Robert Philip Popular Books
Robert Philip Biography & Facts
Robert Philip Hanssen (April 18, 1944 – June 5, 2023) was an American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history". In 1979, three years after joining the FBI, Hanssen approached the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) to offer his services, beginning his first espionage cycle, lasting until 1981. He restarted his espionage activities in 1985 and continued until 1991, when he ended communications during the collapse of the Soviet Union, fearing he would be exposed. Hanssen restarted communications the next year and continued until his arrest. Throughout his spying, he remained anonymous to the Russians. Hanssen sold about six thousand classified documents to the KGB that detailed U.S. strategies in the event of nuclear war, developments in military weapons technologies, and aspects of the U.S. counterintelligence program. He was spying at the same time as Aldrich Ames in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Both Ames and Hanssen compromised the names of KGB agents working secretly for the U.S., some of whom were executed for their betrayal. Hanssen also revealed a multimillion-dollar eavesdropping tunnel built by the FBI under the Soviet Embassy. After Ames's arrest in 1994, some of these intelligence breaches remained unsolved, and the search for another spy continued. The FBI paid $7 million to a KGB agent to obtain a file on an anonymous mole, whom the FBI later identified as Hanssen through fingerprint and voice analysis. Hanssen was arrested on February 18, 2001, at Foxstone Park, near his home in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Vienna, Virginia, after leaving a package of classified materials at a dead drop site. He was charged with selling U.S. intelligence documents to the Soviet Union and subsequently Russia for more than $1.4 million in cash, diamonds and Rolex watches over twenty-two years. To avoid the death penalty, Hanssen pleaded guilty to fourteen counts of espionage and one of conspiracy to commit espionage. He was sentenced to fifteen life terms without the possibility of parole, and was incarcerated at ADX Florence until his death in 2023. Early life Hanssen was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a Lutheran family that lived in the Norwood Park neighborhood. He was of Norwegian descent. His father, Howard (died 1993), a Chicago police officer, was allegedly emotionally abusive to Hanssen during his childhood. Hanssen graduated from William Howard Taft High School in 1962 and attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1966. Hanssen applied for a cryptography job at the National Security Agency following his college graduation but was turned down due to budget setbacks. He enrolled in dental school at Northwestern University, but he switched his focus to business after three years. Hanssen received an MBA in accounting and information systems in 1971 and took a job with an accounting firm. He quit after one year and joined the Chicago Police Department as an internal affairs investigator, specializing in forensic accounting. In January 1976, Hanssen left the Chicago police to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Hanssen met Bernadette "Bonnie" Wauck, a staunch Roman Catholic, while attending dental school at Northwestern. The couple married in 1968, and Hanssen converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism. Career and espionage FBI career and first espionage activities (1976–1981) Upon becoming a special agent on January 12, 1976, Hanssen was transferred to the FBI's field office in Gary, Indiana. In 1978, he and his growing family of three (eventually six) children relocated to New York City when the bureau transferred him to its field office there. The next year, Hanssen was transferred to counterintelligence and given the task of compiling a database of Soviet intelligence for the FBI. In 1979, Hanssen approached the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and offered his services. He never indicated any political or ideological motive for his actions, telling the FBI after he was caught that his only motivation was financial. During his first espionage cycle, Hanssen provided a significant amount of information to the GRU, including details of the FBI's bugging activities and lists of suspected Soviet intelligence agents. His most important leak was the betrayal of Dmitri Polyakov, a CIA informant who passed enormous amounts of information to U.S. intelligence while rising to the rank of general in the Soviet Army. Following a second betrayal by CIA mole Aldrich Ames in 1985, Polyakov was arrested in 1986 and executed in 1988. Ames was officially blamed for giving Polyakov's name to the Soviets, while Hanssen's attempt was not revealed until after his 2001 capture. FBI counterintelligence unit, further espionage activities (1985–1991) In 1981, Hanssen was transferred to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and relocated his family to the suburb of Vienna, Virginia. His new job in the FBI's budget office gave him access to information involving many different FBI operations. This included all the FBI activities related to wiretapping and electronic surveillance, which were Hanssen's responsibility. He became known in the FBI as an expert on computers. Three years later, Hanssen transferred to the FBI's Soviet analytical unit, responsible for studying, identifying, and capturing Soviet spies and intelligence operatives in the United States. Hanssen's section evaluated Soviet agents who volunteered to give intelligence to determine whether they were genuine or re-doubled agents. In 1985, Hanssen was again transferred to the FBI's field office in New York City, where he continued to work in counterintelligence against the Soviets. After the transfer, while on a business visit back to Washington, he resumed his espionage career. On October 1, 1985, Hanssen sent an anonymous letter to the KGB offering his services and asking for $100,000 in cash, equivalent to $280,000 in 2023. In the letter, he gave the names of three KGB agents secretly working for the FBI: Boris Yuzhin, Valery Martynov, and Sergei Motorin. Although Hanssen was unaware of it, Ames had already exposed all three agents earlier that year. Yuzhin had returned to Moscow in 1982 and had been subject to an intensive investigation by the KGB due to having lost a concealed camera in the Soviet consulate in San Francisco, but he was not arrested until being exposed by Ames and Hanssen. Martynov and Motorin were recalled to Moscow, where they were arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of espionage against the Soviet government. Martynov and Motorin were executed via gunshot to the back of the head; Yuzhin was imprisoned for six years before he was released by a general amnesty to political prisoners an.... Discover the Robert Philip popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Robert Philip books.
Best Seller Robert Philip Books of 2024
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Hothouse
Boris Kachka“Mad Men for the literary world.” Junot DíazFarrar, Straus and Giroux is arguably the most influential publishing house of the modern era. Home to an unrivaled twentyfive Nobel Pri...
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Exemplary Stories
Miguel de Cervantes SaavedraComposed throughout Cervantes's writing life and mentioned in Don Quixote, his Exemplary Stories are among the first and finest Spanish short stories: ranging from traditional tale...
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The Bureau and the Mole
David A. ViseThe New York Times–bestselling “firstrate spy thriller” of the FBI agent who sold topsecret information to the Russians for more than twenty years (Entertainment Weekly). Dr...
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Nightfall Berlin
Jack Grimwood'Noteperfect, multilayered, rugged as a T34 tank. Grimwood is about to become your new favourite thriller writer' IndependentA tense, atmospheric and breathtaking thriller that dro...
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Moskva
Jack GrimwoodLonglisted for the 2017 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller'Even better than Child 44' Daily Telegraph'Given that the definitive thriller in 1980's Moscow already exist...
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The Doll Princess
Tom BennWinner of the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year AwardIt's Manchester, July 1996, the month after the IRA bomb, and the Evening News is carrying reports of two ...
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The Complete Poems
William Blake & Alicia OstrikerOne of the great English Romantic poets, William Blake (17571827) was an artist, poet, mystic and visionary. His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innoce...
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The Spy Next Door
Ann Blackman & Elaine ShannonTwo veteran Time magazine reporters present the shocking, fascinating account of one of the greatest espionage scandals of our time the story of Robert Hanssen, one of the most my...
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Back Bay Blues
Peter ColtTheft, greed, and corruption collide in Peter Colt’s hardedged mystery featuring Vietnam veteran turned Boston P.I. Andy Roark.1985, Boston. In Vietnam, Andy Roark witnessed death ...
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The Penguin Book of Elegy
Prof Stephen Regan & Andrew Motion'A tremendous sentimental education of a book ... a literary adventure ... chosen with a scholarly discernment mixed with a wildcard flair ... fascinating and unignorable' Kate Kel...
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The Gifts of Reading
Robert Macfarlane, William Boyd, Candice Carty-Williams, Chigozie Obioma, Philip Pullman, Imtiaz Dharker, Roddy Doyle, Pico Iyer, Andy Miller, Jackie Morris, Jan Morris, Sisonke Msimang, Dina Nayeri, Michael Ondaatje, David Pilling, Max Porter, Alice Pung, Jancis Robinson, SF Said, Madeleine Thien, Salley Vickers, John Wood & Markus ZusakWith contributions by: William Boyd, Candice CartyWilliams, Imtiaz Dharker, Roddy Doyle, Pico Iyer, Robert Macfarlane, Andy Miller, Jackie Morris, Jan Morris, Sisonke Msimang, Dina...
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The Faerie Queene
Edmund Spenser, C O'Donnell & Thomas RocheThe Faerie Queene was the first epic in English and one of the most influential poems in the language for later poets from Milton to Tennyson. Dedicating his work to Elizabeth I, S...
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Life of St Columba
Adomnan Of IonaFounding father of the famous monastery on the island of Iona, a site of pilgrimage ever since his death in 597, St Columba was born into one of the ruling families in Ireland at a...
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The White Devil
Paul HoffmanTHE GRIPPING NEW ADVENTURE FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE LEFT HAND OF GOD SERIESAmerica is on the brink of civil war. Only Thomas Cale can stop it . . .Thomas Cale the world's most dange...
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Heller - The Big Bundle
Max Allan CollinsTrue Crime detective Nathan Heller returns in a brand new case that connects a millionaire’s kidnapped child to Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign to bring down union boss Jimmy Hoffa.Na...
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In Plain Sight
Ross CoulthartAn awardwinning journalist investigates a story largely ignored by mainstream media but right there, in front of our eyes ...Are we not alone? The moment we have an answer might ha...
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Dead in the Water
Mark Ellis'This is to my shame the first Mark Ellis book I've read. If the others evoke a vanished London so impressively, are graced with such complex plots and deep characterisation, and, ...
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Death at the Orange Locks
Anja de Jager'A novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience' Sunday Times Keeping it in the family...After her painful divorce four years ago,...
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A Cold Case in Amsterdam Central
Anja de JagerHaving been shot in the shoulder in the line of duty, Dutch police detective Lotte Meerman returns to work after four months of painful recovery yet not all her colleagues are hap...
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The Fight and Other Writings
William HazlittHazlitt is one of the greatest masters of English prose style and this new selection demonstrates the variety and richness of his writing. The volume includes classic pieces of dra...
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Her Majesty
Robert HardmanThe hotly anticipated American edition of Robert Hardman's biography of Queen Elizabeth (formerly Our Queen in the U.K.)An intimate portrait of England's soontobe longest reigning ...
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The Lady in the Looking Glass
Virginia Woolf'People should not leave lookingglasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime.''If she concealed so much...
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Watch the Lady
Elizabeth FremantleFrom “a brilliant new player in the court of royal fiction” (People), comes the mesmerizing story of Lady Penelope Devereuxthe daring young beauty in the Tudor court, who inspired ...
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The Dharma of Poetry
John BrehmDiscover how to engage with poetry to support your spiritual practice, leading to more mindfulness, equanimity, and joy.In The Dharma of Poetry, John Brehm shows how poems can open...
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Damaged Goods
Oliver ShahDISCOVER THE SHOCKING TRUTH BEHIND THE BUSINESS AND LIFESTYLE OF SIR PHILIP GREEN 'Superb' Evening Standard'From the glitzy parties to the threatening phone calls, the largerthanli...
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Island Reich
Jack GrimwoodAN UNLIKELY SPY. A FORMER KING. THE FATE OF A NATION IN THEIR HANDS.The gripping WWII thriller from the awardwinning author of Nightfall Berlin, perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow'I...
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A Brief History of the Future
Stephen ClarkeWhat if teleportation was really possible? Englishman Richie Fisher is about to find out ... Richie and his wife Clara have won a weekend in New York in a newspaper competition. Wh...
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A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems
Nick Laird & A.E. HousmanA. E. Housman was one of the bestloved poets of his day, whose poems conjure up a potent and idyllic rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss. They are expressed in simple ...
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A Death in Rembrandt Square
Anja de JagerGuilty until proven innocent . . .It's hard for anyone to have their work scrutinised in public. For Amsterdambased detective Lotte Meerman, listening to the Right to Justice podc...
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A Kill in the Morning
Graeme Shimmin‘I don’t like killing, but I’m good at it. Murder isn’t so bad from a distance, just shapes popping up in my scope. Closeup work though – a garrotte around a target’s neck or a kni...
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A Cold Death in Amsterdam
Anja de JagerThe first Lotte Meerman mystery Amsterdambased Lotte Meerman is a cold case detective recovering from the emotional devastation of her previous investigation. She is angry and ment...
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Gods of Riverworld
Philip José FarmerGods of Riverwold is the fifth and final chapter in Philip Jose Farmer's New York Times bestselling classic SF series, Riverworld Thirty billion people from throughout Earth's his...
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Worldmakers
Gardner DozoisWhen mankind moves out to the stars, the colonists of the future will remake the worlds they inhabit in their image. Included here are twenty stories from the most imaginative writ...
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The Saga of the Volsungs
Jesse ByockThe epic Viking Age stories that inspired J. R. R. Tolkien and Wagner's Ring cycleWritten in thirteenthcentury Iceland but based on ancient Norse poetry cycles, The Saga of the Vol...
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I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You
Naomi Shihab NyeAn awardwinning anthology of paired poems by men and women.In this insightful anthology, the editors grouped almost 200 poems into pairs to demonstrate the different ways in which ...
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NIV, The Grace and Truth Study Bible
R. Albert Mohler Jr. & ZondervanKnow this Grace: He loved you by name before all creation. Love this Truth: He’ll know you by name for all eternity.The NIV Grace and Truth Study Bible paints a stunning canva...
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Blowback
Miles TaylorINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe author behind the “eyepopping” (CNN) #1 New York Times bestseller A Warning presents an urgent look at how our deeply divided nation is setting...
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The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy
John BrehmOver 125 poetic companions, from Basho to Billy Collins, Saigyo to Shakespeare.The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy received the Spirituality & Practice Book A...
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Death on the Canal
Anja de Jager'. . . a novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience' Sunday TimesWhere do your loyalties lie? With the truth or with your collea...