Soviets Warned Ames of CIA’s Computer Traps

The Soviets warned spy suspect Aldrich H. Ames in 1989 to be careful in his use of CIA computers not long after the agency began a secret computer-based program to trap any double agents inside the CIA, prosecutors and former high-ranking CIA officials said.

The warning to Ames, in a nine-page letter he received from his Soviet handlers in the summer of 1989, is cited by CIA and FBI officials as a reason to believe that there may have been someone else inside the CIA supplying highly sensitive information to the Russians, sources said.

A former top CIA official, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that the agency’s operations directorate had instituted a computerized entrapment program in 1987 after a number of American-paid Soviet agents were lost in the previous two years, suggesting that information was coming from someone inside the CIA.

The warning to Ames is not the only lead that a joint CIA-FBI counterintelligence investigation is pursuing as a result of the review of documents found in his possession, sources said.

A June, 1993, search of Ames’ office discovered several top secret agency documents referring to Russian intelligence matters that had nothing to do with his job. These documents were cited last week by sources as another reason investigators believe Ames may have had accomplices in the CIA.