FBI

By Massimo Calabresi and Elaine Shannon/Washington

Details of the price of alleged FBI mole ROBERT PHILLIP HANSSEN's espionage are beginning to emerge. Sources tell TIME that Hanssen may have cost the U.S. more than $200 million in compromised intelligence programs that must now be replaced. The tab for one supersecret program that tapped Russian communications alone could top $100 million. LOUIS FREEH's FBI had failed to use a standard counterintelligence technique known as mail cover on the Russian spook who ran Hanssen. The technique involves photographing a known spy handler's mail to look for hints of whom he is running. Leads, like the false return addresses Hanssen used, trigger an investigation. The FBI's failure to use mail cover might have killed another man's career, but nobody surfs the crest of scandal like Freeh. By the time he was done with his would-be minders on the Hill last Wednesday, they were jockeying to throw money at him. Before Senators could focus on any problems, Freeh was selling them the supposed solution: more polygraphs, compartmentalization and--of course--money. "[The FBI] just didn't have the folks to put to that task," explains Florida Democratic Senator Robert Graham.

--By Massimo Calabresi and Elaine Shannon/Washington