Quotes by Aldrich Ames

About Aldrich Ames:

Aldrich Hazen Ames is an American who was convicted of espionage against his country in 1994. He is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the high-security Allenwood U.S. Penitentiary. Ames was formerly a 31-year Central Intelligence Agency counterintelligence officer and analyst who committed espionage against his country by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. So far as it is known, Ames compromised the second-largest number of CIA agents—second only to those betrayed by Robert Hanssen.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I knew quite well, when I gave the names of our agents in the Soviet Union, that I was exposing them to the full machinery of counterespionage and the law, and then prosecution and capital punishment.

Aldrich Ames

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.

Aldrich Ames

The FBI, to its credit in a self-serving sort of way, rejects the routine use of the polygraph on its own people.

Aldrich Ames

The difficulties of conducting espionage against the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union were such that historically the Agency had backed away from the task.

Aldrich Ames

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.

Aldrich Ames

The only thing I ever withheld from the KGB were the names of two agents whom I personally had known and handled and had a particular feeling for.

Aldrich Ames

The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.

Aldrich Ames

The U.S. is, so far as I know, the only nation which places such extensive reliance on the polygraph. It has gotten us into a lot of trouble.

Aldrich Ames

An espionage organization is a collector: it collects raw information. That gets processed by a machinery that is supposed to resolve its reliability, and to present a finished product.

Aldrich Ames

Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low.

Aldrich Ames

No one's interested really in knowing what policies or diplomatic initiatives or arms negotiations might have been compromised by me.

Aldrich Ames

When I handed over the names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union, I had come to the conclusion that the loss of these sources to the U.S. would not compromise significant national defense, political, diplomatic interests.

Aldrich Ames

I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.

Aldrich Ames

My little scam in April '85 went like this: Give me $50,000; here's some names of some people we've recruited.

Aldrich Ames

To the extent that I considered the personal burden of harming the people who had trusted me, plus the Agency, or the United States, I wasn't processing that.

Aldrich Ames

You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation.

Aldrich Ames

When Reagan was elected, I felt that the Agency had gone much more into the service of a political tendency in the country with which I had already felt very strong disagreement.

Aldrich Ames

I'm a traitor, but I don't consider myself a traitor.

Aldrich Ames

Author Bio

  • NameAldrich Ames
  • DescriptionCentral Intelligence Agency counter-intelligence officer and analyst
  • BornMay 26, 1941
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionSpy