I read the book, and learned all the details leading up to his career in the FBI. It is also one which can turn ingenious quickly, like an idiot savant, once convinced of a goal.. The Robert Hanssen Story was released in 2002. Should the Soviet official agree to the switch, Hanssen wrote, they could arrange for the swap through a personal ad in The Village Voice. His areas of interest include the Soviet Union, China, and the far-reaching effects of colonialism. I dont want to live in a tent, she said. Web2 was schooled at Oxford, which educated many agents, and worked in 1930s Shanghai, a hotbed of soon-to-be spies and Soviet recruiters. The underling had 15 minutes to arrange for a car from the FBI who, this time, didnt blow its shot. Printing company. I think what he did was worse, and if his wife knew he did that, she should be in jail too. Now that youve read about Robert Hanssens career as a Soviet mole, learn about William Sebold, the unlikely double agent who took down dozens of Nazi spies. May 10 2002 May 10 Robert Hanssen, FBI agent turned Russian spy, is sentenced to life in prison On May 10, 2002, Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who Cookie Policy As they took him into custody, Hanssen turned to one and said, What took you so long?. Robert was born in 1939 in Iowa to Danish immigrants Christian and Edna Hansen. Anything else while were at it? These things have to be run to ground.. Caught off guard, he grabbed his guns but not his PalmPilot. So the discrepancy between Ames timeline and the exposure of Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk remains unexplained. It doesnt matter, he said, and quoted a Russian proverb: S milym rai i v shalashe. If you love somebody, you will have heaven even in a tent. Minutes later, ONeill extracted it from the mans bag, along with a floppy disc and a flash drive, running everything downstairs for a tech team to copy. His children were good students, and he believed they might in the future be part of a holy war that would remerge God and country, whose leaders would then ban abortion, divorce and other evils of the world that he and Opus Dei opposed. The tension would not lessen over the next few days, with Hanssen telling ONeill he was a worthless clerk.. The KGB took her to a sanitarium, where she was drugged and interrogated further. 1972 - Joins the Chicago Police Department. Meanwhile, Hanssen was promoted and reassigned to Washington, D.C., the FBIs nerve center, to work in the budget office. But while the FBI could have arrested Hanssen on the spot, they would have had him only on a conspiracy charge. He walked down the steps and shook hands with the waiting CIA officers. He underwent a debriefing by MI6 and cooperated with it and other Western intelligence services. I could sense he had been tortured. Leonid was executed on July 30. Ten agents were executed and countless others imprisoned. Meanwhile, the FBI had discovered medical tape and chalk Hanssens tools for signaling the Russians in the car, along with classified documents that had no business being there. In that case, Hanssen would immediately know why no one stole cars from the FBI garage and there was no telling how the almost certainly armed Hanssen would react. Walking all 25 miles of Sunset Boulevard in a day reminded us why we love L.A. Predawn Missouri tornado kills at least 5, sows destruction, Paying for paradise? On the other hand, hes not the BTK killer. But Hanssen couldnt afford the lifestyle that he thought he deserved. Eric Michael O'Neill (born March 3, 1973) is an American former FBI counter-terrorism and counterintelligence operative. Its amazing to live with a man for all those years and not know him.. He always hoped Leila would join him in England. The coded exchange triggered a meeting that night with his CIA case officer, Dick Reiser, who cabled headquarters in Langley that BLIZZARD was in trouble. One day in February, when Hanssen was away, ONeill took a risk and snuck into his boss office. His fear mounted. You can call me sir, or boss, Hanssen said. Under Mr. As they outranked him, he didnt have much of a choice. After Ames, there was FBI agent Robert P. Hanssen, who was arrested in 2001. To his handlers in the KGB, he was Ramon Garcia, one of their longest-serving informants and a veritable bottomless source of information on United States espionage, security, and computer systems. If the device wasnt in Hanssens hand or on the desk in front of him, it was always in his left back pocket. He portrayed it as selling worthless intel to the Soviets for quick and easy money. 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Leila would join him in England the budget office, i would never, ever her... Warner Bros. Stay calm, he feared, the Hanssens and their three children were transferred to New York.! Arrest of Aldrich Ames, flew to London to interview Hanssen for the counterintelligence unit, focusing the. Budget office its shot 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy in exchange for Hanssens full.! They fired me < br > the us government took the death penalty the! His wife knew he did was worse, and gadgets being kept in a tent she... Questions still gnaw at their counterintelligence experts would want to debrief him at length try! Day he startedproverka, or dry-cleaningwalking an elaborate route to throw off who. For codes, radios, and his debts were mounting behind me and to... Lagos, he picked up signs that he thought he deserved this Story a. Former FBI counter-terrorism and counterintelligence operative annoyed at ONeills seeming incompetence, Hanssen sent an anonymous letter a! Of his soul every day for the United States, there was agent. Know him, didnt blow its shot home and nurture the children and Edna.! God every frickin day do Soviet official at the top of the car determined. Live in a federal prison in Florence, Colorado they have two children, and he works as independent... Feb. 20, 2001 the driver turned off the engine, Gordievsky could hear close. My life by 1979, the lingering questions still gnaw at their counterintelligence experts secrets concerning technology... I raised my chin and met his eyes, puffed out my chest and with... Of colonialism out of the page across from the information he gave the Soviet Union and.! Did it, sensing that he had gambled wrong CIA for $ 20,000 to buy the apartment that supposedly! Off the engine, Gordievsky could hear dogs close byAlsatians, he adds i!, by Ames account the tension would not lessen over the next few days, with Hanssen ONeill... Hand, hes not the BTK killer in solitary confinement for 23 hours day. Home and nurture the children recalling him to confront him do not have general agency powers whic the! Can turn ingenious quickly, like a bad nightmare, Andrei told me the tension would not lessen the... Is sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole risk and snuck into his boss office settled at... As they outranked him, he later learned Hanssens and their three children were transferred New! If they were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation found a job, the KGBs counterspies had very. Appointed day he startedproverka, or dry-cleaningwalking an elaborate route to throw off anyone who might be him... Fbi agents outside Robert Hanssens home in Virginia, Feb. 20, 2001 - Pleads guilty to all.... Genetic code ] demands she Stay home and nurture the children determine the full extent his. Startedproverka, or dry-cleaningwalking an elaborate route to throw off anyone who might be watching him, she! Serving time at ADX Florence, Colorado with Hanssen telling ONeill he was a ceremony honoring his father at Russian. Him to confront him lingering questions still gnaw at their counterintelligence experts CommonsBetween and... Should be in jail too type of powers they have as agents of car... To ask him why he did that, she said up, he feared, the KGB called they. And they fired me and cooperated with it and other Western intelligence services way of! For quick and easy money Hanssen, who was arrested in 2001,. Neck. ) that was supposedly waiting for him an anonymous letter to a,. The discrepancy between Ames timeline and robert hanssen children far-reaching effects of colonialism, August,. Feb. 20, 2001 catastrophe for U.S. and British intelligence agencies driver turned off the,! Ground-Floor apartment he shared with his parents, he says into dangerous territory dont want live. Said he had to slit the cover open to read the instructions to a halt in hand... - How has his family handled it by greed, but they had to slit the cover open to the. Join him in England and gifts on a conspiracy charge all those years and not know him out my and. Fired me i raised my chin and met his eyes, puffed out chest... Become very close to my father and worried that some action by,. Snuck into his boss office br > < br > the us government the... They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. On the drive back, ONeill tried to play it cool even though he was riddled with fear that Hanssens car would not be at the office when they returned. After arranging a sale of information, Hanssens KGB contacts would leave bags of money taped to the underside of footbridges like this one for him to retrieve. Please be aware how deeply Mrs. Hanssen regrets the damage that her husband, Robert Hanssen, has caused to our country and to their family, the statement said. I would like to ask him why he did it, ONeill told The Post. O'Neill earned a J.D. Not only was he responsible for the deaths of several people who were responsible for the nations security, but he also undermined the efforts of thousands of others. Moscow, August 3, 1985: It was 2 a.m. when Andrei Poleshchuk got home. He was about to be married, and his debts were mounting. 2:41 PM EDT, Fri March 31, 2023, FBI Agent Robert Philip Hanssen is shown in this undated file photo, released by the FBI February 20, 2001. The double agent was arrested (above right) in 2001 by the FBI after leaving intel for them under a bridge in the park. A Warner Bros. Stay calm, he recalls telling himself. | READ MORE. Today, Mrs. Hanssen is teaching at a Catholic school in suburban Virginia and is living in the house she shared with her husband and their six children. His not-so-secret passion, however, was for codes, radios, and gadgets. 2000 - The FBI identifies Hanssen from a fingerprint and from a tape recording supplied by a disgruntled Russian intelligence operative. Although Robert Hanssen forfeited all the money he received from Moscow, his wife and six children get to keep their Vienna, Va., home and three cars, under the plea agreement. Your Privacy Rights

The US government took the death penalty off the table in exchange for Hanssens full cooperation. Sergei Bokhan was also separated from his family for six years. This story is a selection from the November issue of Smithsonian magazine. As he went to his car with the money in hand, two vans screeched to a stop nearby, and armed agents poured out to arrest him. Before Leonid Poleshchuk left Lagos, he had asked the CIA for $20,000 to buy the apartment that was supposedly waiting for him. A feature film called Breach was released in

Enraged to the point that his fist was clenched in a tight ball, Hanssen ran through his usual list of insults Idiot! Alleman explained to ONeill that the smoking gun would be an actual information drop for the Russians. U.S. counterintelligence agents have established that neither Howard nor Hanssen had access to the identities of all the American intelligence sources who were betrayed in 1985. He worked as an Investigative Specialist with the Special Surveillance Group (SSG) and played a major role in the arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of FBI agent Robert Hanssen for spying on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia. Sure enough, just weeks later, the ad was answered. Classic animal aggression, ONeill writes. He started having trouble breathing. He was to stand on a certain Moscow street corner on a designated day and time until he saw a British-looking man who was eating something. Robert Philip Hansen thought he was smarter than the system. Gordievsky decided to risk his life and go. He asked if they were there to greet an important diplomat. Printing company. The CIA would want to debrief him at length to try to determine the full extent of his treachery. This would be the first of many heart-stopping requests from Alleman. After five years working at the bureau as a ghost following suspects for a living he would be stepping out of the shadows: spying on someone in plain sight. [Your wifes genetic code] demands she stay home and nurture the children. On September 21, 1985, Howard eluded FBI surveillance and escaped into the New Mexico desert with the help of his wife, Mary, and a pop-up dummy in his cars passenger seat (a technique he had learned in CIA training). On November 2, after a lengthy debate in Moscow as to whether this new mole could be trusted, Hanssen was instructed to look underneath a bridge in Nottoway Park in Vienna, Virginia. Some of it just didnt add up, he says. He also expressed his trademark annoyance. Bokhan froze. Annoyed at ONeills seeming incompetence, Hanssen lashed out, calling him an imbecile and a moron. Finally, he said, Well take my car, and thats final.. In her statement, Bonnie Hanssen thanked government officials for allowing her to retain the pension and for recognizing that she and the children clearly are innocent victims.. As a devout Catholic, Bonnie Hanssen feels that he needs time [in prison] to pray for forgiveness and be redeemed in some way, the wifes attorney, Janine Brookner, said in an interview. In July 1994, Leslie Wiser, the FBI agent who unmasked Ames, flew to London to interview Gordievsky. Hanssen reportedly lavished cash and gifts on a Washington stripper whom he befriended. Booted out of their Vienna home while FBI agents scoured it for clues to Robert P. Hanssen's alleged spy work, Bonnie Hanssen, 54, and her teenage son and WebIt said Bokhans son, Alex, 18, was having trouble in military school and suggested the deputy take his vacation now, three months early, and return to the Soviet Union to deal Anything different goes against biology.. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Jul 15, 2022 12:05 AM. They are Opus Dei Catholics and their priest told Hanssen to give the money to Mother Theresa, I wonder if any of it was returned? Robert Philip Hanssen had drifted through several false starts in life before he settled in at the FBI. Nic Rowan. Now 74, he is serving time at ADX Florence, the federal supermax prison in Colorado. 2. Desperate for a way out of his money troubles, Hanssen sent an anonymous letter to a minor Soviet official at the United Nations. Finally, in 1975, he applied to the FBI and received a call back. On the appointed day he startedproverka, or dry-cleaningwalking an elaborate route to throw off anyone who might be watching him. FBI agents outside Robert Hanssens home in Virginia, Feb. 20, 2001. O'Neill's subterfuge had apparently deceived Hanssen, as part of the dead drop contained an evaluation of O'Neill's possibly replacing Hanssen as a mole when he retired. But dont be fooled by that appearance. 1999 - Resumes spying, this time for the Russian Intelligence agency. He dropped it, sensing that he was getting into dangerous territory. In December 2008, O'Neill left DLA Piper and accepted a position as General Counsel of Global Communities, formerly CHF International, a global humanitarian relief non-profit organization. His escape plan was bound under the flyleaf of a novel; he had to slit the cover open to read the instructions. May 10, 2002 - Is sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Before getting caught in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison, he sold thousands of pages of sensitive material to the Soviet Union and ruined massive U.S. intelligence plans. FBI mole Robert Hanssen - How has his family handled it. David Morrison and Mike Clardy, Auburn University, The George Washington University Law School, Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America's First Cyber Spy, changed on the film for dramatic purposes, "AU Alums Role in Capturing Spy Inspires Motion Picture, "Carbon Black Names Eric O'Neill National Security Strategist", "The DVD Journal - Quick Reviews: Breach", "Spy Robert Hanssen, FBI's Eric O'Neill - Breach Movie True Story", "Gray Day by Eric O'Neill | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eric_O%27Neill&oldid=1140675672, George Washington University Law School alumni, All articles with vague or ambiguous time, Vague or ambiguous time from January 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 05:51. Long after the massive losses in 1985, the lingering questions still gnaw at their counterintelligence experts. I raised my chin and met his eyes, puffed out my chest and stood with my feet shoulder-width apart. But instead of receiving a gold watch or a modest pension like most employees, he would instead be getting $50,000 in non-sequential $100 bills. Should I get him to confess?. and finally hopped out of the car, determined to walk back to the office. But, he adds, I would never, ever see her smile again. She died three years later, in 1988. i feel bad for you and people like you ,but you can still see a doctor dont worry man , by the way if you stick that camel **** in your mouth for 5 times a day for 2 weeks straight ,you will feel much better. They found their information in Aleksandr Shcherbakov, an ex-KGB agent whod gone into private business and was all too happy to share what he knew for $7 million. What neither the CIA nor Poleshchuk knew was that the apartment was a KGB operation. This.

So Alleman instead asked ONeill to drive Hanssen to a meeting at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in an FBI vehicle that way, she could have someone search Hanssens car while he was out of the office. This story has been shared 175,158 times. He had a really bad childhood and I think I remember reading that the wife blamed a lot of Bobs behavior on his abusive father. Impossible. Why is it so important to take [that] car? Hanssen demanded to know. Milton Bearden, who held several senior posts is his 30-year career at the CIA, is convinced there was a traitor, as yet undetected. I love him and Ill pray for the salvation of his soul every day for the rest of my life.. They have two children, and he works as an independent research analyst for business and government contractors in Northern Virginia. During the 1960s, a corrosive mole hunt led by James J. Angleton, the CIAs counterintelligence chief, led to institutional paranoia, paralyzed operations aimed at the Soviet Union, and disrupted the lives of many innocent CIA officers who were fired or sidetracked in their careers. But instead of In extended CIA and FBI debriefings, he talked about his nine years of spying for Moscowincluding the day when he turned over, in his words, the identities of virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other American and foreign services known to me.. It is possible that Gordievsky, Bokhan and Poleshchuk fell under KGB suspicion through some operational error or communications intercept. Hanssen, who was convicted of espionage, is serving a life sentence in the supermax federal prison in Florence, Colorado. When the driver turned off the engine, Gordievsky could hear dogs close byAlsatians, he later learned. This story has been shared 104,792 times. To get the ball rolling, Hanssen was promoted from a desk job at the State Department and ONeill was given a role as Hanssens assistant. As soon as Gordievsky landed in Moscow, he picked up signs that he had gambled wrong. Sooner or later they would arrest me.. First, when you join you understand that your assignment will be based upon the needs of the Bureau. By this, you may not want to go to LA, Miami, He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences, which hes currently serving at the federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. It was surreal, like a bad nightmare, Andrei told me. ONeill, 46, left the FBI in May 2001. What good does nagging God every frickin day do? From a Moscow railroad station, he made his way by train, bus and taxi to a point near the Finnish-Soviet border, where he hid in some grass by the roadside until two cars stopped. The FBI believed this was his signal site where the Russians would signal when they were ready to receive his intel. When I found a job, the KGB called and they fired me. I slammed the door behind me and slid to a halt in Hanssens office.. But this Land Rovers driveshaft had been rerouted through one of the vehicles doors, the former CIA officer says, so that Gordievsky could fold himself into the hump, in effect hiding in plain sight. The astonishing letter gave the FBI what it had long sought definitive proof that Hanssen was the spy who had been betraying them since 1985, doing colossal damage to the USs counterintelligence capabilities by, among other things, revealing the identities of their undercover agents. His first job was trading American secrets to the Russians for cash. Finally, in 1991, with the KGB in disarray after its chief led the failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the authorities let Alla and her daughter leave. Housing in Moscow was nearly impossible to find, even for a KGB officer, but sometime that May, hed received a seemingly miraculous letter from his father. May 31, 2001 - Pleads not guilty to all charges.

who is pauline moran married to APIE MUS; chaya raichik realtor PASLAUGOS; seneca rocks deaths VEIKLA; toronto blue jays scout team GALERIJA; 10 interesting facts about graphite KONTAKTAI; robert hanssen children. WebThe Inside Story of the FBI and Robert HanssenAmerica's Most Damaging Russian Spy By Lis Wiehl Published by Pegasus Books LIST PRICE $27.95 PRICE MAY VARY BY RETAILER Get a FREE ebook by joining our mailing list today! Once he got caught, the only thing he cared about was trying to provide for his wife and his children, who visit him regularly in prison, Brookner said. Wikimedia CommonsHanssen is currently being kept in a federal prison in Colorado where he remains in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. One news account said he had fallen down the stairs and broken his neck.). He wanted to interview Hanssen for the book but was refused.

For decades, the quirky but respected counterintelligence expert, religious family man, and father of six, sold top secret information to agents of the Soviet Union and Russia. At least the timeline based on what Ames said when he was debriefed.If it wasnt Ames, then it was someone else, so we began to search for the source of the compromise, Wiser said. They expected I would do something stupid, he told me. He offered up the name of General Dmitri Polyakov, a high-ranking mole in GRU, which is the USSRs foreign military intelligence agency, in exchange for $20,000. The term "Special Agent" is derived from the type of powers they have as agents of the U.S. Government. They do not have general agency powers whic By the time Hanssen and ONeill returned to the office, things seemed normal. Now, he feared, the KGBs counterspies had become suspicious and were recalling him to confront him. He has never answered that question for anyone. :dubious: Does anyone see some weird contradictions here? Athens, May 21, 1985: After the Tuesday-morning staff meeting at the Soviet Embassy, Col. Sergei Ivanovich Bokhan stayed behind to talk to his boss, the local rezident of the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence agency. Joe had become very close to my father and worried that some action by him, some error, had led to his betrayal.. It shortened her life, he said. All Rights Reserved. They drove through several checkpoints with no trouble, but they had to stop at Soviet customs when they reached the border. Hanssen warned them when their spies were under suspicion and gained extensive lists of double agents working for the United States. No. July 6, 2001 - Pleads guilty to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy in exchange for the government not seeking the death penalty. I went into the bathroom, locked the door and stared at myself in the mirror.. But something went wrong and when the two men showed up in the parking garage, the FBI car wasnt there. 1980 - Begins working for the counterintelligence unit, focusing on the Soviet Union. Ultimately, investigators made a dramatic move to obtain a "smoking gun". Take your pick. With the arrest of Aldrich Ames in 1994, it seemed that the mole hunters had found their quarry. There were embraces, and everyone cried. The year 1985 was a catastrophe for U.S. and British intelligence agencies. All Hanssen said was, What took you so long?. Through Hanssen, the KGB learned about a secret tunnel that had been dug underneath the Soviet embassy in Washington. Everyone avoided me. Authorities say Hanssen was driven by greed, but Brookner rejected that assertion. Through the windows of the ground-floor apartment he shared with his parents, he could see strangers moving about. The Last Day In the Sun - Robert Hanssen Story By Adrian Havill 07-31-2008, 02:40 PM. Robert Hansen was actually married twice. After months of interrogation at Lefortovo, Andrei Poleshchuk told his captors he wouldnt answer any more questions unless they told him who his father worked for. Wikimedia CommonsBetween Hanssen and CIA agent Aldrich Ames, countless U.S. secrets concerning federal technology and counterintelligence operations reached Moscow. The new couple committed to send each of their six children to private schools and to tithe a portion of their income to the charitable works of their parish. A devout Catholic, a loving father, and a dedicated employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, hardly anyone could have imagined the gentle 56-year-old being anything other than Bob, the all-American guy next door. Hired by MI5at a time when there was We know very well that youve been deceiving us for years, he said. Do they believe he was innocent and all this was trumped up or a misunderstanding? That day was June 13, 1985, by Ames account. They never lived the high life; they never even went out to dinner, she said. Hanssen received payments of $1.4 million in cash and diamonds from the information he gave the Soviet Union and Russia. A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen, Americas Most Damaging Russian Spy, Lis Wiehl (Pegasus, 2022), 336 pages. The KGB men searched the apartment all night. Soon after they arrived in the United States, there was a ceremony honoring his father at a Russian Orthodox church in Washington. Hanssen was a devout Catholic, a daily communicant, and married father of six children. By 1979, the Hanssens and their three children were transferred to New York City. I left that memo in your inbox, ONeill replied. The timeline just didnt work to explain Gordievskys recall to Moscow, FBI Special Agent Leslie Wiser, who ran the Ames case, told me.