Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America

If I hadn’t know that SPY: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE FBI’S ROBERT HANSSEN BETRAYED AMERICA was based on a true story, I would have said that David Wise had written a wild and improbable cloak-and-dagger fiction novel. A story so wild and improbable that it was beyond belief and somewhat laughable. The fact that it is a true story makes it AMAZING. If you enjoy cloak-and-dagger spy thrillers, you’ll enjoy this true story.Robert Hanssen is a former Chicago policeman and the son of a Chicago policeman who rose through the ranks of the FBI to a senior position in the FBI with access to the most sensitive intelligence information about US vs. Russia activities. For 22 years, Robert Hanssen divulged these FBI / CIA / NSA secrets to Russia that resulted in death to US spies and did considerable damage to US security.Robert Hanssen is an enigma. He is a family man, a staunch neoconservative Republican, an anti-Communist, a devout Catholic (Opus Dei) who opposed homosexuality and abortion. He would be the last person you would suspect of being a Russian spy. Although the FBI had clues, the FBI couldn’t accept the fact that one of their own could be a traitor so Hanssen avoided detection for 22 years.The book shows another side of Robert Hanssen as a man who patronized strip clubs and brothels and was a sugar daddy to a stripper. Hanssen was so sexually deviant that he shared nude photos of his wife with his friend and allowed his friend to secretly view him having sex with his wife.Despite Robert Hanssen’s moral shortcoming, the fact that he spied for Russia for 22 years is completely contrary to all that he politically and religiously espoused throughout his adult life. Nevertheless, Hanssen was able and willing to commit treason for money and the flattery that Russia heaped on him for being such a clever spy.Amazingly, SPY: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE FBI’S ROBERT HANSSEN BETRAYED AMERICA points out that during this time, Robert Hanssen was not the only Russian spy that had infiltrated US intelligence agencies. There was Aldrich Ames, John Anthony Walker, Ronald Pelton, Earl Pitts, etc. During the time that Hanssen was a mole for Russia, the frequency and number of Russian moles who infiltrated US intelligence agencies was astoundingly high. There seemed to be so many Russian moles that US intelligence was playing a never ending game of whack-a-mole.I don’t know if things have really changed at the FBI and CIA, but SPY: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE FBI’S ROBERT HANSSEN BETRAYED AMERICA highlighted problems within those agencies that contributed to Hanssen’s ability to spy for Russia for 22 years.

This is a thorough and insightful piece dealing with arch-traitor Robert Hanssen, the most damaging Soviet agent in FBI history. Hanssen was a veteran FBI agent who had himself worked in various FBI counter-espionage departments against the Soviet Union. When he inexplicably turned traitor and offered his services to the Soviets he was in a position to do incalculable damage to American security and by all accounts did exactly that. No one will ever know how many American agents within the KGB met their deaths due to Hanssen betraying them to the Russians. Further, he gave the Soviets huge amounts of information on such things as US assessments of Soviet strategic weapons, the Continuity of Government plan for safeguarding the US Government in the event of war, and countless other critical secrets. This well-researched and engaging piece goes into much of this in depressing detail.This book tries harder than most to analyze what motivated Hanssen to turn traitor. He was a genuinely religious man who nonetheless was addicted to pornography. He was a family man who secretly took movies and photos of his wife in intimate circumstances and shared them on the internet. He was politically anti-Soviet and yet he spied for the Soviets. The book has some interesting speculations by experts on Hanssen's psyche, but at the end of the day the complex mix of evil that motivated him is probably beyond full human understanding.This book brings out many lessons. There were ample warnings that Hanssen was a mole. He lived much better than his Government salary should have allowed, and in fact his brother-in-law, who was also an agent, reported this to the FBI. When Hanssen was offered a prestigious posting within the FBI on condition that he take a polygraph, he refused and turned down the job. He was caught with hacking software on his computer and he was further caught hacking into colleagues' computers. At least back then, the FBI appeared not to want to suspect its own, or it had an institutional blind spot.This book reads like fiction, but is far more interesting than any spy novel. One wonders where some of the details that the author dredges up came from. The details of the battle of spies between the KGB (later SVR) on the one hand, and the CIA and FBI on the other, is fascinating. Highly recommended. RJB.

What I liked most was that a psychiatrist who interviewed Hanssen many times had contributions used in the book. Author did an excellent job with this.

If you take a mirror and shine it into another mirror, the images extend to infinity. Always another reflection, what is fact and fiction? David Wise's book takes you to the back office, a rather dreary place. There are no car chases, no gunplay but along the way a women of dubious character. This is the real front line of espionage.Within CIA (Aldrich Ames) and FBI (Robert Hanssen) were senior men caught spying for Russia. It was an unparalleled loss for American intelligence. Active over decades, they had access to serious secrets that they sold for sordid (as opposed to ideological) motives. Their colleagues had suspicions and evidence, yet failed to act. Why? So what? This is an incestuous world where spies mostly spy on spies, like small dogs chasing their tails. It was a game, actors playing many parts and almost comical. But real people were shot in the back of the head and billions (not millions) of dollars wasted.Having watched the rather awkward (and largely inaccurate) movie "Breach", I was curious to find out more about Robert Hanssen. What was his "motivation?" He had spent 22 years spying for Russia, he was not coerced or persuaded, rather he volunteered and along the way made $1.4mn. Hanssen also has blood on his hands, implicated in the exposure and subsequent execution of Russian double agents.Without deprecating David Wise, you are no nearer understanding the man at the end his book. That is inevitable. Being a spy and a traitor is never going to produce an uncomplicated individual. What Wise reveals is a lacklustre one. Hanssen was just doing dull tasks in a big bureaucracy. He was a loner, a computer geek, abrasive and largely disliked. Plodding his way, he had access to secrets that with reasonable skill he sold to the Russians. The most worrying aspect was that he had sight of highly classified information that he had no need to see. It raises extremely uncomfortable questions for the FBI.Hanssen was a man of devout religious belief, a convert to Catholicism and a member of the cult Opus Dei; an "extremist" yet he served a Godless Russia. In a more civilised country his behaviour might have marginalised him but in America, a land where religion is a serious business, such zealots are comfortably accommodated. They are trusted in the highest places. His wife - also devout - found out in 1981, twenty years before his arrest, that her husband was a spy. We are told a confession was made to a priest and the money paid was given to charity! I was reminded of events in England in 1605, when the Attorney General Sir Edward Coke confronted the conspirators of the gunpowder plot. It raised the issue of Catholic loyalty (dilemmas that could equally apply to other religions, Jewish, Muslim et al). Who do you serve, "your" God or your county or yourself? The Doctrine of Equivocation might have helped him, very useful for a spy! Hanssen claimed he periodically admitted his espionage to priests in confession. Did they have a duty to act? Perhaps Hanssen merely concentrated on his sex life, which included a relationship with a stripper who he spoilt with gifts, trips and a car. He also might have mentioned peddling pornogpraphic pitures of his wife to his best freind.Hanssen was caught. Had he been given a lie detector test it might have been sooner but he never was. He was revealed when a Russian was paid $7mn to remove files from the KGB. A plea bargain followed avoiding the death penalty. He has cooperated with authorities and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. David Wise has told the story competently, shone a mirror into the mirror. But so many loose ends remain. Was he sold out by the Russians to deflect from more productive agents? Robert Hanssen as a man or spy is not a compelling story, a rather mundane tale. How much is true, will we ever know? One thing we can be sure of is that he will not "discover" religion in prison, he had already found that well before.

rather more prosaic than you might have imagined but non the less fascinating insight into the motives of a damaging traitor- i think leCarre might have done it better

El libro me lo he leído volando, está escrito de forma muy amena, es una historia real que vale la pena conocer, había visto la película, The breach, y eso me llevó a interesarme por el libro. Lo recomiendo para lectura y como regalo.

Just great intense reading. Good write!!