Epstein Secrets

TO SNOWDEN’S THEFT of NSA documents, the single most shattering blow to the confidence of the U.S. intelligence com- munity was the 1994 exposure of Aldrich Ames as a long-serving Russian mole in the CIA. Ames, it will be recalled, had been a high- ranking CIA officer, working at the CIA’s Counterintelligence

obert Lipka, a clerk at the NSA in the mid-1960s, who was caught in a sting operation by the FBI and sentenced to eighteen years in a federal prison. Ronald Pelton, an NSA analyst, was recruited after he retired from the NSA. After he was betrayed by a KGB double agent in 1985, he was sentenced to life imprison-

d intensive investigations for many decades. Robert Hanssen served as a KGB penetration in the FBI for over 20 years without being caught. Similarly, Aldrich Ames, acted as a KGB mole in the CIA for more than ten years, and passed all the CIA’s sophisticated lie detector tests. Both Hanssen and Ames eluded inte

the NSA in the HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020324 173 mid 1960s, who was caught in a sting operation by the FBI and sentenced to 18 years in a federal prison. Ronald Pelton, an NSA analyst, was recruited after he retired from the NSA. After he was betrayed by a KGB double agent in 1985, was sentenced to life imprisonment

of evidence is...” —Carl Sagan, Cosmos (Random House, New York) 1980. P. 49 15. “We have many notable cases...” For the cases of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, see Appendix A 16. “The greatest trick the...”—Author’s interview with Victor Cherkashin. The quote from Zhe Usual Suspects was adopted by the movi

, they put the Snowden case in a new light for me. If Russian intelligence considered it worthwhile to send an ex-civilian worker at the NSA, such as Ronald Pelton, from Washington D.C. 2,000 miles to Austria so that its specialists could debrief him on the secrets he held in his head, it would have an even grea