A reflection on accountability, deterrence, and the erosion of standards in public service. In the summer of 1779, George Washington wrote to Maj. Gen. Robert Howe about how hard it was to find trustworthy men near enemy lines. Few people, he warned, had the virtue to withstand “the highest bidder.” A year later, Benedict Arnold proved him right by trying to sell West Point to the British for 20,000 pounds. Washington didn’t launch an internal review. He hanged Arnold’s handler within ten days. The founders knew that a country unwilling to punish treason was simply putting a price tag on its own security. 

For a long time, American courts remembered that lesson. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg went to the electric chair for passing atomic secrets to Moscow. Traitors such as Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen got life without parole, dying behind bars. Even CIA officers caught conspiring with foreign intelligence, such as Jerry Chun Shing Lee, received decades in federal prison.