Mini Episode 5 Betrayal
John Kiriakou's Dead Drop
Costard & Touchstone Productions
4.9 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
THE BLURB: Aldrich Ames was a CIA counterintelligence officer who was convicted of espionage on behalf of the soviet Union and Russia in 1994. Ames was responsible for the arrest and eventual execution of numerous Soviet and Russian officials secretly working on behalf of US intellifence, and had compromised more highly classified CIA assets than any other intelligence officer at the time of his arrest. What caused Rich Ames to betray his craft and his country? Why does any spy go rogue?
SHOW NOTES
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast, it's a Costerton Touchstone production. |
| 0:10.3 | Hi, I'm John Kiriaku. |
| 0:12.6 | Welcome to Dead Drop, What Makes a Spy Tick? |
| 0:15.9 | In this mini episode, we're going to ask a variation on that question. |
| 0:19.9 | What makes a traitor tick? In this case, a |
| 0:23.0 | trader who also happened to be a spy. But before we get there, I want to thank you again for listening. |
| 0:29.4 | It's appreciated more than you know. And it's appreciated even more when you subscribe to, |
| 0:35.4 | like, review, rate and share the podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening to us. |
| 0:41.7 | On April 16, 1985, a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer named Aldrich Hazen Ames walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., and he betrayed America. |
| 0:53.8 | He offered the Soviets the identities of two KGB double agents who worked at the Soviet |
| 0:59.0 | embassy in Washington and who had been recruited by the CIA. |
| 1:03.0 | In return, the Soviets gave Ames $50,000. |
| 1:06.7 | That was to start. |
| 1:08.4 | Over the next nine years, Ames became the most damaging KGB mole in U.S. history |
| 1:14.6 | and would receive more than $2 million from his Soviet spymasters. |
| 1:20.6 | The result of his various betrayals was truly catastrophic, starting with the two double agents who were both executed. The operational |
| 1:28.4 | secrets, plans, and protocols that Ames sold to the Soviets gave them deep insight into how we |
| 1:34.2 | reacted and what we thought about them, that crippled us against the Soviets for a period of |
| 1:39.3 | years. But Colocall, the Bell, as Ames was known to his Soviet handlers, was especially destructive |
| 1:47.0 | to American human intelligence assets. |
| 1:50.0 | Ames ultimately confessed to identifying more than 30 agents and compromised over a hundred |
| 1:56.0 | clandestine operations. |
... |
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