The year 2023 had an oddity occur: three traitors to the United States, who through their perfidy put their personal greed, ideology, or ego ahead of the trust which their country placed upon their shoulders, left prison.
The three are Harold J. Nicholson (CIA); Ana Belen Montes (DIA); and Robert P. Hanssen (FBI).
Harold James (Jim) Nicholson – CIA
Nicholson, 73, was released from federal prison on November 24. He served 283-months and an additional 96 months for his part in having his son act as the go-between to Russian intelligence. Nicholson’s depravity didn’t stop with his own behavior. While in prison in 2008, years after his own sentencing, we learned that he had ruthlessly recruited his son to share information with the Russians and collect from the Russians money owed to Nicholson. This activity earned Nicholson an additional 96 months; his son was given five years probation.
Nicholson, often referred to as the highest-ranking CIA officer to be convicted of espionage, initiated his clandestine relationship with the Russian SVR (external intelligence service) when he walked into the Russian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and volunteered his services. Nicholson’s rationale centered on his misguided logic, “that with Ames out of the way, the SVR might be in the market for another highly paid mole inside the CIA” said Bryan Densen, author of the “Spy’s Son,” a book about Nathaniel Nicholson, in a comment to The Independent.
Ana Belen Mones – DIA
Montes was 66 when she was released from prison on January 6. She was arrested in 2001 for committing espionage on behalf of Cuba while serving as a senior DIA analyst. Such was her depth of knowledge that within the DIA she was known as the “Queen of Cuba.”
What made Montes different than others is her strong ideological fervor in support of the Cuban Revolution. Additionally, her acquisition of documents within DIA made it exceedingly difficult to detect her actions as she stayed within her swim-lane and did not remove documents. Instead, she would memorize what she read and then recreate the document at her residence for passage to her intelligence officer handler.
Robert Hanssen – FBI
Hanssen left prison in a hearse. He was found unresponsive in his cell on the morning of June 5 at the United States Penitentiary Florence ADMAX in Florence, CO. The Federal Bureau of Prisons advised that staff performed life-saving measures and requested emergency medical services, who subsequently pronounced him dead. Hanssen’s treachery spanned the majority of his 25-year FBI career, much of it in positions which allowed him to garner sufficient information to compromise several U.S. intelligence human sources to the USSR and subsequently the Russian Federation. At the time of his death, he had served 21 years in prison.
These three individuals represent different intelligence agencies and different ideologies and motivations – but in every case display the extent of the harm that can be done by just a single actor with privileged access and an ax to grind, a bill to pay, or a philosophy to spread.
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