Ronald Pelton Ronald William Pelton ( born November 18 , 1941 ) was an National Security Agency ( NSA ) intelligence analyst who was convicted in 1986 of spying for and selling secrets to the Soviet Union . He reportedly has a photographic memory as he passed no documents to the Soviets . One operation he compromised was Operation Ivy Bells . Prior to his employment by the NSA , Pelton served in the United States Air Force . He was taught the Russian language by the Air Force and served for a time in the early 1960s in Peshawar , Pakistan as a voice intercept processing specialist . After that 15 - month tour , he was transferred to National Security Agency , where he continued as a civilian employee upon discharge . Pelton had a serious interest in gambling , often playing cards in the day room for 72 hours at a time while stationed in Peshawar as part of Able Flight . Pelton declared personal bankruptcy and resigned from his $ 24 , 500 - a - year job with the NSA A Group in 1979 . From 1980 to 1984 he held a different series of jobs , none within the intelligence community . In 1984 , Pelton had faced financial difficulties as a result of increasing homeowners ' taxes and a mounting series of necessary repairs on his private residence . Pelton contacted the Soviet Embassy in Washington , D . C . on January 14 , 1980 and arranged for a meeting at the embassy . The FBI had surveillance on the embassy and had tapped the phone . Therefore it anticipated the arrival of the caller but was unable to observe him in time to determine his identity . He was debriefed by KGB officer Vitaly Yurchenko and disclosed Operation Ivy Bells , an NSA and United States Navy program to surreptitiously wiretap undersea cable s to monitor Soviet military communications and track Soviet submarines . On trips to Vienna in 1980 and 1983 , Pelton stayed at the residence of the Soviet Ambassador to Austria and underwent debriefing sessions that sometimes lasted eight hours a day with KGB officer Anatoly Slavnov . Even though Pelton had left the NSA , he may have continued to be valuable to the Soviets as an intelligence consultant , helping them interpret data picked up from other sources . Pelton had no classified documents to offer but relied on his memory to provide information . He was paid about $ 37 , 000 by the Soviets . In 1985 , Vitaly Yurchenko defected to the United States and , among other things , recalled that he had met with a former NSA analyst in 1980 and described him as red - haired . The FBI scoured through NSA personnel files until it had a pool of red - haired male analysts . They were thus able to identify Pelton ' s voice and began surveillance on him in October 1985 , but despite bugging his car and his home , they were unable to turn up any incriminating evidence against Pelton . Therefore , the FBI decided to confront Pelton directly , playing the tape of his conversation with the Soviet embassy . Eventually Pelton revealed that he had provided answers to questions from the Soviets in return for $ 35 , 000 . Pelton was tried and convicted of espionage in 1986 and sentenced to three concurrent life sentences . Pelton is currently Federal Prison Inmate 22914 - 037 . , he is housed at United States Penitentiary , Allenwood in Pennsylvania , he is scheduled for release in November 2015 .