One of the first CIA officers to be charged with espionage against the USA. Barnett worked in the Far East during 1958-63 and was involved in covert actions in Korea.
There followed two years at the Langley headquarters and a posting to Indonesia. He resigned in 1970, but after a business failure in 1976 offered his services to the Soviet KGB. He was asked by his Soviet controllers to rejoin the CIA, but was unable to do so. However, Barnett gave the KGB the names of some thirty undercover CIA agents, enough information to identify a number of CIA collaborators in foreign countries and details of highly secret CIA operations to obtain information on modern Soviet missile systems.
In 1979, the CIA offered to rehire him as a contract employee, urged on by his KGB controller, he accepted. The CIA had probably been warned of his treachery and decided to 'bring him in' so that he could incriminate himself fully. The FBI detected his 'communications' with his KGB controller Vladimir Popov and was arrested. Indicted in October 1980 he was convicted of spying for the KGB and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment on January the 8th 1981. Whether he was detected by accident, good counter-intelligence or 'blown' to protect another more important Soviet source remains open to question.
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