A Word on Words; 3033; David Vise

once again welcome to our own words were back as we could devise who said book the bureau in the mall was set the bestseller list is the leg at a movie and with a doctrine for him for another session about the news out roof ages spy thriller you've written problem is no no it's real life it's nonfiction and so it is this land this spike our last week the greatest spies since benedict arnold you point out he used by wartime inside the fbi just for those in much less we just bring them up to date on the sort of thought this play was a spy hands are at ten the fbi agent for twenty five years a family man father six children home for dinner every night about thirty went to mass every day confession every week that his day job at the bureau well everyone considered him a citizen beyond suspicion

but yet a dark side people know nothing about it and in a dark side he sold the russians more intelligence secret for more places than any spot american history not only did he sell them secret from fbi he gave up the crown jewels from the cia the national security agency pentagon and the national security council the white house any guess it's those outlaws in cash and guns and you say you didn't do it for money money was a trigger money as a way to keep score when you have a wife and six kids in private school money helps but robert hanssen was motivated a spy by something out in fact at one point in the correspondents inside the beer on the mall he tells the russians not to plant so much money he doesn't want i have a problem in terms of concealing the cash

he spied because he had a fractured ego seeking recognition and he didn't get the recognition at the bureau and unfortunately he found it from the friendly folks at the kgb well the other side of the story is there is a fellow fan recognition that your left me free they gave me an agent to being a federal prosecutor in new york to become a federal judge giving up a lifetime tenure becoming the ntsb i am leaving there because the bureau and i was so lost its way under his leadership and direction even a loud loud itself first all to tolerate without looking closely at people like hanssen and nobody was really like ensign but beyond that being unable to through really keeps bureau technologically on the cutting edge and able to deal with people like

timothy mcveigh in another's so freely use and that's in the epilogue gotten in trouble ann hansen will spend the rest of his life in prison what a wonderful world for spies or it just convinces again again that real life is stranger weirder than fiction now we touched a little bit last week on board you say that this is a book about lance by as about money about secrets about government failure and about sex or burma we just broached the subject last week on his betrayal of his own wife by letting his best friend of you or him in bed with this pile of money he'd taped it to me but in the video live while his friend jack osama was in the

house i mean you cannot believe their man i can't believe the man who was as devout as he was could be as a disloyal anomaly to his country and to sell but to a trusting wife and she was interesting line you say on the day their arsenal that she knew she had not known but first overall goal he said he did it i know you did what she had been betrayed by him a number of times over the years she had once caught him as a much younger man conducting espionage twenty years before and a priest that told them at the time as long as you stop doing it and give the money to the charities of mother teresa and promiscuous

never going to get in a pet you may go on as a cracker jack g man so she also received a phone call just a week after they're married down from another woman of color and that he's mad night years i've just made love to your husband and i'm a woman you want to be wet night you then he confesses turn to that repents solos that were series of the trails finally learned that letter know immediately that he'd make a career the comforter and the dallas airport in northern virginia and they say we have some bad news for you your husband have been arrested on espionage charges her first reaction is he did it to me and then they took her to a hotel in northern virginia where the questioner until four am when she collapsed from exhaustion during that time she told them about the earlier incident twenty years before with

the fbi knew nothing about because the case file the cia had obtained from an individual russian which include all the intelligence secrets its unsold was only during the period ad fat than anyone didn't include information the fbi later going up with his computers as a spy for making anyone until as the rest of them are at two thousand one and it didn't contain information about the earlier betrayal in nineteen eighty and by edson such a woman of religious fervor and conviction spent by him loyally today visit salem every week if president prays daily first saw she's forgiven him she saved america guatemala government takes a word so that the we are literally scott's a little bit of friction and the family among her six children some of them don't believe mom is quite

facing up to the facts here what about the two the bureau had earlier what ten years before he's arrested they have a chance to find out if they do i think the single most startling thing i discovered in reporting the beer on the mall is that a nineteen ninety robber and his brother in law mark walk learned that there are thousands of dollars says bonnie rose by brother thousand dollars in cash in atlanta now that he's an fbi agent in chicago at the time yes yes i'm going to break at a local bit i mean is there a visit what happens is there is a very learned from another family member that there's a lot of cash and he knows that i'm an fbi salary there's no way into an advocate of extra cash

lend around now with all those kids and bills to pay he also knows that hanson has done counterintelligence work for the russians and was maybe one of a dozen people in this country with access at the highest levels of the crown jewels of american security secrets and he goes disappears in the chicago field office of the fbi after undergoing enormous turmoil over whether the bill oil the family are well the country nick spark joyce tells disappeared tended to open an investigation into robert hanssen on suspicion of espionage for the soviet union nineteen ninety as you said and then chicago field offices passes that information fbi headquarters it's the shortest chapter in the bureau mall it's called the fbi as a blunder because once that information at the headquarters in unfortunately never went beyond that hollow metal

but somewhere in which way numbering new recruits the fbi get and the smart cultivated a good they give any explanation how and why this got sidetracked pretty general john ashcroft inept in the aftermath of the publication of the bureau mole has ordered a special investigation drought answer that question a probe is still ongoing well i you know it's amazing to me and one thing so a free would lead his people be reft that mistake well might've caught hands on them and you know he might have been you might have you might have been psychologically able to be a volunteer but at least you would have that chicken with the paramilitaries years at that game three years before louis freeh was european directors sure didn't happen on his watch that first thing lilly friedman about that was

when he read the bureau mole well judd sessions was fbi and then he had his own problems but it frees leaving the fbi under somewhat of a shadow the monet helped create that shadow the move freely even them will be around some somewhat of a cloud russo has hurt the ongoing religion ralph baer if i read what you signing up long correctly is going away speech which we talked about last week which says be wary be proud of him that follows i would think on hollow years given the fact that people who were glancing found out sadly that their colleague at the trade of money that must have them all opened each other and unfortunately the internet we just talked about

in nineteen ninety is reminiscent went out before september eleventh when the minneapolis field office of the fbi sent information at the headquarters signed there are suspicious because there were some men who wanted to learn how to fly planes did moral or not to take the offer lance and so we have a problem in need of reform wellpoint bureau in need of overall in order to do its job better and we ultimately have a situation according to us intelligence where rubber angeles all the secret an individual russian takes it and sells it to the al qaeda terrorist network for two million dollars passed osama bin ladin will software used to track cases handled by us

one portion of intelligence and according to us intelligence this facilitated osama bin ladin the building to evade monitoring and action by the united states for a number of years well for those who just sitting in we're talking to david vise a pulitzer prize winning reporter and he's an author of the new book the bureau of them all which is a fabulous spot greatly true life true to your reputation as a great mystery reporter a book that documents every charge was against those who betray their country and those who fail to meet the challenge to expose and resting when there was a real chance to do so ten years before his final fall but i'd like this little time now on you talking to me about the movie because of their low is going to be if

all promise unfulfilled all big screen there will always been the movie is watching the screenplay for us will ever talked about working on the screenplay they have asked me to write the screenplay of harm is a consultant to the motion picture and actually i'd like to ask all of your viewers they'll be out is who is okay well if i'm a consultant to the maybe it says in the contract one of my jobs is to help advise them on who are the major actors aren't they have a big budget they want to big name hollywood stars wanda plants and wonderfully louis furry and i like all of your viewers to become consultants to the consultant the living now there's a w w w that bureau and the mole that come and let me know it which is to play robert hanssen and he would choose to play

if bad director louis freeh and i'm taking that information in and i'm passing it along hollywood and they've never done this before one of the john locke ms two is unwilling to be hanssen don't think you could pull off necessarily a credible family man in church who showed no signs of those sinister side by kevin spacey he's among the problem you're so far did willie that level i think that that's i think he's am and i'm only three so well so far an heiress and stanley tucci while got a great suggestion that fred thompson well if you are looking for jobs is not going to be in the senate he says in the end in cities going back

to the screen before your losin roland infected well you know jon after the publication of euro mall and after his announcement that he was not going to seek reelection i got a letter in the mail from sarah crompton congratulating me on my success here on the mall as a bestseller and you may be you may be providing the brady gets it's in the back in awe and how true you know we hear a lot about the about what hollywood does to stories and the end of the i have a friend that was a wager who have been in the chair where you are many times and wages have about for his head for books that had been made movies and wages are the pri but he writes fiction and i write fiction and it had hollywood and they pay me once they pay me money you've done in la la mer a lot those say i had that the contract it took the option

but they want to change it and i fall sit in the contract and a how much license the eleventh day with a beer a little the reason i ended up with a producer i did which is jerry bruckheimer film is that they have shown made three movies they made and they made promises in connection with the near a mall but they want a true life story for the big screen there's no reason known to man woman or child for hollywood to exaggerate this combustible the land of espionage related insects decides when they sent me up and i'm a recording so they can make it as accurate and as clear as close to the real story that what people go to the beer on them all in the theater to walk out of their failing light they've been inside the bureau placed

it's shrouded in secrecy and they've come out of the theater understanding something more about not only the fbi but also human nature character trust deception espionage relationships and finally perhaps most importantly the thing that almost question about one another at times motivation part what this program's about as big motivation is what motivates people to write books and part of it is about how they go about writing books we you are four floors and post i know that when you decide to take his book project on youtube the sun and then you need a vote for time two

men so you are sort of set up an operation on life he'll also talk about his work with tony it's about the process what you did it didn't new india to get out fast you're at least one maybe two other books on the same subject in the works the you needed to be accurately be completely bummed but you also need to be addressed i didn't want to wait in the compromise the quality of the war but if it was possible i want to deliver the manuscript so the book of be out in time for what was then its schedule something in general or so i hired two young men in their twenties won and worked on albert fourth presidential campaign and was in washington yale graduate without a job and this sounded pretty

cold i am the other is named meadow barnard you'd worked on the yale daily news he came out he recommended by bob woodward's research assistant low wooden being saved at an oil field someone else who had been recommended inmate said you know i don't think this is from may but the smartest person i've ever met in my life fellow lives in boston and he's fat beta kappa graduate doesn't have a normal left brain right brain thing going on he majored in architecture history and english and i think she told me that he would leave his job in boston for the opportunity to come and work with you on this kind of an exciting enterprising project and so i called mark mall scene in boston

mr semple a famine or two they showed me they could turn it around i called his mother she was my reference in hiring him she was a professor and is a university of the line in us as far i will give her son leaves his job up in boston to come and do this and what can you tell me about your son so that i can work most effectively with him she knew him very well as a mother would just watch it can be a perfectionist given that alliance is a workhorse and it is best he lived down to washington without a place to live aftermath to come as soon as he could end of the wooded they do market matt well first of all he showed up at our house and that fifteen minutes before a

casually mentioned to my wife laurie that he didn't have a place to live in washington and he moved into less and of these guys work around the clock in our house and they did a range of things they did research using tools on the internet and they went along with me on certain interviews they did very very critically important detail oriented research on the history of the attack they helped me with some of the reporting i told them you know to come and work with me on this i don't have an ego and he does much responsibility as you have the ability to handle just like you gave me john years ago at the tennessean when you do or that's right and so i these guys were super round the clock

two o'clock in the afternoon two o'clock in the morning they didn't know the difference and people say writing a book is supposed to be a lonely experience well that mark and i had a very very good time together because we have a shared sense of mission i was able to fortunately in this compressed time period of months too get extraordinary access to the hansen family at the other justice department and what they'll put two research assistants to be able to produce a carefully written fact checked the tale that is the most fascinating i've come across a rare when they when they url right entity you let you would then turned into text and and and what i do you know what we're writing right well the market matt i frequently gave them assignments

to produce memos on different subjects that are covered in the mural mall a little espionage law religion and sometimes a little sex and done i let them take a first look at a web site in fact that robert hanssen used to visit with his friend jack o shower you can imagine and on this program here was called my hot wife dot com and i had to tell my life or we log on that site but as you walk in the room and saw something unusual on the spraying <unk> their reserves was a tough job but somebody ended up early research for the book and my writing regiment and reporting regiment go inside and because of the compressed timeframe i began writing will pour out that its reporting and then i went back and rewrote is necessary and i

work eighteen hours a day from may until i delivered that manuscript early in september so from may to september you're writing regimen was every hour you despair away from every waking hour you could spare away from a research interviewing and consultation with your two researchers have tried that you know frequently i wrote late into the night when it wouldn't have been appropriate to set an interview sources and much of the book was written between ten or eleven at night and three or four the morning and during the day i was doing research your reporting talked to robert aunts and mother vivian nine times audience of parents many many times and i have to say that this was a stimulating an invigorating thing today and thank goodness i

married the right woman with a lot of willing to put up with someone work in these kind of crazy hours and with the team i was lucky enough to put together we brought this book in for a landing at a schedule publisher turned it around in eight weeks and look a map ten days before christmas and a first printing sold out within a week last i checked it was done something like to hunt down copies so they didn't it's been a great thing that iran old friend laurel words or think of a coming they were taught about the bureau the mold where they call you for watching and dancing and all of your own words