Circle of Treason (24 page)

In retirement, SE Division officers Dick and Louise C with “friends,” Montana, 2006. (Courtesy of Louise and Dick C)

Burton Gerber, Chief of SE Division, 1984–89, and wife Rosalie, Washington, DC, 1988. (Courtesy of Burton Gerber)

GRU General-Major Dmitriy Fedorovich Polyakov, the highest-ranking Soviet intelligence officer ever to spy for the United States during the Cold War. Ames' treason in 1985 led to Polyakov's arrest in 1986, execution in 1988, and burial in an unmarked, unknown grave. (Authors' collections)

GRU General Polyakov and wife Nina at a diplomatic reception, New Delhi, India, 1970s. (Authors' collections)

Ever the avid sportsman, General Polyakov proudly displays the meal of the day, ca. 1970-80. (Authors' collections)

Polyakov family, Moscow, mid-1960s (left to right): son Aleksandr, father Dmitriy, son Peter, and mother Nina. The Polyakovs'first child, also a son, died in the early 1960s. (Authors' collections)

General Polyakov and wife Nina (far right) during a gathering with neighbors at their dacha—a peaceful, retired life outside of Moscow, 1980s. (Authors' collections)

KGB officer Leonid Georgiyevich Poleshchuk and wife Lyudmila, Kathmandu, Nepal, ca. 1973. Poleshchuk was executed in 1986 after Ames named him as a CIA agent. (Courtesy of Andrei Poleshchuk)

Leonid and Lyudmila Poleshchuk with son Andrei at the Kievski Railroad Station, Moscow, September 1983. (Courtesy of Andrei Poleshchuk)

Official Soviet death certificate for KGB officer Leonid Georgiyevich Poleshchuk. Date and place of death are given as 30 July 1986, Moscow. The space on the form for cause of death is left blank. (Courtesy of Andrei Poleshchuk)

THE INVESTIGATION GETS NEW LIFE

I
N EARLY
1991 J
EANNE HAD TO FACE
that her career was beginning to wind down. She was scheduled for mandatory retirement at the end of 1992. The Counter-espionage Group of CIC was about to get a new chief. Ray Reardon, with whom she had worked productively for more than four years, was returning to the Office of Security to fill a senior position. Jeanne did not want to continue as deputy chief under a new chief, and was not eligible for the chief's position because the slot was “owned” by Security. Considering her options, and plagued by a sense of guilt that she had not solved the problem of the 1985 losses, she approached the head of CIC, Jim Olson, and asked him if she could spend the time remaining before her retirement taking another look at what had gone wrong. Jeanne envisioned working as a singleton, with an emphasis on analysis. This was soon to change.

Paul Redmond joined CIC in April 1991, as deputy to Olson. On one of his first days in the center, he and Jeanne went down to the FBI to deliver a sensitive memorandum to Ray Mislock, chief of the Soviet section of the intelligence division, and his deputy, Bob Wade. During the course of conversation, Paul mentioned that Jeanne was planning to revisit the 1985 problem, with the hope of gaining new insights. Wade immediately remarked that they—the FBI—would like to buy into this project. Shortly thereafter it was agreed that the FBI would designate a special agent, Jim Holt, and a senior analyst, Jim Milburn, to work on the undertaking.