Moscow was the city on the hill. Beginning in the 1950s, therefore,
the Soviets increasingly recruited agents through money. John
Walkerwent to the Soviet embassy in 1967 to find funds to support
his failing bar. Aldrich Amesneeded money for a divorced wife and
a new spouse. Yet it was not simply money that made Walker, Ames,
and other Americans spy. Anger, often rage, about their personal lives
and their lack of professional success also contributed. They might
not be a success in the U.S. armed forces or the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), but they could be the greatest spy in the world. Anger
tinged with contempt of their superiors led many in the American
military and intelligence professions to spy. Both James Halland
Clyde Conradhad deep contempt for their superior officers, whom
they “knew” they could outwit. Edward Howardclearly volun-
teered out of his fear of prosecution for civil crimes committed in
New Mexico, but another factor may have been the desire to get even
with the CIA, which no longer needed him.
A great deal has been written in spy novels about people being re-
cruited after they were placed in compromising situations. While a
few minor agents were recruited after having been compromised by
prostitutes—both male and female—far more were recruited for fi-
nancial or personal reasons. William Vassallis one of the most im-
portant agents who was blackmailed into serving the Soviets. But in
his case, money and ego also played roles. Clayton Lonetree, an
American marine serving in Moscow, was literally seduced into serv-
ing as a KGB agent in the 1980s. Yet Lonetree’s decision to work for
the KGB also was a product of his anger with U.S. Marine counter-
parts who repeatedly humiliated him.
In the first years of the Cold War, a number of Soviet intelligence
officers defected to the West, but relatively few worked in place for
the West. In the West, spying was punished by terms in jail, but in the
Soviet Union, conviction almost invariably meant the firing squad.
Defections from the Soviet services were caused by personal and pro-
fessional concerns. However, many officers defected or volunteered
out of a deep anger with the system. Both GRUcolonels Petr Popov
and Oleg Penkovskiy, and later General Dmitry Polyakov, were
deeply offended by the system they served. Other Soviet intelligence
officers defected to have access to the Western way of life they had
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