happen because of the law construed them as property. in jefferson construed them as property. announcer: for our complete schedule, go to www.c-span.org. announcer: next on american history tv, we hear intelligence experts discuss some of the most notable espionage sites in the nation's capital including embassies, hotels and even walking paths. the presentation focuses on their new book "spy sites of washington dc." the international spy museum in washington, d.c. hosted the event. it is about 90 minutes. >> welcome, we are delighted to see you. i am the executive director and i think you are in for a scintillating evening.

i must say, it is going to be a pleasure given all of that is going -- given all that is going on around us to be able to talk about things that happened in the past scandals and spy stories and so forth. there are going to be two authors. you may know of his past writings, keith melton. he is an internationally recognized author and intelligence historian. an expert on clandestine devices and technology, how all this stuff works and as a longtime advisor to the u.s. intelligence committee which is where i first met him -- he is a technical trained craft historian at the training center in washington dc. he is also in his private life -- he has assembled the largest collection of espionage related

artifacts in the world. more on that later. part of that collection is on display at cia headquarters, some as featured in his book "the ultimate spy book." keith has also participated in something on the order of 40 documentaries and tv shows. the latest of which i will mention because it will ring a bell. "the americans." some of the more clever plot devices i think of him and the gentleman right here in this room. the last book he did has been featured in many places "spy craft." these are the gadgets, these are the things that people are always asking about when they come to the museum. how do things work, what do spies use, how does that happen? he is a graduate of the u.s. naval academy and a founding

member of the international spy museum advisory board and was recently appointed to the board of directors. one last item i would like to note is that is keith quite recently has generated -- has a generously donated his collection to the international by museum which is just -- the international spy museum, which is an excellent guesture. our museum will be more magnificent because of him. the co-author of keith is bob wallace, a former colleague of mine at the cia. one of the high points of his career was he was chief of technical services.

bob was head of the unit that you know from the bond movies as q. that is the easiest way for me to refer to him in that capacity. he is the co-author of "spy craft." he served in the u.s. army in vietnam. he has a masters and political science, university of kansas. speaks and writes on leadership and intelligence and management topics and also serves on the board of advisory in the international spy museum. it is with great pleasure that i welcome both of you and ask you to take the stage. thank you so much. [applause]

robert: did you order this water, keith? good evening. delighted to be here. the first challenge in giving any kind of presentation of this type is will this thing work? the answer is yes. so far, so good. the lighted to be here. thank you for attending. you brought better weather than we had earlier today.

we will discuss spy sites in washington, d.c. some you may be familiar with. i think you will find the stories that we will tell and some of the videos that you will have a chance to see to be particularly intriguing and perhaps new. peter, thank you to the international spy museum for inviting us and most importantly for displaying our book prominently down in the bookstore. i'd like to begin by recognizing and introducing hank schlesinger.

where are you? hank is standing back there by the wall. hank is a colleague of ours. hank has written books with a keen eye for the last 12 or 15 years. hank has just done a magnificent job in terms of research and pulling together a lot of the material that we have in these books. for those of you who might be familiar or have access to the publication of the association of former intelligence officers, hank has a fascinating article in this month's, or current, edition on a little-known spy but important spy of revolutionary war, thomas diggs. he did spying for us in europe. i would also like to ask, is there anyone here from georgetown university press?

georgetown university press and don jacobs, the senior editor, were instrumental in putting this book together. we were so pleased with the format and layout and design of the book. i did want to acknowledge them. yes. that's mae west, right? it is known, the international spy museum is known for a number of lovely ladies they employed here so we thought it important to grace this event with mae west initially. why would we use mae west? it is so many sites, so little time is what we want to emphasize. we think our database runs well

over 1000 different sites and most of you have no interest in reading a book that thick. we have selected to about 350, 400 sites that are in the book. mae west also at a fascinating counterintelligence observation that we thought was important to share with you. there are, i believe, a couple of agents, officers from the federal bureau of investigation here. i personally want to thank you for your service and this is what mae west suggested. it seems to me that i have known so many men that the fbi ought to come to me first to compare fingerprints.

now if i were a special agent, i think that it's one of those assignments i would love to have. "casablanca." world war ii film. the vichy police chief is, of course, succumbs to german pressure to close rick's cafe. >> everybody is to leave here immediately. this cafe is closed until further notice. clear the room at once. >> on what grounds? >> i'm shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. thank you very much. everyone out at once. in recent weeks of variations of the dialogue only a bit modified had been repeated daily by american politicians and reporters. i'm shocked to find cyber and espionage going on here and by the russian, no less.

i'm shocked, shocked to learn foreign governments use clandestine opportunities to affect u.s. policy. too foften, i think we have head exactly that sentiment. and for you students of espionage, history and raiders of spy sites, we'll discover there really is no shock. the foreign intelligence is spying on prominent politicians. and seeking to influence their political positions. and really have been doing so since maybe 1776. here in america. we're going to talk about locations in washington where intelligence activities are carried out. and describe some of the significant operations and profile of few of the key people. spies are freely depicted.

as shadowy. it is more likely you will find spies hanging out in embassies or hotels. if you live in northern virginia, at the maclean family restaurant. mclean family restaurant. for those spies that our people, aspiring spies, embassies provide several critical factors that allow a spy to operate. they provide cover. they provide security they provide a physical presence. and a target country. they also provide targets for the opposition. when we talk about spying. are always two wings to the spy airplane. the one wing is active election

and the other is counterintelligence. have manywise attributes that are attractive to spies. venuesome the kind of where it is often both convenient to find a spy, but also very amenable to spy operations. clandestine operations sometimes are best on if they can be done right open. you don't, you see or you don't see what is really happening. that areembassies, particularly significant in washington's spy history is the pullman house. it was built by the inventor of the pullman railway car. made a fortune, george pullman. for his a house in 1910

daughter and her congressman husband. unfortunately for the couple, the congressman fell ill. they never occupied that building. it was sold a few years later to the czarist government and became the embassy then for rus sia. when the revolution occurred, the united states did not immediately recognize the ussr. did not recognize it until 1933. at that point, the pullman house, the embassy, became the soviet embassy. thenembassy subsequently became the location where a number -- of americans. >> try to speak with someone in their security department. has some information to discuss.

>> who's calling? hold please. have something i would like to discuss. i think it will be very interesting to you. i work for the united states government. >> that is the voice of ronald pelton, perhaps the most damaging nsa spy before snowden. left the employment of nsa in 1979 and began spying in 1980. made multiple trips to europe, where he was decreased -- debriefed and spied for five years before he was exposed by a russian defector, story that we were here little more later. soer well known and not well-known spies that reached out to the russian embassy, the soviet amnesty, were john wal ker, cia officer oliver james

and air force officer christopher cook. and a marine private named brian slavin's. a former kgb officer described the embassy's fourth floor as a soviet residence where the intelligence officers had their officers in a secure area, fourth floor secure area, described it as cramped, dimly lit and windowless and 8800 square feet that they were packed into. sounds similar to some government officers i have been associated with over the years. nevertheless, this is today now, loorspect the fourth fol has been renovated. the russian ambassadors officer and i think you will notice maybe one antenna on the roof. all of the other antennas have been moved over to their new facility up on wisconsin avenue.

russian embassy part of soviet spying during the cold war. in the second world war. one of the target was the vichy government, the vichy embassy here in washington. operative,an oss also working with the bsc. named betty pack. aw betty was an attractive, beautiful young lady who decided that she could be of help to american intelligence and in fa ct, she was successful in recruiting the press attache who worked the vichy embassy. her recruitment techniques were

both subtle and effective. and they involved some, uh, som e, uh, good evenings together, long evenings together and, so, when it became apparent that vichywere codes in the embassy, specifically the french and italian naval co that might be of useds to our service, betty said, well, you know, since we have this good relationship with the press official, let's just have our evening together in the embassy. and so bettry dressed for the evening with a necklace and high heels. and the two accompanied by a safe cracker and to the embassy and the guards, when they kind of saw what betty's intent seemed to be, being good french,

they let things go as they were. so, the three enter the code room. in fact, were able to obtain the thes without, i guess, in face of the guards. afterwards, betty was asked about that and she said, well, are you ashamed? she said, oh, not in the least. the result of my work saved thousands of british and american lives. wars are not won by respectable methods. german embassy in world war i was a hive of espionage. propaganda operations, collection operations, sabotage operations were run out of the german embassy. the american policy really turned on an intelligence, an

intelligence operations when the british intercepted a telegram that was intended from berlin to the brii-- the german ambassador in washington. this is the famous zimmerman telegram which told of germany's plan to ally with mexico and mexicohe war was over, could recover some of the territory that had been lost to the united states. when this telegram and i believe today is the 100th anniversary of our entrance into world war i. when that telegram was turned over to president wilson, he was then subsequently leaked to the associated press and the public attitudes in america shifted quickly, anti german and america entered the second world war. andbritish intercepted

descriptio -- decryption of that telegram stands as one of the key crypto logical successes of that era. the german embassy also operated a clandestine radio system in the second world war from its embassy. this was detected by the work of the radio intelligence division of the federal communications commission. the time of the second world war had become a key element not only in communications but also in propaganda. and so, both sides, the allied side as well as the german side were very active in radio and radio propaganda effort during the second world war. hotels for a moment.

here's the mayflower hotel. president truman called this washington's second-best address. sometimes today i am not sure if he would call it the second-best. he might call it the first best address in washington. he called it washington's second-best address. built in 1925, had 1000 rooms. 112 suitse. -- suites. at a cost of $11 million. this is, i like to point out to peter, somewhat less than the cost of the new international spy museum, correct? but it's larger, too. magnificent hotel at the time. it becamei s,s, but very quickly a target or a place of intelligence activities. thejapanese naval attache,

this asyamaguchi, used frequent place for holding banquets and social events where with, assesstact and develop and attempted to recruit spies on behalf of japan. the battle died in of midway subsequently after the war began. one of the most dramatic intelligence event at the mayflower was in 1941. a couple of months before pearl harbor, when president roosevelt gave a speech and held up a map that he said had been obtained by his intelligence folks that inwed how germany planned the second world war to carve up south america.

and dominate south america. laimed had been stolen from a german diplomat in argentina. the diplomat who, because he had lost it, got killed by the gestapo. this is pretty dramatic. it was documentary evidence of what the germans were planning to do. documentary evidence that had been created by the british othere and through channels have made it into the american intelligence services. now, whether roosevelt knew that or not maybe is a bit beside the point, butnot is beside the poie was using a forged document to shape the attitudes and the future of american policy. the mayflower lobby was in the

mid-1980's, a demonstration point for a intelligence technique known as the brush pass. techniquen effort or by the cia to past documents -- to pass documents between two people in a crowded environment that would not the detected -- it not be detected. once this was successfully demonstrated at the may our hotel and a couple of other locations in washington, this became one of the techniques that the cia used in the hard target areas around the world. perhaps the most dramatic of the -- aower events involves

scientist who worked for darpa, the department of energy. 1998, and 2008, about 10 years, he was an advisor to the israeli aerospace corporation. in january of 2009, he took a couple fun drives to israel and conveniently -- he took a couple thumb drives to israel and conveniently left them behind. he was low on cash and he expected there would be people around the world who would be interested in some of the information that he had. this led the fbi to mount an operation against him.

we will see, sitting here in a room in the mayflower hotel, talking with an undercover fbi agent. >> some of the most classified information there is. i made the commitment. km thinking something like 50 -- $50,000. >> i am here to discuss. any other plans you might have. >> the other thing is.

action.i am in good [inaudible] i have made a career choice. i hope you heard that. indeed he had, in his career for the next several years being spent in a penitentiary. congratulations to the fbi and the agent involved, for just a that took ofration some -- that took care of somebody. scene have also been the of deaths of agents, intelligence officers. walter krasinski was a officer in the 1930's.

he defected in paris, in 1937, came to the united states and became a valuable source of information for the fbi, as well some public information about soviet intelligence and how it was operating around the world. this was at a time when the targetingre thoseents and targeting -- they were certainly not above killing them and knocking them off, around the world. 1941, he checked into the bellevue hotel. pressure,er a lot of relative to his being known as a former soviet intelligence officer. the morning after he checked in,

he was found dead in his hotel room in this particular room. the bellevue hotel is now known as the hotel george. a single gunshot to the head. the case was ruled quickly a suicide because there was a note left, although controversy has continued to surround his death even today. the evidence does say it was a suicide, that he did shoot himself. why he did that is really uncertain. it is likely that the pressure he was feeling, perhaps the fear of what the soviets would do to him was a factor in his demise. is point of this slide agents sometimes come to untimely ends.

operational tradecraft, we want to talk about that. some of the elements of operational tradecraft that we ,iscussed in our earlier books signal sites, dead drops, points of com, surveillance. one of the fascinating disguise stories of the civil war is that of mary walker, a position who worked right across the street in what was then, the patent office. it was a makeshift hotel for the civil war. she worked as a surgeon. she worked as a nurse, but was really a surgeon, and she repeatedly tried to get herself certified as a surgeon, but

being the society that it was at until there was enough press for how good she was, she was appointed as a field surgeon and worked the battles in chattanooga and atlanta. time she was working in the field, she would dress as a man, cross enemy lines and get information about the deployment of the confederate troops. she was captured in april of 1864, then released a few months later in a prisoner exchange. johnsone war, president thought that her contributions to the war should be recognized. in 1865, she was given the medal of honor.

mary walker was the only woman in the civil war that received the medal of honor. 1917 came around and there was a review of all of the awards during the civil war. revoked, awards were including mary walker's medal of honor. later, 60 years, president carter reinstated her name as a rightful recipient and two today, she remains this female spy, the only recipient of the medal of honor. i divert one point here. the national portrait museum next door, where she worked. i went over there a couple of months ago and said i want to see mary walker.

there is no portrait of mary walker in the museum. i am using this as a public forum tonight to urge the international spy museum to undertake a project to see that mary walker's portrait is eventually -- eventually comes to its rightful place in the portrait museum. [applause] -- known for purchasing alaska, he should be known for running victims spy operations in europe during the civil war. he had agents all across europe and one of the successes he had co-op the an agent principal newspaper in belgium stories andunion

its newspaper and thereby promote the union cause. he was one of three targets of the booth assassination plot. lincoln, vice president johnson and stewart. it was aas attacked, stabbing attempt. a bloody, loud scuffle at his home. his sons were also attacked by lewis powell. powell thought he had killed the secretary. in fact he had not. butll got out of the house did not know washington was lost, wandered around for three days before he was captured and executed.

survived and the survival of seward was probably another one of the reasons that it did not succeed. the united states government was not decapitated because both johnson and seward survived that awful evening and that spy plot. -- a double agent for the union army, except she was not. they were fooled by this cuban born lady who purported to be loyal to the union, but remained a confederate spy. her spy work included working at the treasury, making ring -- making numerous trips to europe and instigating a plan to the

value u.s. currency. at the end of the war, she wrote a book. lots of these civil war spies seem to -- seemed to have written books. i don't support it at all. [laughter] spelling her secrets as a woman in battle, a narrative of the exploits, adventures and travels of metabolic was -- of madame belloc was -- valequez. romance, heroism, the trail -- betrayal. how much of it is true remains a dispute. assessment as a critical tool of intelligence.

a building in virginia on glebe road, it was just torn down. the historic preservation people did not succeed in maintaining this one. it was torn down about a year ago. picture, guy in the this is where he first was interviewed by the agency. as he tells his story, he is from the midwest and he came back to washington at the invitation of the cia and was told to go to this address to be interviewed. so he did, and it was one of those kinds of standard interviews. he went back to his hotel that evening and wrote a note to his mother and said i guess the interview went all right. what surprises me though is how small the cia is.

not knowing was this just an out building, not the headquarters of the building. it remained the principal location for applicants and testing, polygraph testing and some initial instruction in the cia for a number of years during the 1960's and 1970's. -- a beautifulin lady by the name of jennifer , became ath african cuban aficionado while she was in canada. went to cuba and work in the cane fields and met a lot of important cuban people and recruited for the given service and went back to washington and got a job in the government.

she got a job in the south african embassy. that began meeting and dating and greeting and having affairs with a variety of individuals. she was controlled by two cuban diplomats out of new york. she had an apartment there and would exchange information and carry out her activities. in 1980, she finally started -- i am sorry, 1970, when she started making some serious inroads to people at the white house, staffers at the white house, that the fbi said they had had enough of this. her handlers, and she was deported to south africa. another case of spies -- diversity of spies, bethany --

ethnicity, gender, whatever. this story gets even hotter. to tell that story, i welcome keep melvin -- welcome keith melton. melton: washington is known for many things, and certainly casual relationships are one of -- one of them --uld in the history of casual relationships are one of them. war was in legal couple.- was an illegal she is remembered as being warm and sensational. he is for member as being everything she was not.

the couple penetrated the cia one ofimately the trade our most significant assets in the soviet ministry of foreign affairs. information,ing and the soviets were able to identify him. he committed suicide. it was a significant case. they were ultimately swapped and returned to prague. this is them as they are about at a suite in the check intelligence services. this young man is our fellow , who was personally involved in handling the case. lunch, and us at this was the first time he had seen it since that time. we have only recently recovered out of the check files and

unknown drop site -- of the czech files an unknown drop site. espionage is of no good unless he can communicate a secret between an agent and a handler. during the cold war, the function of most of the jacket -- the gadgets that were created was to facilitate that communication. how do you communicate secretly and securely? how can you get a picture secretly recorded and then pass it? the russians and the soviets were very good at this. an example was operation high kernel atwas a senior -- a senior kernel at the

senior colonel at the embassy here. money,lained of lack of and a male officer recruits in. a keynote of that year was the "star wars" mission defense system. soviets, he is being operated by the office of special investigations. he successfully drained the best tradecraft from the gru at the period. the key meeting place was at fort washington, maryland. the key was this telephone pole. it took us a long time to find the telephone pole, because the utility company had, in the 1990's, renumbered the pole.

to find ae were able second set of numbers which helped us identify it. among of the things that came out of this was a gru roll-over camera. it is quite a marvel. today, we are quite comfortable with the idea of an electronic device is a camera. but this was a handheld, analog film camera that you could move across a document and have it scanned to film. it was quite exceptional for the time period. tradecrafttype of equipment that was at the heart of espionage during the cold war. has proceeded forward, one of the most significant cases is brian patrick reagan, the subject of a recent book.

he worked for the cia and is retired military. said to have great communication and personal relationships. he decided his pension was not adequate, and so he made the decision to go to the public libraries to make contacts with the iraqis and chinese. unbeknownst to us at that time, he had cashed one halftime -- ton outside of baltimore. what was clever at the time was that he used the newly created gps. he had gps locations for all of his drop size -- dropsites.

nail in then also put a the tree, and he had another number which would indicate the number of paces from the tree into the park. he took the documents, put them in plastic bags, and he buried them. tendenciesthe deciphered in a document which was in his shoe. he went to dulles airport, deciding to leave the u.s., and he was arrested at the airport. we could not break his cipher. it was a very clever cipher. based off what we knew of his activities, he was given a 12 year plea. he rejected that and he wanted to go to trial. in the midst of this, we were

able to break the cipher. what we found -- the key to it was buried in the fredericksburg exit sign off of i-95 at the base of the pole in a blue, plastic toothbrush holder. in it was the key to the cipher. once we had that, we were able to find the sites. was there anything at the sites? half-was a halftime --a ton of soggy documents. that there were bubbles in the plastic when he wrapped the documents, so he plastic to in the let the air out, and so we have

the half ton of soggy documents. among the most interesting examples of a tradecraft case is how many spies in history had an opportunity to examine a drop site from their home. the case goes back to edwin moore, who in 1976 throws a brick over the wall at the , around the brick is a message that says he has information to sell to the russian government. if you are interested, drop money in a package between this hydrant and the pole at this address. it was across from his house. he indeed surveyed the drop site. the security officer at the embassy -- the guards bring the

rock to him, and he does not see the message. he tells them to turn it over to the washington, d.c. police. alerted, and so they set up a sting in which he was ultimately arrested. in 1985, he becomes a defector to the u.s. u.s. secretes 10 crets himcraft to -- se in an aircraft and bring him to washington. the first question you ask a defector is, "do you know of any penetration into the u.s. government?"

the person asking the question is aldrich ames, and then who was a spy for the russians at that point. what he is asking here essentially is "do you know about me?" so, he goes to the safe house, and he is de-briefed. d, he gives-briefe them information on mr. long. the other man he identifies is a cia director -- defector. the information he gave was absolutely valid. the interesting question is -- why did he defect? in rome, he was having an affair with the wife of another russian diplomat. she, with her husband, are we stationed in ottawa. ned in ottawa.o

he goes to soviet doctors, because he has stomach pain, and they tell him he has stomach cancer. he tells them that it is only in the west that they have drugs that can treat him. being lovesick and thinking he is terminally ill, he makes the decision to defect to the u.s. the first thing the u.s. does is give him a full physical and taken to the hospital. havediscover he does not stomach cancer, he has an ulcer. so, his health recovers. to, he wants to make a plan secretly go to ottawa to make up -- to meet up with his love lost friend to elope off with him. it, but theports

person who made the potential -- travel arrangements is aldrich ames. he alerts the soviet union who alert the official. the doors slammed in his face. he comes back to the u.s., and he is lonely. he makes the decision to read defect back -- to redefect back to the ussr. he goes to this restaurant in , during dinner, he says he was to go outside for a smoke. that if his cia manager he does not come back to not think hard on himself. he immediately walks to the soviet embassy. the story is that he was drugged

by the cia and was kidnapped. he is a calculating individual, taske had been on a related to a captain who had defected. kgb would have one of two choices, either admit he was a traitor and did damage to , orcause and execute him they could claim this was all part of a very clever plot and welcome him home as a hero. they chose the latter. the service never again allow him into the intelligence headquarters, and he spent the rest of his career as a security guard at a bank. i interviewed him in 1997, and i spent time with him for about an hour and a half.

exit, theyof his selected an honor guard to accompany him from the embassy. .his is valerie martinof these are just two of the cia and fbi's most significant penetrations inside the soviet embassy and they were betrayed by aldrich ames in april of 85 and october 4. , hansen hadier offers hit -- had offered his second batch of information. martinov was executed. he was never trusted by his colleagues again, but he is still alive and working as a security guard in moscow. one of the most significant damage done to the caa was done by aldrich ames -- cia was done by altra james.

-- aldrich ames. the gave the big dump to kgb, which was a shopping bag with american sick. from this, they were able to make numbers of acidification's -- of identifications. recalled from moscow and ultimately, ames and is -- and his colombian wife would develop a very lavish lifestyle in the u.s. he had such a need for money, especially for her expenses, that this was one of the drop sites. this was codename pipe. in his famous message to the kgb, he said i need as much money as i can fit in this pipe and i need it quickly. they bought a home in arlington.

they paid $520,000 cash. their cover was clever. her family name was a well-known name in columbia. her uncle was very successful. the cover the money by saying it was a gift from the family. he was ultimately planning a trip to eastern europe. he was arrested by the cia before he could depart. will be on plate display in the new museum. this is soon after he was arrested. time, the most damaging spy in the history of the city -- of the cia. the most damaging spy in the history of the fbi is robert hanssen. this is his residence. little-known is the role played by the house across the street. after hansen had been -- had been identified, in the fall of

2000, the fbi understood who he was, this house had been on the market for about three months. suddenly one afternoon, a well-dressed woman walks in and says she would like to buy it. no contingencies or inspections. she will pay cash and would like to close within seven days. this would be the primary fbi observation post looking into the house. hansen's name was codename gray day. the kgb only referred to him as b or ramon. he would communicate with that drops around the washington area. on his final drop in february of 2001, it was at fox stone park. his signal that he was filling the drop was a one inch piece of johnson & johnson white medical tape placed horizontally on the left upright of the fox stone park sign. he disappeared into the park

nine minutes. if you walked four and a half minutes into the park, you come to this bridge. he left this package between the bottom of the wooden bridge in the concrete in the bank. when he comes back out, his car is left there. it is currently 1700 -- about 5:00 p.m. he dropped his best friend at dulles airport. his wife is waiting at home with a tv dinner and they will watch nascar. these are robert hanssen's last moments as he exits the park. as he exits the park and is walking up the hill, he is wearing his gray jacket, his black sweater. he is armed. he is a supervisory special agent. he will go to the top of the

hill and turn right. the team expected him that night, so they were set up for night photography. the camera at the drop site was not working, so they have no picture of him filling the drop. he will reach for his keys. the fbi does not know he is reaching for a gun. they have a team of five individuals to make the arrest. they are now speeding toward the site in a modified minivan that they disabled the child protection locks so they are able to actually get out of it while it is moving. he is placed under arrest. his final words as he is being this is how ito ends." he always spoke of himself in third person, shakespearean terms. this was the most significant arrest in the history of the fbi. his damage to the fbi, we hope

it is the worst. it was done to the u.s. army or defense intelligence agency. spies wasen of cuban well infiltrated into the intelligence community. seniorre at a cia intelligence correspondence dinner. she was a graduate of johns hopkins. likely recruited in that 1980 or period -- 1984 period. she had a top-secret clearance, but without a polygraph. she graduated from johns hopkins from johns hopkins. the only agency she could work for that did not require a polygraph was the defense intelligence agency. while that she a was a romeo recruitment, recruited by a male at the university.

ideologicaly an convert. she truly believed in the cuban system. from 1985 until 2001, she would spy and become known as the perfect spy. she became the definitive analyst on cuba. she is the person that the military intelligence looked to for strategic advice on cuba. she would be in a position to write policy that ultimately would affect the u.s. relationship with cuba. she made her rolodex of contacts within the u.s. intelligence nudity available to the cuban government. at points, she was directed personally by fidel castro, tasking her on specific missions. it does not get much worse for us. for years, we cannot understand

how she was communicating. years, we was -- for could not understand how she was indicating. 232urned out she had unauthorized meetings with cuban officials over coffee at starbucks in different locations around the d.c. area. a significant damaging case. she lived in this apartment. siblings that were members of the fbi, completely uninvolved with the case. she had a boyfriend who worked for special operations and lives in miami. she was operating from this red room, communicating over one-way voice link over a short wave radio. toshiba laptop computer. this was surveillance film of her coming in to her house.

once she came to the attention, through a fluke, she was placed under surveillance. while under surveillance, her boyfriend shows up unannounced from miami at about 10:00 one night. he knocks on the door and she starts screaming at them and won't let them in. it turned out she was in the midst of receiving a one -- one way voice link transmission and she could not stop. they repeat the numbers twice, but she could not do that while he was there. ultimately, he was completely uninvolved. she received a 25 year prison sentence. it was the most damaging case in the history of the defense intelligence. merkerson worked for the department of defense security and cooperation agency.

he was in the position of being able to give input on technology that was going to be sold to taiwan, defense equipment. by an agent flagged ,e believed represented taiwan but was actually a chinese agent. the false like premise was we are going to recruit you and we would like you to write papers for us and we will get the information anyway. if we get it earlier, we can plan our defensive spending so we don't duplicate buying things you are about to give us. secretly, this was being orchestrated by the chinese. what makes it interesting is after it was discovered, the technical skill of the fbi. what's the fbi is on to someone, they don't get away. what they did was modify his car so that they had two cameras inside and full audio.

--y are able to surveillance surveill his meetings. he met with a chinese agent and they are writing around northern virginia. i thought you might like to hear him describing his activities in his own words. this is greg sitting here. this is johnny. they are riding in the suv and you'll hear him talking about what he does. >> are you sure that's ok? >> nothing like a little money between friends. this is copying documents. i am very reticent to let you have it because it is all classified. and youet you see it

can take all the notes you want. i would go to jail. >> they did violate all the rules. he stops at a rest stop to go and use the facilities. when he goes inside, it turns out that johnny secretly tape recording the whole thing, so the fbi surveillance picks up surveillance that he was running on the meeting as well. it did not end well. he served an eight year prison sentence. one of the most interesting cases we cover is that of foggy bottom, a 1999 operation in which this individual, the tough russian radiofrequency bugging

expert, stationed at the embassy in washington, the fbi notices outside the state department on foggy bottom. his activity was very suspicious. any idea what he was doing? he was feeding orders into a parking meter. is that a consistent activity with a diplomat? diplomats -- feeding quarters into a parking meter. is that a consistent activity with a diplomat? ultimately, the fbi surveilled him. i notice he was parking his car and what had happened was he has a listening device planted inside a fake piece of chair rail inside a conference room in the seventh floor, the executive

level of the state department. the receiver is in a car and he is there, monitoring it and trying to record the communications. the problem is that the listening device only has certain power, so they are trying to turn it on and off selectively. one of the rate -- things the bureau noticed is the parking places he kept moving his car around to pick up a better signal. this is the equipment that he used. we have a set of these pieces on display and it will be in the new museum. a very sophisticated intelligence operation. the last case i wanted to chat with you about and certainly the most famous. how many of you remember the ghost stories operation? one of the most significant cases of russian operations in the u.s.. many of you may remember a s redhead by the name of and a

nnapman -- an hour -- an chapman. it is the watershed moment of russian illegal operations. historically, illegals were the best trained of russian spies. they would have careers that would spend 20 or 30 years. they would go under a false name, they would have a family with children and live completely separate lives. what they discovered is the problem was maintaining cover. in a world of the internet and digital databases, you could not conceal your true identity, even though you could make up records that could show you went to a college and graduated, you could not constantly hide the records that would show. all these records were created on the same date five years ago. you could not build a convincing cover. the russians found a more effective cover was just to send somebody under a true name,

going to university in the last five years in moscow. put them in the immigrant stream in the u.s.. let them come as a student who is smart and articulate and they simply pass unnoticed. apartment in virginia. he was false flagged by the fbi. he came under attention. that all a decision illegals will be arrested in late june 2010. there was not a convincing case against him. the fbi called him to a fake meeting. they knew the code word to bring him to the meeting. the agent who met undercover simply said we would like you to do a clandestine act for us and we have an envelope filled with $5,000. we want you to go to a park. it was in lovers run, and a lincoln.

the key was -- in arlington. the key was to leave the envelope under a bridge. once he does that, he shows he is operating under control of a foreign government and can be arrested. unbeknownst to him, he goes to the site and there is a surveillance video waiting for him. this is the video at the time. somewhere in the sbr academy, they are showing this video. this has to be the example of the longest time ever recorded to fill a drop side. he had -- drop site. it takes him two minutes and 43 seconds to do this. this is the video. there he comes. bridge. the reaches underneath. he will get down underneath. the bureau had made it easier. they put a big green spot of

paint on the rock to identify it. i will spare you the rest of the two minutes, but it was among the poorest tradecraft. agents,iting very young you get youth and vitality and streetsmarts, but you lack the tradecraft training. they wereung agents falsified -- they were both false flagged by the fbi. bob and i have great fun doing the book. it was a labor of love. we had done two orlene -- two earlier books on spy sites of new york and philadelphia. the first book has been so successful, we are now doing a new and double sized book of spy sites of new york city. , there is nowhere in

the world that artifacts and the craft of espionage or taken as seriously as we do at the museum. it is my pleasure to have the artifacts here. we have some effective and brave people that protect our country in the intelligence services. we are honored to tell their stories. we hope some of this will be of interest to you and that you will join us in the future. we would love for you to join the inner circle of the spy museum. open inspy museum will the summer. questions, weany would be delighted to answer them, thank you. [] applause --[applause] any questions? we would be happy to chat. >> i think we have time for a few. >> yes ma'am.

>> this is very interesting. i have a question, what does the cia think about you sharing this information? [laughter] >> as i say it -- cia officer, i am under lifetime obligation to submit any material that i write for the public to the cia publications review board. materiald reviews the and suggests or identifies anything that is classified or inappropriate for public dissemination, released the public and -- release to the public. we talk about that. --ally, the public publications review board wins.

it has been approved -- approved by the review board. >> let me just add one note. that is a lovely answer. what i actually know is that it took them a long time to get that book through the public -- through the publications review board and a lot of talking about issues. we can take some more questions if you like. i am curious about all the people from the u.s. that were turned. how many of those people to the kgb actually know their names, or were they unknown in terms of their specific names, but they knew like ramon, but they did not know he was hansen? >> to our knowledge, the only individual that arguably has maintained his identity was robert hanssen.

hanssen was skilled as a counterintelligence officer. his greatest likelihood of ever being detected was not through brad -- bad tradecraft. the russians teach if you follow our tradecraft, it is foolproof. you will not be found. he knew his greatest fear was a u.s. penetration within the russian intelligence and he would likely be the trade by someone who learned his name. he justified the people he betrayed. when he mailed a letter to a man named victor and offer the information, he betrayed three people he knew were u.s. penetrations in the embassy. a new someone else would do the same thing to him. if he could maintain his anonymity, he thought that would give a layer of protection. arguably, it does. asked the most important agent you had in the u.s., would

you allow him to remain anonymous? two answers. what is a simple yes, but the other is no. could they have set up a surveillance vehicle on one of the drop sites? the answer is yes did they? -- the answer is yes. did they? we are still unsure. they gave some signs. there are some times that you believe -- for example, all of the drop sites had a alphabetic number. they used names. they omitted the letter b in any of the drop sites. is that a message? possibly, but they knew him as b. the problem was how do you maintain your anonymity but then prove you have access to the documents and what he sent over the first time was so

devastating that they knew that nobody would have voluntarily said that information. long answer. >> other questions? we've got some real experts. i can go down there. >> the mayflower should always be given credit for preserving the history that has taken place there. as of three years ago, my niece -- i was going to plan a trip here and as of three years ago, they would still let you stay in the very room that franklin roosevelt composed his 1933 first inaugural address. that is a great thing to do, to know you have that history. and louis wereen members of the conservative catholic organization and elaine shanahan and hansen talks about

the picnic and the fact that hanssen was showing movies of the picnic at saint and church on wisconsin avenue and louis freeh was in the audience, knowing that he would arrest can't and in three days. is that story true? -- arrest hansen in three days. is that story true? >> all of that is true. the key is hansen went to church sins and repented for the he would commit that night when he would pass documents to the russians. the first time he was ever caught, hansen had been unfaithful to his wife bonnie. he had a significant girlfriend in college, but he had been infatuated with donnie walk, it was the most beautiful girl on campus and he was kind of a tall, geeky guy.

somehow, he ended up with the college beauty. his college girlfriend, to show his new wife that she was not that special, they had an affair on the evening of the day he was married. bonnie discovers this later, but she was married for life and she never trusted bob again. in 1979, he was stationed in new york city. they were living two hours out and could barely afford it. he is in the basement of his home and he is secretly writing this note to someone. bonnie discovers it and thinks immediately he has another girlfriend and he says no, it's not that, if only to the russians. -- it's only to the russians. that, weyou can't do have to meet with the priest tomorrow. she tracks bob to the priest and makes him confess.

the priest says you have to do the right and turn yourself into the fbi and confess what you've done. what do you think bob's response is? i'd like to sleep on that. the next morning, the priest called back and says i may have another idea. come in, and he had to say 1000 hail marys and give all the money he had earned, estimated at $30,000, give it to a catholic charity. he later claimed and told the priest he gave it to mother teresa. interestingly, the bureau looked and there was no record of any money transfer. bonnie knew about it. he kept silent until 1985. a largeould discover amount of money in bob's gym bag. she called her brother, who is a catholic priest in rome and says

i'm concerned that bob is up to bad things again. that brother calls the other brother, who is an fbi agent in chicago, working on the polish squad and says i believe our brother-in-law is a spy. the current fbi officer called his supervisor and says i believe my brother in law is a spy. it gets murky at that point, that that supervisor agent never files a report in the never pursued it. the director knew about it. the problem was, they knew there was a traitor because they could never explain all the losses in agents betrayed by aims were wrapped up -- by ames were wrapped up. they were constantly looking for the mall.

they believed it was a cia officer and it was actually robert hanssen. they were the same age and lived on the same street and had a similar background and had run similar cases. it was a great shock when hansen was discovered. it is a remarkable case. he is still alive in a super max in colorado. ask her question and you'll get a good answer. right here -- ask your question and you will get a good answer. right here. >> when hansen says this is how it ends. i'm not sure how many people you have been able to interview, but the majority of them seem like this is how it ends or is there more of a sense of invincibility? >> i was told that by the officer who put handcuffs on him. we will have those handcuffs on

display in the next -- in the new museum. we have the set of handcuffs that each of them were arrested in. it is kind of an honor of an fbi officer to put his handcuffs on a bad guy. words,ere exactly the but it was almost in a shakespearean sense, that he saw himself in the third person. interestingly, when he was in the car, and he is handcuffed in the back of the vehicle, they did not immediately take him and calling press announcement. they wanted to arrest the sdr officer who is coming to clear the drop. they took him to a small jail south of monaco and kept them there overnight. svrsdr never came -- the never came. he said it trying to talk as a colleague to the fbi agents that had just arrested him.

they said bob, don't talk to us. you are no longer a colleague. it was a bit of a cathartic moment. those were the exact words if i understand. >> two weeks before aldrich ames was addressed -- was arrested. he went to the chief of the soviet division at the cia. he said i'm coming to the end of my assignment in the counter narcotics group. now i'm looking for my next job. division of the soviet knew that ames was a spy. he said yes? and aldrich ames says there are two jobs i'm interested in. im am interested in being deputy chief on moscow and the other job i'm interested in, i

understand you are moving upstairs to be the deputy to the director for operations. yes, that'sid correct. ames said i would like to be your assistant on the seventh floor. the chief again, knowing what he rick, i willll, tell you, i will do everything in my power to see that you get what you deserve. [laughter] about a month later, aldrich ames is being debriefed by the cia and the fbi to determine the degree to which the damage -- a damage assessment and he says now i know what that son of a

bitch meant. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> i heard my readings that they had one elected official that was spying for the soviet union -- american spying for the soviet union and supposedly it was a congressman from new york and he walked into the mission on the embassy here and did anybody ever discover that or did they discover it while it was still going on? >> this is congressman samuel dickstein from new york. he was recruited by soviet intelligence. wasthe next three years, he a off-again on-again troublesome source. one of the things you learn in the intelligence business is not all the agents are real pleasant

people and easy to get along with. evidently, the congressman was in that mode. -- 1931, the soviets had pretty much given up on him, although he had in fact given them some information and spied for them during the previous three years. it was that time that the congressman also introduced legislation to create the house on american activities committee which was then passed and actively hunted communists throughout the united states government. in 19 45, he retired from congress and became a judge in the state of new york, served honorably in that capacity before he passed away. he was never identified as a spy vinonae released the

transcripts in the 1990's. activity oflection soviet communications between their center and operations in new york and washington. there was a labor he is ever -- laborious effort to decrypt activities that occurred through the late 30's and 1940's. he was one of several people that were identified agentsively as a soviet from those transcripts. the other well-known one was elder hiss. me, helways reminds loves these codenames. the codename for the congressman was crook. [laughter] >> go home, get a good night

sleep and when you wake up in the morning and read your paper, see if it matches anything you heard here tonight. thank you so much for a fascinating moment. [applause] they will both be here, answering some brief questions and signing books. thank you so much for joining us. >> this weekend, on american history tv on c-span3, tonight at 8:00 on lectures in history, messiah college professor john thatn the people and ideas shaped the 1776 pennsylvania constitution. >> the continental congress, right? they have instructed after the july 4 declaration, instructed

all of the colonies now states to form new government. >> secret service and fbi agents reflect on protecting president reagan following the 1981 assassination attempt. >> when i heard the shots go off, i immediately went to my weapon. seconds.d sex in -- by that time, you saw the smoke from the weapon and you saw individuals moving toward the potential assailant. presidency, a the historian on the relationship between thomas jefferson and the enslaved hemmings family. >> people as property who can be bought and sold. that was a thing that many members of the hemmings family, despite whatever privilege sally hemmings and her children might have had, they all lived with

the specter of the possibility that that could happen, because the law construed them as property. jefferson construed them as property. >> for our complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org. he once called for the removal of pluto as a planet and on sunday, author and astrophysicist neil degrasse tyson will be our guest. >> allow me to tell you that our mass of five times the pluto. lovers were never told that, were you? welcome to the company of informed people regarding pluto. >> during our live three-hour conversation, we will take your calls and facebook russians -- facebook questions.

author of several books, including welcome to the universe, death by blackhole and his most recent, astrophysics for people in a hurry. watch in-depth with astrophysicist and author, neil degrasse tyson sunday, on book tv on c-span2. join us tuesday morning as we head to the heart of appalachia's coal country for washington journals spotlight on the coal industry. we will be live in a cold transfer center in ohio to talk about coal mining regulation, our guests are robert murray, owner of murray energy, ohio republican congressman bill johnson, the vice director of the ohio valley environmental coalition and nick mullins, author of the thoughtful: her blog -- the thoughtful coal miner blog. live on c-span.

all weekend long, american history tv is joining our charter communications able partners to showcase the history of redding, california. to learn more about the cities on our current tour, visit c-span.org/citiestour. we continue with our look at the history of redding. at the height of california's gold rush, this town of shasta had seven hotels, saloons, bars, wholesale businesses, retail businesses. you could see the shell of the businesses across the street, ones that were often abandoned between the 1870's and the 1880's, when the county seat moved from the courthouse and this building into downtown redding.