Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America
by David Wise
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Book Summary Information
Author: David WiseEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-10-14
ISBN: 0375758941
Number of pages: 344
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America
Book Review: A page-turner! Couldn't put it down!
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow. David Wise. Put that name on your favorite authors list. He is now on mine. In "Spy", he presents a comprehensive look into Robert Hanssen's life as a spy.
From A to Z, "Spy" looks at Hanssen's childhood, early years at the FBI, then dives right into his 20yr betrayal. There isn't a lot of fluff or forced drama only because it isn't needed. David takes what could have been just a boring spy case and turned it into something out of a Tom Clancy or Robert Ludnum novel. Seriously. There are parts of the book where I literally couldn't put it down. There is talk about tradecraft, dead drops, and leaving signals for his handlers. Great stuff!
One section -- where Hanssen is actually searching the FBI databases for his only name, street address, and other keywords to see if the FBI were on to him made me want to scream , "WTF are you doing, buddy. You are gonna get CAUGHT!". Another chapter involves Hanssen and various computer activites at FBI HQ. How he managed to get away with those. The chapters that led up to and go into his capture are nail-biters. Unforseen events surface that could wreck the arrest plan.
Lots of never-before-read details about Hanssen and the secrets he gave to the Soviets and then Russians. To read about the sheer magnitude of secrets Hanssen sold to the Russians blew my mind. The book shares the titles of some of the documents Hanssen gave up. Shocking material. Things that an FBI agent had no business having. One example, Hanssen revealed to the Russians some secrets from the NSA.
Oh, and the last two chapters delve into Hanssen's motivation for selling out his country. A Ph.D interviewed Hanseen during and after the trial. The book does a wonderful job of dissecting Hanssen's motivations and reasons.
Finally, I can't believe how compartmentialized Robert Hanssen was. By day, he is a religious, family man who hates the Soviet Union. By night, he's selling his soul and US secrets to the same Soviet Union.
A brilliant book by David Wise. Thank you!
Summary of Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America
Spy tells, for the first time, the full, authoritative story of how FBI agent Robert Hanssen, code name grayday, spied for Russia for twenty-two years in what has been called the ?worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history??and how he was finally caught in an incredible gambit by U.S. intelligence.David Wise, the nation?s leading espionage writer, has called on his unique knowledge and unrivaled intelligence sources to write the definitive, inside story of how Robert Hanssen betrayed his country, and why.
Spy at last reveals the mind and motives of a man who was a walking paradox: FBI counterspy, KGB mole, devout Catholic, obsessed pornographer who secretly televised himself and his wife having sex so that his best friend could watch, defender of family values, fantasy James Bond who took a stripper to Hong Kong and carried a machine gun in his car trunk.
Brimming with startling new details sure to make headlines, Spy discloses:
-the previously untold story of how the FBI got the actual file on Robert Hanssen out of KGB headquarters in Moscow for $7 million in an unprecedented operation that ended in Hanssen?s arrest.
-how for three years, the FBI pursued a CIA officer, code name gray deceiver, in the mistaken belief that he was the mole they were seeking inside U.S. intelligence. The innocent officer was accused as a spy and suspended by the CIA for nearly two years.
-why Hanssen spied, based on exclusive interviews with Dr. David L. Charney, the psychiatrist who met with Hanssen in his jail cell more than thirty times. Hanssen, in an extraordinary arrangement, authorized Charney to talk to the author.
-the full story of Robert Hanssen?s bizarre sex life, including the hidden video camera he set up in his bedroom and how he plotted to drug his wife, Bonnie, so that his best friend could father her child.
- how Hanssen and the CIA?s Aldrich Ames betrayed three Russians secretly spying for the FBI?including tophat, a Soviet general?who were then executed by Moscow.
-that after Hanssen was already working for the KGB, he directed a study of moles in the FBI when?as he alone knew?he was the mole.
Robert Hanssen betrayed the FBI. He betrayed his country. He betrayed his wife. He betrayed his children. He betrayed his best friend, offering him up to the KGB. He betrayed his God. Most of all, he betrayed himself. Only David Wise could tell the astonishing, full story, and he does so, in masterly style, in Spy.
From the Hardcover edition.
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