Ex-CIA agent convicted of spying for Soviet Union dies in US prison

Aldrich Ames, the Central Intelligence Agency spy who was sentenced to life in prison for selling secrets to Moscow costing the lives of a dozen double agents, died in prison on Monday, US authorities said.

He was 84, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

Ames worked as a counterintelligence analyst for the CIA for 31 years and, along with his wife Rosario, was convicted of selling information to the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1993, compromising secret missions and costing lives in exchange for more than $2.5 million (€2.1 million).

Ames had been head of the Soviet branch in the CIA's counterintelligence group and gave the Kremlin the names of dozens of Russians who were spying for the United States.

The couple's luxurious lifestyle at the time, they kept cash in Swiss bank accounts, drove a Jaguar and ran up $50,000 (€42,780) annually in credit card bills, drew suspicion.

Federal prosecutors said Ames spied for the Soviet Union and kept selling Russia information after its collapse until he was exposed in 1994.

Relying on bogus information from Ames, CIA officials repeatedly misinformed US presidents Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and other top officials about Soviet military capabilities and other strategic details.

Ames' prosecution heated up tensions between Washington and Moscow as Russia and the US were trying to normalise relations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Then-CIA director James Woolsey resigned over the scandal, after refusing to fire or demote colleagues over it in Langley, Virgina, where the spy agency is headquartered.

His successor, Belgian-born John Deutch, oversaw an overhaul of the spy agency, resulting in arrests and charges.

Then-US president Bill Clinton called Ames' case "very serious" and suggested it could harm ties with Moscow, while the Kremlin downplayed the incident, with one Russian diplomat calling Americans "extremely emotional."

The White House eventually expelled a senior Russian diplomat, Aleksander Lysenko, who was accused of involvement with Ames, after Russia refused to withdraw him.

Scandals have long bedevilled spycraft, as Washington and Moscow vie for secrets in quiet battles for power and diplomatic leverage.

Despite their claims of innocence, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair in 1953, accused of selling atomic secrets to Moscow at the height of McCarthyism, an anti-communist movement characterised by political persecution of the left in the United States, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Former Navy communications expert John Walker was convicted after pleading guilty in 1986 to decoding more than a million encrypted messages for over 30 years, to feed information to the Soviets, and was jailed for life.