Circle of Treason (28 page)

After the camera was in place, we concocted another scenario in the hope of filming Ames purloining a top secret document. We chose a document we thought would interest Ames, but which the U.S. government could afford to lose. Again thanks to Edger, we had a copy of this document routed to Ames. We hoped that he would cut off the classification and identifying data, or stuff it into his shirt or take some other compromising action. However, it must have been one of Ames' lazy days. He merely glanced at the document and tossed it into his out box!

Another major part of the investigation was the surveillance of Ames in Bogota. Unfortunately, our teams never did see Ames meeting his SVR case officer, although meetings did indeed take place.

Our cooperation continued to the end. When the FBI decided the time had come to arrest Ames, we produced yet another scenario for Edger to carry out. He and Ames were supposed to go on an overseas trip together. On Monday 21 February 1994, Presidents' Day holiday, Edger called Ames in the morning. Following his script, he advised Ames that a cable had arrived that affected their trip and that needed an immediate response. Could Ames come to the office and deal with the problem?
Ames trustingly left his residence. The FBI was waiting around the corner and arrested him without incident.

The FBI's plan was to take Ames and his wife, who was arrested shortly after her husband was placed in custody, to the FBI office at Tysons Corner in northern Virginia and, dealing with them separately, induce them to confess. Sandy and Jeanne had been requested to await events at their CIA office, which was otherwise empty because of the holiday. Dan Payne was to fulfill the role of courier between Tysons Corner and CIA headquarters if needed. The FBI wanted them in position to provide instant research and expertise in case one of the Ameses began to confess. As it happened, Mrs. Ames made a few incriminating statements but Ames himself refused to cooperate.

Until the very end, Ames was totally complacent. He never had an idea that the arrest was imminent and did not attempt to keep a low profile. While the FBI's net was closing around him, he was drawing attention to himself by approaching SE Division management in an effort to sell himself for the position of deputy chief of Moscow Station.

REACTIONS TO THE ARREST OF AMES

A
LL OF US, BOTH
CIA
AND
FBI, who had worked so hard to bring Ames to justice felt a sense of relief once we knew he was under lock and key. Of course, we were aware that there was more labor ahead to produce a conviction and a sentence of life without parole. (This was the most that could be expected, because the death penalty for espionage in peacetime did not exist at the time. It has since been reinstated.) All our self-gratification began to dissipate almost immediately, however.

The FBI drafted a public statement concerning the arrest that gave the impression that they had done all the real work, while we had merely provided cooperation and support. The draft incensed the CIA, which produced its own drafts, which the FBI refused to accept. Finally, the FBI's version was issued by the attorney general. We also issued one. There would be no joint statement. (Retired FBI Special Agent I. C. Smith has described the atmosphere at FBI headquarters on this occasion, characterizing it as an “attempt to jab a stick in the CIA's eye.”
¹
) Of greater significance, news of the arrest brought Congressional wrath on the CIA and, to a lesser extent, the FBI. The investigation that led to Ames had been ongoing for years as a major effort and Congress had not been kept advised. In retrospect, this is perhaps the greatest “lesson learned” from the whole case. As one consequence, the atmosphere of CIA-FBI cooperation that had dominated the investigative phase quickly dissipated as senior managers on both sides tried to deflect criticism from the
Congressional oversight committees and their own inspector general staff by shifting blame to the rival organization.

During the last year or two before the arrest, the CIA's senior management held discussions about the advisability of notifying the majority and minority leaders of the two intelligence oversight committees, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Jeanne was responsible for drawing up talking points. She produced numerous drafts that were sent up the line for approval. They were returned with major revisions. Some in senior management were in favor of giving Congress ample debriefings, some wanted to provide only the bare minimum, and some did not want to tell Congress anything at all. The proponents of this last position won the day because it was never possible to fashion a draft that satisfied everybody.

Beginning the day after the arrest, CIA and FBI representatives were called to Capitol Hill to explain themselves to a largely hostile audience. Jeanne was summoned several times. In general, the SSCI was more thoughtful, or better controlled by its chairman, Senator Dennis DeConcini of Arizona. Requests for explanations, while often cold, were generally polite. The situation degenerated only when CIA Director James Woolsey was present. He and DeConcini had long engaged in mutual animosity and this affected the exchanges when they were in the same room.

HPSCI was not so restrained. On one occasion, Jeanne was the sole witness, or sacrificial lamb. This was a closed session, with no media representatives present. However, it appeared that the members of the committee were so accustomed to posturing for the press that they could not turn it off. The tone of the questions was accusatory, and the mantra was “What took you so long?” Jeanne felt like she was being cross-examined by a hostile attorney trying to make a point with a jury, rather than being asked in temperate terms to explain what she had done or not done in the investigation, and why. Representatives Dicks, Dixon, and Torricelli were especially vociferous. Representative Dan Glickman chaired the session, but did not have full control because members freely interrupted each other in their efforts to be heard. Glickman did, however, get at least one question in to Jeanne in a rather sneering tone: “What makes you think that you were capable of leading a CI investigation?” This was typical of
the questioning. Jeanne left not only furious but downhearted, having lost whatever respect she might have had for our legislative branch, at least as exemplified by its lower house.

Eventually, both the SSCI and HPSCI produced reports.
²
The bulk of the SSCI report consists of a case summary and was thoroughly reviewed with the CIA in draft. This was succeeded by conclusions and recommendations, some of which have been implemented. The HPSCI report also came up with a number of findings, with one of which Jeanne and Sandy take particular issue. This is the finding that the CIA personnel involved in the investigation failed to keep senior management advised in a timely manner. We suggest that, in part, this misunderstanding is due to statements made after the arrest by senior managers who wished to elude criticism, on the theme of “If I had known about it, I would have fixed it.” Senior managers were kept advised, at least in general terms, of the seriousness of the problem, the nature of the investigation, and the progress we were making. Indeed, Jeanne personally briefed two CIA directors—Judge Webster and Robert Gates. She always started her briefing with a statement about the executions of the Soviet officials who had worked for us, and she does not believe they could have missed the tenor of what she was saying. She continued by outlining what was being done to solve the problem, but accepts that they may not have absorbed the details because, after all, they had a great many knotty situations, some of extremely high priority, to contend with.

One aspect of the SSCI and HPSCI probes was particularly outrageous. Chairman Glickman and Congressman Combest of HPSCI and Chairman DeConcini of the SSCI conducted personal interviews with Ames. The only real result, as we see it, was to inflate Ames' ego. If these officials did not trust the FBI/CIA debriefings, or had some questions we had not covered, there is no reason why they could not have sent one of their trusted staff members instead of traipsing down themselves to drink in what Ames had to say. “Disgusting” and “obscene” were words used by CIA employees when they heard of these interviews.

In the meantime, as mandated by Congress, the inspector general's office at the CIA, under the aegis of Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz, was conducting its own investigation. This was a mammoth effort, yet a flawed one. Many of the investigators lacked knowledge of the Directorate of Operations as an entity, much less how it carried out its day-to-day
business in the world of espionage. Moreover, the investigative techniques employed left much to be desired. The interviewers held long sessions with each individual who had taken part in the Ames case. These interviewers took notes, but the interviews were not recorded. At first, the IG staff did not want the interviewees to have access to the results of the interviews because this was their normal Star Chamber procedure. However, a flood of impassioned protests caused them to change the ground rules for this particular investigation.

Once the interviews had been typed, which sometimes took place only after a long delay, the interviewees could review them for accuracy. When Jeanne did just that, she was stunned by the inaccuracies. For instance, at one point she said that someone's reappearance was fortuitous. This came out, the individual's “report” was fortuitous. At another point she said that someone was a valid asset. The report of the interview erroneously reflects that she called the individual a “valued” asset. (In reality, in this particular case the asset was valid but not valuable!) Sloppy drafting had Jeanne stating that she did not remember having briefed DCI Casey. Obviously, if she had done so it would not be the sort of thing that she would have forgotten!

The IG team was in haste to prepare their report before Congress reconvened. They produced an unwieldy and unpolished draft that was parceled out to all who had played a significant role in the Ames case for comments. (Unfortunately this draft also contained some sensitive material that should never have had such wide distribution.) Jeanne's were lengthy and critical. To give the IG credit, many of the changes she and others suggested were made and the final product, while by no means perfect, is reasonably accurate.
³
In looking over this abstract now, however, Jeanne and Sandy notice one glaring omission. The report makes no mention of CIA management's failure to keep Congress informed. As noted separately, this was one of the strongest lessons learned in their opinion. Another point not covered was the lack of a formal, written agreement with the FBI when Jim Holt and Jim Milburn came over to the CIA in the summer of 1991. The four of us did not need such an agreement in order to co-exist productively, but in the furor after the arrest, and attempts to play the blame game, it would have been useful for all to have such a document to point to.

Almost one year after Ames' arrest, CIA management scheduled an awards ceremony to honor those who had participated in the investigation. As is traditional, the reception was to include family members. Sandy's family had traveled from North Carolina; Dan Payne's sister had come, or was coming, from Chicago. At the last minute the invitations were withdrawn. The word we heard was that DDCI Studeman had decided to cancel the event because the press might hear about it and “Congress wouldn't like it.” This despite the fact that many of the honorees had played no role in deciding how the investigation should proceed. They were the loyal workers who had done a good job in such necessary areas as locating files for us, checking Ames' time and attendance records, and helping the FBI bug his telephones.

The event was later rescheduled more than one year after Ames' arrest. However, because of CIA management's pusillanimity, the revised-version ceremony was limited to the actual awardees. No one else was allowed to be present, nor was the ceremony publicized in any way. Further, the designation of who was to receive which medal particularly offended Jeanne. Redmond got the most prestigious one; Jeanne and Dave Edger were awarded medals at the next level; and a medal one step further down was awarded to Sandy. Jeanne thought this was singularly unfair because she and Sandy had worked as a team and, after all, it was Sandy who was convinced throughout that Ames was a spy and who discovered the correlation that broke the case. Sandy was affronted also. This was a team effort and each played a significant role. Ames might never have been discovered without the participation of all the major players, from Worthen to Redmond. As she sees it, it should have been the same medal for all. Moreover, the fact that Dan and Diana did not receive medals at all was even more egregious. They received monetary awards. While money is always pleasant, it was not their primary motivation, and they were left without a permanent memento of their achievement.

In any event, the recognition was too little and too late for the dedicated employees who had been so helpful to us, the core team, in our efforts. Given their feelings, both Sandy and Jeanne boycotted the ceremony and neither has ever displayed the medals they were awarded.