March 11, 2001

By Alen J. Salerian, MD

In the mid-1990s, the FBI sent me to a Southern city to do a psychological evaluation of one of its undercover agents. The reason: The agent was having an affair with a member of the criminal organization he was investigating.

I spent about a week there, talking with the agent in various restaurants and bars, my back always to the entrance so he could keep an eye on who came through the door. During our meetings, the agent seemed quite calm, unfazed by either his dangerous assignment or the firestorm his behavior was causing at headquarters.

He was remarkably candid about what motivated his reckless sexual conduct: anger. Behind his cool exterior he was seething, because he believed the exceptional caliber of his undercover work was not fully appreciated by his superiors. And this unnecessarily risky escapade was his way of punishing the uncaring agency.

Luckily, our work had a successful ending. The agent was gradually extricated from the assignment without arousing suspicion, and he soon retired from the bureau. His final words to me were: “I know I crossed the line and was going to do more. Thank God you came along.”

I have been thinking of that agent and what “more” he might have done since the headlines first appeared about Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent accused of betraying his country beginning in 1985. Were there signals that a professional evaluation would have picked up? Could a psychiatrist have identified Hanssen as a possible threat years before a double agent fingered him as a spy?

Very likely, the signals were there. But very likely they wouldn’t have been picked up — because the FBI doesn’t require regular psychological evaluations of its agents. This is a painfully obvious lack in bureau security. When personnel are hired, they go thorough physical and psychological screenings. After that, however, only the physical exams are routine, even though these employees are subject to stresses and pressures far beyond what most people experience. The FBI keeps regular tabs on its agents’ weight and blood pressure — but not their emotional stability.

It’s not that the bureau doesn’t believe in the usefulness of psychology — consider, for example, its use of extensive profiling to understand and identify serial criminals. And in crises involving its agents, it often relies on the tools of modern psychiatry. From 1992 to 1997, in fact, I worked regularly with the FBI; I helped develop and was medical director of the bureau’s Mobile Psychiatric Emergency Response Team. I trained many counselors and went out on assignments myself, working with agents everywhere from U.S. embassy compounds abroad to Waco, Tex. Not all the agents I have worked with were undercover, but I have evaluated dozens of men and women with secret missions and double lives.

So, while I don’t know Hanssen or pretend to understand his particular case, I understand a great deal about undercover agents. And I believe that regular evaluation of all agents might help expose threats and prevent security disasters.

Let me be clear about something: The overwhelming majority of the bureau personnel I have met are tough, intelligent and stable, with an unswerving dedication to their work. And the bureau itself is, in my view, a singularly well-managed and effective organization. My only concern here is identifying the rare potential problem.

Most secret agents I have met have two signature traits: fearlessness and a high tolerance for anxiety. Whether because of biological factors, such as an elevated level of the mood-enhancing neurochemical serotonin, or because of the influences of their early lives, these people seem to be extreme risk takers who can tolerate and manage worry, tension and stress with natural ease. Not surprisingly, their steely nerves are often perceived by others as aloofness or arrogance.

These characteristics, combined with stamina and the sharp intellect of a skilled chess player, are requirements for a profession distinguished by calculated risk taking in the face of constant danger. “It’s not about money or anything else,” the agent who “crossed the line” in that Southern city said. “It’s about the rush I get when I’m outsmarting them, having a quiet dinner with the enemy in his own home and slowly building the fire to burn him.”

“What about fear?” I asked.

He smiled. “My only fear is not building the perfect fire.”

Though unshakable on assignment, this agent nevertheless displayed a brittle self-esteem easily shattered by his superior’s disapproval or rejection. In this way, too, he was similar to many undercover agents I have known. They have an intense narcissism — the flip side of their confidence. They need constant positive input, and they can only get it from two sources. The first is self-esteem, which is provided by constant mastery of their roles; winning is very important. The second is feedback from their superiors, a need that makes them very vulnerable to real or perceived slights. Not merely criticism but the simple absence of praise can enrage them.

When most of us get angry at the people or system we work for, we vent our frustrations by talking with family or friends. If we get really angry, we might retaliate in straightforward fashion by turning against the boss or organization we perceive as abusive.

Spies, however, can’t vent about their work to their loved ones, because their profession demands absolute secrecy. Their necessarily lonely lives offer none of the safety valves that help the average disgruntled employee cope with stress.

Also, if they decide to take revenge, these people bring extraordinary knowledge, skill, intelligence and — perhaps most important — daring to their plans.

In 1996, the nation’s interest was caught by the case of Eugene Bennett, the former FBI agent who kidnapped his pastor in Northern Virginia. Bennett was angry with his estranged wife, who was intimately involved with crime novelist Patricia Cornwell. But his problems had been building long before he confronted his wife in the church where he had tied the pastor to a chair along with a phony bomb.

I know because, a few years earlier, Bennett had come to me for psychological counseling. It was a rare occurrence for an FBI employee to seek me out on his own, but Bennett clearly knew he was in trouble. Like any good spy, he had done his homework — checked out my background and security clearance, concluded that he could confide in me. Also true to form, he maintained outward control: When he called me, his voice was a monotone, his words cryptic. And during our meetings, his face would remain expressionless.

We met eight or nine times over a period of about six months. One day, something apparently spooked him, and he suddenly vanished into silence and never spoke with me again.

For ethical reasons, I cannot reveal what he told me during those meetings, or how I responded. But because his bizarre case was eventually part of the public record — he spent 12 months in federal prison on a fraud charge even before his conviction on charges including attempted murder and abduction — I can say he was a dangerously volatile character. By the time Bennett called me for help, he was already on administrative leave, in the midst of a publicly messy divorce and fraud investigation. The question is, could some kind of screening have spotted his problems while he was still working undercover in highly sensitive assignments?

It would be wrong to make my argument too simplistic — that certain agents get angry, have no outlet for their rage, and turn to violence and betrayal. These are complex people with paradoxical personalities. An inflated yet fragile ego is a highly combustible thing.

But that is exactly the challenge to the FBI: how to predict who is approaching meltdown and how to prevent that final explosion — or the hidden revenge of secret betrayal. There has been much discussion of lie detector tests, and I believe that regardless of their imperfections, such tests could help identify security risks. But they should be part of a broader, regular psychiatric evaluation.

I have been called to work with the bureau many times after an agent’s mental health was obviously in question. I remember a female agent who was beginning to get reckless and endanger her assignment. She turned out to be the only woman in a highly chauvinistic unit, repressing anger at superiors who merely urged her to “tough out” the harassment. And there was the counterterrorism expert based at a U.S. embassy in the Mediterranean, whose hidden frustrations only came to light when he became publicly abusive toward his wife and child.

Both cases had happy endings: The female agent was removed from the hostile environment and placed successfully in another assignment; the counterterrorism expert received extensive counseling and managed to keep his job. I was pleased and fortunate to be able to help an agency for which I have immense respect.

My disappointment, though, is that too often my fellow counselors and I are called in only after events seem to be getting out of control and there is a possibility of real damage. This reactive response is not enough. As the bureau looks into what might have made Robert Hanssen “turn” in 1985, it should seriously consider a systematic, proactive program to monitor all its agents’ psychological well-being. Both the agents and the country deserve it.