[9], On March 16, 2016, O'Neill was named National Security Strategist for Carbon Black, an endpoint security company. There were certain anomalies that took place that we just couldnt put our finger on., And Bearden says, I remain convinced there is a fourth man. Gordievsky was taken home, but Grushko confronted him at the KGB the next day.
That raised a possibility that remains, even today, a subject of deep concern among counterintelligence agents, a problem privately acknowledged but little discussed publicly: That the three agents may have been betrayed by a mole inside U.S. intelligence whose identity is still unknown. The double agent was arrested (above right) in 2001 by the FBI after leaving intel for them under a bridge in the park. 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.. The plea bargain allows Bonnie Hanssen to receive about 55% of Hanssens pension, which will total an estimated $39,000 per year. 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.
You can call me sir, or boss, Hanssen said. But if he returned home, he could be shot. 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. 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. Just before his death in 1988, Philby said, To betray, you must first belong.
I read the book, and learned all the details leading up to his career in the FBI.
His boyhood nickname, back on a collective farm in Ukraine, was Mole. Now a stocky, powerfully built man of 43, he had been working for the GRU for 16 yearsand feeding Soviet secrets to the CIA for 10. The KGB told Andrei his fathers remains were cremated and there would be no grave. ONeill noticed that Hanssen was using a Palm III personal computer to store information, and on Feb. 15, 2001, he took the computer from Hanssens office and handed it over to a team of specialists, who downloaded and decoded the contents. On that first day, Andrei pressed his questioners to explain why his father had been arrested. He decided to leave Athensbut not for Moscow.
Or have they reconciled themselves to the fact that he is a criminal and a traitor and deserves He is a public speaker and security expert who currently[as of?] 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. At first I couldnt even recognize him, Andrei said. Jul 15, 2022 12:05 AM. (The bureau wanted someone pretty green so as not to arouse suspicion.) Gordievsky was told his London posting was over, but he would be allowed to remain in a non-sensitive KGB department in Moscow. 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.
[Your wifes genetic code] demands she stay home and nurture the children. . Its amazing to live with a man for all those years and not know him.. Classic animal aggression, ONeill writes. Bonnie Hanssen said Hanssens family was never the beneficiary of any spy money and that Bonnie Hanssen has no idea what happened to the proceeds He traveled frequently, to the United States, Germany, France, New Zealand, Australia, South America and the Middle East. The women fed the dogs potato chips to distract them. The agency cautioned that it would be too risky for him to bring that much cash through the airport and told him the money would be in Moscow, stashed inside a fake rock. His treason has been described as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history. It was the KGBs way of saying my father worked for the CIA, Andrei said. He had never told his wife that he was working for the CIAit would have put her in mortal dangerbut now he had to say something. Furthermore, Hanssen was also **secretly making videotapes of his wife and himself having sex **and sharing the tape with his friends. January 12, 1976 - Joins the FBI as a special agent. I would like to ask him why he did it, ONeill told The Post. Troubled by the incident, Bonnie Hanssen made her husband speak with a Catholic priest, who directed him to contribute money to Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun who ran a Calcutta charitable organization, as a form of penance, Brookner said. I left that memo in your inbox, ONeill replied. Had the Russians examined the car, they would have seen the hump on the floor where the driveshaft would normally be. They raved to friends about his big FBI job, happy marriage, six children and regular churchgoing. His father, Howard, had reportedly belittled, bullied, and berated I love him and Ill pray for the salvation of his soul every day for the rest of my life.. January 12, 2001 - Hanssen is reassigned from counterintelligence to an obscure office at FBI headquarters. Agents find a bag nearby containing $50,000 that they believe is Hanssens payment for the documents. It was truly a mess. This would be the first of many heart-stopping requests from Alleman. And yet to an intelligence agency, ignoring the possibility of a mole isnt really an option, either. Desperate for a way out of his money troubles, Hanssen sent an anonymous letter to a minor Soviet official at the United Nations. The agents he betrayed that day, he has said, included Oleg Gordievsky, whose CIA code name was GTTICKLE; Sergei Bokhan, or GTBLIZZARD; and Leonid Poleshchuk, or GTWEIGH. Among the files was a letter from Hanssen to the Russians arranging to meet.
It was his second wife, Darla Marie Henrichsen Hensen, who he married in 1963 and who moved with him to Alaska in 1967 where they had two children. February 18, 2001 - Is arrested in a Virginia park after making a drop of classified documents.
Have all the good s.ex you can, in all the ways you can, for as long as ever you can ! Hanssen agreed. Between Hanssen and CIA agent Aldrich Ames, countless U.S. secrets concerning federal technology and counterintelligence operations reached Moscow. The Crime Library article only mentions two: spies for the U.S. in the KGB who were outed in his initial communications and subsequently executed by the Soviets. The leading immigration law publisher - over 50000 pages of free information! Charged with 14 counts of espionage, and one count of conspiracy to commit espionage, Robert Hanssen faced the death penalty particularly since his actions had led to the execution of the Soviet informants for the United States. 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..
Before Leonid Poleshchuk left Lagos, he had asked the CIA for $20,000 to buy the apartment that was supposedly waiting for him. The wildest part? We had neighbors that were very close. Stay calm, he recalls telling himself. 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.
But it was only a matter of time. Robert Hanssen being arrest near his home on Feb. 18, 2001 in Vienna, Virginia. Reiser was waiting in a car at the other end. 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. He asked it be given to Joe, with a message, Here is something from Leo. By the time Joe learned of the gift, Andrei said, his father had been arrested.
Robert admitted that he had already spent most of the GRU money, but Bonnie insisted that he repay to charity the full original amount. The KGB took her to a sanitarium, where she was drugged and interrogated further. In his last letter to his Russian contacts, he wrote, Something has aroused the sleeping tiger.. Prisoner #48551-083 as he is known today is held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, and he has no possibility of receiving parole. In April 1985, he has said, he told a Soviet contact in Washington the names of two or three double agents who had approached the CIA but who were actually working for the KGBdangles, in intelligence parlance. Arrested? One that stood out to me was this rather poignant quote: His hero, Kim Philby, may have explained his mind best. In his new book, Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose Americas First Cyber Spy (Crown), ONeill tells his story of risking his life in 2001 to bring down the operative. Id say insanely loyal, Hanssen wrote.
The CIA would want to debrief him at length to try to determine the full extent of his treachery. He would not say why. To the residents of the quiet suburb of Vienna, Virginia, Robert Hanssen was the perfect neighbor.
That fall, the KGB rolled up all of the CIAs assets in the Soviet Union in a lightning strike that sent the agency reeling. One might propose that I am either insanely brave or quite insane. Leonid never made it to the rock, his son said. We have a bunch of evangelical leaders doing all those weird things with men .women and livestock. He had been drugged. 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).
Should the Soviet official agree to the switch, Hanssen wrote, they could arrange for the swap through a personal ad in The Village Voice.
Robert Hansen was actually married twice. As they took him into custody, Hanssen turned to one and said, What took you so long?. WASHINGTON Convicted FBI spy Robert Hanssen, whos set to be sentenced to life in prison tomorrow, asked his best friend to drug and have sex with his A Russian TV documentary shows a shadowy figure picking it up, but Andrei said it is an actor, not his father. In Athens, Bokhan called an emergency telephone number that rang in the CIA station inside the American Embassy. Webrobert hanssen childrenruschell boone family. I think you are looking for links to what his family thinks, not just our blind opinions, so I am moving this thread from IMHO to General Questions. 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. WebEric Michael O'Neill (born March 3, 1973) is an American former FBI counter-terrorism and counterintelligence operative. She next asked ONeill to retrieve Hanssens keys so the FBI could copy them, but his boss kept his keys on him at all times. His MI6 handlers assured him theyd picked up no sign anything was wrong. As they outranked him, he didnt have much of a choice. He worked as an Investigative Specialist with the Special They never lived the high life; they never even went out to dinner, she said. His not-so-secret passion, however, was for codes, radios, and gadgets. 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. It was surreal, like a bad nightmare, Andrei told me. There is no statute of limitations for espionage. In the letter, Hanssen revealed that he had dreamed of being a spy against his country since the age of 14, after reading a book about Kim Philby the British intelligence officer who was also a Russian double agent. ONeill rushed everything he found to Alleman, who had all of it copied, and then quickly returned the contents to Hanssens bag. 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. Impossible. He did so, he said, to prove his bona fides as a potential KGB mole. Just the day before, Moscow had announced that a Soviet defense researcher named Adolf G. Tolkachev had been arrested as a CIA spy.
Morgan Dunn is a freelance writer who holds a bachelors degree in fine art and art history from Goldsmiths, University of London. Meanwhile, Hanssens suspicions that the FBI was onto him had been growing. Even so, he didnt stop. I dont want to live in a tent, she said. Inside the CIA, Howard was blamed for Tolkachevs unmasking and subsequent execution, although Ames, too, had betrayed the researchers identity. Imbecile! The Shocking Story Of Robert Hanssen, The Star FBI Agent Who Sold American Secrets To Moscow For 22 Years. In 1997, Andrei and Svetlana emigrated to the United States.
The only place he really did belong was Opus Dei, and he used most of the money he made from selling secrets to put his six children through expensive Opus Dei Did you encounter any technical issues? When I found a job, the KGB called and they fired me. Web2 was schooled at Oxford, which educated many agents, and worked in 1930s Shanghai, a hotbed of soon-to-be spies and Soviet recruiters. She did, in 1991, but the strain caused by six years of separation proved too much to repair. A KGB general told him he had confessed. Bonnie Hanssens Catholic faith does not allow her to waver, and when asked the inevitable questions about the future she always answers the same way. London, May 17, 1985: Oleg Gordievsky was at the pinnacle of his career. I talked to some old MI6 friends, and they say they are sure there is. In an act of solidarity, his mother, Vivian Hanssen, moved from Florida to Virginia and now lives with the family. :dubious: Does anyone see some weird contradictions here? Cookie Policy The year 1985 was a catastrophe for U.S. and British intelligence agencies. Despite the personal sexual reports, Bonnie and the children continued their weekly visits. 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. What Im curious about is what happened after Hanssens capture and the disclosure of everything that went on.
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. His target would be Robert Hanssen, a 25-year FBI veteran that the bureau suspected might be the most treacherous and damaging double agent in US history. In addition to being a spy, Hanssen was also apparently an ultra-conservative Catholic, involved in Opus Dei, and had a habit of imposing his religious views on his subordinates. Of course Cherkashin, who worked in the Soviet Embassy in Washington and handled Ames, may have been unable to resist a chance to taunt the FBI and the CIA. There is insanity in all the answers.. Its the one scrap of power hes kept for himself.. Maria, then 16, was carrying the patatuff. Why is it so important to take [that] car? Hanssen demanded to know. They were driven to the infamous Lefortovo prison for interrogation. "[2][7], Following the Hanssen case, O'Neill decided to leave the FBI in order to focus on law school. Asked what Bonnie Hanssen thinks may have motivated her husband, Brookner said: Who knows? Is there an account anywhere of the deaths that were directly attributable to his actions?
Inside were three British intelligence agentsthe candy-bar man and two women, one of whom was Gordievskys MI6 case officer in London. Robert Phillip Hanssens 1962 high school yearbook photo, provided by William Howard Taft High School. Days later, ONeill helped devise another plan to get Hanssen out of the office: Two senior officers dropped in unexpectedly and said they wanted to go to the shooting practice range with Hanssen during lunch.
After they drove home, he packed a gym bag and announced that he was going for a jog. He asked if they were there to greet an important diplomat. It shortened her life, he said. Cookie Settings, FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, John Hallisey / FBI / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images, Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12, The Author of 'Anne of Green Gables' Lived a Far Less Charmed Life Than Her Beloved Heroine, Ancient DNA Confirms the Origin Story of the Swahili People, New Research Rewrites the History of American Horses, Take a Virtual Tour of the 'Doomsday' Seed Vault. 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? I was 18 years old. He sees that episode differently now. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history. He was sentenced to 15 life Maybe a fifth. I honestly dont know. He lived in Vienna, Virginia, an middle to upper scale suburb of Washington DC when he was arrested. Marriage: Bernadette Bonnie (Wauck) Hanssen (August 10, 1968-present), Children: Lisa, Greg, Mark, John Jack, Sue and Jane, Education: Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, A.B. A feature film called Breach was released in 2007. Then he kissed his wife and daughter goodbye. December 2000 - The FBI begins surveillance of Hanssen. Take your pick. One of them finally answered: For espionage.. He had champagne and flowers waiting, a big basket of fruit, chocolates and a balloon. The tension would not lessen over the next few days, with Hanssen telling ONeill he was a worthless clerk.. In five more weeks he would also be retiring from his day job"as an FBI agent. Under the plea agreement, Hanssen is obligated to return the $1.4 million in spying proceeds to the government, but Brookner said she doubts that will ever happen. The timeline just didnt work to explain Gordievskys recall to Moscow, FBI Special Agent Leslie Wiser, who ran the Ames case, told me. All Rights Reserved. Bob Hanssen was about to retire from his life's work.
Id have to think that making enough money to fit in in the only group where he could fit in was a motivating factor. He dropped it, sensing that he was getting into dangerous territory. Robert Philip Hansen thought he was smarter than the system. Were you in my office? Hanssen leaned over my desk, his face inches from mine. On Feb. 18, 2001, Hanssen left a package presumably full of classified documents wrapped in trash bags underneath a bridge in Foxstone Park, then placed a piece of tape at a nearby location, indicating the drop had been made.
Soon there was a plan for an exfiltration, the CIAs term for spiriting an agent in danger out of a foreign country. Confess again! the general roared. 1980 - Begins working for the counterintelligence unit, focusing on the Soviet Union. at the g.ay bar again?
or getting a.ss kicked from your ex wife? CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. They expected I would do something stupid, he told me. His father, Howard, had reportedly belittled, bullied, and berated the boy from childhood to his college years at Knox College, 200 miles away from his home in Chicago. His escape plan was bound under the flyleaf of a novel; he had to slit the cover open to read the instructions. A feature film called Breach was released in A 1998 research paper from Brigham Young University studied 139 spies and concluded that half of them did it for the money.