Aldrich Ames Correspondence Archive: Rare Book of the Week

This week's entry is a collection of more than 170 autograph letters written by the American former CIA counterintelligence officer Alrich Ames found guilty of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia in 1994. 

They will go under the hammer in Dominic Winter's July 23 Printed Books, Maps & Decorative Prints, Autographs & Ephemera, Postcards & Records auction later this week.

Signed mostly ‘Rick’ and frequently with a smiley-face, they were written from Allenwood Penitentiary, Lewisburg, between 1994 and 2005, mostly on yellow, lined legal paper, and addressed to his sister Nancy Ames Everly. Topics cover his solitary confinement, criticisms of US government agencies, conviction appeal plans, and details of which books and magazines he read.

Excerpt highlights include:

• October 21, 1994 - re. potential interviews by Diane Sawyer and Sally Quinn and movie project directed by Oliver Stone: ‘Apart from my deep contempt for Stone’s ideas and methods, I would not be interested, I think, in ever assisting him. Stone’s bizarre concepts of reality and his need to present his own point of view would probably be harmful…’
• December 2, 1994 - re. interception of mail to his attorney: "The Agency just goes berserk – there is no legal or bureaucratic obstacle inside the Agency to check the insane impulses of the top guys. It’s happened many times before. No one really knows whether they’re getting a legal or illegal order."
• December 18,  1997 - "My fabulous cheese should arrive next week and those degrading Xmas bags of candy as well. The food service boss has taken to wearing a Santa Claus hat during meals "
• March 16, 2001 - a list of periodicals to which he subscribes includes Granta, The New York Review of Books, NLJ [National Law Journal], The Nation, and Lingua Franca. 
• February 24, 2002 - a letter from the IRS demanding Ames pay $1,070,920.48, back taxes on the money he received for spying for Russia, along with a copy of his response to the IRS and a note reading: "It is an unfortunate truth that I cannot pay what I owe, nor any noticeable part of it. Unemployed, indigent and serving a life sentence in federal prison, I have no prospect of every being able to do so …"