ALDRICH AMES INTERVIEWED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401970001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 16, 1995
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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FCIR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF STATION WAMU-FM
NPR Network
PROGRAM Morning Edition CITY Washington, D.C.
DATE February 16, 1995 7:40 plug AUDIENCE
Aldrich Ames Interviewed
BROADCAST EXCERPT
ALEX CHADWICK: Next week is the first anniversary of the
arrest of the CIA's Aldrich Ames for espionage. He sold sensitive
secrets to the Soviet Union and then Russia and provided Moscow
with the names of double agents. Many of them ended up dead.
Aldrich Ames now is serving a life sentence without parole.
In his first radio interview, he talked to NPR's Martha Radditz at
Allenwood penitentiary. A CIA representative monitored the
interview.
MARTHA RADDITZ: Just before entering the cavernous visitors'
room at Allenwood, Ames was told to remove his blue prison-issued
uniform, his thick brown plastic sandals and white socks, and he
was strip-searched. Yet, moments later, dressed in what looked
like surgical scrubs, the convicted spy carried himself with a
breathtaking haughtiness, treating the guards that accompanied him
like part of a personal entourage rather than his keeper.
ALDRICH AMES: Nice to meet you.
RADDITZ: Imperially polite, even to the CIA monitor, Ames
nonetheless began by complaining about his treatment.
AMES: I've been locked up in what's called "the hole." I'm
in a cell by myself 24 hours a day. When I come out of the cell,
I'm handcuffed. I get four one-hour outside recreation periods a
week.
So, basically, the agency is pressuring the Bureau of Prisons
to keep me punished.
RADDITZ: Punishment that Ames clearly believes is too harsh
for his crimes. He says he's sorry for what he has done, but, it
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seems, only to a point. When talking about those Soviet agents he
turned in, some who were executed or simply disappeared, Ames' gaze
is detached, his left hand slowly stroking, up and down, the length
of his bare right arm.
AMES : I have regrets -- remorse is maybe a better word --
certainly for their families. Less for them than for, say, the
people that depended on [them]. Their families, primarily. But
yeah, to include them.
RADDITZ: Did you know most of the people who you turned in?
AMES: only two or three. And certainly that makes a
difference. The ones whom I identified who were personally known
to me was one of two instances in which I didn't play it straight
with the KGB. Much later, having confidence that nothing would
happen to them, I told the KGB about them.
RADDITZ: What gave you confidence that nothing would happen
to them?
AMES: I'd had a number of meetings with them. And in fact,
when I told the KGB about [them] in personal meetings, I didn't
make it a condition but I said, "Listen" -- ah, I guess I did
condition it, 'cause I said, you know, "There's no need to do
anything. I don't think you need to do anything."
I had confidence that nothing would happen to them. And
nothing did.
RADDITZ: Do you know what's happened to those two or three
AMES: I know what's happened to one.
AMES: Ummm, I guess I'd better not say which one. But let's
put it this way: At least a couple of them have left Russia, left
the Soviet Union.
RADDITZ: In fact, Ames supplied such a tremendous amount of
information to the Soviets and the Russians over the years, he is
having a difficult time recalling exactly what he gave them. The
FBI and CIA have spent countless hours debriefing Ames, which was
a condition of his plea agreement. But they still have doubts,
says Ames, that he's telling the whole story.
AMES: They've come up with all kinds of theories, you know.
You know, my father was a Comintern agent and recruited me, or that
my wife recruited me when we met in Mexico. They've got all kinds
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of crazy theories, and there isn't anything that I can do to
enforce honesty.
RADDITZ: There is one great irony about enforcing honesty
with Ames, which seems to amuse him. Twice while Ames was heavily
involved in spying he passed a polygraph test administered by the
CIA. Since his arrest he has been given two more polygraphs to
determine if he's telling the truth about the kinds of information
he sold to the Soviets. He failed those tests.
AMES: This time I relaxed, told the truth and figured it
would come out all right. But it didn't.
The polygraph is very
subjective. And so there it is.
RADDITZ: Whatever the result of the polygraphs, Ames is
convinced that the information for which he received over $2 1/2
million did not harm national security.
AMES: No. Oh no. Not in a -- no. That's right. I mean,
the analogy I made is, you know, imagine a bridge contractor, you
know, who to make some money shorts on the materials, knowing, you
know, that 15 people are going to crash and die someday because
that bridge is going to fall down. You know, that's what I did.
RADDITZ: Why he did it, says Ames, is principally because of
greed. But he said it's more complicated than that.
AMES: I had these other elements that were not particularly
causes of what I did, but then tended to support them -- support.
In other words, the criticisms that I had of the agency, the
intelligence process, the value of -- the value of our Soviet
agents' reporting. All of these things, while not -- I never
viewed them as justifying what I did, at the same time, they
offered an indirect sort of support.
It's a truism in espionage that an agent's motivation never
remains constant. It evolves, changes, adapts. Over this eight-
year period, I mean, an awful lot goes on in one's head.
RADDITZ: But Ames says he carefully resisted any serious
self-reflection at the time. Fear, he said, was also absent.
AMES: If anything, I was too unfearful. I mean, I was to
confident of, basically, incompetence on the part of the agency.
You know, I counted on that.
RADDITZ: It's also apparent Ames enjoyed his life as a
globetrotting spy, comparing himself to Britain's famous traitor
Kim Philby.
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AMES: My self-image was that of an agent. Now, I don't think
badly of agents, myself, you see. And maybe that's the problem
that maybe a fellow like Philby had, you know. People in espionage
have kind of a schizophrenia about agents. They're necessary and
you love 'em, but also in many cases they're despised.
RADDITZ: Ames' fascination with agents, however, stopped when
it came to fictionalized accounts. When he started with his own
espionage activities, he put spy novels aside.
AMES: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" was about the last spy
novel I -- Carre went downhill after that. But, you know, the
modern conspiracy stuff, Ludlum and all of these guys, I can't
stand it. Unrealistic. Unrealistic. Well, you know, bad stuff.
Trash.
You know, I read a lot of detective stories, for example. I
like that kind of thing. I don't like spy novels.
RADDITZ: With a life sentence, Ames will have plenty of time
to read plenty of detective novels, a fact he seems to simply
accept. He gets emotional only when talking of his six-year-old
son, who he has not seen since the day he was arrested; and his
wife, Rosario, who is serving a five-year sentence for her role in
aiding Ames. Ames still wears a wedding band, hopes to stay
married, and says the two have written a few times. But the object
now, he says, dispassionately, is to learn how to live in an
entirely different culture. But Ames says so far he has had no
problem in prison, because, he says, his fellow inmates do not
judge him by what he has done in the past.
AMES: It's what kind of person you are inside.
RADDITZ: And what's that?
AMES: You respect others. You respect the rules. Basically,
you behave, you behave -- how to put it -- straightforwardly,
honestly.
RADDITZ: Of all the statements Ames has made, his former CIA
colleagues would certainly find that self-assessment hardest to
swallow.
I'm Martha Radditz in Washington.
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