Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Software Radio Special Operations, military news and straight
Speaker 1: talk with the guys and the community. Hello, Welcome, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Software Radio, Software Radio, long time on target.
Speaker 1: We have a great podcast lined up this afternoon. We
Speaker 1: want to welcome our special guests with us, Jack Divine.
Speaker 1: Jack is author. He's written a couple of really good
Speaker 1: books with fact. We We had him on our podcast
Speaker 1: about six seven years ago when he wrote the book
Speaker 1: Good Hunting, an American Spy master Story. It was a
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller. But now Jack has written another
Speaker 1: one called The Spymaster's Prison, The Fight Against Russian Aggression.
Speaker 1: It's due out on much First. We were thankful to
Speaker 1: get a h an advanced copy of It is a
Speaker 1: very compelling read and we encourage all of our readers
Speaker 1: and listeners out there to definitely check this book out. UM.
Speaker 1: Just to give you a little background on Jack Uh,
Speaker 1: as I said to him when we first started talking,
Speaker 1: Mr Divine, but he said to call him Jack. So
Speaker 1: Jack was a thirty two year veteran of the c
Speaker 1: I A UH he served obviously, he was a Cold
Speaker 1: War guy. He started back in the late sixties, he
Speaker 1: went up through I think you know, he was in
Speaker 1: charge of the CIA's Counting Narcotics Center. Um. He also
Speaker 1: was in charge of the Afghan Task Force. When the
Speaker 1: Russians were involved in Afghanistan, we were funding the Musja
Speaker 1: Hadein And we're going to definitely talk about that because
Speaker 1: we have some I guess the sixth degree of separation.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, he's been there, he's been involved everything.
Speaker 1: He worked his way up to to the acting Director
Speaker 1: of Operations for the CIA. So Jack has started from
Speaker 1: the ground level and worked his way all the way
Speaker 1: up to that top floor. So we want to welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Jack. Thanks for taking the time with
Speaker 1: us this afternoon. We really appreciate it. Well, it's a
Speaker 1: great privilege your audience. It's a great deal to me.
Speaker 1: You have people defending this country and have defended it,
Speaker 1: and for me to spend time with him as a
Speaker 1: great privilege. Well. I love the way your book started
Speaker 1: off because you had a quote from Afghan I guess
Speaker 1: the considered the modern founder of the Afghan nation. And
Speaker 1: then this quote is my last words to you, my
Speaker 1: son and successor, never trust the Russians and you know,
Speaker 1: for somebody who grew up in the Cold War like
Speaker 1: myself and served them during that time frame, I couldn't
Speaker 1: feel any different. I have a plaque in my office
Speaker 1: that has that quote on and I wasn't familiar with it.
Speaker 1: But Charlie Wilson, who I'm sure virtually everybody or audience knows,
Speaker 1: Congressman Wilson and his role in in the Afghan program,
Speaker 1: gave me that plaque and and it stuck with me.
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was going to land. Other words,
Speaker 1: when the Cold War came and I thought, well, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll take it down. I'm glad I kept it up,
Speaker 1: so I almost I'm most entitled the book that never
Speaker 1: Trust the Russians. Uh. And maybe in retrospect, maybe I
Speaker 1: should have put that in as a second line. I
Speaker 1: know we toyed with it. Publisher. Yeah, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: That was the best way to start it off. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think part of um, part of the
Speaker 1: gist of the book is the Cold War really isn't over,
Speaker 1: is it? Because you know, some of the maybe main
Speaker 1: people have changed, but the goal is still the same,
Speaker 1: isn't it. What's interesting about that, Steve is around the
Speaker 1: first chapter in the book, I talked about Comrade J.
Speaker 1: Comrad J was the deputy chief of what we used
Speaker 1: to call the KGV and now it's called the SPR
Speaker 1: New York City. And he was a walk and he
Speaker 1: came to the agency and volunteered his services. And you
Speaker 1: can imagine in that position he was extremely knowledgeable. You know,
Speaker 1: for the KGB in New York is a very active,
Speaker 1: high high high activity operation. So in there he said,
Speaker 1: you know, when I joined the KGB, we had three
Speaker 1: main targets, the United States, NATO in China. And when
Speaker 1: I left in two thousand and four, he defected. Uh
Speaker 1: you know, we took care of him. About the two
Speaker 1: thousand and four he said, when I left, the three
Speaker 1: objectives where the United States native in China. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know that never stopped. Now, there was a period.
Speaker 1: I mean, I happen to be in Russia and when
Speaker 1: I go into this in June of ninety one, when
Speaker 1: the government fell in August, I actually had an appointment
Speaker 1: to see the deputy chief of the KGB. I was
Speaker 1: their guests, believe it or not, even after my signetic
Speaker 1: control of Afghan program, I was their guests because we
Speaker 1: wanted to we wanted to warm up relations with the Russians,
Speaker 1: and anything that you think about talking about was counter
Speaker 1: a narcotic, so I was had to counter narcotics. So
Speaker 1: I went out there and we made a made a
Speaker 1: visit with the KGV. They were the host. Actually it's
Speaker 1: very ironic, but at the last minute I was canceled
Speaker 1: from seeing the end of the KGB and I sold.
Speaker 1: The deputy was quite normal and we went on with
Speaker 1: the trip part of the deal, because I had no
Speaker 1: great interest in going the Moscow at that time. But
Speaker 1: the fellow there was set of Russian operations, no Beard,
Speaker 1: public figure. He was our chief out in Islam about
Speaker 1: in those days. He said, if you come out, we'll
Speaker 1: have him fly us down to look at the poppy fields.
Speaker 1: But the poppy fields are right beside the Friendship Bridge.
Speaker 1: And I have a deal with him. If you come,
Speaker 1: you and I will stand on the bridge with the KGB,
Speaker 1: the Friendship Bridge where the Russians left. So I said,
Speaker 1: I'll end. That's how I went, and we had this great,
Speaker 1: great picture. But what was interesting is uh in August
Speaker 1: the government was overdrawn. The Communist government collapsed in August
Speaker 1: of ninety one. I was there two months before. It
Speaker 1: coincidental that I was there two months before, I quickly
Speaker 1: point out, but what was interesting at that moment is
Speaker 1: what was the future, what was it going to be?
Speaker 1: And so many people, uh, well, well, the Cold War
Speaker 1: is over, we won piece dividend. We don't need to
Speaker 1: worry about the Russians, and we over the years cut
Speaker 1: our budget back g DT from the place of rather
Speaker 1: than intelligence budget from focused on Russia to ten percent.
Speaker 1: So the point it was, there was a period of
Speaker 1: time where, going right to your questions, Steve, where everyone
Speaker 1: was convinced the Cold War was over, and there might
Speaker 1: have been a few months, but uh it was shortly.
Speaker 1: KHB was one of the last places to give up
Speaker 1: its its stronghold on its files and so on, so
Speaker 1: they did continue to run operations, and I hope we
Speaker 1: talked about it later. The famous hole inside of the FBI.
Speaker 1: Robert Hansen actually received the message right at the end
Speaker 1: after they collapsed and said, look, don't don't worry, We're
Speaker 1: going to take care of you. We're not stopping. So
Speaker 1: the point is they recovered, and they recovered and they
Speaker 1: get stronger. Putin came and he is a kg by
Speaker 1: KGB got and let me stopped there, which we can
Speaker 1: talk about him and other questions. But the struggle with
Speaker 1: the Russians never never ended. And I think we'll quote
Speaker 1: more about it, but I want to give it back
Speaker 1: to you rather than being going on with the history
Speaker 1: of the book. Yeah. Well, and and again in the book,
Speaker 1: you basically, you know, you make the point that Russia
Speaker 1: is still are probably biggest enemy, um, you know, on
Speaker 1: the world stage. And you know, I thought that was
Speaker 1: a little surprising because everyone today talks about the Chinese
Speaker 1: and their economic power and the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: the Chinese are trying to you know, build up that
Speaker 1: what whatever they called the Belton Road initiative and that
Speaker 1: their economy and they're kind of they're kind of dusting
Speaker 1: off our game plan and how we brought down the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union against US. And um, I was a little
Speaker 1: surprised by that. But you were saying that you believe
Speaker 1: that the Russians are still our biggest threat in the world,
Speaker 1: and can you talk about that a little bit. That's
Speaker 1: a great question, and actually I'm surprised it's our second question. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, usually it doesn't someone doesn't raise until much
Speaker 1: later in fact, when I was writing the book, I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk where your audience about the struggles
Speaker 1: are writing a book. This isn't what I do. Have
Speaker 1: a full time job running into my own company with
Speaker 1: a partner of my ar So this is something I
Speaker 1: believe in the subject matter, and I like it's a
Speaker 1: way of getting your voice out. In fact, is an
Speaker 1: old saying. You know, old soldiers never died. They fade away,
Speaker 1: you know, Magarthurs said that in Congress, and I would say,
Speaker 1: old spies never fade away unless they have a pen.
Speaker 1: They have a pen, they can keep on keep on writing.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, I wrote the book. In the process,
Speaker 1: I eventually came to the Russian issue because of the involvement.
Speaker 1: So I don't really dwell very long in the book
Speaker 1: in China because you can you can get you can
Speaker 1: get spun away into what's going on with China and
Speaker 1: still terrorism and it becomes a hodgepodge. But I have
Speaker 1: thought about it a great deal since then, and it's
Speaker 1: part of my you know, thought process that any podcast,
Speaker 1: if someone doesn't ask, I'm going to go to the
Speaker 1: issue that you just did, Steve, and thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Because China is our number one. You know what I
Speaker 1: call existential threat. If you want to say that in
Speaker 1: terms of economic military power, they're on the run, They're
Speaker 1: building their strong your economy, they are they are clearly
Speaker 1: the country that we need from a national security point
Speaker 1: of view to keep an eye on. But when we
Speaker 1: look at Russia it is as it's half of what
Speaker 1: it was during the Cold World because they lost they
Speaker 1: lost the Ukraine and list all the countries around them.
Speaker 1: But when you look at their intelligence operations, and this
Speaker 1: is why I would refine if I we're rewriting a
Speaker 1: paragraph in the book, I would rEFInd it this way.
Speaker 1: They're the real intelligence. Now. The Chinese came late to
Speaker 1: human intelligence. You know, if you look back, there were
Speaker 1: very real significance by cases involving the Chinese until fairly
Speaker 1: recently the last twenty years, and there contained a bit
Speaker 1: because of the nature of the economic relationship with the
Speaker 1: United States. So they're certainly in the United States collecting information.
Speaker 1: They do it in both they do it in cyber
Speaker 1: But when you say yourself, who runs really hard edged
Speaker 1: intelligence operations, and it says who have spies who have
Speaker 1: years of work on getting penetrations inside the government, and
Speaker 1: even when you start to look at how aggressive are
Speaker 1: the Chinese and meddling in internal affairs in the United States,
Speaker 1: and you would say the Russians have been far more
Speaker 1: threatening if you look at what they did in the
Speaker 1: seen election and if you look at the recent hack
Speaker 1: where they hack to the State Deparment DHS Energy treasure,
Speaker 1: and I think the world was only looking the tip
Speaker 1: of the iceberg. So I would be find it if
Speaker 1: I were putting another paragraph in the book, and that
Speaker 1: would be you know, we need to man up, if
Speaker 1: you will, for dealing with China as a mazing thread,
Speaker 1: both of the nuclear weapons and it's a mutual destruction.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of a counterweight in all the ways
Speaker 1: one acts around the world. You know, China is going
Speaker 1: to be the biggest handful. But if you at Russia,
Speaker 1: uh and and you look at what they're the United States.
Speaker 1: But if you look at Putin's game plan, it is
Speaker 1: a cold word right on, it's a cold word game plan,
Speaker 1: and their communism doesn't exist. He's not probligating it, but
Speaker 1: he is probabigating the old Russia objectives. Warm Board reports,
Speaker 1: we can the wee can your adversaries weaken the countries
Speaker 1: around and to use very aggressive force. He's used it
Speaker 1: in the Crimea in Ukraine, so he's very formidable and
Speaker 1: his tactically. We could talk about the strategy in the minute.
Speaker 1: So it's in that context. And I know I've gone
Speaker 1: on a bit, but you know, there's almost a knee
Speaker 1: jerk reaction to people said, well, it's got to be China.
Speaker 1: And that's true in the macro picture, but you talk
Speaker 1: about intelligence threats, security um and intelligence operations, the Russians
Speaker 1: I still could put at number one. And you know,
Speaker 1: talking about the Russians, and you you mentioned that, you know,
Speaker 1: the excuse me, the interference in the two thousand and
Speaker 1: sixteen election, and then you you just mentioned the hacking.
Speaker 1: You know, you you talked at linked in the book
Speaker 1: about the Moscow rules, how they were breaking the Moscow
Speaker 1: rules and how they you know, everyone since uh, I
Speaker 1: guess since the beginning of time. I guess they We've
Speaker 1: always collected intelligence on each other, but we don't act
Speaker 1: upon it. That's um what Basically the Moscow rules are correct,
Speaker 1: but we'll see what I can. Oh, I'm sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: I meant to say, but they've taken that one step
Speaker 1: further and they have acted upon that, and that's something
Speaker 1: that we've never done against each other up until this time.
Speaker 1: So that's a great observation, and I want to give
Speaker 1: you a pad that fact. You know, I've been interviewed
Speaker 1: by a lot of people over the years, and some acous.
Speaker 1: They read a chapter or a snippet, and someone gives you,
Speaker 1: clearly have read my book. So I'm quite flattered, and
Speaker 1: I want to accompany because it's a key point. It's
Speaker 1: a really important thing to understand, and and that is
Speaker 1: in the Cold War, which you and I were involved in,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know I was involved and so were you.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, but in the Cold War, we had some
Speaker 1: there were some unwritten rules. And the unwritten rules were
Speaker 1: you didn't counterfeit each other the money. Why because you
Speaker 1: would destroy the entire economic system. Right except for a
Speaker 1: couple of a couple isolated incident, we did not rough
Speaker 1: up each other's officers. Now there were some big incidents
Speaker 1: you can imagine, but not many. So there were certain
Speaker 1: ground rules. We were not going to be involved in
Speaker 1: target assassinations and all those things against each other. So
Speaker 1: there were ground rules, and one of them was, again
Speaker 1: you're not going to find this written down and the
Speaker 1: single contract. But if we were not going to interfere
Speaker 1: directly in the political dynamics of internal countries, we weren't
Speaker 1: going to start up a revolution in Russia and we
Speaker 1: expected them not the little round in our elections. That
Speaker 1: was an understanding of the Moscow rules. Now there was
Speaker 1: another phrase, another more modern or I'm dating it from
Speaker 1: say the beginning of the Cold War. Later on there
Speaker 1: were other intelligence people that refer to Moscow rules and
Speaker 1: how you behave in Moscow, whether you don't wear a
Speaker 1: mets hat, if you're going out for the clandestine meeting
Speaker 1: and so on, and they're legitimate things and how you operate,
Speaker 1: and it's very tactical. But there is one that supersedes that,
Speaker 1: and that is this understanding you don't meddle in each
Speaker 1: other's internal affairs. So the big deal for me, I
Speaker 1: actually had troubled comprehending it, saying it can't be. They
Speaker 1: cannot just be hacking. I mean they're they're hacking, but
Speaker 1: they're using it. They're going in con trol wing. There's
Speaker 1: in the Facebook. I mean, there's as you know, in
Speaker 1: the bog I mean thousands of thousands things of messages
Speaker 1: that were in in their in their hands. And while
Speaker 1: it may have marginally and I believe it's just to
Speaker 1: be the case, I was surprised by the fact that
Speaker 1: the Russians were meddling directly in our internal political affairs.
Speaker 1: We are not doing it in their country and we
Speaker 1: haven't been. So it's a major it's a seizemic change
Speaker 1: in how you do business and um, there are no
Speaker 1: in the present day, there are no Moscow rules, apparently
Speaker 1: they've been aggregated, and the Russians are much more aggressive
Speaker 1: and particularly involves the United States internal affairs, and this
Speaker 1: needs to be be be corrected. So the problem in
Speaker 1: cyber warfare, which so many of the people out there
Speaker 1: are our experts, experts, everyone, as you said early on,
Speaker 1: just electing everything they can from the smallest country's largest country.
Speaker 1: There's so much technical capability everybody tries to collect UM.
Speaker 1: But it's the use of the information and how you
Speaker 1: use these cyber tools that are quite different. And there
Speaker 1: is a bit of unstability right now in the cyber
Speaker 1: world because there are no rules. There are rules, and
Speaker 1: then if you're exchange, there's treaties, there's negotiations that work
Speaker 1: out over many years. But cyber and the Russians are
Speaker 1: now when you look at it, extremely aggressive in this
Speaker 1: space and we have it's a major It was a
Speaker 1: dilemma for the Trump administration at the end, and it's
Speaker 1: a dilemma of the Widen administration. What are you going
Speaker 1: to do about it? Yeah, And before we get into that,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to share I mean, as as again
Speaker 1: going back to being a cold warrior, we used to
Speaker 1: study our you know, our potential adversary. And when when
Speaker 1: the story first came out of the Russians were you know,
Speaker 1: meddling in the election basically for the benefit of President
Speaker 1: Trump over Hillary Clinton, I discounted that. I was like,
Speaker 1: and I'll be honest with you, I said that that's
Speaker 1: can't be true because the Russians, from reading about them,
Speaker 1: studying what I could, they value stable, predictable personality, and
Speaker 1: as we all know, President Trump is none of those things.
Speaker 1: He's kind of like that that you know that I
Speaker 1: don't want to say oddball, but he's that wild card
Speaker 1: that's in the mix. And I found it very interesting
Speaker 1: that the Russians would favor him over Clinton, who they
Speaker 1: knew obviously much more better than they did Trump. I
Speaker 1: had the same reaction. But in the process of writing
Speaker 1: the book, and as I dog through in some research,
Speaker 1: I kept trying to figure this out because, as you said,
Speaker 1: what what you really want on the other side is
Speaker 1: someone that's very predictable. You want stability. They know that Trump. Uh,
Speaker 1: they knew the Biden people, they know the Hillary people,
Speaker 1: they knew the Bush people, they knew where they were getting.
Speaker 1: You can you can work within parameters. They weren't sure,
Speaker 1: so I would saying, well, it's really you know, it
Speaker 1: just makes no sense that they lost their their marbles
Speaker 1: in this. But the more I get into it, and
Speaker 1: you know, and I know you're in your team are
Speaker 1: aware of this. But you know they've developed a strategy
Speaker 1: called hybrid warfare, right, and the warfare is you know,
Speaker 1: well they might use uh, you know, it's very hard
Speaker 1: now to put land armies against each other among major powers, right,
Speaker 1: so there is a struggle, and the hybrid warfare strategy
Speaker 1: suggested to use propaganda, economic, you use cyber and you
Speaker 1: try and weaken the enemy. You just weak in the endemy. Right.
Speaker 1: So I actually believe that it wasn't as sharply focused
Speaker 1: as we think. It wasn't that they wanted Trump to
Speaker 1: win so much as they thought that that was the
Speaker 1: best way to weaken the environment. In other words, you
Speaker 1: would have the political chaos, and they don't want to cope.
Speaker 1: They don't want to an overcrow government, but they want
Speaker 1: they want Their strategy is to weaken America's political fiber,
Speaker 1: and I think to some degree that was successful. The
Speaker 1: operation wasn't so successful in the sense of, Okay, how
Speaker 1: many ballot boxes did they impact, I say, very little,
Speaker 1: But their involvement then led to the lower investigation and
Speaker 1: party in and the very partisan environment got worse. So
Speaker 1: I mean, to some degree, I'm not sure they had
Speaker 1: this great vision of where how far it was going
Speaker 1: to go. But their motivations, um, their motivations are not
Speaker 1: so person directed. And I know there's a whole school
Speaker 1: book out that trumps us by and all nonsense, of
Speaker 1: my view, but they're objective was a different one, and
Speaker 1: they want to keep us off balanced and they want
Speaker 1: to undermine us. And that's why they're in the cyber
Speaker 1: space there spreading you know, uh, delicious rumors and disinformation,
Speaker 1: and they've been in the disinformation pre pre pre Bolshevictor right.
Speaker 1: The Russians have been into disinformation and they're very good
Speaker 1: at I go into a couple of examples. One of
Speaker 1: the things I do in the book that is go
Speaker 1: back and forth of lessons learned from what they did
Speaker 1: in the past. And I could reall for just one
Speaker 1: case that I go into, there was a great case
Speaker 1: by a Russian defector was involved and it came out
Speaker 1: back back in the middle of the Cold War. Someday
Speaker 1: there was a trope of documents, Nazi documents that were
Speaker 1: found right DC diver Operation Neptune they bring up, but
Speaker 1: it was all Russian disinformation and are are felt the
Speaker 1: defective to it said, look, we fabricated all of this,
Speaker 1: but it did great damage in the German government because
Speaker 1: they tied many people the Nazi government they weren't and
Speaker 1: so they've been around and it's a classic case of
Speaker 1: sort of happiest stir up trouble trouble out there. So
Speaker 1: I think I think we should move away when we're
Speaker 1: looking at there's so that there's it's so much about Trump.
Speaker 1: I think Trump did something, as you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of the Ukraine, it was pretty aggressive and pushing back
Speaker 1: in sanctions and so on. So I think there's a
Speaker 1: there's a bigger it's a bigger part of their their strategy,
Speaker 1: and it's not the defeat is over trous but they
Speaker 1: keep this week and the weaker we are, the more
Speaker 1: freedom they have and the less able we are to
Speaker 1: check them anywhere. So it's it took me a long
Speaker 1: time to come to what I believe is my sense
Speaker 1: of where they are. Yeah, and you mentioned that in
Speaker 1: the book, and it was fascinating about that Internet research agency.
Speaker 1: You know, it's run by the same guy who runs
Speaker 1: the Wagner Group, who all of our readers know all
Speaker 1: about that because that's the pout and chef. And you
Speaker 1: talked about eighty thousand Facebook you know personas, and you
Speaker 1: know Twitter accounts and thousands of YouTube videos, all spreading
Speaker 1: this disinformation or misinformation program, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: And the Not My President movement was all of Russian fabrication,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think it was very successful at
Speaker 1: subverting as in and driving us further in part than
Speaker 1: we already were, right, I think that that's that would
Speaker 1: be a point that I underscore as well. It's not
Speaker 1: so much about who won the election. It's just the
Speaker 1: chaos that or political turmoil that that holder from it.
Speaker 1: One other thing I would note on this is there
Speaker 1: for a while people say, well, it must have been
Speaker 1: an accident, like some general got off, throw up the
Speaker 1: red servation and they weren't paying enough attention, and you
Speaker 1: know that they regret. In fact, they even had some
Speaker 1: some of the private sector and in the private sector
Speaker 1: intelligence because there was some material coming now saying oh
Speaker 1: this is something that was done by a junior that
Speaker 1: was their own disinformation, done by a junior person. I
Speaker 1: honestly believe that these things are cleared at the very top.
Speaker 1: But this is a highly controlled part of a strategy
Speaker 1: and if it was. If it was some generally would
Speaker 1: have been shot and they wouldn't stop. It hasn't stopped,
Speaker 1: so so I think when we think about it, it's
Speaker 1: it's a thoughtful plan. It's not consistent with how we
Speaker 1: view the world. And I actually think that there's a
Speaker 1: great tactician and allows these strategists we could talk about.
Speaker 1: But you know, this is not an accident. This is
Speaker 1: not you know, some one off adventure that you're doing.
Speaker 1: It's part of the overall strategy and it's much more
Speaker 1: aggressive aggressive in the Chinese. The Chinese are building military
Speaker 1: light and mental you know, something we need to deal with.
Speaker 1: I don't anticipate the those and those with the Chinese.
Speaker 1: But right now where are we where? Where is the
Speaker 1: troublemaker in the political delibree? And it's it's the Russians
Speaker 1: m hm. And you know with the Russians, um, you
Speaker 1: know they've taken this aggressive stance and they've taken it.
Speaker 1: The next step what do you foresee as being you
Speaker 1: know what President Biden, who has now just been in
Speaker 1: office about a little more than a month, what what's
Speaker 1: his uh? What do you think his game plan has
Speaker 1: to be too right? The ship so to speak, right,
Speaker 1: So let me with your indulgence too quick points another
Speaker 1: Another title of the foot book was going to be
Speaker 1: doing Ban Joe's because because you know, the Russians would
Speaker 1: do something and then we play back, then they would
Speaker 1: do something. This is true in Afghanistan, by the way,
Speaker 1: And when we get to it, it was doing Van
Speaker 1: Joe until the singer came and then all the all
Speaker 1: the strings marked on their bancho. But so there's this
Speaker 1: back and forth. So today the question is is there
Speaker 1: is there going to be doing back and doing Manjo's
Speaker 1: will be the big question. But I wanted to take
Speaker 1: just a second and talk about Putent because this is
Speaker 1: this is a case it takes to the tango. Biden
Speaker 1: Trump may want to do whatever they want to do,
Speaker 1: but it takes another person to the degree to play along. Right,
Speaker 1: So I think we need to know where what we
Speaker 1: need to understand the other player. And so the other player,
Speaker 1: the imputinent is. It is called the Spymaster President, and
Speaker 1: the books a chapter and it and just like never trust,
Speaker 1: the rudgets into subtitle. The subtitle under the spy Master
Speaker 1: President is um, there is no such thing as a
Speaker 1: former KGB officer quote Vladimir Prutent, and I understand it
Speaker 1: as a former CI AI. It doesn't mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I did turn in my card. I didn't. When people
Speaker 1: think I run x CIA agents, that's not true. You know,
Speaker 1: when I'll build my own, my own foreign capability. But
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I have a CIA mentality. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like how do I look at the world. That's
Speaker 1: why I called it five minutes Prison. I look at
Speaker 1: it from sort of the environment I grew him, just
Speaker 1: like you would look at it from a special forces.
Speaker 1: How do you look at them? Right? So I would
Speaker 1: say to you putin is self declaring the way I
Speaker 1: look at the world as a KGB and what's trying
Speaker 1: to KGB guy was well, he wanted to join a
Speaker 1: seventeen that didn't accept. Somebody got in eventually. It was
Speaker 1: a true believer in being a KGB person appealed to
Speaker 1: his personality. But he wasn't sent to Paris, Mexico City, Tokyo,
Speaker 1: where you have fine wines and you enjoy the benefits
Speaker 1: of the West. He was sent a dress that East Germany.
Speaker 1: You know it is a dressful place. You know they
Speaker 1: had that fine lines in in in decades so but
Speaker 1: in that timeframe the head of the East German service
Speaker 1: was called Marcus Wolf, and Marcus Wolf was the Olderman
Speaker 1: spy master in the Cold War. It must have had
Speaker 1: I think her once a hundred thousand spots. He had
Speaker 1: the Sparrows and Chess and Romeos. He was actually training
Speaker 1: offices to the attractive. The Romeos were trying to recruit
Speaker 1: secretaries in the West, and the Sparrows and opened to
Speaker 1: even open to bert Cello Bordello to try and recruit
Speaker 1: western Western diplomat. So it was a hard nosed Cold
Speaker 1: War place, right, And so when the Soviet Union fell,
Speaker 1: Putiness there by his own words and I understand it,
Speaker 1: I can identify the said must have been totally devastated
Speaker 1: what happened to him, his services mission, his country. And
Speaker 1: he set out that that was never going to happen again.
Speaker 1: Russia would be strong again. And he went off to St.
Speaker 1: Petersburg and got the politics, and that um Gut tied
Speaker 1: in with with Elson and the powerhouses in Russia took well,
Speaker 1: he's one of the company guys. He's manageable. And that
Speaker 1: was probably true until the day he became, you know,
Speaker 1: the president. But before that he did served as the
Speaker 1: head of the FSB, their version of the FBI, So
Speaker 1: even after you left the KGV, he was running internal operations,
Speaker 1: in internal operation in Russia or even let your ended.
Speaker 1: So you have someone who has a Cold war mindset
Speaker 1: just like you, just like many of you know they
Speaker 1: he has a way of looking at the world. So
Speaker 1: he looks at it like comrade j number one target us.
Speaker 1: You know, they've they humiliated this and now you know
Speaker 1: we're going to be strong again. So what did he do?
Speaker 1: He set out the um to get back the Ukraine
Speaker 1: and the Crimea. The Soviet Union is a much more
Speaker 1: economically important base with Ukraine without it. Today the GDP
Speaker 1: of Russia is probably a matching Spain Italy. So he
Speaker 1: took very aggressive actions. These are Cold war actions, are
Speaker 1: getting into Syria. So he he has allows the strategy
Speaker 1: because I think Russia belongs to the West. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no communism. They should benefit from the economic well
Speaker 1: being in the West and the liberals. But he has
Speaker 1: decided and now he's gonna we are still the adversary
Speaker 1: and he's going to do those things to make his
Speaker 1: country strong and in an adversarial position. We need to
Speaker 1: understand this before we go and say, hey, look, let's
Speaker 1: go to Moscow and charmed the guy. Or when he
Speaker 1: showed up in Helsinki for example, and uh, he showed
Speaker 1: up in his talking points. He knew what he was
Speaker 1: going to be doing in that and I think our
Speaker 1: side was thinking, look, you know, the charm will put
Speaker 1: a charm offensive on it. And so this comes back
Speaker 1: to your question about the Biden administration. Now, a lot
Speaker 1: of the folks that are in there work with the
Speaker 1: Russians before they have views about it, um, And the
Speaker 1: question I have is it's certainly not going to be
Speaker 1: won over by charming, right, We're going to have to
Speaker 1: show some strength and resolve in this. And the last time,
Speaker 1: when when the Russians went into the crime in the
Speaker 1: eastern Ukraine using covert acts and assets you know green
Speaker 1: men as they said, green people. Um, our response was
Speaker 1: pretty limp and and and also they used tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of cyber In fact, they had just over the last
Speaker 1: cup all days, another major cyber assault in Ukraine. UM.
Speaker 1: So you know they're very, very aggressive and executing it.
Speaker 1: So when they get to the table, um, you know
Speaker 1: they're going to try and create a new a new
Speaker 1: treaty on arms, and the Russians weren't honoring it the
Speaker 1: last time. So I mean, I think, you know, part
Speaker 1: of our national strands, we need to get our act
Speaker 1: together at home when we have to be we have
Speaker 1: to return to bipartisan issues on national security. We need
Speaker 1: to get the economy marching, to make sure our militaries
Speaker 1: well taken care of and modern in the way that
Speaker 1: it needs to be. And I'm not I wouldn't worry
Speaker 1: about our military facing the Russians, and god forbid they'd
Speaker 1: ever get to that, because I do think they're the
Speaker 1: best military in the world. So there's I think, just
Speaker 1: jaw boning this thing. You're not going to change him
Speaker 1: on his strategy. And there has to be some sub rosa,
Speaker 1: you know, confidential discussions about what what are the limits
Speaker 1: of the cyber where because we're not going to go
Speaker 1: to lord ground, you know, how how far? What's what
Speaker 1: are the rules of the game, and you know, this
Speaker 1: has to cease and desist, and if it doesn't, then
Speaker 1: I think there's a hard decision that the Biden administration
Speaker 1: has to make, and that is do you start that,
Speaker 1: you know, do you start to band up with the
Speaker 1: Dueli Banjos because you cannot let it go unresolved, and
Speaker 1: you have to make it sufficiently. You try and calibrate
Speaker 1: it so it's commensurate to the m to the action,
Speaker 1: your response is commensurate with it, not excessive, and not
Speaker 1: not weaker. Then so I think there's some tough decisions ahead.
Speaker 1: But I think there are people intend to us under
Speaker 1: ustimate Putin and the fact that he knows what he's doing,
Speaker 1: he knows he has a strategy. We don't like it.
Speaker 1: And the only way you backed somebody up is you
Speaker 1: have to be strong. Our military to be strong, our
Speaker 1: country has to be strong. We have to mean what
Speaker 1: we say we and you know, pop out our chest
Speaker 1: and then fire fire a Toma Hawk into the desert,
Speaker 1: you know, and say okay, now they'll pay attention. So
Speaker 1: I think there's some tough years ahead with Russia and
Speaker 1: very tough years on China. So we need to be united.
Speaker 1: Our intelligence service have to be funded, and our military
Speaker 1: needs to be funded and prepared. And two as a
Speaker 1: deterrent to further aggression. So that's why I say in
Speaker 1: the subtitle of the book, you know, the fight against
Speaker 1: Russian aggression. So we're looking we have to recognize that's
Speaker 1: what it is, and then we have to do what
Speaker 1: needs to be done using all the pool boxes and
Speaker 1: you save military response to the very end. And when
Speaker 1: you're looking at Russia and it's I think your power,
Speaker 1: you're we're not going to go toe to toe, but
Speaker 1: they'll probably be green men in places where we will
Speaker 1: have our version of green men as well. Absolutely, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of Putin and you know who, we
Speaker 1: know the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. But it seems
Speaker 1: like we're you know, every day it's it's seeming like
Speaker 1: Russia is more and more on that, you know, on
Speaker 1: that kind of footing. Who do you think because we've
Speaker 1: I've heard rumors that his health isn't the greatest right now,
Speaker 1: if if anything worth happened to him, it's you have
Speaker 1: and just a personal opinion, who might step in because
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like he has any second in command
Speaker 1: around it. Well, first, let me take the first point.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you a role of my years, how
Speaker 1: many how many state leaders were about to die. They
Speaker 1: can't tell me the hundred reports on cash throw dying
Speaker 1: over years, right, we actually ran operations. Uh it's in
Speaker 1: the public domain. But you know, one of the heads
Speaker 1: of states we go to the bath in some place,
Speaker 1: we'd have some technicians test the urine if they have
Speaker 1: a pipe runoff, and to see whether they were going
Speaker 1: to die, you know, and always you're not as sick
Speaker 1: as you're thinking. Is so I put no stock in
Speaker 1: that at all. I say, no, you know, this is
Speaker 1: that wishful you know, wish will thinking. But the second
Speaker 1: part you shouldn't wish for it because you don't know
Speaker 1: what's behind it. And when you have an autocratic government,
Speaker 1: they usually end badly and there's superior chaos and it
Speaker 1: usually goes through the strong and the problem. Today it's
Speaker 1: a little bit harder to calibrate because it's strong and
Speaker 1: strong the weapon. They may have maybe a six by
Speaker 1: three iPhone, right, and they're able to rally people out
Speaker 1: of the street, and so you can, you know, really
Speaker 1: really want the West, just like they should want to
Speaker 1: stable person out of us. We went stability in Russia.
Speaker 1: You know, whatever it is, we would love to have transition.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting. I noticed in the book that the
Speaker 1: president Bush Foreward gorber Troup said there's a coup coming.
Speaker 1: There's a coup. Company said I can handle it. Well,
Speaker 1: good luck. Well, so why did we do that? You know,
Speaker 1: not because we love trouble, but we didn't want you know,
Speaker 1: we had no idea what was coming. They got to
Speaker 1: do good weapons. So you know, I think I think
Speaker 1: the question of how he leaves, But I think what
Speaker 1: is more important today is the cracks that we're seeing
Speaker 1: from the scent because of the arrest of Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: who wants to demonstrate, but who wants to demonstrate and
Speaker 1: the winner in Russia. I mean, you gotta really upset,
Speaker 1: you know. So my point is I think we're seeing
Speaker 1: some cracks here and the problem in this modern age,
Speaker 1: um they have the same thing in the spring. You know,
Speaker 1: they might get twice as many people out. It's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he needs to go to the mouth. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: he's been a very successfully master let's see, you've got
Speaker 1: to tip your hat. I mean it was in its thirties,
Speaker 1: I think, but he started his ride. He's ahead and
Speaker 1: made he consolidated power, very impressive capability. Still relatively young
Speaker 1: in terms of national leaders today. Not mentioning our leaders
Speaker 1: any of them might name. But so I think he
Speaker 1: has to himself, you know, is this hybrid strategy and
Speaker 1: being aggressive that the US is that? The right answer
Speaker 1: is that the future here is that going to you
Speaker 1: know this Tip O'Neal, the famous congressman Massachusetts who controlled
Speaker 1: the Congress in a masterful way once at all politics
Speaker 1: are local. So the determining fact in Russia is what's
Speaker 1: happening inside Russia. And we should not mess around. I
Speaker 1: mean I would to be clear, I'm not suggested we
Speaker 1: mess around because you have no idea where it's going
Speaker 1: to end up. However, as I said, if he doesn't
Speaker 1: stop them, we've got to revisit the issue. But I
Speaker 1: would hope that he would look at his own situation
Speaker 1: and say, listen, I can have my cake and eat
Speaker 1: it too. I could still be the top guy, but
Speaker 1: I can have a role in the West and familiar
Speaker 1: eight things at home. I'm not easy to manage. But
Speaker 1: if he stays with a heart, it's a very tricky thing.
Speaker 1: You know, he keeps volume and prisoner prisoner if he
Speaker 1: has to be carefully, doesn't make him a martyr, right, so,
Speaker 1: but if he's two weaks, so he's was probably trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out. But this is a challenge to
Speaker 1: him and I would personally prefer I mean, at some point,
Speaker 1: you know, he's got to move on that. You know
Speaker 1: that is done and true. You know, your little free
Speaker 1: elections take place, and I don't think there's any experts
Speaker 1: you know, I was listening. I won't tell you the
Speaker 1: group where you know will be calling me and yelling.
Speaker 1: You know, people that study Russian and their view they
Speaker 1: have no idea of you know what comes next? Who does?
Speaker 1: And that's why preparedness, you know, the military, and everybody
Speaker 1: on this call understands preparing the battlefield, right, you know,
Speaker 1: we need to be prepared. We need to be prepared
Speaker 1: for all contingency in oral and we need to be alert.
Speaker 1: And there's stability and inherent in in autocratic governments. There's
Speaker 1: stability inhering in Russia, their stability in here and around,
Speaker 1: the stability inherent in China. Just depict the Big Three
Speaker 1: and they can come unraveled in ways that there are surprising. Historically.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of them are on the roast
Speaker 1: by any stretch the amount of imagination, but they all
Speaker 1: have internal problems that under the wrong set of circumstances,
Speaker 1: you know, things can get out of hand. And and
Speaker 1: I would say the one thing that's different today about
Speaker 1: you know, the cover action world and and the stability
Speaker 1: is things can unravel quickly because of social media and
Speaker 1: the cyber capabilities and communications capability it does and help
Speaker 1: you rebuild a thing. That's one thing I could say.
Speaker 1: The social media can destroy a lot of things. It
Speaker 1: doesn't build. It doesn't do building. So I think good intelligence,
Speaker 1: we have to really understand the dynamics of what's going
Speaker 1: on in these countries and not the wishful thinking of
Speaker 1: visitor business sector or the visual thinking of someone that
Speaker 1: wants to do good. I mean, I think you have
Speaker 1: to take a hard most look at the world and
Speaker 1: and be prepared for promotable contingencies. And everybody, everybody understands that.
Speaker 1: You know, the military has a plan for a plan,
Speaker 1: for a plan, so and that's necessary. At times it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like it's um productive. But until the crisis
Speaker 1: comes in, we're in, You're planning. It's closest to the reality.
Speaker 1: What we're talking with Jack Devine, former acting director of
Speaker 1: Operations for the CIA, who have written his book, which
Speaker 1: is titled spine Master's Prison to Fight Against Russian Aggression
Speaker 1: comes out on March first. And Um, you touched on
Speaker 1: this briefly in the book, but I have to ask
Speaker 1: you when it comes to Charlie Wilson, and we mentioned
Speaker 1: him earlier when we were talking. Did you actually meet
Speaker 1: Charlie Wilson a lot or was it just a few times?
Speaker 1: And what was your impression of the book and the
Speaker 1: film when it came out. Now, I got to know
Speaker 1: Charlie very well, traveled with and we went out there, Um, Pakistan,
Speaker 1: a couple of times up in the shower with the
Speaker 1: along the border. Some say that Charlie actually took a
Speaker 1: horse in Afghanistan. Others would say we staged it. So
Speaker 1: he looked at about that. So he was he was
Speaker 1: underestimated by many people. He had a you know, a
Speaker 1: notorious lifestyle which he propagated. He created the met or
Speaker 1: of Charley which maybe became the reality. But he was
Speaker 1: at Annapolis Graduate. He was a serious guy, smart um
Speaker 1: um down there, a guy you know, he didn't have
Speaker 1: a dime, and he was in Texas a young man,
Speaker 1: and you made a role for himself. And when he
Speaker 1: had left the Congress and I had left the agency,
Speaker 1: came to New York and we had dinner at Sparks Restaurant.
Speaker 1: If you know Sparks Restaurant, that's where the mafia Don
Speaker 1: Castliano was assassinated. Right, Charlie had a sense of romance. Right,
Speaker 1: he can't go at you know Smith and Wilinski in
Speaker 1: Appo State. Now you gotta go to Sparks. So we
Speaker 1: go to Sparks. We're with our wives and he need
Speaker 1: to cross the table as a jack. I know, I
Speaker 1: know you didn't like the book. God, you're gonna hate
Speaker 1: the movie. So and what what he was really talking about?
Speaker 1: It wasn't Charlie Wilson's work. He was a bigger in
Speaker 1: life figure on Glad. I know him and I think
Speaker 1: he was a contributor to the effort. He was a
Speaker 1: good face out in meeting with the foreign leaders, and
Speaker 1: it was always pushing him down in the hill. He
Speaker 1: was he was able to steer money, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: his program. And the reason this annoys me, um, it's
Speaker 1: because I think people in America needs to understand overt action.
Speaker 1: That's why I read the first book Good Hunting, and
Speaker 1: that is how is how mactovit? How does covert action run?
Speaker 1: And one of the greatness which people to understand. The
Speaker 1: President nice United States signs the approval other it's he says,
Speaker 1: you can't use force on right, and this is these
Speaker 1: are the guidelines. And now you have to go brief
Speaker 1: Congress right, and Congress has to get it in fun
Speaker 1: deal right, and then you have the job you gotta get.
Speaker 1: You got to get allies, You're got to get people
Speaker 1: who want to fight. And I have a whole set
Speaker 1: of principles around it. So it's a government program and
Speaker 1: so while I traveled and to Charlie often I would
Speaker 1: tell you substantively on decision making in a party. I
Speaker 1: don't think we had five discussions, and I can only
Speaker 1: remember one or two of them, and one was why
Speaker 1: did do Jack ship buying the weapons from the majority
Speaker 1: of the weapons from Egypt the China? Okay, now remember
Speaker 1: this is going back when China was allied with US
Speaker 1: here um, and it's a very simple reason. Charlie, They're
Speaker 1: providing the quicker, faster keeper, right, he said, I got it, okay.
Speaker 1: So the point was Charlie had no saying that. Now
Speaker 1: we would go in Charlie's office, he had a stinger
Speaker 1: missile hanging over his store and it came from the
Speaker 1: CIA CIA office and told it would be nice give
Speaker 1: Charlie a stinger. But what it did is it identifies
Speaker 1: him with the stinger missile. And that's not how the
Speaker 1: stinger went in. Charlie actually opposed it. He thought he
Speaker 1: was doing a good thing because I think someone whispered
Speaker 1: was here, tell the tell the Pakistani's when the officials
Speaker 1: come out that you don't need a one stingers in
Speaker 1: the program. And that's what happened for a while because
Speaker 1: there were people in Washington they were afraid that the
Speaker 1: Singer went in it would be world wars. Right. So
Speaker 1: when I arrived at the Afghan Past Force, I did
Speaker 1: have a good feeling for this uh sense of concern
Speaker 1: and I was looking at it as um, what what
Speaker 1: what changes us for? And we were nine million pounds
Speaker 1: of ordinance was going across the border and it was
Speaker 1: daily and it's locked it daily or monthly. Forgotten the line.
Speaker 1: We couldn't cross the line because the Russians were using
Speaker 1: the the spenter there's bets nuts and and they're behind
Speaker 1: helicopters and was suppressing it. And we had like going
Speaker 1: banages again. We would put in one weapon system. You know,
Speaker 1: we started out with like World War two weapons, rifles,
Speaker 1: and then by the end you had very sophisticated weapons.
Speaker 1: And the Stinger was an amplication because there was no U.
Speaker 1: S weapons in the battlefield other than the Stingers. It
Speaker 1: was a big policy decision and I went down to
Speaker 1: the White House one day and the agency had voted
Speaker 1: against it, and voted against it. They showed him mock
Speaker 1: shootdown of the Stinger, and Uh, I said, damn it,
Speaker 1: we need that RNY room didn't say, your office has
Speaker 1: been voting this down. They said, oh Jack, great idea
Speaker 1: the mouth and it ends up, you know, the president signing.
Speaker 1: The next I get a call as I go over
Speaker 1: and talk three star general. I know his name, but
Speaker 1: I won't mention a good guy. General. Look, I need
Speaker 1: next number of your things. Said, look, the boys don't
Speaker 1: have it. I said, I understand that we're out there
Speaker 1: now and I've been told to come. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: I'd like to give you, but you know, go pound
Speaker 1: saying or whatever. He called the White House and said
Speaker 1: you go back to Mars. I went back to mar dutifully.
Speaker 1: You know, I just empathized with his position because he
Speaker 1: really didn't want to do it, and I understood his reasoning.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's like you bite your lip and
Speaker 1: the blood starts to come out of the corners. Okay,
Speaker 1: you could have them all right, but don't come back.
Speaker 1: I never saw him again. So they went in. And
Speaker 1: what I'm saying to you is how the weapons were organized,
Speaker 1: Who got what, when they got it? Where? What was
Speaker 1: the strategy? Uh, this wasn't Charlie's game, and the Charlie's
Speaker 1: was he worked the hill very well and he was
Speaker 1: a good ambassador and you know, a good moral. But
Speaker 1: if I were, if you come to me and said,
Speaker 1: this is Jack, why don't you and I put a
Speaker 1: movie together. We're gonna have all these bureaucrats, you and
Speaker 1: all the other bureaucrats, and we'll get some mule skinners
Speaker 1: in this and what's a little of this, and letn't
Speaker 1: make a movie. Say that's that's boring. No one's going
Speaker 1: to watch that. Let's get a congressman with Julie Roberts
Speaker 1: and they saw the whole world to go out single
Speaker 1: handed with some crazy c I a guy and all
Speaker 1: works out in the whole thing fall as well. They
Speaker 1: became a great book, a great movie, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: but it just as in reality. So when you get
Speaker 1: around and say, listen, I have a problem, let's go
Speaker 1: find something congressman and some socialite and see we can't
Speaker 1: go out there and change things, to change the world
Speaker 1: with covert action. And this was the most successful co
Speaker 1: operation I think the history of the agency up to
Speaker 1: that point, you know, requires a lot of people doing
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, multiple allies, logistics, it was
Speaker 1: a war of logistics that's not run by a single Congressman.
Speaker 1: It's you know, offices and people and I think Steeview
Speaker 1: even had a hand my favorite mule. That's it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know when you mentioned mule skinners, uh. At the time,
Speaker 1: I mean there was no as we all know, logistics
Speaker 1: drive to train and you know we talked about that earlier.
Speaker 1: And you know, the Mujadine at that time, they didn't
Speaker 1: have logistics. So you know, the agency was gonna furnish
Speaker 1: them with mules from China, which is like, you know, unbelievably,
Speaker 1: and so the agency got special forces on board and
Speaker 1: they said, you know, we need you guys to come
Speaker 1: up with some mules, packs for the mules, the panniers
Speaker 1: and this is the kind of stuff that they're going
Speaker 1: to be carrying. We need you know, Russian eighty two
Speaker 1: millimeter mortars, we need Stinger missiles, and we need AMMO
Speaker 1: crates and all this and um so my team, you know,
Speaker 1: we were involved with that. I don't think I'm breaking
Speaker 1: any security regulations this many years after the fact, but
Speaker 1: it was it was very interesting because you know when
Speaker 1: we first started it, uh, we were working on it
Speaker 1: down in the mountains in Honduras with Honduran soldiers. And
Speaker 1: the first day that you know, we were going to
Speaker 1: leave the compound, we had everything all strapped up and
Speaker 1: we thought we had it down. And by the end
Speaker 1: of the day everything was falling out. The mules were
Speaker 1: falling down, the packs were falling up. I think we
Speaker 1: got about five hundred yards you could still see the
Speaker 1: gate of the compound. And then you know, each day
Speaker 1: would have to go and you know, change things a
Speaker 1: little bit, and we ended up working it all out
Speaker 1: and later after the fact, as you and I were
Speaker 1: talking when all this came out later on and you know,
Speaker 1: with the agency's efforts with the Mujiadin, we saw the mules,
Speaker 1: pictures of them with the Mujadin guys, and we saw
Speaker 1: those saddles and we were like, hey, we made those.
Speaker 1: But you know, Stave, it was such important. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking down in the weeds, but that's
Speaker 1: how logistics sisted down the weeds. So if you look
Speaker 1: at the program, and again I keep the juxtaposition of
Speaker 1: Charlie beside you, this is in Charlie's So first of all,
Speaker 1: you have to buy a billion dollars worth of weapons.
Speaker 1: Where do you buy them? You can't buy you can't
Speaker 1: get American weapons. You have to buy them. That's a
Speaker 1: logistical problem. How do you get them out there? That
Speaker 1: means boats, trains. I mean, at one point I probably
Speaker 1: owed more Priora trucks than anybody in the in Asia
Speaker 1: because we had trucks. But you got to a certain
Speaker 1: point and the trucks couldn't go over the mountains, right,
Speaker 1: and you needed the mules or you're going to stay
Speaker 1: at the bottom. So unbeknownst to you maybe at the time,
Speaker 1: but we were buying nine thousand mules and marching them
Speaker 1: across China because Pakistani mules did not work. And the
Speaker 1: other thing is, uh, you know what I don't I'm
Speaker 1: a city guy. I don't know. You know, I just
Speaker 1: said before a horse revealed. But I'll tell you Tennessee,
Speaker 1: mules do not work in Afghanistan, right, So you had
Speaker 1: to know this stuff. You needed experts and so ended
Speaker 1: up Chinese mules. Mules work, and then you needed saddles.
Speaker 1: You needed tailors saddles to carry the type of weapons.
Speaker 1: And it was a big, big, big breakthrough. So the
Speaker 1: point that I would make is there were lots of
Speaker 1: people and you touched it, and there was you know,
Speaker 1: a guy that mule skinners and all these experts that
Speaker 1: were in their medical trainers. You know, the stingers weren't
Speaker 1: they were trained, they weren't trained by an agency guy.
Speaker 1: You have a couple of people who came out of
Speaker 1: Fort Bragg, you know, that had just been trained on it,
Speaker 1: went out there and everybody did their part. So when
Speaker 1: the when the Russians left and they marched across the
Speaker 1: Friendship Bridge, cable enough from the ages saying we want
Speaker 1: and I thought that was the right pronoun. We lots
Speaker 1: of people, lots of people over many years contributed. So
Speaker 1: this is why, truly, Doc, you're gonna hate. It's not
Speaker 1: because of Charlie. It's not about Charlie. It's about how
Speaker 1: are things done and running these types of efforts. And
Speaker 1: again I'm not a logistic guy. I know a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot more about it now. I knew enough
Speaker 1: to get some really good logistic guys around me that
Speaker 1: we're outstanding. And I just read a book going generally Grant,
Speaker 1: you know, and he had the spotty career, will be nice.
Speaker 1: But when he got into the Civil War and I
Speaker 1: started to look at it instead of the glory of
Speaker 1: and I don't want to defend anyone with a fan
Speaker 1: of proberty lee. But grand was a quartermaster out in
Speaker 1: some Western word or something during the Indian Wars, and
Speaker 1: he was a logistics guy. At the end that war
Speaker 1: was a civil war. One are the great tragedies of
Speaker 1: our country, the confrontation It was logistics. So I am
Speaker 1: now a believer. It just thinks if you're going to
Speaker 1: go in any sort of combat of any proportions, or
Speaker 1: you're going to go into a covert action operation, or
Speaker 1: you're going to run a political operation, you need to
Speaker 1: get your blocking tacting done. You need to get your plumbing,
Speaker 1: you need your master's shortage others. It isn't You can't
Speaker 1: think in these broad movie tones of how things that
Speaker 1: it's hard work. You know. If you're looking for glory,
Speaker 1: don't look for the logistics job, you know. And I
Speaker 1: I went out of my way at the end when
Speaker 1: I was leaving to make special note to them, just
Speaker 1: to their unsung heroes, and and so a lot of
Speaker 1: people get the glory, but the real bankbone logistics. So
Speaker 1: if you've got folks out there that log time, if
Speaker 1: you will in logs, then you know, I tip my
Speaker 1: hat and it wasn't Charlie Wilson's or I would say
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it probably was the
Speaker 1: logs team that this happened. And we let me just
Speaker 1: make a comment of about Congress and the President United States,
Speaker 1: both of them Republican Democrats. They couldn't do enough down
Speaker 1: on the hill. Now you're not doors like kinterparts that
Speaker 1: went down to about Center America. They didn't have it
Speaker 1: and it ended up with the way it did. But
Speaker 1: on this particular project, when it works, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to have Congress, you have to have it, you
Speaker 1: have to have the budget, and can't be leaking and
Speaker 1: all the things, terrible things that happen to The presidented
Speaker 1: States have to put his signature down on the line
Speaker 1: and then then people and professionals could do what they
Speaker 1: could do. And the professionals and military agents didn't get
Speaker 1: it done. So they're the basic ingredients. So it's not
Speaker 1: about Charlie at all. And I don't know, I have
Speaker 1: nothing but good things to say about Charlie. But when
Speaker 1: people understand how wars are and covert wars are run, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's just Hollywood. They have put a face on
Speaker 1: it so they can sell it. And you know what
Speaker 1: better wouldn't sell it, You wouldn't save you wouldn't sell
Speaker 1: it with my face. Let me look at Normine. Normine
Speaker 1: so uh Tom Hanks, the Tom Tom Hanks, I'm not
Speaker 1: bell negotiate maybe yeah, but now And I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you. I know that you served in the Agency
Speaker 1: for for you know, thirty years and a lot of
Speaker 1: the you know, I've done a lot of research on
Speaker 1: the early days of the Agency because so many of
Speaker 1: them came from OSS and which was the forerunner of
Speaker 1: both the Agency and the Army Special Forces. Bill Kobe,
Speaker 1: Bill Casey, Allan Dallas, Richard Holmes, and my favorite, uh
Speaker 1: person from OSS who will later joined c i A.
Speaker 1: Was Virginia Hall. Did did you get to meet any
Speaker 1: of these, you know, the people that started the agency
Speaker 1: back in the day. I did. In fact, most of
Speaker 1: the people when I first joined had roots in it.
Speaker 1: I mean it was you know, these are the big names.
Speaker 1: These were the public figures, right, but you know, the
Speaker 1: Chief of China, the Chief of Latin America, they all
Speaker 1: love time in World War Two and then OSS particular
Speaker 1: Um and Bill Casey, I mean, you know, the director
Speaker 1: there was OSS Europe, but Virginia Hall. I didn't know
Speaker 1: from Adam except when I was in. I guess I
Speaker 1: was on the Dominican Republic desk, which was not the
Speaker 1: center of the world, although in six and I joined afterwards.
Speaker 1: But I was standing in the hallway and beside me
Speaker 1: sort of straightened up right, and the woman walked by
Speaker 1: nothing and nothing know where it is. Well you seem
Speaker 1: to really come alive when she walked back. So well,
Speaker 1: that's that's Virginia Hall. You know Virginia Hall, and now
Speaker 1: today she is better known, but back then, so Virginia
Speaker 1: Hall for the listeners. Actually, if you go into C
Speaker 1: I A. And this is very might be a human
Speaker 1: interest story, you go in and beautifully done. In my view,
Speaker 1: it's one of the best architectural buildings in government. I
Speaker 1: obviously have a bias, but I'll leave out all the dynamics.
Speaker 1: I do go into the book at the beginning because
Speaker 1: there's some meaning to the the entrance way in the
Speaker 1: stars and quotes. But on the wall as you're going
Speaker 1: down the right hand side, their paintings that have been
Speaker 1: professionally done and commissioned, so and commissions of painting, and
Speaker 1: the first one they're moving around a little bit was
Speaker 1: Virginia Hall. Further down the number three or four along
Speaker 1: the wall is the second when the replica of the
Speaker 1: Stinger shootdown taken by video at the time and then
Speaker 1: transposed into um into a formal painting. So Virginia Hall
Speaker 1: the picture has her in It looks like a tent
Speaker 1: cranking out messages. But Virginia Hall was spoke French fluently.
Speaker 1: And she was in Turkey as a young woman and
Speaker 1: had a hunting accident and badly damaged, lost the bottom
Speaker 1: part of her life, and she had artificial live in
Speaker 1: those day. And she tried to Gussie tries to join
Speaker 1: during World War two and the bridge took her in
Speaker 1: and then she got in the NSS and she dropped
Speaker 1: they had they dropped her behind the lines in France,
Speaker 1: and she became the most one it spied by the
Speaker 1: Nazis because she was one of the principal organizers of
Speaker 1: the resistance and the communicator in France. And it was
Speaker 1: and she was received the top medal for the French,
Speaker 1: the British and Americans for her her deeds. People she
Speaker 1: worked with, many of them were executed. She got out
Speaker 1: just in time. She went out over the mountains with
Speaker 1: the like. She had a nickname for it. There was
Speaker 1: Cruthers Cuthbert. That was that was it. So they sent
Speaker 1: a mess saying do you have are you having trouble
Speaker 1: getting out? There's so the only problem is with what
Speaker 1: was the name again, Cuthbert? She named her leg Well,
Speaker 1: no problems with this and so they sent a no
Speaker 1: terminate shoot them h when things That was always a
Speaker 1: CIA didn't do that. But there a lot of people,
Speaker 1: but I was. I was recruited in the Latin American division.
Speaker 1: Alias was Tom Bender, that's not his real name, but
Speaker 1: he also worked behind the lines in in trance organized resistance.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just these top level of people. I
Speaker 1: would say that the entire building was um uh permeated
Speaker 1: with and it's not just people, but people bring cultures
Speaker 1: with them and it was within that I associated most
Speaker 1: with the agency through my career was a spirit of
Speaker 1: can do what an element delivered tomorrow to blessed it
Speaker 1: or Shanghai, I got it, you can do. And there
Speaker 1: wasn't a spree and sensitivity about people and you know,
Speaker 1: caring for people. It was it was something to behold.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I found fascinating is if you're
Speaker 1: a self promoter in that group. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: wasn't any but you know, it was all about mission
Speaker 1: and if you look like you were just hustling, you didn't.
Speaker 1: Your career didn't go anywhere. They really believe in God
Speaker 1: and country and they behave that way. The other thing
Speaker 1: that you know, people think, you know, c I a
Speaker 1: lie cheese steel, but it has a very high standard
Speaker 1: insight to protect itself, I guess. But you know, we
Speaker 1: produced a lot of intelligence and a lot of delicate operations.
Speaker 1: And I think of my career and if if three
Speaker 1: people looked me in the eye and lied to me,
Speaker 1: A lot of people that don't tell me the whole story,
Speaker 1: which is a little different. It's a lot. If you
Speaker 1: ever get calledline about anything you're doing and reporting your
Speaker 1: you're you're finished. It's as so fundamental as I said,
Speaker 1: you walked through the door. You should know the truth
Speaker 1: and I'll set you free. If you do not adhere
Speaker 1: to that, you're finished. And that was a culture that
Speaker 1: was instilled in the agency from the LSS and a
Speaker 1: lot of dedicated people. Um great sacrifice and no glory.
Speaker 1: You know today I'm allowed to write a book because
Speaker 1: I'm tired of other people writing books telling their story
Speaker 1: and I've never been there. But you know, they were
Speaker 1: all quiet, and then the intelligence side it's very quiet.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm able to write again. I became part
Speaker 1: public at the end, but more importantly I got involved
Speaker 1: in that. One can ask themselves why, but I think
Speaker 1: partly because I ran there's covert action, So I was
Speaker 1: involved in a lot of covert action, and that almost
Speaker 1: that we've become the public. So the things we've talked
Speaker 1: about today are all in the public record because these
Speaker 1: are the classified and so on. What is it be classified?
Speaker 1: Is how to think about it? And I think that's
Speaker 1: a contribution I make. I think I make two contributions
Speaker 1: that I write. One is pulling the facts together in
Speaker 1: one place to make a coherent hold out of it.
Speaker 1: In second, use my spy Master's prison to give my
Speaker 1: interpretation for what you know, what it's worth. It's my
Speaker 1: look at the business these events from that optic, and
Speaker 1: the prison allows that a lot of other people can
Speaker 1: be looking at it differently, and I fully understanding of that.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure that the intelligence prison, at least from
Speaker 1: one one optic mind has as a hearing. Well, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be uh, a complete podcast if we didn't get
Speaker 1: into some of the the more difficult parts of the
Speaker 1: history of the agency. And that was there. There was
Speaker 1: a couple of malls, Russian moles and involved with one
Speaker 1: of them Alder James and the other Robert Hansen. But
Speaker 1: Robert Hanson was an FBI agent. But but I think
Speaker 1: both of them caused untold amount of damage. And you
Speaker 1: you talked about that in the book, and you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that came out about both of
Speaker 1: them and you you mentioned they were both kind of underachievers,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of you know, it's this the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that our kinter intelligence people look for as
Speaker 1: guys who are underachieving, guys who are kind of stymied
Speaker 1: in their career. Yes, that's the short answer. Long answer
Speaker 1: is uh, it's the the counter intelligence business finding spies
Speaker 1: within the system. It's the real art for him. And
Speaker 1: again it's another one. It's like logistics, it's unsunk. You know,
Speaker 1: usually don't get an award for finding a spy, at
Speaker 1: least in our culture. There's KGB gives you a medal
Speaker 1: if you find an American spy in your system. We
Speaker 1: tend to we tend to give out reprimands. But so
Speaker 1: I knew Rickee's and I knew reconably well. And that's
Speaker 1: why it's more painful when you know it's you meet
Speaker 1: a spy and you know them and you worked with them. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, at least a lot of introspection. But I
Speaker 1: knew from from the reverse day I walked into the building.
Speaker 1: He was working on Russia. I was working on Eustern
Speaker 1: Europe and administrative job just basically be looking at cables
Speaker 1: and assignment they filed somewhere. But you know he was
Speaker 1: he was someone who came from a CIA family. I
Speaker 1: really didn't have any routes background I can call the
Speaker 1: background foreign service. What is that? Is that the foreign legion?
Speaker 1: So you know it was he was steeped in the
Speaker 1: lore of it um and um. I went to his wedding.
Speaker 1: He was you'd like this mokey, like that drink, but
Speaker 1: he was not ring materialistic uncept if you will. And
Speaker 1: I didn't see him for for twenty years. But over
Speaker 1: those twenty years, what sercers were direct was and then
Speaker 1: retrospect as well. You know, you think you can size
Speaker 1: up the ego of somebody. But what I learned over
Speaker 1: many years is that whatever you think of ego is
Speaker 1: it's probably twice the size. Even people to look humble
Speaker 1: of the ego. So in Rick's case, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't didn't because they didn't see the reason why we
Speaker 1: have such a big ego. Right. The smart guy read
Speaker 1: a lot um. But his performance, he just was a
Speaker 1: turrible under performance. He did very well on things he liked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you can't go to life saying, listen, I like
Speaker 1: I just like to do one thing yea, uh, cleaning again.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna clean again. I'll just shoot it, you know,
Speaker 1: to get well, that's good. So he was an underperformer
Speaker 1: and what happened, And this is why I think it
Speaker 1: is a the telltale sign when you look for when
Speaker 1: you go hunting for a spine, and that's when you
Speaker 1: have this narcissistic, bigger than life ego and they can
Speaker 1: be some good You don't have to be walking around
Speaker 1: at a flashy soon. I mean, it's if you just
Speaker 1: have to be able understand that people really think they're
Speaker 1: good and combining with underperforming and then they cannot figure
Speaker 1: out I'm so good. Why am I not being promoted
Speaker 1: with Jack Dells be promoted And so it's that gap
Speaker 1: between self evaluation and performance. And then they become dissatisfied
Speaker 1: with the system. That Rick was not converted the Communism
Speaker 1: report ants and never converted the Communists. They just thought
Speaker 1: that they were really gifted men and nobody appreciated them,
Speaker 1: and they were getting the role, thend, the the stay.
Speaker 1: So you know, where where does treason begin? That begins
Speaker 1: in the mind, It begins in this space. Both of
Speaker 1: them had the fluke of life. The Russians got so
Speaker 1: lucky that at one point in time they had two
Speaker 1: of the guys in the both sensitive Russia offices, you
Speaker 1: know in the U. S. Government, Right, So that's a
Speaker 1: that's luck, but he can't argue against it. So they
Speaker 1: not only had the trees in his mind, they had
Speaker 1: access to things that mattered. And Uh, in risk case,
Speaker 1: he drank and drank a lot. The medic said he
Speaker 1: was an alcoholic, but it's the distinction without the difference though,
Speaker 1: and so he drank a lot, but it was episodical.
Speaker 1: So he had a reason to go into Russian embassy
Speaker 1: because he had reason because of a Russian ci Russian
Speaker 1: law specialists had a reason, and he sat outside in
Speaker 1: and three or four or five vodkas or whatever, and
Speaker 1: then decided he was going to walk in and he
Speaker 1: was going to handle this is the other part of that.
Speaker 1: He could handle them right sea. He was going to
Speaker 1: a little sheet of paper with a couple of names
Speaker 1: on or the second meeting, he dump eleven of our
Speaker 1: best Russians in the premnin and intelligence services. He gave
Speaker 1: him the whole It was in junior live and they
Speaker 1: gave them the crown jewels. They all were executed. The
Speaker 1: KGB was urgly not to execute them right because what
Speaker 1: they wanted to do was to run run operations. But
Speaker 1: the poler just founded such a such a front, the
Speaker 1: communist system or whatever. They had them all executed, but
Speaker 1: it took a while for the agency to come into
Speaker 1: terms with the same. The FBI, I was hunting for
Speaker 1: Hanson in c I C I A, because I knew
Speaker 1: there was another moment, as did answer all the questions,
Speaker 1: but in the FBI thought he was in ci A.
Speaker 1: Later on it turned out he was smashing the middle
Speaker 1: of their Russian operation. So um the the opportunities that
Speaker 1: that they had made a big, big, big difference, and
Speaker 1: when they when they absolutely started working for for the Russians,
Speaker 1: and well, it was interesting in both cases. I should
Speaker 1: point about the other side of the fifth coin. And
Speaker 1: there's movies out, so you're looking at the movies. You
Speaker 1: have to pay careful attention Breach, which I think is
Speaker 1: a very good movie about Handsome, But you have to
Speaker 1: listen carefully because it looks like all the work is
Speaker 1: being done by getting is what they used to call
Speaker 1: a pilot and getting his phone. But the title of
Speaker 1: my chapters, it takes a spy to catch a spy, right.
Speaker 1: So the way we got a Handsome, the way we
Speaker 1: got Ames is another spy, a Russian spy gave them
Speaker 1: up right. And we had a hard time, as I
Speaker 1: was saying a few minutes ago, coming to terms, we
Speaker 1: actually had a spy the FBI had. It can't be
Speaker 1: one of us. We're all patriots, right, And what didn't
Speaker 1: make the point in my book for those who are
Speaker 1: going to reach on students of intelligence business your mess
Speaker 1: assume you always have spies. We've always had them inside
Speaker 1: our systems, we have them inside our government. It's naive
Speaker 1: to think otherwise, and you need to have a strong
Speaker 1: counter intelligence, but it took us a few years to
Speaker 1: find names because we got distracted when Lone Tree walked
Speaker 1: in the russ into the embassy and in Moscow, we
Speaker 1: thought that's how we lost our Asians. And then there
Speaker 1: was a technological reason there. Spent a year analyzing beams
Speaker 1: bouncing off of us, and eventually they went. They almost
Speaker 1: didn't go back. In one moment, Jean vertebrate, it was
Speaker 1: about to retire, so let me go to the file again.
Speaker 1: Let me see if I can find something. And then
Speaker 1: hence began the unwrappling of aims, and then we got
Speaker 1: a break with the other factors. So it's an important
Speaker 1: I spent more time on the spy cases and good
Speaker 1: hunting has been a lot of covert action. Both of
Speaker 1: them have by cases and so on. But you know,
Speaker 1: they're fascinating to read, and you can the reason I
Speaker 1: say it takes us by against us by is when
Speaker 1: I went back and started doing the research, it's very
Speaker 1: hard for me to find one that wasn't wasn't compromised
Speaker 1: by another spot. And I think it's an interesting read
Speaker 1: in that regard. Hmm, yeah, and uh again, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: I asked you for sixty minutes of your time. We're
Speaker 1: almost that hour and a half, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: to ask you, you know, from insider's perspective, somebody who's
Speaker 1: spending a good chunk of your life there. Uh, how
Speaker 1: do you feel the agency is looking moving forward? I
Speaker 1: know we kind of switch gears a little bit, uh
Speaker 1: after nine eleven, and you know, we got um the
Speaker 1: entire apparatus involved the count of terrorism, and now it
Speaker 1: looks like we're going back to the big game with
Speaker 1: the Russians and the Chinese. How are we looking? How
Speaker 1: do you feel like the CIA is matching up switching
Speaker 1: gears at this point? So your n ask point, I mean,
Speaker 1: is a really good one about the change in targeting, right,
Speaker 1: So I must say every once in a while, I
Speaker 1: get things right in a good tiding. I've basically said that,
Speaker 1: you know, this is an four team that basically we
Speaker 1: were going to be moving into a new target set,
Speaker 1: which would be nationalism was coming back, and we'll be
Speaker 1: going back to the hard targets and terrorism will be waning.
Speaker 1: But I very carefully put in the terrorism. It was
Speaker 1: not going to wait totally, you know, any given day,
Speaker 1: I mean nine eleven. That one day changed the next
Speaker 1: twenty years in terms of how we were going to
Speaker 1: spend money in in the national defense. So but it
Speaker 1: was it seemed to me that there's a trend line
Speaker 1: in terrorism. We've seen it spike in the seventies. It
Speaker 1: was much worse and nine eleven attack and a lot
Speaker 1: of efforts put into fighting it. But we shifted because
Speaker 1: the coal word had come to an end. We shifted
Speaker 1: to the counter terrorists and Marina and all agencies. Budgets
Speaker 1: were funneled into it. And it changes. It becomes a
Speaker 1: different targets that different types of people need to do.
Speaker 1: The jobs have the emphasis on para military tactical and
Speaker 1: I think you know, we could see it changing in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. And the agency and all
Speaker 1: military is the same process of how do you adjust
Speaker 1: readjust now to a nation state like China, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you deal with h deal with an
Speaker 1: aggressive Russia? And how do you allocate your butt? So
Speaker 1: if you're internally in both the military, so you have
Speaker 1: to do some soul searching. We've done it before military
Speaker 1: and the CI and you have to what type of
Speaker 1: soldiers are you? What I mean, what are targets, what
Speaker 1: what tools are we going to use? So I think
Speaker 1: my exposure to the CIA would suggest that we have,
Speaker 1: you know, very talent. We certainly have talented people in
Speaker 1: the military, and military is the best trainers in history
Speaker 1: and how the training the best numbers of people who
Speaker 1: the most background. So I think we have that we
Speaker 1: have that capability. I think there's a question that will
Speaker 1: outside of the agency and outside of the military, that
Speaker 1: is where is this country? Where do we want to go?
Speaker 1: And what's the policy. Otherways, if you tell the military
Speaker 1: this is what I went done, they'll get it done.
Speaker 1: You tell the agency these are the priorities. So I
Speaker 1: again from back to the dysfunctional Congress, you know, we
Speaker 1: need to interact together on what is it? What is
Speaker 1: it we're going to be doing with these tools? And
Speaker 1: uh and I think the presidential policy they have to decide,
Speaker 1: you know what matters. I think the agencies are capable
Speaker 1: of doing it, but they all have to read. They're
Speaker 1: in a process. They need to go through a process
Speaker 1: of retooling and how they do it. And the other
Speaker 1: thing that I would say, and I would say less
Speaker 1: is less through the military because their weapons are modernize
Speaker 1: and that supports things are modernized and it's an over
Speaker 1: world exactly true. The fact that you're modernizing eventually, the
Speaker 1: fact that you have, you know, an advanced weapons system
Speaker 1: is visible to everybody. The production of it is very secret.
Speaker 1: But in the intelligence world, we're moving so fast in
Speaker 1: terms of cyber and communications and what's possible tend to
Speaker 1: people inside the agency. Are they tooled? Are we collecting
Speaker 1: the right way? Are we the way that we collected
Speaker 1: a mayor? Is the same approach? Are we modern enough?
Speaker 1: And I think the book is to be written yet
Speaker 1: on that test my experience, you tell me in the
Speaker 1: past we measured up and made the adjustments every time
Speaker 1: there was innovation. But I do think we're in a
Speaker 1: transition here, partly a policy transition, partly the tools of flying,
Speaker 1: the pools of warfare, training, training. We need to make
Speaker 1: sure we've got the right tools lined up for the
Speaker 1: right targets, and and uh, we need to change our
Speaker 1: mindset about how we do do certain things. Are we
Speaker 1: going to wait for somebody to walk into an embassy
Speaker 1: when we have a twenty foot wall around? And how
Speaker 1: how are we getting sources when you can use your
Speaker 1: phone to reach thousands of people and basically cold pitch
Speaker 1: and if that's what you want to do, but those
Speaker 1: decisions have to be be made. I don't think they're
Speaker 1: completely joined yet. I think they're it's in process, and
Speaker 1: I guess I would say I'm optimistic, optimistic, but recognizing
Speaker 1: that there's no sleep pass forward. There'll be bumps, will
Speaker 1: be failures, but hopefully the failures turning into you know,
Speaker 1: um makes successes because you learn from it. So I
Speaker 1: think there's a bumpy I think we're going into a
Speaker 1: bumpy road on so many aspects of American Mike, including
Speaker 1: mass security. If that's side was saying, I want to
Speaker 1: be clear, it's not side to Trump, is not tide.
Speaker 1: The bidens where we is in our national psyche? Where
Speaker 1: are we and what matters to us? Well, we encourage
Speaker 1: all our listeners to read Jack Devine's new book of
Speaker 1: Spy Master's Prison, The Fight Against Russian Aggression. It comes
Speaker 1: out on March one. It is definitely a compelling read
Speaker 1: and we want to thank thank you served for your
Speaker 1: one for your service, your thirty two years with the
Speaker 1: Central Intelligence Agency. And now he's a founding partner and
Speaker 1: the president of the ark And Group, which is internal
Speaker 1: crisis management and strategic intelligence. Um yea organization, but it's
Speaker 1: not a mini CIA as he put out earlier. But
Speaker 1: before we go, I just need to read something real quick.
Speaker 1: If you want to get soft rep on your phone,
Speaker 1: don't load our free mobile app and get easy access
Speaker 1: to our articles, podcasts, your reviews, all perfectly formatity your device.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe to software dot com to gain access to
Speaker 1: our library of e books and our exclusive team room
Speaker 1: forms and content, all available on Apple and Android devices. Jack,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time with us today. I
Speaker 1: wish we could spend another three hours. I could talk
Speaker 1: to you about a myriad of other subjects and I
Speaker 1: would love to pick your brain on it. But we'll
Speaker 1: have to do this again sometime real soon. But thank you, uh,
Speaker 1: and thanks for your service. Thanks for your input today.
Speaker 1: I think all of our listeners are really getting a
Speaker 1: lot out of this. Thank you for giving me an
Speaker 1: opportunity to say thank you to all the folks out there,
Speaker 1: because well, good luck, good luck with the book. Now,
Speaker 1: do you have any book signings coming? I know with
Speaker 1: COVID it's probably not. Uh, probably is prevalent as those
Speaker 1: things used to be, right, I think what what I'm
Speaker 1: going to try and do, and maybe I can follow
Speaker 1: up behind this with you know, if you could put
Speaker 1: out sort of links where they can get, you know,
Speaker 1: get the books, that would be helpful. Uh. In the
Speaker 1: old days, I would show up and sign a lot
Speaker 1: of books, but I don't think that's going to happen,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a limiting factor. But I do
Speaker 1: think I'm going to have systematize linking so listeners can
Speaker 1: can more easily. It's it's going Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's out there and readily available. But um,
Speaker 1: if someone likes it, write a good review. If they
Speaker 1: don't like it, don't do anything, well, well we'll be
Speaker 1: writing a review from from my reading of it. It'll
Speaker 1: be out right about the time the podcast comes out,
Speaker 1: and we should be right around the time the book
Speaker 1: gets released, so hopefully, well we can help you generally
Speaker 1: eat a couple of sales of that as well. Well.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Steve. It's a pleasure. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really good to have an interview with something that's
Speaker 1: actually bag the material and knowledgeable about it and some
Speaker 1: of the fun things with the mules was great. Um,
Speaker 1: just when you send it out, just flag it for
Speaker 1: me the link because I'm going to put it out
Speaker 1: the our clients and friends to make sure they know
Speaker 1: about the radio program. So thank you very much. Sure,
Speaker 1: thanks and thanks again for joining us, and thanks for
Speaker 1: all our listeners out there for myself Steve bow Surry
Speaker 1: are our special guests today, Jack Divine from c I
Speaker 1: A and uh definitely read his book Spymaster's Prison for
Speaker 1: all of us here. We'll be back real soon with
Speaker 1: another podcast. You've been listening to Self Red Radio