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We join with those who mourn the loss of life,  the injuries, and the disruption of lives caused  by the attacks  against Washington,  DC, and  New York, N.Y.    All those effected -- the brave people who helped in rescue efforts, those involved in America's response to terror and in the war with Iraq-- are in our thoughts and prayers.

I thought it would be interesting to read Nightmover, David Wise’s account of Aldrich H. “Rick” Ames misdeeds.  Instead, it was sad.  Many of the details had already appeared in the press, so the outline of the story is well known.  At the end, I knew that at least 10 men who had helped the USA were dead and others’ lives were ruined.

It is difficult for author or reader to know when to begin believing a liar and traitor like Ames.  Wise doubts that Ames was recruited during his 1982-1983 Mexico city drinking bouts with his KGB counterpart, Igor Shurygin.  Instead, he believes Ames crossed the line in April 1985.  Then stationed at the CIA Headquarters and facing financial difficulties because of a divorce from his first wife, Ames walked into the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC.  He delivered a letter and asked it be given to the KGB Resident.  The note described two or three Soviet walk-ins who had offered to spy on behalf of the Americans.  Ames, Chief of Counterintelligence for the CIA’s Soviet Branch, rationalized (imagined?) that these sources were really under KGB control.  Before long, he gave up the name of every spy he could identify.

Wise recounts the familiar warning signs Ames’ CIA supervisors ignored: the drinking, the excess spending, the poor performance appraisals from several of his supervisors.  Wise provides other stories that should have given the CIA pause.  For example, in the 1970s, Ames left a briefcase containing classified information inside a false panel on a New York subway train.  Fortunately, a Polish émigré found and turned it over to authorities.  A decade later, Ames violated safe house procedures by bringing Rosario Ames to the New York location when he was supposed to arrive alone to begin an operation. 

Once he began spying, Ames took advantaged of newly relaxed perimeter controls.  Thinking it could trust its employees, the CIA had ended the bottleneck caused by briefcase inspections at entrances and exits.  During 1985 Ames stuffed five to seven pounds of classified reports into plastic bags and walked right past the guards.  Touching on virtually every intelligence office case in the world, this was the largest amount of highly sensitive information ever passed to the KGB in a single meeting.

The loss of so many assets at once raised eyebrows at the CIA.  Not that many get cold feet or are discovered because of sloppy tradecraft in so short a time.  The CIA quietly set up a unit to look for a mole and gave the task to Jeanne Vertefeuille.  Sadly, a reorganization in 1988 diminished her efforts, though she continued on.  In 1993, the CIA notified the FBI that it suspected Ames and the FBI took over the case.  On February 21, 1994, the Bureau arrested Ames, and the story of a GS-14 gone terribly bad leapt into the headlines.

Reviewed: Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6 Million by David Wise, New York: HarperCollins, hardback, 339 pages, 1995, $25.

Webmaster's note:  This article was originally written in July 1996 for the VSAC News and NCMS Channel Islands Newsletter.]