Skip to main content
ad info

CNN.com  U.S. News
  Editions | myCNN | Video | Audio | Headline News Brief | Feedback

 

  Search
 
 

 
U.S.
TOP STORIES

California braced for weekend of power scrounging

Court order averts strike against Union Pacific railroad

U.S. warning at Davos forum

Two more Texas fugitives will contest extradition

(MORE)

TOP STORIES

Thousands dead in India; quake toll rapidly rising

Davos protesters confront police

California readies for weekend of power scrounging

Capriati upsets Hingis to win Australian Open

(MORE)

MARKETS
4:30pm ET, 4/16
144.70
8257.60
3.71
1394.72
10.90
879.91
 


WORLD

POLITICS

LAW

TECHNOLOGY

ENTERTAINMENT

HEALTH

TRAVEL

FOOD

ARTS & STYLE



(MORE HEADLINES)
*
 
CNN Websites
Networks image


 VIDEO
Video Former U.S. intelligence official Richard Haver provides insights into the thinking of turncoats gained from his role investigating three high-profile cases. Watch the entire interview with David Ensor.

John Walker: Doing ‘the greatest degree of harm’ to U.S. intelligence in 25 years
QuickTime Play
Real 28K 80K
Windows Media 28K 80K

A portrait of Aldrich Ames: Intelligent, arrogant and ‘catastrophic’ to the CIA
QuickTime Play
Real 28K 80K
Windows Media 28K 80K

Vitaly Yurchenko: Defector, or disinformation artist?
QuickTime Play
Real 28K 80K
Windows Media 28K 80K

Jonathan Pollard: 'Manipulative, intelligent ... very confused'
QuickTime Play
Real 28K 80K
Windows Media 28K 80K

Common threads: Intelligence, and a background of borderline behavior
QuickTime Play
Real 28K 80K
Windows Media 28K 80K
 
  CNN Experience: Cold War
An interview with Aldrich Ames

Profiles: Aldrich Ames

Profiles: The Walker family

CNN In-Depth Special: Cold War
 

CIA spy hunter talks to CNN about notorious turncoats

May 29, 2000
Web posted at: 8:52 p.m. EDT (0052 GMT)

(CNN) -- Richard Haver, former hunter and interrogator of spies, knows firsthand the havoc they can do to a nation's intelligence network.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the former executive director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Community Management Staff investigated three of the 20th century's most notorious cases of U.S. citizens spying against the United States.

In an in-depth interview with National Security Correspondent David Ensor, Haver talks about his experiences with retired U.S. Navy Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker; Aldrich Ames, a longtime CIA employee posted to the office that handled clandestine operations around the globe; and Jonathan Pollard, a Navy intelligence analyst.

For almost 20 years, Walker sold top-secret encryption codes to the Soviets that allowed them into the inner sanctum of United States operations and methods. He went even further, recruiting a spy ring that included his own son.

"He opened up windows way beyond just Navy access for extended periods of time," says Haver, now vice president for Intelligence Business Development at TRW. "And when someone compromises your secure communications, they have compromised your entire system."

Haver remembers Ames as arrogant and smart, a professional intelligence officer with perhaps a penchant for drinking too much. But his spying on behalf of the former Soviet Union proved "catastrophic" to the CIA's human intelligence operations.

"In the spy game, when you're penetrated, when someone is working for the other side inside your security world, they then own you," Haver says.

Then there was Pollard, who gave truckloads of the most closely held secrets away to a friendly nation: Israel. Haver says Pollard is a "heavy user" of illegal drugs and a traitor who would also have compromised the Israelis "if it had struck him as something he wanted to do."

In Ensor's report Haver recalls the wiles of Walker, Ames and Pollard and the lessons they taught America's intelligence community.



RELATED STORIES:
Former CIA agent unveils secrets that made him 'Master of Disguise'
May 3, 2000
Review: Her spy, his wife
March 24, 2000
CIA wife tells life story in 'My Spy'
March 24, 2000
Cold War: Spies in the Digital Age
December 30, 1998

RELATED SITES:
Central Intelligence Agency
The Clandestine Services and Damage Caused by Aldrich Ames
Defense Security Service: John Anthony Walker

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.

 Search   


Back to the top  © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.