Word: kgb
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...April 28, 1994, Ames was sentenced to life in prison. The very next day, he was brought to the Tysons Corner FBI office for debriefing. Officials would begin the process of questioning him fully about his activities and his knowledge of the KGB. The debriefers were in place around a polished conference table. From the FBI there were Les Wiser, James Milburn and special agents Mike Donner and Rudy Guerin. Mark Hulkower, who has successfully prosecuted the Ameses for the government, represented the U.S. Attorney's office. The only person from the CIA was Jeanne Vertefeuille. Ames was brought...
Then the debriefing took a dramatic and unexpected turn. Ames explained how worried he was in late 1985 and early 1986 when the Soviets so swiftly arrested the agents he had betrayed. He had talked to the KGB in Rome about it and said that the sudden loss of agents might lead the CIA to look for a mole and jeopardize his safety. The Soviets had asked, What can we do to help you? Is there anyone you can blame? They suggested that if Ames provided the name of another CIA officer, then the KGB would plant clues that...
Gennadi Varenik was a KGB major working in Bonn under cover as a correspondent for TASS, the Soviet news agency, when he was suddenly recalled to Moscow in November 1985. Four months earlier, Aldrich Ames had told the Soviets that Varenik was spying for the cia. He was charged with that crime, tried and executed. This was a murderous tragedy, mentioned briefly in David Wise's book. It also represented a significant setback for the U.S. TIME's investigation of the Varenik case over the past three months reveals that he was one of the most promising KGB double agents...
...seven months before he was caught, Varenik, code-named GTFITNESS, provided American intelligence with detailed information about 170 agents and operations of the KGB and the GRU (the Soviet military intelligence arm). He tipped off the cia that the Soviets had a plan to create anti-German sentiment in the U.S. by planting explosives in bars and restaurants frequented in Germany by American service members (Varenik's role in the KGB scheme was to find places where the explosives could be hidden). "Gennadi," says one insider, "saved American lives...
Varenik was a KGB brat--the son of a KGB colonel--and a graduate of the Andropov Red Banner Institute, which trains intelligence agents. He spent a year working at the TASS offices in Moscow preparing for his cover job. His first contact with the cia came a year after his arrival in Germany in 1981. A colleague introduced him to a CIA officer, and for more than a year, each believed he was cultivating the other as a possible double agent. Varenik abruptly broke off discussions in 1983, but the cia had passed him a secret telephone number...