Biography

Aldrich Ames was born on March 26, 1941 in River Falls, Wisconsin, USA. He is known for Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within (1998), Seeking Answers (2017) and Panorama (1953). He was married to Rosario Ames and Nancy Jane Segebarth. He died on January 5, 2026 in Cumberland, Maryland, USA.

A high-ranking officer in the CIA's counter-intelligence division, he was unmasked as a spy who had been paid several million dollars by the Soviets to provide top-secret information to them. It turned out that he had given them, among other things, the names of Russian civilians and military personnel who were working as spies for the CIA, all of whom were eventually imprisoned or executed by the Soviets. Convicted of espionage against the United States, he was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Spent part of his childhood in Southeast Asia while his father worked for the CIA.

Attended George Washington University, graduating in 1967 with a degree in history.

After graduating high school and failing out of classes at the University of Chicago, he joined the CIA in 1962, performing clerical duties.

Compromised more than 100 intelligence operations and sent a number of Soviet agents to their deaths or prison, as he traded information for large sums of money that funded his lavish lifestyle.

Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low.

I could have stopped it after they paid me the $50,000. I wouldn't even have had to go on to do more than I already had: just the double agents' names that I gave.

I found that our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union.

When [Ronald Reagan] was elected, I felt that the agency [the CIA] had gone much more into the service of a political tendency in the country with which I had already felt very strong disagreement.