Speaker 1: Mute. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military mails and
Speaker 1: straight talk with the guys in the community. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Software Radio, Software Radio one time on Target.
Speaker 1: I am your host this afternoon, Steve Balustralia joining us.
Speaker 1: We have a couple of very special guests with us today.
Speaker 1: We have John Pomfred and we have Fred Hart. And
Speaker 1: these guys were well. John wrote a book that's getting
Speaker 1: ready to come out later on this month. I believe
Speaker 1: it's October, but we'll confirm that in a minute, and
Speaker 1: it's called for Warsaw with Love, Polish fives, the CIA
Speaker 1: and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance. This book we
Speaker 1: were able to get our hands on advanced copy and
Speaker 1: when it comes out, and highly recommend everyone invest in this.
Speaker 1: This is really good. It was a page turner. I
Speaker 1: actually had to read it a couple of times to
Speaker 1: make sure I was believing when I was reading there,
Speaker 1: because it was really good. But before we get into
Speaker 1: all that, we want to welcome our guests of the podcast. John, Fred,
Speaker 1: thanks for taking the time with us this afternoon. Great
Speaker 1: to be here, Yeah, good to be here see. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Fred and I have a mutual friend who introduced
Speaker 1: us to Brandon and we we could probably talk for
Speaker 1: days on you. We probably there. We'll try to keep
Speaker 1: those for Yeah. Yeah, ste and I were on the
Speaker 1: same eight team down in Panama way back and about
Speaker 1: the time you guys were in Kuwait. So yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: but John, first off, um, you know, how did you
Speaker 1: come about this story? And you know what made you
Speaker 1: decide to write about this? Uh? First, Steve, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for having me, and it's great to see Fred again.
Speaker 1: So I was based in Eastern Europe for the Washington
Speaker 1: Post in the early nineties, and basically most of my
Speaker 1: duty was hanging out in Sarajevo trying not to get
Speaker 1: hit by a sniper. Um because boss name was the
Speaker 1: hottest story and the destruction of s ex Yugoslavia was
Speaker 1: the hottest story. But the Post still had it's bureau
Speaker 1: based in Warsaw basically because you know, back in the day,
Speaker 1: Poland was the center of Eastern European UM import and
Speaker 1: so I had a house in Warsaw and um in
Speaker 1: ninety four, I started to pick up these rumors from
Speaker 1: diplomats said, Hey, the Polish intelligence agency is a really
Speaker 1: great intelligence agency, and they actually did something for your country.
Speaker 1: At one point of French diplomat pointed his finger at
Speaker 1: my chest, saying, we the Polish did something for your
Speaker 1: country and you really should report about it. And I
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was, and so I just began
Speaker 1: to scratch a little bit and interview people who had
Speaker 1: worked in Polish engineering companies in Iraq. Because the polls
Speaker 1: were during the socialist times, they had a lot of
Speaker 1: businesses in the Middle East. And I interviewed twelve managers
Speaker 1: of Polish um construction companies, and there was the thirteenth
Speaker 1: and I finally got to the thirteenth and the guy said, well,
Speaker 1: we had this wacky guy named Eugenieish who told this
Speaker 1: crazy story about driving some Americans out of Iraq, but
Speaker 1: we never believe them and use in that anyway. And
Speaker 1: and then I found Eugenish and Eugenias told me that
Speaker 1: very wacky story and I basically typed it up and
Speaker 1: wrote out a long letter literally because back in the
Speaker 1: day we didn't have email, and I taxed it to
Speaker 1: the spokesman's office of the m Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Speaker 1: Their up their spy agency, and literally within an hour,
Speaker 1: I've been summoned to the spy agency to meet grobusof Champinski,
Speaker 1: who was at the time the director of the spy agency,
Speaker 1: who was the six three presents with sharp you know,
Speaker 1: very very sharp blue eyes and a pencil than mustache.
Speaker 1: And there I was sitting in his at his desk
Speaker 1: in the Stalinist you know, former Soviet Um Secret Service
Speaker 1: or secret secret secret Service. And that was the beginning
Speaker 1: of the story. You know, it's funny because you know,
Speaker 1: growing up we all here the you know, the old
Speaker 1: ethnic jokes about the Polish. And then uh, later on
Speaker 1: in my career, during you know, my Special Forces career,
Speaker 1: I worked with some guys from the agency and I
Speaker 1: was just shooting the breeze with one guy one night.
Speaker 1: We were waiting to do something and I asked him.
Speaker 1: I was like, who do you guys think some of
Speaker 1: the best intels you know people are in the world,
Speaker 1: and he said, straight off Poles and he goes, those
Speaker 1: guys are absolutely probably number one in tradecraft. I mean
Speaker 1: they were very good at it during the Cold War
Speaker 1: where they robbed us blind. And that The story begins
Speaker 1: with Marion Zaharsky, who is this police auto basically machine
Speaker 1: tools salesman based in l A. And then he's Suborn,
Speaker 1: a guy worked for huge aircraft and he stole all
Speaker 1: the early iterations of UM of the anti radar capability
Speaker 1: of the United States, I mean, and it just got
Speaker 1: worse from that, I know in reading the book, and
Speaker 1: thank you for sending that to me, because like I said,
Speaker 1: it was I mean, I've read I've read it a
Speaker 1: couple of times, and you know, he was, like he
Speaker 1: was is not a career spy. He was just kind
Speaker 1: of thrust into it. He was he was a natural
Speaker 1: at it, Yeah, he was. And then he became he
Speaker 1: was a natural. He did really UM again. And then
Speaker 1: he gets sentenced to life in prison in eighty one,
Speaker 1: and then he's exchanged across the Bridge of Spies in
Speaker 1: eighty four, and the guy who handled the exchange for
Speaker 1: the agency officer named John Palavitch basically said, you know,
Speaker 1: if we ever you know, have rab pro schmon with
Speaker 1: this country, I want to work with the likes of
Speaker 1: Marion Zaharsky. And then Palavitch was at the forefront of
Speaker 1: convincing the agency to work with the polls. Once in
Speaker 1: nineteen nine happened in the Berlin Wall fell down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that part was amazing. And then in the book,
Speaker 1: you know when they're bringing him back to Poland, he's
Speaker 1: sitting on the plane and as a pavileg that he
Speaker 1: was sitting across from staring at him the whole time
Speaker 1: and never said a word because he was ordered not
Speaker 1: to talk to him. But unless unless he decided to
Speaker 1: effect at the last minute. That was I mean, the
Speaker 1: book is so good, and you know, it's amazing the polls,
Speaker 1: even in the midst of the Cold War. You know,
Speaker 1: some of their dedicated spikes I guess you could say,
Speaker 1: or Intel people they wanted to become friends with the
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, very much so. I mean the case
Speaker 1: of Colonel Richard Well then Brigadier General Richard Kuklinski was
Speaker 1: probably one of the agency's best sources about Warsaw pac defenses.
Speaker 1: In Warsaw Pact planning was a long time asset of
Speaker 1: the Central Intelligence Agency, so much so that when the
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall came down, the agency was really important at
Speaker 1: advocating on his behalf in Poland to get his first
Speaker 1: his sentence of death and then his twenty five year
Speaker 1: sentence to jail expanded so that he could return to
Speaker 1: his country, which he ultimately did in Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: funny because because of their history, I mean, I never
Speaker 1: really thought the polls were going to be that type
Speaker 1: of the Russians, because I mean, you know, if there's
Speaker 1: anyone they fear more than the Germans, it's the Russian.
Speaker 1: And uh, you had a great quote in there. I've
Speaker 1: never seen it before from Stalin about Polish communists and
Speaker 1: he said they were only read on the outside. I
Speaker 1: thought that was perfect and it fits right into the book. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They some of the I mean, the the agency and
Speaker 1: also the US military had a lot of sources in
Speaker 1: Poland throughout the Cold War. And you know, so take
Speaker 1: us up to you know, where they invade Kuwait because
Speaker 1: this is um you know, the U. S starts obviously
Speaker 1: thawing our relations with the Polish and then uh, you know,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to give too much of the
Speaker 1: book away, but this was really fascinated by all this,
Speaker 1: and then you know, with the stuff in Kuwait, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe that they were the guys who got our
Speaker 1: people up. Yeah. So I mean, uh, I'll start in
Speaker 1: March when John Palavits, this officer of whom you've mentioned,
Speaker 1: basically pushes Um, the deputy director of Operations for Eastern
Speaker 1: Europe Soviet Union, to reach out to the polls. And
Speaker 1: there's a debate about where they should do the outreach,
Speaker 1: and somebody suggested Rome, but the Polish embassy in Rome
Speaker 1: was on a little alley and Italian counterintelligence really monitored them,
Speaker 1: so they couldn't do it there. Somebody else mentioned perhaps Switzerland,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe the United States. They said no, and they
Speaker 1: basically centered they decided that that Portugal was was the
Speaker 1: place to do it because Portuguese counterintelligence was kind of
Speaker 1: known to be relatively kind of sleepy, they didn't monitor
Speaker 1: these things closely. So Palavitz goes to the Itali the
Speaker 1: Polish embassy in in in in Lisbon, and walks through
Speaker 1: the front door and meets um a Polish spy there
Speaker 1: named Tomashevsky, and basically confronts him in his office, saying,
Speaker 1: I am a officer for the CIA. We want to
Speaker 1: have a direct relationship with your intelligence agent. And Tolmachevski
Speaker 1: is functioning in in in Portugal with the hat of
Speaker 1: a consul or consular official and he's like, you're lying.
Speaker 1: I'm not in the service. You know, the walls are listening.
Speaker 1: How can you be doing this? It's so unprofessional. And
Speaker 1: play just said, hey, look here's my here's my I
Speaker 1: D here's my passport, here's my telephone number. Xerox them
Speaker 1: and get back to me if you ever want to
Speaker 1: have a relationship. So Tomaschewski zerox is that sends it
Speaker 1: back to Poland and Warsaw goes, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: we might have blown our chance. Call that guy back
Speaker 1: up and get him to come back to Portugal. So
Speaker 1: the CIA sends a small delegation of several officers back
Speaker 1: to Portugal and they begin to have, you know, talks,
Speaker 1: and the talks proceed very well, and there's actually we
Speaker 1: actually begin training their officers. We we start to train
Speaker 1: their special forces. And then in September UM, right after
Speaker 1: Saddam invaded Kuwait, we have a problem. And this is
Speaker 1: where Officer uh Fred Hart is brought into the story
Speaker 1: because Saddam has invaded Kuwait in August and we have
Speaker 1: these men based who are now had been brought to
Speaker 1: Baghdad and need to get out, one of whom whom
Speaker 1: actually knows the whole in the way of the United
Speaker 1: States is planning on countering Saddam's invasion because he'd war
Speaker 1: game the damn thing for Norman Schwartzkoff in Florida, and
Speaker 1: we then the United States government then talks to a
Speaker 1: variety of governments, the Brits, the French, the Russians, and
Speaker 1: everyone is really busy getting their people out, so they
Speaker 1: don't have time to help us. So the Americans then
Speaker 1: centered on the polls and there's a meeting in a
Speaker 1: park in Poland by the CIA station chief in Warsaw
Speaker 1: with the Polish representatives to say, hey, can you do
Speaker 1: this for us? And the poll say yes. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: that part was you know, I had never heard about
Speaker 1: this before, and I was shocked that at that time,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was still the Coal War, things were thawing,
Speaker 1: but the fact that they agreed to do this, I
Speaker 1: thought was huge. And this is where Fred comes in,
Speaker 1: you know, And it was funny because, uh, talking with
Speaker 1: our mutual friends Stu Bradon Fred, you know, he was
Speaker 1: like when we were talking about this early in August,
Speaker 1: you know, he said, hey, you know they're saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: Americans never get left behind. Americans get left behind a lot,
Speaker 1: and he was. He asked me, He's like, do you
Speaker 1: know Fred Hart? And I said, no, I don't, and
Speaker 1: he said Fred got left behind in Kuwait and he
Speaker 1: his story needs to get told. So at that point
Speaker 1: he introduced us all and this is how we got together. Fred.
Speaker 1: I want you to pick up your story living in
Speaker 1: Kuwait when Saddam you know, uh in vain, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, basically I had I had just
Speaker 1: branch transferred from being an infantry officer to a ordinance
Speaker 1: officer because the infantry was gonna send me out the
Speaker 1: National Training Center and I want to go there. But anyways,
Speaker 1: uh so, uh they say, there's just this quiet little
Speaker 1: corner of the world called Kawait you can go to.
Speaker 1: You can take your family, it's good duty. It's out
Speaker 1: of the embassy and and so forth. And so I
Speaker 1: PCs over there and in August of eighty nine arrived
Speaker 1: on to August eighty nine, a year two to the
Speaker 1: date of the invasion, and basically, you know, it was
Speaker 1: a pretty cushy assignment. And you know, no, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know how the uh the Arab nations are,
Speaker 1: They're not. They're not very high speed about getting anything done.
Speaker 1: But when I got there and see the attack on
Speaker 1: with John Sting, I never myself and this one other
Speaker 1: army officer, John Feely, who I'll tell you later, had
Speaker 1: come over as a messenger from Sitcom. He worked for
Speaker 1: Schwartz Coff to try and convince the Kuwaitis that you
Speaker 1: know you're you're in deep You're you're in deep trouble here, guys,
Speaker 1: you know you need so really was carrying the water
Speaker 1: for Sitcom, saying it's time for you guys to mobilize
Speaker 1: and start reacting. So he came about a week ahead
Speaker 1: of time. But once I got there, as I was
Speaker 1: telling you before, we went on recording our Colonel John Mooningham,
Speaker 1: which unfortunately I don't think you ever were able to
Speaker 1: touch base with him. Where are you John? No? I
Speaker 1: wasn't he. I guess he sort of slipped into sort
Speaker 1: of deep retirement. But but I got there and uh,
Speaker 1: after a couple of weeks there was a large Russian
Speaker 1: contingent of military, about forty Russians. They're training the Kuwaitis on.
Speaker 1: They had bought BMP two's and there was a Yugoslavian
Speaker 1: contingent because they had bought the Yugoslavia and m a
Speaker 1: D four knockoff version of the T seventy two. So
Speaker 1: the colonel calls me in and he said, hey, he said,
Speaker 1: I know your duties are logistics and may and and
Speaker 1: so forth, but uh, uh, the agency really wants to
Speaker 1: try and get some serial numbers off this equipment to
Speaker 1: determine if the Russians are violating various UH treaties and
Speaker 1: so forth and so on. And that's when I met
Speaker 1: the station chief. So it all kind of came together
Speaker 1: with John's book because I never could feeling. I feeling
Speaker 1: could kind of figured out, but I never knew why
Speaker 1: I was selected to go on this escape group because
Speaker 1: all the other guys were all in were Commo guys,
Speaker 1: context guys and you know, SIG guys and and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and uh so they were pretty vital.
Speaker 1: But so I got asked to kind of do that.
Speaker 1: And then the UH which was kind of interesting. A
Speaker 1: month before the invasion, we all knew it was was coming.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've been up on the border. We had
Speaker 1: seen the UH, the iraqis forming up and and all that.
Speaker 1: We're trying to get the weightings attention. So they did
Speaker 1: a little alert and Saddam said, hey, you guys, you
Speaker 1: stand down your forces or I'm gonna smack you. And
Speaker 1: and so they said, okay, well we'll stand down, and
Speaker 1: they let everybody go on leave. So all the senior
Speaker 1: military and in Kuwait literally, I mean the day the
Speaker 1: day after that, after the Amir took the alert off,
Speaker 1: they were gone. I mean they high tailed it to
Speaker 1: England and Bahrain and and so forth. So so when
Speaker 1: we went around to the brigades a few days before
Speaker 1: the invasion, I mean, you were lucky to find a
Speaker 1: major that it was kind of like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. They were totally lost. So the invasion
Speaker 1: goes down, which was kind of interesting. A couple of
Speaker 1: days after the invasion. From my villa where I lived,
Speaker 1: off Fifth Wing Road, I could see the Kuwait International
Speaker 1: Airport and we had brick radios and the ambassador put
Speaker 1: out all the military there was about eleven in our team. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so he puts out the word military state put yeah,
Speaker 1: don't don't come to the embassy and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So we were we were stuck out on the on
Speaker 1: the economy, so to speak. So I see this, I
Speaker 1: L S I L seventy six land or with a
Speaker 1: big Russian you know, logo on the side, and and
Speaker 1: so forth, and it lands in. About two hours after that,
Speaker 1: I get a call from Colonel Russland, who was the
Speaker 1: the military guy in charge of the Russian advisors. And
Speaker 1: I had kind of befriended him because I my mother
Speaker 1: was was of Russian background, and so i'd have had
Speaker 1: him out to the house. Of course, the agency was, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to to uh to cultivate that
Speaker 1: relationship and so forth. And he was a pretty good guy.
Speaker 1: He was a Georgian. He was from the Soviet Georgia area.
Speaker 1: But he calls me, and I don't know how he
Speaker 1: got my phone number, but the land lines are still working.
Speaker 1: So he calls me and he says, hey, if you
Speaker 1: want to get your family and come out to the
Speaker 1: Quayit International Airport, we'll fly you to Moscow and turn
Speaker 1: you over to to the US. So I called Colonel
Speaker 1: Mooningham and and he's hold up, and so I said,
Speaker 1: he said, well, that's pretty interesting where they take all
Speaker 1: of us And I could tell he I said, well,
Speaker 1: who are you there with? Colonel he said it is
Speaker 1: Johnny Walker. And I so I knew, I knew he
Speaker 1: was about three sheets to the wind and uh but
Speaker 1: he said nah, he said, look, he said, I've checked
Speaker 1: with the ambassador and stuff, and uh, and of course
Speaker 1: we knew that would be a no go, but the
Speaker 1: ambassador said said no. So uh, so we we stayed
Speaker 1: out there about eleven days, uh, in our in our
Speaker 1: quarters or villas, and uh, kind of just monitoring, sending
Speaker 1: in said reps of stuff we'd see and and we
Speaker 1: knew they were now going around looking for Western nerves
Speaker 1: and knocking on doors and stuff like that is kind
Speaker 1: of reminiscent of people today, I guess. But so finally,
Speaker 1: after about eleven days, the embassy said, hey, well we'll
Speaker 1: we'll send a guy out escort you into the embassy.
Speaker 1: And so some guy shows up. I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: know who he was. I didn't recognize him. He looked
Speaker 1: like a third country national. He claimed he worked for
Speaker 1: the transportation section of the embassy or whatever. But he said, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: come come with me. And I looked in the embassy.
Speaker 1: So through a couple of checkpoints, not too bad, you know.
Speaker 1: He bartered with him and and we got on into
Speaker 1: the embassy and uh so basically we we just held
Speaker 1: up for about a month in the embassy and myself
Speaker 1: and a WARRN officer named Dave Forties. Uh, the food
Speaker 1: stocks were pretty low in the embassy. We were the
Speaker 1: army had called and classified us as beleaguered surrounded by
Speaker 1: a hostile force. To clue to escape, but so we're
Speaker 1: holed up and uh, and Forties had already been there.
Speaker 1: He spoke some Arabic and he had had already been
Speaker 1: in Quait for a couple of years. He was an
Speaker 1: armament tech. He kept all their artillery running and stuff.
Speaker 1: But so we uh, we started going out foraging for food.
Speaker 1: He knew several of the Kuwaitis that owned the large
Speaker 1: Sultan Center and a Kroger and um, so we were
Speaker 1: able to go out and get large stockpiles of tuna.
Speaker 1: So the whole embassy staff. I guess by then it
Speaker 1: was close to a couple of hundred of us because
Speaker 1: we took in uh. You may recall there was a
Speaker 1: British Airways flight that got trapped, had landed just as
Speaker 1: the invasion was going on. So we took in a
Speaker 1: lot of all the Americans off that flight and stuff.
Speaker 1: So so forties and I kind of ran the streets
Speaker 1: for about a month or so, going in and out.
Speaker 1: Feeley was the other guy that went out with me.
Speaker 1: He was in our our old offices, and they kind
Speaker 1: of set it up like a talk. They still had
Speaker 1: a stew line stew three lines, so he's Feeley's given
Speaker 1: sid reps back to the J two and sitcom what's
Speaker 1: going on. We'd meet with Feely and you know, let
Speaker 1: him know, I mean the hot item then was you know,
Speaker 1: looking for scuds and things like that, because he was
Speaker 1: threatening all this chemical stuff. So so anyhow, Ambassador how
Speaker 1: finally struck a deal with the um iraqis that we
Speaker 1: would all be transported to Baghdad to receive our eggs
Speaker 1: and visas and leave. And you know, of course, all
Speaker 1: the military guys, we were all pretty skeptical of that,
Speaker 1: and and uh so we prepared convoys, got everybody rigged up,
Speaker 1: got the families all brief. Colonel had had a bunch
Speaker 1: of glint tape that the Marines had we taped up
Speaker 1: the roof of the cars so we'd have in case,
Speaker 1: you know, the overheads could pick us up. And as
Speaker 1: we would go. So the morning we were due to
Speaker 1: depart about five in the morning and Iraqi major shows
Speaker 1: up and he's he's got all these Mercedes two and
Speaker 1: a half ton trucks and he's like, oh, no, no,
Speaker 1: you know you must everybody must go on the trucks.
Speaker 1: And so the ambassador is like, no, that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna put women and kids and dogs and
Speaker 1: cats and people in the back of UH you know,
Speaker 1: canvas top two and a half ton trucks and it's
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty degrees outside. So the deal got
Speaker 1: got called off. So we waited another twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: They finally agreed to let us take take our p
Speaker 1: o v s and embassy staff cars and stuff, and
Speaker 1: UH ambassador got in the lead of the convoy and
Speaker 1: we hauled ass up to staff on to the border
Speaker 1: crossing area, and then we sat there for almost six
Speaker 1: hours because they wanted to go through every every piece
Speaker 1: of luggage, every passport, and as John has probably learned
Speaker 1: in his research for the book, the Iraqi were very
Speaker 1: anal about not letting anybody pass unless the order came
Speaker 1: back down from Baghdad that yes, this these guys could
Speaker 1: go or whoever they were. So after about six hours
Speaker 1: they finally the ambassador turned left, went back to Quake
Speaker 1: City and off we went. Took us about twenty one
Speaker 1: hours to work our way through the various uh roadblocks
Speaker 1: and checkpoints to make it the Baghdad and we get
Speaker 1: the Baghdad. Good guy there, the d c M of
Speaker 1: Mission there was a guy named Joe Wilson, and uh,
Speaker 1: uh he was. He was a good guy. Took uh
Speaker 1: you know, a political and he took no bs from
Speaker 1: the Iraqis, and uh he took good care of us.
Speaker 1: So we all loggered up there for a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and you know, he said, hey, I'm gonna get you out.
Speaker 1: Uh ended up he was able to get the women
Speaker 1: and children out. They all my wife and kids and
Speaker 1: and all the other wives and kids. They ended up
Speaker 1: driving themselves to Zaku dirt g the Harvard gate up
Speaker 1: there to the crossing. Took them about twenty hours and
Speaker 1: uh they got all the way up there, and then
Speaker 1: the Iraqi said, no, you can't drive the cars across.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to dismount and walk across and stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's in the US was on the other side
Speaker 1: of the border picked them up. But so the guys
Speaker 1: that the men are all stuck. And at that point
Speaker 1: we had dwindled down. We were about thirty five. Our
Speaker 1: marine detachment from Kuwait actually came to Baghdad because uh
Speaker 1: the ambassador didn't in Kuwait, didn't want to keep the
Speaker 1: marines there and he felt that would give a pretext
Speaker 1: to the Iraqis to storm the compound or whatever. And
Speaker 1: he actually made the marines destroy all their weapons out
Speaker 1: in the courtyard so the Iraqis could see them doing it.
Speaker 1: And uh so the Marines all came to Baghdad took
Speaker 1: over the mission up at Baghdad of providing the because
Speaker 1: their marine had already left with April glassby when when
Speaker 1: she had left, and so so Joe Wilson was like, hell, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll take your marines, he said, you know, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I still have the weapons from the Marines
Speaker 1: that were here, so he said, bring them on. So
Speaker 1: they came up. They were good guys, and uh but
Speaker 1: uh so as as this time now, it's it's about
Speaker 1: it's about the first of September, and I guess around
Speaker 1: about mid September, we are Colonel had gotten us together
Speaker 1: and so look, we we gotta come up with a
Speaker 1: way to get out of here. And uh so we
Speaker 1: started canvassing various embassies in Baghdad and kind of put
Speaker 1: a plan together and buddy teams that. Certainly some of
Speaker 1: the European embassy said hey, yeah, we'll let you seek
Speaker 1: uh safe haven with us if they come after you.
Speaker 1: But they, you know, they didn't want to. Most of
Speaker 1: them didn't want to do it. Surprisingly, the Cubans were
Speaker 1: pretty pretty welcome to like, hey, yeah, you guys, come
Speaker 1: on over here. Now that they might have had an
Speaker 1: ulterior motive, I don't know, but they were. They were
Speaker 1: pretty uh, they were pretty interesting and in offering uh
Speaker 1: uh their embassy to some of the Americans. So so
Speaker 1: about mid September, our guy huntered downs it said, hey,
Speaker 1: it looks like we may get some foreign help. He
Speaker 1: hadn't He didn't disclose it with the Poles or anything,
Speaker 1: um until later on. And then around the first of September.
Speaker 1: I guess it was grummick Um John who did the
Speaker 1: initial Yeah. So so hunter Hunter calls me in and
Speaker 1: he said, hey, look, would you would you be willing
Speaker 1: to go on this uh potential uh escape and evasion
Speaker 1: operation led by he said, an East Block country. So
Speaker 1: I was like, well, you know, of course I didn't
Speaker 1: really trust Hunter too much. As I had said in
Speaker 1: John's book, he was a little dubious on some things,
Speaker 1: but but he was always you know, oh yeah, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be running this thing. These guys are just
Speaker 1: gonna facilitate the means to get out and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So so I went to Colonel Mooningham
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, you know, what, what's up with this?
Speaker 1: And he said, look, Freddy, he said, you need, you
Speaker 1: need to do this. He said, don't don't worry about Hunter.
Speaker 1: He said, these guys that are working with them are
Speaker 1: really really top notch guys, and you'll you'll be okay,
Speaker 1: don't don't worry about it. And I think finally also
Speaker 1: kind of had some reservations too. I think one of
Speaker 1: his remark was, are you kidding me? Poles? You know
Speaker 1: what kind of what kind of show was that? What
Speaker 1: was his quote? What was his quote to you? John?
Speaker 1: And the in the book Feeley had said about the
Speaker 1: polls when you tell you was gob smack. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a pole. So let me involved in the Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me't you rep you for a second, fred, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you on a question here, and did
Speaker 1: you talk to Hunter? No? I tried to talk to Hunter,
Speaker 1: but Hunter didn't want to talk to me. Now thinks
Speaker 1: I think he's dead, but I know he's a lot
Speaker 1: a lot I got. I sent you a couple of
Speaker 1: emails he sent me. Well, we know somebody's on the
Speaker 1: other end exactly. But you know, I respect this decision. Okay, um, Now,
Speaker 1: at this point, the polls have picked the guy that's
Speaker 1: going to run this operation. How did they come about
Speaker 1: this decision? So September twentie um c I a station
Speaker 1: chief Bill Norville, and Warsaw asks his Polish counterparty, got
Speaker 1: named Christoph Smolenski for meeting in one of the very
Speaker 1: same parts that during old war times the Americans and
Speaker 1: the Poles used to have dead drops, which is kind
Speaker 1: of ironic, but you know, things change, right, And then
Speaker 1: you have a meeting at a park bench in which
Speaker 1: Norville says, hey, we got these six guys in Iraq
Speaker 1: and we need to need to get him out. Can
Speaker 1: you help? And the Smolenski tells Norvil, look, give me
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, but pretty much within six hours. They
Speaker 1: go to the Polish Ministry of Interior. This guy named
Speaker 1: Andre Miltunovski, who was the head of the UP headed
Speaker 1: the Polish intelligence agency, who had during during the communist times,
Speaker 1: had been a solidarity activist that had done jail time
Speaker 1: for fighting the Communists, basically goes, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1: These guys the CIA helped us during the Cold War.
Speaker 1: We're gonna help them now that we're a free country.
Speaker 1: And the Miltunovski makes the decision without informing his superiors
Speaker 1: with the Ministry of Interior or any or even the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, figuring that if once it got up to
Speaker 1: such a high level in Poland, that these guys will
Speaker 1: be afraid of failure in which shut it down. So
Speaker 1: they make the decision, and then there's a question about
Speaker 1: who they're gonna send. Initially they thought that the local
Speaker 1: station chief in Warsaw and a sort of local station
Speaker 1: chief in Baghdad I got named Morande, could handle it.
Speaker 1: But Marande was about to retire. He'd been a intelligence
Speaker 1: officer for thirty plus years. He was he was pushing sixty,
Speaker 1: and it very quickly became clear to Smolensky that he
Speaker 1: wasn't handling it. And then the poll said, well, maybe
Speaker 1: we'll send Smolensky, but Norvill said, no, this guy is
Speaker 1: a great liaison officer. We need him in Warsaw to
Speaker 1: you know, liaise between the two tides. And just at
Speaker 1: that point, returning from counter terrorism training in America is
Speaker 1: this legendary spot named Gromswab Chapinski and they say you're
Speaker 1: going to Baghdad, and literally he gets off the plane,
Speaker 1: gets on another and he gets on a lot flight
Speaker 1: which is empty. It's him and a new new new
Speaker 1: ambassador to Iraq fly into Baghdad on it was I
Speaker 1: think October twelve, landing bag down. He's he's under, he's under,
Speaker 1: you know, under a fake name. His name is Andre Novak,
Speaker 1: who was introduced as a new second secretary in the
Speaker 1: Polish embassy with his new ambassador, which was an excuse
Speaker 1: for the flight. UM and he begins to then set
Speaker 1: things up and they have a meeting with UM the Americans.
Speaker 1: They obviously have meetings to basically organize it, and Champinski
Speaker 1: discovers relatively quickly that as a Polish diplomat he can't
Speaker 1: move around the city. But he discovers it as a
Speaker 1: Polish potentially as a Polish businessman, like an executive for
Speaker 1: these state owned companies, he has a lot more freedom
Speaker 1: to go through Polish check checkpoints. So he adopts another
Speaker 1: identity in addition to his fake diplomatic identity, which is
Speaker 1: as Polish businessman um, and he has fake I D
Speaker 1: based on that as well. And so here is moving
Speaker 1: around the capital trying to figure out how I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get these six guys out of a rap
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of talk with Moynahan Um. I'm
Speaker 1: not how they were gonna go, whether they wanted to
Speaker 1: punch out in the Syrian border in a kinetic operation,
Speaker 1: had hadn't sent him down to Jordan where there's total
Speaker 1: chaos on the border there, or drive him out north
Speaker 1: to to the Zaho border crossing with Turkey. And one
Speaker 1: of the important factors is there is a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of Poles who had studied in a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: Iraqi sorry, who had studied in Poland during the Cold War,
Speaker 1: and so there were a lot of Iraqis who spoke Polish.
Speaker 1: And even amongst the customs and the border patrol guys,
Speaker 1: there were Iraqis who spoke polars, and they determined the
Speaker 1: Polish and diligence that they were about six or seven
Speaker 1: Polish speaking Iraqi border guys, and they tried to find
Speaker 1: out where they were deployed, and in the beginning they
Speaker 1: were all deployed in the south. So that basically decided
Speaker 1: that they got to go north, and so they made
Speaker 1: plans to drive them north bag down the mosel Mos
Speaker 1: of Azako and out through Turkey. Yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: was a big go ahead at this point, John um
Speaker 1: O friend excuse me. Yeah, so at this point, now
Speaker 1: you guys have been basically in the limbo for a
Speaker 1: couple of months, so tensions had to be rising at
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah. We we had gone through a couple
Speaker 1: of you know, the embassy in those days, uh was
Speaker 1: in downtown Baghdad, sort of on the side street. It
Speaker 1: was really I was kind of flabbergasted when I got there,
Speaker 1: how small it really was and in a congested area,
Speaker 1: but the Iraqis had surrounded it. Uh. There were diplomatic
Speaker 1: quarters on the block next where Ambassador Wilson had had
Speaker 1: housed us all and we were allowed to kind of
Speaker 1: come and go from the embassy to our quarters and
Speaker 1: then uh forties and I were able to uh our past.
Speaker 1: We didn't have our diplomatic passports, they were all kepting
Speaker 1: the embassy, so uh we uh we were able to
Speaker 1: use some of the diplomatic plate call ours at the
Speaker 1: embassy had, and we could we could move around. We
Speaker 1: were allowed to go and visit where some of the
Speaker 1: construction workers, US construction workers were staying at the ambassador's quarters,
Speaker 1: which was out in a really nice plush area of Baghdad,
Speaker 1: and so you know, we'd kind of take our time
Speaker 1: and scout around with that. But but when the a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks before the escape went down there, we
Speaker 1: had a couple of evenings where the Iraqi showed up
Speaker 1: with military vehicles and you know, probably a couple of
Speaker 1: squad size guys. Uh. I don't know uniform wise, if
Speaker 1: they were special ops guys or what, but they were
Speaker 1: trying to intimidate Wilson and uh so we knew things
Speaker 1: were getting and then they kept sending demands to the
Speaker 1: embassy to identify all the personnel who were left and
Speaker 1: what they were at arrested in. They knew there was
Speaker 1: a military staff that had had left back or left
Speaker 1: Kuwait City. So they wanted to know who those guys were.
Speaker 1: It was kind of amazed us because they, you know,
Speaker 1: they had seized the Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs, So
Speaker 1: I mean, I would have thought with a little bit
Speaker 1: of investigative work, they probably could have found the you know,
Speaker 1: the accredited diplomatic list and so forth. And we all
Speaker 1: carried passports. We weren't on official passports and stuff, and
Speaker 1: that was just something that the Kuwaitis want, and we
Speaker 1: wore civilian clothes while we were on duty. But so
Speaker 1: they were they were really trying to root out who
Speaker 1: was there and then what what what diplomats from the
Speaker 1: Kuwait staff were in Baghdad. And see, they didn't have
Speaker 1: a problem if you were a businessman or a contractor. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Iraqis didn't have a problem with giving you an
Speaker 1: exit visa and letting you go under their terms. But
Speaker 1: you still could go, and and they kind of had
Speaker 1: that whole hostage uh bargaining going on. You know, Jesse
Speaker 1: Jackson came over, and Ramsey Clark and all these different
Speaker 1: guys would would roll into Baghdad every week and and
Speaker 1: they'd let him leave with two or three Americans, you know,
Speaker 1: so uh, so it was kind of interesting. And see,
Speaker 1: none of us we we had a couple of guys
Speaker 1: that had some medical conditions and Jesse Jackson was trying
Speaker 1: to get them out, but there was just too much
Speaker 1: a risk if they found out that they were military.
Speaker 1: Because we knew Philey and myself and a couple other
Speaker 1: guys we were we were tracking. There was one one
Speaker 1: American military officer, uh named Stanton who I don't know
Speaker 1: what he was up to, but he he played some
Speaker 1: kind of game and he came up to Kuwait the
Speaker 1: night before the invasion. He was working for PM Sang
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia, so I think he thought, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: I just my chance and go be a I don't know,
Speaker 1: a hero or whatever. So he uh and all those
Speaker 1: sitcom it issued a travel warning and do not go.
Speaker 1: But this guy had come up checked himself into the
Speaker 1: Sheridan Hotel and then the Iraqi started going around banging
Speaker 1: on doors and he handed him his military I D card. Well,
Speaker 1: of course you know what he ended up. He ended
Speaker 1: up in a chemical plant or concrete plant somewhere somewhere
Speaker 1: up near Mosele and uh and so he got to
Speaker 1: stay the full full tour. Um, so we knew, we
Speaker 1: knew they were they were after folks. And then uh,
Speaker 1: and I was told that, hey, if this works, uh,
Speaker 1: if the polls are successful with this and it can
Speaker 1: go off with the relative ease, then the next group
Speaker 1: would go and they were gonna try and start X
Speaker 1: fil trading. Uh. And then I was we were brave
Speaker 1: when we first met Grummick. I mean, the thing we
Speaker 1: didn't know what what John was revealing was about the
Speaker 1: Polish speakers. I mean we didn't even we didn't even
Speaker 1: think about that. And then but Grummick had told us
Speaker 1: at one point he said, hey, look, you know, you
Speaker 1: guys gotta keep your mouth shut. I mean, they tried
Speaker 1: to teach us a little bit of Polish. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I I'm from I'm from Georgia, and Phieley
Speaker 1: was from the West Coast, so so and then the
Speaker 1: other the other guys were young, they were young communicators
Speaker 1: and stuff and so other Nick Lahota, which was an
Speaker 1: older gentleman. And uh, and so you know, we'd have
Speaker 1: these big, long Polish names. I was lucky I had it.
Speaker 1: I had a very easy name on my Polish passport.
Speaker 1: And it was Russ and was the last name, so
Speaker 1: it was it was a no brainer for me. But
Speaker 1: so Grumwick would get us to try and say something
Speaker 1: and he would just he'd throw his head. He said, man,
Speaker 1: he said, you guys, I don't want you talking. Don't
Speaker 1: don't say a word. And this is where this whole
Speaker 1: deal about Booze came in. So he he came back
Speaker 1: the next time we had our little meeting. You know,
Speaker 1: he had Satchell's full of Johnny Walker red and and
Speaker 1: whiskey and everything else. And he said, you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna keep this stuff on you and uh and so
Speaker 1: he said, I'm gonna tell the Iraqis y'all are just
Speaker 1: a bunch of drunk polish, you know, uh, construction workers
Speaker 1: and stuff. Because I remember when John's article came out
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post and what January of nine three
Speaker 1: or four something like that, which was kind of interesting
Speaker 1: because uh, I I didn't, I didn't. I was living
Speaker 1: up in Chester, Virginia at the time, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I get this letter a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: and it's John's article and I see as John Palm
Speaker 1: Pritt and all this stuff. But but then I heard
Speaker 1: John on National Public Radio one day driving home from work.
Speaker 1: I told my wife, I said, Chris, this story and
Speaker 1: how I got out is out, Because what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? I said, There was this dude on National
Speaker 1: Public Radio. He was he was telling the story to
Speaker 1: this NBR commentator and stuff, because I was when after
Speaker 1: I got home, I mean, you know, I got I
Speaker 1: got the old uh brief that you you utter anything,
Speaker 1: you're you're dead. You're gonna go to Leavenworth and you'll
Speaker 1: never see the light of day and all that. So
Speaker 1: I lived in fear for you know, good ten fifteen
Speaker 1: years of Even when I wrote my paper to War College,
Speaker 1: the agency guy on staff there was like, oh you
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't write this stuff. So I had to.
Speaker 1: I had to water it all down and and so
Speaker 1: for Sitcom approved it. But uh anyhow, it was so
Speaker 1: it uh it was. It was a high adventure, it
Speaker 1: really it really was. Because one Hunter was there, and
Speaker 1: Hunter Hunter caused a lot of friction with with Grummick,
Speaker 1: and we all to the man, we all were like, hey,
Speaker 1: if ship goes south, we're sticking with Grummit and and
Speaker 1: Hunter Hunter can he can carry his own weight? Man
Speaker 1: I mean I hate to talk that. I mean, he
Speaker 1: he but he just he was like one of these
Speaker 1: guys we were talking before recording that, you know, he just, uh,
Speaker 1: he thought he was going to run the operation when
Speaker 1: he was just a passenger. You know. Now, um, you
Speaker 1: you also had a agency communicator with you that was
Speaker 1: kind of falling apart of the seams. And yeah, Nick
Speaker 1: was that mustive buddy, you know, as you know Steve,
Speaker 1: you know everybody, we all broke up into two man
Speaker 1: teams and Nick was my battle buddy. And and really
Speaker 1: through John I kind of learned the backstory on Nick
Speaker 1: it because he never would talk about it, but I
Speaker 1: mean he had gone through Burma, a coup data and
Speaker 1: Burma where him and his family were you know, witnessed
Speaker 1: just you know, people being killed in the streets and
Speaker 1: round up and murdered and and everything else. And so
Speaker 1: this I think Kuwait he was kind of told the
Speaker 1: same thing I was. You know, Kuwait's a sleepy little
Speaker 1: place to go to and it's no problem. And but
Speaker 1: but Nick was he he I don't say a death wish,
Speaker 1: but he always thought he you know, he didn't he
Speaker 1: didn't trust anybody but him himself. Because of his experience
Speaker 1: in Burma and what they went through. So but he
Speaker 1: he was just a nervous, nervous guy and he he
Speaker 1: was like me. He didn't have a whole lot of
Speaker 1: faith in hunter Downs and uh he felt good about
Speaker 1: the polls because he you know, he was a Polish
Speaker 1: ancestry also, I believe, and uh so Nick. Uh So,
Speaker 1: Nick was paired up with me. Uh even the night before.
Speaker 1: You know, he said, you know, for everybody, we're gonna
Speaker 1: wash up in the Euphrates rivers, you know, downstream somewhere
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. And uh but he uh, when
Speaker 1: we we finally, uh we kept them pretty calm. And
Speaker 1: then when we got up to the border crossing, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we ended up there for almost two and
Speaker 1: a half hours waiting for them to approve us. And
Speaker 1: you know, as Americans sitting there with a Polish passport,
Speaker 1: and you have Grummick who's doing all the talking, and
Speaker 1: you've got all these Iraqis and then and the fear
Speaker 1: of a Polish speaker showing up. Um, and you're you're
Speaker 1: sitting there, they bring in a room and and uh,
Speaker 1: you're just waiting and waiting and waiting, and then you know.
Speaker 1: I mean they had told us that Grummick had said, hey,
Speaker 1: if we get revealed, I mean they all bets are off.
Speaker 1: I mean with what the iraqis. I mean they had
Speaker 1: alread executed a British guy early on in desert, right
Speaker 1: after the invasion. I think he was a journalist actually
Speaker 1: that they accused of fine executed him. I think you
Speaker 1: may recall that, John, and so so, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was a little bit uh you know,
Speaker 1: bucker factor was. It was definitely up in that situation.
Speaker 1: So so finally, after about two and a half hours,
Speaker 1: we're here. The clink could clink of the of the
Speaker 1: stamp in the in the book, and uh so Grummick
Speaker 1: grabs all the passports, comes over and he says, get
Speaker 1: your bags and go, and so we start the head out.
Speaker 1: Of course, they wanted to do a customers check on us,
Speaker 1: and so they moved this over to the sort of
Speaker 1: stall areas where they checked everybody's bag. And I'm with
Speaker 1: the Nick, and I knew a little bit of Arabic,
Speaker 1: and so this this Iraqi started questioning Nick. And you know,
Speaker 1: so I I responded with a couple of things and
Speaker 1: and just pulled out one of Nick's Carton's cigarettes and
Speaker 1: handed it to the guy and and so you know,
Speaker 1: he did the old hand wave and stuff and uh
Speaker 1: and we were able to get on out of there
Speaker 1: and head across the head across the border. Now. I
Speaker 1: think in some of the accounts he said we took
Speaker 1: off grummick and said we ran across the border. I
Speaker 1: don't remember that. Maybe my adrenaline was such at the time,
Speaker 1: but I remember walking at a pretty good clip and
Speaker 1: then being asked by one last Iraqi on the bridge
Speaker 1: for some cigarettes. And I had a pack of marlborough
Speaker 1: and I just handed him pack of Marlborough's and we
Speaker 1: literally could see Richard and and uh we called a
Speaker 1: Mario Andretti the other guy standing at the other end
Speaker 1: of the bridge waiting for us, and uh, so off
Speaker 1: we walked on across into Freedom with them, and of
Speaker 1: course they grabbed us by the collar and said keep
Speaker 1: your mouth shut, you don't say anything. And uh, because
Speaker 1: we thought we'd get there and would be a bus
Speaker 1: and there'd be US officials and stuff. And he said, no,
Speaker 1: we're going incognito all the way to Ankh to Istanbul.
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, we're we're always over on
Speaker 1: the eastern side of Turkey, and I mean it's like
Speaker 1: fifteen under kilometers that we're gonna throw your asses in
Speaker 1: these cars and off we're gonna go. And so that
Speaker 1: was like a I think a two day drive across
Speaker 1: Turkey to get to Istanbul and then on on up
Speaker 1: to the Warsaw after that. But not a whole lot
Speaker 1: of understand that. Yeah, I understand after you got home.
Speaker 1: You were only back in the States a very short
Speaker 1: while and you got a call from General Schwartzkov asking
Speaker 1: you if you had done you know, taking it easy. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just a low life and sorrowful guy. You know,
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel it was big time. Was
Speaker 1: he was connected with sports goff and stuff. So I
Speaker 1: never got my suit back from Feeling either. I lent him.
Speaker 1: None of his baggage made it over and he had
Speaker 1: to go brief the co eighties in the morning. He
Speaker 1: was a little bit taller than me, but he he's
Speaker 1: walking around where one of my suits and stuff and
Speaker 1: it kind of looked like high water pants. And I
Speaker 1: always kidded John about that, say, hey, whatever happened to
Speaker 1: my three suit? I lent you man, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel it was all right John my view on feeling
Speaker 1: he was thrown into a situation he didn't ask for either.
Speaker 1: So well, John, at this point, now obviously you know,
Speaker 1: the feelings are much closer with the US and the polls,
Speaker 1: and then you know it gets even closer through a
Speaker 1: few years of cooperation and friendship there, and the Polls
Speaker 1: will want to emulate everything you know that the CIA
Speaker 1: is doing. At this point, yeah, I mean, so the
Speaker 1: operation happens, which the Polls called Operation Friendly Saddam, It's successful. Uh.
Speaker 1: And November seventeen, William Webster, then the then director of
Speaker 1: the CIA, comes to Poland on a secret trip, the
Speaker 1: first trip of a CIA director to Eastern Europe, and
Speaker 1: we're off of the races basically, UM. The CIA engages
Speaker 1: to train a special operations force of the Polls called GROM,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of your members know very well
Speaker 1: because of the joint training that continues to this day
Speaker 1: and joint activity during the Iraqi War for example. UM.
Speaker 1: And then around the world, Polish and CIA officers are
Speaker 1: working together, not cyst in the Middle East, but also
Speaker 1: in Africa, in Latin America and Cuba. UM in North Korea,
Speaker 1: UH and on a variety of kind of really bad
Speaker 1: places around the world that the agency doesn't have access
Speaker 1: to because we don't have diplomatic relations. And for example,
Speaker 1: in North Korea, the Polls provided a lot of intelligence
Speaker 1: based on their ability to move in ci A technical
Speaker 1: equipment into their embassy in North Korea, UM and UH.
Speaker 1: Cuba was the same type of situation UH and Iran
Speaker 1: as well. UH and they were willing to do almost
Speaker 1: anything for US, and the CIA would had was not
Speaker 1: shy asking them to do a lot of stuff for US,
Speaker 1: because the Polls very much wanted to solve what has
Speaker 1: been for Poland kind of this millennial problem, how to
Speaker 1: have security in a really dangerous neighborhood when your country
Speaker 1: is completely flat and it's been used as an invasion
Speaker 1: route for centuries. And their their way of doing that
Speaker 1: was getting into NATO, and that was a holy grail
Speaker 1: for them. And they looked at INTEL its cooperation is
Speaker 1: being their ace in the whole because per your friend UM,
Speaker 1: your CIA contact, they were very good at being intelligence
Speaker 1: officers and they really proved themselves to be a remarkable
Speaker 1: ally of the United States. Yeah, and you know, reading
Speaker 1: the book, you know Um, again, I wasn't aware of
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff, especially in North Korea, and
Speaker 1: you know, the North Koreans looked upon them as you know,
Speaker 1: fellow communists. I guess, so socialist brothers. That's that was Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was it in the book. But do you think
Speaker 1: that things started to turn sour with the Polish you know,
Speaker 1: UM intelligence people with this black site that we had
Speaker 1: there or was it actually before that? I think, Um,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I think that black you know,
Speaker 1: there's still continued in very close relationship to this day
Speaker 1: from what I understand. Um, but I think the black
Speaker 1: site in Baroglio, and just to back up a bit,
Speaker 1: the CIA based a black site in at the Polish
Speaker 1: Intelligence Training Center, UM during the after in in in
Speaker 1: the in the after noon eleven where we interrogated high
Speaker 1: value prisoners, including Kardi Chik Mohammed, like the architect of
Speaker 1: the No. Eleven disaster. UM. And we kind of let
Speaker 1: let the polls out, kind of hunging out to dry
Speaker 1: on that one, because um, the acknowledgement that there were
Speaker 1: black sites was made by George W. Bush without telling
Speaker 1: the polls ahead of time that we were planning on
Speaker 1: acknowledging it, and the polls really felt on in a
Speaker 1: series of situations that they'd really done Yeoman's work for us.
Speaker 1: They try to protect us and then we leaked and
Speaker 1: ended up screwing them over. And regardless of what whether
Speaker 1: you think the black sites were staying on America or not,
Speaker 1: the fact that we with the CIA leaked about it
Speaker 1: really hung the pole their perspective as you really hung
Speaker 1: us out to dry on this one, because you know,
Speaker 1: you're already acknowledging it, and we spent months denying it
Speaker 1: in order to try to protect you, and now suddenly
Speaker 1: you're not protecting us. And so I think that that
Speaker 1: amongst the professionals really was was a moment that they
Speaker 1: felt kind of hard done by. But at the same
Speaker 1: time their perspective as they have no place to go,
Speaker 1: they want to be NATO, a strong NATO member, because
Speaker 1: that's what they view to be in their security interests.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting in Poland, it's a fracture society. They
Speaker 1: a lot of the post political parties don't really agree
Speaker 1: on much, but the one thing they all agree on
Speaker 1: is they want an alliance with the United States and
Speaker 1: as an as evidenced by the fact that they had
Speaker 1: an ambassador in the United States they got in Jersey
Speaker 1: Kasminski for six years, even though at the same time
Speaker 1: they went through about five different prime ministers. But they
Speaker 1: had one ambassador in America and he had one message,
Speaker 1: we want to be in NATO. And so they yeah,
Speaker 1: they finally got that. They got that, they got that,
Speaker 1: um And part of the reason why I think that
Speaker 1: they nodded and winked as I reported the story about
Speaker 1: the expultration was because at that point they were getting
Speaker 1: pretty anxious and impatient, and so all those diplomats and
Speaker 1: other people nodded and minked, winked at me as I
Speaker 1: as I reported the story, and did a little bit
Speaker 1: to help me out. Yeah, you know that, you know,
Speaker 1: were you able to talk with a lot of the
Speaker 1: principles for this story with them, and I imagine most
Speaker 1: of those guys speak English. So yeah, So in reporting
Speaker 1: the book, I talked to pretty much all the major characters.
Speaker 1: In reporting the story back in it was pretty much Chimpinski,
Speaker 1: and he was like coming over to my house and
Speaker 1: you know, we would have shouting matches over what I
Speaker 1: could and couldn't use, you know, because again for him,
Speaker 1: it's its sources and methods that he wants to protect,
Speaker 1: which is totally understandable. UM. For me, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get the best story as possible without putting anybody at risk.
Speaker 1: But after that, UM, starting in look, I've been reporting
Speaker 1: this book for about four or five years now. At
Speaker 1: that point I began to meet everybody involved, UM, and
Speaker 1: he helped, and even when he didn't help, others helped. UM.
Speaker 1: And then getting to Fred and getting to John was
Speaker 1: kind of fortuitous. It's through a gentleman who worked at
Speaker 1: the Air Force Academy in Alabama actually got me in
Speaker 1: touch with Fred, and Fred was more than welcoming, and
Speaker 1: I went down to Alabama to see him there UM
Speaker 1: at his estate, UM, you know, Alabama, and that was great.
Speaker 1: It was great to be there in person. And then
Speaker 1: really works just happen. Thank you. I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: my next visit. And then really I got to got
Speaker 1: to know Relative. He's down in Monterey because he's a
Speaker 1: West Coast boy and he still sails. He was a
Speaker 1: racer back in the day. UM, but Hunter downs now
Speaker 1: and then ling nic Lahota fortunately has passed. And then
Speaker 1: there's other people who were who were excel traded who
Speaker 1: continued to work in the U. S. Government, and so
Speaker 1: I have no interest in identifying them or finding them either. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when does the book come out? So it comes
Speaker 1: out really October. Officially it was the Memories Steve. I
Speaker 1: had written it down somewhere in my notes and I
Speaker 1: couldn't find it, and I thought I had wrote it
Speaker 1: in town. It was though, m now this will be
Speaker 1: on Amazon, I take it, and you know all the
Speaker 1: major booksellers for more. So with love, yes it will
Speaker 1: be Hey, uh, well we uh, Steve, let me look
Speaker 1: forward to our Steve, if I made four four you
Speaker 1: close off. Let me just say a couple of things
Speaker 1: for your soft community is uh from my my my
Speaker 1: total experience over there number one uh Uh. The JFK
Speaker 1: Warfare School used to run a really great course called
Speaker 1: Individual Terrorists Awareness Course, and my wife and I were
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to go to that prior to going to Kuwait,
Speaker 1: and it made a huge difference in being able to
Speaker 1: deal with the situation. I mean the instructors there were experts.
Speaker 1: I mean they taught us to tap code, and they
Speaker 1: taught us, you know, the five finger code and and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and I mean it was good it
Speaker 1: was good stuff to have in your kit bag because
Speaker 1: you know, I mean nowadays you never know where you know,
Speaker 1: ship can go to Hell in a handbasket. But uh
Speaker 1: so number one, that was the first thing. The other
Speaker 1: sort of lesson learned, and I might alluded to it
Speaker 1: in my my war college paper, is the fact that
Speaker 1: as military guys, when we all did get repatriated and
Speaker 1: back to the States, I was pretty amazed at how
Speaker 1: the intel community really had no interest one and what
Speaker 1: had happened to us, and then our story and what
Speaker 1: we had seen and had done now uh forties and
Speaker 1: I we we did render a lot of sid rep reports.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that went up the chain that helped with
Speaker 1: various things because phely uh with the stew line until
Speaker 1: they lost that around the end of August, but uh
Speaker 1: I did upon our return, we we were taken to
Speaker 1: Camp Perry and uh and spent a day or so
Speaker 1: debriefing with the agency folks, and we did we did
Speaker 1: meet with some Delta folks at the time who were
Speaker 1: you know, they were interested in the layout of the
Speaker 1: embassy for potential rescue mission into the embassy, but that
Speaker 1: that basically went down the tubes because you you had
Speaker 1: to quit International Hotel right over the embassy, but seventeen
Speaker 1: stories so and you had an entire Iraqi company up there. So,
Speaker 1: I mean it would have been an absolute suicide mission.
Speaker 1: But when I did get back to the state sitcom
Speaker 1: j J two, it's said, hey, you go home, don't
Speaker 1: talk to anybody, don't see anybody. But I was kind
Speaker 1: of surprising, uh. And when I did go back the
Speaker 1: desert show him it was Frank Tuney was the guy
Speaker 1: that was Frank Tony. Frank Tony uh In. Our Colonel
Speaker 1: Mooningham had gone back also, and he he sent us
Speaker 1: out to the desert to link up with Frank's guys
Speaker 1: and kind of give them a rundown on what we
Speaker 1: knew about Baghdad. In the streets of Baghdad, I mean
Speaker 1: I came, uh, when Chris came home, she brought back,
Speaker 1: oh maybe ten rolls the thirty five millimeter film U
Speaker 1: photos I was taking of Iraqi formations coming into Quait.
Speaker 1: I also had you know, uh, street maps of of
Speaker 1: Baghdad and so forth. Now, I guess today with technology
Speaker 1: back then, maybe it wasn't needed. But I would tell
Speaker 1: the soft community, if you have the ability to to
Speaker 1: speak with people that have just come out of an
Speaker 1: area like that and and get some intel from I
Speaker 1: think they'll they'll find that's a pretty good helpful, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of tidbits that you don't really think of, and
Speaker 1: if they ask the right questions, they can they can
Speaker 1: come up with some pretty uh, pretty good useful operational
Speaker 1: or tactical level type of intel. Excellent. Well, gentlemen, I
Speaker 1: really want to thank you guys for taking the time
Speaker 1: with us today. I know we had a little bit
Speaker 1: of a glitch getting all three of us connected today,
Speaker 1: but we got it done and we look forward to
Speaker 1: uh promoting the book and you know, we'll we'll promote
Speaker 1: it as best we can here on the podcast, both
Speaker 1: on our site and on our YouTube channel. Uh. Is
Speaker 1: there anything else you guys would like to share about
Speaker 1: the book and its upcoming release? Be well, we let
Speaker 1: you guys go. I'm looking forward to the I've always
Speaker 1: I've only read the couple. Yeah, well you lived it
Speaker 1: so that. Yeah, but John, but then he filled in
Speaker 1: for me. I didn't know any of that backstory stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean it all started with me with with Grummick,
Speaker 1: you know, coming coming into the embassy there, so good stuff.
Speaker 1: It was a fascinating story about the polls and the
Speaker 1: intelligence community, and you know it's something that I know
Speaker 1: a lot of us had never heard of before, and
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's it's one of those gripping tales that
Speaker 1: sounds like James Bond, you know film, but it's all
Speaker 1: real life stuff. So you know, I encourage all our
Speaker 1: listeners out there, all our readers of software dot com
Speaker 1: to check it out as soon as it is really stin.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I think you'll be, you know, missing a
Speaker 1: lot of meals and you'll be turning the pages. So John, Fred,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: And that was a tremendous book. And thank you for
Speaker 1: sending me advanced copy of that. Thank you, Steve, thank
Speaker 1: you Fred, Okay for all of us here at soft
Speaker 1: reap dot com and Software Radio, thank you for joining us. Gentlemen.
Speaker 1: We'll be back real soon with another podcast. Love been
Speaker 1: listening to self Rep Radio m HM.