Sandra Grimes, Who Helped Unmask a C.I.A. Traitor, Dies at 79

She became suspicious when she discovered large deposits in the bank account of Aldrich Ames, whose betrayal cost the lives of at least eight double agents.


Sandra Grimes in 2013. She had planned to retire from the C.I.A. in 1991, but stayed on to help track down a traitor. Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post, via Getty Images

By Trip Gabriel
Aug. 3, 2025

Unmasking the deadliest traitor in Central Intelligence Agency history was not a matter of decrypting codes, staking out dead drop sites or any other piece of spy craft out of a John le Carré novel. … Aldrich H. Ames, the C.I.A. mole whose betrayal led to the execution of at least eight Russian double agents who spied for the U.S., a devastating setback for American intelligence, was discovered from bookkeeping entries.

He was identified by a counterintelligence analyst, Sandra Grimes, who was once in charge of C.I.A. secretaries and clerks. In 1992, merging data from two spreadsheets, Ms. Grimes noticed that Mr. Ames made bank deposits of up to $9,000 on three occasions just after lunches with a Soviet Embassy official in Washington. … “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell what is going on here,” she exclaimed to her colleagues. “Rick is a goddamn Russian spy.”

Mr. Ames was arrested in 1994, pleaded guilty to selling the C.I.A.’s family jewels for millions of dollars from Moscow and is serving a life term in prison.


Aldrich Ames, the deadliest traitor in Central Intelligence Agency history, was led away in 1994 after being arraigned on charges of spying for the former Soviet Union. Ms. Grimes was part of the team that unmasked him. Luke Frazza/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ms. Grimes, who had been planning to retire in 1991 when she was asked to stay for one more assignment — helping to solve the nearly forgotten puzzle of why the agency’s Soviet informants suddenly went silent six years earlier — died at her home in Great Falls, Va., on July 25, at 79.

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Ms. Grimes in 2015 in a family photo. via Grimes family

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Trip Gabriel is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.