Circle of Treason: CIA Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed
Language: English
Pages: 0
ISBN: B00G04ZRF8
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
While there have been other books about Aldrich Ames, Circle of Treason is the first account written by CIA agents who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the intense "Ames Mole Hunt."
Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.
One of the most destructive traitors in American history, CIA officer Aldrich Ames provided information to the Soviet Union that contributed to the deaths of at least ten Soviet intelligence officers who spied for the United States. In this book, the two CIA officers directly responsible for tracking down Ames chronicle their involvement in the hunt for a mole. Considering it their personal mission, Grimes and Vertefeuille dedicated themselves to identifying the traitor responsible for the execution or imprisonment of the Soviet agents with whom they worked.
Their efforts eventually led them to a long-time acquaintance and coworker in the CIA's Soviet-East European division and Counterintelligence Center, Aldrich Ames.
Not only is this the first book to be written by the CIA principals involved, but it is also the first to provide details of the operational contact with the agents Ames betrayed. The book covers the political aftermath of Ames's arrest, including the Congressional wrath for not identifying him sooner, the FBI/CIA debriefings following Ames's plea bargain, and a retrospective of Ames the person and Ames the spy. It is also the compelling story of two female agents, who overcame gender barriers and succeeded in bringing Ames to justice in a historically male-oriented organization.
Now retired from the CIA, Grimes and Vertefeuille are finally able to tell this inside story of the CIA's most notorious traitor and the men he betrayed.
in time for the next meeting. Angleton himself did not personally visit the branch, but during Polyakov’s tour in Burma all correspondence to the field had to be coordinated with him. If he objected to something, the cable was changed or not sent. Simply stated, Angleton had veto rights in the management of the case and used them as he saw fit. This was contrary to accepted DO policy and practice because such authority belonged to the operating division. Yet this was the daily routine in the
support but did not participate directly in the operation. Jeanne remembers a cart piled high with photocopies being rolled past her door in SE CI in the summer of 1981, and soon she became involved with editing some of the translated material. In all, during the life of the operation Vetrov produced more than three thousand secret and top secret documents emanating not only from the Directorate T (Science and Technology) of the KGB, but also from the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) of the
us. If so, the answer to our problems was not to be found in our separately located communications component, but we were no closer to determining where it might be. While Mister X was peddling his bogus reporting, we continued to learn of the compromise of our operations. In late January 1986, a GTABSORB shipment was opened by customs officials in the USSR. GTABSORB was a clever CIA technical operation involving the shipment of containers shaped as flowerpots on the Trans-Siberian railroad.
in the CIA Station. The Chief of Station was Duane R. “Dewey” Clarridge. In his memoir, A Spy for all Seasons: My Life in the CIA, Clarridge is mistaken about the sequence of events. He arrived in Ankara a year before Rick, not the other way around. However, his assessment of Rick, while somewhat overdone, is not far off the mark: “He lacked the necessary, fundamental personality skills. . . . He was in the wrong business or, at least, the wrong side of the intelligence trade. He was introverted
in David Wise’s book Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6 Million. In this version, related to Wise by John Mabey, Polyakov asked General O’Neil if he could be put in touch with the CIA representative in New York, not with a member of American intelligence as the FBI later reported to the CIA. Accordingly, Mabey posed as a CIA officer, a fact also not mentioned in the FBI memoranda. Chapter 5. The Polyakov Case—The Middle 1. The Russian rank translates literally as