Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed

by Estate of Sandra V. Grimes, Jeanne Vertefeuille

While there have been other books about Aldrich Ames, Circle of Treason is the first account written by CIA agents who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the intense "Ames Mole Hunt." Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.
One of the most destructive traitors in American history, CIA officer Aldrich Ames provided information to the Soviet Union that contributed to the deaths of at least ten Soviet intelligence officers who spied for the United States. In this book, the two CIA officers directly responsible for tracking down Ames chronicle their involvement in the hunt for a mole. Considering it their personal mission, Grimes and Vertefeuille dedicated themselves to identifying the traitor responsible for the execution or imprisonment of the Soviet agents with whom they worked. Their efforts eventually led them to a long-time acquaintance and coworker in the CIA's Soviet-East European division and Counterintelligence Center, Aldrich Ames.


Not only is this the first book to be written by the CIA principals involved, but it is also the first to provide details of the operational contact with the agents Ames betrayed. The book covers the political aftermath of Ames's arrest, including the Congressional wrath for not identifying him sooner, the FBI/CIA debriefings following Ames's plea bargain, and a retrospective of Ames the person and Ames the spy. It is also the compelling story of two female agents, who overcame gender barriers and succeeded in bringing Ames to justice in a historically male-oriented organization. Now retired from the CIA, Grimes and Vertefeuille are finally able to tell this inside story of the CIA's most notorious traitor and the men he betrayed.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Espionage, True Crime, Russia, Memoir, Biography

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2012

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read.
Written by the 'gals' who hunted him out. That is worth note.
Loads of detail and most interesting.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent account of the hunt for Aldrich Ames. I love that the two CIA officers assigned to the case were females. Ames is serving life in prison and rightly so.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The "mole" is an insidious exotic creature, a betrayer of trust and indirect slayer of his victims. The treason of Aldrich "Rick" Ames, the selfless investigators who tracked him down, and the ups and downs of how they did it are well and ably described in this long awaited book. The authors, Jeanne Vertefeuille and Sandra Grimes were at the center of the CIA's counterintelligence effort from beginning to end and personally suffered the vicissitudes of the multi-year task but never flagged in their efforts. Both are veterans of the Cold War CIA and bona fide experts on the KGB. Several books, some good, some bad, have been published on the Ames case, but until now none has provided the inside information and accurate rendering of the story.

Vertefeuille and Grimes quite rightly, and for the first time, give pride of place in the story to the individual agents who died, penetrations of the KGB, GRU, and other Soviet entities. The story of GRU General Dmitriy Fedorovich Polyakov, who worked for the CIA for 20 years until he was betrayed by Ames, is especially touching. The respect CIA officers hold for such agents is brilliantly explained in this one-of-a-kind tour de force. The very real dismay upon learning of the brutal deaths of the people betrayed by Ames is palpable.

Operational details, the personalities involved on both sides, and the bureaucratic struggles of the authors are quite frankly breathtaking. No espionage novel, not even fine ones, such as Le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," come even close to the complexities involved in this real-life drama. This book is a must read for anyone interested in espionage, the KGB, the Cold War, or counterintelligence.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

So how cool is it that one of the most infamous spies in US history was caught by a group of CIA agents led by two women?
Yep. That cool.
I first heard about the women leading the team in the International Spy Museum (go to it), and that made me pick up this audio book when it was one sale. It is very gripping. While Ames is the centerpiece, there is information about both women and how they conducted their careers. Additionally, there is a nice analysis of how stupidly Congress responded. Really worth reading or listening too.

[Alicia Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book that could have been a fascinating cat and mouse capture the spy underneath our noses, it was an incredibly dry read. Far too much minutiae detailing of the day to day.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not usually into these books written by people who have passed through CIA, FBI, or other government agencies. However, this book I think is told with humility and after a long fight to allow enough factual information to make it compelling and informative. It is a timely insight into the clandestine spying activities of the CIA, as the Soviet animal tries to resurrect itself into what is more recognizable as our old, cold-war enemy. Well-written and easy to read, I recommend it highly.

[Cynthia · Rating 2 out of 5]

To read this book is to enter a dense thicket of spycraft, bureaucratese,Russian names and a zig-zagging chronology. My eyes glazed over, but I'm glad the two clever CIA women bagged their prey. Of course, they did the lion's share of the work and certain men took the lion's share of the credit. So what else is new?

[Marc Liebman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book was fascinating. It brought to life the enormity of damage done to the U.S.'s ability to gather information about the Soviet Union (and now Russia) by Aldrich Ames. The process to find and document his treason took longer than suspected because no believe the spy was internal. Once they started looking, Ames popped to the top of the list.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously, you can't have even the most marginal interest in Cold War espionage matters without knowing the name Aldrich Ames. As those following my reviews might have noticed, I have a somewhat more than marginal interest in that particular subject. Thus, while I was familiar with a lot of Ames's story as well as those of many of the agents whose deaths can be laid at his doorstep, this book detailing the hunt for Ames written by the two female CIA officers who led the team that finally uncovered his identity and saw to his arrest has been on my TBR for quite some time. Despite it not telling me all that much I didn't already know from a variety of other sources, definitely an interesting read.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was written by two members of the CIA task force that identified Aldrich Ames as the KGB mole who had betrayed numerous double agents in the period between 1985 and 1994.

I had high expectations for this book, but they were disappointed. The first part consists of career biographies of Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille- of very limited interest. Then there are pages and pages of overviews of the careers of the moles who were betrayed by Rick Ames and were recalled to the USSR and executed. This was interesting reading, because it provided a good overview of the types of KGB and GRU officers that would consent to spy for the USA. But all these mini-biographies followed the same pattern, and it became rather monotonous reading.

You are halfway through the book before it starts to focus in earnest on the hunt for the mole. And instead of being a lucid account of how the CIA/FBI moved from an observation (inexplicable unmasking of numerous spies in 1985-1986) to a hypothesis (there must be a high-ranking mole in the CIA) to an identification (Aldrich Ames is the man), the story is written in a very process-oriented way. Pages and pages are dedicated to the bureaucratic processes in the CIA, and dozens of people are introduced, only to disappear again after one or two mentions. There is much description of what happened, but not of why it happened and so I did not find it useful in reconstructing the thought process. There was much activity, but little productivity, it seems. At the end of the book, the authors are clearly defensive about being raked over the coals by Congress about why it took so long to identify Ames. And while I understand their frustration, I have to say that there was nothing in the book that really explained why it took so long.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why were so many agents in the USSR being compromised to the KGB and executed? Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille, longtime veterans of the CIA were in the forefront of a small group assigned to the mission, in early 1991 to expose the traitor (mole) in their midst. They give a detailed step by step account of the hunt and the arrest of Aldrich Ames. Ames was a 30 year veteran of the CIA and Directorate of Operations. They give credit to the people both CIA and FBI that worked with them on the project. They also discuss some of the other traitors uncovered during the time. I found it interesting that in the beginning of the book it was revealed that both women were college graduates, spoke several languages, but the only jobs open in the CIA to women at the time was as typist and secretary. They were hired and had to work their way up as areas were opened to women as the years went by. As I am from the same time frame I was well aware of this problem. It is nice to have the note in passing, written in a book, cause a look back at how far women have come in the work place. The book reveals it was the tedious attention to detail and the following of the money that finally caught Ames. They note Ames was a man that thought women were of no value in the work place so it was great he was caught by two women. I am sure that a lot of information was censored by the CIA but this book is of interest to us history buffs. I read this book in audio book format. Janet Metzger did a good job narrating the book.

[Florence Buchholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating insider's account of the CIA during the cold war and immediately after. It is focused on discovering the identity of Aldrich Ames, the infamous CIA traitor who provided information to the KGB for personal enrichment. Finding the mole took years of winnowing the list of suspects, painstaking tracking the eventual principle suspect's every movement and the tracing of his bank deposits. It also took more than a little bit of luck. Too bad the FBI claimed most of the credit! OK, so there is some discord between the two agencies. I was fortunate in being able to attend a presentation by the surviving author and retired CIA agent, Sandy Grimes, at the Virginia Book Festival this year. She is a consummate professional and a great reconteur.

[Zella Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't as readable of an account of the Ames story compared to Pete Earley's book, but it's a good read on a different focus--the CIA investigation of Ames from the perspective of the 2 women who spearheaded the mole hunt. There's a fair amount of analytical bureaucrat-ese and a heavy frontloading of the spy cases Ames betrayed before shifting to the mole hunt itself, but it's a vivid look inside the inner workings of the CIA. The authors also had interesting careers in their own right, and those parts of the book were quite compelling as well.

[Gabriel Schoenfeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

This authoritative book contains many fascinating details about Ames's treachery and gives an excellent account of the CIA's part in the joint CIA/FBI investigation that identified and then nabbed him. Unfortunately, it is marred by needless and frequent repetitions of key facts and arguments. In the hands of a professional editor, it could have been a far better book. Still, the story is gripping and the book is highly informative.

[Jerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting stuff here, but a pretty amateurish piece of writing. Way too much irrelevant detail and obvious effort at CYA.

[James Cobb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the book centers around the Ames case, the insights into the CIA and FBI are more informative.

[Eric Puente · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great (true) account of 2 determined women finding a mole. It was a bit hard to follow at times for me....with the take down details held until the end. I would have liked it better if some of the mole hunting was sprinkled in the beginning and middle, while we were learning about assets being compromised.

[John McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the pleasures of reading this rather dense, fact-filled memoir was the memory of writing one of those long investigative memos I used to write as an investigator with the government, and seeing how these investigators--5 in number but really four who did the work--created the plan of investigation and implemented each stage in a methodical, unbiased way. A very large part of the investigatory effort, certainly in the Aldrich Ames' investigation, was devoted to matching travel dates of the agency operative with travel dates of anyone from the Soviet delegation who might be the traitor's handler, and then comparing that information with financial information acquired over the period of inquiry. That work requires full attention, often all hands on deck, persistence, and an open mind to ferret out what could have happened, and then finding a way to prove it.

The one oversight the authors acknowledge was not chasing Aldrich Ames' debt more aggressively, something that Ms. Vertefeuille states likely would have shortened the investigation. When I was on the job doing investigations a sage, long-time investigator who was trained as an accountant told me, "Mac, just follow the money. Always follow the money." He was right but when I took accounting courses, I learned also that the ledger has two sides--the income side and the expense/debt side. Both sides must be evaluated to put the books in balance, or to see if the books indeed do balance, and if not where the income went or how the debt was paid. Aldrich Ames at one point, as he explained in his debriefing, was informed by his Soviet runner (handler) that he, Ames, had become a millionaire because he Soviets had deposited the equivalent of $2M in a Swiss account. That amount in the 1980s was a huge amount, but equally important was how that money was used by Ames and his wife Rosario. Their debts were oppressive and had the CIA investigators conducted a thorough vetting of that debt, they would likely have been able to conclude much earlier that Ames' indebtedness and costs of his lifestyle could only be resolved by outside intervention, an insight that would have been immediately apparent.

These 4 investigatiors--Jean Vertefeuille and Sandy Grimes, together with Diane Worthin and Dan Payne--were sometimes impeded in their work by their own agency superiors and at times by the FBI and frankly received only modest credit. At times, they were impeded by rank gender-based discrimination (I didn't learn that from this book but from another former CIA operator recognized it). When that happened the 2 leads--both women (Grimes and Vertefeuille)--stuck to their information and did not back down, later being proved correct.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the discussion of Demitry Polyakov, a bona fide Soviet war hero whose disgust with Soviet politics and policy caused him to dangle himself to CIA operatives. His work was, in the words of the authors, the most productive the CIA was able to encounter. He, too, was betrayed, it is believed by Ames and Robert Hanssen, the FBI intelligence officer who sold information to the Soviets. Polyakov was eventually recalled to Russia, and went dark until it was learned he had been given up, tried in Soviet courts, and later executed.

Ames betrayed multiple Soviets who worked as agents for the CIA, all rolled up, killed, eliminated. Many books have been written about Ames and Hanssen, but I think this Grimes and Vertefeuille study may be the most authoritative I've read.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. I liked three things about it.
--It interesting to hear about two women, for whom doors were closed because of gender, rising through the ranks of the CIA based on their own merits. Their rise was in step with the CIA moving with American society with regards to gender equality in the workplace.
--I learned a ton about how the CIA is organized and what it's doing day-to-day.
--I learned a lot about the Ames investigation.
The book confirmed something I've long suspected, CIA's info net is not nearly as tight as shown in the media or that we'd like to believe. Hearing about Russian contacts being out of touch, their whereabouts unknown, for years is completely divorced from the media's presentation of spies knowing everything all the time about where people are located and what they are doing.
It surprised me the CIA couldn't get banking and investing records easily. I wonder if that's still true. This really shocked me.

The book's biggest weakness is that it's written by two women who have had important careers writing intelligence reports. They should have injected more emotion and more dramatic quotes here.

Good narrator.

[Ed Callahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I met Sandy Grimes years ago on a Sun Microsystems sales award trip to Vienna, around 1992 pr 1993. It is only when we all took a side trip to Budapest that we learned from her husband Gary that Sandy worked for the CIA. She stayed behind that day presumably because of the residual Soviet influence in Hungary.

I heard about the book from Gary. I bought it because of the connection and the thought that finding out how real "mole hunters" worked would be interesting. It was.

Unfortunately, the constraints of national security prevent Sandy and her co-author from being as forthcoming as possible and for that reason I thought the first half of the book was more filler than pertinent to the hunt and capture of Aldrich "Rick" Ames.

A worthwhile read for all seeking insight into this strange world that exists around us.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid, detailed recounting of these two CIA analysts dogged and determined effort to understand why the CIA lost so many Soviet sources in 1985. Their work ultimately led to Rick Ames. The sex and style of James Bond or the psychological angst and drama of Graham Greene this is not, but the authors make up for this in detail and technique.

The scale of treason by Ames is substantial (add up the # of Soviet spies tried and executed), yet Ames comes-off as a cad who needed money to support his wife's living style. No apparent motivation except a source of easy money. Compared to executive and hedge fund bonuses, his "earnings" of $1.3 million over a number of years do not even rise to the level of greed.

[Susan LaRue · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writers evidently wished to speak up for the CIA, as the official report on the case of the traitor Alrich Ames was written by the FBI. Thus some of the writing is more technically involved with CIA processes than most of us would want. But overall it is a fascinating behind the scenes report of just how time-consuming a thorough investigation is - as opposed to the quick versions in many spy thrillers. There is lots of background here to make the spy thrillers more understandable. So I give it a 4 because I'm glad I read it.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was good/interesting, but while the introduction said basically "focus on the investigation, no political and bureaucratic axe grinding", there was a lot of bureaucratic axe grinding, as well as 60+% of the book being background on CIA and Counterintelligence operations, Moscow station, etc. I was hoping for a bit more focus on Ames himself, but this was much more a book about the CIA CI investigators and their careers (the authors of the book). Still, as someone interested in counterintelligence and CIA vs KGB history, I enjoyed it.

[Tyler Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for those looking to get a foundational knowledge of the important espionage figures for both the US and USSR side. With it being written by those on the inside it can be a little heavy on the technical and title side, but the information is impartial, detailed, and highlights the unnecessary professional obstacles that highly competent women endured while on the hunt for one of the greatest traitors in US history; even if they work well to not harp on that point in the book.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a young Air Force officer when all this stuff was happening, so it kind of took me back to the days of my youth. The Sovs and the Eastern Bloc, oh my. The authors even mention towards the end about how the intelligence world was a lot simpler then - one big enemy who played by rules we understood.

[Julie Totsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Book

This book starts by telling the stories of the men Aldrich Ames killed by telling the KGB about their activities. The stories are concise and interesting. The last half of the book is how Ames was caught. I read and listened to the book. This is real spy work, not the James Bond movies.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rambling and unfocused account that failed to develop a central narrative. The first half of the book was just a list of different spies, with very little to link them and no particular reason why some were included versus the others.

[John S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book with a great peer into the lives of CIA officers in the Cold War. I listened to a podcast of an FBI agent who became a double agent for the USSR and heard that he unknowingly supported Ames. This book gave an honest testimony of the CIA’s perspective on the mole search.

[Fredrik Johansson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a lot of books re about the Cold war , but this one was one of the best

[Marshall Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think most of the reviewers of this book missed its point - the book is really about all the Russian men (and their families) that he betrayed!!