Cold War Spy Activities

I just finished out another term of grad school. I am coming off of Cold War. Like every term, we have to write a paper at the end. For my capstone, I am leaning toward focusing on the use of Women and African Americans as spies in the American Wars. This terms paper was on Cold War Espionage. There is a story that I would like to tell you about, Aldrich Ames.
 One of the other well-known controversial cases that has been extensively written about is that of Aldrich Ames. “Aldrich Ames, a veteran CIA officer who betrayed scores of American agents to the Soviet Union, wanted fancy cars and a nice house and had no compunction about betraying anyone and anything to obtain them.”[1] One has to wonder why you would want to sell your country out. Ames worked in counter intelligence. Tod Hoffman in his article “The Mystery of Aldrich Ames” points out: “DRAWN to what will probably stand as the last great Cold War espionage case, journalists and intelligence watchers have scrambled to produce books about [Aldrich H. Ames], a CIA officer who spied on behalf of the KGB for nine years.”[2] (The KGB is Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti. This is a group was a military service to the Soviets.) Ames was convicted in 1994 – towards the end of the Cold War. Americans seemed to be watching with anticipation of the trial of an American who betrayed his own. Interestingly enough, his wife was also convicted of Spy activities. He got life in prison w/o the possibility of parole. His wife got 63 months. Ames was a counter espinoge intelligence agent. He had been assigned to try and recruit agents. However, the KGB was able to flip him. He betrayed scores of Americans. He had spied against America for over 9 years. He was one of the last trials after the end of the Cold War.

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[1] Haynes, John Earl, and Harvey Klehr. Early Cold War Spies: The Espionage Trials That Shaped American Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pg. 232

[2] Hoffman, Tod. "The Mystery of Aldrich Ames." Queen's Quarterly 103, no. 2, 384-97. DOI:Summer 1996.