Listen Now - Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen

The Minds of Madness - True Crime Stories

themindsofmadness

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.5 • 6.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Here’s a preview of a new podcast I think you’ll enjoy. Amid the nuclear threat of the Cold War, America's prized secrets were falling into the hands of its sworn enemy, the Kremlin. The FBI's hunt for the leak led to an astonishing discovery—the mole was one of its own, special agent Robert Hanssen. For two decades, Hanssen masqueraded as a devoted patriot while ruthlessly selling out his country, trading classified intelligence to the Soviet Union and later Russia, in exchange for cash and diamonds.

He was a whirlwind of contradictions—a self-proclaimed patriot and a traitor; a family man who sexually betrayed his wife; an ardent man of God and a sinner.

In this CBS News limited series, CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett delves into the shocking contradictions and life of Robert Hanssen, whose impact shaped U.S intelligence history. Listen to Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone. Today I've got something special for you. It's a preview of a new CBS News podcast I'm loving and truly fascinated by. It's called Agent of Betrayal, The Double Life of Robert Hanson, and I think you're going to really enjoy it. You already know that here on Minds of Madness, we delve into people who do the unthinkable.
0:22.7	And Robert Hansen was certainly one of those people. He was a man of incredible contradictions,
0:29.3	a family man who sexually betrayed his wife, a man of God and a sinner, a self-proclaimed
0:36.0	patriot and a traitor. Agent of betrayal tells the story of how
0:41.0	amid the nuclear threat of the Cold War, Hansen, an FBI agent, leaked America's most precious secrets
0:48.5	to the country's sworn enemy, Moscow, in exchange for cash and precious gems. Host and CBS News correspondent, Major Garrett,
0:58.6	spent two years researching Hansen and talking to over 40 of his family, friends and colleagues,
1:05.2	including the guy who caught him. It's a wild story, one that left Hansen known as the most damaging spy in FBI history.
1:14.5	Here's a clip from the first episode. If you like what you hear, you can find the full episode
1:19.4	and new episodes of Agent of Betrayal, The Double Life of Robert Hanson from CBS News on Thursdays,
1:26.7	wherever you get your podcasts.
1:30.8	The phone rang early Sunday morning.
1:33.3	It was Eric O'Neill's supervisor at the FBI.
1:37.0	He says, I need to meet with you.
1:38.8	I said, okay, I'll come downtown.
1:40.6	I'll come to the office and you can tell me what's up.
1:43.7	He said, no, you don't need to. I'm parked right outside. This was December 2000. That O'Neill was still
1:49.2	relatively new to the FBI. Now, he was used to weekend calls from work, but never had a boss come
1:55.5	to his apartment in Washington. Now I was scared because this doesn't happen. I don't think anyone's ever showed up
2:02.9	at someone's house on a Sunday unless they were arresting them. You were probably walking out
2:06.8	of your door in a cold sweat. Right. Oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean, I'm tracking every target,
2:12.0	looking at top of buildings thinking, you know, like, where are they? But it was just Eric's boss
	...

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