In from the cold?

„This month we've had a reminder of the Cold War espionage legacy that still hangs over the U.S.-Russian relationship like a murky gray cloak. But in a strange coincidence we've also seen some dramatic evidence of the strategic reset in Russian-American relations - from implacable enmity to at least occasional partnership. Which path is real, at a time when the nations talk of working together even as their spies continue scavenging for secrets? Let's look first at the spy swap that followed the arrest of a dozen Russian illegals here. There wasn't much fanfare paid to the four Russians who slinked out of Moscow in this trade: All eyes, I guess, were on the comely espionnette, Anna Chapman. But I'm told that two of these Russians were among the most important moles the CIA ever placed inside the Russian intelligence service.

U.S. officials said the two, Alexander Zaporozhsky and Gennady Vasilenko, provided the crucial first identification of Russia's superspies inside the heart of U.S. intelligence - the CIA's Aldrich Ames and the FBI's Robert Hanssen. Public accounts of how Ames and Hanssen were caught, which appeared in their indictments and are featured on the FBI's Web site, were partly cover stories. The official versions emphasize aggressive FBI legwork in interrogating Hanssen and monitoring his dead drops, and what the FBI site describes as the bureau's intensive physical and electronic surveillance of Ames during a 10-month investigation. This gumshoe work was certainly necessary in building legal cases against Ames and Hanssen that could be taken to court.”