Spy Wars (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - A Perfect Traitor - full transcript
The story goes, it was
a bright spring morning.
Kgb colonel valery martynov
and major sergei motorin
Are high ranking soviet
intelligence officers.
Yet both are also cia spies.
And this will be their
last russian dawn.
Some might say their fate
was an occupational hazard.
But their deaths sent a shockwave Through
america's intelligence agencies.
Because they were not
alone in being betrayed.
This is the story of robert hanssen, An
american traitor who systematically dismantled
The united states' network of undercover
soviet agents From the inside out.
Perhaps the most dangerous
spy in us history,
His actions pitted the cia against the fbi
And triggered a mole hunt that brought
The american intelligence
services to their knees.
The short-lived regimes of ailing soviet
hardliners In the kremlin had heralded the rise
Of the young, dynamic
mikhail gorbachev.
While preaching reform and
rapprochement with the west,
Gorbachev still relied on the support of
factions Within the kgb that viewed america
And its allies as enemies.
Behind the public smiles and handshakes,
Tensions in the intelligence world
Were ratcheting
to breaking point.
Milton bearden was deputy chief Of the cia's
soviet/east european operations at the time.
There was a very high degree of paranoia
In the soviet union in the mid-80s.
The soviet union began to enter
The first stages of crumbling.
Washington and london were putting
This heavy, heavy pressure on them.
But in 1985, in spite Of its economic and military
frailties, The soviet union still appeared
To have the upper hand in the intelligence war,
By systematically exposing and eliminating
A whole slew of cia
agents in its midst.
We lost a massive
number of assets in moscow,
All taken out and shot within a very
quick period, Short period of time.
It came as a profound shock.
Us intelligence prided itself
on being able to penetrate
The soviet security services almost at
will, Without being compromised in return.
It was, the single word To
answer what happened, betrayal.
American counterintelligence
Began to think the unthinkable,
Someone in the cia was a
traitor, a russian spy.
We knew that there had to be a very high placed
mole Within the us intelligence community
Who had access to the names and identities
Of these very, very, very secret
High placed spies
in the soviet union.
The traitor had to be stopped Before america's
intelligence network Was destroyed altogether.
The biggest mole hunt in
american history was underway.
In the mid-1980s, special agent david major
Was the fbi national security council advisor
To president ronald reagan.
The cia starts their study, The fbi
analytical unit is doing a study.
I know, because I was
there at the time.
Methodically, both us intelligence
services Began to gather evidence.
They start doing a study about what caused
this, What is causing our loss of sources.
The g-men of the bureau Had never
really trusted the spooks of the cia.
And the suspicion
was entirely mutual.
If there was a penetration, Which there
probably was, It probably was in the cia.
So we go back and look at every single potential
penetration We ever had with the russians,
And we'll see if we can pinpoint What's
the commonality, and we do this.
One of the people that was supervising
That study was bob hanssen.
Fbi security specialist, Robert philip
hanssen Would become one of the key players
In the mole hunt for the
american traitor in the cia.
But he wasn't your
typical fbi agent.
I met bob hanssen at fbi
headquarters in about 1981.
I realized this guy's
a really bright guy.
Now very, very shy, very
introverted, doesn't talk often.
He was a very strange
man to work for.
He lacked the basic
social skills.
He was in the budget unit.
Nobody wants to be
in the budget unit.
So he's odd man out.
He wasn't one of us.
But hanssen had talents That
made him valuable to the fbi.
In 1985, he had a skill That few
fbi agents had or even understood.
Bob hanssen's hobby
was running computers.
He liked computers,
he liked technology.
So he was a geek, when geeks, Before
it was fashionable to be one.
He had an incredible level of sophistication
With computer systems, at a time when the fbi
Barely knew how to
turn computers on.
He was a wizard inside the bureau Because he
understood things a lot of other people didn't.
Thanks to his computer skills, Hanssen was
promoted from the budget unit to analytics,
Compiling data on
russian intelligence.
At a time when the fbi was still using handwritten
notes, Hanssen spoke a different language.
It made him the perfect man to
help unmask the russian mole.
He maintained a computer, a standalone computer
database That we had entered all the information
That the fbi had ever gathered
from every single penetration
It had made on the russian intelligence service,
Bob hanssen essentially knew everything
That we knew about
the russian program.
Hanssen was put in charge Of a small team
of analysts tasked with going through
All of the fbi's soviet
counterintelligence files.
The acute sensitivity and secrecy Of the
operation suited hanssen perfectly.
He already knew the mole was an intelligence
agent Who had access to the bureau's
Most highly classified secrets.
But bob hanssen wasn't
going to share this intel.
Because hanssen was
the russian spy.
There are many reasons that people
Betray their own countries.
Undeniably ideology and
politics have some role to play,
But really most reasons for
committing treason are personal.
Dr. David charney had a unique insight
Into the mind of robert hanssen.
He was his psychiatrist.
He was frustrated because He wanted to be
a success, And he was a partial success.
But that wasn't enough, and that led to
I think A sense of alienation, anger.
He joined the fbi to be james bond, And they
had made him a librarian, and he was angry.
They didn't listen to him, they didn't give
him The job he wanted, and he needed money.
In 1985, hanssen
was married with six children,
Mortgaged to the hilt, and
making barely $46,000 a year.
He needed to support his wife, He wanted to send
the children To expensive catholic schools.
Where men have trouble dealing with
things That don't go well in their life,
They've got to do
something to fix it.
And sometimes the fix can be something
Very terrible, turning traitor.
Hanssen's treachery
had a simple beginning.
He sent an unsigned letter to victor
cherkashin, The man he knew was the kgb's
Head of counterintelligence
in washington.
In it, hanssen offered his services, Requested
$100,000, and as a sign of goodwill
Revealed the names of the cia informants
Known as m and m, martynov and motorin.
With a single unsolicited letter Hanssen had
sent two soviet us informants to their deaths.
The russians do not play games With
people who betray the motherland.
And bob hanssen alone is
responsible for that happening.
But this was just the beginning.
Because hanssen was sitting
on an intelligence goldmine.
He had access to a
treasure trove of information.
The russians knew our game plan,
How we operate, where we go,
How many agents we have, how
much surveillance we have.
Bob hanssen compromised
every single human source
That the fbi had ever
worked against the russians.
He compromised hundreds
of double agents.
Hanssen delivered his secrets to the
soviets Using old fashioned spy craft,
A method known as a dead drop.
Hanssen wrapped the documents in plastic bags
And hid them at a pre - Arranged location
Near his home in virginia.
He placed a piece of white tape on a signpost
As the signal his drop had been made.
It meant that hanssen never had to meet
The soviets handlers face to face.
He was smart enough to know That he
needed to keep his true identity
Hidden from the kgb as
much as from the fbi.
Cherkashin and the soviets Had
no idea about his identity.
The greatest danger for spies of any side Is
to be exposed by spies on the other side.
Spies catch spies,
that's the usual saying.
Using the alias of ramon garcia, Hanssen
made 22 dead drops in five years,
Supplying the kgb with not only the identities
Of us agents in russia, but thousands of pages
Of america's most
closely guarded secrets.
The damage ran deep.
He compromised our continuity government program,
Which is one of the greatest secrets we had,
And that is how do you respond
at a time of nuclear attack.
It's unheard of the amount
of insight they had.
The fbi was now running The biggest
spy hunt in living memory,
To track down the
source of these leaks.
But by 1994, the mole hunt was seemingly
No closer to finding the traitor.
They decide to go back and look At
all the people that could have known
About these cases
that were compromised.
There were 20 that
itzeroed in on.
I was on that list.
One name
stood out from the crowd,
A cia agent who had received
money from a suspicious source.
They began to realize that there was this
money That was deposited in his account.
Further digging revealed the cia officer Had
been in contact with russians in washington dc.
They noticed he'd meet the russian,
Then there'd be a deposit.
He'd meet him, then
there'd be a deposit.
And so something was wrong here.
And so one of them he eventually said, "you
know, this doesn't take a brain surgeon
"to realize something's
going on here."
The mole hunters believed
they had found the traitor
Who had sent so many loyal
agents to their deaths,
A man they believed was the most
dangerous mole In intelligence history.
How wrong they were.
After a nine year mole hunt, The
man the fbi finally arrested
For selling state secrets to the russians
was aldrich ames, An officer in the cia's
Soviet counterintelligence
division.
Well ames, he was a pretty mediocre officer,
But he was an officer within the cia
And he did have access
to an awful lot of stuff.
He's sitting there on top of all these cases,
For example, that we're running in moscow.
The fbi's investigation revealed That
on June 13th, 1985, aldrich ames
Had walked into chadwick's restaurant in
washington dc For an authorized meeting
With a diplomat from
the soviet embassy.
But instead, at the table Was soviet
counterintelligence chief, victor cherkashin.
During his time as moscow correspondent,
Greg feifer, got to know cherkashin well.
At one point during this half an hour
conversation, Ames took out a piece of notepaper
And wrote down the list Of many of
the american assets in the ussr.
This was at the very least One of the most
stunning Intelligence coups in kgb history.
Ames gave the soviets information About
virtually every agent they had inside the ussr.
Aldrich ames was no
less than a serial murderer.
He killed all those people.
But unlike hanssen,
ames had become careless.
He had done about $40,000
worth of work on his teeth.
Then his wardrobe
got a little better.
He bought a 500 and something
Thousand dollar house for cash.
The money trail Led the fbi back to ames's meeting
With cherkashin in chadwick's restaurant.
The evidence was damning
and conviction swift.
Ames was sentenced to life in prison, And he's
currently in a medium security prison in indiana,
Never to be released.
There was relief and elation
In us intelligence circles
That the russian agent
had finally been caught.
And it only made hanssen
feel more secure.
He thought any other spy, Including aldrich
ames and others, were bumbling idiots.
He was the only
really great spy.
At his request, the kgb rewarded hanssen With
a modest gift of just a few thousand dollars,
So as not to raise suspicion.
For hanssen that
was payment enough.
It wasn't about money.
Bob was driven by other demons.
Often agents turn traitor For reasons
of greed, ideology, or revenge.
For hanssen, it seems
more complicated.
His life was full
of contradictions.
He converted to catholicism And
took it very, very, very seriously.
So much so that he adopted A more
serious subset of it called opus dei,
And he was very serious
about adhering to its rules.
I think there must
have been a constant anguish
And turmoil about who he
actually was as a person.
And trying to resolve his devout religious
faith, His sense of right and wrong.
Hanssen would spy for the russians, And then
turn to god on his lunch break for forgiveness.
As he saw it, he returned to his
desk Absolved of his worldly sins.
Hanssen is one of the most complicated,
Complex people that I've met with.
Of all the people that I've met in my regular
practice I would put him at the top rank of people
Who live very much of a
compartmentalized mental life.
I don't know how he did it.
A devout man was such an unlikely traitor That
his fellow mole hunters never suspected him.
His faith had become his cover.
Ames' arrest in 1994
Should have put an end
to the fbi's mole hunt.
But not everything
was adding up.
Investigators were unable to link All of
the intelligence leaks to aldrich ames.
Ames was not in a position To know about the
bloch case, And therefore it didn't explain
What had happened with bloch.
In the late 1980's, felix bloch Was
a senior state department official,
A man the fbi
suspected of espionage.
They listened to his telephone conversations, And
they realized he was going to have a meeting
With somebody in paris.
We figured we had a spy.
They had him surrounded at the hotel, And at
the last minute felix bloch gets a phone call.
He never meets his
intelligence officer.
The fbi never catches him.
A mole had tipped him off.
Federal investigators realized the tip-off
Could not have come from aldrich ames,
Because he was unaware of
the bloch investigation.
So, it had to be somebody else, somebody with,
With good information about the felix bloch case.
And we knew that we
still had this mole,
Once again, the rivalry Between
cia and fbi confused the issue.
It was their guy who screwed up.
And so, the next time
the suspicion arose,
It was natural for the fbi to
say it might be the cia again.
The fbi hastily assembled A
new team of mole hunters.
They operated out of the black vault,
A secure room at fbi headquarters.
Right across the hallway was
robert hanssen's old office.
It's a lot harder to
spot spying than is thought.
You can really get away with it for far longer
Than you might imagine if you're any good at all.
Because people don't wanna think about somebody
Sitting next to you in the next cubicle as a spy.
Hanssen had been careful and meticulous,
But in early 1993, he made a mistake.
One that should have
led to his downfall.
He was found to have hacked Into the double
agent operations within the russian section.
This was the inner sanctum Of the
fbi's counterintelligence operations,
Where the identities of all those suspected
Of spying for the russians were kept.
It should have triggered
hanssen's immediate arrest.
Instead, hanssen calmly
talked his way out of it.
The rationale that he
gave was that he was trying
To show that the system was
fragile and easy to hack
And that it should be a heads
up to the powers that be.
The fbi had missed a red flag.
Hanssen continued to hack
into the fbi mainframe,
This time to see if he was
on the bureau's watchlist.
Because by now hanssen had reached
tipping point And wanted out.
Conflict, conflict.
Do I really wanna do this?
Is this something
that I want to do?
Is it safe for me to do this?
Is it possible something terrible will happen
And I really should get out of doing it now?
Can I ever have a
normal life again?
All these thoughts are in the
mind I believe of every spy.
All this time, hanssen was able To avoid
suspicion because the fbi investigators
Still believed the
traitor was in the cia.
By 1998, they had a
shortlist of suspects.
They zeroed in on seven people inside the cia
In a position to know about the bloch case.
One of the men that was there was brian
kelley, Because brian kelley had been
In the right place
at the right time.
Brian kelley was a cia specialist in illegals,
Russian spies who worked without diplomatic cover.
He was made prime suspect Because of his
direct involvement In the felix bloch case.
They start an intensive
investigation into brian kelley.
He's surveilled every single day, They
have aircraft on him every single day.
They tried all kinds of I would call it tricks
To get him to reveal what his true identity was.
They found a map on his kitchen table That
they misconstrued as being a drop site map.
It turned out to be brian
kelley's jogging map.
Brian kelley was very
convenient for hanssen.
He lived around the corner from hanssen,
His jogging route took him past
Some of his hanssen's
signal sites and drop sites.
By 2000, after over a decade of investigation,
The fbi was no closer to catching the mole.
But then they had
a stroke of luck.
They came into contact with a
disgruntled former soviet spy
Who claimed he had a piece
of electrifying evidence,
The kgb file on the russian
mole known as ramon garcia.
A couple of scraps of evidence, a garbage bag
Used to hand over a dead drop of documents,
And also there was a
telephone recording.
At one point ramon garcia Spoke to
one of cherkashin's subordinates.
The price of the kgb file
was a staggering $7 million.
To the fbi, it was a small price
to pay To unmask once and for all
The greatest traitor in
us intelligence history.
The fbi had paid $7 million for a secret
kgb file That would unmask a mole
Within the us intelligence community,
A mole who had been giving away
State secrets for over a decade.
When they eventually get the file,
And in it is a tape recording.
And that tape recording Is
supposed to be between the source,
The mole if you would,
and the kgb officer.
After a 15 year man hunt, federal agents Were going
to hear the evidence that would nail the man
Who had betrayed his
country and its agents.
They are convinced they know who the traitor is
And that this will confirm their suspicions.
They know it's going to be brian kelley And
they're going to be able to make a case.
So, when they finally turn it on, They
listen to it, it's not brian kelley.
The fbi was shocked When they
heard that taped phone call.
"wow," they said,
"that's bob hanssen."
Of all the people you thought would ever
do this, Bob hanssen was not one of them.
It was a revelation that
would tear the bureau apart.
All the time, they'd been looking at the
cia As the source of the treachery.
And now they knew the
traitor worked from within.
Hiding in plain sight, hanssen
had made fools of them all.
To take him down, they'd have to find
evidence That would stand up in court.
And that wouldn't be easy.
Bob hanssen was a trained
Counterintelligence officer.
He spent his career looking for spies,
So he knows how spies are caught.
The fbi needed a
special kind of spy catcher,
Someone who could equal
hanssen's computer skills
And who could get close to him
without arousing suspicion.
They chose eric o'neill.
I was a ghost.
The official title is
investigative specialist,
Which means an undercover
operative who follows people.
I spent my days following spies and
terrorists, Tracking them from the morning
Until they were asleep at night And
sometimes listening to them sleep.
Like hanssen, o'neill Had a
very particular skillset.
The problem was that hanssen was a
computer genius, He was a hacker.
He could breach systems, He could
write programming language.
And they had to find someone
who understood computer systems
In order to investigate
him, and that was me.
I was their only option.
O'neill became hanssen's new aide, The
perfect cover to stay close to his target.
We needed not only to catch
him Spying for the russians,
We believed he was still active
and we wanted to catch him
Making a drop of
secrets to the russians.
So, they positioned him Where
they could watch his every move.
They put him in charge of looking
At the fbi's security technology,
Looking at the fbi's computer systems And devising
methods where we could better secure them
From outside attackers
and inside penetrations.
The fbi appeared to have placed
The biggest spy in us history,
A computer hacker who had
been handing state secrets
To the kgb for decades, in
charge of cyber security.
In fact, it was a ruse to track hanssen's movements
And enable o'neill to get closer to him.
Hey, bill.
My first conversation with hanssen, And
one of the first things he tells me is,
"what we're doing here in information
assurance section, "we are hunting spies.
"and we will find the spies
in the worst possible place."
Now to do this day, I don't know whether
He was challenging me to catch him
Or whether he was just
trying to be a mentor.
Privately, doubts appear To have
been forming in hanssen's mind.
He regularly hacked into the fbi database To
see if his name appeared on any investigations
Into operation graysuit,
the mole's codename.
He found nothing except files
on cia operative brian kelley.
When hanssen learned About the
brian kelley investigation,
And learned that they thought brian kelley was
graysuit, It made him feel very confident.
Hanssen continued To plan
his drops to the russians.
The location, a park just a few hundred
yards From his home in virginia.
On one surveillance recce, the fbi caught
him Casing the area four times in one day.
But even this wasn't enough.
We needed him making
a drop to the russians
So we could catch him red-handed
in the act of espionage.
I needed to find a way to get information
That would lead us to when he would make
A next drop to the russians,
because we believed
He was going to make a drop
of secrets to the russians.
I looked at everything
that surrounded hanssen,
All of the things he said,
all of the things he did.
And the one thing that he protected
Most zealously was his personal device,
A palmpilot.
O'neill suspected hanssen's palmpilot
Held encrypted information
About kgb dead drop
locations and times.
To bait a trap, o'neill had
to get hold of that palmpilot.
And hanssen had this Very
significant and obvious routine.
He would keep it in his left back pocket
And every time he sat down at his desk
He'd put it in a bag that he
kept In the same spot every day.
Like clockwork.
So I knew we had to
get that away from him.
The plan was simple.
Hanssen would be summoned to the firing range
Under the pretext of a formal assessment.
He had a tough time
getting him to go to firearms.
You're supposed to go every
quarter, and he just didn't go.
Being ordered to go down to firearms Was
not something that he would love doing.
The order was intended To make him
angry enough to forget his palmpilot
And give o'neil enough time
to steal the data from it.
At 12.05 they make the call.
Really?
Again?
He stands up angrily,
he grabs his firearm.
And for the first time he forgets To
reach down and grab his palmpilot.
And goes down all
those flights of steps
To the sub basement where the
fbi has their shooting range.
I go over to his bag,
And I grabbed the palmpilot,
Run down three flights of steps
to where we had a tech team
Set up with all sorts
of computer equipment.
As soon as they start to copy
it I get a text on my pager.
Apparently, hanssen had
got down to the range,
Had set his target, pulled his
firearm, fired a few times...
Then holstered his firearm, excused
himself, And walked right back to the room.
Now I knew I had
about nine minutes.
It took that long to get all
the way up to the ninth floor.
I told the tech team,
"you've got to hurry."
And finally, they get it finished, They
hand me the devices and say, "run."
I bolt up three flights of steps, I get to his
office, I kneel down in front of his bag.
I've got a good two minutes
before he shows up by my watch.
And I look at his bag and I
realize, There are four pockets.
And I can't for the life of me remember what
pockets I've pulled these things out of.
Horrible rookie mistake.
The success of the 15 year spy hunt
Could rest on o'neill's next move.
If I got the palmpilot wrong, The
game is over, the case is done.
There's a good chance he will shoot me
Because he knows that he's finished.
Door closing.
He comes through the
door into the office.
And he glares at me, goes
into his back office.
And I hear him checking
for his palmpilot.
And he gives me this angry look and
he says, "were you in my office?"
And I sat back, had a neutral expression, Looked
at him and said, "yeah I was in your office.
"I put a memo in your
inbox, didn't you see it?"
And he looks at me, and then he looks at me and
he says, "I never want you in my office again."
When analysts decoded the data On hanssen's
palmpilot, they found a reference
To a dead drop in
three weeks' time.
We knew that hanssen was planning to make a
drop Under a footbridge in foxstone park
On a Sunday night at
about seven o'clock.
What the fbi didn't know Was the hanssen was
planning To quit spying for the russians.
This was the fbi's only chance
to catch him red handed.
The net was closing
around the most prolific
And damaging spy in us history,
a man who, for 15 years,
Had sold america's best-kept
secrets to her greatest enemy.
The last time I saw bob hanssen, I
said, "bob, you look terrible."
I said, "what are you doing?"
He says, "well they've just
forgotten me in the bureau.
"I'm going to retire next year, "but I
just, you know I just, I'm miserable."
It was interesting.
The strain of leading a double life
Was finally getting to hanssen.
He was spooked.
He thought he had heard radio
signals coming from his car,
The tell-tale signs
of a bugging device.
Life is a misery
for these people.
They're all the time
terrified of being caught.
Sooner or later in the counterintelligence
world, I'm totally convinced,
That the spy gets
betrayed, almost always.
So you're under this stress constantly,
Fear, uncertainty, and uncertainty
Is the worst state for
a human to deal with.
And I think the tiresomeness
of it gets to people.
They're so sick of that life That
they just wanna get it over with.
In the third week of February 2001,
Hanssen prepared for his final
Drop of secrets to the russians.
In what was effectively his resignation letter
to the kgb, He seems to recognize his fate.
He wrote, "it seems however it is time
"to seclude myself from active service.
"something has aroused
the sleeping tiger"
Meaning the fbi is awakened.
He should go to ground,
he shouldn't do anything.
You shouldn't be going
filling a dead drop.
You should just stop.
But he didn't, 'cause I think He
had to play out the last chapter.
On February 18th, 2001, The fbi began
the single most important operation
In its history of
counterintelligence.
At four p.M., agents arrived to stake out The
bridge at foxstone park, codenamed ellis.
But almost immediately
there was a problem.
He arrives early, they expect him to be At
seven o'clock to come to fill the dead drop.
And he doesn't, he
shows up way early.
The surveillance team's only been
Put in place for like 15 minutes.
And in drives bob hanssen.
Everyone is scrambling.
They have cameras and
everything else on ellis,
This place he'd done before,
and he doesn't go there.
Turns around and
goes into the woods.
Oh my god, where's he going?
What the fbi didn't know Was that
the kgb had switched the location
To a different part of the park.
Hanssen made his
final drop unseen
And the fbi had missed it.
The second he walked
off that bridge feeling elated,
Like he'd just made his last drop to the
russians, Feeling all these emotions,
That he was going to retire as a spy, That
this was his final moment, his swan song,
Swat team showed up,
Put handcuffs on him.
Despite missing the drop, The fbi
had had to seize the moment.
Then hanssen did something odd.
They take him into the car And they ask him one
question, "were you working just for the russians
"or russians and others?"
And bob says, "just
for the russians."
Well you know what that
constituted, a confession.
When he said that, he just confessed To the
agents for being a spy for the russians.
By answering that question.
Hanssen's takedown Had been a
top-secret operation in the fbi.
So, when the news broke within its
ranks, It rocked the bureau to its core.
Yeah, I think those of us who worked for bob
Would never forgot where each of us was
At the time we learned
about bob's arrest.
I was driving to work.
I had to pull the car over.
I immediately felt like I had
been punched In the stomach.
And then drove the rest of the way
Into the office, dumbfounded.
There were literally people
crying In the halls of the fbi.
Hardcore, stoic agents who had learned
That their entire career had been a waste,
That everything
that they had done
Hanssen was undoing
behind the scenes.
And then I thought, that
day, what did I not see,
What did I miss, what should
I have seen as a professional?
I don't think I missed anything.
I don't think I missed anything about
what he said, What he did, how he acted,
That would have given me an indication
That he was going to become a betrayer.
And that standpoint,
he was a perfect spy.
Bob hanssen escaped the electric
chair By confessing all to the fbi.
Though the scale of his deception Was
far greater than anyone had imagined.
There are some in the intelligence community
Who believe that bob hanssen may have been
The most damaging spy in
modern american history.
Hanssen gave up a
lot of real secrets.
I mean from an intelligence point of view You
can say we were really clobbered by hanssen.
Bob hanssen compromised The
entire intelligence community.
He compromised nro, nsa, the three military
services, Everything that we're doing
In counterintelligence
anywhere, he compromised us.
And that's breath-taking stuff.
Hanssen is
serving 15 life sentences.
He's imprisoned at colorado's supermax
Alongside the world's deadliest criminals.
But he will never meet them.
He will see out his remaining
days in solitary confinement
Where he will be remembered As
america's most notorious traitor.
a bright spring morning.
Kgb colonel valery martynov
and major sergei motorin
Are high ranking soviet
intelligence officers.
Yet both are also cia spies.
And this will be their
last russian dawn.
Some might say their fate
was an occupational hazard.
But their deaths sent a shockwave Through
america's intelligence agencies.
Because they were not
alone in being betrayed.
This is the story of robert hanssen, An
american traitor who systematically dismantled
The united states' network of undercover
soviet agents From the inside out.
Perhaps the most dangerous
spy in us history,
His actions pitted the cia against the fbi
And triggered a mole hunt that brought
The american intelligence
services to their knees.
The short-lived regimes of ailing soviet
hardliners In the kremlin had heralded the rise
Of the young, dynamic
mikhail gorbachev.
While preaching reform and
rapprochement with the west,
Gorbachev still relied on the support of
factions Within the kgb that viewed america
And its allies as enemies.
Behind the public smiles and handshakes,
Tensions in the intelligence world
Were ratcheting
to breaking point.
Milton bearden was deputy chief Of the cia's
soviet/east european operations at the time.
There was a very high degree of paranoia
In the soviet union in the mid-80s.
The soviet union began to enter
The first stages of crumbling.
Washington and london were putting
This heavy, heavy pressure on them.
But in 1985, in spite Of its economic and military
frailties, The soviet union still appeared
To have the upper hand in the intelligence war,
By systematically exposing and eliminating
A whole slew of cia
agents in its midst.
We lost a massive
number of assets in moscow,
All taken out and shot within a very
quick period, Short period of time.
It came as a profound shock.
Us intelligence prided itself
on being able to penetrate
The soviet security services almost at
will, Without being compromised in return.
It was, the single word To
answer what happened, betrayal.
American counterintelligence
Began to think the unthinkable,
Someone in the cia was a
traitor, a russian spy.
We knew that there had to be a very high placed
mole Within the us intelligence community
Who had access to the names and identities
Of these very, very, very secret
High placed spies
in the soviet union.
The traitor had to be stopped Before america's
intelligence network Was destroyed altogether.
The biggest mole hunt in
american history was underway.
In the mid-1980s, special agent david major
Was the fbi national security council advisor
To president ronald reagan.
The cia starts their study, The fbi
analytical unit is doing a study.
I know, because I was
there at the time.
Methodically, both us intelligence
services Began to gather evidence.
They start doing a study about what caused
this, What is causing our loss of sources.
The g-men of the bureau Had never
really trusted the spooks of the cia.
And the suspicion
was entirely mutual.
If there was a penetration, Which there
probably was, It probably was in the cia.
So we go back and look at every single potential
penetration We ever had with the russians,
And we'll see if we can pinpoint What's
the commonality, and we do this.
One of the people that was supervising
That study was bob hanssen.
Fbi security specialist, Robert philip
hanssen Would become one of the key players
In the mole hunt for the
american traitor in the cia.
But he wasn't your
typical fbi agent.
I met bob hanssen at fbi
headquarters in about 1981.
I realized this guy's
a really bright guy.
Now very, very shy, very
introverted, doesn't talk often.
He was a very strange
man to work for.
He lacked the basic
social skills.
He was in the budget unit.
Nobody wants to be
in the budget unit.
So he's odd man out.
He wasn't one of us.
But hanssen had talents That
made him valuable to the fbi.
In 1985, he had a skill That few
fbi agents had or even understood.
Bob hanssen's hobby
was running computers.
He liked computers,
he liked technology.
So he was a geek, when geeks, Before
it was fashionable to be one.
He had an incredible level of sophistication
With computer systems, at a time when the fbi
Barely knew how to
turn computers on.
He was a wizard inside the bureau Because he
understood things a lot of other people didn't.
Thanks to his computer skills, Hanssen was
promoted from the budget unit to analytics,
Compiling data on
russian intelligence.
At a time when the fbi was still using handwritten
notes, Hanssen spoke a different language.
It made him the perfect man to
help unmask the russian mole.
He maintained a computer, a standalone computer
database That we had entered all the information
That the fbi had ever gathered
from every single penetration
It had made on the russian intelligence service,
Bob hanssen essentially knew everything
That we knew about
the russian program.
Hanssen was put in charge Of a small team
of analysts tasked with going through
All of the fbi's soviet
counterintelligence files.
The acute sensitivity and secrecy Of the
operation suited hanssen perfectly.
He already knew the mole was an intelligence
agent Who had access to the bureau's
Most highly classified secrets.
But bob hanssen wasn't
going to share this intel.
Because hanssen was
the russian spy.
There are many reasons that people
Betray their own countries.
Undeniably ideology and
politics have some role to play,
But really most reasons for
committing treason are personal.
Dr. David charney had a unique insight
Into the mind of robert hanssen.
He was his psychiatrist.
He was frustrated because He wanted to be
a success, And he was a partial success.
But that wasn't enough, and that led to
I think A sense of alienation, anger.
He joined the fbi to be james bond, And they
had made him a librarian, and he was angry.
They didn't listen to him, they didn't give
him The job he wanted, and he needed money.
In 1985, hanssen
was married with six children,
Mortgaged to the hilt, and
making barely $46,000 a year.
He needed to support his wife, He wanted to send
the children To expensive catholic schools.
Where men have trouble dealing with
things That don't go well in their life,
They've got to do
something to fix it.
And sometimes the fix can be something
Very terrible, turning traitor.
Hanssen's treachery
had a simple beginning.
He sent an unsigned letter to victor
cherkashin, The man he knew was the kgb's
Head of counterintelligence
in washington.
In it, hanssen offered his services, Requested
$100,000, and as a sign of goodwill
Revealed the names of the cia informants
Known as m and m, martynov and motorin.
With a single unsolicited letter Hanssen had
sent two soviet us informants to their deaths.
The russians do not play games With
people who betray the motherland.
And bob hanssen alone is
responsible for that happening.
But this was just the beginning.
Because hanssen was sitting
on an intelligence goldmine.
He had access to a
treasure trove of information.
The russians knew our game plan,
How we operate, where we go,
How many agents we have, how
much surveillance we have.
Bob hanssen compromised
every single human source
That the fbi had ever
worked against the russians.
He compromised hundreds
of double agents.
Hanssen delivered his secrets to the
soviets Using old fashioned spy craft,
A method known as a dead drop.
Hanssen wrapped the documents in plastic bags
And hid them at a pre - Arranged location
Near his home in virginia.
He placed a piece of white tape on a signpost
As the signal his drop had been made.
It meant that hanssen never had to meet
The soviets handlers face to face.
He was smart enough to know That he
needed to keep his true identity
Hidden from the kgb as
much as from the fbi.
Cherkashin and the soviets Had
no idea about his identity.
The greatest danger for spies of any side Is
to be exposed by spies on the other side.
Spies catch spies,
that's the usual saying.
Using the alias of ramon garcia, Hanssen
made 22 dead drops in five years,
Supplying the kgb with not only the identities
Of us agents in russia, but thousands of pages
Of america's most
closely guarded secrets.
The damage ran deep.
He compromised our continuity government program,
Which is one of the greatest secrets we had,
And that is how do you respond
at a time of nuclear attack.
It's unheard of the amount
of insight they had.
The fbi was now running The biggest
spy hunt in living memory,
To track down the
source of these leaks.
But by 1994, the mole hunt was seemingly
No closer to finding the traitor.
They decide to go back and look At
all the people that could have known
About these cases
that were compromised.
There were 20 that
itzeroed in on.
I was on that list.
One name
stood out from the crowd,
A cia agent who had received
money from a suspicious source.
They began to realize that there was this
money That was deposited in his account.
Further digging revealed the cia officer Had
been in contact with russians in washington dc.
They noticed he'd meet the russian,
Then there'd be a deposit.
He'd meet him, then
there'd be a deposit.
And so something was wrong here.
And so one of them he eventually said, "you
know, this doesn't take a brain surgeon
"to realize something's
going on here."
The mole hunters believed
they had found the traitor
Who had sent so many loyal
agents to their deaths,
A man they believed was the most
dangerous mole In intelligence history.
How wrong they were.
After a nine year mole hunt, The
man the fbi finally arrested
For selling state secrets to the russians
was aldrich ames, An officer in the cia's
Soviet counterintelligence
division.
Well ames, he was a pretty mediocre officer,
But he was an officer within the cia
And he did have access
to an awful lot of stuff.
He's sitting there on top of all these cases,
For example, that we're running in moscow.
The fbi's investigation revealed That
on June 13th, 1985, aldrich ames
Had walked into chadwick's restaurant in
washington dc For an authorized meeting
With a diplomat from
the soviet embassy.
But instead, at the table Was soviet
counterintelligence chief, victor cherkashin.
During his time as moscow correspondent,
Greg feifer, got to know cherkashin well.
At one point during this half an hour
conversation, Ames took out a piece of notepaper
And wrote down the list Of many of
the american assets in the ussr.
This was at the very least One of the most
stunning Intelligence coups in kgb history.
Ames gave the soviets information About
virtually every agent they had inside the ussr.
Aldrich ames was no
less than a serial murderer.
He killed all those people.
But unlike hanssen,
ames had become careless.
He had done about $40,000
worth of work on his teeth.
Then his wardrobe
got a little better.
He bought a 500 and something
Thousand dollar house for cash.
The money trail Led the fbi back to ames's meeting
With cherkashin in chadwick's restaurant.
The evidence was damning
and conviction swift.
Ames was sentenced to life in prison, And he's
currently in a medium security prison in indiana,
Never to be released.
There was relief and elation
In us intelligence circles
That the russian agent
had finally been caught.
And it only made hanssen
feel more secure.
He thought any other spy, Including aldrich
ames and others, were bumbling idiots.
He was the only
really great spy.
At his request, the kgb rewarded hanssen With
a modest gift of just a few thousand dollars,
So as not to raise suspicion.
For hanssen that
was payment enough.
It wasn't about money.
Bob was driven by other demons.
Often agents turn traitor For reasons
of greed, ideology, or revenge.
For hanssen, it seems
more complicated.
His life was full
of contradictions.
He converted to catholicism And
took it very, very, very seriously.
So much so that he adopted A more
serious subset of it called opus dei,
And he was very serious
about adhering to its rules.
I think there must
have been a constant anguish
And turmoil about who he
actually was as a person.
And trying to resolve his devout religious
faith, His sense of right and wrong.
Hanssen would spy for the russians, And then
turn to god on his lunch break for forgiveness.
As he saw it, he returned to his
desk Absolved of his worldly sins.
Hanssen is one of the most complicated,
Complex people that I've met with.
Of all the people that I've met in my regular
practice I would put him at the top rank of people
Who live very much of a
compartmentalized mental life.
I don't know how he did it.
A devout man was such an unlikely traitor That
his fellow mole hunters never suspected him.
His faith had become his cover.
Ames' arrest in 1994
Should have put an end
to the fbi's mole hunt.
But not everything
was adding up.
Investigators were unable to link All of
the intelligence leaks to aldrich ames.
Ames was not in a position To know about the
bloch case, And therefore it didn't explain
What had happened with bloch.
In the late 1980's, felix bloch Was
a senior state department official,
A man the fbi
suspected of espionage.
They listened to his telephone conversations, And
they realized he was going to have a meeting
With somebody in paris.
We figured we had a spy.
They had him surrounded at the hotel, And at
the last minute felix bloch gets a phone call.
He never meets his
intelligence officer.
The fbi never catches him.
A mole had tipped him off.
Federal investigators realized the tip-off
Could not have come from aldrich ames,
Because he was unaware of
the bloch investigation.
So, it had to be somebody else, somebody with,
With good information about the felix bloch case.
And we knew that we
still had this mole,
Once again, the rivalry Between
cia and fbi confused the issue.
It was their guy who screwed up.
And so, the next time
the suspicion arose,
It was natural for the fbi to
say it might be the cia again.
The fbi hastily assembled A
new team of mole hunters.
They operated out of the black vault,
A secure room at fbi headquarters.
Right across the hallway was
robert hanssen's old office.
It's a lot harder to
spot spying than is thought.
You can really get away with it for far longer
Than you might imagine if you're any good at all.
Because people don't wanna think about somebody
Sitting next to you in the next cubicle as a spy.
Hanssen had been careful and meticulous,
But in early 1993, he made a mistake.
One that should have
led to his downfall.
He was found to have hacked Into the double
agent operations within the russian section.
This was the inner sanctum Of the
fbi's counterintelligence operations,
Where the identities of all those suspected
Of spying for the russians were kept.
It should have triggered
hanssen's immediate arrest.
Instead, hanssen calmly
talked his way out of it.
The rationale that he
gave was that he was trying
To show that the system was
fragile and easy to hack
And that it should be a heads
up to the powers that be.
The fbi had missed a red flag.
Hanssen continued to hack
into the fbi mainframe,
This time to see if he was
on the bureau's watchlist.
Because by now hanssen had reached
tipping point And wanted out.
Conflict, conflict.
Do I really wanna do this?
Is this something
that I want to do?
Is it safe for me to do this?
Is it possible something terrible will happen
And I really should get out of doing it now?
Can I ever have a
normal life again?
All these thoughts are in the
mind I believe of every spy.
All this time, hanssen was able To avoid
suspicion because the fbi investigators
Still believed the
traitor was in the cia.
By 1998, they had a
shortlist of suspects.
They zeroed in on seven people inside the cia
In a position to know about the bloch case.
One of the men that was there was brian
kelley, Because brian kelley had been
In the right place
at the right time.
Brian kelley was a cia specialist in illegals,
Russian spies who worked without diplomatic cover.
He was made prime suspect Because of his
direct involvement In the felix bloch case.
They start an intensive
investigation into brian kelley.
He's surveilled every single day, They
have aircraft on him every single day.
They tried all kinds of I would call it tricks
To get him to reveal what his true identity was.
They found a map on his kitchen table That
they misconstrued as being a drop site map.
It turned out to be brian
kelley's jogging map.
Brian kelley was very
convenient for hanssen.
He lived around the corner from hanssen,
His jogging route took him past
Some of his hanssen's
signal sites and drop sites.
By 2000, after over a decade of investigation,
The fbi was no closer to catching the mole.
But then they had
a stroke of luck.
They came into contact with a
disgruntled former soviet spy
Who claimed he had a piece
of electrifying evidence,
The kgb file on the russian
mole known as ramon garcia.
A couple of scraps of evidence, a garbage bag
Used to hand over a dead drop of documents,
And also there was a
telephone recording.
At one point ramon garcia Spoke to
one of cherkashin's subordinates.
The price of the kgb file
was a staggering $7 million.
To the fbi, it was a small price
to pay To unmask once and for all
The greatest traitor in
us intelligence history.
The fbi had paid $7 million for a secret
kgb file That would unmask a mole
Within the us intelligence community,
A mole who had been giving away
State secrets for over a decade.
When they eventually get the file,
And in it is a tape recording.
And that tape recording Is
supposed to be between the source,
The mole if you would,
and the kgb officer.
After a 15 year man hunt, federal agents Were going
to hear the evidence that would nail the man
Who had betrayed his
country and its agents.
They are convinced they know who the traitor is
And that this will confirm their suspicions.
They know it's going to be brian kelley And
they're going to be able to make a case.
So, when they finally turn it on, They
listen to it, it's not brian kelley.
The fbi was shocked When they
heard that taped phone call.
"wow," they said,
"that's bob hanssen."
Of all the people you thought would ever
do this, Bob hanssen was not one of them.
It was a revelation that
would tear the bureau apart.
All the time, they'd been looking at the
cia As the source of the treachery.
And now they knew the
traitor worked from within.
Hiding in plain sight, hanssen
had made fools of them all.
To take him down, they'd have to find
evidence That would stand up in court.
And that wouldn't be easy.
Bob hanssen was a trained
Counterintelligence officer.
He spent his career looking for spies,
So he knows how spies are caught.
The fbi needed a
special kind of spy catcher,
Someone who could equal
hanssen's computer skills
And who could get close to him
without arousing suspicion.
They chose eric o'neill.
I was a ghost.
The official title is
investigative specialist,
Which means an undercover
operative who follows people.
I spent my days following spies and
terrorists, Tracking them from the morning
Until they were asleep at night And
sometimes listening to them sleep.
Like hanssen, o'neill Had a
very particular skillset.
The problem was that hanssen was a
computer genius, He was a hacker.
He could breach systems, He could
write programming language.
And they had to find someone
who understood computer systems
In order to investigate
him, and that was me.
I was their only option.
O'neill became hanssen's new aide, The
perfect cover to stay close to his target.
We needed not only to catch
him Spying for the russians,
We believed he was still active
and we wanted to catch him
Making a drop of
secrets to the russians.
So, they positioned him Where
they could watch his every move.
They put him in charge of looking
At the fbi's security technology,
Looking at the fbi's computer systems And devising
methods where we could better secure them
From outside attackers
and inside penetrations.
The fbi appeared to have placed
The biggest spy in us history,
A computer hacker who had
been handing state secrets
To the kgb for decades, in
charge of cyber security.
In fact, it was a ruse to track hanssen's movements
And enable o'neill to get closer to him.
Hey, bill.
My first conversation with hanssen, And
one of the first things he tells me is,
"what we're doing here in information
assurance section, "we are hunting spies.
"and we will find the spies
in the worst possible place."
Now to do this day, I don't know whether
He was challenging me to catch him
Or whether he was just
trying to be a mentor.
Privately, doubts appear To have
been forming in hanssen's mind.
He regularly hacked into the fbi database To
see if his name appeared on any investigations
Into operation graysuit,
the mole's codename.
He found nothing except files
on cia operative brian kelley.
When hanssen learned About the
brian kelley investigation,
And learned that they thought brian kelley was
graysuit, It made him feel very confident.
Hanssen continued To plan
his drops to the russians.
The location, a park just a few hundred
yards From his home in virginia.
On one surveillance recce, the fbi caught
him Casing the area four times in one day.
But even this wasn't enough.
We needed him making
a drop to the russians
So we could catch him red-handed
in the act of espionage.
I needed to find a way to get information
That would lead us to when he would make
A next drop to the russians,
because we believed
He was going to make a drop
of secrets to the russians.
I looked at everything
that surrounded hanssen,
All of the things he said,
all of the things he did.
And the one thing that he protected
Most zealously was his personal device,
A palmpilot.
O'neill suspected hanssen's palmpilot
Held encrypted information
About kgb dead drop
locations and times.
To bait a trap, o'neill had
to get hold of that palmpilot.
And hanssen had this Very
significant and obvious routine.
He would keep it in his left back pocket
And every time he sat down at his desk
He'd put it in a bag that he
kept In the same spot every day.
Like clockwork.
So I knew we had to
get that away from him.
The plan was simple.
Hanssen would be summoned to the firing range
Under the pretext of a formal assessment.
He had a tough time
getting him to go to firearms.
You're supposed to go every
quarter, and he just didn't go.
Being ordered to go down to firearms Was
not something that he would love doing.
The order was intended To make him
angry enough to forget his palmpilot
And give o'neil enough time
to steal the data from it.
At 12.05 they make the call.
Really?
Again?
He stands up angrily,
he grabs his firearm.
And for the first time he forgets To
reach down and grab his palmpilot.
And goes down all
those flights of steps
To the sub basement where the
fbi has their shooting range.
I go over to his bag,
And I grabbed the palmpilot,
Run down three flights of steps
to where we had a tech team
Set up with all sorts
of computer equipment.
As soon as they start to copy
it I get a text on my pager.
Apparently, hanssen had
got down to the range,
Had set his target, pulled his
firearm, fired a few times...
Then holstered his firearm, excused
himself, And walked right back to the room.
Now I knew I had
about nine minutes.
It took that long to get all
the way up to the ninth floor.
I told the tech team,
"you've got to hurry."
And finally, they get it finished, They
hand me the devices and say, "run."
I bolt up three flights of steps, I get to his
office, I kneel down in front of his bag.
I've got a good two minutes
before he shows up by my watch.
And I look at his bag and I
realize, There are four pockets.
And I can't for the life of me remember what
pockets I've pulled these things out of.
Horrible rookie mistake.
The success of the 15 year spy hunt
Could rest on o'neill's next move.
If I got the palmpilot wrong, The
game is over, the case is done.
There's a good chance he will shoot me
Because he knows that he's finished.
Door closing.
He comes through the
door into the office.
And he glares at me, goes
into his back office.
And I hear him checking
for his palmpilot.
And he gives me this angry look and
he says, "were you in my office?"
And I sat back, had a neutral expression, Looked
at him and said, "yeah I was in your office.
"I put a memo in your
inbox, didn't you see it?"
And he looks at me, and then he looks at me and
he says, "I never want you in my office again."
When analysts decoded the data On hanssen's
palmpilot, they found a reference
To a dead drop in
three weeks' time.
We knew that hanssen was planning to make a
drop Under a footbridge in foxstone park
On a Sunday night at
about seven o'clock.
What the fbi didn't know Was the hanssen was
planning To quit spying for the russians.
This was the fbi's only chance
to catch him red handed.
The net was closing
around the most prolific
And damaging spy in us history,
a man who, for 15 years,
Had sold america's best-kept
secrets to her greatest enemy.
The last time I saw bob hanssen, I
said, "bob, you look terrible."
I said, "what are you doing?"
He says, "well they've just
forgotten me in the bureau.
"I'm going to retire next year, "but I
just, you know I just, I'm miserable."
It was interesting.
The strain of leading a double life
Was finally getting to hanssen.
He was spooked.
He thought he had heard radio
signals coming from his car,
The tell-tale signs
of a bugging device.
Life is a misery
for these people.
They're all the time
terrified of being caught.
Sooner or later in the counterintelligence
world, I'm totally convinced,
That the spy gets
betrayed, almost always.
So you're under this stress constantly,
Fear, uncertainty, and uncertainty
Is the worst state for
a human to deal with.
And I think the tiresomeness
of it gets to people.
They're so sick of that life That
they just wanna get it over with.
In the third week of February 2001,
Hanssen prepared for his final
Drop of secrets to the russians.
In what was effectively his resignation letter
to the kgb, He seems to recognize his fate.
He wrote, "it seems however it is time
"to seclude myself from active service.
"something has aroused
the sleeping tiger"
Meaning the fbi is awakened.
He should go to ground,
he shouldn't do anything.
You shouldn't be going
filling a dead drop.
You should just stop.
But he didn't, 'cause I think He
had to play out the last chapter.
On February 18th, 2001, The fbi began
the single most important operation
In its history of
counterintelligence.
At four p.M., agents arrived to stake out The
bridge at foxstone park, codenamed ellis.
But almost immediately
there was a problem.
He arrives early, they expect him to be At
seven o'clock to come to fill the dead drop.
And he doesn't, he
shows up way early.
The surveillance team's only been
Put in place for like 15 minutes.
And in drives bob hanssen.
Everyone is scrambling.
They have cameras and
everything else on ellis,
This place he'd done before,
and he doesn't go there.
Turns around and
goes into the woods.
Oh my god, where's he going?
What the fbi didn't know Was that
the kgb had switched the location
To a different part of the park.
Hanssen made his
final drop unseen
And the fbi had missed it.
The second he walked
off that bridge feeling elated,
Like he'd just made his last drop to the
russians, Feeling all these emotions,
That he was going to retire as a spy, That
this was his final moment, his swan song,
Swat team showed up,
Put handcuffs on him.
Despite missing the drop, The fbi
had had to seize the moment.
Then hanssen did something odd.
They take him into the car And they ask him one
question, "were you working just for the russians
"or russians and others?"
And bob says, "just
for the russians."
Well you know what that
constituted, a confession.
When he said that, he just confessed To the
agents for being a spy for the russians.
By answering that question.
Hanssen's takedown Had been a
top-secret operation in the fbi.
So, when the news broke within its
ranks, It rocked the bureau to its core.
Yeah, I think those of us who worked for bob
Would never forgot where each of us was
At the time we learned
about bob's arrest.
I was driving to work.
I had to pull the car over.
I immediately felt like I had
been punched In the stomach.
And then drove the rest of the way
Into the office, dumbfounded.
There were literally people
crying In the halls of the fbi.
Hardcore, stoic agents who had learned
That their entire career had been a waste,
That everything
that they had done
Hanssen was undoing
behind the scenes.
And then I thought, that
day, what did I not see,
What did I miss, what should
I have seen as a professional?
I don't think I missed anything.
I don't think I missed anything about
what he said, What he did, how he acted,
That would have given me an indication
That he was going to become a betrayer.
And that standpoint,
he was a perfect spy.
Bob hanssen escaped the electric
chair By confessing all to the fbi.
Though the scale of his deception Was
far greater than anyone had imagined.
There are some in the intelligence community
Who believe that bob hanssen may have been
The most damaging spy in
modern american history.
Hanssen gave up a
lot of real secrets.
I mean from an intelligence point of view You
can say we were really clobbered by hanssen.
Bob hanssen compromised The
entire intelligence community.
He compromised nro, nsa, the three military
services, Everything that we're doing
In counterintelligence
anywhere, he compromised us.
And that's breath-taking stuff.
Hanssen is
serving 15 life sentences.
He's imprisoned at colorado's supermax
Alongside the world's deadliest criminals.
But he will never meet them.
He will see out his remaining
days in solitary confinement
Where he will be remembered As
america's most notorious traitor.