Harold James Nicholson

American spy incarcerated in a US federal prison
the British diplomat, author, and politician

Harold James Nicholson (born November 17, 1950) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who was twice convicted of spying for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Nicholson's recruitment to the SVR appears to have occurred in the wake of a much publicized arrest of the senior CIA officer and Moscow mole Aldrich Ames in February 1994 which, in the words of CIA veteran and author Tennent Bagley, had "exposed extraordinary slackness of CIA security procedures."

Harold James "Jim" Nicholson was born on November 17, 1950, in Woodburn, Oregon. The son of a career Air Force officer, Nicholson found it difficult to make friends, due to his innate shyness and the constant relocation of his father's change in duty station. He attended Desert High School at Edwards Air Force Base in California, from grades nine through eleven. His family moved again, and he attended grade twelve at Novato High School in Marin County, California, graduating in 1969. That was the same year the high school had been known for a massive sit in protest against the Vietnam War, but Nicholson refused to participate, partly because few friends had invited him to participate to begin with but also out of respect for his father. While attending Oregon State University, he met fellow student Laura Sue Cooper (born April 1, 1955) in a fencing class. While they both were shy people who formed an attachment, they had different outlooks on life. She later admitted she was a half hippie who had some countercultural leanings and concerns against US involvement overseas, whereas he was taking Reserve Officers Training Corps classes in an attempt to go into his father's line of work. The CIA was aware that such personal problems were typical, given that senior CIA officers often put careers first and family second. Divorces were common amongst officers in their mid forties. Because of his troubled personal life, officials feared he might be a candidate for recruitment by foreign intelligence agencies. During two years of great personal distress, from 1992 to 1994, Nicholson was the Deputy Chief of Station/Operations Officer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The post may have appeared as a sort of promotion, as this was a larger station than Bucharest, and a position where he met with and targeted recruitment of Russian intelligence officers. As his wife was no longer present, any personal turmoil was less apparent to his superiors, and he was free to continue his relationship with a Thai girlfriend, whom he wished to marry. It was discovered that the identities of trainees of the classes of 1994, 1995 and 1996 had been sold to the Russians, and many of these trainees were his own students. He did not get a life without parole or death sentence as prosecutors said he had cooperated fully with them after his arrest. In court, Nicholson stated he was inspired to commit espionage by looking at the case of Aldrich Ames, rather than being deterred by it. Nicholson noted Ames' professional sloppiness and that the investigation, while it ultimately caught him, had been laggard. Such a combination inspired Nicholson to believe his tradecraft was superior to Ames' and that he could elude detection.

At the end of 2008, Nicholson's youngest son Nathaniel was arrested; prosecutors said Jim Nicholson had used his son to collect more than $47,000 from Russian officials in Mexico, Peru, and Cyprus for past spy work: between December 2006 and December 2008 Nathaniel had met with representatives of the Russian Federation six times, including twice at a consulate in San Francisco. On January 18, 2011, Nicholson was sentenced to eight more years in prison, having pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to commit money laundering; five other charges had been dropped as part of the plea deal. Nathaniel Nicholson had been sentenced in December 2010 to five years on probation after making a deal with prosecutors to help build the case against his father.