WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Undetected: Aldrich Ames

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

Megan and Alessia explore the life and exploits of America's greatest traitor, Aldrich Ames.

On June 13, 1985, around noon, a CIA agent was heading out for a lunch meeting, carrying a thick sleeve of documents under his arm. He left his office at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and drove across the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. His destination was Chadwick's, a popular Georgetown restaurant, situated rather discreetly under the Whitehurst Freeway. The agent climbed out of the car. He was tall and thin, with round glasses and a thick mustache paired with equally thick eyebrows. His name was Aldrich Ames, and he was here to meet a diplomat from the Soviet embassy, authorized by the CIA. Ames entered the restaurant and immediately saw the man he was meeting with, sitting quietly at the corner table. He was a heavy-set man with a large forehead and calculating eyes. Ames smiled and shook his hand.

The two began to converse in Russian. It wasn't until at one point in the half-hour conversation when Ames pulled out a piece of paper and began writing on it, that the diplomat began to express real interest. For this diplomat was no diplomat at all, but Victor Cherkoshin, the Soviet chief of counterintelligence, and Ames was writing down over 100 names of American assets, CIA officers working undercover in the Soviet Union. When Ames exited the restaurant, he was no longer the same man that had entered. He had just turned traitor against the CIA in one of the most stunning intelligence coups in CIA history. Welcome to Undetected on Radio Free Hillsdale.

Go undercover with your hosts, Alessia Sandala and Megan Lee, as they uncover the stories of spies from every country and time. The most thrilling, yet the most secret of lives in history. Welcome back to Undetected, everyone. I'm Megan. And I'm Alessia. We are so excited to share the wild story of Aldrich Ames, one of the most successful Soviet double agents in American history. Let's get right into it. Aldrich Ames was born on May 26th in 1941 in River Falls, Wisconsin, as the son of a CIA analyst.

After two years at the University of Chicago, Ames became a CIA trainee in 1962. He graduated from George Washington University in 1967 and was posted to Ankara, Turkey, in 1969, where he would recruit U.S. spies from Soviet nationals for three years. Ames' specialty was Russian. He spoke the language fluently, and his job was to undermine Russian intelligence services, like the KGB. Upon returning to the states in 1972, Ames met Maria DuPoy in Mexico City, a Colombian woman and recruited her to work for the CIA. They got married in 1985 in Washington, D.C.

But in the year he got married, Ames didn't just have his wedding on his mind. On April 16, 1985, Ames secretly offered his services to the KGB at the USSR embassy in D.C. As if to secure his loyalty, the KGB paid him $50,000 shortly afterward. That summer, Ames met with Turkishian and a Russian diplomat several times to pass classified information about the CIA and FBI and their operations in Russia, aided by his wife Maria, who had stopped working for the CIA. In December of 1985, Ames was in Bogota, Columbia, and in July of 1986, he was in Rome. But no matter where he was, Ames kept in touch with the KGB and continued to meet with their agents. Three years later, when Ames was called back to D.C., the KGB gave him instructions to meet with

their agents there. At that time, he had been paid $1.88 million for his four years of service. But his return was met with some suspicion, as Sandy Grimes, a CIA operative that was Ames' colleague at the time, explains. When he returned from Rome in 1989, I saw totally different Rick Ames. I saw someone who was one of the most confident people I'd ever seen in my life, and Rick was never confident. At this time, the CIA and FBI learned that their recruits in Russia were being arrested and executed, ones that had provided critical information. They knew there was a mole, and so the hunt began. But Ames was oblivious, careless even, about the CIA's noticing him.

Despite using dead drops and pre-arranged hiding places, Ames continued his lavish spending habits with money that did not seem to match up with his paycheck. The FBI opened up an investigation of Ames in May of 1993. Using physical and electronic surveillance of Ames for 10 months, the FBI found evidence, dead drops, and markings, not to mention Ames' Russian handler linking Ames with the Russian intelligence service. Right before Ames was about to ship off to Moscow for an official CIA trip, his arrest was approved. On February 21st, 1994, Ames was arrested with his wife outside of his home and pled guilty on April 28th. Ames was sentenced to incarceration

for life without parole and Maria was sentenced to 63 months in prison. Ames' debrief before the FBI revealed that he had been paid $2.7 million by the KGB in his nearly decade-long spy. The most, the KGB had, has paid any American for spying. He said he had eventually revealed the name of every single US agent operating in Russia, and at least 10 CIA agents had died as a result of Ames' work. What a story.

The way that Ames abused his position of power in the CIA to turn against his home country and his fellow people, I think it is fair to say he got what he deserved. He wasn't alone either. Three other Soviet moles, Harold Nicholson, Earl Pitts, and Robert Hansen had worked alongside Ames,

and Ames' arrest actually helped Robert Hanson avoid arrest for a good bit, but they all got caught eventually. If not for Ames' sudden change and demeanor and his love for expensive things, it may have been longer before he got caught, but I suppose that shows you how the things we really desire out of life can sometimes betray you in the end. I'm Megan. And I'm Alessia. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Undetected. Tune in next week to hear us talk about Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of a high-ranking Nazi officer on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.