[1][2] Hall was convicted of espionage on July 20, 1989; he was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment, fined $50,000, ordered to forfeit all proceeds from his activities, and given a dishonorable discharge.
Hall was assigned to the NSA Field Station Berlin Teufelsberg, one of the premier listening posts of the Cold War, between 1982–85, and he spied for both East Germany and the Soviet Union.
Between 1983–88, he betrayed hundreds of military secrets, which includes Project Trojan, a worldwide electronic network with the ability to pinpoint armored vehicles, missiles, and aircraft by recording their signal emissions during wartime [3] and the complete National SIGINT Requirements List (NSRL), a 4258-page document about NSA activities, government requirements and SIGINT capabilities by country.
[4] Using his illegal income, Hall paid cash for a brand-new Volvo and a new truck, made a large down payment on a home, and took flying lessons.
Hall also met his future wife, who worked at a local restaurant in Bischofsgrün, a popular tourist town where the majority of the Detachment soldiers lived.
Rejected by the German Staatsschutz and the CIA, Army Foreign Counterintelligence (FCA) eventually sponsored him because he had a big tip about James Hall.
[7] Hall confessed to giving his handlers information on the US Military Liaison Mission (USMLM)'s tank photography on New Year's Eve in 1984.
[citation needed] In a jailhouse interview, the first ever, with author Kristie Macrakis, he designated himself "a treasonous bastard, not a Cold War spy.
[4] Other agents in place in the US government or military who worked as a mole for either the KGB or the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) include: