The shocking story of CIA veteran Aldrich Ames passing U.S. secrets to the Soviets for eight years without detection seemed like a natural for a spy movie. Now it has happened.
Timothy Hutton plays the title role in "Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within," which will air on the Showtime cable channel Sunday at 9 p.m., with repeat screenings in December.Ames served 20 years with the CIA before starting to sell secrets to the KGB in 1985. He had been overlooked for promotion and had fallen into heavy debt because of extravagance by himself and his Bolivian wife, Rosario (played by Elizabeth Pena).
For eight years Ames continued funneling vital data to the Soviets, some of which led to the deaths of valued CIA informants. Even though he bought a costly home and upscale cars, his superiors never suspected him. It took a veteran analyst, Jeanne Vertefeuille (Joan Plowright), to expose him.
Hutton, 38, who won the 1980 Academy Award for supporting actor as the sensitive youth in "Ordinary People," is no newcomer to movies about espionage.
He played another real-life spy in the 1985 "The Falcon and the Snowman," and in 1983, he starred in "Daniel," based on E.L. Doctorow's novel "The Book of Daniel," concerning the son of a pair of spies resembling Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Although he has appeared in other dark roles in recent times, Hutton admits that he had a twinge of doubt about playing Ames.
"But I'm an actor, and I recognize a good part when I see it," he commented. "It was a wonderfully written screenplay, and I thought it was smart not to make it sympathetic. Nor did it want to bury the guy.
"It just told the story. I think you realize when you see it that this is someone who just became completely out of control because of the personal burdens that he mostly put on himself."
Indeed, "Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within" bears a resemblance to the John le Carre novels and their film versions, which portray spies nonjudgmentally as working professionals who are drawn into situations that cause them to betray their countries.
The film pictures Ames as a humdrum CIA official who has risen through the ranks despite a record of drinking and lax performance. He performs his traitorous deeds mechanically, with scant concern for secrecy and with a total lack of remorse.
"I think he felt that the only way out of his personal problems was to sell documents to the KGB," observed Hutton. "But money problems happen to a lot of people, and there are other ways he could have solved them.
"That clearly was the flaw in his thinking: not realizing the consequences, people were going to be killed, possibly the security of the United States in other parts of the world was going to be compromised. I think it just wasn't thought through.
"Had the film continued on to when he was in prison, we would have been able to show a side of Ames that I saw during an interview in which he does confess remorse. He understands the consequences."
Hutton gained insight for his portrayal by studying various films of Ames. His conclusions: "He had trouble dealing directly with people. Something was preventing him from being who he was. Many, many walls surrounded him."
"Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within" resembles Washington and its environs, but it was actually filmed in Toronto, like so many cost-conscious TV movies these days.
"I think they'd even shoot a Western in Toronto - if they could," Hutton joked.