Betrayal: The Story of Aldrich Ames, an American Spy

Front Cover
Betrayal is the remarkable story of the last American spy of the cold war: Aldrich "Rick" Ames, the most destructive traitor in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency. Tim Weiner, David Johnston, and Neil A. Lewis, reporters for The New York Times, tell how the barons of the CIA could not believe that its headquarters harbored a traitor. For years, the Agency was baffled by a wily Russian spymaster who played a high-stakes chess game against the Americans, deceiving the CIA into thinking that there were other moles -- or no moles at all. It took nearly eight years for the CIA to share the full facts of the scenario with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Once they knew those facts, the men and women of the FBI tracked Ames day and night for nine months before they arrested him. They tell their story here in astonishing detail for the first time. The interviews are entirely on-the-record. There are no pseudonyms, anonymous quotes, or invented scenes. The men betrayed by Ames were real people, and the stories of their lives are the true history of the espionage game in the waning years of the cold war.

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Contents

You Must Have the Wrong Man
3
Culdesac
10
A Seminar in Treason
18
Copyright

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About the author (1995)

Tim Weiner was born on June 20, 1956. He was educated at Columbia University. As a correspondent for The New York Times, he covered war and terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan, and other nations. His articles on secret government programs received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. He has written several books including Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget, Enemies: A History of the FBI, and One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA won the National Book Award.

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