Aldrich Ames

Aldrich Hazen Ames (born May 26, 1941) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who was convicted of espionage for selling secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia. Beginning in 1985, Ames systematically betrayed dozens of CIA operations and assets to the KGB, resulting in the compromising of virtually every CIA and FBI asset in the Soviet Union. His treachery led directly to the deaths of at least ten Soviet intelligence officers who were working as CIA informants. Ames operated undetected for nearly a decade, continuing his espionage even after the Cold War's end, until his arrest in 1994. His case became a landmark in counterintelligence studies and prompted significant reforms in CIA security procedures and personnel vetting. Ames remains imprisoned and his betrayal stands as one of the most significant intelligence failures in American history, demonstrating serious vulnerabilities in the CIA's internal security systems.