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Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen

Plain Sight

Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen

CBS News

History, Government, True Crime

4.81.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How did the FBI allow a spy to operate in its midst for more than 20 years and do such devastating damage? Robert Hanssen’s tradecraft was good, but far from perfect. In fact, the FBI missed several chances to nab him.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Agent of Betrayal, the double life of Robert

0:03.9

Hansen ad-free on Amazon Music, download the app today.

0:07.8

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0:13.1

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0:17.8

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0:24.0

but on Amazon Music or wherever, you get your podcasts.

0:27.9

Many put their hope in Dr. Serhut. His company was worth half a billion dollars.

0:33.1

His research promised groundbreaking treatments for HIV and cancer, but the brilliant doctor

0:38.8

was hiding a secret. You can listen to Dr. Death, Bad Magic, exclusively an ad-free by subscribing

0:45.6

to Wendry Plus in the Wendry app. Life seemed to be going pretty well for Bob Hansen.

0:52.8

It was 1990. The Hansens were living in northern Virginia. Bob had been promoted to the FBI

0:58.5

inspection staff, which took him to field offices around the world. His relationship with

1:04.0

Priscilla was about to take off. I said, I got a car. You got me a car?

1:10.8

And his side business was humming. Tens of thousands of dollars rolled in courtesy of his Soviet

1:16.4

paymasters. They even exchanged a couple of diamonds they'd given him over the years for liquid cash.

1:23.2

The USSR may have been on the verge of collapse, but the money was as green as ever.

1:29.6

Still, that year it could have, and arguably should have, all come crashing down on Hansen.

1:38.2

I joined the FBI in 1978. This is Mark Walk. He joined the FBI two years after Hansen,

1:47.4

and like him, worked foreign counterintelligence cases.

1:51.2

Special agent Walk had another title relevant to this story, brother-in-law.

1:56.2

I know him as Bob. He married my sister in 1968 when I was a senior in high school.

2:02.5

Walk in Hansen weren't particularly close, personally or professionally. Their assignments never

...

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