Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America Read Online Free PDF Page B

Hanssen insisted they see a priest. Because both Bonnie and her husband were members of Opus Dei—Bob had joined in 1978—they chose to see a priest from that organization. Founded in Spain in 1928, Opus Dei, which means God’s Work, was approved by the Vatican in 1950 and given special status by Pope John Paul II in 1982 as a “personal prelature,” independent to some extent of local dioceses. The organization claims three thousand members in the United States and eighty-four thousand worldwide.
    Typically, Opus Dei priests do not operate from churches but from what the group calls “study centers” in a number of cities. Together, the Hanssens in the fall of 1980 went to one of these, the Crawford Center, later called the Overlook Study Center, at 99 Overlook Circle in nearby New Rochelle.
    There the couple with the unusual problem consulted Robert P. Bucciarelli, a genial Opus Dei priest from New Canaan, Connecticut, who was a graduate of Harvard College and a theologian fluent in three languages. Father Bob, a somewhat short, dark-haired cleric, was also an enthusiastic tennis player with a serving motion that tended to disconcert his opponents.
    That the Hanssens went to see Father Bucciarelli was not a random choice. Bonnie Hanssen already knew him from her involvement in Opus Dei. In October 1980, Father Bucciarelli had moved to NewRochelle from Chicago, the city where the first Opus Dei center in the United States was established. Bonnie’s mother had known him in Chicago.
    Now Hanssen had something to confess. He had, he told the priest, turned over information to the Soviets, and had received $30,000 in exchange.
    Father Bucciarelli, contacted by the author, declined to discuss any details of the visit by the Hanssens, although he confirmed, obliquely, that it had taken place. “I really don’t remember when he came to see me,” he said. Roman Catholic priests are forbidden by canon law from disclosing what is revealed in a confession. However, a visit by a couple might be considered a consultation, rather than a sacramental confession, so the legal status of the Hanssens’ visit was unclear. *
    After listening to the Hanssens, Father Bucciarelli recommended that the FBI man turn himself in to the authorities. The next day, however, the priest telephoned the Hanssens and asked them to come back again.
    At this next visit, according to the account later given to the FBI by Mrs. Hanssen, Father Bob said he had been pondering the problem and had second thoughts. The matter could be resolved, he said, if, instead of surrendering to the authorities, Hanssen gave the Soviet money to a worthy charity.
    Plato Cacheris, Hanssen’s lawyer after his arrest for espionage, confirmed the account of the couple’s visit to Father Bucciarelli. “The priest told him he should turn himself in, then called Hanssen and said he could give the money to the church. He [Hanssen] told Bonnie he gave a certain amount each month to Mother Teresa.”
    Hanssen also told his wife that he would not sell any more secrets to the Russians, that he was done spying. “He said he would stop,” Cacheris said. “She believed him.”
    There is, of course, a wonderful irony if Moscow’s money was laundered in this fashion and in fact ended up with Mother Teresa throughthe Solomon-like intervention of Father Bob, the Harvard priest with the disconcerting tennis serve.
    Although Hanssen insisted to Bonnie that he had given the money to Mother Teresa, there is no easy way to confirm that he actually did so. Sister Mary Dominga, director of the eastern region of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, declined to discuss contributions to the charity.
    “We don’t fund-raise, we don’t ask for money,” she said. “We depend on divine providence.”
    * Presidents since Harry S Truman in 1951 have issued executive orders allowing documents to be classified CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET , or TOP SECRET , depending on how much damage their