Harold James Nicholson

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 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. When Nicholson graduated OSU in 1973, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. Cooper, who was younger, abandoned a possible return to school, in order to marry Nicholson.

Nicholson was comfortable with Army life and performed well, as a captain and company commander in a U.S. Army intelligence unit. He served in the "Screaming Eagles", the Army's 101st Airborne Division. His training in cryptography enabled him to acquire a staff position in Army intelligence.

His wife was unhappy with military life, and moving from post to post. After the birth of their first child, in 1978, Nicholson quit the Army and moved his family to Kansas City, Kansas, to work for Hallmark Cards. A year later, Nicholson was bored with this unchallenging new career.

Nicholson joined the CIA in October 1980, and entered a top-secret training program at Camp Peary, Virginia, and soon began to accept overseas postings and espionage assignments.

In his career with the CIA, Nicholson was assigned duties throughout the world. He worked for the CIA as an operations officer specializing in intelligence operations against foreign intelligence services, including the intelligence services of the USSR and later, the Russian Federation. From 1982 to 1985, he worked for the CIA in Manila, where he had direct contacts with targeted Soviet officials; from 1985 to 1987 he worked for the CIA in Bangkok, from 1987 to 1989 in Tokyo.