Double Agent Hanssen remained suspicious for a long time. Taking advantage of his position, he passed on secret information to the USSR and the names of "moles" who worked for the United States.
In the beginning of glorious deeds: police officer, Catholic and exemplary family man
In 2000, FBI agents knew there was a mole in the bureau, and maybe more than one. For several years, painstaking work was going on to find people who leaked information, but it did not bring the expected result. And suddenly a real miracle happened. A Russian agent went over to the side of the United States and gave out a "mole" for an impressive reward. More precisely, the defector passed on his correspondence with contacts, appearances, flogging, as well as information about the information that the double agent leaked to his employers. In addition, the Americans also received a plastic bag with the traitor's fingerprints. But his real name remained unknown.
The FBI agents could not believe their eyes: it turned out that the "mole" cooperated first with the USSR, and then with Russia, for a total of more than two decades. During this time, he transmitted a huge amount of information regarding not only secret operations, but also agents working undercover. Even by the most conservative estimates, the activities of the "mole" caused damage to the United States in tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.
Overt Hanssen.
The first thing the agents did was listen to the audio recordings. So they found out that the defector had received the code name "Ramon Garcia" in the KGB. True, this did not help them in any way in calculating the traitor. But suddenly one of the agents, while listening to the recording, exclaimed: "It's Bob!" We checked our fingerprints. Exactly!
Bob is Robert Hanssen. A brilliant agent, an exemplary family man and a zealous Catholic. He followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a police officer in 1972. And after four years he was in the slender ranks of the FBI agents. He was transferred to the bureau because it was considered that Robert was "too smart" for an ordinary policeman. Hanssen first worked in accounting in Indiana, and soon found himself in New York.
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In 1981 he was transferred to Washington, where he was assigned to the analytical department for the Soviet Union. Robert was above suspicion due to his position and unblemished reputation. None of his colleagues even dared to imagine that Hanssen could be a "mole". And the traitor took full advantage of his position. He, like a true professional, developed his own system for transmitting classified information: Robert left disks in hiding places, never personally meeting with the messengers. In addition, none of the Soviet agents knew either his real name or appearance. Extreme caution and conspiracy allowed Hanssen to become a "long-lived mole".
Shooting game: traitors will always help
Another interesting thing: according to the defector Oleg Gordievsky, Hanssen started working for the KGB in 1985, but he was wrong. The cooperation began six years earlier, that is, when Robert worked in the New York branch of the FBI. But the first pancake turned out to be lumpy. At that time, Robert was thirty-five years old, he was already married and, under the influence of his wife, turned into a zealous Catholic. For the first information given to the USSR, he received about twenty thousand dollars - good money. But it didn't work to hide the sudden income. The wife threw a scandal, and Robert confessed everything to her, promised to stop cooperating with the Kremlin and went to confession. Curiously, the confessor did not turn in the agent, he only advised to cut off the connection and donate the money to charity. Hanssen did just that. But as time passed, the thirst for money turned out to be stronger. In 1985, Robert contacted Colonel Viktor Cherkashin, handing him a letter with an offer of cooperation. Cherkashin could not miss such a valuable "mole".
Victor Cherkashin.
Full cooperation has begun. Hanssen leaked information on space reconnaissance to Cherkashin, reported on work on a wiretapped tunnel under the building of the USSR embassy, as well as on other important projects. In addition, thanks to Robert, the KGB agents learned the names of the traitors who went over to the side of the United States. For example, he passed Sergei Motorin, Valery Martynov and Boris Yuzhny. The first two were subsequently sentenced to death, and Yuzhny was sent to jail. There is also an opinion that it was Hanssen who reported about Gennady Varenik and Dmitry Polyakov. The first worked in Western Europe and passed on classified information to American curators. Varenik was arrested shortly after Robert became a defector. But the most painful for the USSR was Polyakov's betrayal. The general worked in Burma and India, was the most valuable personnel spy, and suddenly it turned out thatthat he is a "mole" with experience. It turned out that Polyakov had been working with the Americans for over twenty years. Soon, both traitors were shot.
Hanssen's hiding place.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Hanssen temporarily faded into the background. In 1999, Robert unexpectedly got in touch with the Russian special services. Only the third time was fatal for him. In early 2001, he was arrested by FBI agents. Who exactly passed Hanssen, providing the Americans with audio tapes and a package with fingerprints, is not known exactly. According to one version, it was Sergei Tretyakov, according to another - Alexander Zaporozhsky. But the fact remains. FBI agents have obtained the necessary evidence to arrest the "mole".
At the trial, Hanssen said that he collaborated with Soviet intelligence out of "fear and anger." Allegedly, he was afraid that he would not be able to financially support his family and was angry with colleagues who held positions higher than him. As a result, Robert was not executed, but sentenced to life in prison. Along with Aldrich Ames and John Walker, Hanssen was the most valuable "mole".