When authorities arrested Robert Hansen, the FBI’s most prominent double agent asked his colleague just one question. “Why did it take so long?”
Hansen was found dead in a Supermax prison cell in Colorado this week and is serving a life sentence after being convicted of spying on more than $1.4 million for Moscow over more than 20 years. was.
Hansen’s case has been called “perhaps the worst intelligence disaster in US history,” in a government report. He compromised over 50 FBI human resources (including several who were later executed) and turned over thousands of classified documents, exposing top secret intelligence gathering techniques and U.S. strategy in responding to a nuclear conflict. bottom.
Ostensibly, Hansen was a suburban father and patriot, who drove six children in an old car and was active in Opus Dei, a conservative movement within the Catholic Church. However, the spy led a secret life that inspired six books and several films for television and cinema.
“What made him so egregious was that he was one of those rare individuals who were very accessible…and he blatantly betrayed that trust,” oversaw the incident. Former Justice Department official Paul McNulty said:
The son of a Chicago police officer, Hansen dropped out of dental school and joined the FBI in 1976. He wore a dark suit and imitated former Secretary J. Edgar Hoover, but was not well received for his short temper and sullen demeanor.
Hansen first began working for Soviet military intelligence in the late 1970s, helping to cover up the executed Soviet general and top US double agent Dmitry Polyakov. His work in U.S. counterintelligence gave him access to classified information and an understanding of how poorly the FBI protected early computer his databases.
The agent’s betrayal extended into his personal life as well. He allowed his friends to spy on him and his wife Bonnie having sex, formed a strange friendship with a stripper, and preached to the stripper about going to church, but I took them on trips and bought them gifts.
Hansen went dormant in the early 1980s after Bonnie found him trying to hide papers in his home in Scarsdale, New York. She confronted him, got him to see a priest, and donated proceeds from Soviet espionage to charity.
But when his FBI career stalled, Hansen returned to work in Moscow. His trainer lavished him with praise and money, taking advantage of his desire for approval.
“There were certainly financial gains, but Hansen’s mental state was much more complicated. He was very conservative and deeply religious, but at the same time he betrayed his country.” It was a very strange set of conflicting beliefs and actions,” said one of the defense attorneys, Preston Burton.
A pile of cash that Mr. Hansen kept around the house eventually aroused suspicion from his brother-in-law, who also worked for the FBI. He reported Mr. Hansen to his superiors in the early 1990s. but nothing happened.
An FBI agent leaving Robert Hansen’s home in Vienna, Virginia, 2001 © Manny Ceneta/AFP/Getty Images
Instead, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hansen retired from espionage for nearly a decade. When he contacted him again in 1999, the Russian gleefully wrote, “Welcome, dear friend!”
At this point, the FBI was chasing a super-spy who had turned over thousands of documents to Russia since at least 1985. After erroneously focusing on a CIA officer, he associated the fingerprints on the garbage bag used to drop the documents with Hansen. He was transferred to a fake job in a wiretapped office and assigned an assistant tasked with surreptitiously monitoring him.
By February 2001, Hansen, whose every move was monitored by a team of 300 people, was terrified. He wrote a letter to Russian trainers warning that “something woke the sleeping tiger”, stored it on an encrypted computer disk with classified documents, and wrapped it in a garbage bag.
He was arrested after dropping a package in a Virginia park. He pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage and agreed to speak out about his betrayal to avoid his death penalty.
During the debriefing, Mr. Hansen scathingly described the FBI’s internal security as “a shameful thing…”. . . What I did was criminal, but criminal negligence. ”
“In some ways, Hansen is the architect of the modern FBI,” said Eric O’Neill, who wrote a book about his work as a young agent appointed to win Hansen’s trust. “He exposed many of the FBI’s flaws, and the FBI was rebuilt in a way that would never allow Mr. Hansen again.”
