on US intelligence.

  By asking for such a large sum at the outset, Hanssen had indicated that he was able to provide information of the highest importance. He provided further evidence of his seriousness by sending the Soviets key information: the names of three KGB spies stationed in the US who had been recruited by the Americans. He also knew how the KGB would react and what would happen to these agents. Under various pretexts, the agents who had been denounced as moles were recalled to Moscow and immediately arrested. Two were shot and the third received a long prison sentence. The dramatic consequences of Hanssen's betrayal did not stop him from attending church every Sunday with his young family.

  The Soviets had taken the bait immediately, but could not respond favourably to the mysterious ‘B'. Not only did they not know who he was, but they were also unable to reach him. In fact, the Russians would never formally identify him, although they knew that he undeniably belonged to a very small circle within US counterintelligence. Only a handful of FBI agents had access to that kind of sensitive information, but what mattered most was that Hanssen continued to provide them with it.

  Shortly after sending the first letter, once more ‘B' sent a large package containing a sample of the classified documents he had promised to the home of the KGB officer in Washington. He knew that in light of the information he was providing, the KGB would not hesitate to pay when he asked them, which was not to be long: when a third letter arrived, this time he indicated precisely what steps to take next.

  Hanssen had chosen to use the well-known system of dead letterboxes, a procedure that involved no physical contact between an agent and his case officer. The hidden drop off points were chosen in advance and were usually located in a public place. A signal (a chalk mark, for example) located some distance away indicated whether the letterbox was in use. Similarly, another signal was used by the spy to indicate that the letter or package had been safely received. For his drop off point, Hanssen had chosen a small bridge in a Virginian park.

  The package was carefully wrapped in a rubbish bag and deposited near the base of the bridge, while bits of adhesive tape were glued to the road signs to act as the signal. Consequently, Hanssen received his first $100,000, but then decided to wait. Obsessed with secur
ity, he wanted to see what the impact would be of his first betrayal, worried that he may have triggered the suspicions of the FBI. He therefore went quiet, which did not fail to worry his new ‘clients'! He soon resumed contact, however, and proceeded to send thousands of documents to the KGB and the SVR.

  As a counterintelligence specialist, Hanssen had essentially allowed Moscow to foil any traps set by the CIA or the FBI, which meant that KGB agents could operate on US soil much more calmly. He also revealed an extraordinary operation implemented by the NSA: the Americans had started to dig a tunnel under the USSR's embassy in Washington, just like the British had done in Berlin in the 1960s to listen in on the Soviet's secret communications. The tunnel had begun in west Berlin and ended in the basement of the building that housed the communist commanders. It was almost the same operation in Washington as the Americans wanted to install listening devices in the Russian embassy.

  This was further evidence that the end of the Cold War had not affected the amount of espionage activities in one way or another. This operation had first been considered before the collapse of the USSR and had been begun after Russia had ceased to be Soviet. After the arrest of Robert Hanssen, the revelation of this affair cast a serious chill on the relationship between the Bush administration and the new Russian government.

  Robert Hanssen had begun his collaboration with Moscow in 1985, but was not arrested until 2001 and during this long period, he was never the subject of any suspicion. He was always extremely wary and cautious, and on several occasions, he preferred to forget his Russian counterparts, as he had done in the past. Due to the various positions he held, he was also the best-placed to know if he was under any suspicion and could regularly consult his own folder in the FBI database. But did these intrusions risk leaving traces on the system? It has been said that this was one of the reasons for his fall after colleagues were interviewed about his regular searches. However, if this is the explanation given to the public then it is hiding the truth: the FBI did not actually know how Robert Hanssen had been unmasked!

  In order to fully understand, we must return to the 1980s, when the FBI and the CIA were convinced that there was a mole in their midst. They were curious as to how some of their operations had failed and a top-secret cell was even set up in order to catch who it might be. Once more, such information could not have failed to get past Robert Hanssen. He wisely decided to play dead, which was all the more easy as it was always he who took the initiative when contacting the Russians, and finally resurfaced in 1994 after the arrest of Aldrich Ames.

  In 1996 the hunt for moles provided fresh results with the arrests of Nicholson and Pitts, but Hansen waited until 1999 before making contact again with the Russians. No doubt he wanted to experience the thrill of the great spy game one last time. It must also be said, following the evidence he gave after his arrest, that he despised his colleagues so much that he believed them incapable of unmasking him. He even wrote to the Soviets telling them that they were over estimating the FBI.

  The danger, however, came from the other side: Hanssen was betrayed by a man who knew some of the secrets behind Russian espionage. For many years the spy hunters had believed that the mole belonged to the FBI, and held a very high position, but despite their investigations, had been unable to identify him. They even decided to try and turn a Russian agent so they could get information on who it might be.

  In autumn 2000, the first secretary of the Russian mission to the UN, Sergei Tretyakov, suddenly disappeared. It was only four months later, in January 2001 that it was learnt he had defected and sought political asylum in the United States. Even today, the FBI maintain that Tretyakov had nothing to do with the Hanssen affair. However, it is certain that the diplomat was a member of the secret services as he did not arrive empty handed: he possessed all the correspondence over the years between Hanssen and the Soviet and Russian authorities, in fact, the entire files of the mysterious ‘B'.

  Confidential Defense122

  FOR THE SAFETY OF MY CHILDREN, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO SEND ME SOME DIAMONDS WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE OPPORTUNE TIME FOR YOU TO BUY MY SERVICES AS A SPEAKER. SOONER OR LATER, I WOULD APPRECIATE AN ESCAPE PLAN ON YOUR BEHALF (NOTHING LASTS FOREVER).

  [The Confidential Defence journalist comments that:]

  This last sentence clearly indicates that Hanssen was thinking of Kim Philby who, after fleeing to Russia, actually lived from giving special conference talks to KGB officers at the headquarters at Yasenevo. However, Philby had always refused to accept money from the Russians because he believed he was working for them for ideological reasons. The tone of this letter is interesting because it indicates a certain naivety within Hanssen, who shows himself from the outset as being very greedy, especially to people whose ideology is based on thought and relationships with people, not money, as opposed to that of the American population. Hanssen’s betrayal was therefore not down to ideology, like Philby, rather he wanted to live like the famous Englishman, which also in a way made him lose a little sense of what was real and what was not. He needed to find a valuable motive as far as the Soviets were concerned, as he had no real material needs. Yet his true motives were shameful as, in an irrational manner, they represented a fantasy that the Russians themselves could not understand. What is more, the nature of the relationship was sealed from the outset by his initial request for $100,000. For the Soviets, whatever the value of the information that Hanssen provided them with, he could only ever be considered as a mercenary character, unworthy of their consideration. One can only reasonably assume that if Hanssen had instead tried to pretend that he was acting out of ideological reasons, he might today be safe in Russia.

  Now in possession of these documents, the FBI could mount a proper investigation to find out who this ‘B' actually was. This time, it appears that the information was only disclosed to a very small number of agents, which did not include Hanssen. One important detail is that in one of Hanssen's letters was a very detailed description of the dead letterbox system used by the spy. After examining the scene, the FBI agents found a piece of a rubbish bag on which were two fingerprints. They identified them as being Hanssen's by conducting a systematic search of the FBI files.123 However, they wanted to catch Hanssen in the act because they had only managed to find two fingerprints. The drop off point under the bridge was near Hanssen's home and so it was possible that a rubbish bag could have flown there by chance, or that he had thrown it away while out walking his dog. What is more, his file was perfectly clean - there was nothing to indicate that he was the mole.

  The FBI decided to set a trap and set it up near the bridge where Hanssen would come and drop off the documents and collect his money from the Russians. He was caught red-handed right at the moment when he grabbed the suitcase containing the $50,000. The great game was over and the man who had wanted to walk in the footsteps of Kim Philby had lost.

  Jacques Isnard124

  In revealing the Robert Hanssen affair, Washington killed two birds with one stone.The Americans showed that they had not lowered their guard against Soviet intrusions on their soil and also tried to dissuade their allies from cooperating with Moscow, whose methods they hoped to discredit. Thus, for Washington, the Russians would only have one thing on their minds: the knowledge that Europe had mastered both technological performance and capacity better than them and to use them at a lower cost so as to benefit their defence industry that was struggling to finance its own modernisation.

  However, the battle that has begun since the arrival of George W. Bush in the White House concerning the weapons programmes of the future is a different story. It foretells an explosion of dirty tricks between the secret services, as each puts ‘pressure’ on the other. Do they not say, for example, that in the United States, the FSB found some 300 potential agents in Washington, which are the same levels the KGB had in 1989? While in Russia, do they not contend that the expansion of activities by the western intelligence services in central Europe and the Baltic states, is such that
it constitutes a threat to Moscow?

  On 10 May 2002, in exchange for his cooperation with the US authorities, Robert Hanssen avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty, and was instead sentenced to life in prison. He is serving his sentence in ADX Florence, a high-security penitentiary in Colorado, where he spends twenty-three hours a day completely alone, away from other prisoners.

  Endnotes

  1 A Famous spy who betrayed the British intelligence services. See Monsieur X, Memoires secrets (Denoel, 1998).

  2 One of the great painters of the Louis XIV era.

  3 In this article, which appeared in Liberation (2006), the journalist reports on one of Anthony Blunt's major works of writing; a monumental essay on French art and architecture from 1500-1700.

  4 One of the five Cambridge Spies.

  5 The NKVD was the precursor to the KGB. Comintern (Communist International) was an international organisation that advocated global communism.

  6 Author of a biography of Anthony Blunt, Anthony Blunt: His Lives (2001). According to her, Burgess, instructed by Arnold Deutsch, had played a dominant role in Blunt's recruitment by the NKVD.

  7 Encrypted Soviet messages from the Second World War that had yet to be decoded. See chapter IV.