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FBI arrests double agent
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IN the words of a former US law enforcement official, the damage of the arrested FBI spy Robert Philip Hanssen to US national security could rival the case of Aldrich Ames, the former CIA officer unmasked as a Russian spy in 1994. “This ranks with some of our worst intelligence losses in our history,” he said. “Rick Ames is still No 1, probably, but this guy is a not-far-off No 2.”
Hanssen, a US counter-intelligence expert, was charged on Tuesday with betraying Soviet double agents and of selling secrets to Moscow.
Hanssen was arrested on Sunday after FBI agents watched him drop off a package of classified information at a park near his northern Virginia home, which was to be picked up by his Russian handlers.
FBI director Louis Freeh said Hanssen, a 25-year FBI veteran, had access to some of the "most sensitive and highly classified information" in the US Government.
Hanssen, 56, who has six children, was alleged to have been paid US$1.4 million by the Russians in cash and diamonds. Prosecutors said he could face a possible death sentence for each of two formal charges laid against him.
Formal charges filed against him at a federal court in Arlington, Virginia on Tuesday related to two incidents toward the end of the Cold War.
One claimed Hanssen made available classified documents to the KGB in March, 1989 and the other said that in October 1985 he betrayed three Russian KGB agents who were also working for the United States.
Freeh said Hanssen's spying continued until his arrest on Sunday with a break in the 1990s. "The criminal conduct alleged represents the most traitorous actions imaginable against a country governed by the rule of law," Freeh said.
No full damage assessment had yet been made, to avoid jeopardizing the investigation, Freeh said, but added: "We believe it was exceptionally grave."
Shocked and surprise
Agents who arrested him said he seemed "shocked and surprised" when he was caught because he thought he had been so careful, Freeh said.
He said Hanssen independently disclosed the identity of two KGB officials who, first compromised by convicted CIA spy Aldrich Ames, had been recruited by the US Government at the Soviet embassy in Washington.
"When these two KGB officials returned to Moscow, they were tried and convicted on espionage charges and executed," Freeh said.
President George W. Bush said he was deeply disturbed by what he described as "extremely serious" allegations.
On a visit to St Louis, Bush said: "This has been a difficult day for those who love our country and especially for those who serve our country in law enforcement and the intelligence community."
Freeh, who said he was "saddened and outraged" by the case, praised his staff for tracking down Hanssen. He announced that former CIA and FBI Director William Webster would conduct a full review to see where security had been breached.
Freeh said an internal FBI investigation began late last year after an internal intelligence audit revealed the presence of a mole in the agency. The United States then secretly obtained Russian documents that led them to suspect Hanssen.
Hanssen's most recent job has been working out of FBI headquarters in Washington. His previous posts included performing surveillance on Russian government missions to the United States.
He was also assigned to helping the State Department resolve a string of recent security problems, including the discovery of a listening device in a conference room that was monitored by a Russian agent in his car nearby.
Freeh said the complaint against Hanssen did not allege any compromises by him at the State Department. The FBI veteran had, in fact, complained of "lost opportunities" to alert his Russian handlers that the FBI found the listening device.
Hanssen is the third FBI agent in history to be arrested on charges of spying for the Russians. The others were Richard Miller, in the mid-1980s, and Earl Pitts, a lawyer who was convicted in the late 1990s.
Silent and solemn
At his arraignment in federal court, Hanssen, dressed in a black turtle neck, black shirt and gray slacks and looking weary, was silent and solemn as the two charges were read out.
Defense lawyer Plato Cacheris said he planned at this stage to plead not guilty, adding that his client was "emotional" and quite "upset" by the case against him.
Impact
Russian officials shrugged off on Wednesday the arrest in the United States of an FBI officer suspected of spying for Moscow.
A spokesman for Russia's FSB intelligence service, Boris Labusov, said on television: "We never comment on whether any specific person has or has no relation to Russian special services."
Most analysts agreed that the affair -- coinciding with the arrest of a suspected Russian spy in Sweden -- was unlikely to greatly shake the Russian intelligence community.
But they were divided on whether the arrest could damage US-Russian relations as President George W Bush settles into the White House and considers his policy on Russia.
Some said the latest spy scandal could contribute to Washington's distrust of Russia, triggering long-term problems in bilateral relations.
But another respected analyst, Andrei Piontkovsky, head of the Centre for Strategic Studies think tank, doubted the Hanssen scandal would have long-lasting implications.
"This is not the first and the last spy scandal," he said. "It can hardly undermine Russian-US co-operation focused on far more serious issues."
Key US-Russian spy incidents
THE arrest of Robert Hanssen as an alleged Russian spy is one of the most serious espionage incidents in the United States in the decade since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 after the end of the Cold War.
Here are some key US-Russian spy incidents in that time:
December 6, 2000 - Moscow court sentences retired US navy intelligence officer Edmond Pope to 20 years for spying. Pope and alleged Russian accomplice were arrested on April 5. He is later pardoned and released.
June 26, 2000 - Russia's FSB domestic security service says it detained a Russian of Lithuanian citizenship on charges he spied for the United States.
June 14, 2000 - The United States arrests retired Army Colonel George Trofimoff in Florida, highest ranking military officer charged with spying.
December 8, 1999 - US orders expulsion of Russian diplomat, saying he was monitoring listening device at State Department.
November 30, 1999 - Russian security says second secretary in political section of the US embassy was caught spying.
November 29, 1999 - US military officials charge US Navy code breaker Daniel King with selling data to Moscow.
November 18, 1999 - Russia's FSB domestic security service charges Igor Sutyagin, nuclear specialist at Moscow's USA and Canada Institute, with high treason, which covers spying.
July 1999 - Russia expels US diplomat amid hints of spying. Newspaper reports US ambassador asked Russians to quietly cut back their spying efforts in the United States. Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin admits he discussed spying allegations at a meeting with US Vice-President Al Gore.
October 1998 - Retired US army intelligence analyst David Sheldon Boone arrested at a Washington hotel and charged with selling secrets to Moscow after FBI sting.
March 1998 - Russian military court jails former major in the Strategic Nuclear Forces for passing secrets to the United States.
November-December 1997 - American technician Richard Bliss held for a month on spying charges. Bliss works for US firm using a satellite system to install mobile telephone equipment in the Russian town Rostov-on-Don.
December 1996 - FBI arrests its own agent, Earl Pitts, for selling national security secrets to Russia since 1987 for more than US$224,000. He received 27 years in jail.
November 1996 - The FBI arrests veteran CIA officer Harold Nicholson on charges of spying for Russia. He received a 23-year jail sentence.
February 1994 - Aldrich Ames, 52, a CIA employee for more than 31 years, and his wife were charged with spying for the Soviet Union until its demise and then for Russia.(Agencies via Xinhua)
Robert Philip Hanssen
FRIENDS and colleagues, who depicted Hanssen as a smart and religious family man, were shocked on Tuesday when he was charged with spying for the Soviets and then the Russians since 1985.
To the outside world, Hanssen, 56, gave the appearance of living the normal life of a father of six. He gave no outward signs of new-found wealth, took his family to church on Sundays, walked the dog and worked in his yard in the Virginia suburbs of Washington.
Author and intelligence consultant Abram Shulsky said Hanssen appeared to have some "adolescent rebelliousness" in him rather than a lust to make huge amounts of money.
"Obviously the glamour and excitement played to him but that attraction of being superior to everyone else around you seemed to play a part ..."
One of Hanssen's former FBI supervisors, David Major, said he did not believe money was the prime motivator, adding that his former colleague was obsessed by ideas, his wife Bonnie and their children rather than material wealth. He was known as The Mortician to fellow FBI men because of his dour manner.
"Maybe he was intrigued with the game and not the gain," suggested Major.
Like most of Hanssen's colleagues, Major said he was shocked by the news, adding that if he had been asked to make a list of 1,000 suspected spies, Hanssen would not have featured on it.(SD-Agencies)
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