OPINION — I had an unpleasant episode with Aldrich Ames which taught me some life lessons.
I was a mid-level CIA analyst working Caucasus and Central Asian issues in the 1990s. My job responsibilities then included reviewing agency participation in conferences located in that part of the world, helping assure the environment was conducive to the type of gathering being proposed and identifying any threats there might be. The reviews were usually noncontroversial and proforma, perfectly suited for a mid-level analyst.
Sometime, though, in mid 1993, a memo came across my desk from a desk officer in the CIA’s Counter Narcotics Center (CNC) proposing a senior level CNC conference in that part of the world that I worked. I felt strongly there were security risks associated with the gathering that did not justify agency participation. I was also concerned that the host country could not adequately address the conference logistics. I documented my concerns, did not sign off, and moved on, without giving the subject any additional thought.
The following day, as I was reading through my cables, I looked up from my computer to find a very unkempt individual, about 20 years my senior with bushy eyebrows and a dirty, wispy looking mustache hovering over me, in essence, violating my personal space. He introduced himself as Aldrich Ames, the individual planning the conference which I had refused to sign off on the day before. He demanded to know how I had the gall to stand in the way of this important conference. I explained to this aggressive individual that I saw no upside to holding such a conference where he had proposed and explained to him my security and logistics concerns. He continued by berating me for not understanding the former Soviet Union.
Sure, I was in the earlier stages of my career but by then I had an undergraduate and graduate degree in Soviet Studies. I studied in Moscow and St. Petersburg. I wrote my master’s thesis on the role of women in Uzbek politics, participated in several summer workshops at Harvard University and other universities focused on Ukraine and Central Asia, had published articles in academic journals on Central Asia, had spoken on many conference panels regarding Soviet and Former Soviet Union politics, and had just completed a year as part of the CIA Director’s Exceptional Analyst Program studying the history and culture of Azerbaijan and Azeri language.
I stood my ground with Aldrich Ames and politely invited him to leave. Not to be deterred, Ames came back to my desk a few times. I was not there and my cubicle-mates alerted me to the fact that the unkempt man from the CNC was looking for me. He found me at my desk a few weeks later. By then, he was even more surly and patronizing. He told me that he was a senior operations officer and that I was thwarting important operations. I told him to get the Department of Operations to sign off and then come back to me. He then complained to my boss about the stupid analyst. She had my back but as a fairly young analyst, I was shaken by his demeanor and his threats.
Months later I heard that the CNC Conference was happening but maybe somewhere else.
Mr. Ames was arrested for espionage on his way to this relocated conference shortly thereafter.
I later came to know that Mr. Ames may have shared my analysis with the Russians. But, I was not in harm's way. More importantly, I remember the families and loved ones of those executed due to Ames’ betrayals and pay tribute to them and the colleagues whose careers he sidetracked.
This is just another ugly, though inconsequential story in the Aldrich Ames saga. What I learned as an analyst who unwittingly stood up to a spy is to trust your instincts, stand your ground, expertise matters, and that ultimately bad people cannot disguise that they are bad people. And Mr. Ames should have taken my advice.
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