The Spy Who Stayed Out in the Cold: The Secret Life of FBI Double Agent Robert Hanssen

After just reading the disappointing "Into The Mirror" as well as the rest, this book remains as the only complete account on Hanssen. The great photo section with photos of Hanssen in his youth is a bonus! Complete, with a great chapter on the creepy Opus Dei sect.

Author Adrian Havill, never knew Robert Hanssen personally though they lived only a few miles apart for several years. His public lifestyle didn't change to attract suspicion. Much of the money he received for spying went to pay for a Catholic education for his children to a school forty miles from home when some of the best public schools in the country were available only a short distance from his home. His only extravagance was spending lavishly on a platonic female friend before the relationship turned sour. This went on while his wife Bonnie struggled with daily homemaking chores in addition to her commitment that involved her six children. While stationed in Scarsdale, New York, Mr. Hanssen once passed off information he knew to be of no value to the Russians for money which his wife later became aware of. Other than that, she had no idea of the double life he was leading. He was not one to show affection to others even in his family and required the children riding in his car not to speak while approved Russian symphonies were played and listened to instead. Neighbors found Hanssen to be cold and distant, not exchanging waves or verbal greetings when situations warranted. His wife is to receive 55% of his pension, and many in the FBI complained about that since she knew of the Scarsdale incident in 1979. It is hard to imagine the shock Mr. Hanssen's mother, wife, children, and agent brother-in-law felt when he was arrested. The stress of wondering when and if he would be caught must also have been extremely difficult to deal with. The letters Hanssen and his Russian correspondents sent back and forth were confusing to me at times, but this is a book that will hold your interest and I would highly recommend it to you.

I've read this book twice. The first was for the sheer pleasure of reading a well-written book that pulled me along--it's a real page-turner. I went back and went through it again in order to absorb the dense information. The author puts our electronic surveillance systems like echelon and carnivore in layman's language and his chapter on Opus Dei is illuminating while even-handedHanssen betrayed his country--we all know that, and as the author makes clear, he is at best, mentally unbalanced. On the other hand, there's little doubt he knew right from wrong and so in the final analysis, he has to be considered a despicable traitor to America. What he did is as bad as it gets.

The mark of a good biography in my view, is when the author takes time to delve into the subject's childhood and interviews everyone from his teachers to his school friends. In the case of the strange, weird traitor Robert Hanssen, getting into his psyche is extremely important. The author has done just that, ferreting out college roommates, professors, and pals from the Chicago police force. Hanssen is quoted telling one friend that he actually would be a double agent. My question--why didn't the FBI find that out before they hired him when they did his background check? There are plenty of family anecdotes too, which show that Hanssen was and is as nutty as they come. I don't know if I should call a book like this, entertaining, but there's no doubt that this story is a real life thriller about a traitor who should have been caught years before his actual capture.

Adrian Havill's new book, The Spy Who Stayed Out In The Cold: The Secret Life of FBI Agent Robert Hanssen, is a fascinating account of an appalling chapter in our country's recent history. While I must admit I am a spy story enthusiast, it's dismaying the Hanssen story is true. Havill lays out in acute detail how and why Hanssen betrayed his country. Hanssen began spying for the Soviets at least sixteen years ago because he felt unsatisfied and bored with his life. Although he was stuck as a mid-level bureaucrat at the FBI, he did not seem to be an likely candidate for a traitor. He was a devout Roman Catholic, a devoted father of six children, and husband to a lovely wife. Hanssen played a high-stakes game with counter-intelligence agents and won that game until he finally was arrested in February, 2001.The price for Hanssen's betrayal was relatively modest. He received 600,000 dollars in cash and diamonds directly. He received another 800,000 dollars that were placed on deposit in a Moscow bank. Part of his ill-gotten gains was spent to educate his children in fine Catholic schools, and more was spent on a stripper from Ohio. During his lengthy spying career, Hanssen provided to the Soviets over 6,000 pages of this nation's most highly classified secrets. Several agents working for the US were betrayed by him, and at least two of them were executed as a result. All in all, Hanssen did incalculable damage to his country. The author wrote a detailed and compelling book that is well worth the reader's time. I recommend it. This book will not disappoint.