 Please, please, please call me Sandy. Only my dad's mother called me Sandra. John, thank you so much for inviting me to talk about our book, Circle of Treason. And thank you all for coming to hear this story. Before I begin, I want to say a few words about my good friend and my co-author, Jean Verdafe. For those of you who are unaware, Jean passed away a year and a half ago after a relatively short and totally unexpected illness. While she did live long enough to see our book published, we both knew that she would not be able to participate in any eventual success it might have. So I'm here today to speak for both of us. As I tell you about our journey to determine who or what caused the wholesale loss of our Soviet assets in 1985 and in 1986. In 1991, that led us to search for a traitor in CIA. To make matters worse, we knew he wouldn't be a stranger. He'd be a co-worker, a colleague, someone we had known for probably 20 plus years, as well as someone we saw frequently in the hallways of our headquarters building. But thankfully, for both Jean and myself, Circle of Treason is not just a story about how we identified a mole. It's much more than that. For the first time, we were able to tell the CIA's operational history with many of our traitor's victims. A number of our stories are theirs as well. We participated in the handling of some of these cases, and we watched as those we knew were arrested and executed. Always concerned that we might have made a mistake that led to their deaths is a burden no one wants to carry. But I have to tell all of you that's exactly what a number of us in the Soviet and East European Division and other components in CIA's Director of Operations had to do for the next eight years until our traitor was identified. You may have noticed that I have yet to mention his name. We all know who he is. He's called Rejames, or Rick, as he was known to us. And yes, he was a co-worker. For me personally, a carpool member. We grew up together as young officers in the Soviet and East European Division. And it is this individual, whom Jean and I knew, for well over 20 years, decided to walk in the Soviet Embassy downtown Washington DC, April 16, 1985, through the front door, not the side or the back door, and volunteer his services to the Soviet Union. Two months later, Rick also made the decision to provide his KGB handlers with the names of or identifying information on every one of our current reporting Soviet sources, including those who were dormant or long retired from service. And in doing so, Mr. Ames knew exactly what fate awaited these guys. They would be arrested, interrogated, tried, sentenced, and executed. And in all cases, it was a bullet to the back of the head. Before I get into our story, I'd like to give you a little bit of background on the long road of Circle of Treason. It's the first book either one of us has ever written. We certainly never saw ourselves as authors. We were just two ladies who had a story we thought was worth sharing. And I will add, we were much older ladies after this journey was completed. Although Ames was arrested in 1994, we did not put pen to paper until 2003. And then it was four years later after several serious medical issues and a couple of other interruptions, we had completed our first draft. And submitted it to the CIA's Publications Review Board for approval. I'll only comment briefly on that process. It was painful. We went back and forth for over three years before we finally had their OK to share our draft with a potential publisher. But we weren't finished with the PRB. They still had to approve the galleys of the book before it could go to the printer. That happened August 15, 2012, 18 years after Rick's arrest, nine years after we started the whole process of writing, and sadly, and certainly unknown to us at the time, just six weeks before Gene's illness was diagnosed. OK, now to our story. But I have to start with just a little bit organizational background. And if I use acronyms, please bark. From early 1985 until Rick's arrest in 1994, basically all the action took place in two components in CIA's Directorate of Operations. One was the Soviet East European Division, which is responsible for recruiting and running assets, whether they're Soviets or any of the bloc nationals. At the time, early 85, the division was headed by a longtime Soviet operations officer named Burton Gerber. He also served as chief of our station in Moscow. The second component was the Counterintelligence Center. This is the only component in CIA's Directorate of Operations that has investigative responsibility. It was headed by the late Gus Hathaway, also longtime Soviet operations officer, and a former chief in Moscow. At the time, again, early 85, both Rick and I were assigned to the Soviet East European Division as branch chiefs. My component was responsible for all of our activity against our targets in Africa. Rick's branch was responsible for providing counterintelligence guidance to some of our geographic components. Additionally, he and his people did case studies and reviews, as well as wrote papers on the two Soviet intelligence services, the KGB, known to almost everybody, and the GRU, which is the military intelligence. Jean was not at headquarters at this time. Jean, also a Soviet specialist, was assigned to Lieberville Gabon, or anybody who knows where that is. And she was our chief of station. All right, it's 1985, and our nightmare begins. There are big changes in the spring in Moscow. Mikhail Gorbachev assumes control of the country, but it is business as usual. Back in CIA headquarters, Soviet East European Division, Langley, Virginia. And I have to tell you, business was very, very good. We had been so successful against the KGB and the GRU that it is not an exaggeration to state that we perhaps knew more about these two organizations than any single individual working in them. As one senior and former KGB officer would say about this early period, the CIA didn't have one station in Moscow. They had three. The traditional one in the American Embassy, second one, GRU headquarters, and the third one at the KGB headquarters. It is against this backdrop that we have no, I repeat, no indication of the impending human disaster. Late May, GRU colonel Bokon, whom we are handling in Athens, Greece, tells us that he has been recalled to Moscow to take care of a problem involving his son who's attending a military academy. Bokon has contacted his brother, also in Moscow, who doesn't know of any difficulty. We advise Bokon to defect rather than to return. He agrees, and we bring him safely to the United States. Early August, KGB counterintelligence officer, Colonel Polis Stuk, is arrested in Moscow during a home leave from his assignment in Lagos, Nigeria. As you might well imagine, this was personal for me because it was my component that was responsible for keeping him alive. Additionally, his and my association went back 11 years earlier to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he volunteered to work for us and where I was fortunate enough to support the case for a period. Sometime between late August and October, we don't know the exact date. GRU officer Smetanen, who we're handling in Lisbon, Portugal, is arrested in Moscow again during a home leave. November 6, KGB scientific and technical officer, Martinov, who is assigned to the embassy in Washington, D.C., boards an airflot flight at Dulles, bound for Moscow. This will be a short trip over and back. He is serving as one of the KGB security officers for our famous or infamous KGB defector, redefector, Vitaly Yurchenko. Martinov never returns. Now, this particular operation is a little bit different because it was joint CIA FBI. Again, early November, KGB illegal support officer, Varenek, whom we are handling in Bonn, West Germany at the time, tells us that he will be attending a three- or four-day conference in East Berlin. We never see him again. This case is particularly disturbing because he had only volunteered in March of 85, so there were very few people who were even aware of the operation. Unfortunately, I have to go into 1986, March. Our Moscow station officer, Mike Sellers, is ambushed on his way to a meeting with another one of our KGB assets. We're running in Moscow, Voronsov. June or July, as best as we can tell. GRU Colonel Vasilyev, whom we're handling in Moscow, is arrested. Our last contact with him had been via a dead-drop exchange in December of 85, no problems. Additionally, we had handled Vasilyev in Budapest, obviously a denied area at the time, no security issues. 7 July, GRU General Dmitry Polyakov is arrested in Moscow one day after his 65th birthday. The general, who has retired from the GRU at the time, is the highest-ranking Soviet intelligence officer this government has ever run. We had over a 20-year history with him, and he was known as our crown jewel. The case was personal for me as well, more than half of my 26 years with CIA were intertwined with his operation, beginning from the second month after I joined the agency. Unfortunately, again, into 1987, KGB Colonel Piguzov is arrested in Moscow. And we have been out of touch with him since 1979 when he volunteered in Jakarta, Indonesia. With the exception of GRU Colonel Bokhan, every single one of the individuals whom I've named was executed. By the end of 1985, not 1986, obviously our losses continued, but 85, there's no question that something is seriously wrong. We have lost four reporting sources in a little more than four months, unprecedented, never happened before. There are two theories, and you all have probably guessed what they might be. One, we have a traitor. Or two, our communications have been compromised by the Soviets. In other words, they're reading our traffic. So what do we do? Our first action is triggered by the appearance of a new Soviet asset, a volunteer in January 1986. Our goal is simple. We have to try to keep this one alive since we don't know whether it's a traitor or a technical penetration. We have to guard against each. To address the traitor side of the equation, we in the Soviet East European Division institute what we call then, hopefully they are still continuing to call it this draconian security measures, which severely limit the number of people who were or would be made aware of our new source. And by severely limit, probably not much more than a handful and a half. To address the security of our communications relative to Soviet operations, we simply choose to ignore them. I know it might be difficult to believe in a bureaucracy, but there is no cable traffic to and from headquarters and the concerned field station. None. What do we do? We went back to basics with a technical twist. We sent a case officer from Washington indirectly to the new sources location. Once there, he went nowhere near. The US Embassy met the asset in a safe house. And after each meeting, returned to his hotel room where he transferred the meeting notes, his meeting notes, to a laptop computer. And then he encrypted them. Once the meeting cycle was completed, he returned to Washington again indirectly where the results were decrypted. Now, obviously today, a laptop computer, but particularly one with encryption capabilities is not out of the ordinary. But I have to tell you, in 1986, it was cutting edge. And speaking from personal experience, it was one of the least user-friendly machines I ever had to deal with. I didn't think there were times I thought the case officer is just going to have to remember what the agent said, because trying to break that stuff out was almost impossible. OK, it's time for my co-author, Jean, to enter. In the fall of 1986, Jean returns back to Washington from Lieberville. And she is put in charge of a small task course in the Counterintelligence Center, again with its investigative capabilities, to try to determine why we had these losses. Now, this was primarily an analytical effort. They reviewed all the cases that we lost. They looked for patterns, commonalities, and they put this information in digital format. We were really in the dark ages in the directorate of operations at this time. Nothing was computerized, at least not on the desks. Concurrently, the FBI establishes a task force of its own to look at the cases it lost in the Soviet area at the same time as we were losing operations. We weren't alone in this mess. The two groups, Jean's group and the FBI group, they meet frequently. They exchange information. They exchange ideas. However, after each get together, whether it was at our respective headquarters or offsite, everybody always came away with far more questions than answers. OK, does anybody wonder where good old Rick is? Well, in many respects, he was out of sight, out of mind. Although he volunteered in April to the Soviets, walked in. In April of 1985, not too long after that, entered Italian language training in preparation for an assignment, three year assignment, to Rome. He leaves the Washington area in July, 1986. He returns in July, 1989, along with his relatively new wife and a young son. In the fall of 89, Rick is assigned to another position in the Soviet East European division. So he just wasn't around for a long time. OK, just to make things a little bit more interesting for us, as we were trying to stop the hemorrhaging and determine what in the heck happened, the KGB, still busy with arrest, still busy with executions, initiates the first of two deception operations against us to try to lead us down the wrong path. First one begins in January, 1986, within weeks of the appearance of our new and legitimate source. We give this guy the code name, not really a code name, we give him the name Mr. X. Pretty original, right? The second one begins in June, 1988, and continues for about three years. This guy gets a real code name, GT Prologue. OK, Mr. X is a self-described KGB officer who volunteers to us via a letter to a case officer in Bonn, again, West Germany. In Mr. X's first letter, as well as, I think, three or four subsequent ones, he tells us that we have a mole, those were the words, obviously, in Russian, that he used in our communications facility located outside the Washington DC area. For Mr. X's instructions, he's never met, but we do provide him with sizable, we do provide him with a lot of money via dead drops in East Berlin. The details are in the book, so no need going over them here. But before too long, we all come to believe that Mr. X really does not exist, and this has just been an attempt to deceive us. So we sever contact in the fall of 1986. He doesn't get his last payment. While I don't like to admit it, the KGB deserves a great deal of credit for its second deception operation. As I mentioned earlier, it began in June 1988. This operation was well conceived, beautifully run, and most importantly, they read us perfectly. As I said, June 1988, an unidentified Soviet male approaches our chief of station in Moscow on the train from Moscow to then Leningrad, and he passes him an envelope. This individual subsequently identifies himself as Alexander Zhomov, KGB counterintelligence officer assigned to the component in Moscow that runs all operational activity against our station and its personnel. Obviously, great catch for us. Be wonderful. OK, in the envelope, Zhomov passed to our chief. There were several KGB documents, one of great interest. It was the KGB's assessment of the activities of our Moscow station from the end of 1984 until the end of 1986, obviously a critical period for us. In the document, the KGB concluded that the reason for its successes against us and our failures was due to one thing, poor tradecraft by CIA station officers. In other words, it was our fault. So what does Mr. Zhomov want in return for his continued cooperation? Thing that might be expected, he wants money and he wants plenty of it. The second one, not unusual, but it does have an unusual twist. He also wants our assistance in leaving the Soviet Union. However, only when he tells us that the time is right. Again, the details are in the book. But before too long, Jean and I began to believe that Mr. Zhomov is nothing more than the son of Mr. X. And the KGB is controlling this operation. However, despite a number of tries, over the next several years, we are unable to convince the leadership of the Soviet East European division, my division, that we are being had. And the exfiltration of Mr. Zhomov takes place. So as you might expect, he was a no-show at the pickup site. However, he did send us a message. He told us two things. Our plan was too dangerous and he would have to sever contact. So what do we lose besides our personal pride? Plenty. We pay Zhomov a great deal of money, which finds its way into the future. Which finds its way into the KGB treasury. We also give the KGB our plans for exfiltrating our assets from the Soviet Union. And just to put topping on the cake, we give them a valid US passport. I can't forget either. This is probably the worst part. We contribute to two promotions, two or three. Mr. Zhomov received to the highest ranks in the KGB. All right, here we are. It's the end of the Zhomov case. It's early 1991. And in all honesty, we still do not have a clue as to what happened in the mid-'80s. This is despite the work of Jean's original task force, as well as her subsequent investigative unit. Not to say that there were plenty of leads, lots and lots. Each was investigated and each was discarded. On another front, however, we had had great success. Remember the draconian security measures? They worked. Not only had we been able to keep new sources, new assets alive, but the number had continued to increase. We were back in business. But we created another problem for ourselves. Some senior officers, not all, but some had come to believe that whatever existed in 1985 and 1986 no longer existed. Sources are coming down the pike. As far as they were concerned, this 85-'86 disaster was only of historical interest. How wrong they were. Now, at this time, Jean was facing mandatory retirement in another year and a half. She still felt guilty that she had been unable to solve our mystery and she wanted to spend the rest of her time before retirement taking a fresh look at our old problem. Now, Jean saw this as a solitary effort, but that was about to change. A couple of months later, the newly arrived Deputy Chief in the Counterintelligence Center, a man named Paul Redman, who had come from the same job in the Soviet East European Division. Redman's not here, so I can say it. And he thought Jomov was a good case. He's one of my buddies, so I can say it. Went to the FBI on a matter totally unrelated to our losses in 85-'86 as well as their losses. At the conclusion of this meeting, Redman just happened to mention that Jean was going to take another look at our old problem. The bureau asked if they could join. Redman said, sure. That afternoon, after their return from bureau headquarters, I received a call from Redman. He asked me if I would like to join the team. He knew I was planning on resigning from CIA and that only an opportunity to determine why we lost General Polyakov and Colonel Paulistuk would keep me working. So I left, immediately left, my division, Soviet East Europeans, and headed, I think it was upstairs, to join Jean and later our two colleagues from the bureau. One, Special Agent Jim Holt. And two, FBI Soviet Analyst Jim Milberg. Later, we added a fifth member to our team, a young CIA Office of Security Employee named Dan Payne. Dan became quite a valuable member because it was he who handled all the information and activity related to Rick Ames' finances. So as you can see in many respects, what became known as the Ames Moll Hunt team really was the creation of Paul Redman. He was a catalyst, and he deserves a great deal of credit for any of our success. Again, many details of the work of our group are in the book. But here, I'd like to highlight a couple of events which I believe were important in our search for the traitor. Before I get into those, however, I must emphasize that at no time during our deliberations from the very beginning until the very end, did we hide from anyone, including Rick Ames, the fact that we were looking for a human penetration of CIA. This was not going to be a paper exercise. So how do we start? Well, our approach to this question really did pay big dividends in our eventual identification of our traitor. Our first step, again, one that everybody would probably imagine. We had to identify all those CIA employees who were aware of one or more of the cases we lost. After some initial pairing, that totaled about 160 people. Now we've got a real problem. There is no way we can investigate 160 without an army or a navy. So we've got to find somewhere to prioritize. And it is Jane to the rescue. Her approach was simple, was not scientific, and I will add it was roundly criticized by individuals in positions of power and influence, but only after Rick's arrest. What we did is we asked all four members of our team, myself, Jane, and the two gyms from the bureau, and six others, two from FBI, four from CIA, two list, no consultation here, list on a piece of paper, four or five or six if you wanted, individuals who made them uneasy and whom they believed we should take a close look at first. Now I will point out, by uneasy, we don't mean and we didn't mean someone you had an argument with over an operational decision, or you simply didn't like the way they dressed. We're looking for a trader here. We also had another request, and we ask everyone to please put their names in rank order. The one that bothered you the most, first place, and so on down. Jane and I took the submissions, and then we assigned a numerical value to first, second, and third, and so on. Any time your name appeared in the number one position, you got six points, number two, five points. Obviously, you didn't want to win this contest. And we totaled the points. Big surprise was, Rick won the contest. He had the most points, 21. Now here I will toot my own horn, and I will quote Jane. Of all those who voted, only Sandy gets the gold star. She had him number one. Now, I will back up a little. This is not to say we ignored the remaining 154 on our list. We didn't. They were looked at as well. However, we did concentrate on those on our new short list with Rick eventually becoming our primary target. Our primary focus, I should say. Simple water here. Next was the Eureka moment, our search for the mole. Yes, and it happened in early August 1992, just a little over a year after our group had been put together. By this time, Rick was our focus. And I had been tasked with compiling a chronology of all the information we had available at that time on Rick. Eventually this document, let me give you the time parameters because that is important, it was from 1994 until the present. Eventually it totaled over 500 pages text searchable. It was mind numbing to compile. And even worse to read. But it did become an invaluable investigative tool. As part of my research on Rick, I had come across information that in early 1985, he was attempting to develop a Soviet arms control specialist assigned to the embassy in Washington. His name was Chuvakan. Now Chuvakan, I must stress, was neither a KGB staff officer nor a KGB agent. He was also not a GRU staff officer. He was just an arms control specialist. Additionally, Rick's involvement with this individual was not out of the ordinary. He was doing so in alias first. Additionally, his contact with Chuvakan was known to the CIA and known to the FBI and reported to each organization. And as I said, this was not a contact out of the ordinary. In those days, the bureau simply did not have sufficient manpower to cover the target. So often officers assigned to the Soviet East European Division would assist the bureau in particularly developmental operations. So as I said, nothing out of the ordinary. And I dutifully input this information into the chronology along with all of Rick's badge in and out. And he was a heavy smoker. It was just horrible stuff. That particular August day, Dan Payne had received an envelope with information from one of Rick's and his wife Rosario's local bank accounts. In that envelope, there were three cash deposit slips. After Dan finished with one, adding it to his spreadsheet on Rick's finances, he'd pass it over the cubicle wall to me and stuff on Rick into the chronology. The first one was 18 May 1985. Remember, he volunteered 16 April that year. 18 May, Rick makes a cash deposit to this account for $9,000. As I'm typing, I just glance at the line above and, wow, the day before he had lunch with Mr. Chewbacca. Next deposit slip, 5 July, 85. 4 July, 3 July were both federal holidays that year. 2 July, Rick has lunch again with Chewbacca. It's becoming more interesting. Last deposit slip, 31 July, $8,500 in cash. He has lunch with Chewbacca that day. Well, that was enough for Sandy, as Jean referred to it. It's my epiphany. I told Jean, I told the gyms, told Dan, and headed down the hallway to let Redmond know. And I will apologize in advance for what I'm going to say next. It wasn't particularly ladylike, but that was OK. I went into Redmond's office, shut the door, and I said, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell what's going on here. Rick is a goddamn Soviet spy. Redmond and I are still arguing over my exact words, but I think I'm remembering them correctly. He would have said it a different way. However, that's not important. What is important is this was the first link that would eventually lead to Rick's arrest and conviction. It was cash deposits. It was after meetings with the Soviet National. And in each case was below the then $10,000 reporting limit that the feds had put on the banks. All right, now, lastly, I guess, finally, were Jean and I ever afraid Rick was going to get away with treason. You bet we were. And it happened in early 1993, as our task force was drawing to a close. A couple of months earlier, Jim Milburn, the FBI Soviet analyst, had been given the job of writing up our final report. Now, this was an official FBI document. It was not a CIA document. And while Jean and I did have some input into the document during its draft phase, the final wording was not under our control. That report came out in March 1993. And as we understood it, it did not identify Rick as the primary suspect. It did, though, include his name on a short list of other possibles. For Jean and myself, this was more than a terrible time. We were absolutely convinced that Rick Ames was our traitor, that we had spent two years looking for and that our analysis proved that to be the case. Obviously, we now knew the FBI did not share that belief and would continue to look at others and investigate others on their new short list. We simply saw Rick falling in a bureaucratic hole, never held accountable for the deaths he had caused. To make matters even worse, Rick was eligible to retire from CIA. And we could also see him taking their now young son, Paul, five, Rosario, leaving the US for Columbia, where her family was and where they had property. And we'd never be able to touch him. But thankfully, and I have to word this very carefully, thankfully, in 1993 additional information became available. It did not identify Rick, but it did point in his direction. And most importantly, it forced the FBI to open a full-scale investigation on Rick Ames. On February 21st, President's Day 1994, Rick Ames was arrested by the FBI around the corner from his home in Arlington, Virginia. He was on his way to CIA headquarters. He was on his way to CIA headquarters to answer a cable. Obviously, it was a ruse to get him out of the house. The cable did not exist. Shortly thereafter, the FBI arrested his wife, Rosario, at their home. Both, after a couple of months, pled guilty to espionage. Rosario was sentenced to five years, which she served not too far from here in a federal facility in Danbury, Connecticut. Upon her release, she was stripped of her US citizenship. She had to become a naturalized citizen to marry Rick. That's why she was stripped of her citizenship and deported to Columbia. Rick received life. At the time, there was no death penalty on the books for treason. And about 20 years ago, he was sent off to the federal facility, Federal Prison, in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, which is just south of Williamsport. And that's where he currently resides. In conclusion, what did Gene and I take away from this journey and really from our entire careers? It was about one thing and one thing only. And that was our assets. They, obviously, certainly Gene and myself, as well as everyone else involved in Soviet operations, understood way, way too well. We had to. These individuals, when they decided, when they agreed to cooperate with the United States government, put their hands, their lives in our hands. And we, in this case, CIA, failed them. We couldn't repay them for their sacrifices. We certainly couldn't repay their families for their losses. But we did owe each and every one an answer as to why. What caused this mess? That was our goal all along. That's the reason we wrote the book. It's also the reason the book is dedicated the way it is to General Polyakov and to the others who were executed or imprisoned and to their families. We can't forget the line of victims included all of those people. That's it, guys. And I'll be glad to answer any questions you have. OK, now I can. Yes? Let it be known that you were going to do this, brother. What did the CIA? Did the CIA tell you to shut up, go get lost, forget about it? No, no, no. No, they incurred. I mean, we wanted, we, CIA, director of operations, wanted to, there were a handful of us who had to find the answers. I said, we owed it to these people. And Paul Redmond was Juan, Gus Hathaway, Burton Gerber, all the names that I mentioned. I did not mention those who really thought it was just a historical problem, although there were some. And it's one of those things, I think, in a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy. Our business was to run spies, at least in the Sogadish, in the director of operations. You understand that when you're looking for a traitor in your own family, that from a counterintelligence standpoint, you identify that traitor. And that is your greatest success in counterintelligence. But it is also your greatest failure. Why didn't you know? Why didn't you stop it? So I think, again, in a bureaucracy, there are always those where, yes, we want to know, but please, I'd prefer it not to be on my watch. So I, but no, we had all the support that we needed to do this. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes. You said you put aims at the top of your list. What was the tickle? You know, a change. I was probably a little bit more fortunate than others, simply because I had known Rick for a long time. As I said, we carpooled together. But briefly, the Rick aims that I knew in those days was he was an absent-minded professor. He was a complete slob. Dirty fingernails, never washed his, well, did wash his hair. I think he wore the same white shirt and blue shirt. He'd exchanged maybe every other week. But Rick was sort of a gentle sort. He was a happy-go-lucky, as I say, absent-minded professor. When Rick aims, returned. And the other thing is he had absolutely zero interest, zero concern for anything material. Gee, 15 years later, he's still driving his old 72 Volvo. Windows didn't work, anyway. But when he returned from Rome and returned to headquarters in September of 1989, that wasn't the Rick aims I knew. He's a big guy, tall, who was always slouched. Rick was stood up very straight. His hair was quaffed, his nails were done. He was in, even in those days, $800 Italian loafers. The suits were magnificent, but the big change in Rick aims was that gentle person I knew was gone. His ego, it wouldn't fit in this room. He was smarter than anyone else. He knew better about everything. It was frightening. That person was gone, that personality was gone. And it's not witchcraft, I mean, it's truly observation. Obviously, you had to have access to the cases. Rick knew every single operation, everyone we lost. And he knew it, not because he was poking around, but that was his job when he was a branch chief in the Soviet East European division. It was the one place where all of those secrets came together. That's, I don't have a better explanation. He made me uneasy, maybe. That really is the word we use. Someone went, whoa. Yeah. Two questions. Do you know the number of your assets in Native Americans that were compromised? And two, there were changes that were made? I can't speak to the latter because I left shortly after. Shortly, maybe three or four months after I'll address that first, Rick's arrest, four months. I had other things I wanted to do in my life. There probably were changes? Yes, and I'm certain there were. I am aware that people have to fill out financial statements, very detailed ones. I think that is a new thing. But I will say, with respect to that, Rick Ames filled out a financial disclosure. He just lied on it. I don't think that's gonna catch a spy. It'll certainly make your job easier from an investigative standpoint. But you always say, it's the second oldest profession. It's been there since the beginning of time and then I'll always, I don't know about the rest of you, but I spied on my brother, he spied on me. I mean, it's just, it's part of nature. In Rick's case, though, what triggered it? His wife, his new dolly to be, Rosario. His marriage had failed. He hadn't bothered to tell his first wife, but she could have cared less. She remained in New York when she refused to go with him overseas. And Rosario was pushing him, had been for a couple, get married, get married, get married. And so, he knew he couldn't support her and he didn't want to fail again. So the only thing he had, and it was for $20,000, that's all he needed. He could have gone to the agency and borrowed it without any problem because he had to pay off Naye and his first wife. But no, for 20 grand. Jean, and she convinced me, and I think she's absolutely right, Rick probably would not have been a traitor if it hadn't been for Rosario. He just couldn't keep her in the way she had become accustomed. Yeah. Did he ever show any remorse for all these? None. Even after he did? None. Colorful. None, none, none, none. And even in some interviews with a man named Peter Lee, he said, time out. Did you send him a book? No. I don't care if I ever hear a seed from this guy. But he said, look it, these guys, they're traders, they're traders in their country, they're heroes here, they knew what this was about. He didn't have to face a firing squad, that's where I just, yeah. Maybe it's the time, but do you feel that you're let down by the bureaucracy of the CIA at that time that maybe because of technology or not enough manpower, that when the change of Rick came back in the front room and he was this new person with all this money, Jaguar, Bansie House, whatever, that they didn't think to look into that change a little earlier? No, they did in 89. Was it suspect at Bansie House? Yeah, they did in 89. They investigated because Rick took two polygraphs while he was a spy and he, I can't say past, that's, Jean would get after me. He cleared both and one he took in 1991, right after we started. Well they were a little suspect though. No, what he, no, no trauma came through. We had an explanation with respect to the money. It was Rosario's money. It had come from her family. We had done some investigation and yes, she was from a very influential family in Bogota. She had gotten her appointment in the Colombian embassy, third secretary in Mexico where she met Rick from the president of the country. Their family had contributed the land to the largest soccer field in Bogota. So this, what we didn't know, in one of our problems we couldn't, I wasn't doing this then, anyway. One of our problems was her father had died and wills there are not centrally located. It is a family friend who takes care of this. So obviously you can't send one of your agents in Bogota over to the Depew House and say, hey, can we see a copy of Daddy's will? The other thing specifically with the, let me get to the cards, because that just, I have to clear this up. Rick and I parked in the same parking garage at this time, in 889. I had to walk past three red jaguars before I got to Rick's. So having a red jaguar was not such a big deal. And when we, he took out a loan at, we call it the CIA credit union on that automobile and the payments were in keeping with what AGS 14 would be able to afford. So no, I have to say that red jaguar didn't do much for. Like a big, expensive house and the new suits and the new. Yes, but it was her money. And during that second polygraph, he had to come back for a second time, second polygraph, second time. Didn't clear the first time. And he explained to the polygrapher that, I'm down in Bogota all the time. I take care of my mother-in-law's finances, help her out. And many of Rosario's, she has a huge family. I assume some are in the local intelligence service. So, you know, when there's a little bit of a flutter, I'm not giving away classified information, but I'm in the company of people who are probably intelligence officers. This is always, and I laugh, personal experience. Well, I shouldn't say that. If you were asked the question by a polygrapher, do you have contact with members of an opposition service? Yeah. It's my job. You know, so these are things that are a little more difficult, but he did clear both polys. Was he lazy? Yep, probably the thing that helped us the most as a service, that he was a bad spy for them. His damage was all done two months, or almost all of his damage, was done two months after he volunteered. And no, there were no Americans that were put in danger. Yeah. That process that you mentioned about everybody making the list, as simple as it is, I'm assuming that you didn't have a conference ahead of time with one another about the individual. It was just possible. Your soul, you? Right, to those individuals. Mm-hmm. And then put it down. Yeah, yeah. Someone told me, and it's some long, fancy name, that this is really a scientific principle, but it does make sense from the novice here, is, and again, as Gene and I would always say, we couldn't find a spy in the FBI. Why couldn't we find a spy? Let's say a Soviet spy, then Soviet spy. We couldn't because we didn't know the people well enough and we didn't know how the game was played, the political game. But in the agency, yeah, we knew all those people on that list, and we knew the agency politics and the other half that you gotta know, we knew our enemy. We knew the KGB as well as any uniformed KGB officer. We couldn't have to find, for example, in that regard. We never, Gene and I never could have found a CIA employee working for the Chinese, one of the Chinese services. I can't even name them. Yeah, the back. I am not, it was up there. That was a little, as I recall, I think it was 18. Did you look further? I am not common, no, you know, not my problem. You know, it's one of those things. You want to make certain, certain, certain, that you get the right person, because you don't want the wrong person getting away with murder, because that's what it was. And you don't want it to falsely accuse someone. And that's exactly what the FBI did when they, it was a CIA officer after Rick's arrest, a guy named Brian Kelly. If you haven't read articles on him, you should. They thought Brian Kelly, they thought CIA had another mole in addition to Ames, and they thought it was Kelly, and it was not Kelly, it was none other than Robert Hansen. Yes. Do you think your efforts to find the mole were hurt at all in any way by the Barbara Whitworth case, where the Soviets were actually reading out traffic? No. Inaction there. No, I don't, no, I don't think so. But of course that case was terrible. I mean, just horrible, horrible damage. Rick's damage was human. Although he did, I guess because it was easy, he did have access to it. This was after he came back from Rome. He did, he had access to the military double agent cases, army, and run against the Soviets. And he did give those up, but I think in most cases, Soviets knew exactly, knew that they were all double agents. So it wasn't, it wasn't such a big deal. And I can say he was lazy. Yeah. Have he ever served in the military in any capacity? Ames? No. No service. No service. He was just, he was just beyond Vietnam. I don't even think he was in the National Guard. No, no service, no service. Yes. At any point when you had a suspect or seven suspects, at any point did you consider selective entrapment by giving out information? Not entrapment, but once the bureau came into it, after we got the additional information, I mean, when they came into it officially, like we had bugs on his car, we had phones tapped at work at home, this thing kept going on and on and on. And we were getting more and more nervous that he would get wind of it. So we had this brilliant idea of passing a top secret document or putting him on the distribution of a TTS document with all kinds of code names and everything. And then the lawyers would be real happy. Justice, the camera would take a picture of it as he stuffed it in his briefcase. Must have been a warm afternoon. He picked up the document. He looks at the front of it. He doesn't or open it up and he throws it in his outbox. So, you could imagine if you were the KGB case officer having to handle Rick Gaines. Yes. I want to comment on a question in graduate school I saw a class called creative problem solving. And it was in the 1960s and it was the exact technique where a group of people would list down various sorts of things. And then they were trying to come up with the name of the group for who were going to solve these problems. There was a process and a discipline that you went through just as you outlined it. This was at Babson Institute in 1967 or 68. The other, my question in the name of Redmond. Great, I feel better. Bill McPay is Rocheford's nemesis in World War II. And I wondered if there's any connection with this Redmond and the two Redmond brothers who were of native intelligence, particularly down in the period of Midway. You know, I've never asked Paul. He's from the Boston area, Harvard. He's very gruff. Those guys are gruff. Have Rocheford if you could find him. No, I don't think so. Of course he had, he was in the service. He had service duty. Yeah, oh, yeah. You worked at the CIA in the KGB quite well. Mm-hmm. So I don't know, did you ever come across the name of Vladimir Putin during that period? No. Because he was active during that time. Yes, I, yes, but I do have to say the answer to your question is no, we never came across Vladimir Putin. The reason is he was a regional KGB officer. Those are lower level. We were concerned about those in the second chief directorate, headquarters, and the first chief directorate, because they were brought coming after us. And the others are inside Moscow and Leningrad and elsewhere coming. No, he would be one regional KGBs. We did have a Moscow city directorate office. We were running, that was Baronsov who was executed, but that is about the extent. How many women, as opposed to how many men, both the four of us, the Scott, the Unicorps? Oh, who was, or the, oh, relative of the, well, two women. It was two women and did we have, may have been three women. She wasn't on the task force. So three women, two, four, seven men. Good. May have been eight men. But now, other than myself, right, I had him number one, the chief of the Counterintelligence Center at the time, Jim Olson, super guy. Also a professor in his written books. He had Rick as number one, I mean, number two, number two. And with respect to Redmond, Redmond never listened to instructions. In the list, he had Rick at the top, but no numbers. So when Gene said, Redmond, what's your order? He said, no particular order. Yeah. Was there any investigation into Rosario to see if she maybe had, because if Rick was not an attractive personality, why would she be interested in him? She was from a wealthy family, I've seen pictures of her. Well, she was not a troll, but, this is, I'd love to answer this question. Okay, back to Mexico City. Rosario is third secretary of the Colombian embassy. In the book, she looks pretty good in a bathing suit, but she is in her late 20s. She comes from a Latin family of influence. As it turns out, it was the cousins with the money. And she's not married. This is not good. Just not good. And she needed a husband desperately. And here on the other side is Rick Ames. Yes. However, Rick Ames is not a CIA officer, right? I think he was second secretary of the U.S. Embassy. So she sees him as a diplomat. This will be quite all right. And intellectually, they got along. Rosario was working on her PhD. Rick was the what-if kind of guy. He loved that. So there was, and I guess there was a romantic spark. And you can imagine, I just wish. I never met Rosario, but she was hell on wheels. That's what the FBI guy said. Everybody has said that, her lawyer. But I just wish I had been there when Rick told Rosario, dear, I'm not a U.S. diplomat. I'm the dreaded CIA officer. And Rick couldn't marry her without her having to become a naturalized citizen. And she had to pass a polygraph. So, and she detested Americans, and particularly American women. We wore jeans. We didn't get dressed up to go to the grocery store. The only nationality of women worse than American were the Soviet women. Yeah, she was terrible. One more? Thank you. I apologize, I stepped off from there to buy a book and then I saw it. Thank you. Jean's family thanks you. Her relatives, thank you. Someone else is already out. You said that he did it for $20,000. And it sounds like the first three deposits that you investigated were that sum, or somewhere around there. Was there evidence that he continued to inform and receive damage? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, those were just the first ones that we had. And certainly most of his personal meetings with the KGB were brought. None was in the Washington area. But he would get, and he would get big payments then. And it was before 9-11, right? So he'd just take a briefcase filled with money. And he's on a dip, passing away. So how much did he get? A little too much. Sum is, sum was left in Moscow. I would say a total, it's a little unclear, but that he had in hand was about two and a half mil, maybe more. But usually what we do is, we would do it with our assets too. We would have an escrow, what we called an escrow account, because we didn't want them spending a lot of money because you'd come to notice of the KGB, particularly with the Soviets. So maybe another mil and a half, two mil was left in Moscow. Thank you very much. Welcome.