The Shocking Story of Top FBI Agent Who Sold U.S. Secrets to Soviets for 22 Years
Robert Hanssen’s treachery was the largest security breach in FBI history.
How good of a neighbor was Robert Hanssen? Perfect one. Being a devout Roman Catholic and a dedicated employee of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), Hanssen, a 56 year-old-man, did not give anyone an air of his conspiracies.
Robert Hanssen was “Ramon Garcia” for KGB, whom he served faithfully as a longest-serving informant, leaking information related to US computer systems and security.
He was ultimately caught, but the damage was done — countless exchange of secrets. Robert Hanssen accumulated millions and diamonds, costing the FBI $7 million damage with the lives of three informants. Let’s dig into the life of the spy who did the most damage to the FBI in its entire history.
Who was Robert Hanssen?
The FBI was not Hanssen’s initial destination, but life crafted this path for him. Getting bullied by his father from childhood till college, Hanssen was drilled to develop a passion for studies. But he remained uninterested.
His family wanted him to become a doctor, but Hansssen could only get a chemistry degree in 1966. The boy was interested in gadgets and codes.
Realizing his technical interest, Robert enrolled himself in a few classes at Knox College, 200 miles away from his Chicago home.
He took a Russian language class intending to catch Soviet spies in future. While catering to his love for mechanical things, Robert also respected his father’s wish for medicine and attended a dental school for a short time. But soon switched to business after three years
With an MBA degree, he worked as an accountant for a few years and then applied to the Chicago Police Department in 1972.
The Department warmly invited the man and accepted him to an undercover investigator for the internal affairs. The work piqued his interest, but not for long.
Robert’s Unlikely Path To The FBI
In 1975, he applied to the FBI and heard back with acceptance — little did the department know what trouble and shame the very decision could cost them,
After having been through the weeks of training in Quantico, Virginia, Hanssen got a position as a special agent — the time when he pledged all loyalty to be with the US.
As a policy of routine rotation and that too without additional monetary compensations, the FBI transferred Hanssen along with his three children to New York City in 1979.
No compensation for living in the Big City led Hanssen to face increasing credit card bills, debts and mortgage payments. The financial crisis ultimately forced him to send his family away from Manhattan.
The working hours got long, and his responsibility also increased — the only thing stagnant remained was his low pay. But he didn’t complain and just endured.
The FBI further transferred him to counterintelligence, exposing him to the most sensitive information regarding US espionage.
Hanssen could access not only the secret documents but every detail relating to the surveillance operation which targeted Soviet citizens coupled with their officials.
Hanssen had accurate information about who was watched, approached and followed. Overwhelmed with the sea of information, Hanssen began contriving a plan — an evil one.
Robert Sold himself to the Soviets
Sunk in financial crises, the guy needed a safe boat. He wrote an anonymous letter to jump out of money troubles, sending it to a minor Soviet official at the UN.
In exchange for $20,000, he offered a high ranking mole, General Dmitri Polyakov of the USSR’s foreign military intelligence agency. Hanssen also detailed the process of the swap.
He instructed that if the Soviet agreed with the clause, the deal would be carried through a personal ad in the village voice.
Interestingly enough, after a few weeks, the ad was answered, making Hanssen an official employee of the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, the FBI promoted Hanssen, reassigning him to the FBI’s neve centre — Washington, D.C. Getting a chance to work in the budget office in D.C got Hansssen even wider access to his top-secret information. He had the details of every active operation from funding to names, location to dates and spies to informants.
Beginning of Robert’s official career as a spy
With the money he had accumulated, nearly $150,000, Hanssen could only buy a house in Vienna, Virginia. After the house investment, he again faced hard times in making ends meet.
Thus on Oct 1, 1985, Hanssen inked another letter but this time to the senior KGB counterintelligence officer named Victor Cherkashin.
The twist: the KGB officer had already hired a CIA agent, Aldrich Ames, months earlier to extract the information they needed.
Having no air about such a contract, Hanssen in the letter demanded $100,000 in exchange for the names of three Soviet moles on the FBI’s payroll.
Soviet, despite obtaining the names from the CIA agent, played it all cool and leaned in with Hanssen demand, taking another reliable source under their wing. The three moles returned to Moscow, where they were soon executed.
The official career of Hanssen began when he received the $100000 in a watertight bag under the bridge in Nottoway Park in Vienna, Virginia.
Selling several secrets to Cherkashin earned Robert thousands of dollars.
Robert got a dream role in the FBI
As far as his official job in the FBI was concerned, they tasked him to recruit potential moles and sniff out the spies.
Interestingly enough, the most ironic task in history was assigned to him: FBI wanted him to find the hole which he and Aldrich Ames dug.
Robert was in charge of tracking down the person who was leaking the information to US counterintelligence.
What could be better for him than this? Taking action promptly, Robert formed mole-hunting teams to divert attention from himself.
Robert selling further information
Interestingly, Hanssen told KGB also about the secret tunnel underneath the soviet embassy in Washington. He also warned the Soviet when their spies were under suspicion in exchange for the extensive list of double agents working for the USA.
Deeming Soviet to be the golden egg, Robert also requested KGB for his childhood friend’s recruit, a lieutenant colonel in Army intelligence.
The Soviet Union collapsed: Catching of the mole
With money comes luxury. Having over millions of dollars, Hanssen got a chance to enjoy a platonic relationship with a DC stripper.
He not only took Hawaii trips with her but also showered her with gifts. A fast, luxurious lifestyle came to an end when in December 1991, the soviet union collapsed.
Aldrich Ames got arrested in 1994. The FBI and the CIA now had to crack down on the final suspect.
They took the route of pulling information from the former KGB agent Aleksandr Shcherbakov who had detached himself from such work and gone into private business. He was more than happy to share information for $7 million.
Solving the puzzling riddle of the final mole, Shcherbakov handed over a laden file with information about Hanssen, implying him as a mole.
FBI’s unusual course of action
Instead of running after Hanssen, the FBI, in 2000, promoted him, offering him additional perks of a private office with a personal assistant.
Poor Hanssen did not know that he was being watched — promotion was just an excuse.
Hanssen’s assistant, Eric O’Neill, was planted to accumulate strong evidence against him, which would suffice in proving him guilty of the accusation.
Noticing Hanssen used a Palm III personal computer for storing information, O’Neill, on Feb. 15, 2001, took the computer from the office, handing it over to the specialist for decoding the contents — a source which provided the definite evidence fo Hanssen’s betrayal.
All the while, Hanssen had hints that the FBI was onto him. His concerns surfaced in a letter to his Russian contacts; he wrote, “Something has aroused the sleeping tiger.”
Despite doubting that he was in danger, the guy didn’t stop. On Feb. 18, 2001, he passed by Vienna’s Foxstone Park for picking up the money package. Upon approaching his car with the money in his hands, the two vans, laden with armed agents, zoomed in.
Interestingly, all Hanssen said was, “What took you so long?”
His punishment?
Hanssen was charged with 14 espionage counts and faced the death penalty because he was responsible for the execution of the Soviet informants for the US.
The guy was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences. He is serving at the Supermax federal prison near Florence, Colorado, where he is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. Robert Hanssen’s is known today as a Prisoner #48551–0830 — a title he chose for himself.
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References:
https://www.history.com/news/robert-hanssen-american-traitor