The traitorous spy who destroyed the CIA’s intelligence network in the Soviet Union

Aldrich Hazen Ames, the traitor agent who caused the most damage in the history of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who worked for the Soviet Union without being detected for nearly a decade, died on January 5 at Cumberland federal prison, Maryland at the age of 84.

Ames’ death was recorded in the US Federal Bureau of Prisons’ inmate database but the cause was not specified. He is a federal prisoner serving a life sentence without parole since 1994.

Ames was born on May 26, 1941 in River Falls, Wisconsin, the son of a CIA officer. Immediately after graduating from high school, he worked as a summer intern at the CIA, then continued working for the organization while completing his bachelor’s degree at George Washington University.

In 1962, he began working full-time for the CIA and in 1969, he was assigned to covert operations in Ankara, Türkiye.

During that time, he continuously received low evaluations from his superiors. Ames’ record is filled with black marks, including run-ins with law enforcement officers, alcoholism, lack of concentration and failure to complete work on schedule. Ames even left documents on the New York subway.

Despite his limited abilities, Ames rose through the ranks of the CIA for 17 years until reaching a particularly sensitive position at headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

He was appointed head of the counterintelligence branch of the CIA’s Soviet Department in September 1983. With this position, Ames had access to a number of national secrets, including the identities of American spies hiding in the Soviet Union. This was a small core group, a total of about 10 people, built over two decades and well placed in government agencies and Soviet embassies around the world.

As the Cold War was at its peak, Ames decided to change the course of history by overturning the nation’s long-running espionage rivalry. He thought it was a farce. According to Ames’s own account, his decision to become a double agent was motivated by a “toxic mixture” of alcohol, arrogance, delusions of power and bottomless greed.

In April 1985, Ames made his first bet. He personally delivered an envelope of documents to the head of the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Ames introduced himself by name and rank, provided some CIA secrets and asked for a reward of $50,000. The partnership was later established over a boozy lunch at a luxury hotel near the White House.

Ames then played a hand of cards. Fearing that one of the Soviet spies working for the CIA might discover him, Ames decided to betray them all.

“I panicked,” Ames said in a 1994 interview from prison. Ames believed that only by handing over the identities of all the double agents working for the United States could he be protected. And Ames also knew that in return he would be “paid so much money that he would never spend it all”.

“So I chose to do it,” Ames said.

Ames gathered hundreds of secret documents into a stack weighing nearly 3 kg, including a list of Soviet people working for the CIA and an “encyclopedia” about US intelligence activities. Ames stuffed them into a briefcase, walked out of CIA headquarters and handed them all over to a contact at the Soviet Embassy.

“I turned myself in with them,” Ames said in a 1994 interview. “I said ‘it’s up to you, KGB. Now it’s your turn to take care of me’.”

The KGB paid Ames handsomely for at least $2.7 million. His act of betrayal caused 10 spies operating in the Soviet Union to be arrested, interrogated and executed for treason. One was imprisoned, but at least two escaped while hunted by the KGB. The intelligence network that once provided the US with extensive information about politics, military, diplomacy and intelligence in Moscow has been destroyed.

The KGB filled that void by planting disinformation throughout the remainder of the Cold War. This has distorted policy and strategic debates toward Moscow at the highest levels of the US government, according to former CIA director John M. Deutch.

Ames also revealed the identities of more than 20 US intelligence officers and other foreign agents working for the CIA, and revealed about 50 secret operations in Russia, Europe and Latin America, according to conclusions from the CIA.

As the CIA’s Russian agents gradually disappeared, they began to fear that there were traitors hiding inside. However, the hunt for the undercover person gradually fell into a deadlock.

In 1986, Ames took a three-year assignment in Rome, where he spent most of his time finding secrets for the Soviet Union and getting addicted to alcohol. One time, Ames even fainted on the street after a party at the US embassy.

By 1989, a CIA officer reported that Ames, upon returning to Washington, had become obscenely wealthy. He paid $540,000 in cash for a new house near the agency’s headquarters and drove a new Jaguar. This has raised suspicions, although still vague. It took the CIA’s covert operations division more than a year to deliver this disturbing information to the internal security office. The office then assigned the investigation to a single investigator, who lacked experience and shelved the investigation for months.

It was not until 1993 that a criminal investigation began, largely thanks to the efforts of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Ames was finally captured on February 21, 1994 and has been a prisoner ever since.

When Ames was arrested, his wife, commonly known as Rosario, was also arrested along with her husband. The woman knew about Ames’ treason but still happily spent the money she earned. Rosario was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

At his 1994 sentencing, Ames criticized America’s intelligence operations as “a profiteering scam” run by officials who had deceived generations of people about the value and urgency of their work.

R. James Woolsey, the CIA director at the time, decided not to sanction anyone for dereliction of duty in the Ames case, despite the agency’s inspector general’s finding that 23 senior officials were responsible. Instead, he issued only 11 letters of reprimand.

The CIA and FBI’s damage assessment report on the incident never got to the root of the problem. Ames, whose mind was damaged by alcohol, could not remember all the secrets he was sold. And he also failed lie detector tests, making it impossible to accurately assess the extent of the damage Ames had caused over a decade.

Ames made one thing clear in an interview in 1994. He said he had given his own soul a death sentence: “The people I sold out… What happened to them happened to me.”