She sold their house and bakery in Alaska and shifted closer to her family in Arkansas after the children were getting bullied massively at their school. McNamara, Robert. [4] The family moved to Richmond, California in 1942, but returned to Iowa in 1949, settling in Pocahontas. 1979 - Begins spying for the Soviet Union. By 1998, using FBI criminal profiling techniques, the pursuers suspected an innocent man: Brian Kelley, a CIA operative involved in the Bloch investigation. Asked what Bonnie Hanssen thinks may have motivated her husband, Brookner said: Who knows? During the early 1990s, KGB veterans began to approach western intelligence agencies and provide information. In short, the trusted insider betrayed his trust without detection. He was, after all, a trained counterintelligence specialist. Polyakov was carefully watched by the Russians from that point on, and was eventually arrested as a spy and executed in 1988. In school, he was bullied for his acne, girls would not talk to him, and he also developed a stutter. Darla earned a living for the household as well, teaching children with disabilities. Furthermore, she supported her husband when he was first incarcerated for theft, and then for abducting and sexually abusing a housewife and a prostitute (although the rape charge concerning the latter was dropped when he pleaded guilty.) The first time around, his wife divorced him after a mere half-year because of his incarceration for arson in Iowa. But money is. The information he is alleged to have provided compromised numerous human sources, technical operations, counterintelligence techniques, sources and methods, and investigations, including the Felix Bloch investigation. Hanssen's section evaluated Soviet agents who volunteered to give intelligence to determine whether they were genuine or re-doubled agents. He was the single most devastating mole in US history, and compromised more CIA assets than anyone in history, until Robert Hanssen that is. He was also tasked with observing and learning as much as he could about Hanssens information technology setup in his office and with keeping an eye out on who Hanssen was meeting and talking with. [21][29] On two occasions, Hanssen gave the Soviets a complete list of American double agents. A TV movie called Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story was released in 2002. He continued to perform incriminating searches of FBI files for his name and address. [4][42], FBI investigators later made progress during an operation where they paid disaffected Russian intelligence officers to deliver information on moles. Undated file photo released by the FBI February 20, 2001 shows a package recovered at the 'Lewis' drop site containing $50,000 cash allegedly left by Russians for FBI Agent Robert Philip Hanssen. For more information:- Press Release - Veteran FBI Agent Arrested and Charged with Espionage- Affidavit- Statement ofFBI Director Louis J. Freeh on the Arrestof FBI Special Agent Robert Philip Hanssen (see below), Statement of FBI Director Louis J. Freeh On the Arrestof FBI Special Agent Robert Philip Hanssen, For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 20, 2001Washington D.C.FBI National Press Office. He began providing the Soviets with highly valuable material. Bonnie had previously told her brother that Hanssen once talked about retiring in Poland, then part of the Eastern Bloc. Hanssen's wife, Bonnie, retired from teaching theology at Oakcrest in 2020. [35] Three years later, convicted FBI mole Earl Edwin Pitts told the FBI that he suspected Hanssen due to the Mislock incident. Their actions represent counterintelligence at its very best and under the most difficult and sensitive of circumstances. In 1979, three years after joining the FBI, Hanssen approached the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) to offer his services, beginning his first espionage cycle, lasting until 1981. [30], In 1990, Hanssen's brother-in-law, Mark Wauck, who was also an FBI employee, recommended to the FBI that Hanssen be investigated for espionage because his sister, Hanssen's wife, told him that her sister, Jeanne Beglis, had found a pile of cash on a dresser in the Hanssens' house. It would seem as though Hansen's children want their privacy respected, and who could blame them? On January 12, 1976, Robert Philip Hanssen swore an oath to enforce the law and protect the nation as a newly minted FBI special agent. As an agency, we lived up to our responsibility, regardless of how painful it might be. While this arrest represents a counterintelligence investigative success, the complaint alleges that Hanssen located and removed undetected from the FBI substantial quantities of information that he was able to access as a result of his assignments. The failure of the Bloch investigation and the FBI's investigation of how the KGB learned that they were investigating Bloch caused the mole hunt that eventually resulted in the arrest of Hanssen. Once there, he would turn them loose and begin a human hunting expedition. However, Hanssen escaped notice, likely because these efforts concentrated on CIA agents rather than FBI agents. [6] To avoid the death penalty, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 14 counts of espionage and one of conspiracy to commit espionage. [4], In 1989, Hanssen compromised the FBI investigation of Felix Bloch, a Department of State official who had become suspected of espionage. Without the current unprecedented level of trust and cooperation between the CIA and FBI, making this case would not have been possible. Judge Webster and anyone he selects to assist him will have complete access and whatever resources are necessary to complete this task. Robert Hanssen moments after being arrested. We believe it was exceptionally grave. Hanssen, a former counterintelligence supervisor for the FBI, pleaded guilty last week to 15 espionage-related charges and admitted that he had sold the Russians thousands of pages of national security secrets in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. After around five years he joined the FBI in January 1976. In 1962 he completed his graduation from William Howard Taft High School. Heres a look at the life of convicted spy Robert Hanssen. An official website of the United States government. Darla was an extremely religious woman, and she felt that faith could be his way out. [54], With the representation of Washington lawyer Plato Cacheris, Hanssen negotiated a plea bargain that enabled him to avoid the death penalty in exchange for cooperating with authorities. He was arrested while in the process of using a dead drop to clandestinely provide numerous classified documents to his Russian handler. This would already be enough to charge him with murder. He was paid handsomely by the Soviets. Hanssen refused. [25] That same year, Hanssen, according to a government report, committed a "serious security breach" by revealing secret information to a Soviet defector during a debriefing. Upon becoming a special agent on January 12, 1976, Hanssen was transferred to the FBI's Gary, Indiana, field office. Robert Philip Hanssen is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, who became infamous as a notorious double agent of the intelligence services of Soviet Union and later Russia. When he pleaded guilty and received a 461-year prison sentence in 1984, Darla divorced him. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. There he served as an investigator of internal affairs with specialisation in forensic accounting. Our joint efforts over the last several years and specifically in this case should give pause to those contemplating betrayal of the Nations trust. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. in Chemistry, 1966; Attended Northwestern University Dental School, 1966-1968; Northwestern University, M.B.A. in Accounting and Information Systems, 1971. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history." Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences without parole at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. The Russian officer, who evidently did not recognize the code name, drove away. Robert was born in 1939 in Iowa to Danish immigrants Christian and Edna Hansen. They paid $7 million to KGB agent Alexandr Shcherbakov[43] who had access to a file on "B". [73], Eric O'Neill's role in the capture of Robert Hanssen was dramatized in the 2007 movie Breach, in which Chris Cooper played the role of Hanssen and Ryan Phillippe played O'Neill.[74]. The FBI and CIA formed a joint mole-hunting team in 1994 to find the suspected second intelligence leak. Clearly she doesnt approve of what hes done, and there was a whole part of this man she doesnt know, but I think with her deep religious convictions, he will, at least in mind and in spirit, continue to be her husband and the father of her children., Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Im afraid for her life: Riverside CC womens coach harassed after Title IX suit, Six people, including mother and baby, killed in Tulare County; drug cartel suspected, Want to solve climate change? All his six children went to schools linked with Opus Dei. A proficient hunter and tracker since childhood, Hansen chased down his victims in the Alaskan wilderness with a Ruger Mini-14 and a knife. However, even though Hansen would go to church with his wife, nothing really changed. Robert Hansen was a reputed baker and a married man with two children living in Anchorage, Alaska. As alleged, he did so using a variety of sophisticated means of communication, encryption, and dead drops. They created a list of all agents known to have access to cases that were compromised. Interestingly, after being relocated to Washington in 1987, he was delegated with a specific probe which actually meant searching for himself but he tactfully managed it. Did you encounter any technical issues? This brief union did not produce any children. The couple married in 1968, and Hanssen converted from Lutheranism to his wife's Catholicism. The FBI planned to use it for eavesdropping but never did for fear of being caught. Three years later, Hanssen transferred to the FBI's Soviet analytical unit, responsible for studying, identifying, and capturing Soviet spies and intelligence operatives in the United States. After one teenage victim was able to escape, authorities were able to learn her abductor's identity. At the Heights, McPherson told the family that they would not have to worry. For a time he planned to become a dentist, but eventually wound up obtaining an MBA and becoming an accountant. "I apologize for my behavior. After divorcing Robert, Darla was faced with a choice. On May 10, 2002, he was given sentence of fifteen life terms without a chance of parole. in Chemistry, 1966; Attended Northwestern University Dental School, 1966-1968;. In May 2002, Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison. Yet Brookner said Bonnie Hanssen has no intention of divorcing her husband. Hanssen applied for a cryptographer job in the National Security Agency but was rebuffed due to budget setbacks. Rifling through the rest of the files, they found notes of the mole using a quote from General George S. Patton about "the purple-pissing Japanese". For these reasons, the FBI learned of his true identity before the Russians; they are learning of it only now. His Russian contacts and Hanssen were highly trained in espionage techniques and were able to work together without ever meeting. But even as her life regains some sense of normalcy, Bonnie Hanssen struggles to understand the havoc that the last few months have wrought, Brookner said. In 1980, after his first interactions with the Soviets, Hanssen told his wife what he had done, and she suggested they meet with a Catholic priest. Its amazing to live with a man for all those years and not know him.. [36], IT personnel from the National Security Division's IIS Unit were sent to investigate Hanssen's desktop computer after a reported failure. The first marriage lasted only for six months; his wife divorced him while he was serving a 3-year sentence for arson in Iowa. The prolonged abuse that he endured not only made his childhood challenging, but also chased him throughout his life. Hanssen's children returned to school within days of his arrest, family and friends said, to maintain their routines. The agencies initially focused primarilyand incorrectlyon a veteran CIA case officer, who was investigated for nearly two years. But the government could not prove he had lied, and wishing to avoid a public trial, the government chose not to void his plea agreement. Hanssen was set to retire, so investigators had to move fast. Imagine finding out that your husband is a ruthless serial rapist and murderer. The information he delivered compromised numerous human sources, counterintelligence techniques, investigations, dozens of classified U.S. government documents, and technical operations of extraordinary importance and value. In 1985 he approached the Soviets again and offered valuable secrets. Robert was born in 1939 in Iowa to Danish immigrants Christian and Edna Hansen. In this assignment, however, Hanssen did continue to have access to sensitive FBI information as he remained assigned to the FBIs National Security Division and routinely dealt with sensitive and classified matters. Hanssen was finally discovered when a former KGB agent contacted American intelligence agents. After being released, he met his second wife, Darla Henrichsen, and the pair got married in 1963. Hanssen's superiors were not amused and began an investigation. In 1978, he and his growing family of three children (and eventually six) relocated to New York City when the FBI transferred him to its field office there. In January 1976, he left the police department to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[4]. His bride left him after six months when Hansen was put in prison for setting fire to the local school district's bus barns. In fact, when his father passed away, Hansen inherited 17 guns from him as well. Born In: Chicago, Illinois, United States. He restarted his espionage activities in 1985 and continued until 1991, when he ended communications during the collapse of the Soviet Union, fearing he would be exposed. I have hurt so many deeply. As a result of these assignments within the FBI, Hanssen gained access to some of the most sensitive and highly classified information in the United States Government. 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