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Aldrich Ames
48quotes
Full Name and Common Aliases
Aldrich Hazen Ames
Birth and Death Dates
May 26, 1941 - Present
Nationality and Profession(s)
American, CIA Operative, Counterintelligence Officer
Early Life and Background
Aldrich Ames was born on May 26, 1941, in Rochester, New York. He grew up in a family with high expectations for academic achievement and military service. Ames's father, also named Aldrich, served as an officer in the United States Navy during World War II. This early exposure to the world of espionage may have contributed to Ames's later career choices.
Major Accomplishments
Ames graduated from Middlebury College in 1961 with a degree in history and joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) soon after. He began his career as a CIA operative in Berlin, Germany, where he worked undercover gathering intelligence on Soviet and East German military activities. Ames's work during this period earned him recognition within the agency.
Notable Works or Actions
Ames rose through the ranks at the CIA, eventually becoming a counterintelligence officer with access to highly classified information. In 1985, he began working as a liaison between the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Ames used his position to provide sensitive information about the CIA's operations to the Soviet Union and later Russia.
Impact and Legacy
Ames's betrayal had far-reaching consequences for the CIA and American national security. His actions resulted in the execution of at least 10 CIA agents who were betrayed through Ames's espionage. The damage caused by Ames was estimated to be worth billions of dollars, making him one of the most damaging moles in CIA history.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
Aldrich Ames is widely quoted and remembered due to his role as a traitor within the CIA. His actions led to significant losses for the agency and raised questions about the effectiveness of counterintelligence measures at the time. Ames's case has been cited in discussions about national security, espionage, and the importance of vigilant oversight within government agencies.
Ames was arrested in 1994 and subsequently convicted on nine counts of conspiracy, espionage, and tax evasion. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Despite his betrayal, Ames remains a fascinating figure due to the complexity and scope of his actions.
Quotes by Aldrich Ames
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To the extent that I considered the personal burden of harming the people who had trusted me, plus the Agency, or the United States, I wasn’t processing that.
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Let’s say a Soviet exchange student back in the ’70s would go back and tell the KGB about people and places and things that he’d seen and done and been involved with. This is not really espionage; there’s no betrayal of trust.
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Foreign Ministry guys don’t become agents. Party officials, the Foreign Ministry nerds, tend not to volunteer to Western intelligence agencies.
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No one’s interested really in knowing what policies or diplomatic initiatives or arms negotiations might have been compromised by me.
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My little scam in April ’85 went like this: Give me $50,000; here’s some names of some people we’ve recruited.
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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.
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By the late ’70s I had come to question the point of a great deal of what we were doing, in terms of the CIA’s overall charter.
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I said in court a long time ago that I didn’t see that the Soviet Union was significantly helped by the information I gave them, nor that the United States was significantly harmed.
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The resistance of policy-makers to intelligence is not just founded on an ideological presupposition. They distrust intelligence sources and intelligence officials because they don’t understand what the real problems are.
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