2003
SPY BIOGRAPHIES
Robert Philip Hanssen Biography
Robert Hanssen, a senior FBI Special Agent with more
than 27 years of experience, was arrested by the
FBI in a Vienna, Virginia, park while loading a
"deaddrop" in February 2001. He provided the
Russians with more than 6,000 pages of valuable
documentary material, including dozens of highly
classified documents (many TOP SECRET and
codeword), and he compromised numerous human
sources and technical operations of extraordinary
importance and value. Hanssen was a volunteer
spy for the KGB (and subsequently, the SVRR)
from 1979 until his arrest. For his espionage,
Hanssen received more than $600,000 in cash and
diamonds. Hanssen's motivation was simply greed.
To date, he is the highest-ranking FBI Special
Agent to have committed espionage. If he
continues to cooperate with FBI investigators, he
will be sentenced to life imprisonment without
parole in January 2002. Hanssen may prove to be
the most damaging spy in US history.
George Von Trofimoff Biography
George Trofimoff, a 74-year-old retired US Army Reserve
Colonel and former US Army civilian director of the
Nuernberg Joint Interrogation Center (JIC), was arrested
14 June 2000 by the FBI in Tampa, Florida, for espionage
on behalf of the USSR. Trofimoff, a naturalized US citizen,
was born in Germany to Russian immigrant parents. He
became a US citizen in 1951, joined the US Army, and later
joined the US Army Reserve. In 1969, he began work at
the Nuernberg JIC and was subsequently recruited as a
KGB spy by Igor Susemihl, the former Russian Orthodox
Archbishop of Vienna, Austria, and Trofimoff's boyhood
friend. In 1992, Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist, defected
to Britain and provided sufficient information to identify
Trofimoff. German authorities arrested Trofimoff and
Susemihl in December 1994 but released them because of
the German five-year statute of limitations on espionage.
Trofimoff was paid more than $250,000 during his 25-year
spy career. On 28 September 2001 (the 50th anniversary
of his US naturalization), Trofimoff was sentenced to life in
prison without parole.
Aldrich Hazen Ames Biography
Aldrich Ames, a CIA intelligence officer, and his
Colombian-born wife, Rosario, were arrested on 21
February 1994 by the FBI and charged with providing
highly classified information to the Soviet KGB and its
successor organization, the Russian SVRR. Ames was
assigned to the CIA's Europe Division /
Counterintelligence branch where he was responsible
for directing the analysis of Soviet intelligence
operations. He had access to the identities of US
sources in the KGB and Soviet military. The information
Ames provided led to the compromise of at least 100
US intelligence operations and to the execution of at
least 10 US sources. The Soviets/Russians paid Ames
approximately $2.5 million, allowing Ames and his wife
to live a lifestyle beyond their means. Ames was
sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for
espionage. As a part of Ames's plea-bargain
agreement, Rosario was sentenced to five years and
three months for conspiracy to commit espionage and
tax evasion.
Jeffrey Martin Carney Biography
AFOSI Special Agents arrested Jeffrey Carney, a
former ASAF signals intelligence specialist, in
Berlin in April 1991. He pled guilty to espionage,
conspiracy, and desertion. Carney was
stationed in West Berlin from 1982 to 1984 and
volunteered to spy for the East German Ministry
for State Security (MfS), passing them highly
classified information. In 1984, he was assigned
to Goodfellow AFB, Texas as an instructor at a
USAF service school where he continued to spy
for the MfS. In 1985, Carney defected to East
Germany and assisted East German
intelligence by intercepting and translating
official telephone communications of US military
commands and US Embassy officials in Berlin.
Carney's motivation was disillusionment with the
USAF that, no doubt, was compounded by the
stress of being a homosexual in the military. He
was sentenced to 38 years at a general court-
martial in December 1991.
John Anthony Walker Biography
In May 1985, John Walker, a retired US Navy Warrant
Officer, was arrested for spying for the USSR. In
1968, Walker volunteered to commit espionage for
money, and he compromised classified
cryptographic materials and information from more
than a million classified documents. He spied for the
Soviets for 18 years and was paid millions of dollars.
At the time, the KGB considered the Walker case to
be the most important operation in its history. The
Soviets passed US tactical information received
through Walker to North Vietnam, aiding in the
defeat of US and South Vietnamese forces. John
Walker recruited his son, Michael; his brother, Arthur
Walker; and a friend, Jerry Whitworth. His former
wife informed the FBI of his activities, leading to the
arrests of all four spies. John Walker was sentenced
to two life terms plus 10 years to be served
concurrently, and Michael was sentenced to 25
years. Arthur Walker was convicted and sentenced
to life in prison. Jerry Whitworth was convicted and
sentenced to 365 years.
Harold James Nicholson Biography
Harold Nicholson was arrested by the FBI at Dulles International
Airport on 16 November 1996. He was carrying rolls of film
bearing images of TOP SECRET documents. Nicholson is the
highest ranking CIA officer charged with espionage to date.
During the period of his espionage, he passed a wide range
of highly classified information to Russia, including biographic
information on every CIA case officer trained between 1994
and 1996 and highly sensitive counterintelligence information
that included a summary report of interviews with Aldrich
Ames, another CIA employee who spied for the KGB. He also
compromised the identities of US and foreign business
people who provided information to the CIA. According to
investigators, he "hacked" into the CIA computer system and
provided the Russians with every secret that he could steal.
Nicholson received approximately $120,000 from the KGB.
On 3 March 1997, Nicholson pled guilty, admitting he had
been a Russian spy. On 6 June 1997, he was sentenced to
23 years and seven months, a much-reduced sentence
because of his cooperation with the investigators regarding
the material he had compromised.
Ronald William Pelton Biography
Ronald Pelton, a former communications specialist
employed by the National Security Agency for 14
years, was identified as a Soviet spy by KGB defector,
Vitaly Yurchenko. Pelton was arrested on 25
November 1985 in Annapolis, Maryland, by the FBI.
He admitted contacting the Soviets in 1980 -- a year
after he left NSA -- because he was having serious
financial difficulties. He walked into the Soviet
Embassy in Washington, DC, and agreed to sell
classified information. He later made several trips to
Vienna, Austria, where the KGB debriefed him. During
his employment with NSA, Pelton had access to a
wide variety of highly sensitive information. He
allegedly received $35,000 from the Soviets during the
period 1980-83 for providing information about highly
classified US intelligence collection projects targeting
the USSR. Pelton never passed a hardcopy document
to the KGB. His photographic memory made it possible
for him to reconstruct the information he provided. He
was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences.
Edward Lee Howard Biography
Edward Howard, a former CIA case officer, resigned
from the CIA in June 1983 after failing a polygraph
examination that indicated involvement in petty theft and
drug use. Howard was one of two Soviet spies inside US
intelligence identified by Soviet defector Vitaly
Yurchenko. Ronald Pelton, a former NSA employee was
the other. Before his polygraph, Howard had been slated
for assignment to Moscow to handle some of the CIA's
most sensitive operations. After his resignation and while
under FBI surveillance at his home in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, Howard (who had extensive training in
surveillance evasion techniques) eluded FBI surveillance
and fled the country. Howard met Soviet intelligence
officers in Austria in September 1984 and received
payment for classified information. He is reported to
have revealed to the KGB the identity of a valuable US
intelligence source in Moscow. Five US diplomats were
expelled from the USSR as persona non grata as a
result of information provided by Howard. On 7 August
1986, the Soviet news agency TASS announced that
Howard had been granted political asylum in the USSR.
Clyde Lee Conrad Biography
In August 1988, German Federal Police arrested Clyde
Conrad, a retired US Army NCO, on information provided
by US Army CI. He was charged with "high treason" for
providing classified material to the Hungarian and Czech
intelligence services. Conrad was recruited by Zoltan
Szabo -- an ethnic Hungarian, retired US Army Major, and
Hungarian spy. They recruited other US soldiers,
ultimately building one of the largest espionage rings
since World War II. Conrad's ring sold Hungary the NATO
and US war plans for the defense of Western Europe. The
information passed was so sensitive that it could have
cost NATO its ability to defend Western Europe from a
Warsaw Pact invasion. Conrad was convicted in a
German Federal Court and sentenced to life
imprisonment. He is the only person to receive a life
sentence for espionage in modern Germany. Conrad died
in prison in January 1999. Szabo was convicted of
espionage in an Austrian court but received limited prison
time. Ten others were subsequently arrested and
sentenced to prison or stopped from committing
espionage.
Earl Edwin Pitts Biography
Earl Pitts, a senior FBI Special Agent, was arrested
on 18 December 1996 at the FBI Academy in
Quantico, Virginia. He was charged with providing
classified information to the Soviet KGB -- and later
the Russian SVRR -- during the period 1987-92.
Pitts received more than $224,000 for his
espionage activities. He provided the Russians with
TOP SECRET documents, including a list of FBI
sources in Russia. Pitts became inactive in 1992
and was induced to reactivate via an FBI sting
operation. (His former KGB handler, Aleksandr
Karpov, became and FBI source and identified Pitts
as a former Russian spy.) Pitts was sentenced to
27 years for espionage in February 1997. When
asked why he spied for the KGB/SVRR, he cited
numerous grievances with the FBI and stated that,
he "...wanted to pay them back."
Jonathan J. Pollard Biography
Jonathan Pollard, an NCIS intelligence analyst, and his
wife, Anne, were arrested on 21 November 1985 outside
the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, after failing to
gain asylum. They were charged with espionage on behalf
of Israel. Pollard's suspicious activities led his coworkers
to report him, and NCIS and FBI Special Agents
questioned him on 15 November 1985. A search of
Pollard's home after his arrest revealed a suitcase full of
highly classified documents. Anne Pollard apparently
intended to sell classified documents on US analysis of
Chinese intelligence operations to the Peoples Republic of
China. On 4 March 1987, Jonathan Pollard was
sentenced to life imprisonment for espionage, and Anne
Pollard received a five-year sentence under a plea-
bargain agreement. Although Pollard claimed to have
been ideologically motivated to help Israel monetary
considerations were driving forces for his espionage.
James William Hall III Biography
James Hall, an Army Warrant Officer, was arrested on 21
December 1988 by Army CI Special Agents in Savannah,
Georgia, after bragging to an undercover FBI Special
Agent--posing as a Soviet intelligence office--that, for more
than six years, he had sold TOP SECRET intelligence to
East Germany and the USSR. Financial gain motivated his
espionage, and he stated to the undercover FBI Agent that,
"...I'm not anti-American. I wave the flag as much as
anybody else." Huseyin Yildirim, a Turkish national, was
the conduit between Hall and the East Germans. Yildirim
was arrested in Belleair, Florida, on 21 December 1988 by
FBI Special Agents. During the course of his espionage
career, Hall passed massive amounts of highly classified
data on signals intelligence to the Soviet Union and East
Germany. His espionage activity was exposed by a US
Army CI penetration of East German intelligence. Hall was
court-martialed, sentenced to 40 years imprisonment, fined
$50,000, and dishonorably discharged. Yildirim received
life imprisonment without parole.
Espionage
Does
Pay…
…and
Prison
is the Bank!!!
DON’T
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