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286 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS

had gained access to the lists of computers that the NSA had penetrated in foreign countries. He even went so far as to describe to these journalists the secrets that he had taken as a "single point of failure" for the NSA. And aside from the documents he had copied, he claimed that the secret knowledge in his head, if he disclosed it, would wreak havoc on U.S. intelligence. "If I were providing information that I know, that's in my head, to some foreign government, the US intelligence community would . . . see sources go dark that were previously productive," he told the editor of The Guardian in Moscow.

In short, he advertised possessing priceless data that the Russian intelligence services had been seeking, with little success, for the past six decades. These electronic files could provide it with the keys to unlock the NSA's entire kingdom of electronic spying. Could any world-class intelligence service ignore such a prize? To miss the opportunity to get its hands on such a potential espionage source would be nothing short of gross negligence.

In fact, this golden opportunity was not missed in Hong Kong. Even if the Russian intelligence service had not previously had him in its sights—which, as discussed earlier, appears to me to be extremely unlikely—he made contact with Russian officials in Hong Kong, and Putin personally approved allowing Snowden to come to Russia.

This decision made it possible for Snowden, without an entry visa to Russia, or, for that matter, any other country, to check in and board an Aeroflot flight to Moscow. We also know that a special operation was mounted to take Snowden off the plane once it landed in Moscow. Such an operation could not have been executed without advance planning. Nor would he be removed from the plane without a plan for his stay in Russia. Once Putin approved it, there is little reason to doubt that the plans to get Snowden to Moscow, and whatever cover stories were deemed necessary to obscure them, had been carried out professionally by Russia's special services.

When an intelligence service makes such elaborate preparations for extracting a foreign intelligence worker, it presumably also expects to debrief him or her on arrival. Pelton, for example, who had access to far less valuable information than had Snowden, was

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