Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America (47 page)

Although Hanssen was prohibited from speaking publicly while he was being debriefed, and his wife, Bonnie, declined to be interviewed, I was able to talk with several of her siblings, including her sister Jeanne Beglis, as well as with her parents, Dr. Leroy Wauck and Frances Wauck. I also spoke with Hanssen’s mother, Vivian, several times over many months. I greatly appreciate the willingness of family members to talk to me about what has surely been a painful and terribly difficult experience for all of them.

I am grateful as well to Jack Hoschouer, who described himself aptly as closer than a brother to Robert Hanssen, and who figures at many points in the story. Although mortified by the highly public exposure of his participation in Hanssen’s bizarre sexual activities, Hoschouer agreed to speak to me at length in a series of interviews by telephone to Germany and in person in Washington. I felt he showed considerable courage in doing so; another man might have retreated behind a wall of silence. I thank him for his openness, his patience, and his help. His wife, Aya, also was kind enough to share with me her recollections of Robert Hanssen. His mother, Jeanette Hoschouer, told me of her encounters with Howard Hanssen.

I am particularly indebted to Plato Cacheris, the defense attorney who saved Hanssen from a possible death penalty, and to Dr. David L. Charney, whose insights into Hanssen’s psyche were invaluable. My thanks as well go to Preston Burton, Plato Cacheris’s law partner.

Among the FBI counterintelligence officials interviewed, I am especially grateful to Neil J. Gallagher, then the assistant director in charge of the National Security Division, as well as to James T. Caruso, Michael J. Waguespack, Leslie G. Wiser, Jr., and James D. Lyle. Still other FBI counterintelligence specialists were helpful but preferred not to be named; I am no less grateful for their assistance.

I also greatly appreciate the help of John E. Collingwood, the FBI assistant director in charge of the Office of Public and Congressional Affairs; Michael P. Kortan, chief of the public affairs section of that office; Bill Carter, the acting unit chief of the FBI national press office; and Supervisory Special Agent Steven W. Berry of the national press office, whose assistance was unstinting and invaluable. Others in the FBI helped as well, including Bill Houghton, Kimberly Lichtenberg, Candy Curtis, Kevin Wilkinson, and James H. Davis.

More than thirty former FBI agents and officials were also interviewed, and I thank them all for their assistance. I must begin with William H. Webster, former director of the FBI and the CIA, who headed the special commission that reviewed FBI security programs for the Department of Justice. John F. Lewis, Jr., the former assistant director in charge of the FBI’s National Security Division, provided many valuable insights, and his patience with my endless questions never flagged. I am grateful as well to James D. Ohlson, Edward J. Curran, and Thomas E. Burns, Jr.; to David G. Major and Paul Moore of the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies; to Raymond A.
Mislock, Jr., Joseph Tierney, Donald E. Stukey, James E. Nolan, Jr., Phillip A. Parker, Thomas J. Pickard, Robert M. Bryant, A. Jackson Lowe, John F. Mabey, Harry B. “Skip” Brandon, R. Patrick Watson, Dick Alu, Robert B. Wade, Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr., Pete O’Donnell, Dale H. Pugh, James A. Werth, Theodore M. Gardner, and Bill Westberg.

I also appreciate the generous help I received from Charles C. Stuart, the prizewinning producer and president of Stuart Television Productions, and Chris Szechenyi, his talented and tireless field producer, who together created the documentary on the Hanssen case for the A&E cable network, on which I served as a consultant. Emily Ratliff, their production assistant, was always marvelously helpful.

I am obliged as well to Professor Chester Gillis of Georgetown University; Brian Finnerty, the U.S. spokesman for Opus Dei; Father C. John McCloskey III, director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C.; Father Franklyn M. McAfee of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic church; and Father Robert P. Bucciarelli. To understand the legal aspects of the Roman Catholic sacrament of confession, I relied principally on Michael J. Mazza’s “Should Clergy Hold the Priest-Penitent Privilege?” in the
Marquette Law Review
82, no. 1 (fall 1998), pp. 171–204.

Several former CIA officials were interviewed, including former CIA director James Woolsey, Milton A. Bearden, Paul J. Redmond, Jr., John C. Platt, Gordon C. Oehler, Colin R. Thompson, and Suzanne Spaulding. My thanks as well go to Mark Mansfield, the CIA deputy director for public affairs. Other current and former CIA officials preferred to speak only on background. To tell the story of
GRAY DECEIVER
, the CIA official who was erroneously thought to be the mole, I interviewed his attorney, John Moustakas, and drew as well upon several intelligence sources and on published accounts by James Risen and David Johnston of
The New York Times
and Dan Eggen, Brooke A. Masters, and Vernon Loeb of
The Washington Post
.

Viktor Cherkashin, the former KGB counterintelligence officer who ran the Hanssen case in Washington, was reached at his home in Moscow and interviewed at length. His comments provided an intriguing perspective from the Russian side of the drama.

Many other individuals helped me to tell the story of Robert Hanssen. The list is too long to include everyone, and a few preferred to remain anonymous. But I thank Thomas B. Ross, coauthor with me of
three books; James Bamford, Priscilla Sue Galey, Dr. Alen J. Salerian, Herb Romerstein, William Schulz, Edward S. McFadden, Momcilo Rosic, Mike and Judi Shotwell, John C. Sylvester, H. Keith Melton, Ed Pound of
USA Today
, John Carl Warnecke, Benny Pasquariello, Ronald Sol Mlotek, and Boris Yuzhin.

Sarah J. Albertini provided vital computer advice and research assistance along the way. Ida Sawyer made sure my newspaper files were up to date.

I am especially grateful to Robert D. Loomis, my editor at Random House on this and eight previous books, whose editorial skills and dedication are unsurpassed and reflected throughout these pages.

Finally, and as always, I am indebted beyond measure to my wife, Joan, who, without complaint, heard more about Robert Hanssen and the murky world of spies he inhabited than she probably wanted to know.

—David Wise
Washington, D.C.
July 30, 2002

D
AVID
W
ISE
is America’s leading writer on intelligence and espionage. He is coauthor of
The Invisible Government
, a number one bestseller widely credited with bringing about a reappraisal of the role of the CIA in a democratic society. He is the author of
Cassidy’s Run: The Secret Spy War over Nerve Gas, Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6 Million, Molehunt, The Spy Who Got Away, The American Police State
, and
The Politics of Lying
, and coauthor with Thomas B. Ross of
The Espionage Establishment, The Invisible Government
, and
The U-2 Affair
. He is also the author of three espionage novels,
The Samarkand Dimension, The Children’s Game
, and
Spectrum
. A native New Yorker and graduate of Columbia College, he is the former chief of the Washington bureau of the
New York Herald Tribune
and has contributed articles on government and politics to many national magazines. He is married and has two sons.

A happier moment … Robert Hanssen, at age seven in 1951, proudly holds up his catch with his father, Howard, a Chicago police officer. But the two already had a deeply troubled relationship.

“Science is the light of life.…” Hanssen’s future technical prowess was forecast by the motto he chose for his high school yearbook and his membership in the ham radio club.

Hanssen’s high school classmate Jack Hoschouer became his lifelong friend.

Chicago, August 1968: A smiling Hanssen, twenty-four, and his bride, Bonnie Wauck, twenty-one. Standing behind them are his parents, Howard and Vivian Hanssen. Seated at left is Howard’s mother, Louise.

October 1970: After dropping out of dental school, Hanssen switched to accounting at Northwestern University. Here, while a student, he poses with Bonnie, right, and her sister, Jeanne, in front of the Wauck family home in Park Ridge, a Chicago suburb.