Disgraced Washington FBI agent spied for Moscow for years during Cold War

Robert P Hanssen, who has died aged 79, was a former FBI agent who pleaded guilty to spying for Moscow for years in one of the most devastating intelligence breaches in American history.

A veteran counterintelligence agent, Hanssen served for 25 years in the FBI before his arrest in 2001. By his own admission, he began selling secrets to the Soviets in 1979, carrying on his activities, with intermittent pauses, for years.

In the severity of his betrayal, Hanssen was compared to Aldrich H Ames, the CIA turncoat who pleaded guilty to espionage and other charges in 1994.

Hanssen’s treason, according to a government report, was

‘‘possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history’’.

His breaches included compromising the identity of nine double agents, two of whom were later executed in Moscow, and revelations of US nuclear war preparations, including where the United States would hit the Soviets and how Washington would respond to a first strike by Moscow.

He tipped off the Soviets to the existence of a listening tunnel underneath their embassy in Washington, enabling them to feed US domestic intelligence agencies useless information for years. In total, Hanssen handed over more than 6000 pages of classified materials at ‘‘dead drop’’ sites in Washington and New York.

For years, he evaded counterintelligence efforts through his own experience in that field and also because of what the bureau’s inspector-general later said were significant internal security flaws, even after he came on the FBI radar for protocol violations.

‘‘Although Hanssen escaped detection for more than 20 years, this was not because he was a ‘master spy’,’’ the report concluded.

Hanssen’s unravelling as a double agent began in earnest in December 2000 when the FBI recruited a former KGB intelligence officer who was paid US$7 million and provided information about a mole in the US intelligence community.

Among the information was a trash bag from a drop site containing partial fingerprints of the mole and a cassette tape on which the mole had complained about a payment from the Russians. The voice was unmistakably Hanssen’s.

The problem was that Hanssen, who was on the cusp of retirement, was detailed to the State Department, and the FBI wanted to capture him red-handed on its turf.

Within the FBI, Hanssen was long known for mercurial behaviour. He had a reputation for being physically and verbally abusive to co-workers, especially those who held lower ranks. He conveyed a loathing of authority, but had a hairtrigger temper when his own commands were challenged. He was expected to ride out the last few months of his career as a liaison to the state, away from headquarters.

The FBI needed to bring Hanssen back, give him access to important information and allow him to spy once more. The agency set up a new cybersecurity unit and put Hanssen in charge, taking a massive risk by hoping he would be intercepted before he could sell more data to the Russians.

Eric O’Neill, a surveillance specialist at the FBI, was asked to help catch him. At one pivotal moment, he snatched Hanssen’s encrypted PalmPilot after a senior FBI agent carried out a ruse to quickly draw Hanssen from his office. The agency found evidence of documents he had given to Russian contacts and also noted a drop date only three days away. The Sunday of his capture, in February 2001, was bitterly cold. During the day, Hanssen went to the basement of his home in Vienna, Virginia, and placed a stack of classified FBI documents and an encrypted computer diskette into a plastic garbage bag, then wrapped it with tape. On the disk was a farewell letter to his handlers indicating it was his final drop.

‘‘Dear Friends,’’ he wrote, ‘‘I thank you for your assistance these many years. It seems, however, that my greatest utility to you has come to an end, and it is time to seclude myself from active service . . . Life is full of its ups and downs . . . I will be in contact next year, same time same place.’’

After dropping a friend at the airport, Hanssen made his way to Foxstone Park near his home. He walked with his package to a footbridge, scanning the area for surveillance.

Seeing no-one, he tucked the package in a concealed space under the bridge, then made his way back to the car. As he placed his key in the door, two government vans screeched to the scene and agents poured out holding weapons.

‘‘What took you so long?’’ he asked, as he was handcuffed and arrested.

After initially pleading not guilty, Hanssen entered a guilty plea in July 2001 to charges of spying, attempted espionage and conspiracy to commit espionage. His offences carried the possibility of the death penalty, but he received a life sentence in exchange for his guilty plea. He died in prison.

Following his arrest, colleagues, neighbours and relatives described Hanssen as cerebral and standoffish, and they were stunned by the contradictions that were revealed about his life.

He attended daily mass, displayed a crucifix above his desk and attended antiabortion rallies. He presented himself as a Cold Warrior who deplored communism.

But Hanssen also arranged for a friend to watch him having sex with his wife. He attended strip clubs and befriended a stripper, buying her expensive jewellery and a Mercedes-Benz. He never wanted to have sex, she told Washington Post. He wanted to bring her closer to God.

By most accounts, Hanssen lived frugally and took out mortgages on his home to help pay for his children’s private Catholic schooling. He would eventually plead guilty to receiving more than $1.4m in cash and diamonds in return for his services.

Robert Philip Hanssen was born in Chicago in 1944. His father was a Chicago police officer and his mother a homemaker. Bob, an only child, was subjected to verbal and physical abuse by his hottempered father. He studied chemistry and Russian at college, and a few years after graduating, joined the Chicago police department as an officer, also attending a counterintelligence school.

He married Bonnie Wauck in 1968. They reportedly had six children.

Hanssen joined the FBI in 1976. His spying probably began in 1979, authorities said, but he backed off after his wife became suspicious of his contacts with Russians. He consulted a priest about his transgressions and gave some of the money he earned to Mother Teresa’s charities.

In 1985, as FBI agents were quitting in large numbers because of low pay, he approached the Soviets offering to be a double agent, prosecutors said. To his Russian handlers, he used code names such as ‘‘B’’ and the swaggering alias ‘‘Ramon Garcia’’.

After being apprehended, he was asked by authorities why he had spied. ‘‘Fear and rage,’’ he replied. ‘‘Fear of being a failure and fear of not being able to provide for my family.’’

b April 18, 1944 d June 5, 2023