A Spy in the FBI (2021) - full transcript

Bob Hanssen will always go down as

one of the worst spies
in American history.

There'd been other espionage cases
but this was much bigger.

Nobody had ever seen
anything like it.

Hanssen changed forever the concept
of trusted insider within the FBI.

It really struck me that this was
a plan that he had had all along.

If he can...at least in fantasy,
offer Bonnie to me and betray her,

what else might he be able to betray?

This has been a story
that's had everything.

It had drama, it had espionage,
it had sex.

If you wrote a novel about this,



people would say, "Oh, no, no,
that can't possibly happen."

(GUNSHOT)

We'll never know
who Robert Hanssen really was.

We'll never know.

MAN: Dear friends, I thank you for
your assistance these many years.

It seems, however, that my greatest
utility to you has come to an end.

Since communicating last,
and one wonders if because of it,

I've been promoted to a higher,
do-nothing senior executive job

outside of regular access
to information.

It is as if I am being isolated.

Furthermore,
I believe I have detected

repeated bursting radio signal
emanations from my vehicle.

I will leave this alone,
for knowledge of their existence

is sufficient.



Amusing, the games children play.

Something has aroused
the sleeping tiger.

REPORTER: It sounds like something
out of a Cold War era novel,

a veteran FBI agent accused
of being a spy for the Russians.

I will never forget the moment

that I found out
that Bob Hanssen was a spy.

The alleged spy - his name
is Robert Phillip Hanssen -

a 27-year veteran of the FBI,
is to appear in court this morning.

MAN: My reaction was, "Hanssen?"

I mean, it was just a...
a total shock.

There are a lot of complex reasons
as to why he did it.

The more we learned about him,
the more amazing the story became.

I mean, here was a guy who had
portrayed himself as a good father,

a good husband, a good Catholic,
anti-communist, patriotic,

and here he was
selling secrets to the Russians.

REPORTER: If convicted
of these charges,

he would be counted as only the
third spy in the history of the FBI.

MAN: I knew the damage would be bad

because he had access
to a lot of information

because of the job he was doing

inside the Bureau's
counterintelligence program.

The full extent of the damage done
is yet unknown.

We believe, however,
that it was exceptionally grave.

WOMAN: Live bodies
being given up by him

in terms of defectors in place
that were resettled in this country,

weapons systems,

satellite communications from all
across the intelligence community.

This was beyond the pale.

MAN: The first thing
that really struck me

was how premeditated
it all appeared to be.

DAVID MAJOR: And I thought to
myself, "You diabolical bastard,

"because you did
exactly what you said,

"and that is,
you out-thought them.

"You out-thought us."

MAN: I met with Robert Hanssen
over an entire year

at the Alexandria Detention Center.

I'm Dr David Charney.

I'm a psychiatrist.

I've been practising
for over 40 years.

He immediately on his own
took the initiative

to start talking about his childhood,

and specifically, and almost
exclusively, about his father.

His father was a formidable presence
in his mind.

I'm Ann Blackman.

I've been a news reporter for half
the time for the Associated Press

and half the time for Time magazine.

Robert Hanssen was born in 1944
on the west side of Chicago.

His parents were
Howard and Vivian Hanssen.

Howard Hanssen worked
for the Chicago Police Department

for 30 years.

In the early 1960s,
he was promoted to lieutenant

and was working for the Red Squad

and he was put in charge of a room
filled with intelligence dossiers

on mobsters, high-end criminals,

all kinds of bad guys in Chicago.

He had power.

And I think that in Bob's mind,

that was always something
that fascinated him.

He was very proud of his father,

but I never knew anything
about how his father mistreated him.

Howard Hanssen
was a manipulative man.

People in the neighborhood said
that he wasn't an alcoholic

but that he was more like
a dry drunk.

My mom never recalled him ever
saying anything positive about Bob.

All these comments that he made
were painful, wounding,

and if Howard would say things
like that to my mom

in kind of a public place,

it might have been
kind of tough on Bob at home.

You have an undiluted,
unadulterated experience

of being put down
and being regarded as

worthless and inferior.

And you carry that with you.

ANN BLACKMAN: Robert Hanssen
was an awkward kid.

He never really fit in.

Bob Hanssen
didn't have a lot of friends.

He certainly didn't have many people
at all that he trusted.

My name is Jack Hoschouer.

I consider Bob Hanssen
my best friend.

What holds any friendship together?

We were a couple of geeky guys
who hung out.

We're not part of the cool crowd.

We were certainly the out group.

BLACKMAN: Jack Hoschouer and Bob
Hanssen met when they were freshmen

at the William Taft High School
in Chicago.

And they trusted each other.

As our relationship developed
over the years,

I saw different aspects
of Bob's personality.

There was still
the geeky science side.

There was also the side
that most teenage boys have -

we were interested in pretty girls.

Bob met Bonnie Wauck
during the summer in 1965

when they were both
college students.

She was a pretty young girl.

Many people said that Bonnie
looked like Natalie Wood,

which certainly was
the motivation for Bob.

He wanted a pretty girl on his arm.
Absolutely.

And she was perky and fun and
she made people look at Bob twice.

"How could he catch
this pretty young girl?"

She really gave him some validation.

When Bob got back to Knox College
in his senior year,

he began writing letters to Bonnie,

and he wrote these wonderful,
lyrical letters

that were much more effusive
than his personality.

And Bonnie loved
getting these letters.

It validated to her that he was
everything that she wanted

and that she needed.

So, they decided to get married.

(CHURCH BELL PEALS)

DAVID MAJOR: His father told Bonnie,
"Why do you want to marry my son?

"He's a loser."

Can you imagine
what you would feel like

if your dad says that
to your future wife?

And his dad did,
so I think that affected him.

DR DAVID CHARNEY: He did not want

his wife Bonnie
to see him as a failure.

It was clear to me
that he respected her

and that he wanted to be
aligned with her.

And one of the things
that she was instrumental in doing

was making him join Opus Dei.

BLACKMAN: Opus Dei is a tiny,
secret Catholic society

that requires members to go to daily
mass and regular confession.

Many of the members wear a cilice -
a metal chain - around their thigh

that digs into them and reminds them
of the sins they have committed.

JACK HOSCHOUER: I had never
heard of Opus Dei

until Bob told me he was formally
converting to Catholicism.

And that was a surprise to me.

Some place in him, he was searching
for some hard and fast rules.

BLACKMAN: After Bob graduated
from Northwestern business school,

he got a good job within
a Chicago accounting firm.

But he hated it.

It was boring.

He didn't have the power
that his father had had

as a cop in Chicago.

He didn't have access to the secret
documents that his father had.

Bob wanted more.

In 1972, Bob joined
the Chicago police force.

This was an interesting time
in Chicago.

Mayor Richard Daley had any
number of investigations going on

about the corruption in the city.

And so Bob was chosen to be part
of this squad they called C5.

And it was right up his alley.

In this way, he could spy
on his fellow cops.

In fact, it was probably his first
venture into being a double agent.

It certainly was something
that he had contemplated

probably from the beginning
of his career.

That was the life
that he was seeking to lead himself.

In 1976, Bob joined the FBI.

He may have sought admission
to impress his dad.

Bob was always till the day he died
trying to please his father.

HOSCHOUER: His father
continually denigrated him,

even after he was in the FBI.

Said, "Well you're just a cop.

"You're no better than I am.
You're just a cop."

BLACKMAN: But Bob was gonna be
a better cop,

a more powerful cop
than his father was.

This was the beginning of Bob's
climb to really outdo his dad.

The first day that you join the FBI,

you take an oath
to support and defend

the Constitution
of the United States

against all enemies,
foreign and domestic.

It's a memorable day
in your FBI career

when you stand there and
raise your right hand.

I'm Neil Gallagher.

I spent 29 years in the FBI
and I was named assistant director

of the national security division
for foreign counterintelligence.

Once you got brought into the FBI,
you were in the inner circle.

You were trusted.

You were given the crown jewels.

Hanssen's early assignment
was in a small resident agency

in a small midwestern city.

It was a very typical beginning
for an FBI agent.

He worked
criminal investigative matters.

And he was reassigned
to the New York office

because they were looking for people
with financial expertise.

They assign him
to a white-collar crime squad

looking at major frauds
and embezzlements.

He identified an accountant
on a GRU squad

that he and that agent
switched positions.

That enabled him
to be in counterintelligence

after three months
of being in New York.

It sounds prestigious. It was not.

It was the pits.

I'm Elaine Shannon.

I'm an investigative reporter
covering criminal justice

and national security agencies.

The way you earn honour,
glory and promotions in the FBI

was and is
to make cases, make arrests.

SHEILA W. HORAN: This
is what they join the FBI for.

You have to understand
the foreign counterintelligence

isn't a kick-down-the-door field
anyways.

MAN: You're not gonna get
into gunfights and stuff.

It's a different kind of life.

It's more cerebral.

Now, Hanssen came in at the dawn
of the computer age at the FBI.

Agents didn't have
their own computers,

they weren't comfortable
around them,

and the FBI management

was struggling
to get into the digital world.

MAJOR: I always used to say,
"Bob understood what DOS was

"before I could spell it."

He understood computers
before anybody else did.

Roll 'em.

I'm David Major.

I spent 24 years as a supervisory
special agent in the FBI

and I spent almost all of that time
doing counterintelligence.

He was the one that set up
our computer systems in New York

for the very first time

about keeping track
of the Russians we had.

And Bob Hanssen
was recognised for that.

As it progressed, we added more
and more to that system.

But he was the one setting it up
and seeing it all.

ELAINE SHANNON: Hanssen
was moving up in his career.

But if you get transferred
to New York, yeah, it was a big time

but then how do you live?

Most agents, particularly
those who had families,

could not afford to live there
or near there.

PAUL MOORE: Bob's father enters the
picture, and he gives them money.

But it always comes
with the admonition that,

you know, "I'm bailing you out."

He was always afraid, I believe,

that he would be seen by Bonnie
as a failure of a husband.

MAJOR: And how do you define failure?

He would define failure possibly
by how much money you're making.

MOORE: And I think
that is a huge motivator

for someone like Bob Hanssen.

JIM OHLSON: He was intrigued
by intelligence work,

and I think he thought,
"I can play this both ways

"and no-one will ever know
that I was a spy."

I think that was his game plan.

MOORE: There is serendipity here
and things just lined up.

The big problem was that he was
willing to take the shot

when he had the shot.

HORAN: I'll never forget the day.

They said to me, "We know
who the mole is."

They told me it was Robert Hanssen,
Bob Hanssen,

and I...I just was taken...
taken aback.

You'd look at him and you'd say,
"Boy, there's a straight arrow.

"There's a no-nonsense guy
right there."

In Bob, it was a dramatic
contradiction of terms.

He really was different from
the image he wanted people to see.

My name is Sheila Horan.

I entered the FBI in 1973 and went
to a counterintelligence squad.

At the time I arrived in New York,

the Soviet mission
to the United Nations

was about three blocks away
from our office.

It included Amtorg, which is
the Soviet trade organisation.

Amtorg was where the GRU liked to
place their intelligence officers.

The GRU is the military intelligence
arm of the Soviet government,

and their collection is focused
on what can they obtain

from our military services.

Weapons systems, communication
systems, satellite systems

and so forth.

In midtown Manhattan, Amtorg was
where their intelligence officers

could collect very nicely
from that platform.

It was a front
but Hanssen knew what it was,

because the minute he got into this
counterintelligence division

he got information about people who
were working for the United States

within the Soviet system.

He betrayed them.

HORAN: Dmitri Polyakov
was codenamed Top Hat.

A very influential and important
GRU officer

who provided the
United States government
with tremendous information

over a period of 20-plus years.

Bob Hanssen gave Polyakov's name
in 1979.

So in his very first "dump",
as they say, to the GRU,

he gave away
fantastically important information.

He also exhibited
a knowledge of trade craft.

How they would contact each other.

How to use one-time pads,

which is a coding system
which is very, very secure.

So these kinds of things show
that he was thinking about this

for quite some time.

In the spring of '81, Bonnie went
down into their basement.

She had caught Bob
putting either a note in a Coke can

or taking a note out of a Coke can.

Well, because of an indiscretion
on his part years before

where Bob had an incident
with a former girlfriend of his,

she insisted that he tell her
what he was doing.

OHLSON: He wouldn't use the word
'spy', but he admitted

to giving the Russians
meaningless intelligence

to scam them out of some money.

He called it "just trash for cash".

NEIL GALLAGHER:
I've heard figures, $30,000.

It was a lot of money.

Especially for an FBI agent
assigned in New York.

HORAN: Well, Bonnie was very,
in many ways, naive

and very much inclined
to believe her husband.

So she and Bob went and had a
counselling session with the priest,

the end of which the priest said,
"Bob, please take a vow

"that you'll stop
having this activity

"and any money that you gain from
this, you'll give it to charity."

Bob said yes.

He agreed.

Why did Hanssen stop spying
for a while?

There are a lot of theories.

I can tell you what I know.

Bonnie didn't blow the whistle
to the FBI.

She got him to go see a priest.

That seems to be
her way of fixing things.

The one thing I think
we can be pretty confident of

is that he didn't want
to be exposed.

My name's Jim Ohlson.

I was an FBI agent
from 1972 till 2000.

I met Bob in January 1981
at FBI Headquarters

when he was assigned
to the budget unit

within the FBI's counterintelligence
programs division.

The budget unit gave him access
to documents that represented

not just the FBI but the entire US
intelligence community,

and those documents described what
those offices have done in the past

and what they intend to do
in the future.

MAJOR: So, he had access to programs
that most of us never knew.

And then where does he go
from there?

To the Soviet analytical unit.

MAN: I first met Bob,
he was in the budget unit,

which was right across the hall
from the Soviet analytic unit.

My name's Bob King.

I served as an intelligence research
specialist with the FBI

for my entire career there.

My job as an analyst was basically
to look at old cases to see

if there were any leads in terms
of Soviet or KGB or GRU activity

in the United States.

At headquarters
we were flooded with spies.

Bob Hanssen was not ignorant of this
and wanted to be in the know.

ELAINE SHANNON:
In the counterintelligence world,

a good agent is somebody
who's supposed to get information

from some unknown source.

It's to recruit
adversarial intelligence agents.

HORAN: Courtship was the codename

for a breakthrough in FBI CIA
liaison and cooperation.

They were extraordinarily
successful.

In the mid '80s,
Courtship had recruited

not one but two Soviet
KGB intelligence officers -

Sergey Motorin and Valeriy Martynov.

Bob heard they were working on good
stuff, and it fascinated him.

He wanted to be in that mix
and he got himself transferred.

I'm not sure how.

OHLSON: Bob was a part of the
analytical support to operations

and he had working with him some of
the best analysts the FBI had.

But Bob was never considered
a key player

among the Soviet operational people.

However, in the analytical unit
to which he was assigned,

Hanssen could look at everything
and not be questioned about it

because he had to do it for his job.

Bob Hanssen knew about the
recruitment of these two sources.

Talk about a perfect location
for a potential spy.

At FBI headquarters
he was in his element,

but in 1985, Bob voluntarily
sought an assignment in New York.

It was not an operational squad.

It was a squad
where they were processing

the results of surveillance.

Huge amounts of information.

He was successful in getting this job
because it played to his strengths.

Computer, mathematics,
and he got a promotion.

BLACKMAN: And so they moved
to New York.

Bonnie didn't want to go.

Bonnie and Bob had five children
and she was pregnant with the sixth.

But they desperately
needed the money.

HOSCHOUER: They didn't have enough
money to pay the girls' doctor bills.

It put Bob under an intense
psychological and emotional pressure.

"My job is to take care of
my wife and kids.

"I'm not able to do it."

Things were at a dangerous
sort of equilibrium there

but Bob Hanssen was a man of faith.

One of my fears for Bob Hanssen
is that he actually interpreted this

as God provided him with this
opportunity to make some money.

In 1985, Victor Degtyar, who was
a KGB officer in Washington,

received a letter at his home
in suburban Virginia

and inside was another
sealed envelope saying,

"Please deliver to
Victor Cherkashin."

My name is Gregory Feifer.

I'm a journalist.

I have written several books
about Russia, including Spy Handler,

which I co-wrote
with Victor Cherkashin,

head of counterintelligence
in the Washington embassy.

HORAN: Very experienced
and well respected within the KGB.

He was the chief of line KR,

in charge of recruiting
American assets.

So, when Victor Cherkashin
opened the letter,

he was quite impressed
with what he saw.

"Dear Mr Cherkashin.

"Soon, I will send a box
of documents to Mr Degtyar.

"They are from certain of the most
sensitive and highly compartmented

"projects of the US
intelligence community.

"Your service has recently
suffered some setbacks.

"I warn that Mr Boris Yuzhin,
Mr Sergey Motorin,

"and Mr Valeriy Martynov
have been recruited

"by our special services."

The letter revealed the identities
of three American spies in the KGB

and also some technical operations.

So, even though the letter
was treated with

a high degree of understandable
professional scepticism,

it was very intriguing.

And then in the early '80s,

Motorin and Martynov
returned to the Soviet Union.

That came, of course,
to the attention of the agency.

These men were run by the FBI and
the CIA for a goodly amount of time,

and they were very, very
concerned about that,

because it was an unusual move
to have them both come back.

We now know that Bob Hanssen
revealed to the Russians

that they were cooperating with the
United States intelligence services.

MAN: After the tribunal declares them
to be a convicted spy

and then sentences them, then they
march 'em back down to the cell.

As they're walking down a hall,

the executioner would step out
of the shadows of the darkness...

..and put a bullet to their head.

OHLSON: In 1985, Bob started
an assignment to New York

and was hitting all the right steps
to have a successful FBI career.

We know now in hindsight
that he established contact

with the KGB in that same year.

HORAN: There are so many motives
for Bob,

but he was maybe a little
disappointed in his job.

He didn't have the excitement
that he thought he was going to get

from joining the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.

He was getting a rush from this.

He was challenging himself

to do something that he thought
he could do without being caught.

He knew that he had to
protect himself

for the length of his service
with the Russians.

So, he did not tell the Russians
who he was.

SHANNON: In the letters to the KGB,

Robert Hanssen identified himself
as Ramon Garcia,

this fake name he'd built up.

Ramon Garcia gave instructions
for so-called dead drops -

places where money and information
could be exchanged.

"Drop location.

"Please leave your package for me

"under the corner nearest the street
of the wooden footbridge

"located just west
of the entrance to Nottoway Park.

"Signals. Your signal to me -

"one horizontal mark of white
adhesive tape, meaning drop filled.

"My signal to you -

"one vertical mark
of white adhesive tape,

"meaning I have received
your package."

OHLSON: Bob was clever to do things
with the Russians

that impeded or hurt their ability
to find out who he was.

All of his contacts in terms of
dead drops were in Washington area,

not in New York at all.

He wanted the Russians to think that
he was someone in Washington, DC.

GREGORY FEIFER: Ultimately,
Ramon Garcia showed

that he was indeed privy to

some of the most
highly sensitive information

in the US intelligence community.

And so Cherkashin wanted to provide

the biggest sense of security
for him

so that Ramon Garcia
felt as safe as possible

to give him more information.

On March 3rd, 1986,
the second dead drop

that Ramon Garcia
was supposed to unload

didn't take place, and Ramon Garcia
disappeared for some time.

Cherkashin started to worry about,
well, maybe he'd lost the agent,

and then Cherkashin gets a letter.

"I apologise for the delay
since our break in communications.

"I wanted to determine
if there was any cause for concern
over security."

He decided to lie low
for a while to figure out

whether or not
he had been compromised.

"If you wish to
continue our discussions,

"please have someone
run an advertisement
in the Washington Times -

"For sale, Dodge Diplomat, 1971,
needs engine work, $1,000."

He provided instructions saying

that he would give the KGB
a number in New York

that he would call the number
at the appointed time.

"I will say, 'Hello,
my name is Ramon.

"'I am calling about the car
you offered for sale in the Times.'"

Cherkashin took this conversation
very seriously.

He was suspicious of Ramon Garcia
and this was the best opportunity

to try to figure out
who Ramon Garcia was.

And of course this conversation
would be recorded and pored over.

In the FBI there's this mythology
that secrets are very closely held

but many times they are not.

We did not know
what happened to Motorin

and what happened to Martynov.

It was mysterious to us.

They just went off the screen.

So we started ANLACE,
which was specifically geared

to find how Martynov and Motorin
were compromised.

It was an extremely sensitive
investigation

with very limited access to the
people who were assigned to this.

The modus operandi
for those involved in a mole hunt

is not for the faint of heart.

It is very, very time intensive.

It is an extremely complex
investigation.

This becomes the kind of puzzle game
where, if you know this is true,

then what would fit with it?

And every once in a while, you get
what they call a corner piece.

That is a known thing. A fact.

My name is Paul Moore.

I was the FBI's chief China analyst
for a bit more than 20 years.

We get a data point and we can start
to pull on this string

and find anything else
that will help us to focus in.

Eventually, in a perfect world,
we catch a bona fide spy.

OHLSON: When I look back
at Bob's transfer in 1987

back to FBI headquarters,

many people look at that
as a lateral transfer,

not a promotion.

It was Bob engineering
his own opportunity,

because by going back
to FBI headquarters,

he had access to much greater
breadth of information

than he would on one particular
squad in New York.

HORAN: The primary responsibility
that he was going to be involved in

and was going to be
the program manager for

was a mole study, a mole hunt.

It's at that point that he has
a treasure trove of information
available to him.

He didn't have to go look for them.

They were put on his lap.

HORAN: He made upwards of 10-15 drops
with the Russians

and this was a very, very,
very active time.

At the same time the Bureau was not
able to successfully exploit

the mole study.

We were not able
to come up with the answer.

SHANNON: They couldn't do it
by analysing who had access

and then eliminating
the innocent parties.

What we do know, however,
is there was a mole

and potentially
the mole was still out there.

It was tailor made for Bob Hanssen.

And what I mean by that

is if he could see that there was
nobody looking for him,

not him "Bob Hanssen"
but him "a mole", he felt safe,

and felt that he could continue
with his activities.

I've never met anybody
more compartmentalised

than Robert Hanssen.

There were so many parts of him

that were antithetical
to the other parts.

All these things were opposites
inhabiting the same mind.

MOORE: We all have secret lives
and we would all be mortified

if the world found out
what we fantasised about.

So, no big deal there.
We all do it.

But I certainly didn't expect
any of that from Bob.

OHLSON: People that didn't
know Bob well

I think viewed him as having
a condescending attitude.

BOB KING: Bob perceived himself
as an egghead

and could be very off-putting
at times.

HORAN: His fellow agents

found him to be supercilious,
holier than thou,

and he portrayed himself as being
the smartest guy in the room.

SHANNON: This did not translate

into a guy that was politicking
around the office.

You have to have charm
to say all that.

But he certainly wanted recognition
and he wanted to be revered.

How, Priscilla,
did you meet Robert Hanssen?

Well, um, I met him at the club
where I used to work in DC.

You were a stripper
at the...Joanna's 1819.

1819 Club.
That's a club near the FBI, right?

BLACKMAN: Priscilla Sue Galey
was a stripper

in a strip club
just south of Dupont Circle -

a seedy spot on a seedy street -
and Hanssen would go there

on hot summer afternoons
when there weren't many customers.

He came in, watched you perform,
and began a conversation?

He was on business.

He was there to meet a contact of
his, I guess, for some information,

he had said.

All I knew about her
was she was a pretty gal,

was the stripper of the year.

That's all I knew about her.

Did he tell you he was an FBI agent?

Yeah, he told me that.

But they could be telling you
anything at that point.

And, uh, she was apparently
the gal that he decided

he was going to rescue,
for whatever reason.

When did a relationship,
or a friendship, begin?

I think almost immediately,

because he gave me
a wonderful compliment,

the most beautiful compliment
I've ever had in my life.

What was it?

Just something to the effect of,
he never expected to see anyone

with such grace and beauty
in a strip club.

And I did catch him
going out the door of the club

to thank him, not for the money
but for the compliment,

because it was really,
really beautiful.

BLACKMAN: Priscilla was his outlet
for being the big guy around town.

He took her to lunch.

He took her to museums.

He gave her money
to have her teeth fixed.

He even bought her
a Mercedes-Benz one time.

Not only did he buy her a car

but he gave her an American Express
credit card to put the charges on

to keep it in good shape.

I think he was playing an ego game.

An ego game that went along
with his fantasy persona

as international spy man of mystery.

Went along with his desire to have
a beautiful woman next to him.

He may be pious,
he may be sanctimonious,

he may be hyper-religious but he also
likes to go to strip clubs.

I would ask him, I said, you know,
"How do you reconcile this

"with your moral ethical beliefs?"

And he'd just say, "I'm weak,"

and being a weak person myself
I kind of said,

"Well, I understand about that."

MAJOR: I think Bob looked at his life

and said one of the great successes
of his life

was being married to Bonnie.

He married up, and he married a woman
who was very attractive,

very vivacious, outgoing.

So, he loves his woman,
but she's his trophy.

He wanted Bonnie to be
his glamorous consort.

But her interests were different.

Bonnie wanted to be his wife
and mother to his kids.

Now, those aren't necessarily
mutually exclusive,

but they certainly trend
in different directions.

BLACKMAN: He wanted to give her
diamonds and minks,

but she'd ask,
"Where did the money come from?"

Bonnie's idea of a great present
was a vacuum cleaner.

He never gave a vacuum cleaner
to his stripper.

No-one in Bob's professional circle,
social circle,

had a clue
about his sexual proclivities.

It came as a shock to everyone,
except Jack Hoschouer.

OHLSON: Jack and Bob shared things

that he would share
with no-one else.

And I think it even overshadowed
his relationship with Bonnie.

When Bob and Bonnie
were first married,

Jack Hoschouer was sent to Vietnam,

and Bob felt badly about this,

and so to cheer up his buddy, Bob
sent Jack pictures of Bonnie in bed.

Naked.

Sexy stuff.

The photos came to me
in the mail, 5x7 envelope,

brown envelope, and I opened it.

And there was these, I don't know,
eight or nine pictures

of Bonnie
progressively less clothed.

And the next day or the day
after that I got a letter -

he said, "Hope you enjoy the little
morale builder I sent you."

So that was the initiation.

Bonnie had no idea that Bob
was sending these pictures to Jack.

You can only imagine how Bonnie
would have felt about that.

Until the photos arrived
when I was in Vietnam,

I was an absolute gentleman
in relation to Bonnie.

And it upsets me that I was not
an absolute gentleman after that.

At one point, Bob suggested to Jack

that he might like to watch
Bob and Bonnie having sex.

So, Bob left the curtain open
in the bedroom

so Jack could stand out there
and look in.

I guess Jack liked this.

BOB liked this.

SHANNON: Hoschouer told me
he did that for a while

but then it got cold, and so they
set up this closed-circuit TV thing.

Hoschouer could sit down there in
the study and watch Bonnie and Bob

and of course Bob
would arrange Bonnie's body

so that Hoschouer could get
a good angle on it.

HOSCHOUER: Bob wanted me to see
in a physical, erotic/sexual sense

what a beautiful woman Bonnie is.

And I'd have to say,
yeah, I saw that.

But I never did anything
that he did not invite me to do.

And on several occasions,
I turned down his invitation.

So, that's not to say
I'm a great guy.

I'm saying that I'm a human being.

But it's a shameful part
of my history

and I'm...I'm ashamed of it.

BLACKMAN: At some point
in the 1990s,

Bob started writing fantasies about
his sex life on the internet.

"Bonnie would bring a book
and a beach bag, hat

"and lie on her blanket
with her bikini top untied."

And not only was he writing
fantasies about his sex life,

he was using his real name
and his real internet address

and real details about Bonnie naked,

fixing her hair in front
of the mirror with no clothes on,

modelling stockings and panties
and things for him -

putting this all out there.

"She'd look at me askance at first,
but the more I did it,

"the more sexually aroused
she'd get."

Bob was writing in these fantasy
stories about his wife

who was teaching religion.

The religion teacher
had this stuff out there.

I mean, how he could do that to her,
to his family, to his kids?

I mean, it's extraordinary.

And the FBI didn't find them.

I mean, it's amazing.

It's amazing
the FBI didn't see this.

MARK WAUCK: Once I was in Chicago,

my communications with Hanssen
over the years

were relatively few in numbers.

Most of my communications with the
family were with my sister Bonnie.

My name is Mark Wauck.

After I graduated from law school,
I applied to the FBI.

I worked mainly counterintelligence
matters in Chicago

until my retirement
at the beginning of 2007.

In 1985 I volunteered to go to
Monterey Defense Language Institute

for a year to learn Polish,

and my sister Bonnie
called me on the phone

and she said, "Oh, that's great.

"Bob says we may retire in Poland."

This is a headquarters FBI agent

suggesting that he might retire
in a Soviet bloc country

that runs active espionage
against the United States.

It seemed utterly nutty to me.

So, I tucked that in
the back of my mind.

Didn't even think about it again

until, you know, 1990,
five years later.

There was a training course
for two weeks that ran in Virginia

and so I took the whole family
out there for that,

and my wife visited
with all my relatives,

with Jean and Bon and
my other sister Peg and the kids,

and so forth,
and so everything went well

and we drove home back to Chicago,
but it was immediately upon return

that my wife told me there was this
business about Bonnie in a state.

The way my wife described it to me

was that Bonnie
came running up the street

completely in a lather,

saying that she had just discovered
$5,000 in Bob's sock drawer.

WAUCK: When I learned that Bonnie
had discovered the money,

that was a revelation to me,

and the way my older sister Jean
described it

was that Bonnie came
running up the street,

like completely in a lather,

saying that she had just discovered
$5,000 in Bob's sock drawer.

There was also a question
that Bob had purchased

some rather expensive jewellery
for her recently.

Jean also told my older brother Greg.

He called me and said,
"What do you make of this?"

We had the sense
that they seemed to spend freely

and we also were aware that, living
in a relatively expensive area,

sending your many kids
to private schools,

that this would be
a drain on resources.

Now, at the same time I was aware

that there had been
these operational losses

in our counterintelligence program.

My supervisor at that time told me
that there was a big mole hunt

going on at headquarters.

I had no need to know this.

Nobody should have been
told about this,

and yet I was told, and I couldn't
unknow or unhear what I'd heard.

And my brother suggested to me,
"Could he be involved in espionage?"

It was the kind of thing

that we could see him
perhaps gravitating toward.

We ended the conversation
and I said to my wife,

you know, "What am I
going to do about this?"

She said,
"Do what you know is right."

I made the determination
that at the first opportunity

I would get in touch with Jim Lyle,
who was a supervisor in a squad

that handled the Russia program
in Chicago at the time.

So, we went up to the interview
room, closed the door

and I recounted to him the
three reasons that I thought,

taken together, were enough
to begin an investigation.

The combination of the mole hunt
and the idea of retiring in Poland.

The money angle just added to that.

It was all synergistic.

All these things
were working together,

and I...I reverted to that point
over and over again.

This probably lasted for close
to a half an hour, and toward the end

he said, "Do you understand
what you're saying to me?"

and I said, "Yes -
that I may be accusing Bob Hanssen

"of espionage
against the United States."

So we left the room and went back
downstairs and parted our ways

and he said,
"I'll take care of this."

The question of why I would not have
confronted Bonnie or Bob
about any of this

is simply that
I was in no position to do so.

In the FBI you don't conduct
private investigations.

I was also sensitive to the notion

that, after all, I was taking a big
step in accusing a family member

but also another FBI agent of,
in a sense, the ultimate betrayal.

I can tell you in my case
I didn't feel brave.

I felt more desperate.

I felt that I was being pushed
between two loyalties

and I had to make a choice.

And I dreaded the future.

Dreading the future isn't,
I don't think, a brave feeling.

I'm not sure.

REPORTER: The banner of a reborn
Russia rises above the Kremlin,

replacing the flag of the Soviet
Union, now dead and buried.

Bob's espionage activity came
to a halt in 1991 in large part

because the Soviet Union was going
through a complete dismemberment.

It also marked the dissolution
of the KGB as an organisation.

FEIFER: Victor Cherkashin
retired from the KGB

10 days after the attempted coup
d'etat against Mikhail Gorbachev,

which was essentially
the end of the USSR.

He knew that the times had changed,

that Russia was becoming a different
place, and he stepped back.

HORAN: And to put it
in current parlance,

there was a lot of guns
for hire out there.

There were disaffected KGB agents

saying sayonara
to the intelligence world itself

but they were out to make some money

because they had had, over
the years, lots of access.

Bob knew that this was
happening over there.

Bob also knew that he was at risk

because of some of these defectors
and these people.

They were popping up
all over the world

wanting to sell information to us.

MAJOR: He's not a dumb man.

He says, "I've gotta go to ground

"and let the waters settle
before I can continue spying."

At the same time ANLACE,

the mole hunt that resulted from
the deaths of Martynov and Motorin,

ended without any resolving.

We were not able to
come up with the answer.

And then we
the intelligence community

became aware of a video
showing that Dmitri Polyakov

was in fact arrested for espionage.

He was a GRU officer,
and for over 20 years

gave the United States government
tremendously important information

about Russian weapon systems.

SHANNON: The loss of Dmitri Polyakov
was unrivaled.

He was betrayed by Hanssen
and then they went and killed him.

What happened?

Why did it happen?

The US intelligence community said,
"We gotta look at this material again

"and see if there's another
possible explanation

"for the US intelligence failures.

"We gotta continue a mole hunt."

HORAN: So in the '90s,
the Agency and the Bureau

started working together
in a much more concerted way.

MIKE ROCHFORD: There was
a special agreement

to share sources, methods, production

and any compromises
among the two groups,

working out of the vault,

looking at all historical
allegations and penetration

of the FBI and of the CIA.

REPORTER: Government agents were
at Aldrich Ames's house yesterday

searching for more evidence
of espionage activities.

Aldrich Ames was the head of Soviet
counterintelligence in the CIA.

The former high-ranking CIA official
and his wife have been accused

of spying for the Soviet Union
and later Russia.

SHANNON: FBI officials
in intelligence

were trying to figure out

how information
was getting to the Soviets.

Some of that was explained by Ames
but not all.

Questions remain - questions about
information that Ames didn't have.

So, they kept looking.

HORAN: The presupposition was
that there was another mole

operating out there.

They came up with probably
over 200 candidates.

Finally, the list
was winnowed way down.

The one that survived most closely
was Brian Kelley.

Brian Kelley
was a long-time CIA employee.

Brian Kelley had worked
on the Felix Bloch case.

We now know that Felix Bloch
was working for the Soviet Union.

He had been targeted
by the CIA and FBI

but they never could
make a case on him.

One day somebody came to Bloch
and said, "You're under suspicion.

"You should get out of town,"
and he did.

He left the country.

Bloch had been warned,
so who warned him?

Did Kelley, knowing what he knew,
do that?

It's not a crazy supposition.

HORAN: He was so close
to the information we had
about who the mole was

that we centred on him

and began an intensive investigation
on Brian Kelley.

But this is the problem
when you start analysing.

You can come to
the wrong conclusion.

You can add 2 and 2 and get 22
very fast.

We clearly at the end did not have
enough information to arrest

or even think about prosecution
or anything of that nature.

Brian was put on administrative
leave at the agency

and we were back to ground zero.

SHANNON: There is a theory that
Hanssen stopped spying for a while

when the Soviet Union dissolved

because he was worried that he,
Hanssen, might be discovered.

But at the same time
he's seeing that the career

that he thought
Robert Hanssen deserved

was now starting to be.

He eventually does get promoted
up to a GS 15

but then the incident
with his female support employee

really spoke to a flaw
in Hanssen's character.

HORAN: The incident involved a young
woman who worked for Bob in his unit.

And as I understand
the circumstances of this,

Kimberly Lichtenberg
was called to Bob's office

very shortly before
she was to leave for the day

for some meeting that in her view
had nothing to do with her.

MAJOR: She just gets up and says,
"I'm done with this, Mr Hanssen.

"I'm leaving," and walks out.

Well, how did he respond to that?

He got up and he followed her.

He reached out, grabbed her arm.

She then turned and fell...

..and yelled at him and said,
"Stay away from me, Mr Hanssen!"

And everybody hears that,

and everybody's head goes out
like this

to look at her down the hallway.

So, she's on the ground pointing up
to him. He's over her.

The next day, she goes to the police
department and she files an assault.

That's not good.

He reacted the wrong way
and he paid the price for that.

That June he had come to my office.

He looked awful.

He looked like he was walking dead.

He was just in terrible shape.

And I asked him, I said,
"What's the matter, Bob?"

And he basically said,
"The Kimberley thing
is still hanging over me.

"I'm never gonna get promoted again.
It's over for me."

He was very depressed.
Very depressed.

GALLAGHER: Hanssen got censored
for inappropriate derogatory
activity on an employee.

He received a demotion,

because the FBI perceived
that he was an ineffective manager.

But at the same time,
he was also resourceful.

He convinced the powers to be
that he could represent the FBI

at the office of foreign missions
at the state department.

I'm Mike Rochford.

I spent 30 years in the FBI,

specialising mostly
in the investigation of Russians,

line KR, KGB and espionage matters.

I'm sitting at
the Washington field office

and I get this call from Hanssen

and he says,
"I got some information,"

and, "We've come up with some people
you need to look at."

I go, "What do you think I do, Bob?"

And he goes, "Well, you and your
squad are looking for moles

"within the CIA and the FBI."

I go, "Well, who told you that?"

He said, "Well it doesn't matter."
He says, "We all know."

I said, "Well, I don't know that I'm
gonna talk to you about this, Bob."

Then he says, 'Well, can you have
somebody come and talk to me?"

And I said, "I'll tell you what,"

I said, "I'll have somebody go over
and talk to you,"

I said, "but I'd appreciate you
never calling me up again."

In retrospect, it was way beyond

the scope of what he should be
asking about, knowledgeable about.

As a person assigned to OFM,

he shouldn't have even been
worrying about my problem -

the penetration
in the intelligence community.

So, it's like, "Hmm. This is weird."

MAJOR: There was a time
when Bob Hanssen was uncatchable,

because everything was going on, he
would see it or have access to it.

Now he has access to none of that.

It's got to be a scary time for Bob,
because he's working in OFM.

He's not mainstream at all.

SHANNON: So, Hanssen gets stuck
in the state department.

He has a computer terminal,
he's alone,

nobody's looking over his shoulder.

It turns out to be
a good job for a spy.

OHLSON: Automated case system
is the automated system

that the Bureau puts
all of its casework on.

Bob had access to that
legitimately as a user.

Bob was able to master that ACS

because he had time on his hands
at state.

So he could find out
more information

than people thought
you could find out.

He knew based on what he could
peruse on the automated case file

that he wasn't being
looked at himself.

So, gave him the confidence
that he could do it again

without being caught.

Bob was not in contact with the KGB

or their successors, the SVR.

In 1999 he reestablished contact
with SVR that he had lost.

His re-emergence into the game

I don't think had as a financial
aspect as the earlier one did.

"I have come about as close as
I ever want to come

"to sacrificing myself to help you,
and I get silence.

"I hate silence."

Some people get on adrenaline highs,

need to get that fix
every now and then,

so his adrenaline needed
rejuicing or something.

"One might propose that I am either
insanely brave or quite insane."

SHANNON: This guy was writing these
very flowery, almost poetic letters.

They were almost romantic.

But he's also very needy, and that
comes through and he wanted more.

"I'd say pin your hopes on
'insanely loyal'. Only I can lose."

HORAN: I am not a psychiatrist,
but he's having doubts

about his ability to exist
without this excitement

of being a spy and a mole.

GALLAGHER: He had
a James Bond syndrome -

that he envisioned
this smooth operative

that would have an attractive female
on his arm at his beck and call.

Ramon Garcia was his alter ego.

Ramon Garcia was everything
that he could never be.

The famous spy for the Russians.

A spy inside the FBI.

MOORE: I was Bob Hanssen's friend
in the FBI for 20 years.

I hypothesised that, OK,
there were two Bob Hanssens

that were in operation here.

So, he had a part of him
that was spying for the KGB

to help his family,

and then he had a part of him that
was probably pretty narcissistic

where he decided
he was very good at it.

But once you start
committing espionage,

your best practical chance of
getting away with it is to die.

Because the FBI is incredibly
determined to find the people

who are committing espionage.

And they're very good at it.

Scary good.

A new era at the FBI
is about to begin.

SHANNON: New leadership came into
the FBI intelligence division

and that team said, "We're never
gonna analyse our way out of this.

"To narrow down
who might be the mole,

"it would take many lifetimes.

"So let's find somebody who knows."

The FBI philosophy
is we flood the zone.

We ask everybody everything
and then sooner or later

we'll run into somebody
who had access to this information.

Mike Rochford reinitiated a program
that had existed before.

It was codename Bucklure.

ROCHFORD: They said, "Well, let's
make a list, placement and access,

"KGB officers that if they gave us
100% of the information

"that we want to know about their
knowledge of recruitments

"inside the intelligence community,

"we'll pay 'em."

Over the course of the years,

I don't know, I pitched about
35 to 38 different Russians.

Rochford and his group identified
an individual that fit this bill.

He was involved in private business,

which so many of
the ex-KGB officers were,

and was looking to enlarge
his business internationally.

So we arranged to have this
individual come to the United States

under the guise of pursuing
a business deal with him.

It was the first chance
to really talk to somebody
of substance, you know?

And he's coming from this
failed business deal,

which we had engineered
that it would fail.

But his ticket is non-refundable
and it's for two weeks,

and this is the second day
of the visit.

I see him on the streets
of New York and I go,

"'Hey, how you doing?"
and he goes, "Who are you?"

And I go, "I'm Mike Rochford.
I'm an FBI agent."

He says, "So, uh, what do you want?"

I said, "I'm here to make you
the most successful
Russian American businessman

"in the history
of our two countries, bar none."

Mike talked to him and eventually
got this guy to admit,

yes, he has a file
on this codename Ramon Garcia.

When the Soviet Union was collapsing
in '91, he saw this file

and he went
"Well, this looks like my 401k.

"I'll put this away for safekeeping
and if anybody comes asking,

"I can maybe bargain with this."

And he has lots of
the intimate information
that you hardly ever have,

like the dead drops and the locations
and the monies,

so we see the case from the inside,
from the KGB perspective.

Mike Rochford and his team
identified the exact right man

for our mole hunt.

Because this man
brought the motherlode.

GALLAGHER: In November of 2000,

that source provided his first
package of information,

which was transmitted
to FBI headquarters

and would be some of it translated,
some of it examined.

Included in that package
was a smaller package

with a note on it not to open that

until the source could
explain the significance.

As you can imagine,
that raised our curiosity

but we honoured his request
and didn't open it.

He also had another surprise
for us - a telephone conversation

that was taped between Ramon
and one of their officers.

We had anticipated that it
would be Brian Kelley.

By no means had Brian faded into the
Bureau's rearview mirror on this.

He was still on the front burners
in terms of our belief

that he potentially
could be the mole.

KING: Well, we got what they call
the case officer's notebook.

And this source
wrote in very carefully

on the days where there were drops
and he received and he provided

and we knew it wasn't Brian
because he was in Australia

at the time these drops were made.

And then if not Brian, then who?

HORAN: So, the ensuing weeks, our
analysts in the analytical unit

were sifting through the
documentation from the Russians.

He came upon
some very interesting phrases

and he sat back in his chair and
said, "I've heard these before."

SHANNON: Bob Hanssen had a lot of
little sayings that he spouted

and some of those sayings
turned up in these letters.

Particularly one phrase,
sort of an off-colour phrase

that General Patton used at the time
in World War II

in speaking to the troops.

"As General Patton said,

"'Let's get this over
with so we can go kick the (BLEEP)

"out of the purple-pissing
Japanese."

And I said, "No. No way."
Just couldn't be Hanssen.

So, we got back to FBI headquarters.

We went into this vault

and pulled out the tape
and listened to it again.

(ON RECORDING) I believe it should
be fine, and thank you very much.

A certainty.

This is Bob Hanssen.

The culmination of that was several
weeks later when the source

actually came out and explained
that in their package

was the original trash bag
that was used to wrap the material

that Ramon Garcia
provided to the Soviets.

A couple of days later, the assistant
director of the FBI lab

came into my office
with a smile on his face.

That bag had sat in essentially KGB
headquarters for nearly 20 years

before it came out,

and Hanssen's fingerprints
were still on it.

KING: Well, as soon as we
confirmed Hanssen was the mole,

they wanted to catch him in the act
of servicing a dead drop,

because that's just
ironclad evidence.

There was a sense of urgency

because he faced
mandatory retirement that year

and they wanted
to wrap it up quickly

while he was still
an active employee of the FBI.

GALLAGHER: We needed to get Hanssen
out of state department,

to come back to FBI headquarters,

so we came up with a strategy
that we would offer him a promotion,

an opportunity that he would now be

in a position of great responsibility
in the FBI.

I had to put enough of a charade
on it to convince him

this was good for his career
and that I truly needed him.

KING: There were a number of people

who were trying to pull together
all the details

that were gonna prosecute the case.

In this room, which is pretty small.

There was a knock at the door...

..and everybody just shut up,
silent.

From our perspective,

you never know where Hanssen's gonna
pop up in FBI headquarters

and what he's gonna ask about.

We were very paranoid about him
finding out any indication

that the investigation
had increased dramatically.

KING: There was a knock
on the door...

..and everybody just shut up,
silent.

It was Bob Hanssen
and he said, "Is Bob King here?"

And I said, "Hey, Robert.
I'll be tied up for a little bit

"but I'll come up and see you
in a few minutes."

So, I went up to his office
and first thing he said,

"So are you getting ready
to arrest the mole?"

I said, "I wish."

And then he got up to leave and
I said, "Well, I guess I'll go too,"

and I went back down
and reported in

and said, "Sorry, I can't remember
a lot of what happened up there.

"It's pretty much a blur."

OHLSON: Once he got to the new job,
he didn't have near the access he had

on the automated case system
he did at state department.

So, he no longer enjoyed the ability
to peruse and surf the FBI files.

So, I think Bob began
to say, "Wait a minute.

"I'm getting promoted
to the senior executive service,

"but I have less access
than I used to have.

"Something's funny about this job."

And in his final letter
to the Russians,

he complained about having
a do-nothing senior job.

And then he talked about

he found a beacon transmitter noise
interference on his AM/FM radio.

He says, "I think I've aroused
the sleeping tiger."

So, now we look at this document

and say, "Oh, he must have thought
it was coming."

But he still went ahead
with his drop in February,

and that resulted in the arrest.

GALLAGHER:
There's a lot of emotions.

Elation, not only to the fact
that the arrest is made,

and it's made successfully
without anybody being hurt,

and then reality that it's not
a proud day in the FBI

to know that we had a spy amongst
our midst for all these years.

WAUCK: February 18th, 2001.

We heard a knock at the door.

It was the SAC - Kathleen McChesney,
and she said to me,

"Bob Hanssen has been arrested."

And I said, "I guess
this must go back to

"what I told the Bureau
all those years ago,"

and they looked at me
like I had two heads.

At that time I was a senior
liaison to the CIA.

I'm Jim Lyle.

I was an FBI agent from 1980
until my retirement in 2002

working criminal and
counterintelligence matters.

First thing Monday morning, Langley.

Phone rings, early.

7:30. "WFO,
we need to interview you."

Mark Wauck was contacted by the
leadership of the Chicago division

and he said that he had
reported concerns to you

a number of years ago about Hanssen.

So, I'm thinking, "Whoa."

I'm wracking my brain trying
to think what that might have been.

It's still a bit vague on the exact
words but all I recall

was that Bonnie Hanssen had found
some money in a drawer of Bob's

and didn't know where it came from,

but it was something to that effect

because I remember sort of
my reaction,

which was, "I don't know, Mark.

"You know, maybe she oughta
just talk to Bob

"if she's got some questions,
you know?

"Or you could talk to her."

Apparently there's reports that he
said he was concerned about this

in light of the mole hunt.

I had no context of mole hunts
and source compromises,

those types of things going on
back in Washington.

It was unknown to me.

To assert that we discussed the fact

that Hanssen might be
committing espionage

or that I might refer it
for some investigation, no.

I never had any conversations
like that.

I think I'd remember that

because that would have been
very significant.

There wasn't anything to launch
an investigation of, in my view.

But I was always pretty much cast
in the general public view

that this was another instance,
you know,

of the Bureau's management
being incompetent.

The DOJ IG report
discussed all of this,

and their conclusion stated,
"We accept Wauck's version."

That's what the DOJ IG said.

You don't think that is something
that gives me some kind of heart
palpitations even to this day?

It does.

They accepted his version of this
and not mine.

That still sticks with me
very sharply.

Yeah, sadly I think that probably

the only thing that Lyle and I agree
with about that conversation

is that it occurred

and that we talked about the money,
the $5,000 in the sock drawer.

But I think that's about it.

And...and it's unfortunate.

OHLSON: The impact of the loss
of the information

that Hanssen gave the Soviets

touched across the entire
US intelligence community.

It was devastating.

In my view the single biggest thing
that he gave away

that hurt our country was the
continuity of government program,

which provides the methods
by which we survive a nuclear strike

on Washington, DC.

MAJOR: If possible nuclear war is
gonna take place, or chemical war,

all the leadership of the government
and the operations are relocated

to offsite locations,

and that could be in a Piggly Wiggly
warehouse in Des Moines, Iowa.

They set up and all of a sudden
it's the headquarters

so they can communicate
and they can still operate.

So, this was a highly compartmented,
highly secret program

that Bob Hanssen knew about.

HORAN: Hanssen was so prolific

and gave away so much information
to the Russians

that his tasking was not necessarily
always specific.

They just said, "Bring us
everything you can get."

ROCHFORD: 6,000 pages of documents.

Let's not even talk about
the classification level.

You know, stack 'em up,
that's a lot, you know?

This morning former FBI special
agent Robert Philip Hanssen

publicly admitted that he engaged
in a 15-year-long conspiracy

to commit espionage
against the United States.

Hanssen betrayed
the trust of his country

on the highest level imaginable.

I've never seen an investigation
go from identification

to arrest and prosecution
in three months.

That was an amazing accomplishment.

I will devote whatever resources
necessary within the department

to ensure that justice is done
in this case

and any other case like it.

SHANNON: John Ashcroft, who was the
attorney general at the time,

would love to have gone for
capital punishment

but the FBI was playing
a longer game.

So was the Justice Department.

They didn't want to go to trial
because they didn't want to expose

all of those sources,
all of those methods,

all of those gadgets,
all of those little things

that would immeasurably help
hostile services.

"I apologise for my behaviour.

"I am shamed by it.

"Beyond its illegality,
I have torn the trust of so many.

"Even worse, I have
opened the door for calumny

"against my totally innocent wife
and hurt our children deeply,

"hurt so many deeply
otherwise as well."

REPORTER: Did he express
any remorse at all?

Yes, he's...he very much
wanted to make amends.

That's a big reason
for this disposition today.

And he wanted to tell
his former agency what he had done

and how he had done it.

That's matters of interest to them.

They ARE going to learn things
they did not know.

SHANNON: They wanted to debrief
Robert Hanssen.

They wanted to know what he accessed,
and suddenly he clammed up

and he forgot stuff.

And did he really forget stuff
or was he playing them?

MAJOR: If he played dumb during the
debriefing, either he has amnesia,

or he doesn't want to admit it.

So, what's he do? He minimises it.

Well, they took the position,

"Well, as long as we think
that you're playing us,

"you're gonna do hard time
in supermax.

"How do you like that?"

And he liked it OK.

He was supposed to go to a minimum
security near his family.

That was the deal,
and they say, "You broke it."

BLACKMAN: When he came into be
arraigned, he looked out

at all of the FBI agents who had
lined up in the court to see him.

He smiled.

In the end, he outfoxed them.

GALLAGHER: Robert Hanssen's
a traitor.

He was sentenced to
life imprisonment without parole

at the supermax prison
out in Florence, Colorado.

He spends 23 hours a day in his cell.

He has no contact
with any other prisoners.

He has no contact
with any outside life.

I believe his family gets
to visit him once or twice a year.

MOORE: I like to think of his life
as being, in a sense,
kind of cloistered.

And he can pray all that he wants.

And he can reflect on the things
that he's done in his life.

I wonder whether he has
truly repented his sins.

It's none of my business
but I still wonder.

WAUCK: The idea of life imprisonment,
especially in solitary,

it has to be just about
the most extreme punishment

that we can imagine.

The idea of cold-bloodily
betraying your own country

and everyone living in it

is equally difficult to imagine.

I'll just leave it at that.

KING: I have to believe that
the punishment fits the crime,

and had he been executed
I would have considered that just.

I'd be very upset
if they released him.

I think to his dying day
he will betray people.

HOSCHOUER: I like to think that if
I knew for a fact what he was doing,

I'd have turned him in.

On the other hand,
the thought of turning him in

is a terrible one for me.

HORAN: In the years
since Bob was arrested,

and now coming on almost 20,

I have come to think of him
as a troubled and a poor soul.

He had a lot of negative influences
in his life

starting right from the relationship
he had with his dad,

which was anything but
happy and fulfilling.

I don't think he ever shed the hurt
that those early experiences

and subsequent life experiences
dealt him.

He tried to overcome them
by becoming a police officer

and then an FBI agent,

and then a really good spy.

Captions by Red Bee Media
(c) SBS Australia 2022