Direct Action

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ON 21 SEPTEMBER 1995, AT 11:47A.M.,five senior officers from the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations-the CIA’s clandestine service-quietly gathered in room 4D-627A, one of the sensitive compartmentalized information facilities colloquially known as bubble rooms, on the fourth floor of the headquarters building at Langley, Virginia. The Agency was still reeling from the February 1994 arrest of Aldrich Hazen Ames. Ames, an alcoholic, money-hungry wreck of a career case officer, had betrayed dozens of America’s most valuable Russian agents to the KGB, resulting in their arrests and executions. He had also handed over many of CIA’s technical tradecraft secrets and the identities of American undercover operatives.

Two of the clandestine officers at the meeting had been tasked with writing a Top Secret/Codeword damage assessment of the Ames debacle, a preliminary draft of which, at their peril, they were now sharing with three of their most trusted colleagues.

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