Aldrich Ames Quotes

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.

When Reagan was elected, I felt that the Agency had gone much more into the service of a political tendency in the country with which I had already felt very strong disagreement.

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.

When I got the money, the whole burden descended on me, and the realization of what I had done. And it led me then to make the further step, a change of loyalties.

We had periodic crises in this country when the technical intelligence didn’t support the policy. We had the bomber gap, the missile gap.

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.

There are so many things a large intelligence espionage organization can do to justify its existence, that people can get promotions for, because it could result in results.

The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.

 The U.S. is, so far as I know, the only nation which places such extensive reliance on the polygraph. It has gotten us into a lot of trouble.

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?

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.

The only thing I ever withheld from the KGB were the names of two agents whom I personally had known and handled and had a particular feeling for.

The national security state has many unfair and cruel weapons in its arsenal, but that of junk science is one which can be fought and perhaps defeated.

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.

 

The FBI, to its credit in a self-serving sort of way, rejects the routine use of the polygraph on its own people.

 

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.

The betrayal of trust carries a heavy taboo.

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.

No one’s interested really in knowing what policies or diplomatic initiatives or arms negotiations might have been compromised by me.

My little scam in April ’85 went like this: Give me $50,000; here’s some names of some people we’ve recruited.