Aldrich Ames, who for more than 30 years was sentenced to serve life in prison for the benefit of Moscow, died yesterday Monday in prison at the age of 84, US authorities announced.
A CIA counterintelligence analyst for 31 years, he was sentenced in 1994 to spend the rest of his life in prison for selling more than $2.5 million in intelligence to the then-Soviet union.
According to the Ministry of Justice, his betrayal had jeopardized dozens of secret operations and cost the lives of more than ten double agents working on behalf of the Americans.
What betrayed Aldrich Ames
Along with his wife Rosario, he allegedly passed information to the Soviets from 1985. The couple’s lavish lifestyle at the time had raised suspicions. The Ames drove around in an expensive Jaguar car, had bank accounts in Switzerland, spent around $50,000 a year on credit cards.
His betrayal was revealed in 1994.
How he misled Presidents Reagan and Bush
Relying on false information fed to them by Aldrich Ames, CIA operatives had repeatedly misled US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, as well as other officials, particularly about Soviet military capabilities and other strategic information.
The prosecution of the spy had fueled tensions between Washington and Moscow, while former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika policy of liberalization was giving way to glasnost and opening to the West under Boris Yeltsin, the first post-Soviet leader. of Russia.
The director of the CIA at the time, James Woolsey, had resigned in the wake of the scandal, after refusing to depose or demote associates in the agency.
His successor John Deutsch subsequently oversaw a re-establishment of the CIA, which saw purges, arrests and prosecutions.
This marked the US-Russia relations
The US president at the time, Bill Clinton, had described the Ames case as “very serious” and had hinted that it could damage the bilateral relationship with Moscow. The Kremlin instead tried to downplay it, with a Russian diplomat going so far as to call the Americans “overly sentimental”.
The White House has finally decided to proceed with the expulsion of a high-ranking Russian diplomat, Alexander Lyshenka, who was accused of being involved in the Ames affair.
