Espionage Killed the Company
May 21, 2008
The United States lost competitive advantage in a strategically important emerging industry when a Chinese citizen employee of Ellery Systems, Inc. resigned and took with him computer software source codes. The codes had cost $950,000 to produce and had a potential market value of tens of billions of dollars.
As a direct result of this loss, Ellery Systems, Inc. went out of business and 25 employees lost their jobs. Man-centuries of incredibly complex and hard work and millions of dollars of investment were lost to a foreign country.
Technically, one can’t say the software codes were “stolen,” as that was never proven in court despite an arrest, confession and ample independent evidence collected by the FBI. Prosecution had to be dropped and the Ellery Systems employee went free because the United States did not, at that time, have an effective law for the prosecution of economic espionage. According to Robert Bryant, then head of the FBI’s National Security Division, lack of industrial espionage laws hamstrung hundreds of FBI investigations involving the intelligence services of at least 23 countries, half of them unfriendly states and the rest friends and close allies.
Thanks in part to the high-profile Ellery Systems case, that gap in U.S. law was remedied in 1996 with passage of the Economic Espionage Act.
Ellery Systems, a small, entrepreneurial company in Boulder, CO, was at the forefront of building the much-heralded information superhighway. It’s specialty, called Distributed Computing Technology, provides a link between major telecommunications technologies and computing. Department of Defense funded the early development of Ellery’s technology for intelligence and C3I applications. Ellery was providing specialized software to NASA and working on developing a library of innovative applications for business and other markets.
A Chinese employee of Ellery had, with the knowledge of Ellery’s management, recently gone to China to “visit his sick mother.” Within days of his return, this employee submitted his resignation. The following day, the software source code for Ellery’s products was downloaded via the Internet to a Chinese friend of this employee at a software development company in Denver known to have Chinese connections. The Chinese employee allegedly received $550,000 from a Chinese government-controlled export-import corporation to set up his own software development firm in the United States to compete with Ellery Systems.
FBI agent John Gedney reportedly told the judge the alleged theft of the software source code fits a profile “of Chinese intelligence operations.”
The Chinese employee was a citizen of the People’s Republic of China who had been in the United States for five years. During the Chinese government crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tienanmen Square, he had joined a protest in Denver of the Chinese action. American friends were surprised by his arrest. They said he liked his job at Ellery Systems, attended church, and enjoyed his freedom so much he wanted to gain U.S. citizenship. They had never had any reason to doubt his honesty and integrity.
According to Geoffrey Shaw, former Chief Executive Officer of Ellery Systems in testimony before Congress, the former employee and his Chinese friend admitted taking Ellery systems’ source code. They admitted meeting with government and company officials from the People’s Republic of China to set up a company to use the technology taken from Ellery to produce applications and other products. They admitted entering into an agreement to provide this technology to a Chinese company in return for money. They admitted deleting copyright notices and other identifiers that would indicate the software codes were clearly Ellery Systems’ property. And they admitted lying to Ellery Systems officials when asked if they were in possession of any property of Ellery Systems.
As noted above, prosecution had to be dropped because, at that time, no federal statute directly addressed economic espionage or the protection of proprietary economic information. This was remedied soon thereafter by the Economic Espionage Act of 1996.
The National Counterintelligence Center has prepared a video, entitled Risky Business, based largely on the Ellery Systems case.
References
1. Testimony by Geoffrey Shaw, former Chief Executive Officer of Ellery Systems, Inc., before a joint session of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information of the Senate Judiciary Committee, February 27, 1996. Stephen Keating, “Global Intrigue on Info Highway, Local Case Alleges Chinese Piracy,” The Denver Post, April 24, 1994, p. A-1.
2. Jonathan Landay, “Congress Moves to Stop Spies in the Workplace,” The Christian Science Monitor, March 12, 1996, p. 1.
3. “Technology Theft Suspect Remains Under House Arrest,” Reuters, April 15, 1994.
Computer Vulnerabilties-Hacking US Government Computers from Overseas
May 21, 2008
Foreign-based hacker groups working via the Internet have had substantial success breaking into U.S. Government and defense contractor computer systems holding sensitive but not classified information. There is one publicly known case in which computer break-ins from overseas were sponsored by a foreign intelligence service.
Three Germans in Bremen, West Germany were hired by the Soviet KGB during 1986-1989 to hack into U.S. Government systems. They penetrated Pentagon systems, NASA networks, Los Alamos National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories. They were detected by Clifford Stoll, at Berkeley, when he checked out minor discrepancies in the account billings. Stoll later wrote the popular book, The Cuckoo’s Egg, about the case. The three hackers were arrested and convicted of espionage.
The following three cases also show the ability of hackers overseas to penetrate protected domestic U.S. systems via the Internet. In these three cases there was some suspicion of possible foreign intelligence involvement. This could not be confirmed, but also could not be ruled out. Enterprising foreign hackers could collect this information on their own and then sell it to a foreign intelligence service, or a foreign service could sponsor the same kind of operation itself.
Argentine Hacker Intrusion
Into Navy Systems
In July 1995 computers in several states and Mexico reported intrusions originating from Harvard University. The hacker apparently lifted user IDs and password information from accounts on a system administered by the university. The U.S. government became concerned in August when an intrusion was detected on a network operated by the U.S. Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center (NCCOSC). The intruder broke into the NCCOSC computer and installed sniffer programs to capture the IDs and passwords of legitimate users, and other software that would allow him to alter or destroy network files or to make them inaccessible to users.
After attacking a site in Taiwan, the intruder was monitored while “chatting” on the Internet, using the name Griton. Griton was traced back to Argentina where the moniker was known by Argentine authorities as a computer pirate who specialized in hacking, cracking and phreaking. The subject was soon traced to Buenos Aires and identified as Julio Cesar Ardita, then a 21-year-old student in Buenos Aires at the University of Argentina.
According to news reports, this hacker gained access to a host computer at the Army Research Lab in Edgewood, Maryland; the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington; the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California; and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Victim sites include 62 U.S. government, 136 U.S. educational, and 31 U.S. commercial facilities. The U.S. Navy, NASA, and Department of Energy’s National Laboratories were high on the list of frequency of penetration.
Ardita was served a warrant and his computer was seized. He admitted responsibility, but claimed he was guilty only of mischief. He was arraigned in December, 1995. The U.S. Department of Justice filed criminal charges against Ardita. Prosecution in the U.S. was initially frustrated by the fact that computer crime is not covered by international agreements for extradition. In December 1997, Ardita agreed to come voluntarily to the United States and plead guilty to unlawfully intercepting electronic communications over a military computer and damaging files on a military computer. In return for Ardita’s agreement to come voluntarily to the United States, he is being sentenced to only three years probation and fined $5,000.
Although he hacked into important and sensitive government research files on satellites, radiation, and energy-related engineering, Ardita is not accused of obtaining classified information related to national security. To counterintelligence analysts, the hacker’s selection of targets and subject matter suggested a well-defined intelligence collection tasking, but foreign intelligence involvement has not been established. If a foreign intelligence service was involved, it is impossible to know which one, as many countries might have been interested in the information Ardita collected.
The Ardita case was the first time a court-ordered wire tap was used for real-time monitoring of an unknown subject to catch a computer criminal. It demonstrates the ability to chase and identify an international hacker on-line.
Air Force Rome Development Center Break-In
Two young British hackers, Richard Pryce, age 16, and Mathew Bevan, age 21, broke into U.S. military computer systems. Pryce, who was identified and charged in 1995, allegedly obtained access to files on ballistic weapons research and messages from U.S. agents in North Korea during a 1994 crisis over inspection of nuclear facilities in North Korea. The penetrations were carried out over a period of several months.
Bevan, an information technology technician, was charged in 1996 with conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers. Pryce used the on-line nickname of “Datastream Cowboy” while Bevan identified himself as “Kuji.” Kuji was tutoring Datastream in his attempts to break into specific systems. According to news reports, investigators suspected the older culprit of being a foreign agent.
Pryce and Bevan broke into the Rome Air Development Center, Griffiss Air Force Base, NY, and before authorities became aware of their presence (five days later) they had penetrated seven systems, copied files including sensitive battlefield simulations, and installed devices to read passwords of everyone entering the systems. Rome Air Development Center was used as a launching pad for more than 150 intrusions into military, government and other systems including NASA and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Large volumes of data were downloaded from penetrated systems. One such data transfer (which was being monitored) involved the downloading of files from the Goddard Space Flight Center to an Internet provider in Latvia. In order to prevent the loss of sensitive data, the monitoring team broke the connection.
In one of these break-ins, Pryce used Rome to access a Korean facility. According to media reports, “For several anxious hours [U.S. authorities] didn’t know whether the intrusion was into a North or South Korean system. The concern was that the North Koreans would trace an intrusion coming from the U.S. and perceive it as an aggressive act of war.” The penetrated system turned out to be the South Korean Atomic Research Institute. The two were arrested after a long investigation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigation and New Scotland Yard.
Dutch Teen Hackers
A group of Dutch teenagers penetrated computer systems at 34 U.S. military installations during 1990-91. They gained access to information on personnel performance reports, weapons development, and descriptions of movement of equipment and personnel. The systems penetrated included the Naval Sea Systems Command, the Army’s readiness system at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, and the Army missile research lab at Aberdeen, Maryland.
At least one penetrated system directly supported U.S. military operations in Operation Desert Storm prior to the Gulf War. They copied or altered unclassified data and changed software to permit future access. The hackers were also looking for information about nuclear weapons. Their activities were first disclosed by Dutch television when camera crews filmed a hacker tapping into what was said to be U.S. military test information.
According to an ABC News report, the Dutch hackers had been operating for at least a year reading sensitive information about military plans and operations. Documents obtained by ABC indicate that hackers got so much information about the Patriot Missile that they had to break into several other computers just to find a place to store the data. At one point the intruders shut down computers in Wisconsin and Virginia which were later used to mobilize troops for Desert Storm. Information was gathered on the Patriot rocket launching system, the Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missile, and on the call up of military reserves for the Gulf War. The search words the hackers were particularly interested in were “military,” “nuclear” and “Desert Storm” or “Desert Shield.”
Many of the computer penetrations originated in Geldrop, Holland. At the time, investigators suspected the hackers could have been freelance spies looking for information to sell to the KGB or Iraqi intelligence, but no evidence of foreign intelligence service involvement has been found.
Reference
1. The Washington Post, March 30, 1996, “Argentine, 22, Charged with hacking Computer Networks;” The Washington Post, May 20, 1998, “Argentine Pleads Guilty to Hacking U.S. Networks;” Associated Press, “Argentine Computer Hacker Agrees to Surrender, says US Attorney,” Detroit Free Press, Dec. 7, 1997.
2. USA Today, March 23, 1996, “Hacker Pair Illustrates Pentagon’s Vulnerability;” and The Toronto Star, April 12, 1998, “How Datastream Cowboy Took U.S. to the Brink of War.”
3. ABC News, “World News Tonight” with Peter Jennings, April 25, 1991. John Markoff, “Dutch Computer Rogues Infiltrate American Systems with Impunity,” The New York Times, April 21, 1991.
Spy Stories-Hanssen: Deep Inner Conflicts
May 21, 2008
This is a description of Robert Hanssen as person, not a full account of the case. It illustrates character weaknesses that have been found in many American spies.
Robert Philip Hanssen was an FBI agent from 1976 to February 2001. Starting in 1979, during three separate periods, he was also a spy for the Soviet Union and later Russia. He passed thousands of pages of extremely sensitive Secret and Top Secret documents and dozens of computer disks to his Soviet and Russian handlers.
The majority of Hanssen’s time with the FBI was spent in its counterintelligence (CI) division, with a particular emphasis on Soviet and Russian intelligence. Ironically, he was even responsible for a large scale study that would be used in the hunt for the unidentified mole inside the FBI-in the hunt for Hanssen himself.
Hanssen was known during his teen years to be avidly interested in Soviet espionage. He believed that the Soviets were the very best in the spy trade, and he sought to understand the functional mechanisms at work within the KGB and its military counterpart. This became a favorite topic of conversation for Hanssen. While completing his FBI training in Quantico, Virginia, Hanssen joined several classmates on an excursion through the Washington, DC, area. During the tour, he led them to the Soviet Embassy on 16th street and began to describe his own knowledge of radio signals. He went on to impress them with his detailed knowledge about the types of communications the Soviets could intercept due to the hilltop location of their Washington, DC, embassy. One colleague who was on the trip later noted, “He knew all this stuff. The first time I ever heard of a KGB Center was from him.”
No doubt Hanssen was more knowledgeable than his FBI colleagues about many things, a fact that was not lost on Hanssen. He was exceptionally bright and the FBI utilized his superior analytical and technological skills and abilities for many important projects and operations. But what Hanssen offered in terms of intelligence, he severely lacked in social skills-a critical trait for a successful FBI field agent.
Although he had a longing to be involved in spy work-in catching the Soviets-Hanssen was always relegated to the back room, where accounting and computer work awaited him. He was never deployed as a field agent, and he was never involved in field work, so he never worked the jobs that he knew would gain him respect among his FBI peers. Because of this, Hanssen felt unappreciated and undervalued within the Bureau. As one former supervisor has said, “He never got the respect he thought he deserved.” After his arrest, a psychiatrist who interviewed him noted that this treatment may have been what triggered Hanssen’s espionage. If he couldn’t fulfill his spy dreams within the FBI, he would find another way.
Each of Hanssen’s three periods of espionage was triggered by financial needs. When he contacted the Soviets in 1979, he was overwhelmed by the financial pressures of living in New York and providing for his growing family. He recontacted them in 1985 when he needed to pay off a $50,000 balloon mortgage on his home. In 1999, he was paying for private school education for his six children. His spending continually outstripped his income, even though his salary was near the top of the FBI pay scale.
Hanssen was indeed motivated by money, but most Americans have financial needs and very few commit espionage or other financial crimes in order to solve those problems. What made Hanssen different? The Department of Justice Inspector General’s report concludes that:
“Hanssen’s initial decision to commit espionage arose from a complex blend of factors, including low self-esteem and a desire to demonstrate intellectual superiority, a lack of conventional moral restraints, a feeling that he was above the law, a lifelong fascination with espionage and its trappings and a desire to become a “player” in that world, the financial rewards he would receive, and the lack of deterrence — a conviction that he could ‘get away with it.”
The information presented below is not intended as an account of Hanssen’s life or of his espionage. Rather, it focuses on the psychological characteristics and behaviors that are potentially relevant to understanding what, in addition to money, caused Hanssen to commit espionage. These same characteristics are also found in other espionage cases. It is important to note that, despite what you read here, Hanssen appeared to many people to be a simple, quiet, God-fearing family man with a relatively uninteresting life. He was a devout Catholic who attended mass every day and was actively involved in Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic lay organization. He espoused conservative and anti-Communist views and had no alcohol, drug, or gambling problems. Unfortunately, things are not always what they seem.
Abuse by Father
From the time he was a child, Bob Hanssen had a love-hate relationship with his father, Howard Hanssen. In some ways, he worshipped his father. He was intensely proud that his father was a Chicago police officer, and wanted to be just like him (and he did spend some time with the Chicago Police Department prior to his job with the FBI). In other ways, the son justifiably feared and loathed his father. As a child, young Bob was repeatedly abused physically and emotionally by Howard. One particular incident occurred when Bob was six or seven; his father wrapped Bob in blankets and spun him around until he became so dizzy he vomited, then his father punished him for vomiting, telling him to “be a man.” In another instance, Howard picked his son up by the ankle and pulled his hamstring until he urinated on himself. Again, Bob was punished for losing control of himself.
Emotionally, Hanssen’s father was equally cruel. He would publicly belittle Bob to anyone who would listen, including Bob’s friends and their parents. When Bob was old enough to drive, he was thrilled with the idea of getting his driver’s license, but his father bribed the official at the driving test to fail Bob. The son, who was aware of what his father had done, felt bitterly betrayed.
The effects of this abuse carried into adulthood, as did the abuse itself. While in college, Bob dreaded his parents’ visits, because he could not anticipate what kind of mean and insulting things his father might say about him to his professors or his friends. Even after Bob Hanssen was married and had children he felt vulnerable to his father’s emotional abuse. Eventually his wife, Bonnie, made him write a letter threatening to cut off all contact with his father, including from Bonnie and the children, if his father didn’t stop belittling Bob every chance he got. Although he worshipped his father outwardly, he revealed to both Bonnie Hanssen and to his psychiatrist (after his arrest) that he sometimes hated his father and was “infuriated” by the way his father treated him.
In an interview after his arrest, Hanssen claimed that he loved his father and respected him and looked upon him almost as a god. He believed his father presented this hard exterior to him in an effort to make him tough and inure him to criticism. However, he recognized that the relationship with his father caused him to have a severe lack of self-confidence and a fear of failure that plagued him through his life.
Inability to Make a Commitment
The unstable relationship that Bob Hanssen had with his father could have led him to fear relationships in general. If he could not get his father to love him, how could he get anyone to care about him, to stand by him, and to support him? How could he feel safe committing himself to relationships that were most likely doomed?
He had a difficult time committing to anything. For example, he dropped out of dental school after he had completed the majority of the coursework because he decided it just wasn’t the thing for him. Even more telling is that, within days of his marriage to Bonnie, Hanssen cheated on her with an old girlfriend. When Bonnie found out, he swore it wasn’t meaningful and that nothing of the sort would ever happen again. He did, however, admit his sin and beg her forgiveness.
Hanssen may have thought that joining the FBI would fill a void he had felt for most of his life. He may have believed that the FBI would offer him a place where he really fit in and where he would be accepted by those around him. But this was not to be. Very early in his FBI career, Hanssen learned that his fellow agents looked at him the same way his father did, as mediocre at best and definitely not fit for a “man’s job.”
Hanssen developed few, if any, real friendships while working in the FBI. His very best friend was Jack Hoschouer, a friend from his high school days in Chicago. Jack was the one person whom Hanssen felt he could really trust, the one person who Hanssen knew truly cared for him. Jack was also the person who brought out the impulsive and immature side of Hanssen that was rarely, if ever, seen by his FBI colleagues.
Even Hanssen’s espionage career illustrates this difficulty in making a commitment. After volunteering his services to the Soviets, he dropped the contact and then voluntarily restarted it — and he did this twice.
Impulsivity/Immaturity
As a teenager, Bob Hanssen was very quiet, withdrawn, and introverted, but he had another side of him that often scared his closest friends. He had a tendency to take enormous risks. Some described him as unpredictable. One high school friend said of Hanssen, “When he got a crazy idea in his head, he was going to do it.” His out-of-control behavior was sporadic, and those around him were never sure what he might do next. On one occasion, for example, he and Jack were shooting rifles into a bullet trap in Jack Hoschouer’s basement when Hanssen suddenly moved very close to the target and began erratically shooting at it, ultimately shooting chunks out of the basement wall and terrifying Jack.
Young Bob Hanssen was also unpredictable behind the wheel, which scared some of his friends. After studying the physics behind auto racing in a high school class, he took his car out and tried to find the maximum speed he could attain while turning corners. He was a daredevil in his car. His friends advised that he never warned them or asked them before taking off on an erratic driving spree, and that they often feared for their safety. He also enjoyed challenging other drivers to races where he would find narrow, twisting roads and dare the other driver to follow him through them.
In addition to his sporadic, risky behaviors, Hanssen was enamored with Russian espionage. “Starting at a young age, Hanssen enjoyed spy-related entertainment, especially James Bond books and movies. He collected items associated with espionage, such as a Walther PPK pistol, a Leica camera, a shortwave radio, and opened a Swiss bank account.” During college he studied the Russian language and had privately studied the history of communism to help him better understand the KGB. He was very interested in, and knowledgeable about, the Rosenbergs, who sold atomic secrets to the Russians in the 1950s, and about Kim Philby, a British intelligence officer who successfully spied for the Russians for many years. He was especially impressed with Philby because the officers and investigators surrounding Philby didn’t believe that it was possible for him to be a Russian spy. One of Hanssen’s acquaintances said that he had an “encyclopedic” knowledge of Philby and his relationship with the Russians. As previously noted, he impressed his peers during FBI training with his knowledge of Russian communications intercept technology long before he would have been trained in the subject by the Bureau. (Obsession with foreign and domestic espionage is a sign of immaturity sometimes seen in convicted spies.)
Hanssen’s favorite movie was Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion about a high-ranking official who committed a crime, but who because of his status was never suspected even though he left many clues. His favorite book was The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton, about a poet-turned-policeman-turned-spy who, like Hanssen, was a walking contradiction. Perhaps Hanssen saw pieces of his own life in each of these works; he had drawn up the picture of the perfect spy. Paul Moore, a fellow agent and friend of Hanssen, believes that he may have been driven by a desire to be the greatest spy in history.
Robert Hanssen’s immature and impulsive behaviors as a youth took on a sexual nature as he matured, most frequently when he was accompanied by his best pal, Jack Hoschouer. Together they acted like teenagers, gawking at attractive women as they walked down the street, visiting strip clubs, and once even visiting a brothel while overseas where they fulfilled Hanssen’s fantasy of them both having sex with the same woman. Hanssen often shared pornographic web sites, erotic fantasies, and sexual conquests with Jack, and without his wife’s knowledge, he sent nude photographs of Bonnie to Jack while he was away fighting in the Vietnam war. Over time, and unknown to Bonnie Hanssen, Hanssen invited Jack to watch him having sex with Bonnie. First he told Jack he could watch through the bedroom window, and eventually he set up a closed-circuit TV so that Jack could watch the activity from the Hanssens’ living room.
Both alone and with Jack Hoschouer, Hanssen spent many lunch hours at local strip joints. (This was a totally different side of Hanssen than seen by his fellow agents, whom he frequently ostracized and condemned for going to the same places.) He even met and developed an ongoing relationship with one stripper, Priscilla Galey, although the sexual nature of their relationship has not been fully determined.
What is known is that over the course of several months Hanssen openly splurged the fruits of his espionage on Priscilla Galey, buying her expensive jewelry, a computer, a Mercedes, and a trip to Hong Kong. (If Hanssen’s relationship with Galey had ever been investigated, it would have surely raised questions as to how he was funding such extravagances.) After Hanssen’s arrest, Galey reported that he was always kind and very giving, and that he was one of the few people who had a positive influence on her life.
But Hanssen was known to behave crudely and impulsively around other women. On two different occasions he walked up on one of Bonnie’s sisters while she was breast feeding and touched her breast. (This sister reported that she never liked nor trusted Hanssen.) While working at the FBI, Hanssen once grabbed a female subordinate by the arm after she left a meeting in which he had ordered her to stay; he chased her down the hall and then tried to drag her back into his office. (Although he received a reprimand, the incident was never seen as a reason to investigate his mental state.)
Grandiosity
Grandiosity is a common trait seen in spies. Grandiose persons grossly overestimate their abilities and inflate their accomplishments. They are often preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, love, or, in Hanssen’s case, of being a master spy. Grandiose persons also feel they are so smart or so important that the rules, which were made for ordinary people, do not apply to them. Their unwarranted feelings of self-importance typically mask inner doubts and insecurities. They may need constant reinforcement of this fantasy image of themselves. Relationships with people and organizations depend upon whether the relationship supports or undermines their grandiose impression of themselves.
Grandiose thoughts become a security concern when the individual overreacts to let-downs, perceived slights, or unfulfilled fantasies, and lashes out against the offending party. In Robert Hanssen’s case, the offending party was the FBI. When he first went to work at the FBI, he was excited by the challenge. He believed that he had finally found his life’s cause-to catch the Soviet spies who were working against the United States. His first let-down occurred during his early years with the Bureau when a weekend attempt led by Hanssen to break a Soviet spy ring was undermined by his own colleagues. He was working in the New York field office and organized a sting on Soviet spies to be carried out on Sunday. He had figured out that was one day the Soviets were most active because the Soviets knew FBI agents didn’t work on Sunday. Hanssen, however, was sorely disappointed by his fellow agents. Over half the agents from the operation called in from home, not wanting to work on a Sunday, and no progress was made.
The lack of support he received left him with a sense of betrayal and dejection. It also left him feeling immensely smarter and more adept than his FBI counterparts. Although he knew what needed to be done to stop the Soviets, he knew he could not count on his fellow agents to follow through or make a concerted effort to capture the Russians in the act of espionage. This may have been a defining point in Hanssen’s spy career. As one colleague said, “He went in extremely idealistic and found out to his dismay that it is made up of fallible human beings who sometimes screw up and don’t do things right. This is one of his triggers. I don’t think he ever really accepted that.”
Unfortunately for Hanssen, his colleagues and supervisors in the FBI did not recognize or appreciate his superior intellect as anything extraordinary, which left him feeling “overlooked and unappreciated in an organization that, in his view, valued the macho, door-kicking lawman even as it increasingly relied on analytical minds like his to solve complex, technical cases.” Further, Hanssen often felt he was being ostracized by inferior agents, which caused a great deal of resentment. It brought about feelings that had been manifest during his childhood years when his father berated him for “not being a man.”Â
This feeling only intensified as Hanssen rose through the ranks of the FBI and felt surrounded by those he considered mentally inferior individuals. Following his arrest, when asked why he spied, he stated two reasons: fear and rage. Fear that he would not be able to support his family and would, in turn, lose their respect, and rage at the way he was treated by the FBI. Apparently this rage grew each time he was passed over for a promotion he thought he deserved or was treated as inferior to the field agents whom he considered weak and unintelligent.
While Hanssen was, in fact, more intelligent than most of his fellow agents, he believed himself to be superior to them in every way. He despised the investigative and resourcing practices used by the Bureau as inferior to what he expected and what he would have done. In addition, he really believed that he understood the Russians better than almost anyone in the United States government.
Hanssen behaved accordingly, projecting himself to his colleagues as being far superior to them. He despised having to use lay terms when discussing technical matters, and he also hated working with women and homosexuals, whom he considered to be weak and incapable of FBI work. One longtime associate described him as an elitist: “He is not a guy who would sit there and drink a cup of coffee…with the plumber….”
Hanssen felt that he had been treated unjustly all his life, beginning with his father, and was extremely sensitive to unfairness. He believed that he was unjustly excluded from the Bureau’s inner circle. In his mind he was far and away more intelligent and technically capable, and he believed that he belonged in the limelight of FBI operations against the Soviets-where he was markedly left out.2
John Lewis of the FBI recalls that Hanssen seemed to be an individual with very low self-esteem underneath his tough exterior, who was trying to get revenge for something. He said, “He lived in this world of shadows. He recognized he was not sought after. He was there, but kind of wasn’t there…He hated so many of the people he worked with; he felt superior but wasn’t making it. A lot of people just wrote him off as a technical weenie. He didn’t fit the [FBI Agent] mold. And there is this possibility that this guy committed himself to saying, ‘What a bunch of assholes’ and ‘I’ll get my revenge someday, somehow.’” Another fellow agent said, “He was a mumbler on the back bench. We didn’t want to talk in front of him. He was just creepy. You would look up, and he would be lurking in the hallways.”
Disappointed and angry with the FBI, Hanssen turned his attention to the KGB, which he knew would appreciate him. He knew the value of the material he had access to and also knew the value he would have to the KGB if he provided that material. Robert Hanssen finally felt needed.
Other Factors
Interviews after his arrest revealed that, although Hanssen was very troubled by the pain his spying caused his wife and children, he did not feel guilty about the espionage itself. He believed that he was simply involved in playing a fair spy game. But clearly he was deeply conflicted as indicated by is on-and-off relationship with the Soviets/Russians. One side of Hanssen was deeply religious and well aware of the immorality of what he was doing. His first period of espionage ended in 1981 after Bonnie inadvertently discovered what he was doing. Subsequently at church he declined to receive communion, feeling that his unconfessed espionage “put him in a state of sin that made him unworthy of the sacrament.” After that, he confessed to a priest. He began to tell several of his closest friends that he did not deserve their friendship; he began to withdraw and became quiet and introverted, much like he was during his childhood.
During his espionage, Hanssen took some significant risks-perhaps because in his own mind he thought he was smarter than the FBI, understood counterintelligence and, therefore, didn’t believe he could be caught. In addition to the expensive gifts he bought for Priscilla Galey, other high risk behaviors that might have drawn suspicion included:
- Taking spy “work” home and writing notes to his KGB handlers from his home computer.
- Maintaining copies of his correspondence with the Russians on hard drives in his office at the FBI.
- Using postal mail to conduct transactions with the KGB.
- Keeping large sums of money in his home.
- Breaking into a supervisor’s computer and downloading classified documents in an apparent attempt to prove to his superiors that Bureau computer security was poor.
Nevertheless, Hanssen became concerned during the latter period of his espionage, as indicated by searches he made on the FBI’s online investigation tracking system. In an effort to learn if he was under suspicion, he made more than 80 searches of this database between June 1997 and February 2001 to see if there was any reference to himself or to the dead drop or signal sites he used to communicate with the Russians.
All of these factors together point to a disturbed, lonely man striving for recognition in his chosen profession, and who finally found in the KGB people who valued and appreciated his services. In one post-arrest interview, Hanssen compared himself to Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. He placed all of his negative actions in one compartment separate from his normal life. While many behaviors were known to various people prior to his arrest, no single individual had seen the entire portrait of Robert Philip Hanssen that is now available in retrospect. No one behavior was ever enough to raise suspicion of this strange, socially unskilled, yet seemingly innocuous FBI agent.
References
1. D.A. Vise. The Bureau and the Mole: The Unmasking of Robert Philip Hanssen, the Most Dangerous Double Agent in FBI History. New York, NY: Grove Press, 2002.
2. D. Wise. Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI’s Robert Hanssen Betrayed America. New York: Random House, 2003.
3. N.J. Ciccarello & T.J. Thompson.. Money, the Fear of Failure, and Espionage: Report of an Interview with Robert Philip Hanssen. Langley, VA: Personnel Security Managers’ Research Program, 2002.
4. Office of the Inspector General. A Review of the FBI’s Performance in Deterring, Detecting, and Investigating the Espionage Activities of Robert Philip Hanssen. Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 2003.
Spy Stories-Hamilton Tried to Prevent a War
May 21, 2008
Frederick C. Hamilton was a civilian employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency assigned as a bilingual research technician in the Defense Attaché’s Office at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru. He was arrested in 1991 for passing classified DIA reports to the Ecuadorian Military Attaché office in Lima.
Hamilton was unmarried, lived in an apartment on the economy rather than in the U.S. Embassy compound, and spent most of his free time associating with local citizens rather than Americans. He had learned Spanish from his Spanish mother. He devoted much time to humanitarian efforts, helping a local community establish a hospital and volunteering assistance during a cholera epidemic. Hamilton was particularly impressed by his experiences touring sites where Peruvian civilians had been massacred by terrorists. Peru had a major terrorism problem at that time.
Hamilton learned in early 1991 that the Peruvian government was concerned about a possible border war with Ecuador. It was relocating troops to the Ecuadorian border that had been deployed against the terrorist threat. Two concerned officials from the Ecuadorian Military Attaché Office in Lima asked Hamilton if, in the event of war, they and their families could take refuge in Hamilton’s apartment. Hamilton agreed.
Hamilton began to consider ways to reduce tensions between Peru and Ecuador. His colleagues in the U.S. Defense Attaché’s Office agreed that if either side knew the true capabilities and intentions of the other, the tensions would be greatly reduced. However, it seemed unlikely that DIA Headquarters would grant approval in a timely manner to pass information to the Peruvians or Ecuadorians.
Hamilton identified so closely with the local citizens that he lost his ability to remain objective. He also had a disdain for “bureaucracy,” which he saw as often hindering rather than helping U.S. foreign policy. He took it upon himself on two occasions to pass classified documents to the Ecuadorians. These included raw intelligence reports that could have compromised a confidential source. He was motivated by a desire to prevent a war between Peru and Ecuador and was not paid for his efforts. He rationalized that what he did would be in the best interests not only of the people of Peru and Ecuador, but also of the U.S. Government.
Although Hamilton’s desire to prevent a war was laudable, his unilateral action to compromise classified information cannot be condoned. He was sentenced to 37 months in prison.
Reference
Based on declassified extracts from classified DIA report on Hamilton investigation.
Spy Stories-Juwhan Yun-Illegal Export of Poison Gas
May 21, 2008
Juwhan Yun, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Korean origin, ran a legal weapons-exporting company called Komex International in Newark, NJ. The company did most of its legitimate business with South Korea. In 1988, Yun inquired of a New York company about purchasing ammunition for South Korea. A former U.S. customs agent who happened to work at the New York company reported Yun to Customs, as he had suspicions that the ammunition may really be for some country other than South Korea.Â
Based on this tip, Customs put an undercover agent into contact with Yun. Over the course of six months, the agent, masquerading as an arms dealer, negotiated with Yun for TOW missiles, Stinger missiles, classified U.S. missile technology, radar systems and other military items for illegal export. U.S. authorities legally tapped Yun’s phone and fax machine, and this revealed his relationship with Charles Caplan, a convicted felon in England who was notorious for his Iranian and Libyan dealings.
Yun was monitored while Caplan asked him to procure a quantity of the deadly nerve gas Sarin. Shortly thereafter, Yun asked the undercover agent if he could provide Sarin in large quantity for clandestine export to Iran. Sarin is an odorless, colorless liquid or vapor that can cause death within minutes after it is inhaled or absorbed by the skin.
Yun suggested the undercover agent mislabel the Sarin as crankshafts on the export paperwork, but asked the agent to procure a phony export license at a cost of $50,000 as a backup. It was learned later that Caplan’s client (presumably Iran) was interested in large explosive devices of liquid Sarin designed to be dropped from aircraft.
In January 1989, Yun traveled to London to meet with Caplan and his principals. While there, he opened an account at the Korea First Bank under a fictitious name for eventually wire-transferring funds from London to his American supplier for the Sarin. Yun was arrested shortly after his return. He was convicted of conspiring to export 500 quarter-ton bombs of nerve gas valued at $5 million.
References
Frances Ann Burns, “Nerve Gas Defendant Due for Sentencing,” United Press International, July 22, 1989. Daniel J. Wakin, “Man in Custody for Alleged Attempts to Buy Nerve Gas for Exportation,” Associated Press, January 13, 1989.
Samuel Morison: Consulting Led to Espionage
May 21, 2008
Samuel Loring Morison worked at the Naval Intelligence Support Center in Suitland, Md., from 1974 to 1984. The grandson of the famous naval historian Samuel Elliot Morison, he was an intelligence analyst specializing in Soviet amphibious and mine-laying vessels.
At the same time, Morison earned $5,000 per year as a part-time contributor and editor of the American section of Jane’s Fighting Ships, an annual reference work on the world’s navies published in England. There were repeated complaints about Morison using office time and facilities to do his work for Jane’s and warnings to him about conflict of interest between the jobs.
In 1984, conflicts with his supervisors led Morison to seek a full-time position with Jane’s in London. At this time, he began overstepping the boundary of permissible information that could be sent to Jane’s. The case came to a head when Morison took three classified photographs from a neighboring desk. These were aerial surveillance photographs showing construction of the first Soviet nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The photographs were missed. Soon thereafter, they appeared in Jane’s Defence Weekly and were traced back to Morison.
Morison was motivated by a desire to curry favor with Jane’s to increase his chances of being offered a job. He also had a political motive for passing classified information to the media — to influence American public opinion in favor of a stronger defense posture. He believed that the new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would transform Soviet capabilities, and that “if the American people knew what the Soviets were doing, they would increase the defense budget.”
Morison was sentenced to two years in prison for espionage and theft of government property. As a result of the Morison case, policy guidelines for adjudicating security clearances were changed to include consideration of outside activities that present potential conflict of interest.
Reference
1. P. Weiss, “The quiet coup: U.S. v. Morison - a victory for secret government,” Harper’s, September 1989.