Original subtitles

Chris costa: It is a cat and mouse game.

Of course, this cat and mouse game is played out

Universally across the planet.

Countries spy, and countries want to catch spies.

With intelligence work, with counter-intelligence work,

We have a very good idea of who the spies are.

Chris costa: The insider threat is constant.

It's a very tough problem for an agency

Like the fbi or the cia to find one of its own betraying

Our country.

Two of the most damning, dangerous spies in us history

Were robert hanssen and ana montes.

Behind every spy gadget, every coded message and

Secret mission, lies a story.

Some are tales of loyalty and sacrifice.

Others are stories of betrayal.

Here at the international spy museum in washington, dc,

The history of espionage is preserved for the public to see.

But some of the most damaging spies in american history

Weren't fictional characters from books or movies

But trusted insiders, and they operated in plain sight.

Narrator: 1979.

The soviet union, a communist pillar in the world,

Was engaged in a silent struggle with the us

In intelligence, technology and military affairs.

The stakes couldn't have been higher.

But the us had a problem.

Secrets were slipping out and being given to the kremlin.

The fbi knew they were working with someone on the inside.

But who?

It was a race against time to figure that out.

Eric o'neill: The fbi, for over two decades,

Knew that there was an incredibly

High placed mole somewhere in the intelligence community.

Now, they didn't know whether this was in the fbi,

Military intelligence, nsa, cia, somewhere in the government

Or cabinet, or where.

They only knew that there was an individual

With access to information that was putting

It in the hands of russia.

Narrator: And the leaks had fatal consequences.

Eric o'neill: Two of our top spies in russia

And the soviet union at that time were flown back to moscow

And executed.

As soon as those two spies were disappeared,

We knew we had a problem.

These guys don't disappear for no reason.

We didn't even have an inkling that the soviets

Knew they were working for us.

And the manhunt began.

Narrator: The agency had little to work with,

But one thing was certain.

Russia had their playbook and knew their next move

Before they even made it.

It was clear the spy had a lot of power,

But it was a needle in a haystack.

[non-english speech]

Narrator: Years passed, and so did the secrets.

But uncovering the identity of the mole,

Who the fbi now referred to as gray suit,

Wasn't getting anywhere until one day,

There was a lucky break.

December of 2000, a former kgb intelligence officer

Who had lost his job when the kgb was disbanded at the fall

Of the soviet union and the reformation

Into the russian federation, sold a slim file of information

To a joint fbi cia task force.

Narrator: It didn't seem like much,

But it was the bombshell they needed.

Eric o'neill: It was a cassette tape, a bunch of letters,

And a trash bag.

They listened to the cassette tape.

Narrator: The deep recorded voice was familiar

And the tape played out gray suits's biggest mistake

As he spoke to his russian handlers on a recorded line.

Eric o'neill: He said, this is ramon garcia.

Narrator: But it wasn't ramon garcia.

It was one of the fbi's own.

Eric o'neill: Gray suit was robert hanssen,

And we had no idea for 22 years of his espionage.

And that's when the fbi went to work in

Due order to establish the ultimate counterintelligence

Operation.

Narrator: The fbi had to act fast.

Eric o'neill, a young agent at the time,

Was sent in undercover to help catch the double agent.

But who was robert hanssen?

Hansen was a very gruff person.

He was incredibly sarcastic.

He had this snarky sense of humor,

If you want to call it that.

He was dour.

He wore dark suits.

He was not the most friendly, outgoing person in the world.

He was intensely religious.

Eric o'neill: He joined the fbi because his father was in law

Enforcement, and he wanted to prove to his father

That he could cut it as well.

Chris costa: Robert hansen was an fbi counterintelligence

Agent, meaning his job was to understand how the soviets

First and later the successors of the kgb, how

They operated on us soil.

A little thing about hanssen that many don't know--

He loved james bond.

He wanted to join the fbi and be james bond,

Be undercover, do field operations,

Go hunt down and chase spies.

Narrator: In 1979, hanssen started working

For the fbi in new york city.

Agents would later uncover this is where his betrayal

Of our nation began.

Eric o'neill: He started spying within two

Years of joining the fbi.

So he spied for 22 of his 25 year career in the fbi.

The first time bob hanssen got in touch with the russians

Was, of course, in new york city.

Eric o'neill: He volunteered his services by sending a letter

To a known intelligence officer in the consulate

There in new york, offering his services.

Narrator: In 1981, hanssen was transferred to fbi headquarters

And bought a house in vienna, virginia,

A suburb of washington, dc.

Vienna would become essential to his spying,

Specifically foxstone park.

Bob hanssen is an interesting case

Because he had never met face to face

With his intelligence officer.

It was always impersonal communications.

But he established his trajectory of drops

Of information, signals that would be set,

And then drops of money.

He would set a signal to tell them, ok, I've loaded the drop.

One of his main drop sites was under a footbridge

In foxstone park, which is a short walk from his house.

Either that night or the next day,

It would go to an amphitheater that was not too far away,

A different park.

And they would take $10,000, $20,000,

50-whatever they were paying for those secrets,

And put them under a corner of a platform in that amphitheater.

And then they would put another piece of tape

Somewhere else on hanssen's route to work.

Hanson would know it's payday.

And that night, he would get a flashlight

And, as he called it in one of his letters,

Go slogging around through the mud to go find his money.

Narrator: Hansen was just months away from retirement when

The recording came to light.

At the end of his career, he was sent to the state

Department in a liaison job.

They were just letting him ride out his retirement.

He would retire in April of 2001.

Narrator: But now they needed him back.

They had to create something that would not only

Bring hanssen back from the state department

And seem credible but also get him to stay in the fbi

Because if he leaves the fbi, then he doesn't

Have access to information.

He'll never make that last drop.

And we had to catch him red-handed.

And the fbi came up with this brilliant plan.

They were going to give him his dream job.

They built an entire new section in the fbi to trap

Him called the information assurance section.

Chris costa: Eric o'neill was responsible for ingratiating

Himself to his boss, building a personal relationship,

Getting him to talk.

But ultimately, he was reporting everything hanssen was doing.

That's the ultimate counterintelligence operation.

Everyone in headquarters thought that this was a brand

New section that was being headed up,

And we had to do the real work.

That was the thing.

We were doing the work of building

Cybersecurity for the fbi.

I had to finally find the smoking gun that

Would help us win this case.

And at the same time, I couldn't tell anybody

I was working undercover.

And I realized that the bond he needed was he wanted a mentee.

He wanted to be a mentor.

He wanted to show someone his brilliance.

He wanted someone to listen to him.

And he'd been ignored in the fbi for so many years.

And I fulfilled that role.

I became that person.

And I started to watch him and ask him things.

And I realized hanssen had a flaw.

He had a routine.

He had this thing called a palmpilot.

He loved this thing far too much,

And I knew we had to get it away from him.

I had an assistant director that he absolutely hated,

And I had that section chief he didn't like,

The only other person that I knew in fbi headquarters who

Knew anything about the case, come and unannounced

And slap $20 on his desk and tells him, you and me,

The shooting range right now, and I bet you

That the two of us, that $20, 5 targets out of 5, can beat you.

Narrator: Hanson took the bait and headed

To the shooting range.

Eric o'neill: He holsters his firearm

And he grabs his ear protection, eye protection.

He follows them out, and for the first time,

He forgets that palmpilot.

I go into his bag.

I rifle the bag, open all four completely similar pockets.

I pull out the palmpilot, a data card, and a floppy disk.

And we not only knew where he would

Be when he made that final drop but also

When he would be there because the palmpilot is a calendar.

On February 18 in 2001, he's on that bridge in foxstone

Park in vienna, virginia.

He pulls out a package.

He loads it under the bridge, his final drop to the russians

After 22 years of being their top spy.

And he retraces his steps to where his old silver ford taurus

Is parked.

He pulls his keys out, and he goes to get in his car,

And two vans screech to a halt. Panel doors open.

Fbi agents jump out.

They point their weapons at him.

He raises his hands, and he says,

The guns are not necessary.

And then he says, what took you so long?

And that is how you catch a spy.

The criminal conduct alleged represents the most

Traitorous actions imaginable against a country

Governed by the rule of law.

Chris costa: Bob hanssen was sentenced to life imprisonment,

And he was sentenced to life imprisonment

To supermax, where he would get an hour a day outside his cell.

He was in isolation.

He took only so much that he couldn't get caught.

He was very wise and frugal and careful in his espionage.

According to the fbi, somewhere around $1.4 million,

Which is nothing.

That is peanuts for the billions of dollars of damage

That he did.

Hanssen did it for money.

So that was his motivator.

But hansen didn't do it just because of money.

He had a lower moral character, if you will.

Eric o'neill: He decimated our ability

To conduct counterintelligence.

He essentially gave russia our playbook

For counterintelligence, our playbook for how we catch spies.

Some agents said that everything I was doing in my entire career,

Hanssen was undoing behind the scenes,

Just unraveling everything we knit together.

He never received the rewards that he needed.

He never received the recognition

That he needed in his mind.

But he ultimately did receive a promotion.

But all of that promotion was contrived to set him up

Ultimately for the sting that caused

His undoing in his arrest.

There's a balance that has to be struck

Because we have to trust the people

That we work side by side with.

We can't walk around an fbi building, a cia building,

And be paranoid that the person we're working with

Could be also working for the russians,

The chinese, the cubans.

Narrator: Robert hanssen was not the only american to betray

His country by spying.

After the fall of the soviet union,

The us had deeply hostile relations

With other communist countries, one of them being cuba.

Cuba's primary goal was to undermine the us in any way,

And getting an insider to help was their golden ticket.

Cuba is phenomenal at collecting intelligence from humans, people

That believe in or align with their ideology

Or with what they're trying to do or hate our country.

What cuba did with that intelligence,

Besides use it to their own advantage,

They also sold it to the highest bidder, like the chinese,

Like the russians in particular.

Chris costa: We knew that the cubans

Had penetrated our government in a multiple of places.

Narrator: The us government knew they

Had a spy feeding intelligence to the communist country.

They just didn't know where or how.

That's when special agent peter lapp was assigned to the case.

We had been looking at-- we called him an unsub case,

Unknown subject-- a person, frankly, who we thought

Was a man and didn't know--

Was either working at the cia, the fbi,

Or somewhere within the department of defense.

At any one point in time, that's a suspect

Pool of 2.5 million people, not including contractors.

So our suspect pool was really immense.

Chris costa: It was patient.

It took some time.

Individuals which were suspect.

So it was old-fashioned detective work.

Peter lapp: We knew that this unsub had traveled

Covertly to cuba on temporary assignment

In a certain period of time.

We ran just an open query through the travel records,

And a couple of names popped up, but one name in particular

Popped up.

Narrator: That name was ana montes,

A senior analyst for the us defense intelligence agency.

Peter lapp: She hated our country.

She despised what we were doing and how

We were treating neighbors like puerto rico, like cuba,

Like latin america.

Narrator: Anna was born into a proud puerto rican family.

Her father was a doctor in the us army.

A very intelligent person, academically educated

At the university of virginia and at johns hopkins university

School of advanced international studies here in washington, dc,

And, because of her puerto rican heritage,

Very much interested in latin america.

She was incensed by us policy in latin america.

Her mother was in favor of puerto rican independence.

She inherited a lot of the philosophy of puerto rico

From her mother.

And ana's attitude was, how dare the united

States dictate how another country should run itself.

Who are we to say this is how nicaragua and el

Salvador and cuba and, yes, puerto

Rico should govern themselves?

It's at johns hopkins where she meets marta velazquez,

A fellow student who had a relationship

With the cuban intelligence service at the time.

And the pathway of her life changed dramatically.

Narrator: By the time ana had applied to work for the defense

Intelligence agency, she had already been

Fully recruited by the cubans.

Peter lapp: She was pitched in a soft way by marta.

They had a private dinner up in new york city.

It was a very soft pitch.

Like, hey, we think you have a visceral empathy

For what we're trying to do.

Would you be interested in translating

English newspaper articles about the war in latin america

Into spanish?

She agrees to this moonlighting project

But then on the train home has an epiphany.

And she said, you know, if I'm really going to help the cubans,

This translating gig is not going to do it.

I need to go work for the us intelligence community

If I'm really going to help the cubans.

And it's that moment that she decides to change

The course of her life.

Goes to dia solely for the purpose

Of spying for the cubans.

The defense intelligence agency

Is an organization that's responsible for providing

Intelligence to combat and commands.

She could influence us policymakers

Based on how she briefed the analytical judgments she had.

That is very, very dangerous.

She rose in that organization because she was such

An effective cuban analyst or an analyst

On cuban military capabilities.

She was the go-to person on cuba.

Sometimes folks referred to her as the queen of cuba.

She went to work every day with the goal of memorizing the three

Most important things that she thought

The cubans needed to know.

Chris costa: She didn't have to take

The documents home with her.

She had it in her head.

She would go home, and then she

Had two different systems throughout the course

Of her espionage.

One of her systems was she would type it into her computer.

She would lock it and encrypt it and then the next day

Would go back and learn three more things

And come back home and unlock it and kind of

Add to that little diary that she would lock and then finally

Encrypt it and would meet with her cuban handlers

In washington, dc.

She met in person with her cuban handler

At lunch in broad daylight at a chinese restaurant most

Of the time, and they would have a long, private, but public

Lunch out in plain view.

Chris costa: She also had technical communications from

Her condo in washington, dc.

She received shortwave bursts of instructions and information.

So she was very adept at tradecraft.

If you had a shortwave radio and you knew the day, time,

And frequency, you too could tune in to radio cuba

And listen.

And we were.

They were one way communications.

So just messages from the cubans to her.

Chris costa: So they would essentially

Take that intelligence, wrap it up,

And give it to some of their partners, the cuban partners.

Of course, the cuban partners are adversaries for the united

States of america.

Narrator: The fbi believed montes was their spy,

But they had to know for sure.

Chris costa: There was enough evidence for the fbi

To actually do a black bag operation,

Meaning they had an order to be able to go into montez's

Apartment, her abode, and really search

And not get caught doing it for any trade craft paraphernalia.

Peter lapp: We found a very clean apartment.

A lot of books, modest.

But most importantly, what we found was the shortwave radio

Which we knew she should own.

But the fact that she owned it was pretty important.

Then we found an old computer sitting

In a backpack under her bed.

Had that computer been at the bottom of the potomac river,

You know, you're sitting here today

Talking about another story.

95% of the arrest warrant, the meat of the probable cause

Was on that computer.

It was the conversation that she had been having with the cubans,

Both through the high frequency messages and also,

Ok, dear diary, here's what I learned today.

And this is all top secret, you know,

National defense information.

It proved the conspiracy between her and the cubans.

And frankly, you know, she thought it had been deleted.

We found 11 pages of essentially the conversation, much of which

Was classified.

Narrator: They had enough evidence to arrest montes.

Peter lapp: We arrested her at her office

On Friday, September 21.

Ana montes cooperated with the us government,

And that prevented her from receiving a life sentence.

Peter lapp: We, the government and her,

Agreed to that she would spend 25 years in jail

With a full debriefing.

And in the end, she spent about just over 22 years.

She spent 7,777 nights in prison just because of that computer.

Narrator: And montes cost for betraying her country?

Nothing.

She would have been disgusted and offended if the cubans

Offered her money.

She was doing this for something that she believed in.

And now she is living in puerto rico.

She is free, and in some quarters, she's a heroine.

I think the judge summed this up so well when he convicted

Her in the plea agreement.

He said, you know, you can have disagreements with your country,

But you should do no harm.

All of these cases shake up the community, hurt intelligence

Officers, and is shocking.

Peter lapp: Montes, her arrest is

A counterintelligence success.

But if we're going to look at that mugshot

And say, ok, this is a success, we

Have to be honest with ourselves and look at the 17 years

That she did it as a counterintelligence failure.

Eric o'neill: Hanssen got away with the top tier, highest

Levels of espionage for 22 years because he was smart

And because he was careful but also

Because the fbi wasn't looking.

I think the espionage will never

Stop because human beings are our greatest assets and also

Our weakest links.

There will always be people who decide, for whatever reason,

Whether they're angry or whether they need money,

Or whether they're being blackmailed,

Or whether they've been recruited,

That they can find a way to make ends

Meet if they just sell secrets.

I do believe somewhere in the united states intelligence

Enterprise, there are spies working

For a foreign government.

There is no doubt in my mind.

Just a matter of numbers, averages, and history.

Robert hanssen and ana montes came from different backgrounds

And worked for different agencies and spied

For different governments.

But they were both trusted insiders.

Their stories serve as a difficult truth

About intelligence work.

The greatest threat isn't always across an ocean.

Sometimes it's someone sitting inside the room.

Thanks for watching.