0:00

The History Channel Original Podcast.

0:04

History This Week, May 10, 2002. I'm

0:13

Sally Helm.

0:19

Robert Hansen, wearing a dull

0:21

green prison uniform, steps

0:23

up to the microphone. He looks pale

0:26

and hollow-eyed. He twists his

0:28

hands behind his back. He

0:30

knows that a lot of his former colleagues

0:33

are in the courtroom today,

0:35

and that he has betrayed

0:37

them. Hansen

0:41

served in the FBI for 25 years. For 22

0:45

of them, off and on, he was handing

0:47

secrets to the Soviets. In

0:50

return, they gave him more than a million

0:53

dollars in cash and diamonds.

0:56

But Hansen got

0:58

caught. Months

1:01

before Hansen steps up to the microphone

1:03

in this courtroom, he pleaded guilty

1:06

to 15 counts of espionage

1:08

and conspiracy. There

1:10

was talk of the death sentence. After

1:13

all, he was one of the most damaging

1:15

spies in U.S. history. But

1:18

he's cooperated, to an extent. And

1:21

so instead, he's sentenced on

1:23

this day in May to life

1:25

in prison. Hansen

1:27

has the chance to make a statement. "'I

1:30

apologize for my behavior,' he says. I

1:33

am shamed by it." He apologizes

1:36

in particular to his wife and his six

1:38

children, who are not in the courtroom.

1:41

He says, "'I have hurt so many

1:43

so deeply.'"

1:45

The prosecution is blunt. U.S.

1:48

attorney Paul McNulty says, "'Robert

1:51

Hansen was trained to catch spies.

1:54

He was an expert at what it took to avoid

1:56

being caught.

1:57

And he was caught. And he was

1:59

busted.'" Today,

2:02

the sordid tale

2:05

of Robert Hanson. How

2:07

did he manage to steal state secrets

2:10

for 22 years from

2:12

inside the FBI? Was

2:15

he a criminal mastermind or

2:17

just a guy with incredible luck?

2:29

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3:26

Washington DC, 2001.

3:28

A bombshell announcement from the FBI.

3:32

They've caught a spy in their own

3:34

ranks. Robert Hanson.

3:40

Journalists scramble to cover the story. One

3:43

of them is veteran reporter Elaine

3:46

Shannon, who had covered the FBI for 25 years.

3:50

We all went, wow, this is big stuff because

3:53

there had been some security problems at

3:55

the FBI, but nothing like this. Shannon

3:58

starts calling her sources.

3:59

asking about Hanson. And she

4:02

reads his own words. In

4:04

the letters he sent to his handlers at

4:07

the KGB, the Soviet intelligence

4:09

service. These were flowery

4:11

and they were needy and like

4:14

love letters. There's the sense of

4:16

this on-again, off-again romance. At

4:19

one point, when his handlers got in touch, Hanson

4:21

writes, It brought me great joy

4:24

to see the signal at last.

4:27

At a moment when they seemed to have abandoned him, he

4:29

pleads,

4:29

at least say goodbye. It's

4:32

been a long time, my dear friends,

4:34

a long and lonely

4:37

time.

4:37

This reads like

4:39

a guy who wants a lover or has a lover

4:42

and is trying to make up with a lover. This

4:44

does not read like a guy doing a

4:46

business transaction.

4:51

Shannon can tell there's a complex story

4:54

here with a mysterious figure

4:56

at its center. She wants to understand

4:58

Hanson's motives, why

5:00

he undermined his country even

5:03

when he knew that it would get people killed.

5:06

That won't be easy. I

5:09

don't think anybody still

5:11

understands Robert Henson to this

5:13

day, including Robert Henson. But

5:15

Shannon tries. He

5:18

had a rather harsh relationship with his father.

5:21

Hanson's father, Howard, wants to

5:23

toughen Robert up. Over

5:26

time, that translates to physical

5:28

and emotional abuse.

5:30

Howard berates his young son constantly.

5:33

When Robert is about six or seven for reasons

5:35

unknown, his father wraps him in

5:38

blankets and spins him around until

5:40

he throws up. So Robert

5:42

turns to a different male role model.

5:45

I admire your luck, Mr.

5:48

Bond.

5:51

James Bond. As

5:53

a kid growing up in Chicago, Hanson

5:55

obsesses over 007. He

5:58

sits wrapped in dark theater.

5:59

watching a suave Sean Connery

6:02

outwit and out-punch his enemies.

6:05

It's Hanson's dream life.

6:08

But

6:08

it's not his father's dream

6:11

for him. His father wanted him

6:13

not to be in law enforcement. He wanted him

6:15

to be a

6:16

doctor or some other white

6:18

coat professional. Even though

6:21

Howard Hanson was a police officer

6:23

himself. And Robert

6:25

does try to get that white coat. He

6:28

goes to dental school but quits before

6:30

he's finished and becomes an accountant instead.

6:33

It's detail-oriented and he's good at that.

6:36

But he finds it boring.

6:39

And then in 1976... He

6:42

got hooked into the FBI. The

6:44

FBI. They were looking for

6:47

accountants,

6:47

lawyers, other professionals. And

6:49

Hanson thinks, perfect.

6:52

This is my way to get the

6:54

James Bond life. Dangerous

6:56

situations. Romantic locations.

6:59

Top secret documents. And

7:02

his resume gets him in the door. He

7:04

looked good on paper. Male.

7:08

College-educated. A devout Catholic

7:10

who's married with three kids. To

7:12

the FBI in 1976, that looks like a model agent. So

7:18

he lands

7:18

the job.

7:19

But

7:22

when he actually starts work, it's

7:24

clear the resume didn't

7:27

tell the whole story. He was not good

7:29

in person. He just put people

7:31

off. He was very stiff. He was not

7:34

engaging. For an FBI agent,

7:37

that's not good. You have to recruit

7:39

informants. Question witnesses.

7:42

That requires someone persuasive and

7:44

congenial.

7:45

But Hanson is abrasive.

7:48

He's pretty much destined for a desk

7:51

job. That's where undercover

7:53

operative Eric O'Neill comes across

7:55

him at FBI headquarters in

7:58

Washington, D.C.

8:01

He said Hanson made a strong

8:04

first impression. He was imposing, 6

8:06

foot 2 or 3. He

8:08

sort of leaned forward in a bit of a hunch.

8:11

He could smile, but he was

8:13

more likely to glare. He

8:15

walked with an odd limp to

8:17

his right side, and he had a very sharp

8:20

tongue. If you did something wrong or

8:22

you made a mistake, he would latch out right

8:24

away.

8:25

Again, not good. So

8:28

Hanson gets a new assignment.

8:30

Well he quickly got put on a counter intelligence

8:33

squad. His bosses

8:35

put him there because he wasn't very

8:37

good with people, but counter intelligence,

8:39

a lot of it is just following

8:41

people silently. So here's

8:43

Hanson, stuck behind a monitor,

8:45

tracking suspects from afar. Not

8:48

a glamorous guy on a beach with a girl,

8:51

just a cog in the FBI

8:53

machine.

8:54

And yet, he

8:56

does now have access to

8:58

highly classified US

9:00

intelligence. They put him in

9:02

a room by himself with a computer so he could

9:04

look up stuff. This was golden

9:07

for a spy.

9:11

He's good with computers, but

9:14

at the time, that's not a highly

9:16

respected skill within the FBI.

9:20

Hanson thinks, I'm smarter than these guys,

9:23

better than them. And eventually, he decides

9:26

to use his skills not

9:28

as an FBI agent, but

9:31

as a double agent, a

9:33

spy for the other guys. In 1979,

9:37

he makes his move. His

9:43

first act of espionage was to walk

9:45

into a front for Russian

9:47

military intelligence. This is called the GRU.

9:51

Hanson just waltzes into

9:53

a GRU front in Manhattan.

9:55

He sits down with America's Cold

9:58

War enemy, its rival. and

10:00

offers them his services as

10:03

a spy. Elaine

10:05

Shannon says the Soviets do

10:07

not rejoice at this visit. Instead,

10:10

they are immediately

10:13

suspicious. Here's this

10:15

guy with his short haircut and this cheap

10:18

dark

10:18

suit and this white shirt and

10:20

he's offering information. Well,

10:23

they thought he was a plant. You would

10:25

too. I would too. And

10:27

so they kind of blew him off.

10:29

They send Hansen away.

10:32

He's kind of down about it, but

10:34

he is not ready to give up. He

10:37

starts writing letters to the GRU

10:40

and the KGB, flattering them and

10:42

pleading for their attention. Eventually,

10:45

he makes a bold proposal.

10:52

He just offered them information. About

10:54

three of the most important

10:57

double agents, the

10:58

FBI and CIA had ever

11:01

developed. Bombshell information

11:04

about people on the Soviet side who

11:06

are spying for the Americans.

11:09

The Soviets would trade money and even

11:12

lives to know this kind of information.

11:15

But Hansen doesn't ask

11:17

for much. He didn't bargain.

11:20

He didn't say, I've got this really great stuff. What

11:22

are you going to pay me for? No, that's not enough. No,

11:25

this is really golden stuff. You've got to pay me a limo. He

11:27

didn't do any of that. The Soviets

11:30

are still not sure if they can trust

11:32

this guy. So they take the

11:34

list of names and file it away. It

11:37

sits there collecting dust until

11:40

the mid-1980s, when

11:42

another American double agent hands

11:45

them the same names.

11:48

CIA operative Aldrich Ames

11:50

is also spying for the Soviets. He

11:53

doesn't know anything about Hansen.

11:55

And with this confirmation, the

11:58

Soviets take brutally. action.

12:03

They recall their double agents to

12:05

the USSR, interrogate

12:07

them, and execute

12:09

them. These

12:11

are the rules of the game, so to speak. Shannon

12:14

says it's virtually certain Hanson

12:17

knew that these people he'd betrayed

12:20

would wind up dead. He

12:22

killed or tried to kill his

12:24

first time out. That tells me,

12:27

if I make an assumption. He wanted to

12:29

strike out at the world, he wanted to strike

12:31

out at colleagues, at bosses. He

12:34

was a very angry man. After

12:36

this, Robert Hanson is

12:39

on the Soviet payroll.

12:42

He's going to start handing over more

12:44

information. But of course, he

12:46

has to be careful. Hanson

12:49

never meets with his KGB handlers face

12:51

to face, and he takes on a new

12:54

persona. He used a phony name called

12:56

Raymond Garcia in dealing

12:58

with the KGB. Now that's a

13:01

romantic spy novel kind of

13:03

name, or I guess he thought it was. Hanson

13:05

has finally hit his version

13:08

of the big time. He is

13:10

officially a spy.

13:17

But it seems like he's still not

13:19

satisfied. This is

13:21

a lonely, needy man. He's

13:24

searching for something, but he had all these children.

13:26

He had a beautiful wife. So

13:29

what is his problem?

13:31

For one thing, Hanson had more

13:33

than one double life. Elaine

13:36

Shannon says that this married,

13:39

apparently devout, church-going man was

13:41

also spending a lot of time at

13:43

strip clubs and even taking a stripper

13:46

he met there on a trip to Hong Kong.

13:49

They had an ongoing relationship.

13:52

And gave her an American Express card to keep

13:54

up this Mercedes. He bought her and then got

13:56

furious at her and withdrew it when

13:58

she bought a couple of little e-mails. Easter dresses

14:00

for her nieces. Hanson

14:03

also posted explicit stories

14:05

about his wife on internet bulletin

14:07

boards. A friend of Hanson's even

14:09

claims the spy also took intimate

14:12

videos without her knowledge and showed

14:14

him these videos.

14:16

I know it's distasteful, but this is where

14:18

Hanson was when he wasn't spying.

14:23

This phase of Hanson spying

14:26

lasts for about 10 years. He

14:28

gets very good at swiping

14:30

classified information and passing

14:33

it on to the Soviets through dead drops.

14:36

On his KGB handler's instructions,

14:39

Hanson would leave a signal at a prearranged

14:41

spot, like a white thumbtack

14:43

on a utility pole, communicating

14:46

that he was ready to make a drop.

14:49

Then Hanson would print out the documents.

14:51

Or he would use a disc,

14:54

and he'd wrap those in ordinary

14:57

black plastic garbage bag

14:59

and take it to a park. He'd

15:01

leave

15:01

the black bag at the appointed spot,

15:04

then stick a piece of white tape on a

15:06

nearby sign, his signal that

15:08

he was ready for payment. And

15:11

then they would leave money in the dead drops later.

15:14

Hanson likes how easy it is

15:16

to fool his colleagues at the bureau.

15:19

The deception all runs smoothly until...

15:21

Our

15:24

top story, Soviet President Mikhail

15:26

Gorbachev has been removed from power,

15:29

and there are tanks now in the streets

15:31

of Moscow.

15:33

The Soviet Union falls in 1991.

15:37

The country that employs Hanson as

15:40

a spy, that country

15:42

no longer exists. Hanson

15:45

knows that this could be dangerous

15:47

for him. He wonders,

15:49

will Ramon Garcia get caught

15:52

in the geopolitical fallout?

15:54

So Hanson lays low,

15:57

no more spying for a time. But

16:00

then something happens. In 1994,

16:06

the FBI arrests that other

16:09

double agent, Aldrich Ames.

16:12

They start to take stock of all the secrets

16:14

that he's shared with the Soviets. The

16:17

FBI and CA started

16:18

to realize there was somebody else because

16:21

there were things that the Russians

16:24

clearly had. They knew that

16:26

Ames could not have

16:28

known and could not have given up. They

16:30

realize there must be two

16:33

moles in their midst. So

16:36

now, the FBI and the CIA

16:39

create a joint team to smoke

16:41

out this second mole. Bad

16:44

news for Hanson. But FBI

16:46

agent Eric O'Neill says the

16:49

Bureau had a blind spot.

16:51

The FBI had this bias

16:53

to always assume it can't be us. We're the

16:55

good guys. We wear the white hats. We're the cowboys.

16:58

We're not the bad guys.

16:59

So they look down the road at

17:02

the other guys. The guy's robbing the stagecoach.

17:05

That's the CIA. Anytime there's a mole,

17:07

it's gotta be in there. The FBI

17:09

assumes they are looking for a turncoat

17:12

CIA agent. They start to

17:14

hunt for him by analyzing who

17:17

had access to leaked information,

17:19

a motive, opportunity, and

17:22

means.

17:24

Elaine Shannon says they soon

17:26

identify a suspect. A

17:29

CIA agent named Brian

17:31

Kelly.

17:34

Obviously, he's the wrong

17:36

guy. But they think he

17:38

looks like the right guy. He

17:41

lived near where some dead drops were

17:43

that they knew about. He had a lot of

17:45

similarities, the kind of person they were looking

17:48

for. And they investigated him, made

17:50

his life miserable, interviewed his

17:52

agent mother, interviewed his children.

17:55

Ultimately, that was all a false

17:57

lead. Is Hanson following it? Does

18:00

he know that that's happening? Yes, he was watching

18:02

the Brian Kelly investigation. And

18:04

probably very happy about it. As

18:07

Hanson watches Kelly's life fall

18:10

apart, he's like, phew, I'm

18:12

safe.

18:15

And maybe could

18:17

I get away with spying again?

18:21

He got back into communication with

18:23

the now Russians. After 20 years

18:26

of espionage, Robert Hanson

18:29

feels unstoppable. Why

18:31

shouldn't he? By all appearances,

18:33

he's a respectable member of his community

18:36

with a nice new job at

18:39

the State Department,

18:40

where there is a whole new

18:42

set of secrets to be ransacked.

18:59

Washington, DC, the year 2000.

19:03

The FBI has a new head of counterintelligence

19:06

operations. His name is Neil

19:08

Gallagher. And he thinks the

19:10

mole team needs to move beyond

19:13

analysis.

19:15

That's according to Elaine Shannon. He

19:17

had a different philosophy. He comes from the criminal

19:19

investigations. And he said, we

19:21

cannot analyze our way out of

19:24

this. Somebody knows. Whenever

19:26

you have a crime, somebody knows

19:28

something. You just have to keep

19:30

talking to people. Talk, talk, talk. People,

19:32

people, people. Find the person who

19:34

knows. Gallagher tells his

19:36

investigators, go look for

19:39

anyone who worked for the KGB in

19:41

the 1980s. They might have

19:43

interacted with this mole.

19:47

There were a lot of former KGB people

19:50

who were out in the wind. They were in business.

19:52

They were consulting. They were mercenaries.

19:55

Investigators tracked down an

19:58

ex-KGB officer

21:50

with

22:00

a man's voice on it where the person

22:02

had called the embassy, I guess, to set

22:05

up a meet. When FBI analysts

22:07

hear the recording, some of them are like,

22:10

I think that's Robert Hansen.

22:14

The letters also contain some peculiar

22:16

vocabulary and stylistic quirks.

22:19

Again, things these agents have heard

22:21

from their colleague, Robert Hansen.

22:24

It's still just a suspicion, but

22:27

it's enough to get Hansen placed under surveillance.

22:30

And the FBI takes some precautionary measures.

22:35

The boss of the counterintelligence division

22:37

said, well, we got to get Hansen away from our

22:40

computer system. They secretly

22:42

build Hansen a fake computer

22:44

system. It looks identical

22:47

to the regular database, but doesn't have

22:49

any legitimate top secret files. The

22:52

computer also lets the FBI remotely

22:54

track Hansen's online activity. And

22:57

they tell him, you've gotten a promotion.

23:00

Come back to FBI headquarters. This

23:04

move will make it easier for them to watch

23:06

him. And so will the assistant

23:08

they've assigned to work with Hansen, an

23:10

assistant who is actually undercover

23:13

operative Eric O'Neill. He

23:16

says Hansen was kind of abrasive

23:18

right from the beginning. That first

23:20

day, he comes into the office, kind of

23:22

looks at me, goes into his office without

23:24

saying a word. So the surveillance

23:27

is set. And then the

23:29

Russian who's working for the FBI returns

23:32

to D.C.

23:34

And investigators open the

23:36

final envelope. Inside

23:40

are the tattered remnants of a

23:42

black trash bag. The

23:45

Russian says, well, I saved this. This was around

23:47

a dead rock that went straight to fingerprinting

23:50

and they pulled up Hansen's

23:51

prints off of it. So is

23:53

that enough? Do they have a note or do they need more?

23:56

They need more. They need to catch him

23:58

in the act, preferably with the FBI.

23:59

with a tape recorder and cameras

24:02

and a lot of witnesses and show that to

24:04

a jury because they can't afford

24:07

a near miss.

24:08

That means they need to know the

24:10

time and place of his next dead drop.

24:14

They have their eye on Foxtone Park near

24:16

Hanson's home.

24:19

But it's tough to watch every inch

24:21

of it every minute of the day. Luckily,

24:24

Eric O'Neill, working as Hanson's assistant,

24:27

notices something.

24:30

He had a Palm Pilot and he freaking loved

24:32

that device. It was basically a digital

24:34

calendar. O'Neill is like, Hanson's

24:37

a little weird about the Palm Pilot. Every

24:40

time he sat down at his

24:42

desk, like clockwork, he would remove it from his

24:44

back pocket and he would put it in his bag. And

24:47

every time he stood up, he was already slipping

24:49

it into his back pocket. Over and over, I watched

24:51

this routine and I realized there's

24:53

something special in that device.

24:55

So they all come up with a plan to

24:58

get that Palm Pilot. One

25:01

of Hanson's bosses comes into his office

25:04

and challenges him to a shooting match

25:06

at the in-house rifle range. Hanson

25:09

can't say no to his boss and the sudden

25:12

request gets him slightly rattled.

25:14

I watched them go down the hall

25:16

and toward the elevators and look at

25:18

his bag and I realized he didn't

25:21

reach down for that Palm Pilot

25:23

for the first time ever.

25:25

O'Neill grabs the Palm

25:27

Pilot from Hanson's bag and runs

25:29

downstairs. Where there's a tech team

25:31

waiting for me, they'd

25:34

start copying all of it.

25:36

They're still copying it when O'Neill

25:38

gets a message saying that Hanson is

25:40

on his way back to his desk. He

25:43

waits until the last second to grab the Palm

25:45

Pilot, then he runs back up three

25:47

flights of stairs to the office he shares

25:49

with Hanson.

25:50

I knelt down in front of his bag and

25:52

zipped up all four pockets, ran back to

25:54

my desk and put on the best poker

25:57

face I've ever had in my

25:59

life.

26:02

Mission accomplished. When

26:05

the tech team unencrypts the Palm

26:07

Pilot, they find what they've

26:10

been looking for. A calendar

26:12

event that says a drop will be made

26:14

at Foxtone Park on February

26:16

18th.

26:20

On that day, the FBI pales

26:23

Hanson as he drops a friend at the airport

26:26

and makes his way to the park. At 4.34

26:30

p.m., he gets out of his car and

26:33

goes through the usual routine.

26:35

He pulls a package

26:38

out of his sport coat wrapped in trash bags

26:40

and packing tape, slips off the bridge

26:43

and slides it into the superstructure, gets

26:45

back on that bridge and clicks

26:47

his shoes together to knock the dirt off and

26:50

smiles to himself.

26:51

But as he leaves the park... Two

26:55

vans screech to a halt, panel doors open,

26:57

FBI agents jump out and point their guns at him.

26:59

He says the guns are not

27:01

necessary. Hanson is caught red-handed.

27:06

But if he's alarmed, he doesn't show it. He

27:09

has that telltale Hanson smirk and he says,

27:11

what took you so long? People

27:14

are stunned by the arrest. Bob

27:17

Hanson, the weird, quiet,

27:20

super religious guy? Bob

27:22

Hanson sold 20 years' worth

27:24

of classified information? The

27:27

FBI gets to work figuring out the damage.

27:31

But only Hanson can really

27:33

give them the full extent of what the Soviets

27:35

know.

27:36

So the FBI and the Justice Department

27:38

make him an offer.

27:41

If he came clean and told him everything

27:43

he'd done, then they would take the death penalty

27:46

off the table and he agreed to cooperate.

27:49

In July 2001, Hanson pleads guilty to 15 counts

27:51

of espionage. And

27:56

handed over not just the names of those

27:58

agents, but also

29:59

watching, and waiting

30:02

to exploit a weakness. All

30:04

from behind a screen.

30:13

Thanks

30:13

for listening to History This

30:15

Week. For moments throughout history

30:17

that are also worth watching, check your local TV

30:19

listings to find out what's on the History Channel

30:22

today. If you want to hear more

30:24

about CIA spy Aldrich Ames,

30:27

you can listen to our Season 1 episode, A Mole

30:29

in the CIA. If

30:32

you want to get in touch, please shoot us an email at

30:34

our email address, historythisweekathistory.com,

30:37

or you can leave us a voicemail, 212-351-0410. Special

30:43

thanks to our guests, Elaine Shannon, author

30:46

of The Spy Next Door, The Extraordinary

30:48

Secret Life of Robert Philip Hanson,

30:51

the most damaging FBI agent in U.S.

30:53

history. And Eric

30:56

O'Neill, National Security Strategist

30:58

for VMware Carbon Black, founding

31:00

partner of Georgetown Group, and author

31:03

of Grey Day, My Undercover

31:05

Mission to Expose America's First

31:07

Cyber Spy. This episode

31:10

was produced by Corinne Wallace with help from

31:12

Emma Fredericks. It was sound designed

31:14

by Brian Flood and story edited by Jim

31:16

O'Grady. Our senior producer is Ben

31:18

Dixtyn. History This Week is also produced

31:21

by Julia Press, Chloe Weiner, and

31:23

me, Sally Helm. Our supervising

31:25

producer is Mckamey Lynn, and our executive

31:27

producer is Jessie Katz. Don't

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31:35

we'll see you next week.