Aldrich Ames

Early life and education

Aldrich Hazen ("Rick") Ames was born in River Falls, Wisconsin, on May 26, 1941, to Carleton Cecil Ames and Rachel Ames (née Aldrich). His father was a lecturer at the Wisconsin State College–River Falls, and his mother a high school English teacher. Aldrich was the eldest of three children and the only son. In 1952, his father began working with the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations in Langley, Virginia. The following year, in 1953, his father was posted to Burma for three years, and the family relocated there. Carleton received a "particularly negative performance appraisal" in part because of serious alcoholism, and spent the remainder of his career at CIA headquarters in Langley.

Ames attended McLean High School in McLean, Virginia. Beginning in 1957, following his sophomore year, he worked for the CIA for three summers as a low-ranking GS-3 records analyst as part of a program to give temporary jobs to children of CIA employees. Ames was responsible for marking classified documents for filing as well as making fake money to be used in training programs for "the Farm", where CIA trainees began. Two years later, in 1959, Ames entered the University of Chicago, where he planned to study foreign cultures and history. His "long-time passion" for theater, however, resulted in failing grades, and he did not finish his second year.

CIA career

Ames returned to the CIA during the summer of 1960 as a laborer and painter. He then became an assistant technical director at a Chicago theater until February 1962. Returning to the Washington metropolitan area, Ames took full-time employment at the CIA doing the same sort of clerical jobs he had performed in high school. While taking his first polygraph examination, Ames claimed to have committed a crime, which was considered no probability of deception. When asked to elaborate on the offense, Ames confessed that he and a friend not affiliated with CIA, while drunk, stole a delivery boy's bicycle and went joyriding; this confession had not been considered grave enough to disqualify Ames from a security clearance.

Five years after beginning his work for the CIA, Ames completed a bachelor's degree in history at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He did not plan to have a career with the agency, but after attaining the grade of GS-7 and receiving good performance appraisals, he was accepted into the Career Trainee Program despite several alcohol-related brushes with the police. In 1969, Ames married a fellow CIA officer, Nancy Segebarth, whom he had met in the Career Trainee Program.

Ames was assigned to Ankara, Turkey, and Nancy then resigned from the CIA because of a rule that prohibited married partners from working from the same office. Ames's job in Turkey was to target Soviet intelligence officers for recruitment. He succeeded in infiltrating the communist Dev-Genç organization through a roommate of student activist Deniz Gezmiş and a beauty pageant contestant whose boyfriend was participating in a movement to overthrow the Turkish government. In spite of this success, Ames's performance was rated only "satisfactory". His superiors considered the spies recruited to be of sufficient value, but a remark was made that Ames was "unsuited for field work and it is recommended he spend the remainder of his career at CIA headquarters". Discouraged by the critical assessment, Ames considered resigning from the agency.

In 1972, Ames returned to CIA headquarters, where he spent the next four years in the Soviet-East European (SE) Division, where he was responsible for managing assets and his skills were better utilized. His performance reviews were "generally enthusiastic". Nevertheless, his excessive drinking was noted, and two "eyes only" memoranda were placed in his file.

Espionage

Ames routinely assisted another CIA office that assessed Soviet embassy officials as potential intelligence assets. As part of this responsibility, and with the knowledge of both the CIA and the FBI, Ames began making contacts within the Soviet embassy.

In April 1985, Ames's espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union began. He provided information to the Soviets on two CIA agents that he believed was "essentially valueless" but would establish his credentials as a CIA insider. In exchange for it, he asked for $50,000, which the Soviets quickly paid. Ames later claimed that he had not prepared for more than the initial "con game" to satisfy his immediate indebtedness, but having "crossed a line" he "could never step back".

Ames soon identified more than ten top-level CIA and FBI sources who were reporting on Soviet activities. Not only did Ames believe that there was "as much money as [he] could ever use" in betraying these intelligence assets, but their elimination would also reduce the chance of his own espionage being discovered. The CIA's network of Soviet-bloc agents began disappearing at an alarming rate, including double agents Gennady Varenik and Dmitri Polyakov. The CIA realized something was wrong but was reluctant to consider the possibility of a mole within their agency. Initial investigations focused on possible breaches caused by Soviet bugs or a code that had been broken.

The CIA initially blamed asset losses on another former CIA agent, Edward Lee Howard, who had also been passing information to the Soviets. But when the agency lost three other important assets about whom Howard could not have known anything, it was clear that the arrests and resulting executions were the result of information provided by another source. One CIA officer said that the Soviets "were wrapping up our cases with reckless abandon", which was highly unusual because the "prevailing wisdom among the Agency's professional 'spy catchers'" was that suddenly eliminating all the assets known to the mole would put him in danger. In fact, Ames's KGB handlers had apologized to him, saying they disagreed with that course of action, but that the decision to immediately eliminate all American assets had been made at the highest political levels.

Meanwhile, Ames continued to meet openly with his contact at the Soviet embassy, Sergey Dmitriyevich Chuvakhin. For a time, Ames summarized for the CIA and FBI the progress of what he portrayed as an attempt to recruit Chuvakhin. Ames received $20,000 to $50,000 every time the two had lunch. Ultimately, Ames received $4.6 million (equivalent to $13.8 million in 2025) from the Soviets, which allowed him to enjoy a lifestyle well beyond the means of a CIA officer. In August 1985, when Ames's divorce became final, he immediately married Rosario Casas Dupuy. Understanding that his new wealth would raise eyebrows, he developed a cover story that his prosperity was the result of money given to him by his Colombian wife's wealthy family. Ames wired considerable amounts of his espionage payments to his new in-laws in Bogotá to help improve their impoverished status.

CIA response

In late 1986, the CIA assembled a team to investigate the source of the leaks. Led by Paul Redmond, and including Jeanne Vertefeuille, Sandra Grimes, Diana Worthen, and Dan Payne, the team examined the possibility that the KGB had bugged the agency, intercepted its communications, or had a mole in place. By 1990, the CIA was certain that there was a mole in the agency, but was unable to identify the exact source. Recruitment of new Soviet agents was brought to a near halt, since the agency feared it could not protect its current assets.

Prior to that, in November 1989, a fellow employee reported that Ames seemed to be enjoying a lifestyle well beyond the means of a CIA officer, and that his wife's family was less wealthy than he had claimed. Worthen, one of the members of the mole hunt team, had known Rosario prior to her marriage and had met with her one day to discuss installing drapes in the Ames residence. Worthen had recently installed drapes in her own home and knew they could be expensive. She asked which room to concentrate on first, to which Rosario laughed and said, "Do not worry about the price, we are going to have the whole house done at once!". Worthen also knew that Rosario's parents had little money, and a CIA contact in Bogotá observed that her family was now well-off. Nevertheless, the CIA moved slowly. When the investigator assigned to look at Ames's finances began a two-month training course, no one immediately replaced him. Investigators were also diverted by a false story from a CIA officer abroad who claimed that the Soviets had penetrated the CIA with an employee born in the USSR (Ames was born in River Falls, Wisconsin).

In 1986 and 1991, Ames passed two polygraph examinations while spying for the Soviet Union. He was initially "terrified" at the prospect of taking the test but was advised by the KGB "to just relax". Ames's test demonstrated deceptive answers to some questions, but the examiners passed him. In the later opinion of the CIA, this was because the examiners were "overly friendly" and therefore did not induce the proper physiological response.

The CIA finally focused on Ames after co-workers noted his sharper personal appearance, including:

Cosmetic dentistry: Ames's teeth, which were yellowed as a result of heavy smoking, had been capped

Arrest

In March 1993, the CIA and FBI began an intensive investigation of Ames that included electronic surveillance, combing through his trash, and installing a monitor in his car to track his movements. From November 1993 until his arrest, Ames was kept under virtually constant physical surveillance. In early 1994, when he was scheduled to attend a conference in Moscow, the FBI believed it could wait no longer, and he and his wife were arrested on February 21. February 21st fell on President's Day. a national holiday and the Ameses were home. Ames was drawn out through a call from his supervisor that the team was needed for an emergency meeting. Shortly after driving onto the street, Ames was pulled over in an apparent traffic stop. At his arrest, Ames told officers, "You're making a big mistake! You must have the wrong man!". Inside the Ames residence, an FBI agent informed Rosario in Spanish that she was also being arrested.

On February 22, 1994, the Department of Justice formally charged Ames and his wife in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia with spying for the USSR and subsequently the Russian Federation. Charges were also prepared for tax evasion, as no money Russia paid was declared. Ames filed false joint income tax returns for fiscal years 1985-1994. Ames' defense that illegal income did not fall under purview of earned income was rejected at his trial. Ames pleaded guilty, and on April 28 U.S. district judge Claude M. Hilton sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. As part of Ames's plea bargain, his wife received a lesser sentence of five years for tax evasion and conspiracy to commit espionage.

In court, Ames confessed that he had compromised "virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other American and foreign services known to me" and had provided the USSR and Russia with a "huge quantity of information on United States foreign, defense and security policies". It is estimated that information Ames provided to the Soviets led to the compromise of at least 100 American intelligence operations and the execution of at least ten sources. Ames's betrayal of CIA methods also allowed the KGB to use "controlled agents" to feed the U.S. both genuine intelligence and disinformation from 1986 to 1993. Some of this "feed material" was incorporated into CIA intelligence reports, several of which even reached three U.S. presidents.

Ames admitted he was unprepared for getting arrested by the FBI but was afraid of Soviet defectors, saying, "Virtually every American who has been jailed in connection with espionage has been fingered by a Soviet source". Additionally, when asked about the polygraph tests, Ames said, "There's no special magic. Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner. Rapport, where you smile and you make him think that you like him. Making the examiner believe that the exam has no importance to you seals the deal."

Sentence and death

Ames was incarcerated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons as prisoner #40087-083 and served his life sentence at the maximum-security United States Penitentiary, Allenwood, in White Deer, Pennsylvania, at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Terre Haute, Indiana, and at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) near Cumberland, Maryland.

The CIA was criticized for not focusing on Ames sooner, given the obvious increase in his standard of living. There was a "huge uproar" in Congress when CIA Director James Woolsey decided that no one in the agency would be dismissed or demoted in relation to Ames's espionage. "Some have clamored for heads to roll in order that we could say that heads have rolled," Woolsey declared. "Sorry, that's not my way." Woolsey later resigned under pressure.

Ames's attorney, Plato Cacheris, threatened to litigate the legality of the FBI's searches and seizures in Ames's home and office without conventional search warrants, although Ames's guilty plea made the threat moot. Congress then passed a new law that granted specific power to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize such searches. Ames was ineligible for the death penalty since his acts of espionage all took place before the 1994 Federal Death Penalty Act, which fully reinstated capital punishment on the federal level.

On January 5, 2026, Ames died at the Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland, at the age of 84. His death was reported in a federal prisoner database and confirmed by a government spokesperson, who also informed the press of where he had died.

CIA sources compromised

Vitaly Yurchenko was a KGB officer in the Fifth Department of Directorate K, "the highest-ranking KGB officer ever to defect to the United States". In August 1985, he defected to the U.S. via Rome, only to return to the Soviet Union three months later. Ames was privy to all information that Yurchenko gave to the CIA and was able to transmit it to the KGB, which allowed easy cover-ups of lost information. Upon his return to the Soviet Union, Yurchenko was reassigned to a desk job within the FCD as a reward for helping to keep Ames's spying a secret.

Major General Dmitri Polyakov was a high-ranking figure in the GRU who gave information to the CIA from the early 1960s until his retirement in 1980. He was executed in 1988 after Ames exposed him. Polyakov was probably the most valuable asset compromised by Ames. One CIA official said of Polyakov: "He didn't do this for money. He insisted on staying in place to help us."

Colonel Oleg Gordievsky was the head of the London rezidentura (station) and spied for MI6. Ames handed over information about Gordievsky that positively identified him as a double agent, although Gordievsky managed to escape to the Finnish border, where he was extracted to the United Kingdom via Norway by MI6 before he could be detained in the Soviet Union.

Adolf Tolkachev was an electrical engineer who was one of the chief designers at the Phazotron company, which produces military radars and avionics. Tolkachev passed information to the CIA between 1979 and 1985, compromising multiple radar and missile secrets, as well as turning over classified information on avionics. He was arrested in 1985 after being compromised by both Ames and Edward Lee Howard, and was executed in 1986.

Valery Martynov was a Line X (Technical & Scientific Intelligence) officer at the Washington rezidentura. He revealed the identities of fifty Soviet intelligence officers operating from the embassy and technical and scientific targets that the KGB had penetrated. After being identified by Ames, he was tapped by the KGB to escort Yurchenko to Moscow; however, this was a ruse. Martynov was arrested, interrogated, and charged with espionage upon his return. He was executed in 1987.

Major Sergei Motorin was a Line PR (political intelligence) officer at the Washington rezidentura, whom the FBI tried to blackmail into spying for the Americans. He eventually cooperated for his own reasons. Motorin was one of two moles at the rezidentura betrayed by Ames and was executed in 1988.

Aldrich Ames and Jonathan Pollard

Rafi Eitan, the Israeli handler of Jonathan Pollard, alleged that Pollard was blamed for some of Ames's crimes. Pollard was convicted of passing classified information to Israel in 1987 and served 30 years in prison. Eitan stated that Pollard never exposed American agents in the Soviet Union or elsewhere, and that he believed Ames tried to blame Pollard to clear himself of suspicion. Interviewed by Ronen Bergman, Eitan said, "I have no doubt that had Pollard been tried today, in light of what is known about Ames and other agents who were exposed, he would have received a much lighter sentence."