The Man Who Admired Kim Philby

"When authorities arrested Robert Hanssen, the FBI’s most high profile double agent had just one question for his colleagues: 'What took you so long'?"

"Hanssen, who was found dead this week in his cell in a Colorado supermax prison, was serving a life sentence, found guilty of spying for Moscow compensated to the tune of over $1.4M for over two decades."

"Hanssen’s case was dubbed 'possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history' in a government report. He compromised over 50 FBI human sources (including several later executed), handed over thousands of classified documents and revealed top secret intelligence-gathering techniques as well as the US strategy for responding to nuclear conflict."

"Hanssen was a suburban father and ostensible patriot, who drove his six children around in old cars and was devoted to Opus Dei, a conservative movement within the Catholic Church."

Financial Times

"On February 18, 2001, Hanssen was arrested and charged with committing espionage on behalf of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Hanssen—using the alias 'Ramon Garcia' with his Russian handlers—had provided highly classified national security information to the Russians in exchange for more than $1.4 million in cash, bank funds, and diamonds."
"Hanssen’s espionage activities began in 1985. Since he held key counterintelligence positions, he had authorized access to classified information. He used encrypted communications, 'dead drops', and other clandestine methods to provide information to the KGB and its successor agency, the SVR. The information he delivered compromised numerous human sources, counterintelligence techniques, investigations, dozens of classified U.S. government documents, and technical operations of extraordinary importance and value."

Federal Bureau of Investigation website

FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen may not have set out to betray  his country to a belligerent adversary, but it's certainly what he ended up doing. He became one of the most notorious spies linked with the FBI, reportedly inspired while a teen by Kim Philby, the infamous British intelligence officer who was revealed as a Russian double agent. Robert Hanssen had quite the career with the FBI, given trusted access to secret files which he chose to sell to Russia.

 

His work as a double agent for Moscow was without peer, undetected for 22 years. Divulging details respecting the American government's planned response to a nuclear attack and revealing the presence of a multimillion-dollar eavesdropping tunnel built by the FBI under the Soviet Embassy in Washington. For his troubles he earned a total of $1.4 million dollars. 

 

He evidently suffered no crisis of conscience by identifying KGB double-agents Valery Martynov and Sergei Motorin, both lured back to Moscow where they went on trial on charges of espionage and subsequently punished by being shot in the head. Aldrich Ames, another American mole, had also revealed their names to the Russians. General Dmitri Polyakov, a CIA informant who passed information to American intelligence since the early 1960s while rising to achieve the rank of Soviet army general, was betrayed by Hanssen as well.

 

The general was posted back to Moscow and sentenced to death in 1988 for treason. Hanssen's career as a double agent began in 1979, three years after joining the FBI, no doubt viewed as having special skills since he had studied Russian language at university. His wife, Bonnie Hanssen, made the discovery of his dealings with Russia, and he convinced her he was providing them with false information. In October 1985 he sent a letter to Viktor Cherkashin, then chief counterspy at the Soviet embassy, that he would provide classified information for $100,000.

 

With the use of aliases, he left 'Dead drops' for his handlers in suburban Virginia areas, refusing to meet Moscow agents face-to-face. Following the 1994 arrest of Aldrich Ames, a CIA agent spying for Russia, classified information continued to be leaked, leading the bureau to the realization there was another spy in their midst. Two decades later, a Russian intelligence officer gave the FBI a fingerprint left by Hanssen on one of the dropped garbage bags containing a tape recording of a call with an agent.

Hanssen was given an obscure FBI assignment with a small team working undercover to monitor him with a view to gathering evidence, in 2000. There were reportedly 300 agents working on the case, at the time of his arrest. When asked what had lead him to this double career, he responded it was "fear of being a failure and fear of not being able to provide for my family". Added to which he laid blame on the lax security of the FBI, amounting to "criminal negligence". 

Indicted on May 15, 2001, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage, to enable him to avoid he death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2002, without parole. The devout Catholic, father of six, frequented strip clubs. He secretly filmed pornographic videos of his wife. A respected member of his civilian community, anti-Communist, he found it in himself to betray his country, his family, his Church. Hanssen, now 79, was found Monday unresponsive, at a maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado his journey in life over.

"He really wanted to catch spies. He was a James Bond fanatic, loved the movies. He could quote them chapter and verse. He wanted to be a spy. He was joining the FBI to do that — not to spy against the U.S., but to go in and hunt spies."

"He truly didn't respect Russia very much, at least not in his conversations with me. But he was able to use them very effectively to solve his other problems. One that he was angry at the FBI for not placing him in the position of authority and gravitas and respect that he believed he deserved. And two, he needed money. He was financially having problems and he needed money and you solve both those problems by becoming a spy." 

"At some point, spying and being the top spy for the Soviet Union, while within the FBI, became the thing that made him belong to something much bigger than himself. I think that at some point, even more than the money that became what was so important to him." 

Eric O'Neill, undercover FBI agent