Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America by David Wise Page A
Authors: David Wise
Ads: Link
about why he had come back from New York short of tour.
Jim Ohlson recalled the circumstances. “Normally he would have stayed longer and returned as a GS-15 at higher pay. But he came back as a GS-14, because he said he wanted his children to attend an Opus Dei school, the Heights. Of course, in retrospect, we can speculate he may also have wanted to be back at headquarters, where he had more valuable access for the Russians.”
Hanssen was reassigned to his old shop, the Soviet analytical unit on the fourth floor, again as a supervisory special agent. Now he was once more in charge of the team of analysts studying the modus operandi of Soviet intelligence agents in the United States.
The Hanssens bought their modest house in Vienna on Talisman Drive and settled in again to the familiar northern Virginia suburb. By now they had six children. To most of the neighbors, Hanssen seemed the perfect father, shepherding his flock to church every Sunday, keeping the lawn well trimmed.
And at headquarters, he resumed his friendship with Paul Moore, the bureau’s China expert. As an analyst, Moore understood how his colleagues in the Soviet unit went about their work. “They are looking for anomalies, possible penetrations. They have read all the defector debriefings. And they might see something and say, Well, this is strange,isn’t it? A typical thing would be it takes X amount of time to go from lieutenant to major in the KGB. Why was this one promoted early? Was anybody else promoted who worked in Washington at a certain time period? Maybe a bunch of secrets were passed to the KGB.
“It was the same with medals,” Moore explained. If the FBI learned that certain KGB officers had received medals, that could be another tip-off that someone was passing documents to Moscow; such awards were often given for the successful handling of an American source.
“The people in the analytical unit were specialized,” Moore added. “Some might look at Line X, the S&T officers, some specialized in illegals, and so on.” It was exacting work, and about to get more so.
Very soon after Hanssen’s return from New York, he was assigned to prepare a highly sensitive study, classified TOP SECRET . The FBI had lost its two assets in the Soviet embassy in Washington to the KGB executioners; the CIA’s sources in Moscow were being rolled up, imprisoned, or shot.
The situation was intolerable, and it gave Hanssen’s assignment a special urgency. He was to examine past penetrations of the FBI; he would carefully analyze every allegation about a possible traitor in the bureau ever recorded in the FBI’s voluminous counterintelligence files. * The goal was to help the bureau’s operational side pinpoint and arrest the mole, if one existed.
No more delicious assignment could have been handed to Hanssen. Since he controlled the mole study, he would make sure to deflect any analysis that might even remotely point in his own direction.
There was an enormous amount of material to sift through. Over a period of several years, Soviets recruited by U.S. intelligence, and defectors who came over to the West, often talked about gossip they had heard, or tidbits of information they possessed, that might point to the existence of a mole inside the FBI. Reviewing every report from every source containing such allegations would be a lengthy and painstaking task.
Hanssen assigned the research to the FBI’s two top Soviet analysts, Jim Milburn and Bob King. The two sat on each side of Hanssen, all in the same cubicle, as they prepared the study.
James P. Milburn was not a name known outside of the closed world of intelligence, but he enjoyed immense respect within the FBI for his knowledge of Soviet intelligence and his analytical skills. If the bureau had a complex problem involving the KGB, it would more often than not turn to Milburn.
Red-haired and freckled, powerfully built and about six feet tall, Milburn liked to play basketball on his lunch
Jim Ohlson recalled the circumstances. “Normally he would have stayed longer and returned as a GS-15 at higher pay. But he came back as a GS-14, because he said he wanted his children to attend an Opus Dei school, the Heights. Of course, in retrospect, we can speculate he may also have wanted to be back at headquarters, where he had more valuable access for the Russians.”
Hanssen was reassigned to his old shop, the Soviet analytical unit on the fourth floor, again as a supervisory special agent. Now he was once more in charge of the team of analysts studying the modus operandi of Soviet intelligence agents in the United States.
The Hanssens bought their modest house in Vienna on Talisman Drive and settled in again to the familiar northern Virginia suburb. By now they had six children. To most of the neighbors, Hanssen seemed the perfect father, shepherding his flock to church every Sunday, keeping the lawn well trimmed.
And at headquarters, he resumed his friendship with Paul Moore, the bureau’s China expert. As an analyst, Moore understood how his colleagues in the Soviet unit went about their work. “They are looking for anomalies, possible penetrations. They have read all the defector debriefings. And they might see something and say, Well, this is strange,isn’t it? A typical thing would be it takes X amount of time to go from lieutenant to major in the KGB. Why was this one promoted early? Was anybody else promoted who worked in Washington at a certain time period? Maybe a bunch of secrets were passed to the KGB.
“It was the same with medals,” Moore explained. If the FBI learned that certain KGB officers had received medals, that could be another tip-off that someone was passing documents to Moscow; such awards were often given for the successful handling of an American source.
“The people in the analytical unit were specialized,” Moore added. “Some might look at Line X, the S&T officers, some specialized in illegals, and so on.” It was exacting work, and about to get more so.
Very soon after Hanssen’s return from New York, he was assigned to prepare a highly sensitive study, classified TOP SECRET . The FBI had lost its two assets in the Soviet embassy in Washington to the KGB executioners; the CIA’s sources in Moscow were being rolled up, imprisoned, or shot.
The situation was intolerable, and it gave Hanssen’s assignment a special urgency. He was to examine past penetrations of the FBI; he would carefully analyze every allegation about a possible traitor in the bureau ever recorded in the FBI’s voluminous counterintelligence files. * The goal was to help the bureau’s operational side pinpoint and arrest the mole, if one existed.
No more delicious assignment could have been handed to Hanssen. Since he controlled the mole study, he would make sure to deflect any analysis that might even remotely point in his own direction.
There was an enormous amount of material to sift through. Over a period of several years, Soviets recruited by U.S. intelligence, and defectors who came over to the West, often talked about gossip they had heard, or tidbits of information they possessed, that might point to the existence of a mole inside the FBI. Reviewing every report from every source containing such allegations would be a lengthy and painstaking task.
Hanssen assigned the research to the FBI’s two top Soviet analysts, Jim Milburn and Bob King. The two sat on each side of Hanssen, all in the same cubicle, as they prepared the study.
James P. Milburn was not a name known outside of the closed world of intelligence, but he enjoyed immense respect within the FBI for his knowledge of Soviet intelligence and his analytical skills. If the bureau had a complex problem involving the KGB, it would more often than not turn to Milburn.
Red-haired and freckled, powerfully built and about six feet tall, Milburn liked to play basketball on his lunch
Similar Books
