Writestream Radio Network

As the Cold War was ending in the late 1980s, Americans might have been justified in thinking that their intelligence services were winning the clandestine spy battles across the globe. In fact, the U.S. was losing badly, despite the multiple arrests for espionage during 1985, known as “The Year of the Spy.” In fact, out of the arrests came a new generation of enemy operatives, and one of the worst of these was Aldrich "Rick" Ames. Working out of the CIA's Soviet Counterintelligence Group at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Ames had access to virtually everything CIA knew about the USSR, including America's own deep cover assets. In 1985, amid a nasty divorce, severe money problems, and a chronic drinking addiction,  Ames approached a Soviet contact in Washington, DC, and began his career as one of America's most deadly spies. For approximately $4.2 million from the Soviets, Ames turned over the identities of over a dozen American assets within the USSR, most of whom were immediately executed. Realizi