Intelligence: February 22, 2001

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The FBI arrested one of it's veteran counterintelligence agents, Robert Hanssen, for espionage. Hanssen worked for Russia from 1985 until the present, earning $1.4 million in the process. He was the much feared Russian mole in the American intelligence establishment. After the Soviet Union fell, and Russian spymasters could talk somewhat more freely, they admitted that the easiest way to recruit American spies was with money. In other parts of the world, the Russians could use their preferred (and cheaper) method; ideology. But the supply of dedicated communists was drying up in the decade before the Soviet Union fell and the recruiting worldwide was more frequently done with cash. Another result of the Soviet Unions disintegration was that Russian's were even more tempted by cash. Many long time Russian spies have thus been compromised by America buying secrets from former or current Russian intelligence officers. America apparently purchased it's own Russian mole who turned in Hanssen. The American mole has apparently been brought to the United States.


 

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