William Kampiles

Kampiles flew to Greece, and sold the manual to the Soviet embassy in Athens in return for $3,000.[3] When Kampiles returned home, to hide where the money came from, he took his mother Nikoletta and his brother Mychael to the neighborhood bank where the three opened a new savings account, depositing the money. Kampiles told his mother he had received the money in Greece as a gift for offering sex. Afterwards, Kampiles contacted a Greek American CIA agent about his contact with a Russian agent. The Greek American asked him to send a letter writing his version of the encounter on paper and mail it to him. Bill felt his version would get him reinstated to the CIA after he had already lost his clerk job there. Instead, the case was passed off to another Greek American, experienced senior research analyst Vivian E. Psachos, who realized the story Kampiles gave was not true. He was asked to fly to Washington where inside a hotel room with a double mirror he confessed the truth. He was told his version was not possible, and they coerced him by informing him he had made his mother and brother accomplices by adding their names to the savings account.[4] He was charged with espionage by the US Government, put on trial in 1978, and convicted.[3] He was arrested on August 17, in Hammond Indiana,[5] a day before he could leave the country with his mother. He had told friends he had plans to buy a restaurant/bar in Athens and had purchased tickets for himself and his mother.

At the trial, his defense team unsuccessfully argued that the manual was not a highly guarded secret, and that Kampiles had always intended the transaction to establish his value as a double agent for the CIA.[1] He was originally sentenced on November 17, 1978, to 40 years imprisonment; however, his prison sentence was later reduced to 19 years, and he was released on 16 December 1996, after serving 18 years as Federal Prison inmate "04028-164".[6][7]