The US Bureau of Prisons announced that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Aldrich Ames died in prison on 5/1. Ames was serving a life sentence for selling secrets to the Soviet Union.

Ames worked as a counterintelligence analyst for the CIA for 31 years. He was convicted of selling information to the Soviet Union from 1985-1993 in exchange for over 2.5 million USD, which led to the exposure of secret missions and the deaths of dozens of agents working for the US.

Ames was formerly head of the Soviet division within the CIA's counterintelligence group and provided the Soviet Union with the identities of dozens of Russians spying for the US. The lavish lifestyle of Ames and his wife at the time aroused suspicion, as they possessed cash in Swiss bank accounts, drove expensive Jaguar cars, and spent 50,000 USD annually on credit cards.

CIA agent Aldrich Ames during a 1994 court hearing. *Photo: AFP*

According to US federal prosecutors, Ames continued selling information to Russia after the Soviet Union's dissolution, until his exposure in 1994. Due to false information from Ames, CIA officials repeatedly provided misleading information to former US presidents Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, and other high-ranking officials.

Ames's prosecution at the time escalated tensions between Washington and Moscow, even as Russia and the US were attempting to normalize relations after the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991.

The then CIA Director, James Woolsey, resigned due to this scandal, after refusing to fire or demote involved colleagues at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Then-US President Bill Clinton called the Ames incident "extremely serious" and believed it could damage relations with Moscow. However, Russia downplayed the incident's significance, with a Russian diplomat stating Americans were "too emotional." The US subsequently expelled senior Russian diplomat Aleksander Lysenko, who was accused of involvement with Ames, after Russia refused to recall him.

By Ngoc Anh (AFP, Reuters)