CBS to Make
TV Project Based on Accused Russian Spy
Updated 9:55 PM ET March
13, 2001
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -
Russian spy hidden deep in the ranks of
the FBI? Need a writer to tell that tale? Call for Norman Mailer.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who has written about some of the
country's more interesting criminals and crimes, will work with his
longtime collaborator Lawrence Schiller on a CBS television project
about Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent accused of being a Russian spy, the
network said on Tuesday.
Mailer won a Pulitzer Prize for "The Executioner's Song," an account
of the life and execution of Gary Gilmore, a book for which Schiller did
the reporting. The two also collaborated on the television dramatization
of Schiller's book, "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town," about the unsolved
murder of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey.
Hanssen, an FBI agent for 25 years, was arrested last month on
suspicion of spying for the Russians for years. The CBS project will
focus on the double life that Hanssen led before his eventual discovery
and capture.
"To his neighbors, Robert Hanssen was a regular husband and father,"
CBS, a unit of Viacom Inc., said in a statement. "To his fellow FBI
agents, he was an ethical, moral man. But to the Russians, he was 'B.'
This is the story of how a trusted man allegedly betrayed everyone who
ever knew him -- the portrait of a man accused of spying for the
Russians."
No air date has been set for the project.
