Foul ames.

LAST WEEK the FBI arrested a veteran CIA officer, Aldrich I Ames, on charges of spying for the Soviet Union. The government alleged that Ames collected over $1.5 million for betraying his country, beginning in 1985. Ominously, his spying did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. For the past several years Ames spied not for the old KGB (motto: the "sword and shield" of the Soviet Communist Party), but for reformist, democratic Russia.

Even when compared to the long dismal record of American Cold War security failures, damage from the Ames case is appalling. Ames was no ordinary CIA employee and this first major espionage case of the post-Cold War period is not a routine spy vs. spy drama. In human terms, the details sicken even the most hardened intelligence officer. It is likely that Ames betrayed as many as ten agents who were working to send back vital information about the Soviet threat during one of the most sensitive periods of the Cold War. All are believed to have been executed.

Ames could not have been positioned to do more damage. As a member of the CIA's Directorate for Operations ("DO" to insiders), he was part of the small, elite element of American intelligence which conducts classical espionage: spying and counterspying with human agents. Unlike satellites and other technical wizardry which provide "the facts," human intelligence is often the key to intentions and meaning.

But Ames was even elite within the DO. He worked the hard target--the Soviet Union. With its thousands of nuclear weapons on hair trigger and a massive secret police and intelligence organ--the KGB--operating around the world, the closed Soviet empire was CIA's highest intelligence priority. Worse yet, Ames had one of the most sensitive jobs in American intelligence, serving for three years as chief of the CIA office charged with protecting U.S. intelligence operations from the KGB. If there is one place the U.S. cannot afford to have a spy, it's in the job that Ames held.

For the KGB, it doesn't get any better than this. Ames could supply the details on every agent, operation, technique, and technical gadget. Most important, he could provide feedback to Moscow on how well the U.S. was doing in finding the Soviet/Russian theft of American secrets--not just in intelligence activities, but in sensitive military technologies, war plans, communications codes, and diplomatic moves. For the KGB, Ames may prove to be the crown jewel in their long streak of Cold War espionage successes, stretching from the "atomic spies" of the 1940s to beyond the demise of the Soviet Union itself.

Over seventy espionage cases were uncovered during the "decade of the spy." Beginning in the mid 1970s, Soviet intelligence successfully penetrated virtually every one of the most secret and closely guarded areas and institutions of our national-security structure: the most sensitive operations of the signal gathering National Security Agency (Pelton); satellite imagery capabilities (Karopiles); antisubmarine technology and the Navy's encrypted communications (Walker); virtually all of NATO's war plans (Hall); and the American Embassy in Moscow (Lonetree).

Nor was Ames the first DO officer to work for the KGB: Edward Howard defected in 1985, having compromised U.S. operations and agents during the early 1980s. Coupled with the Soviet Union's extensive techical-collection apparatus, this massive theft of sensitive information and technology by the KGB substantially expanded Soviet strategic military and economic capabilities, and cost America billions of dollars, prolonging the Cold War, and perhaps threatening American survival if a crisis had led to war.

Because human vices remain as prevalent as ever, it is impossible to prevent some people from becoming spies, even in the most sensitive of positions. But disciplined security practices and aggressive counterintelligence can give early detection of espionage, sharply limiting the damage.

To date, however, the intelligence agencies have steadfastly refused to enact achievable reforms that Congress and successive Administrations have recommended and even directed. Intelligence-community leaders have been unwilling or unable to overcome the bureaucratic "turf' considerations which lie at the heart of this resistance. Counterintelligence and security are often derided as "sick think." And as amazing as it may seem, the CIA and FBI are not well integrated; indeed, cooperation is too often resisted in favor of unilateral action or control. The underlying causes for this systemic security failure are still with us.

The President and the Congress can begin to overcome these problems by directing CIA and FBI to integrate fully their counterintelligence analysis and operations, even creating a joint new organization, if required. Moreover, we must have a thorough review of our Cold War security and counterintelligence performance so that we can learn from our successes and our mistakes. And we should take a sober look at what the Ames case reveals about today's Russia.

Espionage, like other tools of national policy, is not without a moral dimension. The old KGB was like the Gestapo, not the CIA. As the deadliest secret police in history, the KGB (with its military counterpart the GRU) had the world's largest intelligence and subversive apparatus. And when the Soviet Union collapsed, the KGB stayed on. With a name change and cosmetic touch-up, its espionage activities have continued; one-third to one-half of Russian Embassy personnel are intelligence officers.

But the new Russia should have no need for a KGB: its existence undermines democratic reform, drains needed resources, and upsets valued relations with those who want to help Russian reform (our hard-currency aid shouldn't come back as Jaguars for spies). Most importantly America's democratic institutions, free society, and robust media provide more than enough information about our intentions and capabilities.

The Clinton Administration, which seems not to have given much thought to the continuing need for American intelligence or for serious protection of American secrets, would do well to expel all known Russian intelligence officers, as the Reagan Administration did in 1986. By informing Mr. Yeltsin that a Russian intelligence service with the size and purpose of the KGB is simply inconsistent with democratic reform, the President would be helping that reform and protecting American security.

Mr. deGraffenreid was National Security Council director of intelligence programs during the Reagan Administration.