AMES, ALDRICH (1941– ). The KGB’s recruitment of Aldrich Ames
to penetrate the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Directorate of
Operations was one of their greatest counterintelligencesuccesses
of the Cold War. Ames, angered by slow promotion and in need of
money, volunteered to the Soviet rezidenturain Washington in 1985.
He originally planned to provide the KGB only with the names of
agents he believed the KGB already knew about. However, tempted
by larger payments, Ames was subtly convinced by his handler, Vik-
tor Cherkashin, to give up the CIA’s “crown jewels,” the names of
more than a dozen Soviet officials who had been recruited by the CIA
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Of the agents Ames
betrayed, two were rescued, but 10 were executed in Moscow, and
others were imprisoned. Among the agents reportedly betrayed by
Ames were Adolf Tolkachev, who worked in the aircraft industry;
Dmitry Polyakov, a GRUmajor general; and Oleg Gordievskiy, a
KGB colonel serving in London and working for the British Secret
Intelligence Service (SIS). Ames’s code name was “Lyudmila”: the
KGB used a woman’s name to help disguise his identity. Ames
signed his KGB receipts with the name “Kolokol” (Bell).
Ames provided the KGB with the names of Western agents oper-
ating in the KGB and GRU as well as in the military and in military
industries. He also provided CIA documents and cables that gave
Moscow details of how the CIA operated inside the Soviet Union. In
exchange, the KGB paid Ames approximately $2.7 million. Ames
was arrested in February 1994, as was his wife, who had supported
the operation. In exchange for full cooperation and a light sentence
for his wife, Ames received a life sentence. Ames’s treachery report-
edly caused friction between the CIA and the FBI, and severely dam-
aged the public reputation of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.ANALYSIS. The Soviet services had a different approach to intelli-
gence analysis than Western states.Joseph Stalin told his intelli-
gence chiefs that he wanted factual information and documents, not
political analysis, which was to be left to the chief of state and his
trusted lieutenants. Stalin rejected efforts by the NKVDand GRUto
provide analysis of Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s preparations
for war against the Soviet Union in 1941, insisting that intelligence
officers were easily deceived.ANALYSIS•906-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:54 AM Page 9