Robert Hanssen

On August 10, 1968, he married Bernadette "Bonnie" Wauck, a dedicated catholic. His wife was a teacher of theology at ‘Oakcrest’. Later he would convert to Catholicism from Lutheranism.

The Hanssens were associated with the Catholic fraternal order ‘Opus Dei’. All his six children went to schools linked with ‘Opus Dei’. Once when Bonnie caught his espionage, he made a confession to an ‘Opus Dei’ priest, donated cash to Catholic charity and gave his word of never spying again.

For a while he was in contact with Priscilla Sue Galey, a stripper in Washington, who received cash, jewelry and other benefits from Hanssen. According to her, Hanssen never slept with her.

He was born on April 18, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, to Howard and Vivian Hanssen. His father, an officer of the Chicago police, often scorned and abused him emotionally. The prolonged abuse that he endured not only made his childhood challenging, but also chased him throughout his life.

In 1962 he completed his graduation from ‘William Howard Taft High School’.

Thereafter he enrolled in ‘Knox College’ in Galesburg, Illinois and in 1966 completed his bachelor degree with Chemistry as major. He did well in his elective, Russian.

His application in the ‘National Security Agency’, for the post of a cryptographer, was rejected due to budget restrictions.

He then enrolled at the ‘Northwestern University’ in Evanston, Illinois, to study dentistry but after three years shifted to business studies. In 1971 he earned his ‘Master in Business Administration’ in accounting and information systems.

He worked in an accounting firm for a year after which he was selected in the ‘Chicago Police Department’. There he served as an investigator of internal affairs with specialisation in forensic accounting. He was delegated to probe police officers who were suspected of corruption.

After around five years he joined the ‘FBI’ in January 1976. On January 12 that year he was posted in FBI’s field office in Gary, Indiana, and in 1978 he was again transferred to its field office in New York. The following year he was shifted to counter-intelligence division where he was delegated the job of organising data of Soviet intelligence.

In 1979 he contacted the Soviet military intelligence, ‘GRU’, to offer his espionage. He passed on data related to surveillance activities of FBI and provided the GRU with data of suspected Soviet intelligence spies.

The most significant information that he shared was about Dmitri Polyakov, who while serving the Soviet Army as a General was spying for America’s ‘CIA’.

In 1981 he was assigned to the ‘Budget Unit’ in the ‘FBI’ headquarters in Washington, D.C. His job in the suburb of Vienna included electronic surveillance and wiretapping, which gave him more access to different ‘FBI’ activities.