Trying To Keep Secrets Secret
There are many people that do not realize how close our relations are with Australia. They are so close that Australia ran spy missions for us during the cold war. The close relations probably have something to do with the fact that we helped stop the Japanese invasion of Australia by sending troops to Guadalcanal. Americans were right there on the front lines defending that country and even dying for it and to the credit of the Australians, they never forgot. One of the spy missions that was conducted by the Australian navy during the cold war had to do with an Australian navy submarine. The covert submarine operations were carried out for over 14 years, from 1978 to 1992. The missions were very dangerous and many times the submarines came very close to the Russian and Chinese ships. The missions were declared to be War Like by the Australian navy. Many times the submarines would lay at periscope depth and just sit there watching and listening to what the Russian or Chinese fleets were doing.
Oberon Class Submarine The Australian covert submarine missions finally ended with an Australian submarine became entangled in a fishing net and had to surface in the middle of the fleet it was spying on. It was very embarrassing for the Australian government and I guess that we could only compare it to the time that our U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union with Francis Gary Powers in it. The submarines that the Australians used were of the Oberon class. Technology is not always used for spy, although it can provide much information. The most valuable spy is a human who can penetrate top secret facilities and bring project information out with him or her. It seems that no matter how much security is employed, there is always some way to beat it. Sometimes it is just due to the fact that people get lazy and let people they know slide as they say. This has happened several times in the last few years in so called secure areas. Problems arise when people that have had impeccable backgrounds decide to change to the other side. Robert P. Hanssen was a former FBI agent. He had served in that position for 22 years from 1979 to 2001. The FBI discovered that there was a spy in their midst and gave him the name Graysuit, but they didn't know who it was at that point. Hanssen had decided to become a spy for the KGB and was leaking very sensitive data to them. His life was spared in exchange for a guilty plea and he is in an administrative maximum facility in Florence and is serving a life sentence without parole. He had been selling secrets to the Soviets for the entire 22 years and netted 1.4 million dollars. His case has been describes as possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history.
Robert P. Hanssen Another FBI agent that became a spy for the Soviets was Richard Miller. Miller began to have an affair with a female Soviet agent and began to sell her info including the operations manual of the FBI. It turned out that he had quite a sordid history and one has to wonder how he got into the FBI in the first place? He had been excommunicated from his church. He cheated his uncle by selling a device that the uncle had invented. He used to steal candy bars and sit in restaurants for 3 and 4 hours at lunchtime eating them and reading comic books. The FBI found out that he had taken money meant for informants and used it for his personal needs. He was also found to be running searches on the FBI computers for a local private detective and getting $500 per search. When Miller was found guilty at a second trial, his defense was that he was trying to infiltrate the KGB as a double agent. The jury didn't buy that. His first conviction was overturned because the judge allowed polygraph evidence into the trial. His second conviction was upheld. It was for 20 years, but he was later let out after 13 years. Earl E Pitts was another FBI agent convicted of spying for the Soviets. This agent was actually arrested at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. What makes this case unusual is that he was still spying for the Russians after the Soviet Union fell. He had been paid somewhere around $225,000 for the data he gave during the years from 1987 to 1992. He was caught because his handler, Alexsandr Karpov, defected to the United States and gave up Pitts as a mole. The FBI tricked Pitts by making him think that he was going to be reactivated and gave him the assignment of hunting and recruiting KGB officers. In 1997 Pitts was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Unfortunately for the United States, there have been other people that seemed above reproach, but they were actually spying for foreign governments. Aldrich Ames as a CIA agent that gave secret information to the Soviets and later to the Russians. Another CIA officer that sold top secret documents to the Soviets was Harold J Nicholson. James Hall III was a US Army warrant officer and intelligence analyst who sold our eavesdropping and secret codes to the Soviets and East Germans. A retired US Army Reserve Lt. Colonel was convicted of spying for the KGB and SVR for over 25 years and is now serving life in prison. John Walker was a Chief Warrant Officer for the US Navy and helped the Soviets decipher more than 200,000 documents that had been encrypted. When he planned to retire he tried to organize a spy ring to continue his work. He spied for the Soviets from 1968 to 1985. When caught he testified against his partner, Jerrry Whitworth. Walker received several thousand dollars per month from the Soviets for his activities. He was caught when his ex-wife tipped the FBI about his activities. He accepted a life sentence during a plea bargain and in return his son, who was involved, got 25 years instead of life.
USS Pueblo - North Korea Caputured This Ship To Check The Equipement John Walker Told The Soviets About It seems that no matter how much you investigate someone's background, there are still those that get into a government agency that will do anything for money or sex, or a combination of both. Maybe some day, using devices that are much more hi-tech than we use today, we will be able to eliminate people that have these hidden failings, but until then, one can never be absolutely sure that someone who seems to have the highest credentials will not turn on this country. |
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