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With the posting to Italy in 1986, Ames' sociability reached new heights. Milan's daily Corriere della Sera reported last week that during his three- year tour, Ames was a fixture in Rome's most glittery night spots. One diplomat believes that unlike many other career wives, Rosario steered clear of the diplomatic community. During this period, the Ameses transferred large sums of money to banks in Switzerland, Colombia and Italy. Some of these accounts were held jointly with Rosario's mother.
After the couple returned to Washington in 1989, Ames resumed work at Langley while Rosario enrolled in graduate philosophy studies at Georgetown University. Apparently planning to stay awhile, they dug into their reserves to pay cash for a $540,000 house in Arlington, $7,000 worth of furniture and a $19,500 Honda. They also paid $275 weekly for the care of their son Paul. Maria Trinidad Chirino, who served as the boy's nanny during this period, told reporters last week that she was ordered to take Paul out almost as soon as she arrived at 9 each day, and not to return unless one of the parents was at home. Chirino, whose relationship with the Ameses ended bitterly, claims that she was absolutely forbidden to enter certain rooms in the house.
During all this time, neither the CIA nor the FBI made much progress ferreting out the mole they'd first suspected in 1985. Some congressional sources contend that investigative efforts were paralyzed by the CIA's determination to blame all intelligence failures on already exposed agents like Howard and Pelton. It is possible that the CIA was onto Ames in 1989; his reassignment at Langley was a counternarcotics posting that seemed low-grade for a man of his experience. In any event, the FBI and CIA didn't form a joint task force and begin their hunt in earnest until 1991.
What finally lighted a fire under investigators remains a public mystery. But a good guess would be the 1990 betrayal -- and disappearance -- of one of the CIA's most valuable foreign assets, a counterintelligence officer within KGB headquarters who was code-named Prologue, with the prefix GT, probably standing for a geographical area. In October 1993, FBI agents retrieved files from Ames' home computer, including a message typed by Ames on Dec. 17, 1990: "I did learn that GT Prologue is the cryptonym for the SCD officer I provided you information about earlier." According to the affidavit, Ames had access to information regarding GT Prologue, and only three days earlier had written a classified CIA memorandum on a related subject.
Ames' transfer out of the S.E. division to the CIA's counternarcotics center, something of an agency backwater, took place in 1991. From then on, the affidavit indicates, the couple's every move was closely scrutinized. Investigators retrieved papers and typewriter or printer ribbons from the Ameses' trash, bugged their phone and house, maintained visual surveillance and tapped into Ames' personal computer. In this way, according to the affidavit, they learned of unreported trips that Ames made to Venezuela and Colombia and of a system for exchanging secret messages with his Russian handlers.