Interviews Help Enter the Mind of a Mole

In Howard Rosenberg’s Dec. 21 column (“Spy the Flaws as ’60 Minutes’ Tries to Peer Into the Mind of a Mole”), he asked the question: “How were [Norman] Mailer and [Lawrence] Schiller able to gain access to [Robert] Hanssen’s mind...?”

“60 Minutes” was provided with that answer; however the response did not make the final cut.

Here is a complete answer. Interviews conducted by Mailer and myself began in March 2001 and are still going on as I finish the book that will be published in April 2002. (Mailer’s screenplay was completed Nov. 1, 2001.) No work of journalism is ever complete.

During this period of time we interviewed, the majority on tape, members of Robert Hanssen’s immediate family, including grown children (over 17 hours); the closest of friends (14 hours); past and present special agents of the FBI (26 hours); former agents and officials of the KGB and SUV organs of the Soviet Union and Russian government, diplomats of the Soviet Union (14 hours); present and past members of the Catholic Church (seven hours); Opus Dei, the personal prelature of the church (four hours); and others that have asked not to be credited (more than 20 additional hours). All of which gave us a window into his mind. Hanssen’s own writings over the years also provided a view.

I traveled to Germany and spent an entire day with Jack Hoschouer, who walked me through his entire relationship with Hanssen and his family and corroborated what we had been told by family members and others. In Moscow: Viktor Cherkashin (Hanssen’s first handler) and Leonid Sherbashin (KGB Center) gave us their first interviews on the subject and provided a unique perspective, and Robert Salerian, one of several psychiatrists who saw Hanssen after his arrest, provided valuable insights from his professional point of view.

As early as August 2001, and for three months thereafter, “60 Minutes” read transcripts of our interviews and research. Well before any other narrative on the same subject was available for review.

Without the above reporting, we would not have been in a position to give “60 Minutes” the interview they requested.

LAWRENCE SCHILLER

Los Angeles