John Daniel

Has anyone else been turned?

Yeah, the recruitment in place of Vladimir that Kip Bennett's was working on, that would have been very useful.

But it's also a question that occurs at a political level.

And we're going to hear from a former high-ranking CIA official how a breach of trust might apply there.

And we'll also hear how New Zealand and its other Five Eyes partners might need to de-risk their alliance with Donald Trump's CIA.

I think the point is, if you're the one getting stabbed in the back, you really feel it.

Here's Tim Weiner from the New York Times talking about Aldrich Ames, who he interviewed and would go on to write a book about.

Ames received millions from the KGB over the course of the decade he was working for them.

Susan Miller worked in cover as a receptionist at the American embassy in Moscow.

One of her tasks involved handing over large payments to Soviet sources, including someone CIA hoped would reveal how their network was being rolled up.

But there were some challenges involved in that.

Just to pick up on the Aldrich Ames story, Susan.

Yeah.

I mean, we're not a great moment for CIA counterintelligence either, is it?

Because it's a few years of him doing that.

Prologue is a kind of Russian version of Aldrich Ames, a KGB officer who approached CIA's Moscow chief of station on a train in May of 1987 and, in exchange for money, began to hand over information on how the KGB were neutralising CIA assets.

No, just the opposite it turns out.

CIA are very jumpy having lost so many people, good people, and so they're desperate for that information, which is probably why they get sucked in.

Yeah, a very successful dangle, because Prologue is telling them lies, and CIA is convinced enough by them to dial down their own search for a traitor.

Prologue tells CIA that their assets have been discovered because they made mistakes.