218 Snowden to come to Russia. Putin’s s decision no doubt set in motion the operation to exfiltrate him on Aeroflot, the state-controlled airline. We know that the Russian government acted in advance to facilitate Snowden’s trip from Hong Kong. Without such an intervention, it would not be possible for an American without an entry visa to Russia, or, for that matter, any other country to check-in and board an Aeroflot flight to Moscow. Aeroflot had to be instructed to allow Snowden on the plane without a visa. 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 done without advance planning. Nor would he be removed from the plane without a plan for his stay in Russia. Since Putin himself has taken credit for authorizing Snowden’s trip to Russia, there is no reason to doubt that these plans, and whatever cover stories were deemed necessary, were approved at the highest level of the regime. 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 held incommunicado in Vienna for two weeks during his debriefing. What would be inconceivable would be for an intelligence service to go to such lengths to bring a potential espionage source such as Snowden to Russia and allow him to catch the next plane to Latin America. The false report provided to the press that Snowden was flying to Latin America was likely nothing more than a cover story to confuse foreign observers while he was receiving his initial debriefing and evaluation. When it comes to the esoteric enterprise of reconstructing the work of U.S. signals intelligence, military as well as civilian experts in cryptology, computer sciences and communications are necessary. Unlike in the case of Pelton, Snowden had secret mat