Epstein Secrets

le concern about misleading journalists when it suited his purpose. For example, he told Alan Rusbridger of The Guardian, Brian Williams of NBC News, James Bamford of Wired, Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, Barton Gellman, and Jane Mayer of The New Yorker that the U.S. government intentionally | | Epst_9780

e was | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 187 @ HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019675 9/29/16 5:51PM | | 188 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS the CIA officer Harold Nicholson, in 1996. Before it could expand its espionage capabilities, it needed to build a network of Russian agents in the United States. For this network, i

s, had granted only a handful of face-to-face press interviews. Most of these were with the journalists who had published his story, but one was with James Bamford for his 2014 Wired piece. According to Bamford, it took nearly nine months to arrange the meeting. “I have been try- ing to set up an interview with

s, and cultural exchanges. They therefore tended to recruit their coun- terparts in adversary services. In this regard, the successful entrapment of Harold Nicholson in the 1990s is highly instructive. From his impressive record, he seemed an unlikely candidate for recruitment. He had been a super- patriotic Ameri

6_2p_all_r1.indd 315 @ 9/30/16 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019803 316 | Notes to pages 113-121 109 first live interview in Moscow: Snowden met with James Bamford, the author of the 1982 book The Puzzle Palace, in Moscow in June 2014. Bamford, “Edward Snowden.” CHAPTER 13 The Great Divide 113. “That moral dec

nd in Russian Prison,” New York Times, June 4, 1992. 220 He was found dead: Edward Jay Epstein, “The Spy Wars,” New York Times, Sept. 28, 1980. 222 Harold Nicholson: Elizabeth Farnsworth, “Update on the Case of CIA Agent Harold Nicholson,” PBS (transcript), Nov. 19, 1996. See also “Affidavit in Sup- port of Compl

on this claim in three more interviews arranged by Wizner. These interviews were with three journalists who themselves had opposed NSA surveillance: James Bamford writing for Wired magazine, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian and Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation. He also gave a televised

tablishing spies in CIA, FBI, NSA and other American intelligence agencies. The SVR’s last known (or caught) mole in US Intelligence was CIA officer Harold Nicholson in 1996. Before it could now expand its espionage capabilities. It needed to build a network of Russian sleeper agents in the United States. For this