Hall, James

(1957– )

   An important chapter of the KGB and Stasi partnership was the recruitment and running of James Hall. He volunteered to the KGB in Berlin and was run by the Stasi. The East German service also recruited a Turk Hall had known in Berlin to act as a courier. Hall was motivated to spy by both money and ego, and he received approximately $300,000 for his espionage. He told a KGB case officer: “I wasn’t terribly short of money. I just didn’t want to worry about where my next dollar was coming from. I am not anti-American. I can wave the flag as well as the next guy.” Hall had access to highly classified U.S. technical intelligence secrets as a warrant officer, which enabled the KGB’s 16th (Signals Intelligence) Chief Directorate to understand the strengths and weaknesses of American signals intelligence. Moscow even dispatched a signals intelligence officer from Moscow to debrief Hall. Both the KGB and Stasi rated Hall’s information as of critical importance. Hall was identified by an East German agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, arrested in 1988, and tried by a military court martial in March 1989. Hall pled guilty, agreed to cooperate with the U.S. authorities, and received a 40-year sentence. The Turkish courier received a life sentence for his part in several other operations. According to a senior American counterintelligence officer, the Hall case was a textbook illustration of KGB doctrine. “When recruiting Americans, ego is second only to money as a motivator.”