After World War II, the hegemony of the Western world was firmly held in the palm of the hand of the United States, and in order to consolidate its dominant position, the United States continued to implement a policy of suppression and containment to the outside world.
The Soviet Union, the big brother of the Eastern Bloc, bore the brunt of the thorn in the side of the United States.
From the "Truman Doctrine" to Eisenhower's "strategy of large-scale retaliation," the United States has constantly lengthened the line of geopolitical containment, using both soft and hard measures in a vain attempt to control the Soviet Union in an encirclement.
However, the Soviet Union was by no means a fish to be slaughtered on the chopping block, and in the face of the suppression of US hegemonism, the Soviet Union opened a strategic framework of anti-containment.
In the early days of the Cold War, the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact to break through the encirclement, and then established the "Economic Mutual Association" to carry out international cooperation. The Soviet Union's drastic increase in its military strike capability frightened the United States and forced it to step up its reconnaissance work against the Soviet Union.
As an intelligence officer, Hansen worked for the United States, but secretly sold intelligence to the Soviet Union, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars before and after. Because of his high tactics, he was arrested after 25 years of activism, leaving the US intelligence community with no face.
So who is this Hansen? How did he get in touch with the Soviet Union and pass on intelligence to the Soviet Union? How did Hansen get caught in the end?
[a]
Hansen: Young and ambitious, dedicated to being an agent
On April 18, 1944, a small life was born in a police family in Chicago, and his father named him Robert Hansen.
The name "Hansen" means helpful and broad-minded in English, and perhaps it is destined that this child will not be ordinary in the future.
In his childhood, Hansen was an introverted and even somewhat wooden child, he had a gentle but not verbal personality, and liked to read but closed himself. Even his teachers have repeatedly reminded parents that Hansen's introversion is not conducive to growth.
For this problem, my father talked to Hansen many times, and when he learned that the young Hansen wanted to be like his father, a policeman who punished evil and promoted good, my father's worry was a little less.
In 1966, at the age of 22, Hansen earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Knox University, and then went on to earn a master's degree in dentistry at Northwestern University.
But soon, Hansen discovered that the dental profession was not what he wanted to do.
So in 1968, he switched to economics, and in 1973, Hansen became a certified public accountant. His family thought that Hansen would be a proper accountant, but the unfulfilled dream kept pushing him to explore society further.
After two years at an accounting firm, Hansen finally found the courage to leave and subsequently recruited for the local police department in Chicago.
Luckily, Hansen was accepted into the police and assigned to the Anti-Corruption Task Force as an investigator. Hansen finally had a place to play, but his work was not idle, and the work of the anti-corruption team focused on investigating corruption within the police.
Hansen was overjoyed, and he felt that he was getting closer and closer to his childhood dream.
It turned out that under the influence of his father in his childhood, Hansen originally aspired to become a police officer who fought violence and peace, but when Hansen was 14 years old, his worldview was refreshed.
At that time, the autobiography of the legendary British spy Philby, "My Secret War", had a more profound impact on him, and since then, Hansen has silently determined in his heart that he will become a great spy like Philby in the future.
After joining the FBI, Hansen, who had taken Russian in college, was entrusted with the task of monitoring the Soviet Embassy in the United States and spying on all Soviet activities in the United States.
Hansen was proud when he first got this important task, and vowed to make a name for himself. But the independence and complexity of the FBI itself exacerbated the tedium of the work, and although Hansen was outwardly old-fashioned and unreassuring, he was extremely disgusted with the FBI's cold style.
It wasn't long before Hansen suddenly found his interest, and he decided that instead of spending a passive life in the FBI, he might as well have some fun for himself.
[two]
Double agent, master of art and bold
Hansen's long-term exposure to intelligence information from the Soviet side led to his great interest in the Soviet Union. Soon after, he suddenly had the bold idea of finding something different for his work, as a way to lift his bored nerves.
If you're lucky, you'll be able to get a piece of the pie.
In 1979, under the guise of "spying on Soviet intelligence strongholds," Hansen entered a New York business company. The commercial company was a Soviet intelligence point in the United States, and his years of experience gave Hansen a thorough knowledge of its operations.
Hansen brazenly came to the front desk of the company and asked the front desk to hand over his "investment integrity" to the manager.
At first, the Soviets were very skeptical of Hansen's overtures, which Hansen had expected.
The next day, Hansen visited again and brought with him crucial information about the "purgatory" of American agents who had been lurking in the Soviet Union for many years.
"Purgatory", whose real name was Boryakov, was at this time serving as an important post in the Soviet military intelligence department, and after verification and confirmation by the Soviet side, "purgatory" was completely cleared.
At the same time, the Soviet side also believed in Hansen's sincerity, and in order to repay Hansen and reach in-depth cooperation with Hansen, the Soviet side paid Hansen tens of thousands of dollars.
This money is not a decimal number, and Hansen has nowhere to hide it with him, so he can only take it home with him. The complacent Hansen was found to be abnormal by his wife, and after some interrogation by his wife, Hansen had no choice but to tell the truth.
Hansen's wife, a teacher at a Catholic church, saw Hansen's guilt in his own pleasure and persuaded him to stop in time.
In order to reassure his wife, Hansen donated all the money from "treason" to charity, thereby reducing his guilt. But Hansen himself didn't realize that this "spy battle" had made Hansen unable to rein in the precipice.
In 1985, Hansen became an intelligence officer in the New York branch of the FBI, and with his extraordinary courage and fine insight, as well as the intelligence exchanged by the Soviet Union, Hansen's work was greatly recognized by his superiors.
Suddenly, one day, Hansen found that he had enough information in his hands to set off a storm.
[three]
Running wild on the spy road, Hansen fell deeper and deeper
After being in a high position, Hansen's "spy heart" is ready to move again, and he will inevitably act if he thinks about it. He immediately contacted an important person, ready to use this raging tide to help him ride the wind and waves.
Hansen quickly contacted Cherkasin, the chief of intelligence at the Soviet embassy in the United States, who was ostensibly an elegant diplomat, but whose real identity was the Soviet KGB.
On October 1, 1985, Hansen wrote a letter to Cherkasin with great emotion, in which he mentioned that he would provide him with a very valuable piece of information, which was worth $100,000.
He didn't know if Cherkasin would pay a lot of money to buy this shocking secret, and out of the protection of his own safety, Hansen signed the letter with a capital letter P at the end of the letter.
After receiving the letter, it was difficult for Cherkasin to determine the identity of the other party, but the opportunity could not be lost, and with many years of reconnaissance experience, Cherkasin immediately applied to Moscow to ask whether this matter was feasible.
The Moscow side also called for $100,000 in the same vein attitude, and the information provided by Hansen in the end was really worth the money.
Based on the internal intelligence provided by Hansen, the Soviet Union dug up three KGB who were lured by the United States to rebel and recovered a lot of losses.
Hansen was a vigilant man, he provided intelligence, but he did not interface with any Soviet intelligence agents. The Soviet side also used this as a protective measure against "Ramon", so it was not until Hansen was arrested that the Soviet Union saw the true face of "Ramon".
At that time, in order to deal with the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, the United States specially developed a "presidential security fortress" program, the purpose of which was to protect the president from continuing to manage the United States after the Soviet nuclear weapons attack.
But this plan had just been implemented, and it actually became the talk of the Soviet Intelligence Service. Even the location of the U.S. presidential fortress and the hiding place of the president's successor in the event of an accident were firmly controlled by the Soviet Union, thanks to Hansen.
In addition, Hansen also gave a big gift to the Soviet Union.
At that time, the United States dug a wiretapping tunnel under the Soviet embassy, and after Hansen revealed this information, the Soviet Union raised the embassy's alert, so that the underground eavesdropping tunnel that the United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build became a useless ornament.
In view of the accuracy and timeliness of the information obtained by the Soviet side, the US side cannot but suspect that there is an internal ghost in the FBI. Since then, everyone in the FBI has been in danger, but when the United States launched an investigation, Hansen was repeatedly ignored perfectly.
Because Hansen never kept the money he got from selling intelligence in the bank, but hid it all at home. And Hansen is not a materialist, he has always been low-key, and no one will blame him for being a "traitor".
But just as Hansen was enjoying the sense of accomplishment of the moment, he received the news of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In order to protect his own security, Hansen stopped contact with the Soviet side, and it was not until 1995 that he resumed intelligence docking with Russia.
It wasn't until 2000 that a defected Russian spy exposed Hansen's identity. To the FBI's speechlessness, Hansen was the FBI's representative to the U.S. State Department at the time.
It is hard for the top level of the FBI to believe that such a high-ranking official actually defected to the enemy. They wanted to arrest Hansen, but due to the lack of evidence, Hansen continued to live as usual.
In 2001, Hansen, who couldn't bear the loneliness, finally contacted the KGB again, but this time Hansen fell into the FBI trap.
Hansen was arrested by the FBI on the spot, and his colleagues thought that Hansen would be stunned, but he indifferently joked that the FBI was incompetent and useless - it took you so long to find out that I was a double agent.
Hansen was subsequently arrested and tried, and his story was reported by the media, causing heated discussions in American society. As for Hansen himself, he has not been seen since.
Written by Momoyuki
Resources:
1. "The Great Spy Robert Hansen Arrested", Yin Ming
2. "Sleeping with Spies - The Life of Spy Robert Hansen and His Wife in the Same Bed and Different Dreams", Tan Shunmou