Some thoughts on morality and the social contract from an interesting source.
February 25, 2001 Single-Page Format
U.S. Charges Pose Paradox of Pious Spy for Godless Foe
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — For a man accused of betraying his country to the godless leadership of the Soviet Communist Party, Robert Philip Hanssen could not have seemed a more devout follower of the Roman Catholic Church — or a more committed anti-Communist.
He often told his friends in the counterintelligence division of the F.B.I., where he worked for most of his 25-year career with the bureau, that he loathed Communism and that the teachings of Lenin were incompatible with those of Jesus Christ.
"Bob would walk into my office and tell me that without religion, man is lost," said his former F.B.I. supervisor, David Major, "and that the Soviet Union would ultimately fail because it was run by the godless Communists. And I believe he was sincere."
The bureau's former chief China analyst, Paul D. Moore, recalled that when F.B.I. agents held going-away parties at strip clubs near the bureau's headquarters in Washington, Mr. Hanssen refused to attend, saying his faith would not permit it.
"He said, you shouldn't do that because it's an occasion of sin," said Mr. Moore, who used to car-pool to work with Mr. Hanssen, a friend of 20 years.
He recalled Mr. Hanssen's snapping off the car radio one day during a talk-show conversation about morality — and whether morality was based on social contracts.
"He leaned over and turned off the radio and said, `That's enough of that,' " Mr. Moore said. "He said the foundation for morality is not an implied social contract; it's God's law."
If Mr. Hanssen's piety and staunch anti-Communism were simply a front for his treachery, if they were a cover for a long career in espionage, they were remarkably convincing to the professional spy catchers who worked day in and day out with the shy, socially awkward, highly intelligent agent.
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