HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019741.jpg

Off to Moscow | 253 expressed concern to him about the direction of the book I was writ- ing, “What is it about?” Stone asked me. I was taken aback. I had no idea that Snowden was aware of my book. (I had not tried to contact him.) I told Stone that I considered Snowden an extraordinary man who had changed history and was intentionally vague in my description of my book’s contents. Stone seemed to be reassured, so I asked him about the possibility of my seeing Snowden in Moscow. He said that I “might want to speak to Anatoly [Kucherena].” Kucherena, it seemed to me, was clearly Snowden’s gatekeeper. In Snowden’s two years in Moscow, he, or his handlers, had granted only a handful of face-to-face press interviews. Most of these were with the journalists who had published his story, but one was with James Bamford for his 2014 Wired piece. According to Bamford, it took nearly nine months to arrange the meeting. “I have been try- ing to set up an interview with him [Snowden]—traveling to Ber- lin, Rio de Janeiro twice, and New York multiple times to talk with the handful of his confidants who can arrange a meeting,” Bamford ) recounted in Wired. After my dinner with Stone, I hoped to find a © quicker route. I was advised by a Moscow-based journalist that I needed a “fixer,” the curious term that journalists commonly use to describe a local intermediary who arranges appointments in foreign countries. I retained Zamir Gotta, a highly respected TV producer in Mos- cow, who I was told had helped “fix” the Bamford interview with Snowden. “There is only one door to Snowden,” Zamir wrote to me. “His name is Kucherena.” Zamir said Kucherena rarely saw journal- ists, but he had a contact in his office. He further told me Kucher- ena required any journalist seeking an interview with Snowden to submit his questions to the lawyer two weeks in advance and, if approved, to sign a document stating he would not deviate from the questions. Next, my questions had to be translated from English to Russian (even though Snowden does not speak Russian) and then vetted by Kucherena’s staff. Zamir also suggested I stay at the Hotel National in Red Square because Snowden had gone there for pre- | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r.indd 253 ® 9/3016 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019741