A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen―America's Most Damaging Russian Spy by
Lis Wiehl
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
This is a fascinating and detailed account of the espionage crimes of FBI employee Hansen and the investigation that uncovered him after fruitlessly thinking he was a CIA mole. The background includes his disillusionment with the Bureau and his self-centered apparently psychopathic approach to life. Of note is his Opus Dei membership. One of the first gifts to the Soviets led to unveiling Dmitri Polyakov codenamed TOP HAT. Twice in the book it states there is a video made as a warning by the Soviets to other would-be traitors of him being tipped slowly from a slab into incineration. (I wasn't clear on if he was dead.) Yes, this contradicts easily available reports that he was executed by gunshot.
From "Intelligence in Public Media: A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen—America’s Most Damaging Russian Spy" in
Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 66, No. 2 (June 2022), pg. 61:
In chapter 1, A Spy in Plain Sight grabs the reader’s attention with the story of Hanssen’s first known act of espionage, the betrayal of high-value GRU (Soviet military intelligence) Maj. Gen. Dmitri Polyakov (TOPHAT to the Bureau), an agent jointly run by the FBI and CIA. Wiehl quotes CIA analyst Sandy Grimes to say he was “the best source that any intelligence service has ever had,” though no examples of what he provided are included. (4) Wiehl concludes her account by describing Polyakov’s demise at the hands of the KGB: “He’s lying naked on a metal tabletop, still alive after his torturers have extracted every last secret they can from him. As the video rolls, the tabletop is slowly elevated at one end until TOPHAT slides off the lower end into a roaring fire.” (6) As with other accounts of this more than likely apocryphal form of execution, no
sources are provided.
Well, regardless of such detail, Hanssen was a very damaging mole and the monthslong final closure of his case include fake reassignment and a limited list of read-in investigators and $7 million paid to a KGB agent to obtain a file on an anonymous mole, whom the FBI later identified as Hanssen, is all thrilling stuff to read.
By 1998, using FBI criminal profiling techniques, the pursuers mistakenly suspected Brian Kelley, a CIA operative involved in the Bloch investigation. The CIA and FBI searched his house, tapped his telephone, and surveilled him, following him and his family. In November 1998, they had a man with a foreign accent come to Kelley's door, warn him that the FBI knew he was a spy, and tell him to show up at a Metro station the next day to escape. Kelley instead reported the incident to the FBI. In 1999, the FBI interrogated Kelley, his ex-wife, two sisters, and three children, who denied all accusations. He was eventually placed on administrative leave, where he remained, falsely accused until after Hanssen was arrested. This reminds me of how in the The 2001 anthrax attacks, a major focus in the early years of the investigation was bioweapons expert Steven Hatfill, who was eventually exonerated. Also, this brought to mind Richard Jewell who alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. He discovered a backpack containing three pipe bombs on the park grounds and helped evacuate the area before the bomb exploded, saving many people from injury or death. For months afterward he was suspected of planting the bomb, resulting in adverse publicity that "came to symbolize the excesses of law enforcement and the news media". So often, the disruptive gaze of a law enforcement investigation has been pointed at the wrong person.
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