FBI TRUE

It was 1985 that everything began to go bad.

We had two of our sources that were compromised

by someone unknown..

He was a general.

You can't get any higher than that.

He was the most important spy we'd ever had.

He was executed.

We were all in tears.

- And how do you put a value on a human life?

- There's a handful of people that would have had access

to the cases that were compromised.

- We knew it was somebody we were working with.

- We had his telephone tapped at home and at work.

- There was no way that we were going to fail.

More would have been killed.

The last thing you want to believe is that you've got

an American citizen who's betraying his country.

- A mole. - A mole inside the CIA.

In the FBI, we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings.

Terrorist takedowns.

We understand why people

want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it. - Freeze!

FBI.

- FBI! - Action!

But they don't know the half of it.

What really goes down? We save that for each other,

when we're talking agent to agent.

This is FBI. True.

Sandy, in the mid eighties,

What was your role in the Agency?

- I worked in the Soviet group on the GRU officers

and the KGB officers.

Sandy Grimes joined the CIA in 1967

and worked with double agents who were spying on behalf of the U.S. Government

- I was in charge of all of our operations in Africa.

It was a wonderful place to recruit Soviet and East Europeans.

I knew you were cool.

I didn't know you were that cool.

Barry Colvert was on the FBI's fugitive robbery

task force before becoming

a polygrapher in 1980, working murder cases, terrorism,

white-collar crime and espionage.

- So, Dell, tell me about the start of your FBI career.

- I seemed to have a knack for counterintelligence work,

looking for people who were spying against the U.S. Government

Dell Spry was a deputy sheriff in Alabama,

before joining the bureau.

He worked white-collar crime and counterespionage,

and was the FBI's liaison

to the CIA counterintelligence center.

What started the case?

Are you guys working together?

How did you know there was a mole inside the CIA?

Cindy Coppola is a 23-year veteran of the FB.

she worked on cases that included organized crime

and terrorism and took part in multinational investigations

into drug trafficking and money laundering.

- It was 1985 that everything began to go bad.

- Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Tensions between the U.S. and Soviet union reach

a fever pitch as both sides deploy missiles in Europe.

- We had people starting to get recalled.

In 1985, some of America's most valuable intelligence assets,

Soviets secretly working with the U.S Government,

are suddenly called back to Russia

and never heard from again.

We had two of our sources Martynov-- Yes.

And Motorin, they were FBI sources

that were compromised by that time someone unknown.

A year later, the CIA loses contact with major

General Dimitri Polyakov, a priceless source in the GRU,

the Soviet intelligence directorate.

He was a general in the GRU.

You can't get any higher than that .

He was the most important spy we'd ever had.

And he really wanted to help the United States.

He thought we just didn't have any understanding

of the GRU and, of course, the KGB too.

- He was an incredible asset for this country.

Just unbelievably important.

And Sandy probably won't say it, but I will.

That's one of the reasons she was chosen

to be assigned to work Polyakov.

She was responsible in large part, analyzing

his information, providing taskings for him.

All of that happened because of Sandy Grimes.

- When we heard that Polyakov had been arrested,

we were all in tears.

The Soviet secret police are worried Polyakov

will swallow cyanide to kill himself

and avoid torture in prison,

so they put him in a choke hol.

This sounds a little odd.

He was a nice guy.

He was our hero.

He was executed.

- Besides Polyakov, there was others that were missing as well.

So, Dell, tell me about Tolkachev.

- Tolkachev was an engineer and knew a great deal

about weapons and how weapons were designed and developed.

So he was a real significant source for us about what was

Russia looking to in the future as weapons development.

So did he disappear as well?

- Yes, he was one of the ones who disappeared post 1985.

The arrests and executions can't be coincidental.

Investigators from the FBI and CIA

suspect there's a traitor inside the Agency.

The last thing you want to believe is that you've got

an American citizen who's betraying his country

and that it is someone that you sit next to at the office.

A mole.

- A mole. - What was the impetus that

brought you two together working and then Barry

coming in later on?

- I was told by my supervisor that headquarters wanted to talk

to me and I went to headquarters.

And I was told we had this special matter

coming over from the Agency.

He said: "we want you to be the lead investigator on this matter".

And I said: "Great, what matter?"

And he said: "Well, we can't tell you yet.

You got to get read in and compartmented."

And that's when I became a member of the task force.

The CIA is already hunting for the mole.

but as a foreign intelligence agency, they can't investigate Americans on U.S. soil.

That's the job of the FBI.

- So you all are working together to find

a potential mole within the Agency.

Take me through those steps. - We would go over to meet

in their counterintelligence center with Jeanne and Dan Payne

and Sandy, we'd come over to the Washington field office

and we would all get together in the SCIF.

- Sure, I worked in them all the time.

- You've been in them so you know all about them.

If you could just imagine, Cindy, the pressure of being

in this small room and I mean literally 10 hours a day at least.

And you can't, when you leave that room,

you can't talk to anybody about what you're doing.

The pressure was just...it was enormous.

It was extremely difficult on me and my wife

because I was working crazy hours, and I get a phone call

in the middle of the night, I'd have to get up and leave.

Your weekends are never yours.

- And we also knew personally there was no way

that we were going to fail.

Professionally, there was no way we could fail.

More people would die.

You know, every day was another gamble.

We're looking for someone now who would sell out his country.

And we got. And I think Jeanne was the one that said:

"okay, guys, everybody, let's write down

our top three suspects".

- We knew it was somebody we were working with.

- When Jeanne took up the cards, Rick was one of the top three

on every card - And who was that?

- Rick Ames. - Rick Ames.

Aldrich Ames. - Aldrich Ames.

To America's spy masters, this couldn't be a worse name.

Aldrich Ames has access to the country's most vital secrets.

Ames is a counterintelligence officer in the CIA's Soviet and Eastern European Division,

where he's privy to the Agencys plans and operations

against the KBG and GRU.

Rick and I carpooled.

Are you kidding?

So tell me about that.

You lived near him and you carpooled with him.

What was he like? - Tall, gangly.

He always forgot to wash his hair, comb it.

And he was late every single time.

He was just goofy old Rick.

Thought he was the smartest kid on the block.

- We thought there were others that needed to be looked at,

but we agreed that Ames was clearly the person to focus--

- Your number one choice. - Yes.

We want to focus our resources on.

As the CIA's assets are being swept up in the USSR...

Ames marries his second wife, Rosario, and he suddenly

has money to spend, buying luxury items, including

a new $43,000-dollar Jaguar.

- He bought a new house and he wanted to show us all the new house.

It was not a secret.

Because he said that she, Rosario, had money.

- He was in your eyes, living above his means.

But his answer to that was it was his wife's money.

Yes.

- I was the only polygraph examiner in the Washington office at the time,

so I'd handle almost all the spy cases up till that time.

They said there's a handful of people they would have

had access to the cases that were compromised.

And they've all had polygraph tests recently.

We want you to go to the Agency and review their polygraph charts.

And the first two were clear. They were good charts.

And then when I got to Rick Ames, he's not getting

through on the question about money, but he gave them

an explanation, and the examiner never tested him further.

So when I came back, I said:

"These two I don't have any trouble with".

Do not clear Rick Ames.