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Сбежавший офицер КГБ мог быть причиной раскрытия Хансена
Defector may nave been spy’s nemesis
Hanssen was arrested after a Russian diplomat and his wife defected
By TOBY HARNDEN The Vancouver Sun, February 22, 2001
WASHINGTON — A Russian diplomat based in New York who quietly defected to the U.S. a few months ago may have provided clues that led to the downfall of the FBI traitor Robert Hanssen.
Sergey Tretyakov, first secretary at Russia's UN mission, and his wife, Elena, contacted American officials in October. U.S. diplomats said he was a high-ranking member of Russia's SVR security service, a successor to the KGB.
Shortly afterwards Hanssen, 56, was placed under surveillance as the FBI built its case against a man who had worked within its ranks for 27 years and, they now believe, has spied for the Soviet Union and then Russia for the past 15 years.
The FBI and the U.S. state department, where Hanssen was stationed until a month ago, were trying Wednesday to assess the damage he caused.
How Hanssen remained undetected for so long is the first question Louis Freeh, the FBI director, will have to answer when he next meets President George W. Bush.
The case is a huge embarrassment to Freeh, who was loathed by Bill Clinton but is also regarded with intense suspicion by Republicans on Capitol Hill, not least because he and Hanssen both attended St Catherine's Church in Great Falls, Virginia.
Hanssen's principal protection was his decision never to meet Russian officials or tell them his name. But, given the nature of the information he passed on and the length of time he was a spy, it is highly unlikely ;that the KGB and SVR did not learn who he was.
Although FBI officers said Hanssen was motivated by money, the 106-page indictment and the text of communications with his Russian handlers paint a picture of a man fascinated by the tradecraft of being a double agent and convinced he was more clever than his superiors.
Perhaps the best opportunity to unmask Hanssen was when he embarked on the path of treachery. In October 1985, a KGB officer living in Virginia received a letter containing an envelope marked: "Do not open. Take this envelope unopened to Victor I. Cherkashin."
Although the KGB man worked at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, his mail was not being monitored. Cherkashin, a senior KGB officer, had been singled out by Hanssen because he was regarded as an accomplished spy.
Among Hanssen's first acts as a Soviet agent was to tell Cherkashin that Valery Martinov and Sergei Motorin, both KGB officers in Washington, and Boris Yuzhin, an intelligence officer in San Francisco, were working for the FBI.
This confirmed what the Russians had been told by Aldrich Ames, a CIA traitor who was caught in 1994. The subsequent executions of Martinov and Motorin could form the basis of a death sentence for Hanssen if he is found guilty.
Hanssen, who was 32 when he joined the FBI, was critical of fellow agents — telling the Russians how they would go "all wet" when faced with taking a decision — and contemptuous of his country.
He was a member of Opus Dei, a traditionalist Roman Catholic group, and one fellow FBI agent spoke of his "extreme right-wing views".
Meanwhile, Bernadette "Bonnie" Hanssen, a 55-year-old mother of six and teacher at a Roman Catholic school, apparently had no idea her husband was spying for Russia, investigators said.
Initially so shocked that she could hardly speak, she was being interviewed to determine how she could have remained ignorant of his betrayal.
The Daily Telegraph