Epstein Secrets

groups in | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r.indd 227 @ 9/30/16 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019715 228 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Helsinki were using the Trust to deliver arms and supplies to their partisans inside Russia. The Trust also furnished spies’ and exiled leaders’

n that tip proved to be accurate, Cherkashin got the resources he needed from the KGB to develop this source. From the start of his work for the KGB, Hanssen laid down his own rules. The KGB would deliver cash from which all the fingerprints were removed to locations, or “dead drops,” he specified. He woul

muggling out dissidents, stealing secret documents, and disbursing money inside Russia to sympathizers. Within a year, exile groups in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Helsinki were using the “Trust” to deliver arms and supplies to their partisans inside Russia. The Trust also furnished spies and exile leader’s

ght. 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 intensive FBI and CIA investigations that lasted over a decade. According to Victor Cherkashin, their KGB case officer, who I intervi

anted.” Cherkashin said that as KGB rarely got access to any NSA officer, it was worth the risk. So he was given $5,000 in cash and a plane ticket to Vienna, where he was domiciled at the residence of the Soviet ambassador to Austria. A KGB’s electronic communications expert, Anatoly Slavnov, was then sen

Vienna for a follow-up debriefing to see if he could recall any further details. Finally, in 1985, Pelton was arrested by the FBI and, like Ames and Hanssen, sentenced to life imprisonment. Looking at his watch, Cherkashin politely excused himself, saying he had work to do. On parting, I signed a copy of