Tonight (Wed., 27 March 2002), CBS 60 Minutes II includes an interview with convicted spy George Trofimoff, who retired as a reserve colonel and is the highest ranking U.S. Army officer ever to be convicted of espionage. (Benedict Arnold was a general officer when he began spying for Britain, but to the best of my knowledge was never convicted of espionage.) Trofimoff was for years the head of a joint interrogation center near Nuernberg (Nuremberg), Germany, where refugees from Eastern Europe and other places where debriefed for intelligence information.

It is not clear whether Trofimoff, who still maintains that he is innocent, was ever polygraphed during the time that he spied for the Soviet Union and Russia. In any event, it is interesting that there has been no public debate over why Trofimoff was never polygraphed. His career as a spy is alleged to have spanned some 25 years until his retirement in 1994.

For further reading on the Trofimoff case, see the Associated Press article "Convicted spy maintains innocence in 60 Minutes interview."