1 00:00:04,003 --> 00:00:07,703 [Dell]: It was 1985 that everything began to go bad. 2 00:00:09,661 --> 00:00:12,447 We had two of our sources that were compromised 3 00:00:12,490 --> 00:00:14,101 by someone unknown.. 4 00:00:15,928 --> 00:00:17,582 [Sandy]: He was a general. 5 00:00:17,626 --> 00:00:19,193 You can't get any higher than that. 6 00:00:19,236 --> 00:00:23,414 He was the most important spy we'd ever had. 7 00:00:24,894 --> 00:00:26,200 He was executed. 8 00:00:27,462 --> 00:00:28,898 We were all in tears. 9 00:00:28,941 --> 00:00:31,944 - And how do you put a value on a human life? 10 00:00:31,988 --> 00:00:35,165 - There's a handful of people that would have had access 11 00:00:35,209 --> 00:00:37,733 to the cases that were compromised. 12 00:00:37,776 --> 00:00:40,605 - We knew it was somebody we were working with. 13 00:00:40,649 --> 00:00:42,999 - We had his telephone tapped at home and at work. 14 00:00:49,223 --> 00:00:51,486 - There was no way that we were going to fail. 15 00:00:51,529 --> 00:00:53,270 - More would have been killed. 16 00:00:53,314 --> 00:00:56,969 [Dell]: The last thing you want to believe is that you've got 17 00:00:57,013 --> 00:00:59,624 an American citizen who's betraying his country. 18 00:00:59,668 --> 00:01:02,627 [Cindy]: A mole. [Dell]: A mole inside the CIA. 19 00:01:06,283 --> 00:01:09,156 [narrator]: In the FBI, we make a lot of headlines. 20 00:01:12,463 --> 00:01:15,249 Drug busts, mob stings. 21 00:01:16,902 --> 00:01:18,164 Terrorist takedowns. 22 00:01:18,208 --> 00:01:21,429 [people shouting] We understand why people 23 00:01:21,472 --> 00:01:23,170 want to tell stories about us. 24 00:01:23,213 --> 00:01:24,649 - Mark it. - Freeze! 25 00:01:24,693 --> 00:01:25,781 - FBI. 26 00:01:25,824 --> 00:01:27,174 - FBI! [man in the distance]: Action! 27 00:01:27,217 --> 00:01:28,697 [narrator]: But they don't know the half of it. 28 00:01:30,394 --> 00:01:35,138 What really goes down? We save that for each other, 29 00:01:35,182 --> 00:01:37,358 when we're talking agent to agent. 30 00:01:40,535 --> 00:01:43,320 This is FBI. True. 31 00:01:55,985 --> 00:01:57,943 - Sandy, in the mid eighties, 32 00:01:57,987 --> 00:02:00,076 What was your role in the Agency? 33 00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:04,124 - I worked in the Soviet group on the GRU officers 34 00:02:04,167 --> 00:02:05,951 and the KGB officers. 35 00:02:05,995 --> 00:02:09,564 [narrator]: Sandy Grimes joined the CIA in 1967 36 00:02:09,607 --> 00:02:13,829 and worked with double agents who were spying on behalf of the U.S. Government 37 00:02:13,872 --> 00:02:19,226 - I was in charge of all of our operations in Africa. 38 00:02:19,269 --> 00:02:23,665 It was a wonderful place to recruit Soviet and East Europeans. 39 00:02:23,708 --> 00:02:24,753 - I knew you were cool. 40 00:02:24,796 --> 00:02:26,494 I didn't know you were that cool. 41 00:02:26,537 --> 00:02:28,452 [narrator]: Barry Colvert was on the FBI's fugitive robbery 42 00:02:28,496 --> 00:02:30,193 task force before becoming 43 00:02:30,237 --> 00:02:33,892 a polygrapher in 1980, working murder cases, terrorism, 44 00:02:33,936 --> 00:02:36,112 white-collar crime and espionage. 45 00:02:36,939 --> 00:02:40,029 - So, Dell, tell me about the start of your FBI career. 46 00:02:40,072 --> 00:02:43,075 - I seemed to have a knack for counterintelligence work, 47 00:02:43,119 --> 00:02:47,602 looking for people who were spying against the U.S. Government 48 00:02:47,645 --> 00:02:50,909 [narrator]: Dell Spry was a deputy sheriff in Alabama, 49 00:02:50,953 --> 00:02:52,389 before joining the bureau. 50 00:02:52,433 --> 00:02:55,043 He worked white-collar crime and counterespionage, 51 00:02:55,087 --> 00:02:56,915 and was the FBI's liaison 52 00:02:56,959 --> 00:02:59,179 to the CIA counterintelligence center. 53 00:03:00,267 --> 00:03:01,964 - What started the case? 54 00:03:02,007 --> 00:03:03,357 Are you guys working together? 55 00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:06,447 How did you know there was a mole inside the CIA? 56 00:03:06,490 --> 00:03:10,059 [narrator]: Cindy Coppola is a 23-year veteran of the FB. 57 00:03:10,102 --> 00:03:12,714 she worked on cases that included organized crime 58 00:03:12,757 --> 00:03:16,500 and terrorism and took part in multinational investigations 59 00:03:16,544 --> 00:03:18,459 into drug trafficking and money laundering. 60 00:03:19,199 --> 00:03:23,594 - It was 1985 that everything began to go bad. 61 00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:28,643 - Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall! 62 00:03:28,686 --> 00:03:31,428 [acclamations] 63 00:03:31,472 --> 00:03:34,430 [journalist]: Tensions between the U.S. and Soviet union reach 64 00:03:34,475 --> 00:03:37,826 a fever pitch as both sides deploy missiles in Europe. 65 00:03:39,262 --> 00:03:42,134 - We had people starting to get recalled. 66 00:03:42,178 --> 00:03:46,922 [narrator]: In 1985, some of America's most valuable intelligence assets, 67 00:03:46,965 --> 00:03:49,838 Soviets secretly working with the U.S Government, 68 00:03:49,881 --> 00:03:51,927 are suddenly called back to Russia 69 00:03:51,970 --> 00:03:53,450 and never heard from again. 70 00:03:54,668 --> 00:03:57,411 [Dell]: We had two of our sources Martynov-- [Sandy]: Yes. 71 00:03:57,454 --> 00:03:59,848 [Dell]: And Motorin, they were FBI sources 72 00:03:59,891 --> 00:04:04,722 that were compromised by that time someone unknown. 73 00:04:04,766 --> 00:04:08,160 [narrator]: A year later, the CIA loses contact with major 74 00:04:08,204 --> 00:04:12,252 General Dimitri Polyakov, a priceless source in the GRU, 75 00:04:12,295 --> 00:04:14,079 the Soviet intelligence directorate. 76 00:04:14,123 --> 00:04:17,213 - He was a general in the GRU. 77 00:04:17,257 --> 00:04:19,346 You can't get any higher than that . 78 00:04:19,389 --> 00:04:22,349 He was the most important spy we'd ever had. 79 00:04:22,392 --> 00:04:26,657 And he really wanted to help the United States. 80 00:04:26,701 --> 00:04:29,399 He thought we just didn't have any understanding 81 00:04:29,443 --> 00:04:33,185 of the GRU and, of course, the KGB too. 82 00:04:33,229 --> 00:04:36,537 - He was an incredible asset for this country. 83 00:04:36,580 --> 00:04:38,408 Just unbelievably important. 84 00:04:38,452 --> 00:04:41,759 And Sandy probably won't say it, but I will. 85 00:04:41,803 --> 00:04:43,718 That's one of the reasons she was chosen 86 00:04:43,761 --> 00:04:47,330 to be assigned to work Polyakov. 87 00:04:47,374 --> 00:04:50,812 She was responsible in large part, analyzing 88 00:04:50,855 --> 00:04:54,337 his information, providing taskings for him. 89 00:04:54,381 --> 00:04:57,340 All of that happened because of Sandy Grimes. 90 00:04:57,384 --> 00:05:01,213 - When we heard that Polyakov had been arrested, 91 00:05:01,257 --> 00:05:02,911 we were all in tears. 92 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:08,046 [narrator]: The Soviet secret police are worried Polyakov 93 00:05:08,090 --> 00:05:10,092 will swallow cyanide to kill himself 94 00:05:10,135 --> 00:05:11,615 and avoid torture in prison, 95 00:05:11,659 --> 00:05:14,226 so they put him in a choke hol. 96 00:05:14,270 --> 00:05:16,968 [suspenseful music] 97 00:05:17,012 --> 00:05:18,535 [Sandy]: This sounds a little odd. 98 00:05:18,579 --> 00:05:20,668 He was a nice guy. 99 00:05:21,799 --> 00:05:23,279 He was our hero. 100 00:05:26,587 --> 00:05:29,503 [riveting music] He was executed. 101 00:05:33,637 --> 00:05:37,075 - Besides Polyakov, there was others that were missing as well. 102 00:05:37,119 --> 00:05:38,990 So, Dell, tell me about Tolkachev. 103 00:05:39,034 --> 00:05:44,431 - Tolkachev was an engineer and knew a great deal 104 00:05:44,474 --> 00:05:47,608 about weapons and how weapons were designed and developed. 105 00:05:47,651 --> 00:05:51,612 So he was a real significant source for us about what was 106 00:05:51,655 --> 00:05:55,616 Russia looking to in the future as weapons development. 107 00:05:55,659 --> 00:05:57,531 - So did he disappear as well? 108 00:05:57,574 --> 00:06:00,708 - Yes, he was one of the ones who disappeared post 1985. 109 00:06:01,970 --> 00:06:05,626 [narrator]: The arrests and executions can't be coincidental. 110 00:06:05,669 --> 00:06:08,324 Investigators from the FBI and CIA 111 00:06:08,368 --> 00:06:12,067 suspect there's a traitor inside the Agency. 112 00:06:12,110 --> 00:06:16,506 [Dell]: The last thing you want to believe is that you've got 113 00:06:16,550 --> 00:06:18,726 an American citizen who's betraying his country 114 00:06:18,769 --> 00:06:23,557 and that it is someone that you sit next to at the office. 115 00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:24,732 - A mole. 116 00:06:24,775 --> 00:06:25,994 - A mole. - What was the impetus that 117 00:06:26,037 --> 00:06:27,909 brought you two together working and then Barry 118 00:06:27,952 --> 00:06:29,519 coming in later on? 119 00:06:29,563 --> 00:06:33,480 - I was told by my supervisor that headquarters wanted to talk 120 00:06:33,523 --> 00:06:36,526 to me and I went to headquarters. 121 00:06:36,570 --> 00:06:39,529 And I was told we had this special matter 122 00:06:39,573 --> 00:06:41,401 coming over from the Agency. 123 00:06:41,444 --> 00:06:45,100 He said: "we want you to be the lead investigator on this matter". 124 00:06:45,143 --> 00:06:47,363 And I said: "Great, what matter?" 125 00:06:47,407 --> 00:06:49,147 And he said: "Well, we can't tell you yet. 126 00:06:49,191 --> 00:06:52,673 You got to get read in and compartmented." 127 00:06:52,716 --> 00:06:55,327 And that's when I became a member of the task force. 128 00:06:55,371 --> 00:06:58,113 [narrator]: The CIA is already hunting for the mole. 129 00:06:58,592 --> 00:07:03,335 but as a foreign intelligence agency, they can't investigate Americans on U.S. soil. 130 00:07:03,379 --> 00:07:05,990 That's the job of the FBI. 131 00:07:06,513 --> 00:07:08,776 - So you all are working together to find 132 00:07:08,819 --> 00:07:11,909 a potential mole within the Agency. 133 00:07:11,953 --> 00:07:14,869 Take me through those steps. - We would go over to meet 134 00:07:14,912 --> 00:07:18,481 in their counterintelligence center with Jeanne and Dan Payne 135 00:07:18,525 --> 00:07:22,224 and Sandy, we'd come over to the Washington field office 136 00:07:22,267 --> 00:07:24,400 and we would all get together in the SCIF. 137 00:07:24,444 --> 00:07:26,184 - Sure, I worked in them all the time. 138 00:07:26,228 --> 00:07:27,925 - You've been in them so you know all about them. 139 00:07:27,969 --> 00:07:31,015 If you could just imagine, Cindy, the pressure of being 140 00:07:31,059 --> 00:07:35,237 in this small room and I mean literally 10 hours a day at least. 141 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:37,718 And you can't, when you leave that room, 142 00:07:37,761 --> 00:07:40,634 you can't talk to anybody about what you're doing. 143 00:07:41,591 --> 00:07:44,028 The pressure was just...it was enormous. 144 00:07:44,072 --> 00:07:47,336 It was extremely difficult on me and my wife 145 00:07:47,379 --> 00:07:50,731 because I was working crazy hours, and I get a phone call 146 00:07:50,774 --> 00:07:53,168 in the middle of the night, I'd have to get up and leave. 147 00:07:53,211 --> 00:07:54,952 - Your weekends are never yours. 148 00:07:54,996 --> 00:07:58,390 - And we also knew personally there was no way 149 00:07:58,433 --> 00:07:59,870 that we were going to fail. 150 00:07:59,914 --> 00:08:02,743 Professionally, there was no way we could fail. 151 00:08:02,786 --> 00:08:04,309 More people would die. 152 00:08:04,353 --> 00:08:05,963 You know, every day was another gamble. 153 00:08:06,007 --> 00:08:08,923 We're looking for someone now who would sell out his country. 154 00:08:10,098 --> 00:08:12,404 And we got. And I think Jeanne was the one that said: 155 00:08:12,448 --> 00:08:15,190 "okay, guys, everybody, let's write down 156 00:08:15,233 --> 00:08:18,062 our top three suspects". 157 00:08:18,106 --> 00:08:21,370 - We knew it was somebody we were working with. 158 00:08:21,413 --> 00:08:26,027 - When Jeanne took up the cards, Rick was one of the top three 159 00:08:26,070 --> 00:08:28,508 on every card - And who was that? 160 00:08:28,551 --> 00:08:30,292 - Rick Ames. - Rick Ames. 161 00:08:30,335 --> 00:08:32,424 Aldrich Ames. - Aldrich Ames. 162 00:08:32,467 --> 00:08:35,775 [narrator]: To America's spy masters, this couldn't be a worse name. 163 00:08:36,298 --> 00:08:40,084 Aldrich Ames has access to the country's most vital secrets. 164 00:08:40,563 --> 00:08:45,699 Ames is a counterintelligence officer in the CIA's Soviet and Eastern European Division, 165 00:08:45,742 --> 00:08:48,963 where he's privy to the Agencys plans and operations 166 00:08:49,006 --> 00:08:51,966 against the KBG and GRU. 167 00:08:52,009 --> 00:08:53,794 - Rick and I carpooled. 168 00:08:53,837 --> 00:08:54,534 - Are you kidding? 169 00:08:54,577 --> 00:08:55,883 So tell me about that. 170 00:08:55,926 --> 00:08:57,754 You lived near him and you carpooled with him. 171 00:08:57,798 --> 00:09:00,061 What was he like? - Tall, gangly. 172 00:09:00,104 --> 00:09:04,631 He always forgot to wash his hair, comb it. 173 00:09:04,674 --> 00:09:08,373 And he was late every single time. 174 00:09:08,417 --> 00:09:11,159 He was just goofy old Rick. 175 00:09:11,202 --> 00:09:13,814 Thought he was the smartest kid on the block. 176 00:09:13,857 --> 00:09:16,425 - We thought there were others that needed to be looked at, 177 00:09:16,468 --> 00:09:19,907 but we agreed that Ames was clearly the person to focus-- 178 00:09:19,950 --> 00:09:21,212 - Your number one choice. [Dell]: Yes. 179 00:09:21,256 --> 00:09:23,432 We want to focus our resources on. 180 00:09:23,475 --> 00:09:26,827 [narrator]: As the CIA's assets are being swept up in the USSR... 181 00:09:30,352 --> 00:09:34,138 Ames marries his second wife, Rosario, and he suddenly 182 00:09:34,182 --> 00:09:37,446 has money to spend, buying luxury items, including 183 00:09:37,489 --> 00:09:40,449 a new $43,000-dollar Jaguar. 184 00:09:40,492 --> 00:09:45,280 - He bought a new house and he wanted to show us all the new house. 185 00:09:45,323 --> 00:09:46,977 It was not a secret. 186 00:09:48,022 --> 00:09:52,635 Because he said that she, Rosario, had money. 187 00:09:52,679 --> 00:09:55,812 - He was in your eyes, living above his means. 188 00:09:55,856 --> 00:09:59,642 But his answer to that was it was his wife's money. 189 00:09:59,686 --> 00:10:00,600 - Yes. 190 00:10:03,646 --> 00:10:08,477 - I was the only polygraph examiner in the Washington office at the time, 191 00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:12,699 so I'd handle almost all the spy cases up till that time. 192 00:10:12,742 --> 00:10:16,093 They said there's a handful of people they would have 193 00:10:16,137 --> 00:10:18,792 had access to the cases that were compromised. 194 00:10:18,835 --> 00:10:21,533 And they've all had polygraph tests recently. 195 00:10:22,534 --> 00:10:26,408 We want you to go to the Agency and review their polygraph charts. 196 00:10:26,451 --> 00:10:29,498 And the first two were clear. They were good charts. 197 00:10:29,541 --> 00:10:32,370 And then when I got to Rick Ames, he's not getting 198 00:10:32,414 --> 00:10:35,025 through on the question about money, but he gave them 199 00:10:35,069 --> 00:10:37,767 an explanation, and the examiner never tested him further. 200 00:10:37,811 --> 00:10:39,464 So when I came back, I said: 201 00:10:39,508 --> 00:10:40,944 "These two I don't have any trouble with". 202 00:10:40,988 --> 00:10:43,077 Do not clear Rick Ames. 203 00:10:43,120 --> 00:10:43,991 Don't. 204 00:10:44,034 --> 00:10:46,471 Don't take him off your radar. 205 00:10:46,515 --> 00:10:49,344 - And I did review his polygraph files as well. 206 00:10:49,387 --> 00:10:53,653 This one CIA polygrapher had written in the file. 207 00:10:54,392 --> 00:10:59,093 "I am not accusing this person of being a spy, but I would not 208 00:10:59,136 --> 00:11:02,357 be surprised to find that he's a spy." 209 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:05,316 - That's amazing that, that would go through and not have 210 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:06,796 somebody go back and redo it. 211 00:11:07,275 --> 00:11:09,494 - A lot of this information about Rick 212 00:11:09,538 --> 00:11:11,366 that was suspicious was out there. 213 00:11:11,409 --> 00:11:14,282 But until Sandy and others started looking at it, 214 00:11:14,325 --> 00:11:16,371 no one had ever put anything together. 215 00:11:16,414 --> 00:11:18,025 Everybody had a piece. 216 00:11:18,068 --> 00:11:19,809 No one had the whole. 217 00:11:19,853 --> 00:11:23,334 But it was our responsibility to build an evidence base, 218 00:11:23,378 --> 00:11:27,643 so we're trying to prove that this guy betrayed his country. 219 00:11:27,687 --> 00:11:30,472 So there were several techniques that the bureau 220 00:11:30,515 --> 00:11:31,734 had available to us. 221 00:11:31,778 --> 00:11:34,824 We've got this group called our SSGs. 222 00:11:34,868 --> 00:11:36,173 - Sure, the SSG. 223 00:11:36,217 --> 00:11:37,697 - We put the Gs on Rick. 224 00:11:37,740 --> 00:11:41,135 It was pretty much 24/7 that we were surveilling Rick. 225 00:11:41,178 --> 00:11:44,181 If he was in the district, walking around on foot 226 00:11:44,225 --> 00:11:47,707 with his wife, we were six steps behind him. 227 00:11:47,837 --> 00:11:51,188 If he was driving around in his car or going anywhere, 228 00:11:51,232 --> 00:11:52,929 we had cars all over him. 229 00:11:52,973 --> 00:11:56,454 We had a airplane that surveilled him. 230 00:11:56,498 --> 00:11:57,542 We bugged his house. 231 00:11:58,065 --> 00:12:00,110 We knew that he was going to California. 232 00:12:00,154 --> 00:12:05,463 And we had just a weekend to execute a search warrant 233 00:12:05,507 --> 00:12:07,814 that we didn't get from a regular court 234 00:12:07,857 --> 00:12:10,164 that we got from a FISA court. 235 00:12:10,207 --> 00:12:13,733 Our guys had already determined weeks in advance 236 00:12:13,776 --> 00:12:15,647 what type of lock Rick had 237 00:12:15,691 --> 00:12:17,649 on his door and how to defeat it. 238 00:12:19,042 --> 00:12:21,566 No lights were turned on, because Rick's neighbors 239 00:12:21,610 --> 00:12:23,133 would have known that they were out of town. 240 00:12:23,177 --> 00:12:27,268 So these guys go in and they put up that black tarp over 241 00:12:27,311 --> 00:12:30,662 all the windows, using these little pin lights to get around. 242 00:12:33,317 --> 00:12:37,582 They found an operational note that was going to be published 243 00:12:37,626 --> 00:12:41,935 in The Washington Post want ads that was to his handler. 244 00:12:42,500 --> 00:12:46,243 And the message, whatever the want ad was, would mean 245 00:12:46,287 --> 00:12:48,898 something to you as the reader of the want ad and something 246 00:12:48,942 --> 00:12:51,553 entirely different to the KGB handler. 247 00:12:51,596 --> 00:12:53,860 That's just how these guys communicate. 248 00:12:53,903 --> 00:12:56,514 [Barry]: Yeah. - You're looking at phones. 249 00:12:56,558 --> 00:12:57,777 You're doing surveillance. 250 00:12:57,820 --> 00:13:00,954 Do you do any type of trash covers? 251 00:13:00,997 --> 00:13:03,391 - Yeah, we had a wonderful time going through his trash 252 00:13:03,434 --> 00:13:06,829 and that really was one of the keys to this investigation 253 00:13:06,873 --> 00:13:10,441 We had rented a house right across the street from him 254 00:13:10,485 --> 00:13:13,009 that we had put a video camera on him. 255 00:13:16,926 --> 00:13:20,190 We knew that the trash was picked up on Tuesday mornings. 256 00:13:20,234 --> 00:13:23,367 We got the trash can from the house across the street 257 00:13:23,411 --> 00:13:26,283 that we leased, and then we took Rick's trashcan 258 00:13:26,327 --> 00:13:28,329 back to the offsite. 259 00:13:28,808 --> 00:13:31,593 Everybody had to put on their government-approved OSHA 260 00:13:31,636 --> 00:13:33,856 suits and our gloves and mask. 261 00:13:33,900 --> 00:13:36,076 And then we started digging through his garbage. 262 00:13:36,119 --> 00:13:38,252 - Yeah. - We're taking it out a layer 263 00:13:38,295 --> 00:13:42,865 at a time, and we photograph each layer as we take it out, 264 00:13:42,909 --> 00:13:47,174 and that's so that we can put it back into his trashcan 265 00:13:47,217 --> 00:13:49,872 as exactly as we took it out. 266 00:13:49,915 --> 00:13:52,353 Now, okay, that sounds like overkill. 267 00:13:52,396 --> 00:13:54,659 But we're dealing with someone 268 00:13:54,703 --> 00:13:58,707 we don't know how specialized trained he was. 269 00:13:58,750 --> 00:14:01,579 Now, every time before we go out on Tuesday, 270 00:14:01,623 --> 00:14:04,582 there was one of our Gs who went by the street name of Hooker. 271 00:14:04,626 --> 00:14:07,107 [laughs] It was a guy. 272 00:14:07,150 --> 00:14:10,545 And on this one occasion, we got back to the offsite 273 00:14:10,588 --> 00:14:13,765 and we're pulling all the trash out and going through everything. 274 00:14:13,809 --> 00:14:16,986 And one of the SSGs, J.R., he starts getting these yellow 275 00:14:17,030 --> 00:14:19,336 pieces of that sticky note of paper. 276 00:14:19,380 --> 00:14:20,816 - Yeah. 277 00:14:20,860 --> 00:14:23,775 - And he starts putting together. We all start walking. 278 00:14:23,819 --> 00:14:26,778 Hooker comes over, and he goes: "Man, kiss me. Kiss me." 279 00:14:26,822 --> 00:14:28,389 [laughs] I'm feeling a little lucky, 280 00:14:28,432 --> 00:14:31,261 so I just start putting sugar all over him at this point. 281 00:14:31,305 --> 00:14:33,915 And sure enough, by the time we get that note put together 282 00:14:33,960 --> 00:14:37,441 the sticky, torn pieces, it was an operational note 283 00:14:37,485 --> 00:14:40,662 in Rick's handwriting that he had written to his KGB 284 00:14:40,705 --> 00:14:46,102 handler here in DC, saying "unable to read Pipe," which was 285 00:14:46,146 --> 00:14:49,105 the code name for one of the dead drop sites. 286 00:14:51,281 --> 00:14:54,806 And then he put: "will meet B" and gave a date. 287 00:14:54,850 --> 00:14:57,940 [suspenseful music] 288 00:14:57,984 --> 00:15:01,509 We pretty quickly figured out that he was talking about Bogota. 289 00:15:03,424 --> 00:15:05,469 He's planning a trip to Bogota. 290 00:15:06,601 --> 00:15:09,560 [intense music] 291 00:15:13,347 --> 00:15:15,827 Next, we put a group on the plane with him, 292 00:15:15,871 --> 00:15:17,742 who also plan a trip to Bogota. 293 00:15:17,786 --> 00:15:21,746 They followed him and they actually photographed him 294 00:15:21,790 --> 00:15:24,358 meeting with his Moscow handler. 295 00:15:28,014 --> 00:15:30,277 And then we, of course, we're monitoring 296 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:32,540 his telephone calls with Rosario. 297 00:15:32,583 --> 00:15:35,760 The conversation was along the lines of: "Did you do it?" 298 00:15:35,804 --> 00:15:39,415 And he would say: "Of course I did," or things like that. 299 00:15:39,460 --> 00:15:41,897 [Rosario Ames]: The other thing that we have to do is, 300 00:15:41,941 --> 00:15:44,595 if you do get the money and you think it might 301 00:15:44,639 --> 00:15:46,989 be advisable, I would... what I would do, 302 00:15:47,033 --> 00:15:48,773 would be to leave in cash.. 303 00:15:48,817 --> 00:15:50,601 You got the money in dollars, right? 304 00:15:50,645 --> 00:15:53,256 [narrator]: Investigators now believe that Rosario 305 00:15:53,300 --> 00:15:56,346 is in cahoots with her husband, and is actively aiding 306 00:15:56,390 --> 00:15:58,696 and abetting his espionage activities. 307 00:15:58,740 --> 00:16:04,659 - Probably one of the more difficult things we were tasked to do by both the CIA, the FBI, 308 00:16:04,702 --> 00:16:09,577 and the National Security Council and DOJ, they said: 309 00:16:09,620 --> 00:16:12,841 "we want this gift wrapped" and it was decided that 310 00:16:12,884 --> 00:16:17,759 we were going to give to Rick a legitimate top-secret document 311 00:16:17,802 --> 00:16:22,894 that we knew for a fact he would pass to the Russians 312 00:16:22,938 --> 00:16:26,115 and we would have all of our sources around him 313 00:16:26,159 --> 00:16:29,031 to catch him in that dead drop act. 314 00:16:29,075 --> 00:16:30,641 And we know from some of the other stuff that 315 00:16:30,685 --> 00:16:33,905 he did give away that some of it was really crucial 316 00:16:33,949 --> 00:16:35,342 about our satellite program. 317 00:16:35,385 --> 00:16:39,172 We videoed everything Rick did through a pinhole camera 318 00:16:39,215 --> 00:16:40,869 in his ceiling, in his office. 319 00:16:40,912 --> 00:16:43,350 And I saw all the papers that he looked through. 320 00:16:43,393 --> 00:16:48,529 He looked at the page we wanted him to pay attention to, read 321 00:16:48,572 --> 00:16:50,444 the text that went with the graph, 322 00:16:50,487 --> 00:16:52,489 and then tossed it in his outbox. 323 00:16:53,490 --> 00:16:55,971 And to a man, we all went: 324 00:16:56,015 --> 00:17:01,498 "Oh my God, if he doesn't think 325 00:17:01,542 --> 00:17:05,633 they'll be interested in this, what has he given them?" 326 00:17:08,549 --> 00:17:11,856 - What year was it when you had to make a decision? 327 00:17:11,900 --> 00:17:13,728 Okay, we've got enough information. 328 00:17:13,771 --> 00:17:16,035 The U.S. Attorney's office said this is it. 329 00:17:16,078 --> 00:17:18,340 We need to... - 1994. 330 00:17:18,385 --> 00:17:19,342 [laughing] 331 00:17:19,386 --> 00:17:20,996 It was... we set it up for 332 00:17:21,040 --> 00:17:23,999 President's Day, February of 1994. 333 00:17:24,042 --> 00:17:26,609 [narrator]: Ames is planning on attending a work conference 334 00:17:26,654 --> 00:17:28,351 in Moscow later that month. 335 00:17:28,395 --> 00:17:32,225 Investigators fear he might never return. 336 00:17:32,268 --> 00:17:36,055 [Dell]: He was due to go out of the country for CIA business 337 00:17:36,098 --> 00:17:40,059 and we could not take the risk of him leaving the country. 338 00:17:40,102 --> 00:17:41,930 So the decision was made. 339 00:17:41,973 --> 00:17:45,586 You got to take him down and you got to take him down now. 340 00:17:45,629 --> 00:17:46,761 - Yeah. 341 00:17:46,804 --> 00:17:48,458 - More would have been killed. - Yeah. 342 00:17:48,502 --> 00:17:52,288 - Rick's supervisor, called Rick to come into the office that day 343 00:17:52,332 --> 00:17:55,683 on a holiday to work on a report that only Rick 344 00:17:55,726 --> 00:17:58,120 was intelligent enough to put together. 345 00:17:58,164 --> 00:18:00,688 And we believe that would appeal to his ego. 346 00:18:00,731 --> 00:18:02,429 And obviously it did. 347 00:18:02,472 --> 00:18:05,693 When he was driving from his house, 348 00:18:05,736 --> 00:18:07,695 he came up to a T-intersection 349 00:18:07,738 --> 00:18:09,436 right around the corner from his house. 350 00:18:09,958 --> 00:18:12,830 So we set up our cars at the stop sign 351 00:18:13,657 --> 00:18:16,312 to where when Rick pulled up behind us, he stopped. 352 00:18:16,356 --> 00:18:18,184 We jump out of our car. 353 00:18:18,227 --> 00:18:21,622 Mike Donner, who is an excessively huge fellow, 354 00:18:21,665 --> 00:18:23,450 [indistinct chatter] he's Barry sized. 355 00:18:23,493 --> 00:18:27,497 Mike grabbed Rick out of the car and put his hands down 356 00:18:27,541 --> 00:18:31,153 on the top of the car and did a quick pat down 357 00:18:31,197 --> 00:18:34,156 because we believed Rick possibly might have 358 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:35,766 a weapon in the car. 359 00:18:35,810 --> 00:18:38,682 And then I put the handcuffs on him and told him 360 00:18:38,726 --> 00:18:40,467 he was under arrest for espionage. 361 00:18:40,510 --> 00:18:42,164 And then we threw him in the back. 362 00:18:42,208 --> 00:18:43,339 Well, we didn't throw anybody. 363 00:18:43,383 --> 00:18:44,775 - You know. 364 00:18:44,819 --> 00:18:47,735 - We gently placed him in the back seat of our car. 365 00:18:47,778 --> 00:18:50,607 While we were in the car, driving to the offsite, 366 00:18:50,651 --> 00:18:54,655 our other team had gone in to arrest Rosario. 367 00:18:54,698 --> 00:18:56,874 - His wife. - His wife, in their house. 368 00:18:56,918 --> 00:18:59,616 And the behavioral sciences people said: "make sure that Rick 369 00:18:59,660 --> 00:19:04,795 hears over your radio that y'all were in his house searching it 370 00:19:04,839 --> 00:19:07,189 and that his wife's got on handcuffs, too." 371 00:19:07,233 --> 00:19:08,886 Well. - Good tactic. 372 00:19:08,930 --> 00:19:10,975 - It just sucked the life right out of him. 373 00:19:11,019 --> 00:19:12,847 And then we took him to an offsite that 374 00:19:12,890 --> 00:19:15,284 the behavioral sciences people at Quantico 375 00:19:15,328 --> 00:19:17,765 had told us how to set up. 376 00:19:17,808 --> 00:19:21,116 We had files with his name on it, scattered on tables. 377 00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:25,207 We had pictures of him that the SSGs had taken. 378 00:19:25,251 --> 00:19:27,296 We had pictures of him in Bogota. 379 00:19:27,340 --> 00:19:31,170 And when we brought Rick in and sat him down, 380 00:19:31,213 --> 00:19:33,650 he was really pretty much still in a state of shock. 381 00:19:33,694 --> 00:19:35,739 And he starts staring at these pictures. 382 00:19:38,264 --> 00:19:41,267 Not long after that, they brought Rosario in. 383 00:19:41,702 --> 00:19:44,313 She's got her hands cuffed behind her back, and she looks 384 00:19:44,357 --> 00:19:46,402 at him and she starts going: "Rick, Rick!". 385 00:19:47,229 --> 00:19:49,971 We take her, hurry her off to another side room, 386 00:19:50,014 --> 00:19:52,843 we didn't want to harshly interrogate her. 387 00:19:52,887 --> 00:19:56,499 We felt she was much more susceptible to a softer 388 00:19:56,543 --> 00:20:01,069 interview interrogation because she was weeping. 389 00:20:01,112 --> 00:20:03,332 She was extremely upset. 390 00:20:06,857 --> 00:20:10,861 - Did you ever determine how much money he got at any time? 391 00:20:10,905 --> 00:20:15,039 - It was a substantial... several million of dollars. 392 00:20:15,083 --> 00:20:17,651 [Cindy]: Yeah. [Dell]: Plus a dacha on a river 393 00:20:17,694 --> 00:20:22,221 [narrator]: Ames confesses that his betrayals began back in 1985 394 00:20:23,004 --> 00:20:26,486 he states that he's given up "virtually all Soviet agents 395 00:20:26,529 --> 00:20:32,753 he knows about, on United States foreign, defense and security policies." 396 00:20:33,319 --> 00:20:38,149 [Barry]: By this time, Ames has entered a plea, confessed. 397 00:20:38,672 --> 00:20:39,629 He's got a sentence. 398 00:20:40,151 --> 00:20:41,936 Life without parole. 399 00:20:42,893 --> 00:20:45,418 Right off, he said: "I told the FBI everything, 400 00:20:45,461 --> 00:20:47,637 plus some stuff that they wouldn't have known. 401 00:20:48,856 --> 00:20:50,466 So I know what you're going to ask." 402 00:20:50,510 --> 00:20:53,861 And all the questions, the main questions Ames failed. 403 00:20:53,904 --> 00:20:55,254 I mean, big fails. 404 00:20:56,211 --> 00:20:59,823 His failures were so clear, I think he held back 405 00:20:59,867 --> 00:21:01,869 some really good stuff for whatever reason. 406 00:21:01,912 --> 00:21:04,437 - And, Barry, you polygraphed her as well? 407 00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,135 [Barry]: They bring her in after. 408 00:21:07,178 --> 00:21:09,485 And the main issues with Rosario is, 409 00:21:09,529 --> 00:21:12,271 when did she know what he was doing? 410 00:21:12,793 --> 00:21:15,883 Had she been involved in helping him 411 00:21:15,926 --> 00:21:17,754 take an active part in anything? 412 00:21:17,798 --> 00:21:19,669 And she had trouble with both of them. 413 00:21:31,551 --> 00:21:34,902 - Sandy, when he was arrested, how did that impact you? 414 00:21:34,945 --> 00:21:36,773 What were your first thoughts when you found out that day? 415 00:21:36,817 --> 00:21:38,340 - It was wonderful. 416 00:21:38,384 --> 00:21:39,776 I was thrilled. 417 00:21:39,820 --> 00:21:41,648 He's an evil human being. 418 00:21:42,083 --> 00:21:43,214 Period. 419 00:21:43,258 --> 00:21:44,564 - The man is going to spend his life... 420 00:21:44,607 --> 00:21:45,782 - That's right. - When he looks out the window 421 00:21:45,826 --> 00:21:47,306 to see what the other side looks like, 422 00:21:47,349 --> 00:21:48,698 there'll be bars on the window. 423 00:21:48,742 --> 00:21:50,352 [Dell]: He hurt us so bad. 424 00:21:50,396 --> 00:21:53,486 And how do you put a value on a human life? 425 00:21:53,529 --> 00:21:55,531 He had those 10 people executed. 426 00:21:55,575 --> 00:21:59,056 [indistinct chatter] To protect himself. 427 00:21:59,100 --> 00:22:03,060 He was concerned that they would become aware of his identity 428 00:22:03,104 --> 00:22:07,151 and let the CIA know that he was spying for the Russians, 429 00:22:07,195 --> 00:22:11,373 so he methodically had them recalled to Moscow 430 00:22:11,417 --> 00:22:14,898 and executed just for self-protection. 431 00:22:15,725 --> 00:22:18,511 And that makes him the worst traitor... 432 00:22:18,554 --> 00:22:19,947 [Cindy]: Absolutely. -...in this nation's history. 433 00:22:19,990 --> 00:22:22,384 And it's like: "thank God, we got him." 434 00:22:22,428 --> 00:22:25,692 We've stopped this guy, and no one else is going to die. 435 00:22:25,735 --> 00:22:27,650 I can go home now. - Yes. 436 00:22:27,694 --> 00:22:30,566 [ominous music] 437 00:22:39,270 --> 00:22:42,361 Subtitling: difuze