© AFP / SAUL LOEB
In The Fourth Man
, former CIA officer Robert Baer crafts a narrative full of speculation and short on factsIn 1984, the CIA and the FBI were riding high. Each of these powerful organizations were managing portfolios of Soviet agents who were ostensibly doing their bidding, spying against the USSR, and providing the United States with troves of secret information about the inner workings of the former superpower.
Then, between 1985 and 1986, the walls came tumbling down. Thanks to three American traitors, the entire portfolio of spies being run by the CIA and FBI were rounded up by Soviet authorities. Responsibility for this intelligence disaster would ultimately be assigned to two CIA officers (Edward Lee Howard, who gave away Adolf Tolkachev, the "billion dollar spy," so named because the information he provided on Moscow's military capabilities saved the US a billion dollars in research and development costs, and Aldrich Ames, who betrayed 25 Soviet moles, 10 of whom were allegedly arrested and subsequently executed for their crimes) and one FBI man (Robert Hansen, who betrayed scores of Soviet agents, along with the names of so-called double agents - Americans recruited by the Soviets to spy, but who were really working for either the CIA or FBI).
Comment: See also: Of Flash Frozen Mammoths and Cosmic Catastrophes