Epstein Secrets

d. On the morning of June 10", 2013, Snowden’s escape plan apparently ran into a problem. Robert Tibbo and Jonathan Mann, the lawyers who, along with Albert Ho, had been retained for Snowden by an unidentified party, received an emergency phone call early in the morning telling them to help Snowden move to a

urse grab them.” The final recruitment I asked Cherkashin about was that of Ronald Pelton, the civilian employee of the NSA who had retired in 1979. Pelton had left the NSA without taking any classified documents with him. After retiring, he had financial difficulties, and he sought to get money from the

return. What interested me about the Pelton case was that Cherkashin proceeded to recruit Pelton even though he was no longer working at the NSA, and Pelton no longer had access to the NSA. In addition, since the FBI had 24 hour surveillance on the embassy, Pelton had almost certainly been photographed en

uthor’s interview with former DIA officer who requested anonymity. 3. “He had visited Hong Kong. ...”—Lindsay Mills’ blog, op.cit. 4. “According to Albert Ho...”-- Keith Bradsher, “Hasty Exit Started With Pizza inside a Hong Kong Hideout.” New York Times, June 24, 2013. Also, author’s interview with Keith

ously tapped into Soviet undersea cables in the Sea of Okhotsk, which connected a to the Soviet Pacific Fleet's mainland headquarters at Vladivostok. Pelton received another $30,000 from the KGB. “Did the information in his head proved valuable?” I asked. “As long as the NSA didn’t know the tap was comp

he residence of the Soviet ambassador to Austria. A KGB’s electronic communications expert, Anatoly Slavnov, was then sent to Vienna to supervise the Pelton debriefings. The debriefing sessions, which went on for 15 days, were from 8 AM to 6 PM. In them, Pelton managed to recall Project A, a joint NSA-CIA

-96 At this point: Former DIA officer who requested anonymity, interview with author. He had visited Hong Kong: Lindsay Mills’s blog. According to Albert Ho: Bradsher, “Hasty Exit Started with Pizza Inside a Hong Kong Hideout.” Also, Keith Bradsher, interview with author. for the next ten days: Former DI

4 “There's definitely a deep state”: Vanden Heuvel and Cohen, “Snowden Speaks.” 255 according to Cherkashin: Cherkashin, interview with author. 258 Pelton had left the NSA: George E. Curry, “Ex-intelligence Expert Guilty of Espionage,” Chicago Tribune, June 6, 1986. CHAPTER 26 The Handler 261 “As for