Cia where she worked for years, hired by the cia right out of college in 1967. She spent two and a half decades rising through the agencys ranks and assignments working against the soviet union and Eastern European countries. She was about to resign in 1991 when she was asked to stay for one more assignment. That assignment involves joining a five person team charged with figuring out why so many of the cias most valued soviet assets ad been executed or imprisoned several years earlier. The investigation ended up exposing one of the most destructive traders in u. S. History, aldrich ames, a cia counterIntelligence Officer. Since his conviction in 1994, ames has been serving a life entence. Her book, circle of treason, was the first account from inside the cia not only of how aldrich ames was caught, but of the men that he betrayed. Sandy wrote it with another longtime Agency Member who participated in the investigation. Their book was First Published a little over a year ago in 2012 and jeanne passed away at the end of 2012. But their story has gained fresh attention as the result of the eight part abc miniseries, the asset, which started airing last month. There has been a lot of focus on women at the cia. The movie, zero dark thirty played up a role of a female undercover officer tracking down osama bin laden, the popular showtime series homeland revolves around a female analyst. Sandys reallife experience lacked some of the drama of these fictionalized characters, and she told me also that one of her conditions putting together the assets was her character have no affairs. She put her foot down. Ld school, she says. But sandy definitely remains a very bright and determined intelligence professional who did our country a very great service. A review of her book in the Washington Times calls circle of treason the cia account of traitor aldrich ames and the men he betrayed the most gripping insider account of a counterintelligence operation that you will ever read. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming sandra rimes. [applause] sandra thank you very much. Can everybody hear me . I have to take my glasses off to see my notes. All right. I am delighted to be here to talk about our book circle of treason or co before i get started, my remarks are going to be fairly brief because i want to leave a lot of time for your questions and i will be glad to answer, i assume, most of them i will be, able to. I also want to say i am here to represent my good friend and coauthor jeanne vertefeuille. As i tell you about our journey to determine who or what caused the wholesale loss of our soviet assets in 1985 and in 1986. In 1991, that led us to search for a traitor in cia. To make matters worse, we knew he wouldnt be a stranger. He would be a coworker, a colleague, someone we had known for a very long time, and someone we probably saw everyday in the hallways of our headquarters building. But it is not just a story of how we identified a spy. It is much more than that. For the first time, jeanne and i are able to tell the history of cias contacts with his victims. Many of their stories are ours as well. We participated in the handling of a number of these cases and we watched as those we knew were arrested and executed. Always concerned that we might have made a mistake, which led to their deaths is the burden no one wants to carry. But i have to be completely honest, that is what a number of us in cia had to do for the next eight years. Until our mole was dentified. You may have noticed i have yet to mention his name. We all know it is aldrich ames, or rick as he was known to us. And yes, he was a colleague. And for me personally, he and i were carpool partners in the mid1970s. And on april 16, 1985, aldrich ames decided to walk through the front door of the soviet embassy, Downtown Washington d. C. 16th street and volunteer his services to the soviet union. Two months later, he also decided to provide his kgb handlers with the names of identifying information on every single one of our human sources reporting on the soviet union. Those who were currently reporting, those who were long retired, those who were dormant. And in doing so, he knew full well what fate awaited them. They would be a arrested, they would be interrogated, they would face a trial, they would be convicted, and they would be executed. A bullet to the back of the ead. Now, it is 1985. Nd our nightmare begins. Late may, gru asset vulcan who we are handling in athens, greece, received a cable from his headquarters saying you are to return to moscow. He decides to defect and we bring him safely to the u. S. Early august, our kgb asset, arrested in moscow during a home leave. Sometime between late august and early october, our asset in lisbon, portugal is also arrested in moscow also during a home leave. November 6, our kgb asset in washington d. C. Boards a flight at dulles bound for moscow. Over and back, short trip. We never see him again. Again, early november. Our kgb asset in west germany travels to east berlin for a three day conference. He disappears. And in 1986, february, our kgb asset in moscow is arrested. Une or july, as best as we can tell, our g. R. U. Asset in moscow is arrested. July 7, 1986, our long retired g. R. U. Asset is arrested in moscow, one day after his 65th birthday. He is the highest ranking soviet Intelligence Officer this government has ever run. Nd unfortunately, into 1987, our kgb asset in moscow, long etired, is arrested. So here we are, it is the end of 1985, and obviously something is seriously wrong. Two possible explanations. We either have a human penetration of cia, or our communications have been compromised. In other words they are reading our traffic. What do we do . Ur first action was taken in response to a new volunteer. In january of 1986, a soviet Intelligence Officer volunteered to cia. Now, our goal was simple. We got to try to keep this one alive. We have no idea whether it is a traitor or technical penetration, so we have to guard gainst each possibility. With respect to the traitor side of the equation, we institute what we still to this day still affectionately call draconian security measures. We simply eliminate almost everybody from those who are aware of our new asset. Now, we have got to address the technical side. With respect to our Staff Communications and the possibility that they are reading traffic on soviet cases. Well, this one was a little bit more difficult, so we basically punted. We ignored Staff Communications. We did not, there was zero cable traffic between headquarters and the field station where our new asset was located. We went back to basics to communicate. As we affectionately also say, it was not the stone age, but it as pretty close. Although we did have something that was sort of out of this world at the time. Ok. We have our new asset, he is okay. We are keeping this one alive. Enter my coauthor jeanne vertefeuille, who is on assignment in libreville as our chief of station. She returns to headquarters in the middle of the 1986, and she is tapped with trying to determine what the heck happened. She has a Small Task Force of people who begin this effort. Now at the same time, jeanne and her people are looking at our losses, the fbi has also established a task force. They suffered similar problems with their soviet cases during the same time period as we. Alright. Now we are going to have to fastforward. It is early 1991, a little over five years, we still do not have a clue as to what happened. Not a clue. Now, that is not to say that there were not plenty of explanations, plenty of leads. There were lots. Each was fully investigated and each was discarded. Meanwhile, the fbi also doesnt have a clue as to what caused their losses. However, there is a bit of good news. Since we instituted those draconian security measures we havent lost a single new ource. And the number of reporting sources on the soviet union had continued to increase and we were able to keep every single one of them alive. Because of this, there were some eople in senior positions in cia, who believed that what had happened in 1985 and in 1986 was largely a historical problem. It might be nice to know the answer, but it was not affecting our current operations. We were doing just fine. We were once again back in business. Enter jean again. She was facing mandatory retirement at the end of 992. She still felt terribly guilty that she had been unable to answer the question as to why we suffered so many losses during that awful period, and she wanted to spend the rest of her time until mandatory retirement taking one more look at these cases. There had to be an answer. She viewed this as a solitary effort. It would only be jeanne looking at me old record. However, that was soon to change. I have to be completely honest. It was really due to happenstance that i ended up working with her, looking for the answer, as did two fbi employees, one was a special agent and one a soviet analyst. Eventually, we added a fifth member to our little task force, cia officer, our office of ecurity. Now, the book takes you for our search for a traitor. Out of approximately 160 cia employees, who over the years had access to information about one or more of our lost cases. The investigation itself, i will younes of jeannes favorite words, was manypronged, and it really involved just simply months of mindnumbing work with the occasional nugget which kept s going. That and is not to say there wasnt a eureka moment. There was. And it occurred in early august, 1992, just about a year after we had been our group had been assembled. At the time, i had been given the task of creating a chronology of all of ricks activities from 1985 until the present, 1992. That particular august morning i was able to connect the dates of meetings he was having with the soviet development of contact in washington d. C. With cash deposits he had made to one of his local checking accounts. This was the first link that would lead to his arrest and his onviction. It was cash. It was after meetings with the soviet national, who was knocked an Intelligence Officer, arms control specialist. He really was what he said he was. And every one of these deposits, at that time there were only three we had records of. Every one of them was below the 10,000 reporting requirement that the feds had put on the banks at the time. Alright. Lastly, where we ever afraid he was going to get away with treason . You bet we were. All enough, it happened as our task force was drawing to a close in early 1993. Several months prior, the fbi analyst began to prepare a report of our findings. Now, this was not a cia document. It was an official fbi document, because we were turning everything over to them. Jeanne and i definitely had a say in the draft stages of the paper, but the final wording was eyond our control. And as we understood it, when he report came out in march of 1993, it did not identify rich ames as the primary suspect. It did, however, have his name on a short list of other possible suspects. For jeanne and myself, it was a very difficult time. We were convinced aldrich ames was our traitor. We spent two years looking for him and our analysis proved that o be the case. We also knew the fbi did not share our belief and would continue to focus on others on heir new short list. But thankfully, and it truly is thankfully, Additional Information became available which did not offensive rick, did not identify rick, but it certainly pointed in his direction. And most importantly it forced the fbi to open a fullscale investigation of rick ames. One year later, february 21, 1994, president s day, a government holiday, and we were at work. Rick ames is arrested around the corner from his house. Not too long after that, he was on his way to cia headquarters to answer a fictitious cable. However, not very long after that his wife was arrested at their home. Both of them eventually pled guilty to espionage. Rosario received five years, which she served in a federal facility in danbury, connecticut. Upon her release she was stripped of her u. S. Citizenship. She was a naturalized citizen and deported to columbia. Rick received life. And you know, i was just thinking it is almost 20 years, coming up on 20 years. And he is at alanwood federal penitentiary in pennsylvania. Still residing there. As i mentioned at the beginning, jeanne and i are most proud that we have finally been given permission to be able to tell the story of our assets. They are about real people, real spying and real contributions. And most important, jeanne and i, and to so many others at the cia understood when these soviet Intelligence Officers for the most part volunteered their services to the United States government, they knew they were putting their lives in our hands. And we, meaning cia, failed them. We couldnt repay them for their sacrifices and we certainly couldnt repay their families for their losses. But we did owe each and every one of them an answer. That was our goal, that was our mission, and that really is the story of circle of reason. Questions on that sad note . [applause] yes . So this happened over 20 years ago. With todays technology, with data mining and predicted analytics, do you think that would have accelerated you or helped you in your search . Sandra no. Not at all. I will use this as an example. Rick ames had no personal meetings here in washington d. C. All his personal meetings with his kgb handlers were abroad. However, he managed, just like bob hansen from the fbi, if you keep it simple it usually tends to work. The basics usually dont fail you in spying. He loaded drops, he made signal sites, he unloaded drops, and he was under complete technical coverage by the fbi and they are very good at that. And the phones were bugged, cameras everywhere. It was not just at his house, it was at cia headquarters. There were beacons on his car. So no, all that stuff, not in the terms of the spying that we did. Questions, please. [indiscernible] i remember at the time the report talked about consumption, increased fluids, and it has been a long time, but i remember questions about how could people not see his increased influence . And why that did not raise questions. Sandra rick and his increased consumption, and one thing you read in the papers all the time, was his red jaguar. Lets put it this way. Rick, as i said, walked in, started to work for the soviets n april of 1985. You saw zero change in rick ames until he returned from a tour in rome. That was in 1989. He was still the slovenly rick ames i had always known. Truly. But rick said, this was his cover story, that he had gotten the money from his wifes family, rosario. Her father had died in the mid80s. We knew they were from a wellconnected family in colombia. As a matter of fact, the family as it turned out, the extended family gave the land to build the largest soccer fields in bogota. Rosario, who met rick when they were both assigned to mexico city, she was with the colombian embassy. She was there secretary. She got an appointment from the president of colombia, so it was not out of the question that obviously some of this money came from her side of the family. But i always say this with respect to that stupid red jaguar. Rick and i parked in the same garage. This was while we were on the task force. I had to walk past three red jaguars before i got to my car and one was ricks. [laughter] sandra this wasnt out of the ordinary. The same, i might add, you didnt ask the question with respect to ricks drinking. Jeanne and i had known him for over 20 years. I did socialize with rick a bit. We were not close friends, but we were closer in age and we had grown up as young officers together in the organization. Even at the christmas parties, which were very nice affairs in the olden days, i never saw rick drunk ever. You read all this stuff. He was a binge drinker, particularly after he had married rosario. This was his second marriage. Whenever she was out of the country, or out of town, he would get drunk. I think it was this sort of, i owe myself one. And i never met rosario. But she apparently was so difficult that her lawyers couldnt stand her. Even the poor bureau guys listening to the phone. [laughter] sandra they thought rick was abused. [laughter] sandra so a human touch to ames. And i will add one more thing, if you had told me that rick ames was going to be one of the worst traitors this country had ever seen, i would have said no in the early days. Not the aldrich ames i knew. And i knew him since 1973. So yes . Were there other people around you other than rick ames that drew more suspicion and had you thought about what was the distinction between him and the others that he seemed to be not suspect to such an extreme degree . And do you know what ever happened to rosario . Sandra i will answer that one first. What happened to rosario. I dont have a clue. I suspect she is alive and well and living the good life in bogota where her family is. They did have one child, paul is his name. Nd he is in his 20s now. When rosario went off to jail, her mother took paul back to colombia where he was raised. He was 5 or 6 at the time. Rick had no children by his irst marriage. What was the question again . E was not suspect. Where there others who were more suspect . I am not going to tell you their names if they were. However this is a story, fairly long story. When we started the task force, we have 160 people, there is no way we can investigate 160 without an army. We had to find some way to rioritize. It was simple, not scientific, and roundly criticized after ricks arrest. But it worked. We had four members of our task force and six other individuals, four from the cia and two from the fbi. We asked them to please rivately write down on a piece of paper im almost embarrassed to tell this story. ve told it so many times. The names of five or six people who made them uneasy. Dont forget, were looking for traitor here. And made them uneasy and individuals they thought we should take a close look at first. Okay. Then we asked them to please put them in rank order. The one that made you the most uneasy, second and so on down. This was not a contest you wanted to win. We took the submissions, totaled all the numbers, and a real surprise. Rick ames came out on top. He had the most points. 21. And i will toot my own horn here, as i say, i will use eannes words. Of all those who voted, only sandy gets the gold star. She had him in first place. Now, here we are. We have a new short list. Rick wasnt the only one who got more than one or two points. What we did, though, we looked at the small group first. Eventually ames became our primary target, our primary focus. That is not to say we didnt continue to look at the rest of the people by this time, probably 150, 200 on the list. We concentrated on those on the short