Traitors | Nightmover | 4

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On June 13, 1985, Aldrich Ames packed up six pounds of top secret documents into a plastic bag and walked out the door of the CIA headquarters. He drove to lunch, where he gave the documents to a Soviet diplomat. They contained the identities of America’s most important spies within the Soviet Union.

Not long after, the Soviets told Ames that $2 million had been set aside for him. Ames had become the highest-paid American spy of the Cold War, and his betrayal would soon prove disastrous.

That fall, the CIA was mystified by a string of mysterious disappearances. The agency’s best assets within the Soviet Union were vanishing, never to be heard from again. But it would be years before investigators uncovered the mole within their ranks.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:09.6	Imagine this November 1985 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
0:23.4	Your analyst in the Office of the Soviet Division, and it's been a rough few weeks.
0:27.7	First, a former agent, Edward Lee Howard, defected to Moscow after spying for the Soviets.
0:33.6	Then you lost contact with two critical Soviet assets, double agents who'd been passing
0:38.1	intelligence to the CIA.
0:40.6	Now you're at your desk, huddled over case files, trying to connect the dots between the
0:44.8	disappearances.
0:47.0	A colleague poaks his head over the wall of your cubicle.
0:49.5	Morning.
0:50.5	You in the middle of something?
0:51.5	Uh...
0:52.5	I'll work my way through some debriefings on the Howard case.
0:56.5	I can't believe the damage he's caused.
0:58.8	Well, I'm afraid I come bearing more bad news.
1:01.8	Oh God, what is it this time?
1:03.9	Another asset, condomissing.
1:05.6	Code name of court.
1:07.1	KGB colonel based in Hungary?
1:09.8	Your colleague tosses the colonel's case file on your desk.
1:12.6	And it's a damn shame too.
	...

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