THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508040677
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BILL ROACH
LENGTH: Long : 124 lines
KILLER SPY
The Inside Story of the FBI's Pursuit and Capture of Aldrich Ames, America's Deadliest Spy
PETER MAAS
Warner Books. 243 pp. $21.95.
BETRAYAL
The Story of Aldrich Ames, An American Spy
TIM WEINER, DAVID JOHNSTON AND NEIL A. LEWIS
Random House. 308 pp. $25.
NIGHTMOVER
How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6 Million
DAVID WISE
HarperCollins. 356 pp. $25.
ALDRICH (RICK) AMES has been called the highest-paid spy in the history of the world and the most damaging mole inside the CIA since the agency's creation in 1947. The KGB paid him $2.7 million for his espionage, promised him $1.9 million more and set aside land for his own dacha in Russia.
Ames' treason was exposed last year, and he was sentenced to life in prison. These three books, Killer Spy, Betrayal and Nightmover, written by well-respected authors, adeptly cover the intrigue of Ames' nearly nine-year espionage career.
Ames, who spent 30 years working for the CIA, started spying for the Soviet Union in 1985; almost immediately, CIA ``assets'' in Russia began disappearing. When five vanished within a three-month period, the CIA began an investigation to find its mole. The investigation collapsed in 1988 and wasn't resumed until 1991, when an unusual joint FBI-CIA probe named ``Playactor'' began.
In 1993, Playactor turned up Ames, but not enough hard evidence to convict him; thereafter, ``Nightmover,'' which ultimately involved more than 100 agents, was created. Ames and his wife, Rosario, were arrested in April 1994, and both pleaded guilty to various espionage charges.
David Wise, author of Nightmover, is a premier writer on espionage. His clear, lucid narrative details how Ames ``betrayed three dozen CIA and allied agents, caused at least ten of them to be executed, and sold perhaps hundreds of CIA operations to the KGB.'' Wise names the 10 victims.
Tim Weiner, David Johnston and Neil A. Lewis, the co-authors of Betrayal, are a New York Times reporting team. Like Wise, they conducted extensive interviews with FBI and CIA sources as well as with Ames. Their book provides more depth than the others about Ames and his family.
According to Betrayal, Ames ``was arrogant. He was book-smart but not streetwise. And he was one of the sloppiest, most brazen, and least savvy spies imaginable.'' When he began his spying, Ames was ``a gray, bland government bureaucrat, forty-two years old, possessed of an impressive title, a serious drinking problem, and a major midlife crisis.''
Peter Maas, author of The Valachi Papers, about Mafia inner workings, and Manhunt, about the pursuit and capture of CIA agent Edwin Wilson, wrote Killer Spy with the cooperation of the FBI. His straightforward narrative emphasizes the blood on Ames' hands. Writes Maas: ``Rick Ames was far more than a traitor. There were traitors like John Walker and Jonathan Pollard. All they did, though, was pass paper.'' Ames, however, killed people.
Ames initiated the selling of secrets by boldly going into the Soviet embassy. His motive was money, and the Soviets paid him handsomely. According to Maas, Ames' actions compromised more than 45 cases and technical operations. He ``was handing over shopping bags full of classified documents'' to his Russian handlers.
For more than eight months, the ``Nightmover'' team carried out surveillance, tapped phones, pawed through garbage and amassed evidence of Ames' and his wife's treason. They also compiled a paper trail that showed payments of nearly $2 million to Ames.
Maas recounts not only the search through garbage - which produced a number of notes in Aldrich's handwriting detailing meeting places and ``dead drops'' - but a search of his house.
All three books attest to the CIA's and Ames' ineptness. The authors condemn the CIA for not reacting sooner, noting that Ames and his wife lived like millionaires and spent lavishly. Ames did not report meetings with Soviets that were observed by other agents. He also drank excessively; asked questions about Soviet cases that he did not need to know about; drove an expensive Jaguar to work; and paid more than a half-million dollars for his house. Any of these clues should have triggered an earlier, full-scale investigation, the authors contend.
Perhaps the harshest indictment is cited in Betrayal. The authors quote CIA Director James Woolsey: ``Ames was and is a malignant betrayer of his country who killed a number of people who helped the United States and the West win the cold war. . . He killed them just as surely as if he pulled the trigger of a revolver put to their heads in the basement of the Lubyanka prison. . . They - our agents in the cold war against the Soviet Union - risked their lives, helped keep you free, and died because this warped, murdering traitor wanted a bigger house and a Jaguar.''
Wise writes that although Ames felt regret and shame, he believed he did not harm the nation's interests. Notes the author: ``As damaging as the betrayals were, in the end the greatest damage Ames did was to the itself. He made it look foolish. . . at the very time when the agency was at its most vulnerable. . . ''
Maas criticizes the CIA for mishandling Ames, as well as for its sloppy ``tradecraft'' in compiling evidence against him. Wise gives much more detail about the CIA's efforts to unmask the mole, while The Times' reporting team strikes hard at the agency's bungling.
All three books are well-written and highly readable. All are based on extensive interviews and clearly describe how Ames started spying, how he delivered various CIA documents and plans, who the Soviet ``handlers'' were and other details that could only come from knowledgeable agents in the CIA and FBI. They are remarkable for their insight into the workings of these agencies. But, as Wise says, ``For all of its mistakes and defects, the CIA, or an intelligence service, is still a necessity in a dangerous and unstable world.''
- MEMO: Bill Roach is a retired naval officer in Jacksonville, Fla., who
formerly served in the Norfolk area.
EDITOR'S NOTE: A fourth book about the Ames treason is Sellout: Aldrich
Ames and the Corruption of the CIA (Viking, $23.95). ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Aldrich Ames
by CNB