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’

ely a deep state. Trust me, I’ve been there. —EDWARD SNOWDEN, Moscow, 2014 Wa WAITING to hear back from Kucherena’s office, I arranged to meet with Victor Cherkashin, who had been one of the most successful KGB spy handlers in the Cold War. Cher- kashin, born in 1932, had served in the KGB’s espionage branch from

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

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 interviewed in Moscow in 2015, the KGB was able to hide their existence from investigators for such a long period part

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

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 movie from Charles Baudelaire’s observation, “La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous per