The Spy Who Did The Most Damage To The CIA In History Has Died In The U.S.

He betrayed his country for money.

One of the most notorious agents of first the USSR and then Russia, former Central Intelligence Agency officer Oldrich Ames, died in the United States on January 5. He wreaked havoc on U.S. and NATO intelligence networks by betraying them in exchange for money.

It was reported by The Washington Post.

Ames was 84 years old at the time of his death and had been incarcerated. For nine years, from 1985 to 1994, he worked first for the Soviet Union and, after its collapse, for Russia. There were no ideological considerations - purely mercantile, for money.

Ames himself, by the way, never repented of what he had done. On the contrary - he was proud of the fact that he passed such data to the USSR, for which he was paid a lot of money.

"I was one of the most competent people in the intelligence community of the Russian intelligence service. And my access to information and my knowledge of the Soviets was such that I could get just about anything I wanted," he said in an interview the day before the trial.

In April 1985, Ames, who at the time was in the process of divorcing his first wife, walked into the Soviet embassy and simply gave the names of two agents who had been recruited by the CIA. For this he received 50,000 dollars from the USSR.

In the next few months, Ames collected data on all the agents the CIA and FBI had in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries and gave it to the USSR without asking for money in return. A concerned Lubyanka informed Ames that it valued his services at two million dollars.

In 1986, Ames was transferred to Rome, where he continued to regularly pass documents to Soviet intelligence. In 1989, after returning to the U.S., Ames began using conspiracy.

"Returning to Washington in 1989, he began transmitting documents using hiding places in obscure locations and signals left on mailboxes and power poles," the publication wrote.

The Most Widespread Damage in CIA History

Ames is generally believed to have been involved in the deaths of at least 10 CIA agents in the Soviet bloc and the uncovering of a large number of other U.S. intelligence agents. Ames passed on dossiers, intelligence, details of intelligence operations - anything of value.

Despite the active search for the mole, the CIA ignored Ames until 1994. His luxurious lifestyle was ignored for some unknown reason - Ames received more than a million dollars in cash for his work, another million dollars and luxury real estate were waiting for him in Russia.

"His lifestyle in the Washington area, a Jaguar car and a house worth $540,000 bought for cash in Virginia did not raise any questions," the newspaper notes.

It was only in February 1994 that Ames was finally detained. His activities were exposed already during the first interrogations. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment without pardon, his wife was convicted as an accomplice and sentenced to five years behind bars.

Causes of Treason

"There was this strange change of loyalty.... It was not for the Soviet system, which in my opinion was a brutal, inhuman, vile regime ... I became disillusioned," Ames later said.

Ames said he became disillusioned with the United States, with the American way of life and ideology, and with American intelligence. Ames was interested in the money paid by the USSR and also - the ability to influence people's destinies. When asked how he could pass on to the enemy secrets that cost many people their lives and were a violation of their oaths to their native country, Ames replied that he did not care.

"I tended to put some of these things in separate boxes, and feelings and thoughts in separate boxes.... I felt that by selling these guys, I was subjecting myself to the same fate," he cynically told reporters.

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