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CHAPTER 26 The Handler As for [Snowden’s] communication with the outside world, yes, I am his main contact. —ANATOLY KUCHERENA, Moscow, 2013 N NOVEMBER 1, I still had not been able to make contact with Anatoly Kucherena, and my flight back to New York was in five days. My fixer, Zamir, had been trying to arrange an appointment for three weeks, but he had only received one callback from Kucher- ena’s assistant, Valentina Kvirvova. She wanted to know how I knew Oliver Stone. Zamir told her of my part in Stone’s movie. That was the last he had heard from her. Meanwhile, a Moscow-based journal- ist told me that she had waited eighteen months to hear back from Kucherena before giving up. I also learned from a Russian researcher that Kucherena had not given a single interview since his television interview with Sophie Shevardnadze on September 23, 2013. And no Russian journalist, or ary Moscow-based foreign journalist, had ever obtained an interview with Snowden. At this point, Zamir was becoming increasingly doubtful about my getting access to either Kucherena or Snowden. I turned to another contact in Moscow. When I had been inves- tigating the 2006 polonium poisoning of the former KGB officer | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r.indd 265 ® 9/3016 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019753