When most people think of spying and international intrigue, Arlington, Virginia, is probably not what first comes to mind. But this city just over the Potomac is an espionage hotbed, where codebreakers at Arlington Hall (a former girls’ school that served as the center of the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service cryptography effort during World War II) exposed extensive Soviet spy networks in the United States, and where the controversial longtime CIA counterintelligence chief and Arlington resident James Angleton used that information to hunt Soviet agents and moles
To top it off, Arlington was home to Aldrich Ames, the CIA's most damaging spy—to the United States, not the Soviet Union. Join David Robarge, the CIA’s chief historian, as he exposes the dark side of spy work in the suburbs and explains why the nation has had such a difficult time tracking down enemy agents and protecting its secrets.
Other Connections
Arlington County’s Long Branch Nature Center is famous for its flying squirrels. But the FBI agents who visited the park one winter morning in 2001 were looking for a different kind of animal: a mole. Learn how FBI employee Robert Hanssen’s activities as spy for Moscow under the codename “Ramon Garcia” came to an end.
