Short summary of the main people in the doc:
Richard Miller tried to sell a single manual after a married female Russian KGB spy slept with him and seduced him into becoming a traitor. But he was caught before he could even sell a single document and sat in prison for under 3 years. He was an excommunicated Mormon for cheating on his wife. We get interviews with various people. The femme fatale is seen with giant tears coming down her face begging the public to believe she was innocent. Which is hard to believe as we just heard a wiretap of her meeting with a KGB agent. I guess USSR forced her to make this extremely fake and pointless appeal.
John Anthony Walker leaked Navy codes so that USSR could read all the Navy messages which practically could make them predict all USA moves during a war. A huge scoop for USSR, but at least didn't get a ton of people killed. He recruited family members and friends to leak info too after he retired from the Navy. This went on for 18 years and earned him $2m. He divorced his wife to hang around with young women. His ex-wife found out he tried to recruit their daughter and finally after 18 years told about him to FBI. Walker got life in prison. The doc reveals that Walker's codes were given to North Korea during the war. Maybe causing thousands of American deaths.
A USSR spy, Vitaly Yurchenko, defects to Canada to have an affair with a wife of a Soviet ambassador living there. He reveals that he knows about 2 moles. Edward Lee Howard is clearly one of them. Howard very fast finds out he is being tailed and escapes to USSR. His wife helps him escape, but later tells she didn't know about his spying. He is given a wife and housing in USSR. But experiences a mystery death in 2002 right after the doc was made I assume, meaning he likely was killed by Russia for some reason. Vitaly Yurchenko has no luck getting back with his mistress and flees back to USSR and they receive him as a hero. Not sure why they didn't kill him for leaking the info to USA? They kill or imprison all other moles. Vitaly Yurchenko also gave them info about another spy. They relisten to old wiretaps and find a voice they know from a call to a Russian embassy, Ronald Pelton. He has revealed to USSR that US has divers who put down wiretaps underwater.
The 4 moles presented in the doc so far are from FBI, CIA, Naval intelligence, and NSA. All discovered in 1985. In the same year the two most destructive American moles ever just started working for USSR, Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames. The long prison sentences make the spying public knowledge making more people take it up, not less. So it actually hurts the intelligence services.
Aldrich Ames is responsible for recruiting Russian spies. He's an alcoholic and lazy. CIA never reprimanded him for his drinking as they are a fraternity who protect each other. They send him to Mexico where he cannot ruin anything. His successful wife refuses to move with him. He finds an attractive young woman in Mexico who has a lavish lifestyle he has to pay for. As he moves back to USA the cost of living causes him to go into debt. He compromises all US moles in Russia which causes a mass of executions, but some are sent to gulag. We have an interview with one of these prisoners who sat in gulag for 13 years and lost all his teeth. Even after all their spies die or go to prison CIA refuses to admit they have a mole. Meanwhile Ames lives a lavish lifestyle, but tells CIA his wife has rich parents. He also passes their lie detector test. But so many moles are killed that CIA is forced to admit they might have a spy and start looking into hundreds of CIA agents. They arrest him on his way to the airport for a Russia trip. The doc has an interview with Ames and overall has quite a few mini-interviews with the people involved, especially agents tracking down the spies. Very good stuff! These interviews alone are huge scoops. Not sure where the full interviews are.
Robert Hanssen is similar to Ames. He also leaves signals for Russians to symbolize an upcoming drop. He reveals the US disaster survival plan. Where everyone in leadership goes during a disaster. He reveals satellite operations, a $250m 1985 tunnel under the Russian embassy in DC that became worthless overnight. The doc doesn't say anything about the spies he may have gotten killed. So Ames stands as the most destructive mole still in this doc.
This doc is pretty much a perfect overview of KGB moles in US history. It's obviously a bit old and we have newer info about what info each of them revealed. CIA and FBI were a disaster in the 80's. Similarly to how MI6 was a disaster in the 1960's. They had little to no security and anyone could access and freely carry out secret documents even if he didn't work in that department. So most of these moles appeared before the doc was made when it was easy to be one. With tech surveillance everywhere it's also harder to hide it now. A new version of the doc would be largely the same. They would rename it "Russian moles in US intelligence services" and add modern moles that are attractive Russian women set to sleep with powerful US politicians. But I think China now does most of the spying so a full doc would have to include them. Back then it was largely USSR. Great doc! Go watch it now.
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