Here is the Times article today summing up the Hanssen problem. I was amazed to see "The Wire" TV series come up with a character who is a corrupt FBI agent selling out to the Greek crime boss. I don't recall ever seeing this done before.
Report Says Bad Supervision Helped F.B.I. Spy Flourish
By DAVID STOUT
[W] ASHINGTON, Aug. 14 ? Robert P. Hanssen, the F.B.I. agent who spied for Moscow, was able to avoid detection for more than two decades not because he was so good but because his bureau supervisors were so bad, an internal report said today.
"Our review of the Hanssen case revealed that there was essentially no deterrence to espionage at the F.B.I. during the 1979 to 2001 time period and that the F.B.I.'s personnal and information security programs presented few obstacles to Hanssen's espionage," said Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general.
Mr. Hanssen was a top counterespionage official in the Federal Bureau of Investigation before he was arrested early in 2001. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
The episode was a humiliation for the F.B.I., which has prided itself for decades on the integrity of its agents, and the release of the report today seems likely to revive the embarrassment, at least for a time.
"We believe that what is needed at the F.B.I. is a wholesale change in mindset and approach to internal security," Mr. Fine wrote. "The F.B.I. must recognize and take steps to account for the fact that F.B.I. employees have committed espionage in the past and will likely do so in the future."
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, issued a statement saying in effect that the bureau was well on its way to turning things around. "Today, there is a nationally directed program for counterintelligence, centralized at F.B.I. headquarters, to ensure accountability, control and leadership, and to allow the F.B.I. to be more proactive in protecting critical national assets," Mr. Mueller said.
Mr. Fine said that among other, more concrete steps, the bureau should create a specialized permanent unit whose mission would be to constantly try to determine whether the bureau had been penetrated.
Mr. Fine's report recounts how, well before Mr. Hanssen's arrest but after it was clear that a "mole" within American intelligence was giving secrets to the Russians, F.B.I. officials continued to have almost blind faith in their own. They refused to believe that an F.B.I. agent was a traitor, instead focusing erroneously on an agent with the Central Intelligence Agency.
"While Hanssen escaped detection for more than 20 years, we found that this was not because he was a master spy or because of any expert knowledge of espionage tradecraft," Mr. Fine concluded. "We found that significant deficiencies in the F.B.I.'s internal security program played a major role."
The text of the report can be read at the inspector general's Web site: www.usdoj.gov/oig.
Mr. Hanssen was an agent of low self-esteem, poor social skills and an aloof office manner, the report recounted. Coupled with those deficiencies were "a lifelong fascination with espionage and its trappings and a desire to become a `player' in that world."
Mr. Hanssen became a big "player," collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus Rolex watches and diamonds. In return, he betrayed his country and gave away secrets that led to the deaths of at least three United States agents overseas, the report said.
nytimes.com |
