From the New York Times Book Review:
The spirit of James Jesus Angleton, the C.I.A.’s mole-obsessed counterintelligence chief during the peak years of the Cold War and evidently a mentor to Epstein (he’s mentioned several times), hovers over these pages.
That’s reviewer Nicholas Lemman’s way of casting doubt on Edward Epstein’s lightly sourced (to put it mildly) indictment of the NSA whistle blower. In other words, Epstein’s case against Snowden as a spy today is as unsuccessful as Angleton’s hunt for a Soviet mole in the 1960s.
My biography of Angleton, The Ghost, will be published in the fall of 2017. It can be preordered now.
Source: Is Edward Snowden a Spy? A New Book Calls Him One. – The New York Times
Funny thing about the spy industry: In “Bridge of Spies,” Gary Powers (downed U-2 pilot in USSR territory) is vilified by Intelligence Community (as represented by Hanks, a negotiator for release/exchange of captured prisoners between Soviets and USA) because Powers failed to ingest the instant death cyanide capsule upon crashing his CIA spy plane. While Powers didn’t reveal CIA/Military secrets, he did not receive a “hero’s welcome” back in the States. Snowden is no hero (in the accepted meaning), but neither is he a villan just because a particular industry proclaims him to be one. President Reagan is “perceived” as the “hero of the Right.” We all know Reagan was asleep at the Helm of State, while his Cabinet and appointees became the most-convicted under any administration in American history! Propaganda can make white seem black and black seem bad. Truth sets us all free. #FreetheJFKfiles
Epstein is off his rocker. You think Snowden wants to live in friggin Russia? Hell no. He wanted to go to either central or South America but his passport was revoked.
Snowden was alright discussing the spying taking place on US citizens. When he started discussing what we do in other countries that was treason.
I consider Snowden a hero. Can I get an amen from anyone? (Not you NSA.)
Some still consider Woodward and Bernstein traitors.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4134154/CIA-s-files-Watergate-reporters-Woodward-Bernstein.html
The Pentagon papers were quite important.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/us/08pentagon.html
I don’t know enough about the Snowden story to say hero or amen, yet. I understand the balance between national security and the right to know and freedom of speech is delicate.
It is a bit of a conundrum.
Amen. Amen. Amen!!!!
Yes Sandy, he is a hero. Both he and Julian Assange are good and courageous men who are fighting the good fight to protect our liberty and the rule of law.
Simply put, Snowden went to Russia because there was no other bolt hole available at the time. Russians could NOT have turned him away–that would have been the end of their recruitments for the next 50 years. Perhaps John le Carre or a successor will write a novel with a plausible answer as to why US dragnet marooned him in Moscow. And, no, stupidity as such is not a characteristic of US IC/CI.