Monday, January 12, 2026

It's Monday, January 12, 2026. I'm Albert Mulder, and this is The Briefing, a daily

analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. The world of spies is one that by

definition is filled with intrigue. It is also a world that many people find very interesting.

One of the fastest-selling genres of literature is the spy or espionage novel. And interestingly,

novels by the likes of such figures as John the Coray are actually being republished and even

new versions of older movies are coming out. And that's because espionage or spycraft reveals

some of the deepest, as well as darkest, moral and worldview issues imaginable. But it's not a

fictional spy that is our concern today. No, it's an all-too-real, all-too-deadly spy who just

recently died in federal custody. Aldrich Ames, referred to by The New York Times as the most

murderous turncoat in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency, died just days ago in the

federal correction institution in Cumberland, Maryland. He was serving a life in prison term

without the possibility of parole, and that's only because there was not a stronger sentence that

could be delivered against him. Tim Winer of the Times reports, quote, Aldrich Ames, the most

murderous turncoat in the history of the CIA, whose betrayal and working for the Soviet Union

went undetected for almost a decade, died on Monday. He was 84 and had been a federal prisoner

serving life without parole since 1994. And then just get this one paragraph, quote, the son of an

alcoholic CIA officer, Mr. Ames failed upward through the agency ranks for 17 years until he attained

a headquarters post of extraordinary sensitivity. He became the head of counterintelligence branch

of the CIA's division devoted to the Soviet Union. He took that role in September of 1983.

As the Times says, quote, he had access to some of the nation's deepest secrets, in particular,

its clandestine liaisons with the Soviets who worked in secret with American intelligence.

Well, this became one of the deadliest compromises of American spy craft. Now remember,

the big issue is that Aldrich Ames had become head of the counterintelligence branch of the CIA's

Soviet division. In other words, this very high CIA official who was charged with protecting

the spies was actually betraying his nation and betraying those espionage agents, and they often

paid with their death. He was paid with very real money, multiple millions of dollars, and here's

some of the strange detail. You would think that the CIA would have been on top of the fact that

this guy had really not been all that effective for years. His father had been an early CIA agent

who had actually kind of ended his career with an alcohol problem. Aldrich Ames began as a

teenager in a summer jobs project at the CIA, and later he decided he would join the CIA,

and he did so. He doesn't seem to have had a great deal of passion, and he had a record that

was described by many as mediocre, in some cases worse. He had some higher evaluations and other

posts, but eventually he decided to go in the area of Russian espionage. He was given this very

high position, and here's the thing. The CIA seems not to have noticed number one that much of

the information had been compromised, and number two, the here was a man who made the equivalent of

$60,000 a year, and yet was living a lavish lifestyle. For example, he began driving a Jaguar

XJ6 sedan. That is not the kind of car that someone on that kind of salary can pay for. He began

living in a house that even back then was evaluated at more than $500,000, more than a half million

dollars in today's money. That's a vastly expensive house. A CIA agent isn't making that kind of money.

You would think that the CIA would have been directly suspicious of someone in such an important

position when it came to espionage in the Soviet Union who apparently all of a sudden had a lot of

money. He divorced his first wife. He later married a woman who had been from Colombian

involved in some way in Colombian intelligence. She, at least according to some accounts, did not know

of her husband's espionage in the beginning, but she did come to know of it, and she understood

that's where the money was coming from, and she also enjoyed spending the money. As I say, life

and death was very much hanging in the balance. It is known that at least about 10 major figures who

were working for the United States ended up executed in the Soviet Union. This has gone down as one

of the most scandalous espionage developments in the entire history of American spycraft.

And it's made all the darker by the fact that all their James, at no point, expressed any kind

of remorse. As a matter of fact, he seemed to believe that there was no moral issue, no moral

imperative that bound him into any system of honor. It turns out that even early on he had basically

decided he was in it for himself rather than for his country. He also understood the stakes.

In comments made after his arrest, he made very clear he knew that one of the reasons he gave

those names in order that those figures in the Soviet Union would be executed before they had

the opportunity to expose him. Furthermore, when the CIA began to be suspicious and it became very

clear there was some major leaking taking place on the American side, they actually turned to another

suspect and believed that he was a part of this that turned out he was also a spy on behalf of

the Soviet Union, but one with less impact. And it turns out that eventually the CIA determined

that some of the information that was clearly being revealed could not have been handled by the

other person. So it was indeed Aldrich Ames who ended up very much as the lead suspect. He turned

out also to undoubtedly have been guilty. Long before he was entrusted with such a top position there

in terms of espionage connected to the Soviet Union, Aldrich Ames was already fumbling things.

At one point for example, he left a briefcase with highly sensitive documents on a train.

This would have exposed Soviet diplomats working for the CIA nonetheless, even with this kind of

error and repeated concerns, he was promoted. He was given more and more responsibility.

As the times hit quote, he earned a billet on the home front by learning Russian and joining the

CIA's Soviet division. Worse than this, it was even understood that he like his father had a

serious problem with alcohol. This is one of the issues that should compromise anyone in this kind

of intelligence position, but in his case, he actually took on greater and greater responsibility.

One of the most amazing aspects of the Ames case is that he initiated the contact with the

Soviet system. He went and addressed himself to the Soviet embassy and right there made the

offer to exchange intelligence for money. As the Washington Post tells his quote, while in

Washington in April 1985, he walked into the Soviet embassy and offered up the names of two

CIA recruited agents for which he was later given $50,000. Some months after that he followed

up with the names of all the Soviet and Warsaw packed agents. He knew the CIA and FBI had recruited

without immediately asking for money. The next line, the Soviets intrigued, told him that he would

eventually receive up to $2 million. By some accounts, he received more than twice that much money.

At the worldview level, this case raises some really big questions. One of the questions is,

is this entire arena of human activity? Is it legitimate? Is it from a Christian perspective

legitimate? After all, we're talking about intrigue. We're talking about what some are referred to,

including Winston Churchill's, a bodyguard of lies. We are talking about a very deep and dark

business, but it's also true that in a very dangerous age and in a very dangerous world,

a society, even a free society like the United States of America, can only exist by having

some means of adequate espionage against those who are our very real enemies. This was particularly

true during the Cold War, and it's become very, very clear subsequently. By the way, it also had

become clear during World War II, especially in terms of the activities of Nazi Germany,

but at that point, British intelligence was far ahead of the Americans in terms of expertise.

The Americans had to catch up, which they did largely during the period of the Cold War,

after World War II and beyond. But it's also clear that there are some very murky moral issues.

There are some complexities. For one thing, what kind of person is drawn into this? We've had

conversations with some who clearly have been on the side of righteousness and honor and have

acted on behalf of American interests and freedom and liberty and constitutional self-government,

and they have also understood that in the clash of worldviews, there is a difference between

light and darkness. Even in a fallen world, there is a difference between those governments that

are upholding human dignity and those which are seeking to subvert or destroy it. There is a

difference between, for example, the USSR and the USA and its allies. There's no apology for

understanding that difference, as a matter of fact, that is a necessary act of moral responsibility.

But it is worth noting that some of the people drawn into this kind of business

are not drawn evidently for the loftiest of motivations. Furthermore, there is an opportunity

presented in so much of this on both sides of the equation or multiple sides of the equation,

in which you can never know exactly what the loyalties of some people would be.

Now, this is one of the examples why in the Cold War, as in the struggle of the West against

Nazi Germany, one of the things that came up is that you had agents and then you also had

double agents. And then you had triple agents. And in some cases, you had quadruple agents.

At some points, even now, it is impossible to know eventually which side some people involved in

espionage were working for. It's hard to know exactly where their loyalties were. And that's one of

the reasons why we are talking about a very difficult, morally complex and sometimes almost impossible

to fully understand human enterprise. And when it comes to something like espionage in a fallen

world, it becomes very necessary. But in a fallen world, it becomes very, very suspect. Even

the closer you look on the inside. Now, let me remind you that the immediate effect of the espionage

undertaken by Alder James was the death of some of the people who had been working on behalf of

the United States. Some of them were executed. Some of them were also tortured as well as imprisoned.

And furthermore, we really don't even today have an adequate understanding of the breadth and

depth of the criminality and the damage done by Alder James. But it's also clear that he never

really considered himself to be a moral actor. And if anything, that makes the entire thing far

more troubling from a Christian worldview. In his own words, at one point, Alder James said

after his conviction, quote, there was this strange transfer of loyalties. It wasn't to the Soviet

system, he said, which I believe was a beastly and human nasty regime. Instead he went on to say

that he'd been disillusioned with the United States and with US intelligence. And in the post words,

quote, had shifted his loyalty to a way of life and a world he considered above the petty

concerns of governments. End quote, that is a horribly confused and corrupted statement,

just in moral terms. But frankly, even in just bare psychological terms, it really doesn't make

sense. Unless this was a man who had, in some sense, basically subverted his own moral conscience

for so long it really didn't function. This reminds me of the Apostle Paul's language in Romans

chapter one where he speaks of God giving people over to their sin. In one sense, it seems that

graphic testimony of that pattern of God giving them over shows up in the tragic case of Alder James.

He died in federal custody and the United States government dealt with his death simply by

acknowledging that it happened. That's one of the ways the US government deals with persons

who were involved in such espionage, such federal criminals, also some who were involved in domestic

crimes as well. They are sentenced to effectively life in prison without the opportunity of parole.

They really have no contact with the outside world and their death simply comes as a

simple matter of announcement. There's another footnote to this that is of interest and that is

that many people wondered why someone like Alder James hadn't been caught with a lie detector test.

And at one point intervening in another case simply making a comment, Alder James mentioned that

he had been able to fool the entire polygraph system, the lie detector system. And it is because

he just learned how to master his emotions, even his physiological condition in such a way that

he would gain the confidence of the person doing the interview in such a way that they did not

recognize the very clear fact that he was lying and that his lying was devastating and came with

deadly effect. In moral and in worldview terms, the case of Alder James is one of the biggest

cases of recent American history. It raises massive issues and the occasion of his death now

acknowledged by the US prison system is worthy of our consideration. Next speaking of moral issues,

we discussed the issue of surrogate motherhood as one of the great moral crises of the age.

It's really interesting that in recent days the Wall Street Journal had a major front page article

of the headline surrogate mothers can face big debts as industry booms. Catherine Longs,

the reporter in the story, and it really comes from an unexpected concern and it's very revealing

in moral terms. The concern is this, many of the women who are signing up as surrogates, that is,

they are signing up for pay to carry a pregnancy on behalf of others. The big complexities with that

will discuss in just a moment. But the source of this particular interest is the fact that many of

them are facing massive medical bills that come in the course and are related to the fact that

they've been serving as surrogates and they're stuck with them. And so that's one of the interests

even of the national media. In this case, the Wall Street Journal is interested in this, not so much

for the big moral issues, but for the fact that these women are often finding themselves now

with medical bills and no one's giving them the money to pay for it. So, for example, the article

begins this way. Quote, Nia Trent Wilson owes $182,000 plus dollars in medical bills for a baby that

wasn't hers. Let me just stop here for a moment and say this is something unprecedented in human

history. This is something that could not have been discussed. This sentence, this lead in this

news article would have made no sense whatsoever, just a matter of a couple of generations ago.

It is only with the development of IVF and vitro fertilization, modern reproductive assistance,

these technologies. It's only with the rise of the ability to insert an embryo into a woman

to carry that baby to term as a quote surrogate mother. It's only with the development of this,

that a story like this is even possible. The article continues, quote, in late 2021, she

agreed to act as a surrogate through an agency, now listen carefully, that paired her with a gay

couple from Washington, DC. Okay, so again, this is something that a lot of people don't want to

talk about. It's connected to the very essence of an vitro fertilization IVF technology. It's tied

to the very existence of this surrogacy. The fact is that you have people who will say, well, these

are heterosexual married couples using their own cells to create these embryos and they're being

implanted in surrogates and carried to birth simply because these are couples that want to have

babies and otherwise would be unable to have them. But the closer you look at this industry,

it actually much like IVF itself opens what can only be described as an absolute Pandora's box

of moral complexity. This article points out that this is a woman who had signed up as a surrogate

mother, remember for a gay couple from Washington, DC. Listen to this quote, the terms were typical,

$70,000 plus fees in the event of a potential health complication and a promise that the intended

parents would cover medical costs. Here's something else. Trent Wilson, that is the woman,

Nia Trent Wilson, is a hyphenated last name, quote, had been a surrogate twice before and thought

she knew what to expect. But this time, the pregnancy went badly sideways, serious medical

complications, forced doctors to remove her uterus and fallopian tubes. She went home with a bill,

the parents put that in quotation marks in my mind went home with the baby. So the gay couple

went home with the baby. She went home with huge medical bills and medical complications and

clearly she will not be able to serve as a surrogate in the future. The interest of the Wall Street

Journal in this is basically the financial issue that's revealed and the fact that there's this

entire industry in IVF and the fact that there are some women who had signed up to be surrogates,

who find themselves effectively holding the bill and some of these bills are massive. Again,

in this case, this one woman, $186,000 and the baby was not hers. And thus, she basically

in IVF, it writes to the baby in the contract to serve as a surrogate. And so the baby was taken

away from her. That just should point out to Christians, something that is basic in terms of

the problem. If indeed, the woman who has given birth to this baby is not the mother of the child,

and by the way, this means in every way, no pun intended, conceivable, then we are looking at

an absolutely massive problem. And it also points to moral risk and the kind of moral opportunity

that's revealed here. Again, to be clear, before the IVF technology and the rise of contracted

surrogacy in terms of women carrying these babies, this would have been impossible. It would have

been something like science fiction. It wouldn't have made any sense whatsoever. But now it makes

so much sense. And it is such an issue that it made the front page of the Wall Street Journal,

one of the world's most influential newspapers. In rather dispassionate terms, the journal says this,

quote, tens of thousands of people, including infertile and same-sex couples, have had babies

through the advances of in vitro fertilization and the willingness of surrogates to carry those

children. Here's the next paragraph, and I quote, surrogacy in the U.S. has surged into a

multi-billion dollar industry in which the women who bear the children have few financial or

other protections and even are sometimes surprised by strangers wielding legal documents taking the

babies away after birth. End quote. One of the things that comes up in this and also in recent

coverage of some Asian oligarchs who've been having babies this way, contracting for surrogates and

IVF and all the rest. One of the things that has come up is that these are often babies that are

picked up at a medical center nearly immediately after birth and they're not even taken by any source

that is even involved in the adoption of the baby. They're simply taken by agents on behalf of

such persons. This is turning babies into mere commodities. It's as if you're talking about

some kind of toy or some kind of technology or some kind of consumer good. For Christians,

this should be a big alarm telling us that we face a major issue here. Now we know that. We should

know that because of the alienation of the pregnancy from the context of sex and from the embodiment

that was God's plan for the beginning. That embodiment in the context of a man and a woman in the

covenant of holy marriage. And that's a situation in which there's no embarrassment for having a baby.

And frankly, in most cases, there's no need for a lot of technology. But when you add the complexity

which isn't just of some problem with fertility, that it's ignored was in the article is a part

of this market. But that's not the biggest part. And that became exposed interestingly enough

when Russia invaded Ukraine. Because one of the things that was exposed when Russia invaded Ukraine

is how many Ukrainian women were serving as surrogate mothers on behalf of American couples

and the majority of them were homosexual couples. They were gay male couples. Now there's

another aspect to this. That was largely financial because those women could be contracted for less

money than women in the United States. Some of the surrogate mothers here in the United States.

But one of the other issues that was revealed is that the United States is as we've often

remarked and as foreign observers have affirmed the wild wild west of modern reproductive technologies.

Now again, the Wall Street Journal is about business. So let's look at how the business is

reported here in their article. The US is a leader in the global surrogacy industry in 2023.

The most recent year data is available. Nearly 11,000 surrogates underwent an embryo transfer,

a figure that has more than doubled since 2014. According to data,

that represents around 95% of IVF procedures collected by an industry group. End quote.

Now I'm not going to even criticize that reporting. I'm simply going to point out

it's presented as if this is just any other business, any other industry. Christians have to hear

this and understand this isn't just any other business. This isn't just any other industry. We're

talking about the reproduction here of human beings. We're talking about what in Marxist terms,

but also in terms of classical capitalist economics, is referred to as commodification.

Turning something into a commodity. A commodity is something of economic value that can be traded,

bought or sold, but it isn't necessarily something that should be up for sale.

Commodification in this sense is something that can be positive. You can come up with a service

that you can sell. This is a whole new, say, economic opportunity, but it can often be the opposite.

It can be something that is not only morally dubious, but is morally evil. After all,

there is a trade in hired killers that that has economic consequence. It could be a contract,

just almost like any other contract, but that doesn't make it right, as a matter of fact,

murder is inherently evil, period. But going back to the surrogacy business, and that's exactly

what it has become, the Wall Street Journal ominously reports that it has become such a significant

arena of economic activity that private equity companies are moving in to make investments in

surrogacy services in the wild, wild west that is reproductive technology in the United States of

America. We should note that the US is known for many things around the world, but increasingly,

it is known for having almost no controls over these assisted reproductive technologies.

And there's a reason for it. The reason for it, in terms of the Wall Street Journal's interest,

is commercial and financial. It's big business. But for Christians, and for those who are also

pushing the agenda from the opposite direction, we understand that the biggest issue here is not

money, it's morality. And furthermore, we have to recognize that that morality is inherent in

the equation. You're talking about human beings. You're talking about what it means to be human.

You're talking about the commodification of human beings, human beings, human babies turned into

products effectively for design, for engineering, for special selection, and for birth. Not only

that, but you understand that that's the redefinition of human dignity taking place right before

our eyes. I think we should also note, once again, that this is treated as largely an economic

issue with an industry very much in view. For Christians, we have to look at this and see

nothing less than a moral disaster. But we as Christians also need to recognize that it's nothing

less than a moral disaster that so many Christians, so many Christian churches, so many denominations,

so many Christian couples seem to miss the moral issues at stake here. They tend to see this as

some kind of good simply because it leads to a baby. But here's where Christians have to understand

that even going back before the technology and looking at the moral context of a sex act,

it has never been true that the existence of a baby itself justifies the sex act.

That's never been true, nor does the existence of a baby simply justify the technology. The

baby as a human being made in the image of God is an unalloyed good. The baby is not the problem.

It is the process, it is the surrogacy, it is the relationship, it is the fact that this is

taking place in so many cases, not only outside of marriage, but outside of an entire heterosexual

formula. We are doing this. The people around us are doing this now. It has become even big

business and a venture capital opportunity. The Wall Street Journal seems to be quite interested

in how some women are being used and abused in this, and that's a very legitimate concern.

But it's only the start of very legitimate concerns. When it comes to the most basic concerns,

those who have the opportunity to make big money are going to extend big effort in avoiding those

questions at all costs. That's something we as Christians simply can't do. Before signing off

today, I want to remind you that back in 2021, I had a lengthy thinking and public conversation with

James Olson, former CIA head of counterintelligence, a deeply thoughtful man, and it was a deeply

thoughtful conversation. I think you will find it fascinating, raising many of these issues from someone

who, to say the very least, was an insider among insiders. Thanks for listening to the briefing.

For more information, go to my website at Albertmolar.com. You can follow me on

xr twitter by going to x.com forward slash Albertmolar for information on the Southern Baptist

Theological Seminary. Go to spts.edu for information on Boyce College. Just go to BoyceCollis.com.

I'm speaking to you from Davenport, Florida, and I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.