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Robert Hanssen

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For the American serial killer, see Robert Hansen.
Robert Hanssen

Robert Philip Hanssen (born April 18, 1944) was an FBI agent who was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia.

Hanssen was arrested on February 18, 2001, at Foxstone Park near his home in Vienna, Virginia, charged with selling American secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds over a 15-year period. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. His treason has been described as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history".[1]

Breach, a film based on Hanssen and the investigation leading to his arrest, is scheduled for release on February 16, 2007. Chris Cooper plays the role of Hanssen.

Biography

Early life

Hanssen was born in Chicago, Illinois. His domineering father , a policeman, inflicted physical and mental abuse upon Hanssen during his childhood. According to court documents, Hanssen told his Moscow handlers that he read My Silent War, the autobiography of British intelligence mole Kim Philby, when he was 14, and came to think of Philby as a hero. The book, however, was published in 1968, when Hanssen was 24.

Hanssen attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois and studied chemistry and Russian. He enrolled in Northwestern University's dentistry school.[2] He did well academically, but said that he "didn't like spit all that much."[3] He switched to business after three years,[4] receiving an MBA in accounting. After graduating, he took a business job but quit to join the Chicago police as an internal corruption investigator. He then joined the FBI counterintelligence unit.

FBI counterintelligence unit

Hanssen told investigators that he began spying for the Soviets in 1979, when he informed the Soviets that General Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov of the GRU (Glávnoe razvédyvatel'noe upravlénie) was selling Soviet secrets to the USA.

Hanssen's wife, Bonnie, discovered Hanssen's secret life when she caught him writing a secret letter that she believed was to another woman: Hanssen confessed that he sold some worthless facts to the Soviets for $20,000. Bonnie subsequently made him confess to a priest. Hanssen was a supernumerary member of Opus Dei.[5] The priest was later identified by the New York Times as the Rev. Robert P. Bucciarelli, former head of Opus Dei in the U.S.. Hanssen's wife apparently did not inform anyone in the FBI that her husband had confessed his guilt to her. In 1990, Hanssen's brother-in-law, who was also an FBI employee, complained to the bureau that Hanssen should be investigated for espionage. The brother-in-law had become suspicious when he noticed excessive amounts of cash Hanssen had in his home.

Hanssen was caught in part due to the efforts of Eric O'Neill, a young FBI agent who was assigned to watch Hanssen, using a position of Hanssen's aide as a cover. O'Neill ascertained that Hanssen was using a PDA to store his information; when he was able to obtain Hanssen's PDA briefly and have agents download and decode its encrypted contents, the FBI had its "smoking gun."[6][7][8]

Another FBI agent arrested for spying, Earl Edwin Pitts, said he thought that Hanssen was also a spy. Hanssen withdrew his name from consideration for a higher post with more money when he discovered that a lie detector test would be required, even though he was under serious financial pressure.

Transfer to Washington, D.C. and espionage activities

Hanssen was transferred to the Washington, D.C. office in 1981 and moved to the suburb of Vienna, Virginia. In 1985, he sold to the Soviets the names of three KGB agents in the United States secretly working for the FBI (Boris Yuzhin, Valery Martynov and Sergei Motorin). These three had already been revealed by another mole, CIA employee Aldrich Ames, and they were soon recalled to Russia. Because the FBI attributed the leak to Ames, the trail to Hanssen was diverted. He also revealed an expensive secret tunnel dug under the Soviet embassy for the purpose of eavesdropping. He compromised the investigation of Felix Bloch, a State Department official accused of working with the Soviets, by giving them a governmental contingency plan in case of a Soviet nuclear attack (this included plans for contacting various government officials and securing them in underground bunkers). Additionally, Hanssen handed over extensive information about MASINT including the methods the U.S. used to intercept Soviet transmissions.[9] On top of this, he wrote up lists of agents that the KGB had a strong chance of recruiting.[10] On two occasions, Hanssen gave the Soviets a list of all American double agents, false spies who were designed to pass the Soviets misinformation.

"Hanssen's biggest fear", according to a story in USA Today, was someone like him: "an agent on the Russian side with knowledge of Hanssen's spying who decided to work for the Americans. A former CIA counterintelligence expert, Vincent Cannistraro, suspects that this is what happened."[11] Hanssen took great pains to prevent his Soviet handlers from learning his identity. He used dead drops, aliases and many other methods to avoid having his identity revealed to the Soviets. The depth and breadth of the information that Hanssen passed would automatically raise suspicion that there was more than one person involved, but Hanssen's cautious practices assured that the Soviets knew of only one anonymous spy.

Hanssen is often portrayed as a mediocre agent, but in the words of David Major, one of his superiors at CI3, Hanssen was "diabolically brilliant".[12] He refused to use the dead drop sites that his handler, Victor Cherkashin, suggested and instead picked his own dead drop sites. He even designated a code to be used when dates were exchanged. A "6" was to be added to all dates (ex: June 6 at 1:00 pm would be December 12 at 7:00 pm).[13]

In an early letter to Cherkashin, he claims, "[a]s far as the funds are concerned, I have little need or utility for more than the 100,000".[14] Hanssen felt that his skills were underused and sought acceptance and appreciation from his peers which never materialized; therefore, he began to spy for the KGB which recognized his lack of friends and attempted to compensate. For example, his handlers would often make small talk with him.[15] Eventually, Hanssen's payments from his contacts in cash and gems would total more than $1.4 million.

Concurrent with the Hanssen investigation was a sensationalized investigation of a CIA employee (Brian Kelly) living in Vienna, Virginia and suspected of using dead drops along his jogging route through local parks. At the State Department there were two instances of espionage prior to Hanssen's posting there. One involved a microphone in a conference room; the other involved a man in a tweed jacket who walked off with documents and has never officially been identified. Hanssen's involvement in or response to these investigations remains unknown to the public.

Columnist Robert Novak wrote on July 12, 2001 that Hanssen had served as his main source for a 1997 column criticizing Janet Reno, then the United States Attorney General, for allegedly covering up aspects of the 1996 United States campaign finance controversy,[16] which involved allegations that the People's Republic of China attempted to influence U.S. elections by illegally donating money to the Democratic National Committee and President Clinton's campaign.

Hanssen was active as a spy during the espionage of Aldrich Ames at the CIA. Ames is responsible for the deaths of nine people, two of whom were killed after being confirmed by Hanssen.

Arrest and conviction

Federal authorities were aided by the opening of the KGB archives. In the archives at Yasenevo were found a taped phone conversation and a bag with Hanssen's fingerprints. The archives also contained the entire KGB file on Hanssen.[17]

Hanssen hired a lawyer namedPlato Cacheris. On May 10, 2002, in exchange for cooperating with authorities, he was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. His wife, along with their six children, received the survivor's part of Hanssen's pension, $39,000 per year. Hanssen is required to submit to a gag order with respect to public comments. Hanssen is currently serving his sentence at ADX Florence, a Supermax penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.[18]

Family life

According to USA Today, those who knew the Hanssens described them as a close family. They attended Mass weekly. Four of the children attended Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic School in Vienna, VA. Only two of the children remain at home.

A priest at the private school where Hanssen's children attended said that Hanssen had regularly attended a 6:30 a.m. daily mass for more than a decade.[19] Father C. John McCloskey III, said Hanssen occasionally attended the daily noontime mass at the Catholic Information Center in downtown Washington, D.C.[20]

However, there was a second side to Hanssen's private life. Unbeknownst to his wife, he secretly videotaped them in sexual acts and shared the videotapes with a friend. He also explicitly described their sex life on internet chat rooms, giving information sufficient for those who knew them to recognize the couple.[21]

Hanssen fraternized with a Washington D.C. stripper named Priscilla Sue Galey. The stripper went to Hong Kong with Hanssen on a trip; he gave her money, jewels and a used Mercedes but cut off contact with her prior to his arrest. Galey states the relationship was strictly platonic and that he was trying to help her get closer to God.[22]

Further reading

Citations

  1. ↑ U.S. Department of Justice, "A Review of FBI Security Programs", March 2002
  2. ↑ Adrian Havill, Court TV, Robert Philip Hanssen: The Spy who Stayed out in The Cold. Retrieved February 6, 2007.
  3. ↑ Monica Davey, the Chicago Tribune, Secret Passage, April 21, 2002. Retrieved February 6, 2007.
  4. ↑ Dolores Flaherty, Chicago Sun-Times, Hanssen, the spy with two faces, Nov 23, 2003. Retrieved February 6, 2007.
  5. ↑ CNN, An In-Depth Look At Opus Dei
  6. ↑ Fresh Air, Eric O'Neill and Billy Ray Discuss 'Breach', January 31, 2007.
  7. ↑ ABC, 20/20 Report on Eric O'Neill, Dec. 27, 2002. Retrieved January 31, 2007.
  8. ↑ CNN, CNN, Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, October 1, 2003. Retrieved January 31, 2007.
  9. ↑ Cherkashin, 246
  10. ↑ Vise
  11. ↑ Richard Willing and Traci Watson, USA Today, FBI portrays Robert Hanssen's double life, 02/21/2001. Retrieved February 15, 2007.
  12. ↑ Cherkashin, 230
  13. ↑ Cherkashin, 230
  14. ↑ Cherkashin, 236
  15. ↑ Vise
  16. ↑ Robert D. Novak, Townhall.com, The Hanssen Mystery, July 12, 2001. Retrieved February 15, 2007.
  17. ↑ Cherkashin, 251; Schiller, 260
  18. ↑ Laura Sullivan, National Public Radio, Timeline: Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons, July 26, 2006. Retrieved February 15, 2007.
  19. ↑ Shannon and Blackman, 86
  20. ↑ Wise, 88
  21. ↑ CNN, American Morning with Paula Zahn, Look at FBI Spy Robert Hannsen, January 8, 2002. Retrieved January 31, 2007.
  22. ↑ CNN Ex-stripper describes her time with accused spy. Retrieved December 11, 2006

Other references

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