Ryan Reeder
Professor Rod Bohac
History 200
December 4, 1999
In "Motives of a Spy," Chris Payne analyzes the various factors which drove Aldrich Ames to espionage. These include supporting extravagant financial habits, alcoholism, unfaithfulness in family relations, the thrill of the game, the sloppiness of the CIA, childhood pressures, his professional shortcomings, and his political agenda in the Soviet Union. Through recognizing and describing these factors, Chris hopes that similar security breaches will be prevented.
The content of Chris's paper is fairly clearly organized. His introduction begins with statements that immediately draw in the reader and establish interest in the topic. After providing background information on Ames' charges, he clearly indicates his intent of enabling us to detect future double agents through discovering what Ames' motivations were. Bold headings indicate the presentation of each new motivational factor for Ames' spying. These allows for greater flow in the composition of the paper.
The conclusion, however, leaves much to be desired. After lengthily developing the many motives in the body, we expect him to summarize, reminding us of what those motivations were and describing how they contributed together to his illegal practices. We want to know how a knowledge of these factors will let us prevent future Aldrich Ameses. Instead, Payne gives us a weak statement that stopping Ames earlier would have abated the losses incurred, and restates again that we "we must discover what motivated him" to commit espionage, supposedly what the paper did.
The paper also contains numerous typos, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, etc. I indicated the ones I noticed on his paper. Usually, the paragraphs are fairly well-developed, and the transitions are adequate. However, much remains to be done to correct the errors contained.
Chris quotes and paraphrases his sources well. He references his sources often and only gives three or four extensive quotes, which are justifiable. With few exceptions, he carefully and accurately provides a source for his information. However, it concerns me that his sources only include three government publications documenting Ames' trial and one book. I believe that more sources would be beneficial to Payne's article. Periodicals, for example, might give various perspectives writers and readers had of Ames during the case. Perhaps they could also give more credit to the motivations Payne cites, or debunk them entirely. Other sources might also be looked into.
In addition, I feel that relevant information is not addressed. I seem to remember this case. I think the CIA was finally able to capture him because the lavishness of his house was not within his known financial range. Since the discrepancies were so obvious, it made both Ames and the CIA look stupid. Yet there is little more than an allusion to this. I think the background information should include an overview of Ames' history until the time his trial began. Then, perhaps the conclusion could include the consequences of the actions. What was his sentence, for example?
Despite the various deficiencies in this paper, it is generally well done. The argument is solid; Chris declares Ames' possible motives and qualifies their importance. The topic is presented in an interesting and engaging manner, providing information on what motivates a spy.