Robert P. Hanssen, a former F.B.I. agent who spied for Moscow on and off for greater than twenty years throughout and after the Cold War in one of the harmful espionage circumstances in American historical past, used to be found out lifeless in his jail mobile in Colorado on (*79*), federal government introduced. He used to be 79.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons stated in a commentary that Mr. Hanssen used to be discovered unresponsive simply sooner than 7 a.m. at the United States Penitentiary Florence, the place he used to be serving a existence sentence. He used to be pronounced lifeless after lifesaving efforts by means of emergency scientific employees. The commentary didn’t establish a motive.
Mr. Hanssen’s case used to be regarded as one of the infamous secret agent scandals of his technology, surprising F.B.I. leaders and different govt officers once they realized that one in every of their very own have been feeding information to the opposite aspect with impunity for such a lot of years. To at the moment, the F.B.I. describes him as “the most damaging spy in bureau history.”
In trade for $1.4 million in money, financial institution price range and diamonds, Mr. Hanssen handed alongside a torrent of secrets and techniques to Moscow, together with one disclosing that the United States govt had dug a tunnel beneath the Soviet embassy in Washington to pay attention to diplomatic and different communications. He additionally knowledgeable Moscow about 3 Okay.G.B. officials who had been secretly spying for the United States, two of whom had been later completed.
“The magnitude of Hanssen’s crimes cannot be overstated,” Paul J. McNulty, who used to be the U.S. lawyer who prosecuted him, stated on (*79*) in keeping with experiences of his dying. “They will long be remembered as being among the most egregious betrayals of trust in U.S. history. It was both a low point and an investigative success for the FBI.”
Mr. Hanssen’s arrest, in 2001, in short ruptured members of the family between the United States and Russia at a time when the 2 former enemies had been in search of to construct friendlier ties after the cave in of the Soviet Union. President George W. Bush expelled about 50 Russian diplomats, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia retaliated with a tit-for-tat expulsion of fifty American diplomats. But either side had been decided to finish the subject there and no longer permit it to lead to a extra lasting rift.
The discovery of Mr. Hanssen’s espionage embarrassed the F.B.I. and led to adjustments to safety procedures. He advised investigators after his arrest that safety at the bureau used to be so lax that it amounted to “criminal negligence,” pronouncing that it used to be a easy subject to realize get admission to to categorised subject matter on legitimate computer systems with simplest regimen safety clearances.
“Any clerk in the bureau could come up with stuff on that system,” Mr. Hanssen stated, in step with a Justice Department record on his case in 2002. “It’s criminal what’s laid out.”
Mr. Hanssen pleaded to blame to fifteen counts of espionage and conspiracy to keep away from the dying penalty and expressed regret for his betrayal. “I am shamed by it,” he stated throughout the 2002 listening to at which he used to be sentenced to existence in jail with out parole.
Since July 17, 2002, Mr. Hanssen have been in custody at Florence, the supermax facility that is thought of as essentially the most safe jail within the federal device and used in recent times to deal with convicted terrorists. Inmates there are normally held in solitary confinement for 23 hours an afternoon.
Mr. Hanssen joined the F.B.I. in 1976 as a distinct agent and went on to carry a number of counterintelligence positions that gave him get admission to to categorised information. He started spying for the Soviet Union 3 years after becoming a member of the bureau, when he used to be assigned to a counterintelligence unit in New York, by means of strolling into the New York workplaces of Amtorg, a Soviet industry group that used to be identified to be a entrance for the Soviet army intelligence company.
He stopped spying for a number of years beginning in 1980, after his spouse, Bonnie, walked in on him within the basement in their house in Westchester County, N.Y., and he briefly attempted to hide up his papers. He confessed to her and to a clergyman affiliated with Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic group to which the couple belonged.
In 1985, he started spying once more, offering information to the Okay.G.B. This time he did a greater process of masking his tracks, the use of encrypted communications and different secret strategies; even the Russians by no means knew who he used to be. Identifying himself simplest by means of code names like B and Ramon Garcia, Mr. Hanssen grew to become over delicate information stated to incorporate particular satellite tv for pc intelligence assortment functions. His revelation of the tunnel that the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency had constructed underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington value the United States masses of thousands and thousands of greenbacks.
Mr. Hanssen’s paintings as a secret agent for Moscow went undetected for years as he amassed at least $600,000 in money and diamonds from the Okay.G.B. and its post-Soviet successor, S.V.R., which advised him that that they had put aside every other $800,000 for him in a Moscow financial institution, in step with prosecutors.
In the Nineties, after the arrest of Aldrich Ames, a C.I.A. agent who had additionally spied for the Russians, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. discovered that any individual else used to be nonetheless offering Russia with categorised information, and so they started “Graysuit,” a hunt for the unknown double agent. But it used to be no longer till 2000 that investigators had been in a position to slender the hunt, when the F.B.I. paid $7 million to a former Russian intelligence officer for a document at the nameless mole who known as himself B — a document that incorporated an audio recording with a voice that two F.B.I. analysts who knew Mr. Hanssen sooner or later known.
Using fingerprints, the F.B.I. showed that the mole used to be Mr. Hanssen and surveilled him for months, even selling him to stay higher observe of him. In February 2001, brokers arrested him in Foxstone Park within the Washington suburb of Vienna, Va., a couple of blocks from his house, after he had left categorised paperwork in a rubbish bag at a “dead drop” for his Russian handlers below a wood footbridge.
Mr. Hanssen appeared unsurprised at in any case being stuck. “What took you so long?” he reportedly requested when arrested.
Robert Philip Hanssen used to be born on April 18, 1944, in Chicago to Vivian and Howard Hanssen, a profession Chicago police officer who did intelligence paintings for the dept. Robert won a bachelor’s level in chemistry in 1966 from Knox College in Illinois, the place he additionally studied Russian, however after commencement he used to be rejected by means of the National Security Agency when he implemented for a place in cryptography.
He enrolled in dentistry college at Northwestern University, however later transferred to the industry college, the place he won a grasp’s level in industry management. While in dentistry college, he met and married Bonnie Wauck and transformed from Lutheran to enroll in her Roman Catholic religion. After a 12 months running at an accounting company, he took a place with the Chicago Police Department that specialize in forensic accounting. Four years later he moved to the F.B.I.
An simplest kid, Robert had had a troublesome dating along with his father, who emotionally abused him, and he had grown up obsessive about James Bond, accumulating secret agent devices or even opening a Swiss checking account. In the F.B.I., Mr. Hanssen used to be stated to have burned with resentment that did he no longer obtain the consideration and assignments he felt he deserved. With six youngsters in parochial faculties or faculty, he attributed his choice to secret agent for Moscow to cash, even supposing his causes had been by no means absolutely understood.
“Many of the factors that have motivated or influenced traitors in the past — such as greed, ideology, career disappointments and resentment, and drug and alcohol abuse — do not apply to Hanssen or do not fully explain his conduct,” a Justice Department inspector general’s report on the case said in 2003.
Mr. Hanssen led a double existence in additional tactics than one. An energetic member of Opus Dei, he introduced himself as a non secular and dedicated anti-communist conservative. But in step with experiences, he additionally visited strip golf equipment, allowed a chum to clandestinely watch him having intercourse along with his spouse and engaged in what used to be stated to be a secret however nonsexual dating with an unique dancer whom he plied with items and took on an F.B.I. travel to Hong Kong.
Mr. Hanssen’s talent to keep away from detection used to be noticed as a sign failure of the American intelligence equipment. His personal brother-in-law, who additionally labored for the F.B.I., reported suspicions about Mr. Hanssen to the bureau a decade sooner than his arrest, however the manager he advised had disregarded his considerations.
Mr. Hanssen used to be the topic of a couple of books and flicks, together with a tv film in 2002 by which he used to be performed by means of William Hurt and a full-screen film known as “Breach” in 2007, by which he used to be performed by means of Chris Cooper.
Jesus Jiménez contributed reporting from New York.