Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh
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Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh is an aerospace engineer who was sentenced in 1985 after being convicted of trying to sell stealth bomber secrets to the Soviet Union.
Cavanaugh was arrested at a hotel in Commerce, California, in December 1984, by FBI agents posing as Russian spies. Cavanaugh, who worked at Northrop, was debt-ridden, undergoing a divorce, and was "willing to take 25,000 American dollars in cash for technology that cost us billions to develop". He made it crystal clear to his handlers he wanted tremendous payments every time they had meetings.
The cloaking technology was later used in both the bomber and fighter versions of the stealth aircraft. The fighter plane saw action several years later during the first Gulf War.
For his attempted espionage, Cavanaugh was sentenced to life imprisonment. While imprisoned he applied for and was granted parole as his conviction occurred before 1987, when parole was abolished for federal cases. In 2001, Thomas Cavanaugh was released from prison.
Cavanaugh's case has often been a study in security. While the false flag operation was occurring, the FBI agents impersonating Soviet intelligence officers had to undergo great lengths because of tight security practices at Northrop Grumman, so as not to alert Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh claimed he could not make copies of classified documents as the copiers at his work were regulated by counters, which meant the "Russians" needed to bring a portable photocopier to their meeting point. When asked to smuggle papers away from work, Cavanaugh expressed concern about that as security guards would check workers, but he felt more confident in that as those checks were overt and infrequent. Another security practice undertaken was inspection of the safes of workers to insure that all classified material was safeguarded and that they were in possession of only what they were authorized to work on. Cavanaugh was subject to one of these random checks on the same day he was scheduled to meet with his supposed Soviet handlers. The inspector later recalled that Cavanaugh seemed visibily nervous, but could not recall why as had an A-1 inspection and all was in proper order. The underlying lesson was that although Northrop's security was above average, it was not absolute. The FBI was able to stop Cavanaugh before he got to the Soviets, but a general sense of overconfidence in the Northrop administration and "no way it can happen here" attitude was a vulnerability Cavanaugh took advantage of.
Cavanaugh's motivation to commit espionage fit into the common causes. Greed and job dissatisfaction were the main factors. In a largely snap decision, Cavanaugh chose to sell secrets in an effort to retire his debts and to make big bucks at the same time. In a profile of the case, Cavanaugh "was no model citizen, but his behavior was also not so outlandish that it raised red flags with security."
