0:00

Hey Prime Members, you can listen to Intelligence

0:02

Matters ad-free on Amazon

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Music. Download the app today.

0:07

For two decades, FBI agent Robert

0:09

Hansen sold secrets to the Kremlin. He

0:11

violated everything that my FBI

0:14

stood for. Hansen was the most damaging

0:16

spy in FBI history and his betrayals

0:18

didn't end there.

0:19

Do I hate him? No, I don't hate anyone. But

0:22

his motive, I would love to know what

0:25

his true motive is so I can get that

0:27

out of me.

0:27

How did he do it? Follow

0:30

Agent of Betrayal to the double life of Robert Hansen

0:32

wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free

0:35

on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.

0:37

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's podcast,

0:40

Business Wars. And in our new season,

0:42

we're tracking the race between Google, Microsoft,

0:45

and Meta to develop the most powerful

0:47

AI the world has ever seen. Listen

0:50

to Business Wars on Amazon Music or

0:52

wherever you get your podcasts. Hey

0:55

everyone, I'm Major Garrett, a reporter

0:57

with CBS News. And I'm excited

0:59

to share an episode from my new podcast,

1:02

Agent of Betrayal, the double life of Robert

1:04

Hansen.

1:05

In Agent of Betrayal, I jump into

1:07

the crazy life of the most damaging spy

1:10

in FBI history, Robert Hansen, who

1:12

sold out America by trading classified

1:14

information to the Soviet Union and

1:17

later Russia. Hansen

1:19

was a man of many faces, a self-proclaimed

1:22

patriot and a traitor, a family

1:24

man who sexually betrayed his wife,

1:27

an ardent man of God and a sinner.

1:30

In this first episode, we chronicle the life

1:32

of a spy next door. Here is

1:35

just a sample of what we have.

1:39

The phone rang early Sunday morning. It

1:41

was Eric O'Neill, supervisor at the FBI.

1:45

He says, I need to meet with you. I said, okay, I'll

1:47

come, I'll come downtown. I'll come to the office and

1:49

you can tell me what's up. He

1:51

said, no, you don't need to. I'm parked right outside.

1:54

This was December 2000, and O'Neill was

1:56

still relatively new to the FBI.

1:59

Now, he was used to being a spy. to weekend calls from work,

2:02

but never had a boss come to his apartment

2:04

in Washington. Now

2:06

I was scared, because this doesn't

2:08

happen. I don't think anyone's ever showed up at

2:10

someone's house on a Sunday unless they were arresting

2:13

them. You were probably walking out of your door

2:15

in a cold sweat. Right. Oh, yes, absolutely.

2:18

I mean, I'm tracking every target looking at top of buildings

2:21

thinking, you know, like, where are they? But

2:23

it was just Eric's boss in his car.

2:26

He looks at me and he says, have you ever

2:28

heard of a guy named Bob? Robert Hanson.

2:31

And I said no. And he said, good, because

2:34

we want you to work undercover and

2:37

help us catch him. Robert

2:39

Hanson wasn't your typical suspect.

2:42

He was a self-proclaimed patriot, a married

2:44

father of six and a devout Catholic who

2:46

was fervently anti-communist. And

2:49

yet he spent decades selling

2:52

American secrets to our arch rival,

2:55

the Soviet Union and later

2:57

Russia. He was

2:59

a spy and

3:01

he was working inside the

3:03

FBI as a special agent. When

3:10

the FBI discovered it had a mole in

3:12

its midst, the bureau needed a way to

3:15

trap Hanson and if possible,

3:17

catch him in the act. So Eric

3:19

O'Neill was assigned to work alongside him at

3:22

FBI headquarters. Hanson

3:24

had stolen secrets from the FBI. Now

3:27

the FBI wanted to steal secrets

3:30

from him. Hanson loved

3:32

his Palm Pilot, talked about his

3:34

Palm Pilot more than his wife. The

3:37

FBI suspected Hanson's most valuable

3:40

secrets lived inside his precious

3:43

Palm Pilot. He certainly wanted

3:45

to protect this device. So we had to

3:47

get away from him. Much harder

3:49

than it sounds because Hanson kept

3:51

the Palm Pilot with him at all times in

3:54

his left back pocket. Of course

3:56

he couldn't sit on it. So when he sat down he

3:58

pulled it out and he put it in his pocket. his bag next to him that

4:01

he would keep right next to his desk. We

4:03

had to get him away from his bag with

4:06

sufficient time to get it out, copy

4:09

the whole thing and get it back before he

4:11

knew it was gone. So they hatched

4:13

a plan. The ruse

4:16

was pretty simple. Hanson's bosses

4:18

would challenge him to a shooting contest at the

4:20

FBI gun range in the basement of headquarters, 10

4:24

floors down from their office.

4:26

Within this most petulant

4:27

way, he grumbles to his feet

4:29

and he opens his desk and he grabs

4:32

his firearm and he holsters it. And

4:34

for the first time, he's forgotten to reach down

4:36

to that bag. Hanson had

4:38

left the palm pilot behind. An

4:41

FBI colleague in the basement paged O'Neill

4:43

when Hanson arrived. That

4:46

was his signal to move. He

4:49

went to his bag, kneeled down, opened all the pockets, rifled

4:51

through the bag, found the palm pilot, hands

4:53

are shaking. This finally worked.

4:55

We finally got it. I found a floppy

4:58

disk and a data card, grabbed all three things

5:00

and ran down three flights of steps to

5:03

the sixth floor where we had a tech

5:05

team that had just been waiting. I handed

5:07

over the devices and go and they started

5:10

copying them. His pager

5:12

went off again. Hanson

5:14

was now on his way back upstairs. O'Neill

5:17

had planned for this. He traced

5:19

the journey from the shooting range to the ninth floor

5:22

and when he did it at a dead run, it took

5:25

nine minutes. The tech guys, they're like,

5:27

yeah, we're almost done. Don't worry. And I

5:29

said, you don't understand. He's armed and I'm not. And

5:31

if I don't get up there before him, it's

5:33

game over. He

5:35

waited, nervous. Finally

5:38

the door opened. O'Neill grabbed

5:40

the goods and ran. I

5:43

go back up three flights of steps, got into

5:45

my office, got to his desk, kneeled

5:48

down in front of his bag and

5:51

my heart just fell because I

5:53

looked at his bag and realized I'm holding a

5:56

Palm Pilot, a Sandisk data

5:58

card and a floppy disk.

6:00

And there are four pockets that are open and I have no

6:03

idea which pocket these things were in. And

6:05

I'm sitting there in front of his bag knowing

6:08

I'm dead. There's no way I'm

6:10

getting this right. I hear him coming through that main door.

6:13

So I just dropped all the devices,

6:15

best guess, zipped everything back up, ran

6:17

to my desk, sat there, started

6:20

to pretend I was typing something and put like the

6:22

best poker face I've ever had right on my face.

6:28

Hanson walked through the office's secure

6:31

door. He comes through the

6:33

main area, glares at me,

6:36

goes into his office and slams his door.

6:39

The whole wall shakes. And

6:41

I'm right next to that wall, right, where

6:43

my desk is, and just a few feet away

6:45

through a wall is his desk and I can hear the

6:47

zip. And

6:50

I'm thinking to myself, I'm

6:53

dead. I've blown this case.

6:56

I ruined everything. I'm a

6:58

stupid rookie. It's my fault. And

7:01

even if I survive, I'm never living this down. Robert

7:04

Hanson wasn't just any traitor.

7:07

He was the most damaging spy

7:10

in FBI history.

7:15

I'm Major Garrett. Chief Washington correspondent

7:18

for CBS News. I've

7:20

been reporting on the inner workings of this town

7:22

for more than three decades. I've

7:25

covered lying politicians, scandals,

7:28

and a fair amount of history. But

7:30

I have never, ever come

7:33

across anyone like Robert Philip Hanson.

7:36

You may have heard something about Hanson recently. In

7:39

June, as we were working on this project,

7:41

my CBS News team and I learned that Hanson

7:44

had died in prison. An autopsy

7:46

revealed the cause was colon cancer. 23

7:49

hours a day in solitary confinement for

7:52

two decades is brutal

7:55

on the body and mind. There was nothing

7:57

suspicious about Hanson's death. He

8:00

was 79 and had declined for some

8:02

time. But his life? That

8:06

is worthy of an autopsy, too. My

8:09

team and I spent two years speaking with more

8:11

than 50 of Hansen's friends, family

8:13

members, and former colleagues to try

8:15

to understand why. Why

8:18

this self-avowed patriot would

8:20

portray his country, his faith,

8:23

and his family? Just

8:28

who was Robert Hansen?

8:30

From

8:33

CBS News, this is

8:35

Agent of Betrayal, the

8:36

double life of Robert Hansen. Episode 1,

8:40

The Spy, Next

8:42

Door. The

8:46

Spy, Next Door.

8:51

Robert Hansen seemed like a regular dad.

8:54

He had regular hours. I

8:56

know that he helped the kids with homework, went to their games, took

8:58

them all to church on Sunday. So

9:00

it seemed like a very ordinary, nice

9:04

family.

9:05

That's Nancy Cullen. She and

9:07

her husband raised their two kids down the block from the Hansen

9:09

family in the 80s and 90s. Bob

9:12

Hansen, his wife Bonnie, and their children lived

9:14

in Vienna, Virginia, for most of Bob's

9:16

FBI career. Their brick

9:18

split level sat on a wide street amid

9:20

homes with large green lawns and

9:23

proper sidewalks. There's a park

9:25

and jogging paths a short walk away.

9:29

It's a quintessential D.C. suburb popular

9:31

with federal employees and their families. Nice,

9:34

but not ostentatious.

9:36

It was a close neighborhood, a close street,

9:39

and our kids all played out in the cul-de-sac

9:41

together. We ran into each

9:43

other and chatted a lot.

9:45

Nancy and Bonnie Hansen were part of a women's

9:47

group that meant for lunch once a month.

9:50

How would you describe the Hansen's as a family

9:52

in the neighborhood?

9:53

Well, it was kind of like Donna Reed.

9:56

Nancy is referring to the Donna Reed

9:58

Show, a classic 50s sitcom. com

10:00

best known today for its depiction of

10:02

an all-american family. May

10:05

I have your name, little lady? Donna

10:07

Stone. I'm married and

10:09

have two children. And your housewife. Well,

10:12

I... Oh, now don't tell me you're a spy for the FBI.

10:17

Nancy remembers Bonnie's shoulder-length auburn

10:19

hair and that she was always well

10:21

put together. Some even compared

10:23

her to Hollywood actress Natalie Wood.

10:26

She was always baking. She

10:29

would come to the door in an apron. I

10:32

mean, she was just

10:33

a lovely mom. I mean, she

10:35

was a mom, mom, mom. And

10:38

with six kids, you know, it was

10:40

hard to keep them all under control and handle

10:43

all of that.

10:44

Bob Hanson, on the other hand, was a big guy.

10:47

Six foot three or four grayish brown hair,

10:49

rounded shoulders, and sort of a lurching

10:51

walk.

10:53

Well, I think he was decent looking

10:56

for a guy. He had a kind of a weird

10:58

smile, kind of maybe that crookedish

11:01

smile that may be

11:03

screwed up as looks sometimes.

11:05

Outwardly, nothing that would

11:07

suggest what was to be revealed. Nothing

11:09

at all, no.

11:12

I mean, Robert Hanson was a little bit reticent

11:16

when we'd have our annual Labor Day

11:18

block party, for example. He

11:21

was a

11:21

hang-backer. He

11:24

wasn't someone that engaged or

11:27

smiled a whole lot.

11:28

How did he dress?

11:29

He always seemed pretty

11:32

buttoned up, buttoned down. Is

11:34

that how you say? I think that

11:36

he wore a blazer to the

11:37

block party one time. And

11:39

the only reason I remember

11:41

that is my husband said, what's the matter with

11:43

that guy?

11:45

Nancy's biggest beef with Bob Hanson?

11:48

He sometimes parked his gray sedan on the street

11:51

instead of the driveway.

11:53

It just used to rankle me.

11:55

Damn, cars parked on the street

11:57

again. So he was as regular as pie.

12:02

One key to understanding Robert Hansen is

12:04

that he lived in compartments, a

12:06

different person to different people. Now,

12:09

we all do that to a certain degree. What

12:11

you reveal about yourself at work might be

12:14

slightly different than how you act at home

12:16

or what you share with friends. The

12:19

you remains consistent. Your behavior

12:21

might vary slightly depending on the setting.

12:24

But Hansen was unusual. His

12:27

compartments were not only airtight,

12:29

they were diametrically opposed

12:31

to one another. It's like there were many

12:33

Robert Hansons, each with

12:36

his own moral compass. To

12:41

navigate Hansen's many dimensions, we

12:43

need to go back to

12:46

a neighborhood that could have been

12:48

the inspiration for the Donna Reed Show.

12:52

There's some old-timey touches in this

12:54

neighborhood. Robert

12:56

Hansen was born April 18, 1944 in

13:00

Chicago and grew up on North

13:02

Neva Avenue, a working-class neighborhood

13:05

near O'Hare Airport, a place

13:07

I visited recently.

13:08

Lots of beautiful

13:11

single-family homes modest to

13:13

be sure. Lawns finely

13:15

trimmed.

13:17

There are big oak trees and a Dairy Queen

13:19

nearby.

13:21

Almost to a house on Neva

13:23

Avenue here are small American

13:25

flags in the lawns or

13:28

American flags hung by

13:31

the front door.

13:34

The year Hansen was born in 1944,

13:37

America was still at war. But

13:39

he grew up in post-war middle-class prosperity

13:42

in a predominantly white community. His

13:44

neighborhood was like so many in America.

13:47

Affordable. Red-lined to keep

13:49

African Americans out. Dads

13:52

who worked, moms who stayed

13:54

home.

13:55

Hi, my name is Jack Hoshower.

13:58

I'm Robert Hansen. What was that

14:00

like? When you're best

14:03

friends with somebody from the time you were in high school, you

14:06

share all kinds of experiences together? When

14:12

Jack says he shared all kinds of

14:14

experiences with his best friend, he means it. Jack

14:18

is a man of his era, the kind who

14:20

calls women girls, no matter their

14:22

age. He is one

14:24

of the few who knew many compartments

14:27

of Robert Hanson, but not

14:29

quite all of them. Bob's

14:33

mother Vivian was a housewife and deferential

14:36

as the times dictated. His

14:38

father Howard served in the Navy during World

14:41

War II, then worked as a Chicago

14:43

cop for nearly 30 years. He

14:45

was assigned to a squad that targeted communist

14:48

sympathizers. One

14:51

time as teenagers, Bob and best friend Jack

14:53

were cruising the neighborhood when a police car

14:55

pulled them over. Bob got

14:58

out to talk to one of the officers.

15:00

A guy hollers, let

15:02

him go boys, his father's, Lieutenant

15:05

Hanson, he's a good guy. Like

15:08

so many fathers of that generation, Howard

15:11

Hanson was stern. Law and

15:13

order on the job, law and order at

15:15

home. He spoke little and

15:18

wrote his son hard. For

15:20

instance,

15:21

when Bob was a kid, his father over

15:23

some transgression rolled

15:26

him up in a floor rug trapping him inside

15:29

and left him there. Howard

15:31

seemed to delight in his son's failures.

15:34

So much so, he bribed Bob's driving

15:36

instructors to fail him on his first

15:39

driving test. Bob did

15:41

not talk much about his strained relationship

15:43

with his father, but the message from

15:45

dad to son was clear. He'll

15:48

never be as good as me. My

15:50

mom would occasionally run

15:52

into Bob's dad in the store shopping,

15:56

and he would say

15:58

things about Bob.

16:00

that

16:01

my mother had a hard time

16:03

taking seriously because they were so

16:05

negative. She thought he was making

16:08

some kind of a joke.

16:11

Hanson, an only child, went to public

16:13

schools. Norwood Park Grammar School

16:15

and William Howard Taft High School. There,

16:18

Bob found refuge in his friendship with Jack.

16:21

They met in Mr. Pupo's freshman biology

16:23

class.

16:24

So we were the uncool kids.

16:27

We were the outside nerds. Bob

16:30

loved to drive around with Jack. They

16:33

would race their parents' cars. A

16:35

cherry red Corvette for Jack and a 56 or 57

16:38

Dodge with rounded fins for Bob. At

16:40

one point, he dreamed of being a Formula

16:43

One driver.

16:44

We'd cruise around in the car and look

16:46

at the pretty girls. And as we

16:50

got older,

16:51

our interest changed. But

16:55

also, still like to look at pretty

16:57

girls.

17:00

Bob graduated high school in 1962 and,

17:02

that September, moved into a second-floor

17:04

dorm at Knox College near Peoria, Illinois.

17:08

There, he played intramural basketball, majored

17:10

in chemistry, and perhaps most

17:12

significant, took Russian language classes.

17:16

But Howard pushed his son, said he wanted

17:18

Bob to become a doctor. To

17:21

that end, or perhaps to offset tuition costs,

17:23

Bob spent college summers working at the state

17:26

psychiatric hospital in Chicago, where

17:29

best friend Jack joined him. Bob

17:31

said, hey, I'm working at the state

17:33

mental hospital, and

17:36

there's student nurses there. And

17:39

I said, oh, I think I work at the mental hospital.

17:44

Okay, so maybe it was less about tuition

17:46

or preparing for med school. At

17:50

the hospital, Jack and Bob were hired as recreational

17:53

therapists, basically camp counselors.

17:56

It was their job to do activities with the patients.

17:58

They played gin rummies. They took patients

18:01

on picnics and field trips to Wrigley

18:03

Field to see a ball game. The

18:05

nurses came too. As

18:07

far as getting dates went, well, the

18:09

numbers were in Jack and

18:11

Bob's favor. There were 13

18:14

student nurses

18:17

and I thought I died and gone to heaven, right?

18:22

When did you meet Bonnie? Bonnie

18:25

was working at the mental

18:27

hospital. Bonnie Walk was

18:29

way out of Bob's league. Dough-eyed,

18:32

smart, vivacious. She worked

18:34

in the same ward as Bob and carpooled

18:36

with Bob and Jack.

18:38

And Bob and I had ride with her. Bob

18:40

in the front seat, me in the back seat. And

18:44

we were

18:46

unmerciful in our teasing

18:49

of her as a female driver. How did

18:51

she take it? I

18:54

think she took it all right. And stride. But

18:56

even so, Bob was smitten with her. Not

18:59

initially, I don't think. Yeah.

19:02

He was dating a couple of other girls,

19:05

nurses and other people from the hospital. And

19:12

now I would say I misjudged Bonnie

19:14

at first. I misjudged her terribly. I

19:16

thought she was just a pretty

19:19

bit of fluff. And I've never

19:21

been more wrong about a person in my life.

19:25

After graduating from college, Bob followed

19:28

his dad's wishes to pursue a career in medicine

19:30

and enrolled in Northwestern University's dental

19:33

school. It was 1966. According

19:36

to Jerry Tacosono, his dental school roommate,

19:39

Bob was courteous, a good student and

19:41

a caring person.

19:43

He had an idyllic memory. In other words,

19:45

we another word for it is like he had a

19:48

photographic memory. He just knew

19:51

a lot of stuff and had a lot of stuff

19:53

in his brain. Bob

19:57

said that it was a double-edged sword because...

20:00

He never forgot anything, good and

20:02

bad.

20:03

Jerry says Bob rarely ate in the school cafeteria

20:06

and went out to dinner with different women

20:09

every night. My impression

20:11

was it was companionship. He

20:13

didn't want to eat alone, which I

20:15

can understand. I

20:18

found it interesting

20:19

that it was always somebody else. There

20:22

wasn't anybody that he had a

20:24

lasting relationship with. There was

20:26

one other thing that stuck out to Jerry.

20:29

Most students went to lab dressed casually.

20:32

Not Bob.

20:33

Bob wore a suit every day.

20:37

And my advice to him

20:39

after the two

20:41

quarters of human anatomy, which is probably

20:43

like six months of dissecting

20:46

a cadaver,

20:47

you know,

20:48

I told him to burn that suit. But

20:50

Bob wore a suit every day, even

20:53

in dissection, so

20:55

it smelled.

20:57

Bob bailed on dental school after two

20:59

years, but his same suit every

21:01

day habit followed him from the cadaver

21:03

lab at Northwestern to the halls of the FBI.

21:07

By the way, the dark suits and matching

21:09

demeanor later earned him a nickname, the

21:11

Mortician. Bob

21:14

and Bonnie dated intermittently while he was

21:16

in dental school.

21:18

And she told me that

21:21

the letters he wrote to her are

21:23

what made her fault. But he said

21:26

he wasAllie L costume.

21:48

Bob

21:50

didn't have a suit. Even

21:52

in dissection, so

21:55

it smelled.

21:57

Bob bailed on dental school after two

21:59

years. But his same suit-every-day

22:01

habit followed him from the cadaver lab

22:03

at Northwestern to the halls of the FBI.

22:06

By the way, the dark suits and matching

22:09

demeanor later earned him a nickname, the

22:11

Mortician. Bob

22:14

and Bonnie dated intermittently while he was

22:16

in dental school. And she told

22:18

me that

22:20

the letters he wrote to her are

22:23

what made her fall in love with him. I

22:26

can only speculate what he wrote,

22:29

but apparently

22:31

she was extremely impressed.

22:33

In 1968, they decided to tie

22:35

the knot. People have told us two

22:38

things about the wedding. The first, Bob's

22:40

father Howard, seemingly always eager

22:43

to torpedo Bob, asked Bonnie

22:45

what she saw in his quote, loser's

22:47

son. Bonnie defended

22:49

Bob. The second thing,

22:52

Bob had an affair with another woman not

22:54

long before the wedding. She

22:57

called Bonnie to tell her, screaming

22:59

at her over the phone. But

23:01

Bob downplayed the tryst and promised

23:03

Bonnie that he would be faithful from then

23:05

on. Bonnie took him at his word and

23:08

they went ahead. Best friend

23:10

Jack was best man Jack.

23:13

Nice Catholic wedding. I

23:15

totally blew my best man speech

23:17

at the reception.

23:21

We ate and danced and that was about it.

23:24

Married and still living in Chicago, Hanson

23:26

decided to pursue an MBA in accounting

23:29

and, like his father before him, became

23:31

a Chicago cop. It was

23:33

then Jack witnessed a transformation

23:35

in his friend. Not

23:38

long after the wedding, Bob converted to

23:40

Catholicism and he was all

23:43

in. Bob was raised a

23:45

Lutheran, but it doesn't seem like he was particularly

23:47

devout as a child. Bonnie's

23:50

family, on the other hand, was dogmatically

23:52

Catholic. Bonnie brought Bob

23:55

into Opus Dei, a strict, ultra-conservative

23:58

Catholic movement.

23:59

I went to, occasionally, to a couple

24:02

of his Opus Day evening

24:06

things when I was visiting. Best

24:08

friend Jack recalls how unbending

24:11

Hanson became. There's a time when

24:13

they meet Neil, right? And I knelt. But

24:17

I only knelt on one knee. That's not

24:19

right. He'd kneel both knees. He was

24:22

very, very

24:25

orthodox in a ritualistic

24:28

way.

24:28

Opus Day encourages its members to integrate

24:31

Christian ideals into every facet

24:33

of life. In fact, Opus Day

24:35

literally means work of God.

24:39

The group is known for its secrecy. You

24:41

might know the fictionalized version from Dan

24:43

Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Many call

24:46

Opus Day brainwashing cult. Others

24:48

an ultra-conservative Christian secret society.

24:51

Obviously some people fear what they don't understand.

24:54

And although that version of Opus Day was, you

24:56

know, fictional, one thing is

24:58

true. Opus Day, though small,

25:01

wields a lot of power. Bob's

25:03

affiliation with Opus Day would eventually bring

25:06

him into contact with influential people

25:08

throughout Washington. At

25:11

this point in the early 70s, Bob was

25:13

a Chicago cop. But he had his

25:15

eyes set on something much bigger. The

25:18

FBI.

25:28

Robert Hanson joined the FBI as a special

25:30

agent on January 12, 1976. His

25:34

demeanor there, yet another compartment

25:37

of his personality. He was

25:39

a very difficult boss and a difficult

25:41

manager. Very arrogant,

25:44

condescending. He had a

25:47

serious complex

25:49

about his shortcomings and

25:52

how the FBI had treated him. where

26:00

he worked white-collar crime, which made

26:02

sense with his background and accounting. Two

26:05

years later, the FBI moved Henson to

26:07

New York. Neil Gallagher

26:10

overlapped with him there. He

26:12

was extremely reserved,

26:17

always wore a

26:18

dark suit and white shirt. Some

26:21

may say a typical FBI agent,

26:25

but you couldn't carry a conversation with him. If

26:28

a bunch of agents decide to go out to celebrate

26:30

and have a beer after work, he's probably

26:32

the last guy he'd invite because he

26:35

just has no personality.

26:37

We all know someone like this. They show

26:39

up, but they're hardly noticed. In

26:41

New York, Henson continued working financial

26:44

crimes, then sought a post where

26:46

he could burrow into the world of spies.

26:49

He was soon assigned to work on a database

26:51

that tracked foreign officials and intelligence

26:53

officers posted in the U.S. The

26:57

position also gave him unrestricted access

26:59

to the file room, where he spent hours

27:02

reviewing Soviet espionage cases. Now,

27:06

this was in the midst of the Cold War. The

27:08

U.S. and Soviets, each jogging

27:10

for any advantage in pursuit of global

27:13

supremacy. Every scrap

27:15

of intelligence could drive the countries toward

27:17

war or bring them closer

27:20

to peace. I remember it very clearly,

27:23

and it was a very complicated time

27:26

in America that in certain ways was

27:28

reduced to a very simple time. Joe

27:30

Weisberg worked for the CIA in the 1990s,

27:33

but he's best known for writing a hit television

27:36

drama The Americans, about fictional

27:38

undercover Soviet spies living as

27:40

Americans in the D.C. suburbs in the

27:42

1980s. The show takes

27:45

place during the same Cold War era in

27:47

which Henson operated. Why

27:49

can't we do this together? Because I am a KGB

27:51

officer. Don't you understand that?

27:53

After all these years, I would go to

27:55

jail. I would die. I would lose everything

27:58

before I would betray my country.

28:01

And the simple idea was the Soviet

28:03

Union was bad and we were good. And

28:06

this was best expressed by Ronald Reagan. I

28:08

believe that many of the things they have done are evil

28:11

in any concept of morality that we have.

28:14

When he started saying over and over again that

28:17

they were an evil empire. And

28:20

that really appealed to me because I had

28:22

a sort of simplistic worldview so I

28:24

could hop on board of his simplistic worldview

28:27

and I took it so seriously that I

28:29

wanted to go fight against the evil empire.

28:33

The Cold War brought daily bouts of anxiety

28:35

and paranoia for citizens and

28:37

governments alike.

28:39

For a lot of people of my generation

28:42

this was a kind of daily fear. A significant

28:45

number of people having gone through the drills

28:47

we went through where you would go sit,

28:49

you know, kneel under your desk in case

28:52

nuclear weapons were coming. That's insane

28:54

and wouldn't have done any good but that's what

28:56

they put us through to prepare us. But there was

28:59

no one who wasn't aware of it and frightened

29:01

by it.

29:02

Frightened because both sides had nuclear

29:04

arsenals large enough to destroy humanity

29:07

many times over. That's

29:09

why it was so important to keep the Cold War

29:12

cold.

29:16

By the early 80s, about five years into his

29:18

service, Hanson was transferred again, this time

29:21

to headquarters in Washington, assigned

29:23

to the budget unit. And I dealt

29:25

closely with those people because they told

29:27

us about the future, you know, where we're getting money

29:29

and how we operate it. The budget unit

29:32

was where David Major, an FBI counterintelligence

29:34

agent, first met Hanson. People

29:37

never wanted to be in the budget unit but

29:39

you had to take your brightest and your best people

29:41

to do that because everything revolves

29:43

around the budget. And so

29:45

that's when I met Bob Hanson. David Major

29:48

gave Hanson TSSCI clearance.

29:51

That jumble of letters stands for top secret

29:53

sensitive compartmented information. What

29:56

it means is access to some of the government's

29:58

most guarded secret. The

30:01

budget people had some of the most sensitive and important

30:03

people in the Bureau. There was a few people who knew

30:05

everything, and because he was a budgeteer

30:08

and an analyst, he almost knew everything.

30:10

As such, Hanson could graze on a buffet

30:13

of sensitive FBI documents that

30:15

could be used for budget justifications.

30:18

Bob had a unique way,

30:19

and you probably know people like this, but if

30:21

you started telling something that you think would be a secret,

30:24

you would start to whisper.

30:25

And I'd say, what are you whispering for? We're

30:28

in your office. We're in FBI headquarters. What are

30:30

you whispering for? Yeah, yeah, I know, but let me show you this.

30:33

That's what he wanted to do. Let me show you this. I

30:36

was saying, stop it.

30:38

But he would never do that. He was, he

30:41

was playing secret squirrel, I guess.

30:44

Hanson had a reputation for being nimble

30:46

with technology and information. But

30:50

he was dour, brus, holier

30:52

than thou. Some knew him as homophobic,

30:54

almost cartoonishly anti-communist,

30:57

uber-conservative on law and order.

31:00

He gained a reputation for aggressively pushing

31:02

his Catholic beliefs and was a regular

31:05

at pro-life merges. Hanson

31:07

attended church daily, often the 6 a.m.

31:10

mass near his house, sometimes the

31:12

lunchtime Opus Dei meeting near FBI

31:14

headquarters. You go into his office,

31:16

and it's striking because he had a crucifix

31:19

on the wall behind his desk. James

31:22

Bamford, a former TV news producer

31:24

who covered national security, got to know

31:26

Hanson through his work. Over

31:29

the years, Hanson and Bamford got to be friendly.

31:32

Bamford sometimes took Hanson out on his houseboat.

31:35

Hanson even attended Bamford's wedding. Hanson

31:38

and another mutual friend constantly

31:40

pressured Bamford to join Opus Dei.

31:43

And they kept asking me to

31:45

come with them to go to Opus Dei meeting.

31:47

I had no interest in it, but just

31:50

to keep peace with the family there, sort of. They

31:52

kind of wore you down. Yeah, I said, okay, fine.

31:55

Okay, we'll go. Bamford was raised

31:57

Catholic, but had drifted away. So

32:00

one night I went to Opus Dei

32:02

with them and it was

32:04

like, you know, advanced Sunday school

32:06

or something. So you know,

32:09

then they're done that and I thought, okay, now that we've

32:11

all... Did it kind of bore you to tears? Yeah,

32:14

it's just not my thing. Regularly

32:16

attending Opus Dei meetings in downtown DC

32:18

may have had another benefit for Hanson. If

32:21

I was his phymaster,

32:25

I might suggest that that's a good

32:27

place to actually meet and

32:29

socialize with senior level US

32:32

government officials. In fact, on

32:34

Sundays, Hanson attended the same Northern

32:36

Virginia church as Louis Frane, director

32:39

of the FBI. Hanson

32:46

did have some friends in the intelligence community, like

32:49

Ron Malotak.

32:51

I found him an amazing person, very

32:53

charismatic, very

32:55

intelligent, very

32:57

well informed about

33:00

many things from politics,

33:03

current events, international relations

33:06

to religion, theology, that was our

33:08

original point of interest, religion.

33:12

They worked alongside each other in the late 1990s

33:15

in the State Department's Office of Foreign Missions,

33:17

where Hanson was the FBI liaison.

33:20

They'd have lunch once a week, sometimes would

33:22

go to dinner. Malotak

33:24

found Hanson unfailingly loyal

33:27

and generous. He was a guest at

33:29

Malotak's wedding and ended up volunteering

33:31

to videotape the whole thing. At

33:33

Malotak's son's bar mitzvah, Hanson

33:36

himself performed a mitzvah. He

33:38

rescued it. Observate Orthodox Jews

33:41

don't use electricity on the Sabbath.

33:43

So when the electrical timer malfunctioned and

33:45

the lights went out, Bob Hanson

33:47

stepped right up and volunteered to

33:51

adjust this or to reset the timer so

33:53

that the lights would come back on, which was

33:55

something that no Jewish person would

33:58

be allowed to do. He was

34:00

a solid citizen, extremely

34:03

reliable.

34:04

This is Paul Moore, an analyst whose

34:06

specialty was Chinese espionage. For

34:09

a time, Paul and Hanson were carpool buddies

34:11

at the FBI. Those

34:14

who liked Hanson found something in him

34:16

that others didn't. Paul says

34:18

that Hanson was interested in life's big

34:20

questions.

34:22

Small talk really wasn't his thing.

34:24

Would you mind if I ask you a question? Oh,

34:27

sure. Go ahead.

34:29

Do

34:30

you believe that what you're doing right now

34:35

is what God intended for you to do with your

34:37

life?

34:38

Journalism?

34:40

Just what you're doing now?

34:41

Yeah, absolutely. Sure, absolutely. Oh, okay.

34:44

Now,

34:45

I didn't ask you that question because

34:48

I'm creepy or wants

34:50

you to come to our church dinner. But

34:55

that little moment where you thought,

34:57

what is this question? That moment

35:00

is something which was experienced

35:02

by friends of Bob Hanson

35:04

as opposed to acquaintances.

35:07

Bob was trying to put people

35:09

on the right path where he could, and

35:12

he would use it as an opening to

35:14

a conversational gamble.

35:17

Hanson bounced around the bureau's counterintelligence

35:19

operation perhaps a bit more than his

35:21

peers. But it was pretty typical for

35:23

agents to get promotions and move desks every

35:26

few years. The FBI

35:28

Soviet Analytical Unit provided Hanson

35:31

a prime perch, entree

35:33

to a full array of FBI investigations

35:36

involving Soviet agents. Hanson,

35:38

an agent, supervised analysts

35:40

who would take information gathered from the field

35:43

and try to make sense of it, try to piece together

35:45

the puzzle. Bob King was

35:47

one of them. He shared a cubicle with Hanson

35:50

and another analyst. So you interacted

35:52

daily? Interacted daily,

35:55

yes. He would come across as very cold and

35:58

if people didn't.

36:01

perform the way he thought they should, he ignored

36:03

them. Hanson

36:05

and King weren't necessarily friends, but

36:08

they worked closely together covering really

36:10

sensitive stuff, like the identities

36:13

of Soviets surreptitiously working for the U.S.

36:15

and super-secret government operations.

36:18

If that information got into the wrong hands,

36:21

it could be hugely damaging. King,

36:24

Hanson, and Paul Moore also went

36:26

to monthly meetings of Washington's Apple Computer

36:29

Club. The club's catchy name?

36:32

Apple Pie. The pie

36:34

spelled P-I. This was the

36:36

1980s, and computers were primitive.

36:39

But Hanson was fairly adept with them.

36:41

Again, Paul Moore. I had just gotten

36:44

my Apple II Plus

36:46

computer, and then he said, you know,

36:48

what you really ought to do is

36:50

study programming language. And so

36:53

he showed up with a book on C and C

36:55

Plus and C Plus Plus. And

36:58

what I wanted to use the computer

37:00

to do was to find out

37:03

how to get through the locked

37:05

door

37:06

on the fourth floor of

37:08

the mansion in the Macintosh adventure game.

37:13

Hanson's goals were a little more ambitious. He

37:15

was more of a nitty-gritty guy.

37:17

We'd go to the meetings of

37:19

the Apple Club in Washington

37:22

every month, and Bob would peel off and

37:25

talk to the guys who wanted to hook

37:27

up their machines to an oscilloscope

37:30

or something like that.

37:32

Before Hanson had met Bob King or

37:34

Paul Moore or Ron Milotek, he

37:36

had already turned on them. By

37:38

the late 70s, Hanson had

37:41

crossed the line. We don't

37:43

know what exactly pushed him over

37:45

the edge. Was it money, glory,

37:48

that he felt unappreciated at the FBI,

37:50

his father,

37:52

the thrill of it?

37:54

Whatever it was, one

37:56

day in 1979, he walked into an

37:58

enclave of Soviet spies. and

38:00

made them an offer. In 1979,

38:07

Hanson was still relatively new at the FBI,

38:09

just three years in. Bonnie and

38:12

their three kids were living in a small house in

38:14

Westchester County, a bit north of Manhattan.

38:17

Life was getting expensive, and

38:19

FBI agents weren't paid more to compensate

38:22

for living in one of America's priciest cities.

38:27

The FBI asked Hanson to create a national

38:29

counterintelligence database, everything

38:32

and everyone vital to the KGB

38:35

and the GRU, Russian Military

38:37

Intelligence. Hanson

38:39

learned a lot, and quickly,

38:42

inside knowledge of where to find Russian

38:44

spies on American soil.

38:48

Among the key insights, the KGB

38:51

and GRU used different covers to

38:53

hide their spies. The

38:55

Soviet news agency TASS served as a

38:57

front. KGB spies would

38:59

pose as journalists. The

39:01

GRU laundered its spies through

39:04

AMTORG, a Soviet exporting

39:06

agency.

39:07

If an American company wanted to do business

39:09

in the Soviet Union,

39:11

it almost always went to AMTORG

39:13

first. This is

39:15

where Hanson's career as a mole

39:18

officially began.

39:19

The moment,

39:20

end place, he turned

39:23

traitor.

39:28

Again, Neil Gallagher, who worked alongside

39:31

Hanson in New York. He

39:33

was assigned to the Russian

39:36

Counterintelligence Division. Not

39:39

long after he was assigned, it was

39:42

about five months that he walked

39:44

into AMTORG Trading Corporation.

39:47

The AMTORG Trading Corporation was

39:49

based in a white, 22-story office

39:51

building on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 40th

39:54

Street in Manhattan, two blocks from

39:56

Grand Central Terminal and a few doors

39:58

down from the Chrysler Building.

40:00

Everyone knew what am torque was everybody

40:02

in that division

40:04

Knew what am torque trading corporation

40:06

and you also knew that at different

40:08

facilities around New York. There

40:11

is varying Complexity of

40:13

coverage that anybody who would walk

40:15

in to a certain facility You

40:17

may be subject to a court approved

40:20

video coverage of you walking in he

40:23

had to find out That there

40:25

was no video coverage of

40:27

the front door of am torque

40:30

So on a fall day Hansen took the elevator

40:32

up to am torque's offices dropped off

40:34

a letter and walked out Evading

40:37

the FBI's watchful eye. It

40:39

was a brazen but calculated approach

40:45

Not long after Hansen walked into am torque

40:48

to offer his services Someone

40:51

was on to him and eventually

40:53

caught him red-handed in

40:55

his own home It

40:57

wasn't the feds the

41:00

person who caught him Was

41:02

his wife That's next

41:04

time on agent of betrayal

41:06

the double life of Robert Hansen This

41:12

series was reported by me Major Garrett

41:14

Arden Farley and Sarah cook Our

41:17

team of reporters and producers also

41:19

includes Jamie Benson Pat Milton

41:21

Jake Rosen and Ellie Watson Our

41:24

producing partner is neon hum media

41:27

our senior producer is Odelia Rubin

41:29

Zoe Culkin is our associate producer original

41:33

music and sound designed by Hans Dale

41:35

she additional music from blue

41:37

dot sessions Executive

41:39

producers for agent of betrayal are Arden

41:42

Farley share a Morris and me major

41:44

Garrett special thanks to

41:46

mark Lima Megan Marcus Ingrid Sabrina

41:49

Matthews and Steve Racy's of CBS

41:51

News and Jonathan Hirsch

41:53

of neon home media

41:55

you