RON OLIVE
Ronald J. Olive spent thirty years in law enforcement, including twenty-two with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), mostly in foreign counterintelligence. As a special agent, he worked criminal and CI investigations, counterespionage special operations and terrorist issues overseas and in the United States and held senior management positions in the Washington, D.C. As a senior manager he presented vital counterintelligence briefings to the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence (HPSCI) and the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence (SSCI). While assigned as the assistant special agent in charge of foreign counterintelligence for the NCIS Washington Field Office, he personally led the initial whirlwind espionage investigation and garnered the confession of Israeli spy, Jonathan Jay Pollard.
Early in his career during the cold war he developed, planned and initiated his first counterespionage double agent operation. This operation terminated with the arrest and conviction of an East German spy. This was the first foreign intelligence officer in U.S. history to be convicted of spying against the United States without setting foot on U.S. soil until his arrest. The conviction culminated in the largest spy swap in the history of the United States.
While assigned to Naples, Italy he initiated another counterespionage operation targeting the KGB in Rome, Italy. This operation ultimately led to the defection of the highest-ranking KGB officer ever to defect to the United States. The operation was declassified sixteen years later and was a feature article in the November 2000 issue of Gentleman’s Quarterly (GQ) magazine. Also while assigned to Italy, he was one of the few American special agents ever allowed to interview two incarcerated members of the Red Brigade and Prima Linea terrorist organizations. This resulted in information which averted a planned assassination of the US Commander-in-Chief of Southern Allied Forces Europe. For these and many more accomplishments, Mr. Olive became the first recipient of the NCIS “Counterintelligence Career Achievement Award.”
Mr. Olive is the author of “Capturing Jonathan Pollard.” His presentation of the Pollard story at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. October 2006 was taped and aired on C-SPAN2 Book TV and on Israeli TV Channel 10-prime time. He authored an article in “Eye Spy” magazine in November 2006, wrote an OP-ED in the Jerusalem Post and has appeared nationally on several TV and radio broadcasts.
Today he runs his own Consulting and Confidential Investigations Company near Phoenix, Arizona.
He is a speaker for government and private organizations; he works as a part time instructor for the Department of Energy Counterintelligence Training Academy, and works with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, “Team Adam-Missing Child Rapid Response System.” Mr. Olive holds a Masters Degree in Administration of Justice.