You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with …– Aldrich Ames
You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation.
The Soviet Union did not achieve victory over the …– Aldrich Ames
The Soviet Union did not achieve victory over the West, so was my information inadequate to help them to victory, or did it play no particular role in their failure to achieve victory?
When I handed over the names and compromised so …– Aldrich Ames
When I handed over the names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union, I had come to the conclusion that the loss of these sources to the U.S. would not compromise significant national defense, political, diplomatic interests.
I could have stopped it after they paid me the …– Aldrich Ames
I could have stopped it after they paid me the $50,000. I wouldn’t even have had to go on to do more than I already had: just the double agents’ names that I gave.
Foreign Ministry guys don’t become agents…– Aldrich Ames
Foreign Ministry guys don’t become agents. Party officials, the Foreign Ministry nerds, tend not to volunteer to Western intelligence agencies.
Historians don’t really like to carry on …– Aldrich Ames
Historians don’t really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low.
I knew quite well, when I gave the names of our …– Aldrich Ames
I knew quite well, when I gave the names of our agents in the Soviet Union, that I was exposing them to the full machinery of counterespionage and the law, and then prosecution and capital punishment.
The use of the polygraph has done little more than …– Aldrich Ames
The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.
The difficulties of conducting espionage against …– Aldrich Ames
The difficulties of conducting espionage against the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union were such that historically the Agency had backed away from the task.
I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a …– Aldrich Ames
I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.