#287 Robert Hanssen: The FBI's Most Damaging Spy w/ Major Garrett

The Road to Now

Benjamin Sawyer

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

FBI agent Robert Hanssen was one of the most damaging spies in US history. From 1979 to 2001, Hanssen delivered some of the United States governments' most sensitive secrets to Soviet and Russian agents, who used them to not only undermine US national security, but to identify and execute individuals who were working with the FBI. And despite an awareness of spies working within the FBI, Hanssen managed to operate for more than two decades before finally getting caught.

In this episode we speak with CBS News' Major Garrett, whose new podcast Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen, explores Hanssen's decision to spy on the US and how he managed to operate for so long without being caught. A thoroughly researched history with all the turns of a great true crime podcast, we think you'll enjoy Agent of Betrayal, available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Bob Crawford.
0:06.2	I'm Ben Sawyer, and this is the road to now.
0:09.6	Ben, this is one of the weeks where I'm so grateful my co-host has a PhD in Russian history.
0:17.7	Oh, well, Bob, this is one of those weeks when I'm very happy that I don't know
0:22.4	everything about Soviet history so I could walk into an incredible story about espionage in the
0:26.9	1980s and learn something new about it. Who's our guest today? Major Garrett, Chief Washington
0:33.1	correspondent for CBS News, creator and host of the Takeout podcast, but today he's here to talk
0:39.5	about his latest project, which is a podcast series called Agent of Betrayal, the Double Life
0:46.9	of Robert Hanson. And for many of you, that name, Robert Hanson, it's in the back of your brain.
0:53.1	You've heard it before, but you're not,
1:12.0	maybe you're not sure where you've heard it. Major, welcome to the road to now. It's so great to be with you. Thanks so much for the interest in bringing some attention to this project, a passion project of mine, sort of on the sideline of my other CBS work for two years. Yes, for two years. This is what I love about this,
1:16.4	is that there is this whole, there's a real market. Bob and I were talking on the phone earlier.
1:22.4	People love the true crime stuff. But, you know, to have the time and to be able to invest the rigor in like actually doing the research, sometimes that gets lost, you know? With you, you've not only,
1:29.2	you're not only telling a story. You have dug up facts. You've dug up interviews with people
1:34.3	that were not on the record before. So this isn't just retelling a story. This is taking a fascinating
1:39.9	story already and adding to it. And really from from the perspective of a historian, like, you've
1:45.2	brought sources to the fore that we didn't have before. So I just want to start with this question
1:50.1	because we were like, how do we start this off? And I thought, if we just ask a question about
1:56.4	the damage this guy did, we'll have people rap. So this guy served Robert Hansen served as an agent for
2:02.2	the Soviet Union inside the FBI from 1979 till 2001. You say that he's one of the most damaging
2:09.5	spies that's ever existed. Could you just give us a highlight reel of the damage this guy caused?
2:14.9	Sure. So Robert Hansen was a spy at three different portions of his FBI
	...

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