We start this week off with a devious tale of a post-cold-war spy, Robert Hanssen the American FBI Agent who sold secrets to Russia for, not that much money -- honestly how hard is it to be a spy? It sound like Robert walked around with his “I love the KBG” t-shirt and nobody noticed for 20 years! Turns out other spies, like, Aldrich Ames, were sharing the same info with Russia. Trust no one! For real, that’s our only message. Images via the creative commons & AI Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: doomedtofailpod@gmail.com
We start this week off with a devious tale of a post-cold-war spy, Robert Hanssen the American FBI Agent who sold secrets to Russia for, not that much money -- honestly how hard is it to be a spy? It sound like Robert walked around with his “I love the KBG” t-shirt and nobody noticed for 20 years! Turns out other spies, like, Aldrich Ames, were sharing the same info with Russia. Trust no one! For real, that’s our only message.
Images via the creative commons & AI
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod
Email: doomedtofailpod@gmail.com
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
kick things off welcome to Doom to fail the podcast will be covered two stories one historical One True Crime about
relationships that were doomed to fail I am Forest today you are Taylor
I continue to be well nailed it this time messed up last week uh how's uh how's your weekend been
Taylor it's been nice we have this is our last weekend of no plans before
um really before soccer starts and then school starts and then I don't know
stuff to do forever so yeah but the house begins drinking some water
um yeah I know we did our town has like a really cute summer concert series and it's in on a field that is somehow grass
and like the kids will like pull up the grass and they'll be like this grass is a miracle it is 105 outside I can't believe it's grass here like do not pull
up this grass it's unbelievable that it's here but on the grass is cooler and then the sun goes down and last night it
was a group called The hodads which were some old men singing rock songs
is it real grass yeah like it's a miracle I know so
um yeah it was super cute so we did that and it's really this is so cute like there's tons of like people that you
know people we know and there's like a lot of old people dancing which is super cute and then the kids just like go play
so it's like on a field and they're like can we go playing and we're like goes like every 10 minutes we'll be like do
you see them like yeah I see them do you see them yeah I see them look they're just playing with their friends and it's very small town cute that is awesome
that is awesome yeah small town Vibes love it my weekend has been pretty uneventful
and I kind of won't like it that way it feels like everything is so scheduled
now and the obligations just keep racking up until you got to do this at this time then this time then this time then this time and this weekend was
easy breezy and today's gonna be easy breezy and I'm really really excited about it I love it good for you yeah
same I just I wore my pajamas like Friday night all through Saturday and then I put them in the wash and put them
back on so I'm great I did I did watch Oppenheimer have you
seen it you said you saw it right no I haven't seen it yet okay I'm gonna
pause it in unpopular opinion that people can write to do the philpod gmail.com so express
how I feel about it I didn't think that was that good really I don't know I I also I mean like
I want to I retweeted a review whatever re-instagram or something like there's a
whole story of like how they kicked a bunch of people off their land to build the you know in Los Alamos it wasn't
just like a nothing town so all that I know they don't talk about um I did see like a funny thing on Instagram but it was like up and higher
in 45 seconds and he was like it was a woman like dressing like you know him and she was like I'm a sad genius boy
and that was like most of it so it was well made but it was a i
I don't know I like Killian Murphy is obviously a really great actor and he did a really great job of basically
portraying uh sad boy Genius but it was basically just exactly sad boy genius and
it was just like oh God I mean are you sure I'm sure that that's a realistic part I mean I've never read American Pie
Prometheus I'm sure it's accurate but it's just like God can somebody hit somebody or do something I don't know
like just like over and over again my father-in-law was reading American
Prometheus and we were talking about it a little bit I haven't read it either but I do love that I learned about Prometheus because Mary Shelley called
Frankenstein the modern Prometheus that's right because it's when you give Humanity something that they may or may
not deserve you know yeah yeah totally uh don't let my judgment change it once
you watch it let me know what you think but I totally I still think you should see Barbie and let me know what you think but I um I will I will definitely
see it eventually I I saw a thing that said that Barbie out did so oppenheim
was at 300 million and Barbie's at 700 million and I was like wow that's the craziest ready but then after I watched
Robin I was like yeah cause nobody wants to go pay money to be depressed exactly like if you're like I have I can go to
one movie you're gonna go to I'm gonna go to the fun one and like yes I cry during Barbie but it was about the patriarchy like Barbie's obviously
hopefully we were fun in the primer it has to be you know be lost yeah that's
not a movie I'm never gonna re-watch but I mean I'm glad I saw it but I don't need to reset it so anyways it makes
sense but I'll watch it I'll watch it again or sometime it played a role in my topic for today sort of oh nice but
let's let's dive into it so today I go first right right so I have a I want to bring us
back to being like a themed cocktail and I didn't make this cocktail because I need a special bowl and more friends but
um my cocktail is like a volcano that you get in like Hawaii where it's like a
big bowl with like fire in the middle and like a bunch of like rum and Juice around it and you drink it with friends
and straws it's like it's not a DIY cocktail I can't do it at home I have to go to
restaurant I think we talked about cocktails that involve fire before and we've advised against them at your house I uh so when you come to Austin next
there's a pla I told you about a place I wanted to you too called the Roosevelt room because it's Roosevelt and all that
and they do old-timey cocktails it's all about like prohibition or cocktails and
one of the cocktails they make they put like this giant open skull like it's a skull and the Top's cut off and then
they basically turn it into that and it's awesome that's what I'm thinking of that's the vibe I got I got today so
okay we'll do that it'll take pictures when we do it together lovely lovely so
my drink today I'm gonna improvise and make it up on the spot I'm gonna call it
a martini a dirty martini we'll do a dirty martini because did you just
invent a dirty martini or are you just that's what you just picked I'm the creator of a dirty martini
I read a gross new york-timed article about martinis and then they're like they're like oh they're all different kinds now which is cool like I like a
different Martini but there was one that was chicken soup and it had like chicken broth in it and it made me want to die that sounds terrible that is always yeah
okay and the reason I'm doing that is well let me get into it and you'll you'll see
why so like I said I watched Oppenheimer and it got me into this whole headspace uh thinking about large-scale
conspiracies and stuff that's going on that government-wise that we're not totally aware of and it led me down this
weird path and somehow I landed on this article written by a guy named JJ green it's called city of secrets about
Washington DC and in it they talk about how as of now like today
the general consensus amongst intelligence officials is that there are approximately 10
000 foreign spies living and operating in Washington DC right now what it's crazy right and it made me
think is there a doom to fail story about like spycraft in here because it just seems like a really fun topic and
there is fun boiler alert there is a story in here and that's why I thought about the
martini because it was just like it's such a like old-timey drink that like you drink while you're like
and like doing stuff that's shady and you go home and there's a lot of uh uh
Martini drinking in Oppenheimer too so spoilers on that yeah
I watched a doctor series on Netflix it's currently on Netflix called uh spycraft and
I think the motivations for people to spy on their own country is kind of the Doom to fail part that I honed it on and
in spycraft they talk about this acronym called mice which stands for money
ideology compromise and ego and my take on it was that's the part like
if you're somebody where you're in a position of doing or having access to information and you develop a
relationship with the mice acronyms in a negative way then you are destined to do
horrible things and get caught for it and suffer horrible punishments is what I think did they mention the rosenbergs
in Oppenheimer was there like a Rosenberg like her brother like secretly stealing stuff do they get to that I
think so Soviet connections and things I don't know well yeah they definitely got a Soviet connection they might have
mentioned right because I'm in passing but like yeah mostly I bet there's someone who was like them in the background you know yeah mostly it had
to do with like Oppenheimer Soviet connections more than anything else because because I mean you listen to
podcasts like you know the Manhattan Project one so you know all the details there yeah anyways so it's worth noting that
when we talk about like Espionage it's it sounds all sexy and James bondy but yeah there's like some heavy duty
consequences to what these people ended up doing you could I mean you just mentioned it
you cover the most one of the most famous Espionage stores of all time which also coincides with oppenheimer's you just mentioned Julius Ethel
Rosenberg but I looked up other spies and what they did and I'm going to hone in on one specifically but I want to do a little
brief listing of the other top contenders for war spies in U.S history this is an article called 11 spies who
did the most damage the US military by David Nye I'm sure let's Mom I'm not going to read off everything so one is
uh nashir gowaldi this guy worked on the B2 bomber commonly known as the self-bomber he received 32 years for
selling knowledgeless technology to China there's chimac we don't know exactly what this guy did because the
nature of the technology he worked on was so secret but he ended up getting 24 years and the assumption that is that it
had something to do with how naval ship engines are designed there's Anna Montez she worked for 17 years so she provided
a pretty wide range of strategic secrets to Cuba and was ultimately captured in Tennessee 25 years John Anthony Walker
this guy gave the Soviets info on the movement and activities of the U.S naval fleet and this is what I what I mean
when I say that these people's actions have real world consequences the information he gave led to the sinking
of the USS scorpion where 99 crewmen were killed he ended up getting life in
prison Larry Wu chin this guy was just a translator but he weirdly gave that kind
of gave him access to a lot of info that he really shouldn't have had shouldn't have had for his pay grade he passed
info on interrogations from prisoners of War during the Korean War to China and ultimately committed suicide before
sentencing you have James Nicholson this guy trained new officers at his CIA and
provided info on all new trainees and officer assignments to Moscow yeah 25 years the thing to note is what I'm
saying like you provide information on these people they die like like right when you hand the name over to someone
you know that you just basically signed their death warrant
these two are unconscionable in terms of how bad they are as humans mm-hmm there's George Trump off who is a
colonel in charge of a safe house where Soviet defectors were interviewed in debrief this guy would sell the info to
the KGB he also got life in the most famous would be Benedict Arnold he sold out the US during the Revolutionary War
for approximately three million dollars in today's money he provided the British with plants to West Point and agree to
disarm its defenses for a British attack yeah I read I have a book about
Washington I'm pointing to it um that uh the chocolate Arnold thing and it really was like a you [ __ ] you know like he
was a big deal like he was a hero we can't believe you did that yeah yeah all the people was like he was the one that
was the least likely to have done that essentially yeah you like never would have expected it
so there are two more two more that I didn't list here and they basically did the same thing and their stories overlap
in very very significant ways the one I'm gonna actually be covering really today is gonna be Robert Hansen but the
other guy whose story overlaps directly with Robert Hansen's story is a guy named aldrick Ames
the key thing to remember here is that Ames and Hansen overlapped by the in in the years that they were spying on
behalf of the KGB it's also worth noting that Ames work for the CIA while Hanson worked for the
FBI and they mostly had access to the same information the mostly part is the most important piece there
so this guy Robert was arguably the worst spy in U.S history
you mean he's like great at being a spy he did for a very long period of Time the movie the show spycraft mentions
that 20 of uh U.S spies are caught within the first five years this guy was operating from 1979 to 2001. so he and
there's a reason why he was good the reason why he was good at it was because he was trained and was supposed to be in
charge of catching counter spies so he knew what not to do and what to do and
also he wasn't super stupid the way that the Ames guy was I'll explain how stupid that guy was here in a moment
so I want to skip past like his life it's pretty boring mundane [ __ ] the most
relevant thing being he you know he was married he had six kids that's that's that's all I'm going to say about his
personal life it doesn't really matter but he's he's American he's American yeah yeah born and raised okay so let's
get started with this so when Hanson was 32 he joined the FBI as a special agent
this would have been 1976 and obviously 1976 the Soviet Union was still a very
real threat to the United States China was expanding its Global position as a communist superpower Castro and the
Soviet Premiere at the time they just installed the communist leader in Angola the world was basically on edge and
everybody was kind of waiting for death to come pouring down from up top and so this was a really sensitive time to be a
part of the intelligence community it was with this backdrop that Hanson joined the FBI he bounced around from
field offices to from Indiana to New York to Washington DC and went from his
special agent position which basically means he just floated around like he just did whatever investigations had to be had to happen and that was kind of
his role his first attempt at Espionage happened in 1979 so he was quick like he was
three years after he started like I'm gonna start spying he I should have wrote this down I forgot
what it what it was so there's it's so weird Taylor the more
you learn about this stuff like there are businesses and operating operation right now that like our fronts for other
governments to spy on things so there's one building in New York I can't remember the name of it it sounded like
a diamond exchange or something I forgot exactly what it was but it was obviously not like an outwardly government
official site but in 1979 this guy Hanson knew that it was an actual
government KGB operation and he ended up approaching them saying I'm willing to
sell you information on counter spies on the KGB side of things for exchange for
fifty thousand dollars they said deal they gave him fifty thousand dollars and he gave up the name of a guy named Dimitri polikov
this guy was apparently very beloved within like the intelligence Community because he didn't really want money he
literally was only doing this for ideology he was a he just didn't think that the Soviet way of living was the right way of living and he the most of
the time when he would exchange his information for was like fishing gear like he didn't want to get rich off this he was trying to do
what he thought was best for the world and he was also super high ranking I think he was a general or Colonel and so
he gave up this guy's information 1979 the guy was immediately cotton shot in the head like wow yeah it was like
that's what I'm saying like these guys are handing out death sentences
I love that that um I just I hope that I mean I don't know life is so boring like I hope and
exciting and I hope that there are places like in like John Wick where like you know you walk into like a tea shop and like you press a button and there's
like umbrella guns yeah okay that's what this email sounds like yeah that sounds
that's that sounds like what I want to be happening because [ __ ] might as well might as well uh I couldn't find sources
on this next bit of information outside of what that show spycraft mentioned but it was implied that Hanson's wife caught
wind that he had done this and important to stop and that's why he did because there's a huge gap in his Espionage
activity from 1979 until 1985. so there's a six year Hiatus he does it
once and apparently he stops the again the only source I have is some FBI agent that was talking about this on that show
and he said that the wife basically found out and told him to stop that's all we know
yeah uh all this would change again when he is transferred to Washington DC
and there he's given access to various FBI programs that focus a great deal on wiretapping in digital espionage
it seems like with the FBI you kind of earn your stripes and work your way up to more sensitive areas of its operations and apparently Hanson was
really good at the kind of work that he did and he worked his way up to working at the Soviet analytical unit whose sole
directive was to identify evaluate and capture Soviet spies so this is good
info if you are trying to sell information and you are also a spy the
call is coming from inside the house exactly in in 1985 Hanson reached out to
the KGB and asked for a hundred thousand dollars in exchange for information he
could provide in his capacity of evaluating Soviet spies and this is where our two stories kind of converge
question yes did Robert Hansen want money or did he want to help the Soviet Union money
got it and it wasn't a lot that's the thing we're going to get to here in a minute it's like he did it it was I mean
it was a lot of money but like not enough am I right for people's lives
that like were destroyed hey go ahead exactly exactly so
this is the the part where the stories of Hanson and Ames kind of start coming
together so in the letter Hanson provided the KGB he provided three KGB double agents so
these were people that were employed by the KGB who are actually selling information to the US government
all three of these agents who were given up by Hanson earlier that year had also been given up by Aldric Ames and Hanson
didn't know this I didn't know each other they were not friends one was the FBI one was the CIA but this KGB looks and says okay so this
is the second time These Guys these three are being called out there's something to this two of the double agents were executed
immediately and the other surveys your term before being released the reason
those two were killed is a they were more Junior and so they they didn't really have much value to the KGB
anyways and it's Russia and it's an awful place to be and all that stuff the other guy got six years only because of
Soviet Union collapse so during his pre he was sentenced to 15 years but during the 15-year sentence the Soviet Union
collapses in the U.S engages in this amnesty program with the new Russia and
they exchanged this guy for their own people essentially that's why he was released he lives in he lives in the US
now he lived in California so the way the government starts honing
in on double agents is at least in part because of things like this because these double agents all have handlers in
the countries they're cinching on so people check in on them and they discuss what they're trying to do and so these
handlers start learning that their sources go missing they report them and then the government says okay why are all these people going missing like
what's the overlap here the fact that Ames was operating and doing the exact same [ __ ] as Hanson was
just pure dumb luck for Hanson again angel angels with the CIA in 1985
which is a year Hanson got the idea to start spying on the KGB they were giving up the names of the double agents of the
exact same time and it was also the same names right and obviously all these guys are
getting executed so as Soviet assets are disappearing these agencies start wondering how could this be happening
either the assets themselves were being careless or there's a leak somewhere or there's a mall
so we're going to be fleeing back and forth on the storyline here between Ames and Hansen going back to Hanson
two years had passed since these two Soviet spies had disappeared so the FBI recalls Hanson to DC and he is tasked
with finding out who the mole is giving these people love this is incredible this is literally Matt Damon's character
from The Departed wow he's asked to search for himself
wow wow I don't know guys it seems like it seems like maybe it was a woman I'm gonna just look at all the women I know
right so that's the interesting thing is like in his mind he's like I'm looking for myself but there's actually another
mole in Ames it's out it's so weird it's like it's like a a movie
yeah during this time he's putting together measures so that the trail never leads back to him there's also a
Soviet effort to obfuscate his identity so so there's a thing called a triple agent
which is right let's say you're you get it right I kind of get it I feel like you
wouldn't know what to do like I feel like you'd like wake up and be like who am I I can't remember you know so
imagine if you're like a KGB agent that flips the CIA so you're giving KGB info to the CIA
then the kg finds out and then they tell you cool tell them you're still with them but you're actually with us and now
give them counter information that's what a triple agent doesn't in a triple agent basically told the CIA that you
should be looking for this guy in a CIA facility in Virginia so far away from what where where Hanson's operating so
that's what they end up doing they change their focus and start looking over there to save Hanson
yeah or just yeah because because best thing these guys all want these guys to stay operational because that's how they
can collect frustration it's like one less guy you gotta flip another thing is like what if there was like two other
guys that we don't even never heard of there is always two other guys I've never heard of that is the most
consistent thing I researched in all this is that all these guys were [ __ ] each other over it's almost like there's no point to
happen there's like no point having these agencies because it's literally just like this like
count it's just billions of dollars spent to negate everybody else's other billions of dollars that's all it really
is supposedly okay yes so Hanson Services Soviet Union
overlapped with the Soviet Union's eventual collapse obviously when a government collapses a lot of things go
missing the shuffle part of those things seemed to have been Hanson's identity as a double agent for the KGB
so when the USSR collapsed the largest most active Agency for intelligence gathering in Russia was the gru which is
short for the main intelligence directive which obviously is a different acronym in Russian but that's what it is
short for got it this is incredible in 1982 Hanson approached the Russian
Embassy in person he went to the parking lot and walked up to a GRU official and
said in essence I'm Ramon Garcia which is which is KGB codename
he said that yeah he said I'm an FBI agent that he has
I saw material that he wants to search for money that guy drove over to the state
department and reported him what the [ __ ]
[ __ ] okay until 2001. so what okay there are
so many of these I'm actually gonna list this out so there's so many times when he should have gotten Cod they didn't
get caught oh my God every article you read on this guy talks about what a Super Genius spy he was he was like I'm
I don't know what a Super Genius spy looks like but it can't be this because I'm going to read this I'm just walking
up to the first guy in the parking lot and being like hey I'm a spy give me money like that can't be it can't be it
yeah so the first one I lived in Queens and I had that terrible drug dealer on my street and he would like he lived on
my street and every day you'd walk by he'd be like drugs and I'd be like I just I'm not a
drug dealer but like I feel like you're going about this the wrong way just just a little more discretion please just for your own sake not mine yeah be
like no thanks you know so here's a listing of all the things that he did
outwardly that he should have thought better of in 1988 he gave secret
information to a Soviet Defector during an interrogation obviously it's a huge security he was
giving classified information like this was an accident but it just showed his lapse in Judgment of like what right he
was like in our house exactly exactly and and people noticed this I'm like uh
you shouldn't have said that and they reported the supervisor nothing happened in 1989 a year later the FBI started
investigating a state department official that's going to come up again later his name is Felix block as a
possible double agent Hanson told the KGB about this to help protect block
so think about that so he knows that this guy's under investigation he doesn't want to get caught he tells his
handlers and then the handlers tell block and then block stops doing Secret
[ __ ] and basically just disappears off the mat he's never convicted of anything and later on this guy gets arrested and
says Robert Hansen's a spy he literally says that to the event the guys who
arrest him and nothing still nothing happens in 19 in 1990 Hanson's brother-in-law
told the FBI that his sister-in-law had found a huge pile of cash in dressers in
their in their house the brother-in-law was also an FBI agent who was aware that the FBI was searching for a mole at the
time in 1983 Hanson hacked into a college computer and access classified material
he told his supervisor he did this to prove how insecure their systems were in reality he did it because he was
searching for himself and see if he's under investigation without using his own right oh my God this this that part
he does again and again in 1994 he is asked to join a new unit of the FBI but
was told he'd have to take a lie detector test to do so after which he changed his mind
so there was there was another computer tampering incident he blamed it on
needing to use a color printer and having a bypass FBI security protocols
to do it and people like what the [ __ ] you can't do they impounded his computer there was another incident where he
actually used his own computer to do another search on his own name there was
an incident where an FBI double agent revealed that he was also a double agent
separates the block incident and all of this gets reported to supervisors and
nobody does anything you know what I think I read a book called The Kill chain maybe I mentioned it before but
it's about um the like the chain of command and the information sharing in the US military
but I feel like so many problems of the government could be resolved if they just had like a really good CRM
seriously that's what they keep saying about why
there's not many serial killers now if you if you could have just done command f for name for like Bundy Gacy whatever
else you'd call these guys immediately same story here but but you know it goes
back like the justification of the notification but it goes back to like why we think things like Oklahoma City ended up happening is because like these
agencies have pride in like them them being the ones finding the people and they don't want to share information details so yeah
so we're going to flip back to Amy's story because we're at 1993 now and in this case the FBI and the CIA have
actually joined forces to form a task force to figure out who the mole was at this point Ames to receive 4.6
million from his work giving secrets to the USSR and he was very flamboyant with
throwing this money around like you very flame like he drove like a nice car there was one story I read where he had
these like really premium level credit cards that had like monthly minimum spend requirements on them in the
monthly minimum spend requirements were more than his monthly total monthly salary like it was like very flashy [ __ ]
nobody will know um okay FBI
Special Agent salary I'm just want to see so if you're a special agent
it says 91 to 130 per year now anyway so picture what 1993 I think his
salary in 1993 was 60 000. yeah so it's like a relative it's a good job but it's
not like a millionaire job he was driving a jaguar job yeah he had like tailored suits they
bought a 550 000 house in 93 That's like [ __ ] seven million dollars today yeah
I can't do math but like that's what I think 100 years that's exactly exactly right so here's what I'm going to say
like the whole difference between Hanson and Ames is interesting Ames was operating in this capacity for
it would have been nine years it made 4.6 million dollars
Hansen was operating from 79 to 2001 and in total made 1.4 million
oh my God dumb like all these people were killed and died over 1.4 million
over the span of whatever many years that is what is that 22 years yeah like what is that on a monthly
basis hold on uh one for divided by 22. that's 63 000
a year which I guess in today's money would be a lot more but like still that's like
not that much money especially other people are getting so much more money it's like when you talk about your
salary you find out someone's making more money video like that's what kind of what's going on yeah basically yeah
meeting and been like they should have had a union and then they could have been like yes these guys need to organize
uh for real so it was the flashing of the money everywhere that made everybody be like
how was this hair living this way it's like we know we have a mole this guy is wearing Armani suits every day
driving his Jaguar to work what's going on and that's why they focus on Aim so
in 1984 the doj arrested Ames and he was formerly charged with Espionage so the government thought we got him we're good
like we got we got it right this is the only guy right this is it we're done and
Hansen because they knew the same people they they've been fairly consistent with
the overlap in terms of information they'd been given but there were two incidences that Ames could never have been responsible for that the government
knew about answers with the CIA Hanson was with the FBI that guy I mentioned earlier Felix
block he was under investigation by the FBI so Ames wouldn't have known about him
in addition in 1977 the Soviet Union began working on a new Embassy in Washington DC the FBI had dug a tunnel
underneath it with the intent of listening in on conversations in the decoding room
the Soviet Union and somehow the FBI learned about this and they looked at
that and was like okay all these people dying got it it could have been it could have been either one it could be Ames
but these two things could never have been hit he never would have known about these two things so again the FBI and
the CIA come back together they formed the Joint Task Force throughout where this league is coming from they ended up
paying about seven million dollars to a KGB double Asia to provide them with information on a US double agent
essentially and he produced a follow-on one called named B like his nickname was
just a letter b the file contained an audio recording which the investigating officer said he
thought was familiar like the voice on it was really familiar but he just couldn't place it in the file there were transcripts of
the conversation had by being as Handler which included a kind of troublesome phrase which came from General Patton
the phrase was quote the purple pissing Japanese which is not good I don't know what that means but it's not good
I don't know how that's racist but I'm positive it is a hundred percent is yes it's
in another FBI analyst investing in the case where calls it Hansen use that quote like you would say that phrase for
some reason or another and then that's how you get caught it it's like having your cake and eating it too yeah exactly
if you have don't have a catchphrase if you're not trying to get caught exactly
this is 101 stuff Hanson knows we're referring to Ted Kaczynski
because he used the wrong phrase to say that and that's how he got caught while his brother tournament but like
that's how his brother figured out that it was him anyways so this FBA let's listen to this and heard this phrase it
was like Hey Hanson uses that phrase they re-listened to the tape and like yup that's his voice that's definitely Robert
there are parts of the story that almost feel like a Mel Brooks movie and this is kind of one of them so at this point the
FBI was sure that Hanson was the guy and they decided to promote him they gave him a new high profile job at
a new division within the FBI they gave him uh amazing corner office it was just
like making him feel like everything was going great all that good stuff and they also gave him an assistant but this guy was actually another special agent who
sole job was to find incriminating information on Hanson this guy noticed that Hanson always
carried around a personal Palm Pilot he like clutched this thing like it was like there was like a reason why he was
so attached to this thing I remember this and he suspected that this is probably where he is use what he's using
to save and transmit this classified information and somehow someway Hanson leaves a Palm
Pilot in like his suit jacket goes somewhere this guy decides this is my
one chance grabs the the Palm Pilot runs it down to the to the tech staff to do a
download they basically reverse encrypt whatever it and then download the content and he's able to return it one
note that they mentioned is that the guy forgot what pocket he took it out of and he was like [ __ ] if I put this in the
wrong pocket this guy's Gonna Know The Jig Is up and like he might just kill me because he has a gun because like he's an FBI agent I love that I have a couple
things to say kids a Palm Pilot was like a notebook that you had in your hand
that was digital essentially all you could do was like like take notes on it and do a calendar you can like email you don't even email
people could you whatever either way old-fashioned phone and
I love that that's so funny because you imagine being at work and not being able to trust [ __ ] anyone like right now
you're like oh I I don't trust Tavaris because I think he might be trying to like you know take my job but like not I
don't trust as far as because he might be an international Soviets by trying to break down America and share nuclear
secrets maybe my assistant whatever like like at work you'd just be like
everyone's a spy so in some way or another the thing is like in all
interconnects like there were like 15 other stories that segued off of the
Robert Hansen story into like so many different people that like like
in the middle of um trying to catch Robert Hansen they caught like one or two other
U.S spots to the KGB like it was just like all this people getting ensnared in this whole thing it's just everybody's a
snitch everybody's a rat everybody's trying to [ __ ] their country over apparently for real anyways this guy gets the Palm Pilot
back in the right suit jacket uh at this point it did it didn't seem like Robert was like any wise wiser to like what was
going on it only seemed like a few days later where he was just like man people are being like weirdly nice to me and like super interested in what I'm up to
but you just think that's when I started Dawning on that something might be going on and
it was February 18th of 2001 this is five weeks before his scheduled
retirement he performs his last Dead Drop he goes to a park in Virginia and he his signal
to his handler was he would leave a white piece of tape on a sign and that would mean that there was
something at the drop so go check it and then it's me Robert Hansen I left something here yeah it's a little bit
less than that I dropped I dropped this off here no but he would be kind of smart because
what was it he would add a six to every date so like if he was gonna drop
something off at like on January 1st at 1pm he would write it as July wait
July May June no who right is like June you know
seventh or whatever you don't mean like you just added six to everything he would kind of encrypt his stuff a little
bit and decode it but not that great so he takes a garbage bag full of
classified information duct tapes it underneath a Footbridge in this park and
that's where the FBI saw him do it they immediately came in and arrested him and
then they actually didn't take the bag away they sat there for like it would have been two days they sat there for
two days waiting for his Handler to show up and he never showed up and then at that point they finally announced the media that we caught this incredible
yeah they were watching yeah totally yeah and he uh he would have gotten the
death penalty but he ended up taking a plea plea agreement he ended up getting he pled guilty to 13 counts of Espionage
she was sentenced to 15 life sentences he was to do his play his time like the
worst place on Earth adx Florence OR adx Florence and solitary confinement for 23 hours a day that's where Chapo Guzman is
being held like it is the worst worst place in in 24 hours a day is a lot it's
crazy there's a picture of him at adx and like he just looks like he's been crying like all day long like he looks
it looks really bad and again that was five weeks before he was supposed to retire he this is kind of topical so
this guy actually died like almost two months ago today so he died he died on
my birthday yeah oh June 5th yeah there you go yeah he died on June 5th and it's August 6th today so yeah two months ago
so kind of topical a huge scumbag a lot of people died because of what he did and there was a
you go down so many rabbit holes when you research stuff like this like that first guy that he ratted on the the
general that ended up getting shot in the back of the head that guy the information he passed on
like was hugely consequential like part of it had to do with the fact that like how
Russia and Chinese relations were like not good like they weren't they weren't
doing good with each other and that was like a big reason why Nixon thought it was a good idea to open up relations
with China and to kind of like bring down that wall which like now you look at the downstream impact of that and how
impactful China is like the U.S economy the global economy like all of it it's all interwoven and interconnected and so
again like it's partially fun and sexy and interesting and all that but the other part is like it's like world
consequences are involved which is totally like so many people get hurt it's crazy
that Ultra Ames guy they suspect 25 people were killed directly because of the information he gave wow
just so you drive a Jag s on jumpsuits six thousand dollar suit
come on so anyways that's my story I am gonna
continue watching spycraft and there's a movie about this story yeah it's called breach Ryan Felipe plays the um the FBI
agent who was his assistant who stole the Palm Pilot so it should be pretty good but breaches yeah breach is now on
my list of movies that I need to watch and make popcorn but FBI upstart Eric O'Neill enters into a power game with
his boss Robert Hansen oh I totally want to watch that yeah I think it's kind of like like that guy Eric O'Neill turned out to be like a
pretty interesting character in his own right like he ended up I mean stuff like this makes you a celebrity
yeah it's fun so Laura Lenny's in it I love her
cool and the guy who plays hands in that movie he's he's the dad who uh in uh
American Beauty yeah Chris Cooper yes like he he looks
like the ideal guy to play Handsome himself yeah there's a whole Sidetrack here that I didn't go into this guy was
an opus day member like remember that remember Barbara Henson yeah
yeah he would do he would do like gross things like he he um
he would record him and his wife having sex and like give it to his buddy like without her knowing about it
he had like he had like a prostitute he would like fly around and visit like he was like a
uh he was just gross I don't know yeah I know nothing he's a bad person he's a bad person yeah he seems like a
bad guy well wow so
but that's my uplifting story of the day well wow trust no one is really the
answer there especially for the FBI oh my God imagine if you like had a best friend your best friend's not really your best friend trust no one not your
families not your friends spouses anyone they're all out to get you 100 100
um well cool thank you for sharing that was awesome it sounds like there's a lot more I'll watch that spycraft show that
sounds really fun it is fun and now we have reached the point of our podcast where
through the magic of editing we are going to stop talking and start a new
but I have one more thing just to mention at the end of this one we joined Tick Tock this week which is hilarious
like we have four followers but whatever because I can put like I can make cute little um collages of our videos so those are
going up right now and I'm also adding our transcripts to our podcast they're
not perfect they're like the automated ones but if you do want one that is Perfecter like a little bit better
um let us know and I can prioritize making them better but right now there's just um decent transcripts available is there
any list or mail no yeah people write to us fun it's fun
it's fun to get those emails does Ryan say does Ryan say you know
I listen today or some I don't know whatever yay well tell your friends please uh give us uh Stars if you if you
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yep let me go ahead and cut it off here
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