My Washington Times Review Of 'Gray Day: My Undercover Mission To Expose America's First Cyber Spy'

The Washington Times published my review of Eric O’Neill’s Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America’s First Cyber Spy.

I saw the film “Breach” in 2007, which was based on a true story and starred Chris Cooper as the notorious FBI special agent-turned Soviet/Russian spy Robert Hanssen, and Ryan Phillippe as Eric O’Neill, the young FBI investigative specialist assigned as Hanssen’s assistant, but who was in fact spying on Hanssen.

“Breach” was a good film and I enjoyed it. Now Eric O’Neill has written a book about his experiences with Robert Hanssen called “Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America’s First Cyber Spy.”

In 2000, Eric O’Neill was a young man working for the FBI as an investigative specialist. Investigative specialists were called “Ghosts,” as they performed undercover surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists, much like the British MI5. 

Although the investigative specialists were unarmed, and they were not law enforcement officers like the FBI’s special agents, they performed a vital national security function by keeping tabs on our nation’s potential enemies.

“Ghosts are trained to live in the shadows, to not get familiar with our targets. A ghost lives a covert professional life, relying on telephoto lenses, disguises, quick-change outfits, and the ability to disappear into a crowd,” Mr. O’Neill explains. “We think fast on our feet, are always ready with multiple excuses and explanations, and only show our golden FBI shield when all other options have been extinguished. Breaking cover equals failure.”

Eric O’Neill opens “Gray Day” by recounting a Sunday morning in December 2000, when his supervisor called him at home and said he would drive to the investigative specialist’s apartment and wait outside in his car.

In the car, his supervisor told him about his new assignment. He would become the assistant to Robert Hanssen, a veteran special agent and a computer expert who was tasked with heading the Information Assurance Security Team, a two-man division that would modernize the FBI’s woefully inadequate cybersecurity system.

The need for such a team was certainly called for, as the FBI had serious computer issues, but the job and the team were a ruse, as the FBI suspected Hanssen of being a Russian spy.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jul/10/book-review-gray-day-by-eric-oneill/


Note: The below two photos are of Robert Hanssen and the bottom photo is of Eric O’Neill.  

A Lock Back At Robert Hanssen, FBI Special Agent, Traitor, Russian Spy - 'Gray Day: My Undercover Mission To Expose America's First Cyber Spy'

Leah Simpson at the Daily Mail offers a piece on a new book by Eric O’Neill, who helped takedown FBI special agent and Russian spy Robert Hanssen (seen in his FBI mugshot above).

An FBI employee has revealed how he repeatedly risked his life to expose his special agent boss as a Russian spy.

Former FBI agent and counter-terrorism operative Eric O'Neill (seen in the below photo) tells how he went undercover within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, posing as Robert Hanssen's assistant to secretly gather information on the veteran agent who was suspected of working with the Russians.

The plot worked and Hanssen was eventually prosecuted for spying in 2001 - more than 25 years after he joined in 1985. 

In his new book, Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America's First ­Cyber Spy, O'Neill shares how he was instructed by Special Agent Kate ­Alleman to gather intelligence on Hanssen. 

He was also told to intentionally anger the short-tempered agent, who would refer to O'Neill as a 'worthless clerk' and wore a 'revolver in an ankle holster and keeps an automatic [weapon] in his desk'

A new book tells the story of how the Federal Bureau of Investigation finally nabbed Robert Hanssen (left) in 2001, thanks to help from his assistant Eric O'Neill.

After numerous near-blows, an unarmed O'Neill helped the FBI deepen the psychological profile of Hanssen.


O'Neill wrote how he helped get the bureau the evidence they needed, despite numerous near-misses where Hanssen suspected his assistant of snooping around his office and allowing agents to search his car when he wasn't around.

A successful office raid revealed that Hanssen was a double agent when O'Neill obtained and copied a letter that revealed Hanssen 'dreamed of being a spy against his country since the age of 14, after reading a book about Kim Philby — the British intelligence officer who was also a Russian double agent'. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6895881/FBI-agent-risked-life-expose-boss-Russian-spy-likened-retarded-child.html

A Look Back At Former FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen, Spy And Traitor

Elizabeth Nix at History.com offers a look back at Robert Hanssen.

One of the most damaging double agents in modern American history, Robert Hanssen gave the Soviets, and later the Russians, thousands of pages of classified material that revealed such sensitive national security secrets as the identities of Soviets spying for the U.S., specifics about America’s nuclear operations and the existence of an FBI-built tunnel underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington.

Hanssen’s double life began in 1979 and ended in 2001, when he was arrested after the FBI discovered, thanks to help from an ex-KGB officer, that Hanssen was a mole. A church-going father of six, Hanssen is thought to have been motivated by money rather than ideological beliefs. While covertly working for Moscow on and off over the years, he was paid $600,000 in cash and diamonds, with another $800,000 supposedly held for him in a Russian bank. Hanssen was only the third agent in FBI history charged with spying.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.history.com/news/robert-hanssen-american-traitor 

Brian Kelly, Veteran Counterspy, Dies At 68

Brian Kelly, a veteran counterintelligence officer for the Air Force and CIA, died on Monday, September 19th. He was 68.

Brian Kelly was falsely suspected of spying for the Russians and the aggressive FBI investigation caused him and his family a good deal of grief and anguish. The true spy turned out to be an FBI agent, Robert Hanssen.

I spoke to Brian Kelly several times and he provided me with information about espionage and counterintelligence matters for my magazine pieces. He also told me about his personal story and his planned book on the subject. He remained somewhat bitter over the actions of certain FBI agents and he felt he never received a full apology from the FBI.

Brian Kelly was a patriot and a good man. I look forward to reading his book.

You can read Kelly's obituary in the Washington Times via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/20/brian-kelley-veteran-counterspy-dies-at-68/?page=all#pagebreak

You can also read Ronald Kessler's column on Kelly via the below link:

http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/Kessler-FBI-Kelley-spy/2011/09/20/id/411700

Lastly, you can read my previous post on Kelly, which links to a Virginia newspaper that Kelly told his side of the to, via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/03/brian-kelly-case-wrong-spy-wronged-by.html