Letter: Spy revelation is overblown

Wednesday, March 21, 2001 | 9:18 a.m.

All of this hoopla about FBI agent Robert Hanssen selling secrets to the Soviets is just low-rate propaganda at its worst. Does the media really expect us to believe that one man has this level of access to "guarded" secrets that the Soviets need so desperately? And that he has the freedom of movement to sell them so easily? It's tiring and boring to continually watch the news media propagandizing us in such a gross manner. Robert Hanssen is a sacrificial goat. A traitor? Probably ... but set up, without a doubt.

The CIA, FBI and the KGB have never really been the adversaries the news media would like you to believe. They have always spied on each other, but each agency had thoroughly penetrated the other nearly half a century ago. They have been so thorough in this that they actually function as the same agency. Of course there are liquidations of agents now and then to show a rattling of sabers on each side, but the truth is that they are all one big extended agency.

I'll bet Hanssen was most likely paid and made to believe that he was important for his information, but in some cases that, too, may be all part of the act. The intelligence agencies do, at times, pay people for information they already have. It's just good quality control.

WILLIAM G. PHILLIPS