Making Secrets Safe

But Hanssen Never Polygraphed In 25 Years As FBI Counter-Spook

(CBS)  The Senate Intelligence Committee has scheduled a closed hearing to press for answers on how an FBI counterintelligence agent was able to sell secrets to Russia from 1985 until his arrest Tuesday.

"Some of the questions that will be asked are looking through the rearview mirror, trying to find out what happened, and some will be looking through the front window pane into how we can prevent a repetition," Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., the panel's vice chairman, said Wednesday.

FBI Director Louis Freeh and CIA Director George Tenet will appear at the hearing.

The Charges

See an excerpt of the government's charges against Robert Hanseen.

Read the complete affidavit listing alleged acts of espionage by the veteran FBI agent.

Robert Philip Hanssen, 56, only the third FBI agent ever accused of spying, was charged Tuesday with espionage and conspiracy to commit espionage.

He is alleged to have handed over 6,000 pages of classified material, including 26 computer disks, plus details of "sensitive espionage techniques" in return for $600,000 in cash, some diamonds and $800,000 promised for retirement.

In the wake of the arrest, FBI security policies have come under scrutiny.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has asked former FBI director William Webster to convene a panel of experts to review bureau procedures and recommend changes.

The FBI said Thursday that tighter controls over top-secret documents and other improvements recommended after the Aldrich Ames spy case helped catch Hanssen.

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reported Wednesday that senior FBI officials are considering a new policy requiring widespread polygraph tests of employees to prevent further espionage, after acknowledging that Hanssen was never polygraphed even once during his entire 25 years as an FBI counterintelligence agent.

Bureau officials explained that Hanssen became an agent in 1976, 17 years before the FBI decided to start polygraphing all new job applicants.

Other than new agents, polygraphs were limited to "disciplinary cases" and agents working in "highly specialized programs" or on "sensitive cases." For reasons not made clear, the bureau never included Hanssn in either of the latter two categories, sources said.

A World Of Spies

Click on these links for descriptions of some major spy organizations:

Russia
Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)

France
General Directorate for External Security (DGSE)

Britain
Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)

China
Ministry of State Security (MSS)

Bureau management had been cautioned four years ago by the Justice Department inspector general to beef up training and communications. The FBI was criticized at that time for not doing enough to find out how Ames leaked sensitive information to the Soviet Union.

FBI spokesman John Collingwood said Thursday that recommendations made in the inspector general's 1997 report were implemented and had a direct bearing on the arrest of Hanssen this week.

"The post-Ames focus on the possibility of additional compromises led directly to the charges against Hanssen," Collingwood said. "Substantial resources and expertise are being afforded to this effort."

However, U.S. officials confirmed that it wasn't until they obtained a package of documents last fall from a Russian turncoat that they began to hone in on Hanssen as a spy suspect.

And former FBI officials quoted by USA Today in Thursday editions said Hanssen once openly hacked into the office computer of the FBI's top Russian counterintelligence official in the early 1990s.

After infiltrating the computer, he told FBI officials that he was demonstrating the vulnerability of system. He was not reprimanded, according to the officials.

The bureau is still trying to assess the damage caused by Hanssen's alleged activities.

The FBI said it was Hanssen who ruined an investigation of a U.S. foreign service officer, Felix Bloch, by disclosing the probe to the Russians. Information from Hanssen and Ames also allegedly led to Russia's execution of two double agents.

David Major, who was Hanssen's boss at the FBI, told The Washington Post that the agen had access to "Everything — all sources, all methods, all techniques, all targets. There's only a few people in counterintelligence that have to know everything. And he was one of them."

So Who Is He?

The idea that FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen could be a Russian spy shocks neighbors and former colleagues who describe him as a quiet man who dotes on his family.

FBI agents Thursday scoured Hanssen's Vienna, Va., backyard looking for more evidence, including a diamond Hanssen is alleged to have received as part of his spy pay.

According to the FBI, Hanssen's spying began with an Oct. 1, 1985, letter to a KGB official in the United States in which he offered to send documents " from certain of the most sensitive and highly compartmented projects of the U.S. intelligence community."

Hanssen, a father of six, allegedly never met with his contacts and didn't reveal his name. The letters attributed to him often began "Dear Friend" and were always signed with aliases — most often "Ramon" or "B".

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov Thursday said he did not want the spy controversy with Washington to dominate his talks with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Cairo on Feb. 24.