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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what

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You here Weekday Afternoon is on the
Drive after twenty six years, and the

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CIA Daniel J. O'Connor has released
his debut spy thriller, The True American

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Patriot on your six o'clock and he's
joining us to talk about that and other

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current events that I can't resist nor
wait to ask him about. Former CIA

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director Daniel J. O'Connor, Welcome, Thank you, Thank you very much.

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The description of your new novel,
A True American Patriot makes it sound

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a little like Mark greeney novel The
Gray Man. Not even noticed that.

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Yeah, and this one is fictional. I'm not sure if the other is

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fictional or not, but it is
fictional, and it has to do with

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things that were in my mind long
after having been at the Agency, and

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it seemed to move for me.
The main reason why I was starting it,

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starting the book and working on it
has a lot to do with the

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US military, a number of number
of people that people in the US they

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don't realize per se that one hundred
and twenty five basis the US military basis

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around the world are there, and
the troops that are there. It's not

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an easy place to be because very
small some of them, and they're very

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large in terms of but that's quite
a number, one hundred twenty five portions.

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So what I've experienced in my own
with the individuals I work with,

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when you're on the road and you're
traveling, you might get and the directors

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with you, you might get say
three hours and any given ten days with

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four or five countries being done all
quick. And so the US military and

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the troops are there, both from
the most lower level of being a private

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all the way up to you know, the four Stars. They do things

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abroad that are very difficult, and
their families missed them greatly. So this

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is something that you really have to
honor and you really have to feel very

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good about. And that's what caused
me to do the writing of the book.

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Former CIA director Daniel J. O'Connor. The name of the book is

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a true American Patriot. It's a
fast paced novel. Who is your central

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character and what is his role in
all of this? There's two of them

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per sect, but the one is
the individual that his name is Devlin doc

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O'Connell, and that came from a
friend of mine that when I was doing

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it getting it put together, and
he passed on. He passed away,

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and he had the same background in
terms of name and a character, so

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that I did that as a as
au to try to make myself feel better.

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And the fellow is a wonderful guy. US Marines's did a lot of

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nice thanks for the country. So
that's one way I could describe to you.

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I'll share with you too if you
haven't seen the book or anyone's starting

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to see. The first chapter is
rather um. There's a lot of activity

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goes on real quick, and explosions
and explosions occur, and so people work

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from there. It deals with all
the multitude of national security threats. What

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are what are maybe the top five? Top five would be I would say

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terrorism, UH, and then there's
espionage in the end, the US military

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and then war. But the wars
is kind of captured in UH portions of

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North Korea and the a in that
area. It has portions that pay attention

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to it, and then the Asian
General has aspects of them. A True

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American Patriot is the name of the
book. Former CIA director Daniel J.

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O'Connor is the author. It is
a novel I gather though, with the

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experience and some of the things that
he's seen, you will probably read about

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some things that are as timely as
taken from the headlines of any newspaper at

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any time along those lines of director. You know, I remember when the

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CIA had to rely basically on punch
cards and you know, maybe an eight

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by ten card with a suspect's face
on it for the agents to try to

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find or flush out. We are
in an age now of wonderfully fast and

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deficient communication. Is the world safer
or more dangerous than it was, say,

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during the seventies and eighties, I
think it's much more dangerous right now.

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We're in a situation globally as well
as cus that is going to experience

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a lot of loss of food.
That's going to be people in that are

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going to be left, and then
there's going to be a lot of other

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people in the rest of the world
they're going to be in that kind of

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mode. And then China and Russia
in up Korea. These are roll portions

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that are very dangerous right now.
And the fact that right from the beginning

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with Putin and is at the time
it was February and he right off the

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bat talked about, well, our
nuclear weapons will be very valuable and we

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will use them if we have to
and when this mode. And one of

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the things that was very good about
that, the way he put it all

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out front is the entire United States
military wise and agency at SA this kind

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of thing. The thing that was
really great about him doing that opening up

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to the world claiming that is that
right from that second on, the rest

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of these kinds of concerns are put
in play immediately and it still is.

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So that was very helpful that he
went and told people so that we could

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really put things together instantly. Yeah, not as much worry, Yeah,

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not not as much speculation either.
Along those lines, I've read I've read

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criticism of NATO and that in some
ways NATO has provoked Putin. I don't

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see it that way. I see
Putin has always had this lust to either

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occupy or reannex Ukraine. What are
your thoughts. Is it NATO's fault,

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Is it Putin's aggression? No,
I think you're right. I think you

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have it right now. Putin,
I think, is very much about to

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go over the Abyss. There's none
of these people. These people have lost

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two hundred thousand troops that they loved
and cared for, and they didn't care

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about the Ukraine in terms of wanting
to do what he wanted done. And

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so as a result, the number
of times that people have gone out into

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the Kremlin in different places, we're
talking about millions of people trying to tell

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him get out, get away,
and so that's something valuable for them that

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it's a very dire situation. Yeah, what's happening and how he's hamlood is

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horrendous. Well, and it's indicative
when you start to get letting your prisoners

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out of jailed in order to re
stock your troops, That's that's indicative of

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desperation. Correct, Correct? And
why would someone assume that you can let

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them out and everything will be just
great. Yeah. Dan O'Connor, he's

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former CIA director and his new novel
talks about things just like this. A

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true American patriot. I love this
kind of stuff, especially when it's written

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by intelligence agents like you, because
you guys lived it. I wanted to

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ask you, you know, in
your pressures of day to day work with

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the CIA, um, how I
mean I'm in news talk radio and on

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the weekends, I relish, unplugging
and not knowing what's going on in the

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world twenty four seven. But for
you, I don't know, men,

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I don't know what were you able
to ever do that? Well? Um,

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in terms of the DCI, what
we were doing is making sure that

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that individual and is cared for so
he's not killed, he's not harmed in

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any way, shape or form.
And yet we've gone into hot locations that

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are not necessarily a snap of a
finger, and we uh the DCI and

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the bosses, they had to get
there, get in, get out,

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and we were making sure everyone knew
that, and so that it was very

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valuable in that regard. Um,
the people that we're back up for us,

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we send them out long before we're
getting in the director ideally we like

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to do it this way, but
get them in there and get now in

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planes that don't look like playing sometimes
they certainly don't look like us points.

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And so those are the things that
have and will continue to be a major

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effect. And dcis are they have
very tough times, and most people don't

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realize that they spend a lot of
their time overseas and we're spending a lot

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of time making sure that they're okay, and they're going to get home just

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fine. Dan O'Connor, the name
of the book is a true American Patriot.

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A fantastic read waiting for you this
summer. I plan on devouring my

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copy. And we thank you director
for joining us and for writing this book.

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Thank you very much too. We
appreciate the director being as graceful as

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they all. Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews

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Podcast, and remember to listen to
The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to

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seven and iHeartMedia presentation