Aldrich Ames

The CIA counterintelligence officer who sold Soviet assets to Moscow, 1985 to 1994

Overview

Aldrich Ames spied for the USSR and then Russia from 1985 to 1994, selling the identities of CIA assets in exchange for millions of dollars that bought cars and a paid-off house. At least ten sources in Moscow were executed after his disclosures. His sudden wealth eventually exposed him, and he and his wife were arrested in 1994, drawing life imprisonment for him. The case drove sweeping counterintelligence reforms and is taught as a study of missed warning signs. The CIA inspector general later detailed how counterintelligence warnings about him were ignored for years.