BETRAYAL OF TRUST

	February 21, 2001
	Margaret Warner follows up on the Robert Hanssen espionage case with former CIA Director James Woolsey, espionage author David Wise, and former FBI counter-terrorism chief Robert Heibel.

MARGARET WARNER: For 15 years, FBI counterintelligence specialist Robert Hanssen eluded suspicion while selling U.S. Secrets to the Soviet Union and Russia. For more on how the alleged spy plied his trade and how he was ultimately caught, we turn to three experts in spy craft. James Woolsey was CIA Director in the early 1990s, when CIA Agent Aldrich Ames was arrested for spying. David Wise has written widely about espionage. His latest book is "Cassidy's Run: The Secret Spy War Over Nerve Gas." And Robert Heibel was the FBI's deputy chief of counter-terrorism in the mid-1980s, when Hanssen allegedly began spying for the Soviets. Welcome, gentlemen. Jim Woolsey, beginning with you -- we have now had the chance to read this 100-page affidavit. There are all these letters, in particular, that Hanssen allegedly wrote to the Soviets and they wrote back to him. What is the picture that emerges about his motivation? I mean, did he fit the typical profile? JAMES WOOLSEY: Very strange. During the Cold War the U.S. and the West really mainly lost agents, had spies recruited by the Soviets for money. It wasn't like the '30s and during World War II when there were a number of agents, Hiss and others, who worked for the Soviets on the basis of some kind of ideological commitment. This seems to be a sort of a strange in-between case. He took money. He seems motivated in part from what he writes by pride and arrogance in a sense, but he also says at one point that he decided to do this when he was 14 years old. He talks favorably about Filby; suggests that he read the book by Filby about the British spy who spied for the Soviets, and it's a strange potpourri of motivations. It's a little hard to pin him down. MARGARET WARNER: What jumped out at you, David Wise? DAVID WISE: $1,400,000, which the FBI says he was paid or was held in an escrow account in Moscow. MARGARET WARNER: Yet he indicates in the letter he only got $600,000, actually, and that he didn't really believe that $800,000 was really there. A couple of letters he says, we know that that is an accounting term. DAVID WISE: Take the money and run. Well, that is one reason he thinks that diamonds are a spy's best friends, according to the charges of the FBI, and there were diamonds involved as well. But, you know, I would agree with Jim Woolsey that the motives may have been a little bit mixed for example -- but I think the money is primary. But aside from that, he does talk, in some of the correspondence with the Russians, according to the documents that have been released about the thrill of the work. So, I think he is a man who liked the idea of living on the edge, the James Bond syndrome. And I think that was the case of some other recent spies. I think it was true of James... Harold James Nickelson, for example. JAMES WOOLSEY: James Bond working for Goldfinger. MARGARET WARNER: Robert Heibel, what jumped out at you? One thing I wanted to ask you about: He does express some disdain for his fellow FBI colleagues, but there doesn't seem to be great hatred for the United States or hatred for the system in these letters. ROBERT HEIBEL: It may well be a feeling that he has about the FBI. What jumps out at me about him is his ability to take the training that he has received in the FBI and be able to turn it on the FBI, so that he can avoid detection. And it's... it's very similar to having someone in the NewsHour who was working for another network, your competition, and being able to provide information on what your news plans are, what your five-year agenda is, profile the people in your organization. He was really a fox in a hen house, only he was in hen's clothing. MARGARET WARNER: Now you actually served in the New York field office-- not exactly when he did-- but did you know him? ROBERT HEIBEL: No, I did not know him. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Jim Woolsey, let's talk about how he dealt now with his handlers. As you pointed out, or indirectly you did, he wasn't recruited, he volunteered. JAMES WOOLSEY: He volunteered. According to the affidavit, they did not know... the Soviets - the Russians -- did not know who he was until he was caught. He was very professional. He did this for a living. He was a counterintelligence officer, so he knew the things to avoid. He didn't travel overseas to meet them. He wouldn't even meet them face-to-face in this country. He used entirely dead drops and very clever spy craft. Anyone who's interested in tradecraft ought to read this affidavit; it's very interesting. MARGARET WARNER: Did it strike you as plausible, though, that the Soviets wouldn't have wanted to know who he is? Couldn't they have just skulked back and tried to take a photograph of him when he came to pick up the money? JAMES WOOLSEY: They tried to get him to meet with them and meet overseas, and he kept rejecting it. They could have, I suppose, have done that, but if he had detected them, he might have stopped working for them and, furthermore, they might have been detected by some kind of counter surveillance. So they were willing because his initial offering was so devastating - two people -- two American agents, Soviets, lost their lives in part because of him and Ames. And one, a third was arrested and eventually released. His initial offering was so devastatingly effective that they knew they had something useful here so they humored him and did it the way he wanted. DAVID WISE: I think you have to ask why didn't he want his identity known? I think the answer to that is that every spy lives in horror that a defector will come out from the other side and identify that spy. And so if they knew his identity and what agency he worked for, it would be a lot easier to pinpoint who he was. MARGARET WARNER: And he really laid down these ground rules in the very first letter, didn't he? DAVID WISE: He was in control, yes. Yes. MARGARET WARNER: Bob Heibler, what would you add to that? ROBERT HEIBEL: I would add to that, that he knew at this time that the Bureau was having success recruiting people within the Soviet establishments. And I'm sure that he just did not... he knew what the problems would be and how the Bureau would react, and he was able to take advantage of his tradecraft, as Jim said.-and a very, very shrewd -- a very, very shrewd operation. MARGARET WARNER: David Wise, what about this sort of psychological profile? As I read some of the letters, by the end he sounded kind of needy. He would say, "well, you've ignored me and I've been loyal to you" - and " I hate silence." DAVID WISE: If we take the Aldrich Ames case as an example, Ames said flat out, "I changed sides." And once he made that decision to be loyal to another country, then psychologically what they felt about him was important. And the care and feeding of Aldrich Ames became very important to him because perhaps he didn't feel that the CIA was giving him the kind of recognition that he felt he deserved, but he looked to the Russians to give him that. And I think that if the charges are correct, it could be something of the same nature here. MARGARET WARNER: So why - go ahead, Mr. Heibel, you were trying to get in. ROBERT HEIBEL: I was just going to say in the case of Aldrich Ames, he had face-to-face contacts with the Soviets. In this case, Hanssen was working completely alone and isolated. There was no one he could talk to about this situation which, in view of his apparent ego, must been very, very frustrating for him. MARGARET WARNER: So, Jim Woolsey, the question is -- and you've all described how he used the skills of his trade - but still why was he never detected? When Aldrich Ames was arrested in '94, I gather you all in the intelligence community felt there probably still could well be another mole in the intelligence community. JAMES WOOLSEY: There was always such a suspicion that it was a possibility, and this is one of the things it looks like that my have borne that out. Ames... much of what was wrong with the CIA that let Ames spy so effectively for nine years was that things had been so decentralized in the aftermath of James Engleton holding everything together centrally until the mid 70's. All the CIA functions were decentralized, so the people who knew about Ames' drinking didn't know about his security violation, and those people didn't know about his house being bought for cash and so forth. One of the things we did right after that was pull things together more. It doesn't look like that was the problem here. It doesn't look like he did anything to give himself away. At least, there is nothing in the affidavit that would suggest that, so... MARGARET WARNER: But, Mr. Heibel, what about at the FBI? I've read that they don't give random polygraphs. Here was a guy who wasn't looking into bank robberies... I mean, his expertise was counterintelligence and dealing with the Russians and Soviets. Is there just no kind of spot checking of say his computer traffic when he is checking his own name through the system any or any of these little signs that it looks like maybe there were? ROBERT HEIBEL: If I'm an FBI supervisor handling foreign counterintelligence and I had a young man like this come on squad, I would be ecstatic. He studied Russian in college. He was conscientious, and a family man, no apparent weakness. He was very much interested in computers and technology. He would have been an ideal candidate for foreign counterintelligence fraud. As far as detecting irregularities, a supervisor would look for traditional-- the money problems, the family problems, a womanizer. But Stan just did not show those traits. And he didn't know the traits because he knew those traits were traits that would give him away. MARGARET WARNER: So, David Wise, he is finally caught only because somehow the authorities come in possession of this treasure trove, this whole dossier, ostensibly from a U.S. Russian source. Is that what it looks like to you? DAVID WISE: Well, that is what the FBI Is saying, what Director Freeh said yesterday, that they got some very important assistance from a source, which, of course, is the last thing that they are prepared to reveal right now. It is important to note that according to the affidavit, some of the correspondence with the KGB and its successor agency was found in his computer on the disks that the FBI found. And... but a lot of the material apparently would have had to have come from a Russian source. I would suspect a defector, but that is only speculation. MARGARET WARNER: So is the unfortunate or the unpleasant lesson of this, though, Jim Woolsey, that -- unless you've got... I mean, if they have never gotten this source… all these documents, he would still be out there doing what he was doing? JAMES WOOLSEY: Well, we don't know how they got it. Let's hope they stole it. I think that would be wonderful if they stole it from some Russian; if they did, however they did it, it's been a very effective way to catch this fellow. But you have to have some kind of a break. You have to have a defector or something like that if someone is being as careful as this fellow was. There is one other point, Margaret. There are tens of thousands of retired FBI agents and people on FBI -- people out there now -- and I know how badly we felt at the CIA when Ames was caught. And I think it's important to say that this should not tar the reputation of the FBI. It is a fine institution. They do a phenomenal job. And this is -- every organization, including the CIA and the FBI, Is going to have somebody like this come along once in a while, and he shouldn't be considered by anyone as emblematic of the Bureau. MARGARET WARNER: All right. ROBERT HEIBEL: Margaret. MARGARET WARNER: Just very briefly. We are actually out of time, but, yes. ROBERT HEIBEL: One observation on this is that the success that the FBI had in... once they had the information that identified him and being able to go out and successfully operate against him, in spite of all his skills, is a real compliment to the FBI staff, particularly the young agents that operate in the Washington field office. JAMES WOOLSEY: And maybe other agencies. MARGARET WARNER: Gentlemen, we have to leave it there, but thank you all three very much.