Despite Cold War thaws, experts say Russia may have needed to keep spy suspect Aldrich Ames on the payroll even more than the Soviet Union.
With Russia's deteriorated economic conditions, political instability and troubled borders, the top-secret information that Ames could provide "becomes more valuable," says Melvin Goodman, a former senior analyst on Soviet affairs for the CIA.
"The Russians feel weaker than ever," says Goodman. "Their own perception of their security situation becomes dire . . . and they've got this guy on their doorstep offering them information."
Ames and his wife, Maria del Rosario Casas Ames, are accused of spying for the KGB starting in 1985 and, after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, working for Russia.
In Washington, outrage tends to focus on why Moscow would maintain a post-Cold War spy operation when both nations seek warmer relations.
"People say it's stupid, 'How could they be doing this?' " says Goodman, a professor at Washington's National War College. "The question is how could they not be doing this?"
An affidavit filed by the FBI says that one computer file found in Ames' home, dated June 8, 1992, says: "My most immediate need, as I pointed out in March, is money." The FBI says the document was a bid by Ames to get more money from his Russian handlers.
As a result of the case, anti-espionage legislation was introduced in the Senate Thursday that would give investigators easier access to financial records, consumer credit reports and overseas travel records of officials in sensitive positions.
Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., who unsuccessfully sought to have the law passed when he was head of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1990, says the Ames scandal could muster enough support for passage.
Meanwhile, Ames' attorney, Plato Cacheris, said Ames was not talking with authorities. "If we were pleading, we'd plead not guilty," he said.
Rosario Ames' lawyer, William Cummings, said Thursday that she is "devastated by the distortions, out-of-context, selected statements and alleged quotations in the government's affidavit along with the subsequent press coverage."
The couple was jailed without bail. A bail hearing was postponed until Tuesday.
