Ex-CIA officer, notorious double agent Aldrich Ames dies at eighty-four
He passed away on Monday while serving a life sentence without parole at a federal prison in Maryland. Ames was convicted on April 28, 1994, after admitting to selling classified information to the Soviet Union and later to Russia.
During his espionage, Ames compromised over 100 covert operations and revealed the identities of more than 30 Western spies, resulting in the deaths of at least 10 CIA assets.
In financial need, Ames began supplying the KGB with the names of CIA operatives in April 1985, initially receiving $50,000. Known to Soviet intelligence by his code name Kolokol (The Bell), he went on to expose nearly all of the CIA’s agents in the USSR, receiving substantial payments in return.
"To my enduring surprise, the KGB replied that it had set aside for me $2 million in gratitude for the information," Ames said in an eight-page statement read to the court. Over nine years, he acknowledged receiving around $2.5 million for his betrayals.
The money supported an extravagant lifestyle, including a new Jaguar, overseas vacations, and a $540,000 house, despite never earning more than $70,000 annually.
Ames’ 31-year tenure at the CIA began in 1962 after his father, an agency analyst, helped him secure a position following his college dropout. In 1969, he married fellow CIA officer Nancy Segebarth and was posted to Turkey as a counterintelligence officer to recruit foreign agents.
Three years later, he returned to the US, where struggles with alcohol surfaced and his marriage deteriorated.
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