Was CIA officer Edward Lee Howard a KGB spy or a patsy for a much darker Cold War operation?
As the sun set over Santa Fe, New Mexico in September 1985, Mary and Edward Lee Howard gave their FBI surveillance team the slip. As Mary turned a corner, Howard rolled out of the car into the bushes. A dummy popped up in his place. CIA graduates of the Farm call this trick the ‘Jack-in-the-Box’.
Howard and his wife were trained CIA operatives about to be deployed to Moscow as a husband-and-wife spy team when things went south. Howard was accused of being a KGB mole and fired. FBI surveillance agents were watching his New Mexico home and tailing his car when Howard decided to vanish. He reappeared a year later in Moscow where he’d been granted political asylum. So were the allegations true? Was Howard a KGB spy? Or was he - as Howard claimed - the fall guy in a clever spy game?
The headlines were sensational. The CIA blamed Howard for leaking intelligence that led to the death of prized Soviet asset Adolf Tolkachev, a defense researcher known as the ‘Billion Dollar Spy’. The Agency also accused him of compromising CIA officers working undercover in the USSR. As one operative told The New York Times: ''He wiped out Moscow station.''
In the world of covert operations and black ops, nothing is ever as it seems, however, and Howard’s life story is as mysterious as his untimely death.
Edward Lee Howard was the first CIA officer to defect to the USSR
Edward Lee Howard: CIA spy or KGB mole?
Howard was 28 when he applied to join the CIA. On paper, he had the ‘right stuff’. His father was an Air Force electronics specialist from New Mexico who worked on guided missiles in Europe. Howard spoke fluent German and Spanish and graduated cum laude at the University of Texas, later earning a Master’s degree.
He met Mary when they both worked for the Peace Corps in Colombia. They married, moved to Peru, then returned state-side so Howard could take an environmental job in Chicago. Howard was restless. He decided there had to be more to life and applied to the CIA, craving the rollercoaster thrills of an undercover officer.
The CIA instructed Howard on how to recruit spies and communicate through dead drops. Rookies also learned how to detect and evade surveillance - tradecraft that would come in handy a few years later. Howard managed to hide his drinking problem although the CIA polygraph tests did pick up on his history of drug use - not a deal breaker, but he’d need to stop using drugs if he wanted to work for the Agency.
By now it was the early 1980s and Howard’s career was on the fast track. Mary decided to join the CIA as well and the Agency's plan was to post the couple to Moscow where Howard would work as a ‘diplomat’ while covertly running Russian spies. It was a plum post for a new recruit, but Howard was a man of the world. The CIA gave him access to the details of its Soviet Union operations, including the names of several Russian spies working for the US.
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Was CIA officer Edward Lee Howard a KGB spy or a patsy for a much darker Cold War operation?
As the sun set over Santa Fe, New Mexico in September 1985, Mary and Edward Lee Howard gave their FBI surveillance team the slip. As Mary turned a corner, Howard rolled out of the car into the bushes. A dummy popped up in his place. CIA graduates of the Farm call this trick the ‘Jack-in-the-Box’.
Howard and his wife were trained CIA operatives about to be deployed to Moscow as a husband-and-wife spy team when things went south. Howard was accused of being a KGB mole and fired. FBI surveillance agents were watching his New Mexico home and tailing his car when Howard decided to vanish. He reappeared a year later in Moscow where he’d been granted political asylum. So were the allegations true? Was Howard a KGB spy? Or was he - as Howard claimed - the fall guy in a clever spy game?
The headlines were sensational. The CIA blamed Howard for leaking intelligence that led to the death of prized Soviet asset Adolf Tolkachev, a defense researcher known as the ‘Billion Dollar Spy’. The Agency also accused him of compromising CIA officers working undercover in the USSR. As one operative told The New York Times: ''He wiped out Moscow station.''
In the world of covert operations and black ops, nothing is ever as it seems, however, and Howard’s life story is as mysterious as his untimely death.
Edward Lee Howard was the first CIA officer to defect to the USSR
Edward Lee Howard: CIA spy or KGB mole?
Howard was 28 when he applied to join the CIA. On paper, he had the ‘right stuff’. His father was an Air Force electronics specialist from New Mexico who worked on guided missiles in Europe. Howard spoke fluent German and Spanish and graduated cum laude at the University of Texas, later earning a Master’s degree.
He met Mary when they both worked for the Peace Corps in Colombia. They married, moved to Peru, then returned state-side so Howard could take an environmental job in Chicago. Howard was restless. He decided there had to be more to life and applied to the CIA, craving the rollercoaster thrills of an undercover officer.
The CIA instructed Howard on how to recruit spies and communicate through dead drops. Rookies also learned how to detect and evade surveillance - tradecraft that would come in handy a few years later. Howard managed to hide his drinking problem although the CIA polygraph tests did pick up on his history of drug use - not a deal breaker, but he’d need to stop using drugs if he wanted to work for the Agency.
By now it was the early 1980s and Howard’s career was on the fast track. Mary decided to join the CIA as well and the Agency's plan was to post the couple to Moscow where Howard would work as a ‘diplomat’ while covertly running Russian spies. It was a plum post for a new recruit, but Howard was a man of the world. The CIA gave him access to the details of its Soviet Union operations, including the names of several Russian spies working for the US.
Edward Lee Howard claims he was set up so a KGB mole could continue operating
Edward Lee Howard: Three unusual events
The first incident happened on the eve of the couple’s planned departure to Moscow Station. The CIA accused Howard of using drugs and stealing Agency money. When questioned, he reportedly failed four polygraph tests and the Moscow posting was canceled. Instead, Howard was fired in 1983, seven months short of serving out his three-year probationary period. The Moscow leaks continued unabated. Was Howard now seeking revenge on his CIA spymasters?
The second strange event occurred in 1985 when the FBI received intelligence about Howard from a ‘confidential source’ - Vitaly Yurchenko, a KGB Colonel who defected to the US then, curiously, defected back to Moscow three months later where he was awarded the Red Star. In any case, the FBI had reason to suspect Howard was a Soviet mole and put a team on him - ‘bumper-lock’ surveillance, 24-hour close observation. Howard began spiraling downward.
The third remarkable event was the decision to send CIA analyst Aldrich Ames to interrogate Colonel Vitaly Yurchenko during the KGB officer’s fleeting defection. Ames - later unmasked as a KGB double agent - was controlling the narrative while interviewing Yurchenko, a high-ranking Colonel who specialized in disinformation.
Were all three events a coincidence? Or was the KGB Colonel sent to fuel CIA and FBI suspicions that Edward Lee Howard was their Moscow mole and deflect attention away from Aldrich Ames, one of the deadliest double agents in American history? Howard decided he wasn’t waiting around to find out.
Listen to True Spies’ Aldrich Ames Podcast Part 1 and Part 2
1985: ‘The Year of the Spy’
When Howard jumped out of his car in 1985 and rolled into the bushes in Sante Fe, New Mexico, his wife Mary kept on driving. She went home and played a tape of his voice to deceive FBI agents who were tapping their phones, giving Howard a 24-hour head start.
Howard made a run for Mexico and from there he flew to Helsinki, Finland and walked into the Russian Embassy to propose a deal. He moved to Moscow as a ‘guest’ of the Russians and lived there until his death in 2002. Mary and their son remained in the US. She was not charged.
In television appearances, Howard claimed he’d done nothing wrong and was a scapegoat for Aldrich Ames, the CIA Russian mole who pleaded guilty in 1994 of spying for the KGB. In Howard's telling of the story, he was a small fish, targeted and sacrificed so that Ames, a bigger fish, could carry on working for the Soviets.
"I didn't have contact with anybody from the Soviet government until September of '85 when I walked into the embassy in Helsinki,” Howard told journalists. “If you look at the Ames case, you will see it is shown that Mr. Ames started receiving money in the Spring of that year."
Is it possible that Ames and Howard were both Soviet moles? Howard was accused of meeting Soviet agents in Vienna in 1984 and again in early 1985 although he denied the meetings took place.
To muddy the waters further, a third Soviet mole emerged: FBI agent Robert Hanssen who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services until 2001 when he was caught and confessed.
Three CIA & FBI double agents: Howard, Ames and Hanssen
Is there another KGB mole?
Incredibly, there may have even been a ‘fourth man’ - another KGB spy who remained under the radar. Ex-CIA officer Robert Baer wrote about his continuing spy hunt inThe Fourth Man. A suspect was identified, he said, but the operation was shut down without an arrest.
Throughout his life, Edward Lee Howard maintained his innocence and denied ever contacting the Soviets while living in the US.
“There is no hard evidence and no confession, nor will there ever be a confession or hard evidence of giving national defense information to a foreign power," he said. “And nobody today has yet come up with it. Everybody talks. Everybody writes. Everybody makes allegations, but where is the meat?”
Howard reportedly died in 2002 at the age of 50 after falling down the steps of his dacha outside the Russian capital. He “somehow broke his neck”, Baer said. A CIA spokesman told the media they were unable to confirm the information, however, leaving open the possibility that someone may have finally pushed Edward Lee Howard a step too far.
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