Eric O'Neill and Billy Ray Discuss 'Breach'

DATE January 31, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Stuart Bowen discusses uncovering waste, fraud and
corruption in the reconstruction efforts in Iraq
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

As the special investigator general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart Bowen's
office has been uncovering waste, fraud and corruption. His office audits how
private contractors in Iraq are using money from America's Iraq Relief and
Reconstruction Fund, the I-R-R-F or IRRF. Bowen has just released his 12th
quarterly report. The Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund's initial $21
billion budget is all under contract and the funds phase of reconstruction is
coming to an end. But as part of President Bush's plan to stabilize Iraq,
he's asking Congress to approve $1.2 billion in new reconstruction aid. We
asked Bowen to talk with us about his latest findings.

Stuart Bowen, welcome back to FRESH AIR.

What would you say the headline of the new report is?

Mr. STUART BOWEN: The headline of this, our 12th quarterly report, is the
end of the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund and the beginning of the next
phase. The Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, or the IRRF, as it's called,
was appropriated by Congress in 2003 for the recovery of Iraq, post-war Iraq.
Amounting to $21 billion, it is now all under contract and over 80 percent is
spent.

GROSS: So what does that mean? Why is that the headline?

Mr. BOWEN: What that means is the largely US-supported phase of the recovery
of Iraq is coming to a close, that the next phase must include a larger
multilateral component, and ultimately it must transition rapidly to Iraqi
control and Iraqi funding.

GROSS: So, our money's basically spent on reconstruction projects.

Mr. BOWEN: That's right. The money that Congress had appropriated for this
program is basically spent.

GROSS: Now Iran--the ambassador from Iran to Baghdad recently said that Iran
is prepared to offer Iraq training for its security forces, as well as
equipment and advisers, and Iran is also ready to help with reconstruction.
What can you tell us about the role that Iran plans to play in Iraq's
reconstruction now that American money is coming to an end?

Mr. BOWEN: Well, we don't obviously have a role in reviewing issues like
that, but what I can say is that support for Iraq must be multilateralized in
international compact for Iraq, which includes the Gulf states, the EU and
other nations will, we expect, realize the hope of Madrid. In 2003, non-US
pledges amounted to over $13 billion, but just over three have come into date.
That must change this year for Iraq to move into the next phase of its
recovery.

GROSS: I know it's not your position to decide what's paradoxical, but do you
find it a little paradoxical that as the United States' relationship with Iran
continues to deteriorate, Iran seems to be forging an alliance with Iraq?

Mr. BOWEN: Well, Iraq is now a sovereign nation, and its government can make
and pursue whatever relationships it chooses, but what's more important is
that the world community move off of the sidelines and into the reconstruction
game, the recovery game in Iraq, to bring this country forward and so that it
can prosper.

GROSS: One of things I certainly take away from your report is that it's very
difficult to do reconstruction work when there's so much fighting and
sabotage. For example, electricity. Your report says that Baghdad is getting
an average of six and a half hours a day of electric power because of the tax
on power lines that feed the capital and other political issues that inhibit
the transfer of power from large plants in different regions of Iraq. Can you
talk a little bit about how sectarian divisions and the insurgency is
affecting power and other projects like that in Iraq now?

Mr. BOWEN: This infrastructure security is a serious issue and has been for
over a year now. It's an item that we identified in our spring 2006 report as
requiring attention and later last year, 325 million was appropriated to
bolster the strategic infrastructure battalions that are needed to protect
those power lines, but they have a long way to go, obviously. The attacks by
the insurgents continue to hinder everything in Iraq, but especially provision
of basic services, electricity, most notably, in Baghdad. Indeed the minister
of electricity told us last quarter that he has a difficult time getting his
repair teams out to address the interdictions by the insurgents because those
repair teams themselves come under fire.

GROSS: Now your report says that more than 5,100 schools have been
rehabilitated or constructed and 6,800 secondary school teachers have been
trained since 2006.

Mr. BOWEN: That's right.

GROSS: But there have been problems with violence there, too. What are some
of the problems with violence that are undermining the accomplishments of the
schools that have been built and the teachers that have been trained?

Mr. BOWEN: It's very difficult in Baghdad to do anything, including go to
school. In fact, one of my interpreters was attending Baghdad University and
she told me that the Sunni students, when they come to school, have to come
with bodyguards because of the danger, and moreover, that school had been
reduced to two days a week because of the number of attacks and uprisings that
have occurred around the university.

GROSS: Can you give us an overview of the amount of money we've spent on
projects that have been destroyed by sabotage or by the insurgency?

Mr. BOWEN: It's a very small percentage of projects that have been
lost--that we've constructed that have been lost...(unintelligible)...but
certainly many have been descoped or curtailed because of it. There have been
instances where certainly there is a police station in Al Hilla that we
constructed that got blown up, and then we rebuilt it, but that is the
exception rather than the rule with respect to US projects. The--my
inspectors have visited over 90 projects in Iraq over the last two years and
have found about three quarters of them have met contract specifications.

GROSS: if you're just joining us, my guest is Stuart Bowen. He's the special
inspector general for Iraq reconstruction and his office looks into fraud and
other--fraud, corruption and other abuse in Iraq reconstruction projects. And
the office has just issued its 12th report.

The issue of accountability comes up here. I'm going to give you an example
of what I mean. There were two whistle-blowers who work for Custer Battles
that--and Custer Battles was a contractor in Iraq, and the whistle-blowers
sued the company for fraud under the False Claims Act. Custer Battles had
provided security at the Baghdad Airport and other US installations. Now a
jury found that Custer Battles committed 37 separate acts of fraud and
submitted $3 million in false claims for security arrangements in Iraq. The
jury decided that there should be a $10 million penalty against Custer
Battles. But then the ruling was overturned by a US district court judge who
ruled that the Coalition Provisional Authority wasn't really a US entity and
therefore the false claims act didn't apply to it. Would you explain that
ruling a little bit?

Mr. BOWEN: Well, I think it's an unfortunate ruling because it has some
grave implications, that is, those out there who may have committed fraud in
connection with CPA will likely raise the same argument if they are prosecuted
civilly or criminally under US law. So I don't agree with that decision, and,
as I said, it could present problems down the road.

GROSS: So, according to this judge, any contractor who was hired by the
Coalition Provisional Authority would not be subject to US laws because the
CPA isn't a US entity?

Mr. BOWEN: According to this judge, however, the CPA was constituted by
order of the CENTCOM commander and the administrator of the CPA was appointed
pursuant to order of the president of the United States. Therefore, it has
all the indicia of a US entity. It was governed by US law wherein CPA,
internally, I should say, and CPA developed its own laws which largely mirror
US law with respect to managing the interim Iraqi government.

GROSS: So I think that this case is being appealed. Do you think it stands a
chance winning...

Mr. BOWEN: Yes.

GROSS: ...on appeal?

Mr. BOWEN: I do think it does. I think that the facts belie the decision by
the judge.

GROSS: So although a judge overturned the jury's verdict in the Custer
Battles case, there is a case of corruption that has come to the courts in
which the person was found guilty and this was, you know, a case that the
decision came down this week. The person in question is Robert Stein. I want
you to describe who Robert Stein is and what he was convicted of.

Mr. BOWEN: Robert Stein was the comptroller for the south-central region of
the Coalition Provisional Authority. So he was in charge of $120 million of
reconstruction funds, Iraqi money, that was allocated by CPA to that region
for rapid reconstruction programs. He entered into a conspiracy--engaged in a
conspiracy with Phil Bloom, Philip Bloom, a contractor who's also been
convicted, who also will be going to prison, to essentially steal, defraud the
government of millions of dollars. They--also in concert with this scheme,
this conspiracy were several military officers, including Lieutenant Colonel
Bruce Hopfengardner, who's also been convicted and will be going to prison.

Several other individuals are--cases are still pending, so I don't want to
talk about those details but it evolved from a hotline complaint, a citizen
anonymously reported potential wrongdoing in Hilla, which is in south-central
Iraq, and I deployed two auditors down there to investigate it, and they
returned with grim stories about potential wrongdoing. So I sent two
investigators down, and thus began a long and detailed investigation in
concert with other investigative agencies that fleshed out the facts of this
fraud. It's the largest case that we have uncovered to date, but we have 80
other cases ongoing, 23 of them are at the Department of Justice under
prosecution, and we should see progress in a number of those over the next
quarter.

GROSS: This is a really interesting case. I mean, you've got a private
contractor, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and a member of the
Coalition Provisional Authority working together in this fraud and corruption
scheme. What were their interactions?

Mr. BOWEN: Robert Stein had the duty to approve payment on the contracts to
Philip Bloom, and Phil Hopfengardner worked with Stein in the contracting
office. And, essentially, they agreed to pay Bloom for work that he never
performed, just to transfer money to him on contracts that really didn't
exist, and as a result, Bloom recovered millions of dollars and paid them off
in bribes.

GROSS: What was the contractor actually supposed to be doing?

Mr. BOWEN: There were a whole series of projects. There was the repair and
reconstruction of the Babylon Police Academy, the repair and reconstruction
equipping of the Karbala Library, as well as other facilities, barracks
facilities down there. There was almost no work done on the Karbala Library
and the--nor was any decent work done on the Babylon Police Academy. It was
all deficient.

GROSS: So...

Mr. BOWEN: Yes.

GROSS: What kind of precedent--we have two separate precedents here. We have
this trial, where one of the people is found guilty, and then we have the
precedent of the Custer Battles trial where the charges don't stick because
they're overturned by a judge who says the Coalition Provisional Authority
isn't a US entity and is therefore not accountable to US law. So what's the
difference between these two trials and their perceptions of the Coalition
Provisional Authority?

Mr. BOWEN: The difference between Custer Battles and the Bloom-Stein case is
that the Custer Battles case was a civil action whereas the Bloom-Stein case
were criminal actions. Indeed, we accumulated so much evidence against Bloom
and Stein that they agreed to plead guilty. They never had to go to trial.
And that was true also for Hopfengardner. Other cases, however, are pending
prosecution, and we'll have to see how they turn out.

GROSS: My guest is Stuart Bowen, special investigator general for Iraq
reconstruction. He's just issued his 12th quarterly report.

More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guest is Stuart Bowen, the special investigator general for Iraq
reconstruction. He's just issued his 12th quarterly report investigating
fraud, waste and security problems.

Well, you say in your paper that you think that there's needs to be a kind of
single authority coordinating all of this, and there isn't right now.

Mr. BOWEN: Well, the president just appointed a new reconstruction
coordinator for Iraq, and I think that that squarely addresses the program we
identify.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BOWEN: And--the issue is when you have multiple agencies operating in a
war zone trying to carry out a relief in reconstruction operation, you have
jurisdictional lines bumping into one other. Someone who can cross those
lines and coordinate those agencies with authority would make a huge
difference in promoting efficiency in the program.

GROSS: Do you have an estimate of how much money the United States has spent
on projects that were never completed or money that--and money that we've lost
to fraud and corruption?

Mr. BOWEN: We don't have a number on those two issues yet to provide. We've
been directed by the Congress to perform a forensic audit of the Iraq Relief
and Reconstruction Fund over the next year and a half, and that's a very
detailed, thorough review of every contract, looking at where every dollar
went, and upon completion of that audit, we will be able to with confidence
give you a number on it.

GROSS: Do you have any guess about whether we're saving or losing money by
investing so much in private contractors as opposed to having the military do
the work?

Mr. BOWEN: Well, the military is doing a significant amount of work through
overseeing the Commanders Emergency Response Program. Two point five billion
has been spent in that program to date, and it involves sort of military
contracting officers engaged in direct contracts with local contractors. It
has the salutary effect of quick turnaround, rapid effect that addresses local
problems and puts local citizens to work. The shift has also moved from
design build to direct contracting in Iraq. That is, we've moved away from
using the very large contractors and are now really fully engaged in employing
Iraqis and Iraqi firms in the reconstruction program.

GROSS: When did we do that?

Mr. BOWEN: That evolution began about 18 months ago and virtually 90 percent
of all new direct contracts have been going to Iraqi firms for the last nine
months--nine to 12 months.

GROSS: Would you sum up for us what President Bush's latest plans for
reconstruction are in Iraq?

Mr. BOWEN: Yes. They emphasize building capacity through the provincial
reconstruction teams, both at the government's level and through
reconstruction by executing rapid reconstruction programs that employ as many
Iraqis as possible. Unemployment is a serious problem, especially in Baghdad,
and Baghdad is the target of these economic initiatives. Along with the PRT
program is the Commander's Emergency Response Program. That's also aimed at
employing Iraqis, engaging Iraqis firms and trying to kick-start the Iraqi
economy to get some--attract some capital investment.

GROSS: Do you think we should have done more of that earlier on?

Mr. BOWEN: I think it's wise to do it now. I think
the...(unintelligible)...was something that began in the summer of 2003, and
it grew sort of on its own as commanders recognized the need for rapid
reconstruction projects in the villages and towns they encountered. Because
of the successes experienced in 2003, it expanded greatly and continues to
prove a good vehicle for investing US dollars in Iraq.

GROSS: You have a whole list of lessons learned. What's the most important
one, as far as you're concerned?

Mr. BOWEN: To insure aggressive oversight from the beginning of any relief
and reconstruction program after a contingency operation. I think the lack of
any effective oversight in Iraq from June 2003 till March of 2004 permitted
people like Bloom and Stein to take advantage of what was an increasingly
chaotic situation.

GROSS: I spoke with Paul Bremer when his book was published, and Bremer had
been the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and he said in terms of
like paperwork, paper trails for the money that he was spending, he said he
gave out a lot of money without paperwork because you had to work in a real
hurry. You know, there was a war going on. And in order to really get people
to respond, you had to deliver quickly and that, you know, in a war, in a
chaotic situation, like that, accounting isn't going to be as careful as it is
in an office, you know, in New York or Chicago.

Mr. BOWEN: Well, I agree it's not going to be as careful in an office in New
York or Chicago. However, it needed to be more than the standards that were
met by the CPA. There needed to be some accountability mechanism in place,
some reporting of how the money that was being transferred to the interim
Iraqi ministries was being used, and there wasn't. There was just a ledger
that showed how much had been budgeted and how much had been delivered, and
there was no meaningful feedback on what happened to that money after it was
delivered to the Iraqi ministries. It was delivered in cash.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you very much for talking with us, and have a
safe trip.

Mr. BOWEN: Thank you, Terry.

GROSS: Stuart Bowen is the special investigator general for Iraq
reconstruction. He's just issued his 12th quarterly report.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Former FBI agent Eric O'Neill and writer and director
Billy Ray discuss the movie "Breach," about spy Robert Hanssen
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The new movie "Breach" is based on the story of the FBI agent Robert Hanssen
who was convicted of espionage for selling secrets to the Soviets, drawing on
his access to classified documents from the FBI, CIA and National Security
Agency. Hanssen is now surviving life in prison. The role of Hanssen is
played by Chris Cooper. Ryan Phillippe plays Eric O'Neill, a young FBI
operative who was assigned to work as Hanssen assistant so that he could spy
on Hanssen and help the FBI find evidence against him. Eric O'Neill is my
guest. He has since left the FBI and is now a lawyer. Also with us is the
writer and director of "Breach," Billy Ray. He also made the film "Shattered
Glass" and wrote the screenplay for "Flight Plan."

Let's start with a scene from the beginning of "Breach." Special Agent Kate
Burroughs, played by Laura Linney, is briefing O'Neill on his new assignment.
But at this point in the story, she's not revealing the real reason he's being
asked to spy on Hanssen.

(Soundbite from "Breach")

Ms. LAURA LINNEY: (As Kate Burroughs) You're being tasked to headquarters
where you'll be riding the desk of an agent named Robert Hanssen. You know
him?

Mr. RYAN PHILLIPPE: (As Eric O'Neill) No.

Ms. LINNEY: (As Burroughs) Former head of our Soviet analytical unit.
Considered our most knowledgeable analyst on Russian intel. Last six years
he's been our liaison at the State Department.

Unidentified Actor #1: Sunday.

Ms. LINNEY: (As Burroughs) We're bringing him back to headquarters where
he's going to start our new information assurance division, safeguarding the
bureau's IT system from cyber-terrorism and infiltration.

Mr. PHILLIPPE: (As O'Neill) Wait, I've heard of this guy. Was he the one
who hacked into another agent's hard drive?

Ms. LINNEY: (As Burroughs) He's the best computer guy we've got. He's also
a sexual deviant.

Mr. PHILLIPPE: (As O'Neill) Oh.

Ms. LINNEY: (As Burroughs) Been posting on the Internet lurid material.
There's some complaints in his file from female subordinates.

Unidentified Actor #2: I shouldn't tease you, that just gets me into trouble.

Ms. LINNEY: (As Burroughs) You're going to keep an eye on him for us. It's
not a glamour detail, sorry.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Eric O'Neill, Billy Ray, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Eric, let me start with you. What was your assignment in bringing down Robert
Hanssen?

Mr. ERIC O'NEILL: Well, originally, I worked for a small group in the FBI
called the Special Surveillance Group. As an investigative specialist, I was
a ghost. So I was, for the most part, behind the camera watching targets by
the--from the shadows. When I was tasked for the Hanssen case, it was a
unique experience because instead of being sort of behind the lens and at some
distance, I was in the room with my target, face-to-face with an objective to
get him to talk and see if he'd spill some of his secrets.

GROSS: And what was your cover? What was your official story to him?

Mr. O'NEILL: I didn't have one. You know, in this very unique experience,
they were worried that I might slip up if they gave me a legend. It wasn't
something that I was particularly trained for. By a legend, by the way, I
mean a cover story, a cover identity with a new drivers licence and a whole
background that you memorized to the most specific detail. They were a little
worried about Hanssen. He was too savvy and too able to get into the FBI's
computer system, so they were worried that something might slip there. And so
I went in as myself, which was nerve-wracking to say the least.

GROSS: And you went in as his assistance.

Mr. O'NEILL: Yes. I was Eric O'Neill, his assistant. And the first day, he
actually spun a legal pad around to me and said, `I'd like you to write down
your name, your Social Security number, your current address, your wife's name
and birthday, your birthdate, your parents' name.' All this very intimate,
very specific detail about my life that I was handing to him. And he told me,
`I need it because I'm your boss, and I need to know these details.' But in my
mind, `I was thinking he needs it because now he has something held over me.'

GROSS: And also he could investigate you.

Mr. O'NEILL: Exactly.

GROSS: He could check your identity.

So he, in the movie anyways, Hanssen really prides himself on being able to
read other people carefully, to read their personalities, to catch them in any
betrayal or deception. Was he that way with you? Did he make it clear to you
that he could catch any kind of deception?

Mr. O'NEILL: Very true.

GROSS: That must have been so hard. I mean, here you are inexperienced at
this game, and here he is very experienced at the game, and he thinks of
himself as like the, you know, the ultimate in ferreting out deception, and
you're completely deceiving him. So what are some of the mind games that
you'd end up playing with each other?

Mr. O'NEILL: Well, when you're in that situation, you need to find a point
of attack because you'll go crazy if you just believe that they're on you. So
you look for that fact that says, `I'm burnt. They're on me, and I'm in
trouble.' And they are only two people in that room, and I was the other guy,
so he had to continually put pressure on me. And the biggest way he did was
by keeping me off balance.

GROSS: Like how?

Mr. O'NEILL: He did many inappropriate things. Things that in an office
environment will get you fired, such as looming over me constantly. You know,
if he was next to you, he would always kind of lean against you, things that
made you uncomfortable and really threw off your body awareness. He could be
harsh. He could be prone to rage at times and yelling and screaming,
threatening.

You know, there were other odd things. His perversions came out while we were
together in the room, and that was very complicated for me.

GROSS: What perversions?

Mr. O'NEILL: He would put you in inappropriate situations, some of them
quasi-sexual. I didn't think any of it was homosexual. I think it was a sort
of controlling environment. For example, it came out that he had--and this is
a little bit titillating--but he had this sort of obsession with Catherine
Zeta-Jones, and we would find DVDs. And he'd watch the movies and, you know,
while he was supposed to be working and that sort of thing.

So I had to deal with that, and I--you know, and I had to think, `What game
are we playing here? What is the response he expects from me and how can I
sort of throw this back at him and throw him?' And in the end, I decided just
kind of push back. When he did something that really upset me, instead of
saying, you know--and threatening him, I would just push back like, `Get the
hell off my desk.' Or, you know, `Leave me alone.' Or, you know, `Stop
touching me that way.' And he'd kind of chuckle about it, and I think that
that's where he started to respect me.

GROSS: OK. And once you realized he is your target and you were going to
catch him, what's the biggest catch that you got?

Mr. O'NEILL: Well, the case--and it's portrayed perfectly in the movie--is
the great Palm Pilot scene. That scene is very, very true to life and almost
exactly the way it went down, and all those tensions are exactly what I was
feeling.

GROSS: Can I ask you to describe it?

Mr. O'NEILL: Sure. One of my biggest tasks was to determine where he might
keep his secrets, where those keys were that we could use to unlock his
history of spying and find ways to catch him red-handed. One of the ways that
I did that was to observe Hanssen and see where he kept things, what sort of
things he kept on him. Well, he had this Palm Pilot he kept in his back
pocket constantly. And I also realized that while he requisitioned a Palm
Pilot for me from FBI Office of Technology, he got me a Palm 5, and he had a
Palm 3 and he decided he didn't want to get himself a new one. Well, why
wouldn't you want the flashiest new thing? Well, one, the Palm 3 was his own.
Two, he had reprogrammed it and encrypted it. And it seemed--and, three, he
never let it off his body. It was always in his back right pocket, and he was
very, very diligent in where he put it and how he always had it. He would sit
down. He would put it on the desk next to him. His hand would always be near
it. When he stood up, it immediately went in his pocket.

So we had to find a way to separate him from this thing that's always like a
part of his body, an extension of himself. We did that by getting some of the
higher-up agents, people who were above him in the chain of command, to come
in and challenge him to go shoot. And one of the biggest parts of Hanssen's
ego...

GROSS: At the target range?

Mr. O'NEILL: Right.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. O'NEILL: ...is his ability with a rifle and a firearm. He was a
dead-shot marksman and he was very proud of that. So they challenged him, and
he said no. And they said, `I'm sorry, I don't think you understand. This
isn't a request.' That flustered him and he forgot to do that motion he made
every single time he got up, grab the Palm Pilot, put it in his back pocket.
I went to his briefcase, opened it up, grabbed the Palm Pilot and ran down to
where we had a tech team set up to copy the thing. They started copying the
Palm Pilot, and as it happened, one of the guys that was down shooting with
Hanssen sent me a page on my pager, and it said, `He's on his way back to you.
He's out of pocket.' And I thought to myself, `Wow, this is not good!' I mean,
I've got the holy of holies down here and this guy has got 80 percent copied,
and this guy--and Hanssen is walking up from the basement shooting range up to
the seventh floor. I was smart enough to have timed it. Like, if I ran
flat-out down the hall, caught the elevator the first second I hit the button
and it made it down without stopping at any floor, and I ran into the shooting
range, it was a total of about six minutes. I said, `I got six minutes.
Finish up right now.' It took them another like couple of minutes to finish,
then I was the one running all the way up those flights of stairs and into the
office, through this vault door that had three different locks and very
distinct locks and into his office. Kneeled down in front of his bag, looked
at his bag and realized, `I've just opened all four pockets and I really don't
know which pocket I pulled the Palm Pilot out of.'

GROSS: So what did you do?

Mr. O'NEILL: I had to think right then. Well, I'd evaluate what I was going
to do because Hanssen was coming in the door. And I heard telltale key beeps
of him punching in the code, and I know I only had seconds. So in those
seconds I had to decide whether I was going to run out of there and give up
the whole operation but, you know, maybe get down the hall somewhere where he
wasn't going to shoot me if he found out that I had messed with his Palm
Pilot, or I was just going to drop it in the bag and play it off and hope.
And in the end, I decided just to trust luck, drop it in the bag, made the
sign of the cross, said a quick prayer, hoped really hard, crossed my fingers,
zipped up his bag and ran to my desk by the time that he got in. And it
turned out, I was right. But the worst part of that entire case for me were
those moments when I was sitting at my desk and I heard him--I saw him charge
past me into the room, slam the office to his door, and I could hear him
unzipping that bag. And thinking, `If I got that wrong, I'm dead.'

GROSS: Would you literally have been dead? I mean, did he ever threaten you?

Mr. O'NEILL: I can't say for sure. He certainly threatened me, and he--you
know, very ironically, he had no tolerance for betrayal whatsoever. And he
would constantly tell me that, `It is so important that I can trust you.' That
is a true line in the movie. It was very important to him, and betrayal was
just never going to happen in his eyes, and it's quite possible that--knowing
what we know now--that he did have every letter he sent to the Russians on
that data card that went with the Palm Pilot, and he had the drop date and the
date of his drop date and the location on there. Everything we needed to
completely finish this case was on those instruments, so he might have
thought, `Well, I'm caught. It's over. You know, this guy is going to pay
for what he did because my life is destroyed.'

GROSS: I'm speaking with former FBI operative Eric O'Neill.

We'll talk with the director of the new film "Breach" after a break. This is
FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: We're talking about the new movie "Breach," which is based on the
story of Robert Hanssen, the former FBI agent who sold secrets to the Soviets.
The other main character in the film is Eric O'Neill, a young FBI operative
who was asked by the FBI to work as Hanssen's assistant and find evidence
against him. O'Neill is my guest and so is the director and writer of
"Breach," Billy Ray. O'Neill is played in the film by Ryan Phillippe. Chris
Cooper plays Hanssen.

I want to play a clip from "Breach," the movie that's based on your story.
And in this scene, Robert Hanssen, the spy who is really a counterspy selling
secrets to the Russian, who you're trying to investigate, is talking with you.
And that's all we need to know to hear the clip.

(Soundbite from "Breach")

Mr. CHRIS COOPER: (As Robert Hanssen) You know why the Soviet empire
collapsed?

Mr. PHILLIPPE: (As O'Neill) Good morning?

Mr. COOPER: (As Hanssen) I made a career of studying them. They were
smarter than us, more devious, more determined. So why did they fail?
Godlessness. Atheism. I'm on my way to morning Mass. You do remember what
Mass is, yes? Jesuits at Gonzaga taught you that much, didn't they?

Mr. PHILLIPPE: (As O'Neill) Sir, my grandfather was a deacon.

Mr. COOPER: (As Hanssen) Well, congratulations! Now it's time to join the
varsity.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's Chris Cooper as Robert Hanssen, the now infamous FBI agent and
Soviet spy, in a scene from the movie "Breach."

Now, as we hear in that scene, Hanssen considered himself a very God-fearing
person and a very kind of strict Catholic, like he belonged to the group Opus
Dei. And at the same time he, as you described earlier, he had a very active
sexual fantasy life. In fact, according to what I read in the book "The
Bureau and the Mole," he had surveillance technology in his bedroom. And so
when he had this old friend of his stay overnight, a male friend...

Mr. O'NEILL: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...the male friend was able to, through the surveillance camera, watch
Hanssen and his wife having sex in their bedroom. I mean, that's the extent
of how kinky he really was.

Mr. O'NEILL: Yes, and that's true.

GROSS: And then he would write about this in chat rooms on the Internet.

Mr. O'NEILL: Yes, all of that is true.

GROSS: Did you know about that?

Mr. O'NEILL: Yes, the video surveillance of him and his wife I found out
later, In fact, I found out about that later, as the FBI did, after the case
was concluded, after he was caught, and they tore apart his house, and they
found this stuff and interviewed his friend. And I had to call an agent and
say, `Is this true?' Because I read it in the media as well and called. And,
yes, it's true.

GROSS: Did you ever get to look him in the eye after you help bust him?

Mr. O'NEILL: No, I didn't. He was whisked away and hidden away from me.
There was a point where, you know, out of some sort of insanity, I asked, you
know, `Would it be OK if I talk to him?' I don't know why, but he--but they
said--they told me, `No, that would be a real bad idea because we're really
not telling him your role in this because the betrayal would cause him to say
nothing more to us. And the most important thing right now, the critical
thing, is to debrief him and find out what he revealed. And the last thing we
need right now is for him to shut up.'

GROSS: Well, I'm speaking with Eric O'Neill, and he is the FBI operative who
helped break the Robert Hanssen case. And Hanssen is the FBI agent who sold
more secrets to the Soviets than any spy had ever given to the Soviets before.
The movie based on this story is called "Breach," and with me is Billy Ray,
who directed the film and also directed the movie "Shattered Glass."

Billy Ray, welcome.

Mr. BILLY RAY: Thanks for having me.

GROSS: Why did you want to make this movie?

Mr. RAY: Well, I'm fascinated by duplicity and fascinated by stories that
are about integrity, and this certainly was that. But after I saw early
drafts of the script, the initial writers were a pair of guys named Adam Mazer
and Bill Rotko, I started to read about the Hanssen case. And, you know,
there were five or six books that were published on that case almost instantly
after he was arrested, and none of them mentioned Eric O'Neill, because at the
time, Eric O'Neill was classified, so none of them could mention Eric O'Neill.
So I thought, `Here is the worst security breach in American history and a
huge chunk of the story is totally unreported.' Which is there are 500 guys
trying to capture--men and women, 500 FBI operatives trying to capture Robert
Hanssen, but one of them was locked in a room with him all day long, and
that's Eric O'Neill, the guy that no one has ever heard of. That felt like a
piece of history that ought to be captured.

GROSS: So you decided to make the movie. You said you were interested in
deception.

Mr. RAY: Sure.

GROSS: I mean, your previous movie "Shattered Glass" is about deception, too.
That was about a journalist who made up the stories that he tried to pass off
as factual reporting.

Mr. RAY: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Why are you so interested in deception?

Mr. RAY: Well, there's a very selfish reason, which is when you're writing a
movie, you're trying to give your characters subtext. You're trying to put
them in a situation where what they say is not what they mean, just because
that's more interesting to look at. And when you're dealing with liars,
everything they say is loaded with subtext because nothing they say is the
truth. I once learned from a very smart man that the function of a camera in
moviemaking is to capture what the characters don't want to reveal about
themselves. And in a movie like "Breach," you just point the camera at Chris
Cooper, and it is revealing what Robert Hanssen does not want you to know
about him. So just selfishly, it's easier to make a good movie about people
who aren't telling the truth.

GROSS: What kind of interactions did you both have during the making of the
movie?

Mr. RAY: Well, he's a huge asset. I mean, you know, if you're trying to do
a research-based movie, which this was, you know, this is gold, this guy
sitting next to me. So I was going to interview him as much as he would let
me. I was going to send a million e-mails a day while I was doing research
and rewriting the script. I wanted him there in Toronto while we were in
prep. I wanted him working with Chris Cooper to do an imitation of Robert
Hanssen.

GROSS: Did you do that?

Mr. O'NEILL: Yes, I did.

GROSS: Can you do your imitation for us?

Mr. O'NEILL: Oh, God, no.

GROSS: He never does it--he never does it on air. He's very shy.

Mr. O'NEILL: Right. Right. I'm shy. I get a little shy about that, but I
can tell you how I did it.

GROSS: Sure.

Mr. O'NEILL: And really Chris came up with it because we faced that same
question, `Can you do him?' I'm like, `Uh.' And he said, `I'll tell you what.
I'll just read the script and you tell me, you know, whether I'm close or what
I need to do. And then you read the script.' And that's how we did it, back
and forth, until suddenly he kind of got it and he was there. He had an odd
accent to it. It was very sort of neutral America, his accent, kind of like
mine, but with a little bit of Chicago that would just pop in at the oddest
words. And I think Chris got that.

The other thing is the way he walked and the way he'd grumble and the little
quirks he had with his face. The idea being that Chris really was concerned
about making sure that his portrayal of his character was one where, you know,
some of the people who knew Hansen and his friends and family could watch the
movie and say, `That's something Bob does.' Or, `Hey, that's a quirk that
makes me think this is the guy and that this wasn't just an attempt at
portraying somebody without any sort of research.'

Mr. RAY: And Chris wanted to get those mannerisms right. He wanted to lean
into you the way that Hanssen leaned into. And he wanted to invade your
personal space in the way that Hanssen actually did. And he wanted to walk
Eric into walls, which he actually did.

And I also wanted Eric around because I wanted him working with my production
designer. I wanted him to comment on the details of the hallways and how the
room 9930 looked. We brought Eric in on the day that we did our prop show in
Toronto and others. The guy who does our props...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. RAY: ...he lays out 20 briefcases. And I said, `Eric, which is the
right one?' And he picked it. And he lays out 30 guns, and I said, `OK, which
are the 10 you'd find in his car?' And he picked those 10. If you have access
to a guy like that, you're crazy not to use him. And I wanted him around. I
wanted him around while we were shooting. I would have been happy if would
have stayed there every single day.

GROSS: Why is it important to you to, when possible, choose like the right
briefcase or the exact same gun or, you know, whatever that was used in
reality?

Mr. RAY: Well, there are two reasons. One is certain things are just a
matter of historical record, like being able to shoot the scene of his arrest
at the exact corner where he was actually arrested.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. RAY: And to have people swoop in in exactly the right way, you want to
get that stuff right if you can. The second is--and this is just more of a
selfish motivation--I want to be able to go up to my actor and say to him,
`We're not playing around here. This is the briefcase. These are the guns.
This is the real world of this guy. It makes a difference when you're with
good actors, they feel it and they incorporate it into their performance.
There's a reason why Chris is so good in the movie. There's a reason why Ryan
is so good in the movie. Because we surrounded them with things that are
tangible that came out of that world. And all of that gets tucked into the
performance of a good actor.

GROSS: My guests are Billy Ray, who wrote and directed the new film "Breach,"
and Eric O'Neill, a former FBI operative who is portrayed in the film.

More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: The new film "Breach" is based on the story of FBI agent Robert
Hanssen, who is convicted of selling secrets to the Soviets. We've heard from
Eric O'Neill, a former FBI operative who is portrayed in "Breach." My guest
Billy Ray wrote and directed the film.

What are some of the most mysterious things to you about Robert Hanssen that
you'd actually really like to know but you can't find out about?

Mr. RAY: Well, there's nothing about him that's not mysterious, at least for
me. I really wanted to sit down and talk to this guy while I was writing.
That would have been amazing. Of course, the FBI said I couldn't. So...

GROSS: He's in solitary confinement.

Mr. RAY: Yeah, he's in a super max penitentiary. He's not getting out and
he's certainly not talking to me. But I asked the FBI for permission to
submit written questions to him. And they said that was OK.

GROSS: Oh, really?

Mr. RAY: Yeah.

GROSS: Did you do that?

Mr. RAY: I wrote 15 questions and submitted them to the FBI. And they
passed 14 of them along to Hanssen. And he declined to answer any of them. I
tried it twice.

GROSS: And what were some of your questions and which was the one that the
FBI declined to pass on?

Mr. RAY: The one that they declined to pass on was, `If you ran the bureau,
how would it run differently?' I guess they just didn't want him answering
that question. But I asked him questions like, `What did you think of Eric
O'Neill when you first met him? And how did your opinion of him change? I
asked him why did you make that last drop if you had a sense that the FBI was
onto you by that point? I asked him if he regularly confessed to the
espionage?' Because we know that he was a very serious Catholic and we know
that he was spying for 22 years, was he regularly confessing to being a spy,
regularly receiving some sort of absolution and then continuing to do it? And
then I threw in a couple bogus questions just to pad it a little bit so that
he wouldn't know exactly where I was trying to get my information. It didn't
matter. He just has no interest in helping me.

GROSS: Now, in "Shattered Glass," your previous film about a journalist who
is lying and makes up the stories that he writes, and in this film, "Breach,"
about the spy Robert Hanssen, a lot of scenes are shot in fluorescent-lit
offices, and there's probably like no more of a boring space to shoot.

Mr. RAY: Right.

GROSS: But you have to make it interesting.

Mr. RAY: Sure.

GROSS: You have to give it some kind of personality so that when we're
watching fluorescent-lit hallways and offices, we're seeing something that's
going to hold our attention. Can you talk about the challenge of making
movies in like uninteresting places like that?

Mr. RAY: Sure.

GROSS: You know?

Mr. RAY: Well, step one is hire a great VP. In this case I had Tak
Fujimoto, who had shot "Silence of the Lambs" and "Signs." And he and I talked
about trying to make this movie look like one of those great American studio
movies of the '70s. The best example for me of that kind of look being "The
Paper Chase." And he understood that. I mean, we had a great shorthand about
that. But my feeling is, I look at a lot of the movies that are made today,
particularly 2006 movies, where visually you can tell they were just all
created by CGI. I mean, like very inch of the frame is loaded with some
gadget or doodad. And yet the movies have no tension, and they're not
terribly interesting at all because they all feel like a gimmick. It's much
more interesting, to me, to take a circumstance, even an office that has
fluorescent lighting, and try to challenge yourself to make that interesting
by making what's happening in the office interesting. Again, the tension
arriving out of the fact that you know you're stuck in a vault. And how can
that be an asset to us as filmmakers?

There's a moment when Ryan Phillippe walks into that office for the first time
and he shuts the door behind him and he just hears that pfrmmmp, he hears the
way it shuts. And it's a moment that plays on his face of, `OK, I'm stuck.
I'm in here. No one is going to hear anything that happens inside this room.'
And like Eric was saying, `If this guys decides to shoot me, no one is even
going to know. No one is going to hear it outside.' That's an opportunity to
take something that could very dull and make it an asset of the story telling.
We looked for that kind of thing all the time.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you both so much for talking with us. Thank
you.

Mr. O'NEILL: Thanks for having us. It was an honor.

Mr. RAY: Thanks so much for having us on.

GROSS: Billy Ray wrote and directed the new film "Breach," which will be
released in February. Eric O'Neill is a former FBI operative.

I'm Terry Gross.

(Credits)
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