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1:17

So, Paul, what is the law of spies?

1:21

Shit, I don't know. Oh, Redmond's,

1:23

Redmond's law. Yes, please. Redmond's

1:26

law is, quote, it's an actuarial

1:29

certainty there will be a spy

1:31

in your organization.

1:33

Period. Why is that something

1:35

that you're so certain about? Because there

1:38

always is. Nobody ever gets it right,

1:40

but it's very simple. It's an actuarial

1:42

certainty there's going to be a spy in your

1:44

place.

1:46

Paul Redmond spent three decades at the Central

1:48

Intelligence Agency, the CIA, recruiting

1:50

assets and stealing secrets from the Soviets.

1:53

I'm an Ivy League-educated

1:55

New England prep school

1:58

snob who's not. a nice

2:00

guy. Plus I'm Irish and I don't trust

2:02

anybody. He's in his 80s

2:04

now, retired, lives in a quaint suburb

2:07

outside Boston. Catching

2:09

spies is never easy. Human

2:11

espionage is not nice. It's for

2:14

nice Americans, right?

2:17

But that was Redmond's job. The

2:19

counterintelligence business requires you

2:21

to be untrusting,

2:23

conspiratorial, secretive,

2:27

devious,

2:29

double thinking, and very

2:31

smart. The years of the spy

2:33

in the mid-80s unearthed many high-profile

2:36

traitors, but the arrests did not stop

2:39

all the leaks or account for all

2:41

the information lost. So the

2:43

search continued. We're

2:47

going to follow three investigations as

2:49

the CIA and FBI tried to figure

2:51

out

2:52

who was the mole.

3:02

In 1991 Redmond was part of a team

3:04

made up of agency and bureau personnel.

3:07

We started looking at about a dozen

3:09

people closely. What we did,

3:11

and I'm very proud of this, is

3:14

we let the information

3:18

take us where it was going to take us. We

3:21

didn't decide John Jones or

3:23

Mary Smith was a spy

3:25

and then try to fucking prove

3:27

it. All right? So

3:30

we narrowed it down to this number of people

3:32

and there were two or three people who

3:35

really were good candidates.

3:37

One strategy mole hunters used was to

3:39

look at the information lost and see

3:41

who had access. And

3:44

in this case, Hansen wasn't even on the

3:46

list of suspects. Mole hunters

3:48

had put the spotlight on the CIA. There

3:51

was another man in US intelligence, a spy

3:53

with top secret clearances, a trusted

3:55

insider, just like Hansen. But

3:58

he worked at the agency.

4:00

Not the bureau.

4:01

We started looking at Ames particularly

4:03

closely. Ames was Aldrich

4:06

Ames, a 30-year veteran of the CIA. Ames

4:10

spoke Russian, his work focused on Soviet

4:12

intelligence services. He had

4:14

served at posts around the world, Mexico

4:17

City, Rome, Turkey, and at

4:19

CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

4:22

His distinguishing traits? A big

4:24

personality.

4:25

And a thirst for booze.

4:28

Redmond's team tried to learn everything it

4:30

could about Ames, but did this very

4:33

quietly. The team had

4:35

an IT guy run Ames' name. He

4:38

turns up one day with

4:40

a sack of stuff after he'd done Ames'

4:42

last name in this huge stack

4:44

of Ames, Iowa. You

4:48

know, and I go, what the fuck is this all

4:50

about? The investigators

4:53

used another tried-and-true tactic. Follow

4:56

the money. Redmond remembers

4:58

when a CIA colleague told him there

5:00

was a pattern. She leaned up against

5:03

the door by door jam and said, we

5:05

got the son of a bitch. She had found

5:08

two things, two serious dates

5:11

of meetings that he had reported

5:14

when working against

5:16

the guy in the embassy downtown, and

5:18

then dates of bank deposits.

5:23

Meeting with Soviets was part of Ames'

5:25

day job at the CIA. But

5:27

there was something else. A day or

5:29

two after such encounters, Ames would drop

5:31

a lot of cash in the bank. Thousands

5:34

of dollars a stroke. Ames

5:36

also appeared to be spending beyond his means

5:39

on, among other things, home remodeling,

5:41

finely tailored suits, and even a Jaguar. The

5:44

car, not the exotic cat. We

5:47

got some data that really connected him

5:49

to some KGB activity, all

5:51

right? What Redmond won't say

5:54

here is that the CIA had a good source

5:56

in Moscow inside the KGB. The

5:59

source reported... Some of the places and dates

6:01

the mole had been overseas, but

6:03

didn't know his name. The information

6:06

matched Ames.

6:13

During this time, Hanson was dark as

6:15

a spy, laying low. Meanwhile,

6:18

the FBI launched a full investigation into

6:20

Ames that culminated in a guilty plea

6:22

and a life sentence in 1994. Ames'

6:26

wife was also arrested for aiding and

6:28

abetting his espionage.

6:31

In a stunning sign that the Cold War

6:33

may not yet be over, Justice Department

6:35

officials today charged

6:36

Aldrich Ames and his wife Rosario

6:39

with spying on America for the Russians.

6:42

The Ames couple caused significant damage to

6:44

our national security and betrayed

6:46

their country. Ames' security

6:48

compromises virtually destroy CIA

6:51

operations in the Soviet Union. Ames

6:58

had done grave damage to the intelligence

7:00

community. Some of the information he disclosed

7:03

was exactly the same as the information

7:05

Hanson was sending, like the Soviets

7:08

spying for the U.S., the ones who

7:10

were later executed.

7:12

The redundancy validated the information

7:14

for the Soviets. Ames

7:16

also compromised one more thing, the

7:19

working relationship between the FBI

7:21

and CIA. It was a disaster.

7:28

The FBI wondered, how could the

7:30

CIA miss such an awful spy

7:32

like Ames, someone operating right under

7:34

their noses? This question

7:36

would, as you might have already figured out, come

7:39

back to haunt the FBI. The

7:41

bureau was in charge, and

7:44

they didn't want to let us forget it. One

7:47

more problem. The losses attributed

7:49

to Ames still did not equal all

7:52

that was known to have been compromised. The

7:54

U.S. had lost human assets and spy

7:56

programs that Ames knew nothing about. He

7:59

simply did not have it.

7:59

have access to them. So

8:02

the FBI kept up the hunt and the

8:04

pressure on the CIA.

8:06

The Bureau zeroed in on another

8:08

suspect it believed to be the mole. They

8:11

squeezed him almost to the point of

8:14

breaking. All the while, Hanson

8:16

continued to operate in the shadows.

8:22

From CBS News, I'm

8:24

Major Garrett and this is Agent of Betrayal,

8:27

the double life of Robert Hanson, Episode 5.

8:31

Wrong man.

8:38

The FBI and CIA knew that Aldra

8:40

James alone could not account for all

8:42

the information that was lost. So,

8:45

with the FBI leading, they started looking

8:47

into other compromised cases. One

8:49

in particular caught their interest. It

8:52

happened back in May of 1989 and centered around

8:56

an American diplomat named Felix

8:58

Block. Block was a senior State

9:00

Department official. He had been the acting ambassador

9:02

in Vienna. CIA officer

9:05

Brian Kelly worked the case. He died

9:07

in 2011, but we have this interview

9:09

from 2010. Kelly's specialty

9:12

was identifying illegals, deep

9:14

cover Russian spies living under assumed

9:17

identities. And this case with

9:19

the American diplomat happened to

9:21

involve an illegal that Brian Kelly

9:23

had discovered. The illegal was

9:26

seen dining with the American diplomat Felix

9:28

Block in Paris. There

9:30

were some bags passed in some foreign

9:33

capitals. Block said

9:35

that those bags were filled with postage stamps.

9:37

Other people said that it might have been something else. US

9:40

intelligence didn't know what was in the bag,

9:42

but they were increasingly convinced it wasn't

9:45

just postage stamps and that Felix

9:47

Block was delivering government secrets

9:49

to the Russians, spying. But

9:52

they needed proof. To catch Felix

9:54

Block and the act, they started tailing him and tapped

9:56

his phone. But a mole was

9:58

following right along with the investigation.

10:02

Early one morning, Felix Bloch's home

10:05

phone in Washington rang. Again,

10:07

Brian Kelly from the CIA. In June of 1989,

10:10

he got a phone call and was told

10:14

that a contagious disease is going around. We're

10:16

very concerned about you. You need to take care of yourself.

10:19

The voice on the phone said he had called on behalf

10:21

of the illegal, who cannot see

10:23

you in the near future because he is

10:26

sick. The call was

10:28

a warning to Felix Bloch. Get

10:30

out or go dark. US

10:33

intelligence listened as their highly

10:35

classified investigation of Bloch was

10:38

blown. Somebody,

10:40

somehow, had found out

10:42

and tipped off the Russians. The

10:44

question is, how did the Russians know that

10:47

Felix Bloch was under scrutiny by the United

10:49

States government for possible criminal

10:52

activities? How, indeed.

10:55

Unbeknownst to Brian Kelly or US intelligence,

10:58

the tip had come from none other

11:00

than Robert Hanson.

11:07

When the Bloch case blew up, State

11:09

Department, Justice Department, Federal

11:11

Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, just a handful

11:14

of senior officials in there all just

11:16

know that just this whole case, we've never been

11:18

able to prove it or disprove it. It just blew up

11:20

on us. Bloch lawyered up and denied

11:23

everything. The Justice Department

11:25

never brought charges against him. So

11:28

what you have is something

11:30

to gnaws at you. Even

11:32

so, Brian Kelly's exemplary

11:34

work on the case was recognized by the CIA.

11:37

He received a medal for his efforts. When

11:40

the mole hunters were examining Aldrich Ames

11:43

and what he did and didn't know, the Felix

11:45

Bloch investigation stood out to them.

11:48

That was one operation he couldn't have

11:50

blown because he simply didn't

11:52

have access to it. And

11:55

that's how the intelligence community figured out

11:57

it still had a very big mole

11:59

problem.

12:00

So the hunt intensified.

12:04

The FBI and CIA set out again,

12:07

this time with a list of about 225 candidates,

12:09

those with access

12:11

to information like the Felix Block debacle.

12:14

The investigation had a code name, Grey

12:17

Suit. This was the search

12:19

for the big fish. There's

12:21

no way they could credibly investigate that

12:24

many people, so Mole Hunter started

12:26

to backhaul the field with what the intelligence community

12:28

calls a matrix. Basically,

12:31

suspect names in the vertical column, what

12:33

had been lost in the row across the top. If

12:36

a person had access to a blown case,

12:39

they moved up the list. By

12:41

the time the list had narrowed a bit, that vertical

12:43

column of names had one crucial,

12:46

unifying characteristic. All

12:49

worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. This

12:52

reflected the sense within the FBI that,

12:54

like the Ames case, the evidence pointed

12:57

to a culprit at the agency,

12:59

not the Bureau.

13:01

Of course, Hanson

13:03

wasn't on the list. After

13:06

winnowing the list further, the FBI

13:08

settled on one prime suspect.

13:11

For all kinds of reasons, the spotlight

13:13

fell on me. Brian

13:15

Kelly, the very CIA officer

13:18

who had been given a medal for his work on the Felix

13:20

Block case. In fact, his

13:23

work on the case was so good that

13:25

it was suspect.

13:33

Almost a century ago, a murder-suicide

13:35

rocked a quiet London neighborhood. But there's

13:37

a lot more to this story, and I'm documenting

13:39

my investigation in the new podcast, Ghost Story. Ghosts

13:42

aren't real. At least, that's what

13:45

I've always believed. Sure, odd things

13:47

happen in my childhood bedroom. But ultimately,

13:49

I shrugged it all off. That is, until a couple

13:51

of years ago, when I discovered that every subsequent

13:54

occupant of that house is convinced they've

13:56

experienced something inextinctable too. Including

13:59

the most recent- an inhabitant who says she was

14:01

visited at night by the ghost of a faceless

14:04

woman. It just so happens that the alleged

14:06

ghost haunting my childhood room might

14:08

just be my wife's great-grandmother,

14:11

who was murdered in the house next door, while

14:13

she was gun shot to the face. Ghost

14:15

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14:18

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14:20

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now by joining Wandery Pass.

14:33

I remember walking into a very small

14:36

windowless room, just like in the movies.

14:37

This is Brian Kelly's daughter,

14:40

Erin. She worked for the CIA, like

14:42

her dad. In August 1999, she

14:45

was called in for what she thought was

14:47

a routine meeting.

14:49

And there were two individuals who stood

14:51

up with badges and they

14:53

said, we're FBI and we're here

14:56

to tell you some bad news. Your father is

14:58

working for the Russians

14:59

and we need your cooperation.

15:03

And I honestly thought I was in

15:05

some type of a bad dream. I kept pinching myself

15:07

saying, this can't be true. This cannot

15:09

be true. You have the wrong person. My

15:11

father is a very respected,

15:14

well-known government

15:16

official. This has to be wrong.

15:21

Brian Kelly excelled at some of the hardest

15:23

counterintelligence work inside the agency.

15:27

He served as an officer in the Air Force before

15:29

joining the CIA. Friends

15:31

and family told us he was witty, outgoing,

15:34

charming, blue eyes, Catholic.

15:37

He was frugal, you know, quick with a coupon and

15:40

meticulous about certain things. He

15:43

would mark down where he could find cheap gas

15:45

and he would make maps of his jogging routes.

15:50

Before Brian Kelly's family was hauled in for questioning

15:53

in 1999, the FBI

15:55

and CIA shadowed Kelly for two

15:57

years, first keeping tabs on him in

15:59

late 1990.

15:59

when he was posted at the CIA

16:02

station in Panama.

16:04

Specialized CIA personnel trailed

16:06

him at the airport when he played tennis and

16:08

on his visits to internet cafes where

16:11

he'd catch up on email. They'd use

16:13

special technical equipment to sweep up his

16:15

activity online. One person

16:17

who did that surveillance work called his browser

16:19

history so benign.

16:23

Kelly, who was divorced, appeared

16:25

to be dating.

16:27

Shocking.

16:29

Early in the investigation, before Kelly knew

16:31

he was the target, the bureau ran what's

16:33

called a false flag operation meant

16:35

to catch Kelly or walk him into a trap that

16:37

would expose his guilt. The bureau

16:40

sent an undercover operative to his house in

16:42

Northern Virginia. Kelly

16:44

explained the approach to Leslie Stahl in a 2003 segment

16:46

on 60 Minutes. I

16:50

got it, knocked on my door, opened

16:52

it up, and there was a gentleman outside and he said, I

16:55

come from your friends and we're

16:57

concerned. Meet

16:59

us tomorrow night at the Vienna Metro. A

17:01

person will approach you. We have a passport

17:04

for you and we'll get you out of the country. And then, then

17:06

he left. Did this guy have a Russian accent?

17:08

Yeah, he had a heavy Russian accent. So

17:11

what do you think? I had no idea,

17:13

I have no... Your standards are like,

17:15

what just happened? You

17:16

never for a minute said, I'm being

17:18

suspected of something and they're trying to trap me.

17:21

No, no. It never crossed your mind. Not

17:23

at the time, no.

17:24

Kelly, unaware the stranger was

17:26

a US government stooge, reported

17:29

the approach to a senior FBI official the next

17:31

day, which we should note is exactly

17:34

what he was trained to do. We should

17:36

also note Kelly was polygraphed

17:38

repeatedly and passed

17:41

repeatedly. And yet, many

17:44

in the FBI became confident Kelly

17:46

was the mole. Eventually,

17:49

that confidence morphed into

17:51

certainty. To them, things

17:53

that appeared to clear Kelly were not

17:56

evidence of his innocence, but evidence

17:58

of his craftiness. Some

18:00

want him to be the perfect spy,

18:02

the Ice Man. And

18:08

we should say there was nothing

18:10

wrong with Kelly being included in the investigators'

18:13

matrix early in the mole hunt. He

18:15

was around cases that mattered, and he knew

18:18

things that had been compromised, like

18:20

the Felix Block case. But

18:22

there were other operations that Kelly almost

18:25

certainly wouldn't have known about, like

18:27

the tunnel under the Soviet diplomatic compound

18:29

in Washington, and the 1980s

18:32

easy-pass that tracked Russian spies. Those

18:35

were FBI operations, both

18:37

of which Hanson knew about and

18:41

handed over to the Russians.

18:43

And I said, look guys, nobody

18:45

in CIA knew

18:47

about that stuff. Paul Redmond

18:49

again, the spy catcher from the CIA. I

18:52

said Brian may be a spy, but

18:54

there's got to be somebody in the bureau because

18:57

you lost all this stuff. And

18:59

Brian couldn't have been linked to that.

19:01

I mean,

19:02

yeah, I mean, I didn't see how he could have been.

19:05

After Kelly had been transferred back to agency

19:07

headquarters in the late 90s, the FBI

19:10

decided to interrogate him. The

19:13

confrontational interview that August afternoon

19:16

lasted almost four hours. Agents

19:19

told Kelly they were convinced

19:21

he was the mole. The senior bureau

19:23

agent jumped up, opened his briefcase up, and slammed

19:26

a piece of paper in front of him, and he said, explain this.

19:29

And I looked at it, and it took me a moment to realize

19:31

what it was. It was my jogging map, stamp

19:34

secret.

19:35

A jogging map, swept

19:37

up in a search of Kelly's home or car,

19:39

or maybe his trash.

19:41

A jogging map, not a

19:43

map of Brian Kelly's dead drop sites, as

19:45

the FBI suspected. Kelly

19:48

didn't have any dead drop sites, much

19:50

less a map of them because he wasn't

19:52

the mole. The jogging map

19:55

was of Nottoway Park, a place where,

19:57

coincidentally, the real mole, Robert

19:59

Hanson, made exchanges with the

20:01

Russians. Kelly and Hanson, believe it

20:03

or not, lived on the same street

20:06

in the 1980s, right near the park. They

20:08

knew each other from the neighborhood.

20:14

After the interview, Kelly was escorted from

20:16

agency headquarters, debadged and

20:18

commanded to call CIA headquarters

20:20

for a daily check-in. He was put

20:23

on paid administrative leave in

20:25

government-speak, career

20:27

death penalty in plain English, perhaps

20:31

worse. Hours later, the FBI

20:33

started hauling in Brian Kelly's family for

20:35

questioning. I want you to picture

20:38

a normal day. Nothing

20:40

going on, very special. This

20:43

is Brian Kelly's son, Barry. The three

20:45

Kelly kids were in their late 20s and 30s at the

20:47

time. Each was confronted

20:49

by the FBI. Barry

20:51

says agents wanted to speak with him immediately. So

20:55

I said,

20:56

now, as in like, now, now? He goes, now? And

20:59

I got a little thinking that this

21:01

is crazy. And

21:05

I said, we've been basically following

21:07

you for three days, and we're outside

21:09

the building. I go from a normal day

21:12

to sitting in a car, and as we

21:14

took off within three

21:16

or four minutes being, this is crazy. And

21:20

I said, we've been basically following

21:22

you for three days, and we're outside

21:24

the building. I go from a normal day

21:27

to sitting in a car, and as we

21:29

took off within three

21:31

or four minutes being told my dad was a spy,

21:34

a

21:35

traitor to his country, and

21:37

that the arrest of

21:39

him was imminent.

21:42

The Kelly kids, now in their 50s, sat down

21:44

with us around daughter Erin's dining room table

21:46

in Ashburn, Virginia, a suburb near Dulles Airport. And

21:49

who was the eldest at this table? That

21:52

was me. Oh,

21:55

definitely it's me. I'm the oldest one at this table.

21:59

lives in a tidy, well-appointed townhouse

22:02

in a gated community. She had set

22:04

out sparkling water and cookies for us. It

22:07

was the Kelly siblings' first joint

22:09

interview about their dad. This

22:11

is Brian Kelly's middle child, also

22:13

named Brian. My wife

22:16

had just given birth to our first child. Because

22:19

it was just the day before that the baby was

22:21

born. The night before, yeah. I got

22:24

the call on my phone in my office, hey, the FBI's

22:26

here to see you. And I thought I was going to get the big surprise

22:28

because it was my first born

22:31

and I thought they were throwing a surprise party

22:33

for me with this FBI garbage.

22:36

It was a surprise all right, but

22:38

no party. It

22:39

kind of went from the best day of my life to

22:42

the worst in a matter of less

22:44

than 24 hours. That

22:47

memory will never be

22:49

erased. My father,

22:51

he raises patriotic. And here was

22:53

somebody saying that your dad was the biggest traitor

22:56

in that country that he raised you to love so

22:58

much. It was a very difficult

23:00

day. Son, Brian

23:02

couldn't believe it. But

23:04

that didn't stop him. In the recesses

23:07

of his mind, that place where childhood memories

23:09

reside from wondering. So

23:12

that always bothered me some that there was that slight

23:16

percentage where I thought it could be

23:18

true based on the fact that the

23:20

people that were telling me were the ones that my father

23:23

raised me to believe.

23:24

I was called to meet with

23:27

a background investigator for a character reference.

23:30

At first, that did not sound odd to

23:33

Erin, who also worked at the agency. Background

23:36

checks were routine. But

23:38

this was not routine. Her

23:41

mind raced.

23:42

And I remember the gentleman

23:45

pounding his fist on the table saying, we have evidence.

23:49

We had proof. Your father is working

23:51

for the Russians. And immediately

23:53

I thought, my life is over. I

23:56

just remember breaking down. And I

23:59

was actually after that. scored it out of the building and

24:01

was told I had to take off my badge

24:03

and I could no longer come back to work until

24:05

the investigation was completed. So

24:07

my career went to basically a halt

24:10

through no fault of my own.

24:12

The FBI also visited Kelly's ex-wife,

24:14

his sisters, and threatened to question

24:17

his mother who was in her 90s. I want

24:19

to make sure that I that you have the same recollection.

24:22

They did not say to you or to

24:24

you and I want to ask this of you that they suspected

24:26

this. They said they were sure

24:28

of this. 99% sure. I said so what

24:30

you're gonna tell me is I'm gonna walk

24:33

down my driveway pick up the Washington Post and see

24:35

my dad and they're being arrested.

24:38

Yes and when is gonna happen it's imminent.

24:40

So all they wanted from me was

24:43

to find out what role I played. Agents

24:46

used a phrase that rings in the ears

24:48

of Brian Kelly's family colleagues and

24:50

friends who were confronted by aggressive

24:52

FBI investigators in 1999. At the

24:56

exclusion of all others. The

24:59

FBI said that over and

25:01

over. Brian Kelly was the

25:04

mole at the exclusion

25:06

of

25:07

all others.

25:09

After the confrontations in August of 1999, investigators

25:13

changed their tactics from monitoring to

25:16

a chokehold. The FBI

25:18

obtained sealed warrants from the Foreign Intelligence

25:20

Surveillance Court to tap Kelly's

25:23

phones. There was so much static

25:25

and we would just could never hear each other. FBI

25:27

teams searched Kelly's home while he was out

25:30

and when he got back he saw a screw

25:32

in the middle of the floor you know that guy

25:34

says like somebody was here. Oh yeah.

25:39

Kelly wasn't confined to his house but when

25:41

he was there it was impossible

25:43

not to be unnerved by the conspicuous number

25:46

of supposed maintenance workers outside.

25:49

When he did leave his car was tailed.

25:51

Whenever we would take a road

25:53

trip to visit his sisters during the holiday time we

25:56

were under surveillance. I remember it being

25:59

a very unusual

26:01

bad snowstorm from Virginia

26:03

to Connecticut. I remember

26:05

asking my father to pull over

26:07

at a hotel so he could rest because

26:10

the visibility was so poor. And he said,

26:12

are you kidding me? He says, we're being followed.

26:15

I'm gonna make them work for their money. It's

26:17

just the, you know, the notion

26:19

of never feeling like, you know, you

26:21

can be free.

26:26

Brian Kelly again on 60 Minutes in 2003.

26:29

You're totally dominated every

26:31

day with when is the next

26:33

shoe gonna drop? When are you gonna be intercepted

26:36

and thrown up against the hood of the car and in charge

26:38

with espionage? You cannot escape

26:40

it. Brian Kelly couldn't

26:42

escape until the FBI realized

26:45

its error. One

26:49

of the people Brian Kelly knew best and

26:51

who knew the spy game better than most was

26:54

Father Mark Moretti, a Catholic priest

26:56

in Northern Virginia. Moretti

26:58

himself served a decade in the Diplomatic

27:00

Security Service before leaving to

27:02

study for the priesthood. Moretti

27:05

ministered to many at the agency. He

27:07

met Kelly there in 1997.

27:10

Brian

27:11

began to tell me that he was concerned

27:13

about colleagues of his who

27:16

were under a lot of stress. He

27:19

noticed a lot of alcoholism. He saw divorces.

27:22

He saw, in some cases, drug abuse. And

27:25

what Brian envisioned was

27:28

the two of us pairing up eventually and

27:30

creating what today would be called a wellness program.

27:33

Keeping our nation's secrets coiled up inside

27:35

is stressful work when one misstep

27:38

can cost lives. Ironically,

27:40

he was the one that was gonna wind up needing a wellness

27:43

program when this whole false allegation

27:45

occurred.

27:46

Moretti was one of Kelly's first calls

27:49

that day in August 1999 when

27:51

he was confronted and banished from

27:53

headquarters.

27:54

Oh, yeah, it was devastating. After crying

27:57

his eyes out and trying to get his composure,

27:59

he called me. And he said, Father

28:01

Mark, I'm in big trouble. That night?

28:03

Yeah, that night. What did you think? I

28:05

couldn't believe it. I was sitting there listening to him. We were having

28:08

a cup of coffee. And I

28:10

said, Ryan, are you telling me that the bureau after

28:12

all that didn't rid you your rights and put the handcuffs

28:14

on you? He said, no. I

28:17

said, this doesn't add up. And so

28:20

we just both went in to the church

28:23

and we now pray, we prayed our hearts out. What

28:26

do you pray for in a moment like that? Well,

28:28

first of all, for strength, all of his joyfulness

28:31

and all of his energy and everything like that had just been sucked

28:33

right out of him. So really, I asked God

28:35

for strength. I said, Lord, please.

28:38

I said, you know, your son knows what

28:40

it's like to be falsely accused. You

28:42

know, please help us. You know, at a time like this,

28:44

it's very important. You know,

28:47

boy, it was tough. Yeah.

28:50

Scorching

28:50

FBI scrutiny and accompanying isolation

28:53

seemed endless.

28:55

He was under unbelievable pressure and

28:57

stress. I wouldn't want to

28:59

be in that position. Every single day,

29:01

I mean, he literally could feel the tension in his chest.

29:04

He never got any sleep at night. He was just a

29:07

very stressed out individual.

29:09

Father Moretti told us Kelly struggled

29:11

with thoughts of suicide.

29:13

Thank God he had faith.

29:15

Can you imagine that Brian had

29:17

not been a man of faith and

29:20

the FBI gave him that horrible confrontation

29:22

interview and said, go home, you

29:24

know, and stay there until we and you know, at that

29:26

point, he just despaired and said, my

29:29

life's over and drove down to the Key

29:31

Bridge, parked the car and jumped off and

29:33

with the FBI right behind him, following him. You

29:36

know, they'd have fished his body out of the water and said,

29:39

oh, no, what time we caught him, you know, that's it. And

29:41

Hanson still would have been in place.

29:44

So thank God he had faith.

29:49

I look back on that. I'm like so grateful

29:51

to God that he did not become despondent

29:54

and say my life's over, which

29:56

a lot of people probably would have felt in a moment

29:58

like that.

30:01

And that would have been all the confirmation the FBI needed. That's

30:03

right. Yeah. Because

30:05

it would have validated their

30:07

workup to that point.

30:18

After more than four years of scrutiny, once

30:20

the FBI caught the real mole, Brian

30:22

Kelly was reinstated at Langley. But

30:25

Kelly could never shake the stench of having

30:27

been suspected. It's just the

30:29

way it is, even when you're cleared.

30:32

The agency did let him teach courses on

30:35

what he'd learned over his career. The

30:37

people we talked to at the FBI and CIA,

30:40

several of whom were involved in the Kelly case,

30:43

said the Bureau's pursuit bordered on

30:45

obsession. That it was initially

30:48

where the evidence led, but then it

30:50

went too far, was too invasive,

30:53

and relied too heavily on circumstantial

30:55

evidence. Almost all

30:57

said it was a mistake for the FBI to

30:59

look at Kelly and not others

31:01

too. Here's Paul

31:04

Redman again, a former top CIA

31:06

spy catcher. A Bureau investigation

31:08

is not a seeking

31:11

for the truth. It's to make a case. Once

31:14

they decide, those are

31:16

my words, all our energies

31:19

are to make that

31:21

case. They're not looking for

31:23

the right answer, necessarily.

31:27

So when they get the wrong person,

31:30

it's really hard for them to get off that

31:32

wicket. Others,

31:34

though, defended the Bureau's approach, even

31:36

if Kelly was collateral damage.

31:39

In that 60-minute segment we played earlier,

31:41

one of the FBI's top counterintelligence

31:44

officials, David Zady, argued

31:46

his investigators followed the best

31:48

information they had, which led

31:50

to Kelly. We haven't pinpointed

31:52

Brian Kelly for any other reason,

31:55

except he fits into the facts

31:57

as we know them. The facts, as they are, are not

31:59

the same.

31:59

they knew them included Kelly's work

32:02

on the Felix Block case. He helped crack

32:04

the case and Robert Hanson

32:06

had blown it to the Russians. I

32:09

think that Brian Kelly may have been

32:11

wronged in this, but eventually we were able to

32:13

get the mall.

32:14

I get the impression and

32:17

correct me if I'm wrong, that you didn't learn

32:19

anything. You wouldn't do anything different. That's

32:22

the impression you've left. You do it the

32:24

same way.

32:25

Well, how would you not? Kelly

32:30

got a lawyer,

32:31

but never sued the government. All

32:34

he wanted was to go back to work.

32:36

It took a while for the bureau to say sorry, and

32:39

that frustrated the Kelly family. After

32:42

months of his lawyer prodding the FBI, Kelly

32:45

finally got a letter. I sent him

32:47

an apology. Tom Picard

32:49

was the FBI's deputy director,

32:51

the number two man at the bureau. What

32:54

were you apologizing for? For

32:56

the length of the investigation and

32:59

for the time it took to

33:01

clear him. Is it hard for the

33:03

FBI to apologize? It's hard for

33:05

anybody to apologize. The FBI

33:08

is over a hundred year institution

33:11

and it's very difficult to

33:14

apologize, but

33:17

sometimes you have to. We

33:19

wanted to understand how something

33:21

like this could happen. Picard

33:24

rejects the notion that his agents were too aggressive

33:27

and told us investigators sometimes

33:29

target the wrong person. It's

33:32

just an unfortunate part of law enforcement.

33:35

I don't think they were overly harsh. We

33:38

were trying to determine

33:40

if somebody was committing

33:44

treason and we

33:46

had to be very aggressive at it. And

33:48

it's unpleasant. It

33:51

definitely is. Nobody likes

33:53

to be scrutinized. Treason is

33:57

something that we can't tolerate. There

33:59

was never. anonymity among the roughly 25 investigators

34:02

pursuing Kelly. About a third

34:04

of the team believed the evidence didn't add up

34:07

if Kelly was the wrong guy. Did

34:10

the agency have the ability in

34:13

Brian's case to push back at any point? I

34:15

think the short answer is no, really. Barry

34:18

Royden was the top counterintelligence official

34:21

at the CIA between 1999 and 2001, the

34:24

window when Brian Kelly faced the most intense

34:27

scrutiny. The team pursuing

34:29

Kelly was composed of investigators from

34:31

the FBI and CIA, but

34:34

a government report later found that the CIA

34:37

was, quote, not an equal partner

34:39

in the mole hunt. The FBI

34:41

led, the CIA supported.

34:45

Royden knew Brian Kelly fairly well. After

34:48

it was all over, Royden was invited to

34:50

a dinner celebrating Brian's exoneration.

34:53

I did speak up and said that

34:55

I was obviously terribly pleased

34:58

that Brian had been found innocent. And I

35:00

regretted that I

35:04

hadn't

35:06

been smarter to see

35:08

the weaknesses in the case and to perhaps have

35:11

spoken up.

35:13

Brian Kelly died of heart failure at

35:15

age 68. The year was 2011,

35:19

a decade after Hanson's arrest, a

35:22

decade after the FBI's misguided

35:24

scrutiny of Kelly mercifully ended.

35:26

Did this take a toll

35:30

that ended

35:32

his life prematurely?

35:34

Again, the Kelly children.

35:37

No one's ever going to know, but I believe

35:39

that the stress

35:42

properly sped up his

35:45

premature expiration. Do

35:47

you think it brought his life to a premature

35:50

end?

35:50

I do.

35:52

I do. No doubt.

35:53

Does it strike you, three,

35:56

that in

35:58

this parallel world... you had

36:01

a vociferous public

36:03

anti-communist, a vociferous public

36:06

devout Catholic, a vociferous

36:08

public patriot, who was none of those

36:10

things, in

36:13

Robert Hanson. And you had a quiet

36:15

man of faith, a quiet man of

36:17

patriotism, and a quiet

36:19

man of rivalry

36:23

against the Soviet state. The

36:25

quiet man is falsely accused. The

36:28

vociferous public man

36:30

almost gets away with it.

36:34

Yeah,

36:34

great movie. Great movie. That

36:36

laughter carries with it sorrow

36:43

softened by time. The

36:45

humor

36:46

darkened by it.

36:50

We mentioned in an earlier episode Hanson

36:52

and FBI director Louis Free, both Opus

36:54

De Catholics, attended the same church.

36:57

Kelly wasn't a regular there, but

36:59

showed up occasionally. Could you imagine

37:02

being Jesus at this Opus

37:04

De Mass, where you have Louis

37:06

Free praying, hey please help me to catch this criminal.

37:10

In the same pew you have Bob

37:12

Hanson saying, Lord please help me get

37:14

away with my spine. And then in

37:16

the other pew you have my dad praying, please

37:18

catch the person who's doing it because I'm innocent and they're

37:21

all talking to the same person.

37:24

A public reckoning came in 2013, two

37:26

years after Brian's death. Hello,

37:29

can you hear me? Yes. Okay.

37:32

Patricia McCarthy Kelly, his widow, confronted

37:35

a former senior FBI official who played

37:37

a leading role in the investigation. It

37:40

happened at an event at the International

37:42

Spy Museum in DC. Why

37:45

is it that he was left out in a cold like

37:47

that? Mike Rochford, by then a former FBI

37:50

agent, answered in his personal

37:52

capacity. The drive that

37:54

we had really was based on

37:56

a sincere honest

38:00

beliefs that we

38:03

could be losing sources on a continuing

38:06

basis unless we plug the

38:08

hole. There's nothing that Brian

38:10

did in any aspect

38:12

of the investigation that made us feel that

38:17

he had passed anything to the Russians.

38:20

If I had anything to do over again, it would be

38:23

not to open up the case on Brian, but I'm sorry

38:25

for all the pain that was

38:28

brought to you and your family and we

38:30

felt like we were on the right set

38:33

of trails. We

38:36

were if we'd have only been not so egotistical

38:38

as to just look at the agency. We'd have

38:40

looked internally, we probably would have seen that

38:43

we were wrong.

38:49

In 1999, while Brian Kelly was under intense scrutiny,

38:52

Vladimir Putin, an old hand at the KGB,

38:54

came into power in the new Russian government,

38:57

first as prime minister and then as

38:59

president. Around the same time,

39:02

Hanson decided to start spying

39:04

again.

39:05

Our colleague Ward Sloan

39:07

reading from Hanson's letter to the Russians.

39:10

One might propose that I am either insanely

39:13

brave or quite insane. I'd

39:15

say neither. I'd say

39:17

insanely loyal. Take your pick. There's

39:21

insanity in all the answers. I

39:24

have, however, come as close to the edge as

39:26

I can without being truly insane.

39:29

My security concerns have proven

39:32

reality based. I'd

39:34

say pin your hopes on insanely

39:36

loyal and go for it.

39:39

Only I can lose.

39:42

The bureau and CIA continued efforts

39:44

to recruit former KGB officers, the

39:47

dangled cash and other inducements to

39:49

see if anyone might have information that would

39:51

help whack a mole in the US intelligence

39:54

community. Mostly, these

39:56

pitches went nowhere. And

40:01

one day, it worked.

40:03

He says, what do you want? I

40:06

said, well, let's sit down. I want to make you

40:08

the most successful Russian-American businessman

40:10

in the history of our two countries. That's

40:14

next time on Agent of Betrayal,

40:16

The Double Life of Robert Hanson. This

40:21

series was reported by me, Major Garrett,

40:24

Arden Fahry, and Sarah Cook. Our

40:26

team of reporters and producers also includes

40:29

Jamie Benson, Pat Milton, Jake

40:31

Rosen, and Nellie Watson.

40:33

Our producing partner is Neon Hum Media.

40:36

Our senior producer is Odelia Rubin. Zoe

40:38

Kulkin is our associate producer.

40:41

Original music and sound design by Hans

40:43

Dale Shee. Additional music from

40:45

Blue Dot Sessions. Executive

40:48

producers for Agent of Betrayal are Arden

40:50

Fahry, Sarah Morris, and me, Major

40:52

Garrett. Special thanks to Mark

40:54

Lima, Megan Marcus, Ingrid Cyprian-Matthews,

40:57

and Steve Races of CBS News, and

41:00

Jonathan Hirsch of Neon Hum Media. We

41:03

welcome you to contact us at agentofbetrayal

41:05

at cbsnews.com. That's

41:08

agentofbetrayal at cbsnews.com.

41:12

Our thanks to C-SPAN, Federal News Network, 60

41:14

Minutes, the Bernie Reeves Intelligence

41:17

Collection, North Carolina State University, the

41:20

North Carolina Museum of History, the

41:22

International Spy Museum, Christopher

41:24

Burgess, Kathleen Hunt, and Patricia

41:26

McCarthy Kelly. Thanks for

41:29

listening.