Mark Wauck, an FBI employee and brother-in-law of Hanssen, prompted his superior in 1990 to investigate Hanssen after a heap of cash was found in Hanssens house, but no action was taken. What Happened To Serial Killer Robert Hansen's Children? They attended Mass weekly and were very active in Opus Dei. In 1991, he discontinued selling classified information to KGB after the collapse of Soviet Union and also probably because the FBI was on the lookout for a probable defector. Robert Hansen's Parents. When these two KGB officials returned to Moscow, they were tried and convicted on espionage charges and executed. Hanssen appeared to be a devoted anti-communist. At work, he often spoke of his religious faith and conservative values, traits which helped him avoid any suspicion during the years that he was in secret communication with Russian spies. He relayed secret information to Russia regarding US intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Though the government alleges that Robert Hanssen, 56,. No one knew Hansen was abducting some of these women and killing them for sport. The FBI waited two more days to see if any of Hanssen's SVR handlers would show up at Foxstone Park. He once said in a letter to the KGB that it should emulate the management style of Mayor of Chicago Richard J. Daleya comment that easily could have led an investigator to look at people from Chicago. Heres a look at the life of convicted spy Robert Hanssen. Authorities said they are convinced that Bonnie Hanssen--unlike the wives of several other notorious U.S. spies who helped their husbands--was not involved in Hanssens spying. The FBI paid $7 million to a KGB agent to obtain a file on an anonymous mole, whom the FBI later identified as Hanssen through fingerprint and voice analysis. Hanssen reportedly lavished cash and gifts on a Washington stripper whom he befriended. He wrote to them anonymously. That effort is complemented by substantial FBI proactive investigation of foreign service intelligence officers here and by the critical work done by the CIA. [53] Upon being arrested, Hanssen asked, "What took you so long?" In return, he received large sums of money and other remuneration. [12] Hanssen received an MBA in accounting and information systems in 1971 and took a job with an accounting firm. Hanssen's jailers allowed him to watch this movie, but he was so angered by it that he turned it off. "Robert Hanssen, FBI Agent Who Became a Soviet Mole." He was delegated to probe police officers who were suspected of corruption. He was the single most devastating mole in US history, and compromised more CIA assets than anyone in history, until Robert Hanssen that is. In fact, when his father passed away, Hansen inherited 17 guns from him as well. [77] David Wise wrote Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America. In her statement, Bonnie Hanssen thanked government officials for allowing her to retain the pension and for recognizing that she and the children clearly are innocent victims.. "Butcher, Baker" was adapted into the 2013 film "The Frozen Ground," starring Nicholas Cage, John Cusack, and Vanessa Hudgens (per IMDb). He later wrote to his KGB handler, speaking about the severity with which U.S. laws punishes his alleged actions, and acknowledging I know far better than most what minefields are laid and the risks.. After a few years working as an accountant, he decided to enter law enforcement. The following year he was shifted to counter-intelligence division where he was delegated the job of organising data of Soviet intelligence. In one letter to his Russian handlers, Hanssen complains about lost opportunities to alert them that the FBI had discovered the microphone hidden at the State Department, known then by the FBI but apparently not by Hanssen as being monitored by a Russian intelligence officer. The affidavit alleges that Hanssen voluntarily became an agent of the KGB in 1985 while assigned to the intelligence division at the FBI field office in New York City as supervisor of a foreign counterintelligence squad. On a 2017blog post, Hale revealed that he had attempted to contact Hansen's now adult children, but was unsuccessful. Wanting to get a fresh start, the newlywed couple migrated to Alaska in 1967 (per the New YorkDaily News). Galey claims that although she offered to have sex with him, Hanssen declined, saying he was trying to convert her to Catholicism. As an agency, we lived up to our responsibility, regardless of how painful it might be. He received $5,00,000 and jewellery for this work. Robert Hansen Remains 'Person of Interest' in Mom's Disappearance As for the investigation back in the 1960s when Joan Hansen disappeared, Urquhart was obviously not working for the Sheriff's office. This included all the FBI activities related to wiretapping and electronic surveillance, which were Hanssen's responsibility. The 2007 documentary Superspy: The Man Who Betrayed the West describes the hunt to trap Hanssen. [67], At Hanssen's suggestion, and without his wife's knowledge, a friend named Jack Hoschouer, a retired Army officer, would sometimes watch the Hanssens having sex through a bedroom window. [41] The idea that an FBI agent was the second mole was not considered early enough. , . Their actions represent counterintelligence at its very best and under the most difficult and sensitive of circumstances. Brian Blomquist. She is also challenging some of her husbands credit card bills. Hanssen would later claim that his goal was simply to make some extra money, as living in New York City was putting a financial squeeze on his growing family. Hanssen subsequently was assigned to a variety of national security posts that legitimately provided him access to classified information relating to the former Soviet Union and Russia. Its difficult, but its better than seeing him put to death.. While the risk that an employee of the United States Government will betray his country can never be eliminated, there must be more that the FBI can do to protect itself from such an occurrence. It would seem as though Hansen's children want their privacy respected, and who could blame them? For instance, a piece of adhesive tape placed on a sign in a park in Virginia would indicate that a package had been placed in a "dead drop" location, which was usually under a small footbridge in the park. Asked what Bonnie Hanssen thinks may have motivated her husband, Brookner said: Who knows? He was paid handsomely by the Soviets. Robert Hansen died at the age of 75 in 2014, still safely behind bars (via the Anchorage Daily News). Without the current unprecedented level of trust and cooperation between the CIA and FBI, making this case would not have been possible. He continued with his counter-intelligence work after being shifted to the New York field office in 1985. In the last letter he wrote to the Russians, which was found by the FBI when he was arrested, Hanssen said that he had been promoted to a "do-nothing job outside of regular access to information," and that, "Something has aroused the sleeping tiger". As difficult as this moment is for the FBI and for the country, I am immensely proud of the men and women who conducted this investigation. [4][31], When the USSR disbanded in December 1991, Hanssen, possibly worried that he could be exposed during the ensuing political upheaval, ended communications with his handlers for a time. They created a list of all agents known to have access to cases that were compromised. children: Greg Hanssen, Jane Hanssen, John Hanssen, Lisa Hanssen, Mark Hanssen, Sue Hanssen, education: Kellogg School Of Management, Knox College (Illinois), See the events in life of Robert Hanssen in Chronological Order, (Former FBI Double Agent Who Spied for Russian Intelligence Services Against the United States from 1979 to 2001), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Hanssen.jpg, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert-Philip-Hanssen.jpg. According to her, Hanssen never slept with her. "I have opened the door for calumny against my totally innocent wife and children. In 1993, he took a daring step by personally approaching a GRU official to offer his espionage, mentioning his codename Ramon Garcia, but the official turned him away. [63], According to USA Today, those who knew the Hanssens described them as a close family. Hanssen was finally discovered when a former KGB agent contacted American intelligence agents. The FBI trusted him with some of the most sensitive secrets of the U.S. government, and instead of upholding that trust, he abused and betrayed it. After his release 20 months later, Hansen worked at putting his life back in order. We believe it was exceptionally grave. The full extent of the damage done is yet unknown because no accurate damage assessment could be conducted without jeopardizing the investigation. The one thing the father and son would eventually have in common is their interest in hunting. Finding nothing, Hanssen decided to resume his spy career after eight years without contact with the Russians. The first marriage lasted only for six months; his wife divorced him while he was serving a 3-year sentence for arson in Iowa. At the Heights, McPherson told the family that they would not have to worry. [62] Hanssen took the risk of recommending to his handlers that they try to recruit his closest friend, a colonel in the United States Army. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. He will report directly to the Attorney General and me and we will share his report with the National Security Council and Congress. [6] To avoid the death penalty, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 14 counts of espionage and one of conspiracy to commit espionage. She supports the plea agreement and agrees that the sentence of life in prison without parole, rather than the death penalty, is appropriate in these circumstances.. She would use her money to run the household and support the couple's children, while Hansen would spend the money he made at the bakery on "his own needs," according to what she would later tell Sergeant Flothe, who played a pivotal role in his capture. To bring him back to FBI headquarters, where he could be closely monitored and kept away from sensitive data, they promoted him in December 2000. Later he would convert to Catholicism from Lutheranism. A proficient hunter and tracker since childhood, Hansen chased down his victims in the Alaskan wilderness with a Ruger Mini-14 and a knife. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. In school, he was bullied for his acne, girls would not talk to him, and he also developed a stutter. He compromised information about Americas plan of forming Measurement and Signature Intelligence, its bugging plan over the Soviets by digging a tunnel under the decoding room of the Soviets new embassy and data on double agents of the US. 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". In 1995 he was designated as a liaison between the Office of Foreign Missions of the Department of State and the FBI. He became known in the FBI as an expert on computers.[19]. [4] The family moved to Richmond, California in 1942, but returned to Iowa in 1949, settling in Pocahontas. 2023 Cable News Network. . 1999 - Resumes spying, this time for the Russian Intelligence agency. Children: Lisa, Greg, Mark, John "Jack," Sue and Jane Education: Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, A.B. He visited an office of the Russian government's trading company and offered to spy. While Darla suspected that he had been frequenting prostitutes, she had no idea of the literal manhunt he conducted. His exposure explained many of the asset losses U.S. intelligence suffered during the 1980s, including the arrest and execution of Martynov and Motorin. 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. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/robert-hanssen-4587832. He was arrested while in the process of using a dead drop to clandestinely provide numerous classified documents to his Russian handler. "Once he got caught, the only thing he cared about was trying to provide for his wife and his children," who visit him regularly in prison, Brookner said. history. What makes Hansen seem even more grisly than other serial killers was the way that many of his victims were murdered. We dont know at this point what happened to that money, she said. As a devout Catholic, Bonnie Hanssen feels that he needs time [in prison] to pray for forgiveness and be redeemed in some way, the wifes attorney, Janine Brookner, said in an interview. In 1985 he approached the Soviets again and offered valuable secrets. He was sentenced to life in prison. Polyakov was carefully watched by the Russians from that point on, and was eventually arrested as a spy and executed in 1988. On July 6, 2001, he was tried in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on fifteen counts for his espionage. December 2000 - The FBI begins surveillance of Hanssen. He also paid visits to various sex workers, two of whom filed complaints to the police about Hansen and his strange and terrifying behaviors. He then followed his usual routine, taking a package consisting of a sealed garbage bag of classified material and taping it to the bottom side of a wooden footbridge over a creek. With two children already out of school, the pension money will help Bonnie Hanssen support two children who are in college and two more still in high school, Brookner said. Unlike Cold War spies of an earlier era, Hanssen claimed to have no political motivation for selling out his country. One notable example was the information that the Americans had dug a tunnel under the Russian embassy in Washington to install sophisticated listening devices. When told that he would have to take a lie detector test to join, Hanssen changed his mind. Instead, the 57-year-old defendant will be sentenced to life in prison without parole if he honors his pledge to tell the government all the secrets behind his two-decade career as a Russian spy. The prolonged abuse that he endured not only made his childhood challenging, but also chased him throughout his life. A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. He went to the Russian embassy in person and physically approached a GRU officer in the parking garage. In 1979, three years after joining the FBI, Hanss This wedded bliss was short-lived, however. Intelligence officials began debriefing Hanssen this week, defense attorney Preston Burton said Thursday. By. For a while he was in contact with Priscilla Sue Galey, a stripper in Washington, who received cash, jewelry and other benefits from Hanssen. 1981 - Hanssens wife catches him with classified documents and convinces him to stop spying. He married his second wife, Darla Henrichsen, within a few months of being released, in 1963. Hanssen parked on a residential street and walked down a wooded path to a footbridge with the classified materials wrapped in a plastic bag. The criminal conduct alleged represents the most traitorous actions imaginable against a country governed by the Rule of Law. Troubled by the incident, Bonnie Hanssen made her husband speak with a Catholic priest, who directed him to contribute money to Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun who ran a Calcutta charitable organization, as a form of penance, Brookner said. Apparently, even though Hansen was naturally a left-handed person, he was always forced to use his right hand, making his speech problems worse. 1980 - Begins working for the counterintelligence unit, focusing on the Soviet Union. They gave him a new job supervising FBI computer security. He enrolled in dental school at Northwestern University[11] but switched his focus to business after three years. McNamara, Robert. The priest told Hanssen to stop his illegal activities and donate the money he had gotten from the Russians to charity. Wauck also knew that the FBI was hunting for a mole and spoke with his supervisor, who took no action. Today, Mrs. Hanssen is teaching at a Catholic school in suburban Virginia and is living in the house she shared with her husband and their six children. To closely oversee his activities, the FBI relocated him in its headquarters in January 2001. 1972 - Joins the Chicago Police Department. Hanssen was detailed to the Office of Foreign Missions at the Department of State from 1995 to 2000. Ames was officially blamed for giving Polyakov's name to the Soviets, while Hanssen's attempt was not revealed until after his 2001 capture. McNamara, Robert. With two children already out of school, the pension money will help Bonnie Hanssen support two children who are in college and two more still in high school, Brookner said. On February 18, 2001, Hanssen was arrested and charged with committing espionage on behalf of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He placed a white piece of tape on a park sign, which was a signal to his Russian contacts that there was information at the dead drop site. 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. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets. Agents find a bag nearby containing $50,000 that they believe is Hanssens payment for the documents. After the transfer, while on a business visit back to Washington, D.C., he resumed his espionage career. [66] Opus Dei member C. John McCloskey said he also occasionally attended the daily noontime Mass at the Catholic Information Center in downtown Washington. As alleged, he did so using a variety of sophisticated means of communication, encryption, and dead drops. Hanssen is mentioned in the seventh episode of The History Channel series America's Book of Secrets, as well as in the fifth episode of Netflix series Spycraft. When in 1989 a State Department official, Felix Bloch came under the scrutiny of the FBI, Hanssen soon informed the KGB, who immediately snapped all ties with Bloch. Yet some investigators believed anger about how his father treated him as a child triggered a need to rebel against authority. [4] He was spying at the same time as Aldrich Ames in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He worked in an accounting firm for a year after which he was selected in the Chicago Police Department. As soon as they let their guard down, Hansen would attack, brutally sexually assaulting them before finally killing them (per Anchorage Daily News). Both schools are associated with Opus Dei. I am shamed by it," Hanssen told U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton. Because of his experience and training as a counterintelligence agent, Hanssen went undetected for years, although some of his unusual activities had aroused suspicion from time to time. In his office, Hanssen had full access to the FBIs Automated Case Support (ACS) system and the State Departments computer systems. 2000 - The FBI identifies Hanssen from a fingerprint and from a tape recording supplied by a disgruntled Russian intelligence operative. But Brookner said Hanssens family was never the beneficiary of any spy money and that Bonnie Hanssen has no idea what happened to the proceeds from his spying, including $800,000 that authorities say the Russians deposited for him in a Moscow bank. Darla earned a living for the household as well, teaching children with disabilities. Through our cooperative efforts, the FBI and CIA were able to learn the true identity of Ramon and the FBI was able to conduct a solid investigation. All his six children went to schools linked with Opus Dei. In the end, officials believed his claim that he was merely demonstrating flaws in the FBI's security system. 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