1
00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:09,679
Speaker 1: Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that tells gripping life and

2
00:00:09,759 --> 00:00:14,000
death spy stories and the amazing devices and operations that

3
00:00:14,119 --> 00:00:17,160
made them possible. Now let's get started.

4
00:00:24,679 --> 00:00:27,559
Speaker 2: Welcome back everybody. Today, we have a great guest, Barry

5
00:00:27,679 --> 00:00:30,839
Broman B ro O M A N. He's the author

6
00:00:30,839 --> 00:00:33,640
of a book called risk Taker, Spy Maker Tales of

7
00:00:33,679 --> 00:00:37,479
a CIA Case Officer. That's right, we have ourselves a spy.

8
00:00:37,679 --> 00:00:39,359
So he's going to be telling us this story about

9
00:00:39,399 --> 00:00:42,520
his book again, a great book called risk Taker, Spy

10
00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:46,679
Maker Tales of a CIA Case Officer. So let's learn

11
00:00:46,679 --> 00:00:47,960
a little bit more about Bear because he's got a

12
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:49,920
lot of it. He's got a pretty intriguing background. Was

13
00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:53,840
a teenage photographer I lost it, I had it and

14
00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:56,960
I lost it, folks, teenage photographer for the Associated Press

15
00:00:56,960 --> 00:00:59,320
and Southeast Asia, and a Marine Corps infantry officer in

16
00:00:59,359 --> 00:01:01,840
combat and v not before spending a quarter century as

17
00:01:01,880 --> 00:01:05,200
a headhunter with dozens of recruits for the clandestine Service

18
00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,480
and operations around the world. Mister Browman received a BA

19
00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:10,760
in political science in nineteen sixty seven, followed by an

20
00:01:10,879 --> 00:01:13,799
m in Southeast Asian study. So there's no one really

21
00:01:13,879 --> 00:01:16,959
better to tell us what was going on in Southeast

22
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:19,159
Asia in those days. Maybe can even give us some

23
00:01:19,159 --> 00:01:21,439
insight on what's going on today. But before we get started,

24
00:01:21,439 --> 00:01:23,400
make sure to share a subscribe hit that like button.

25
00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:24,640
You know, we like it and it's not wasting any

26
00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:25,000
more time.

27
00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:28,120
Speaker 3: Opening with the show, Berry Browman, Welcome, sir, good to

28
00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:29,079
be here at Carlos.

29
00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:31,319
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for doing this. And I forgot

30
00:01:31,359 --> 00:01:32,799
to mention before the show, thank you very much for

31
00:01:32,799 --> 00:01:37,400
your service as well. All right, so let's do this first.

32
00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:41,640
I always get curious what motivated individuals to join the

33
00:01:41,719 --> 00:01:46,799
Three Letter Agency. I always remember, I don't know how

34
00:01:46,840 --> 00:01:48,560
young you were at that time, but I remember the

35
00:01:48,599 --> 00:01:53,319
show I Spy and Mission Impossible with Peter Graves. Those

36
00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:55,519
were those any influences.

37
00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:57,200
Speaker 3: At all on you? R? None at all, not at all.

38
00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:01,319
Those are Those are pure fiction and a little bit

39
00:02:01,359 --> 00:02:06,760
funny in times, but nothing connected to the real world. Now.

40
00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:12,599
In my case, I was in graduate school studying for

41
00:02:12,719 --> 00:02:16,759
my MA at the University of Washington in sixty seven.

42
00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:20,159
I'd already been commissioned in the Marine Corps, but the

43
00:02:20,199 --> 00:02:23,000
Marine Corps and their wisdom, decided to let me go

44
00:02:23,159 --> 00:02:27,240
for a masters. I speak Thai, and while I was

45
00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:30,919
in grad school, an elderly professor of mine, old old

46
00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:36,000
China Hand, asked if I was interested in the CIA,

47
00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:40,960
and I had frankly, I wasn't. I was actually planning

48
00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:44,560
to stay with the Associated Press and go to Tokyo.

49
00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:48,120
But this guy said I should talk to the CIA.

50
00:02:48,199 --> 00:02:51,599
There's a recruiter in the Northwest at that time, so

51
00:02:51,639 --> 00:02:53,840
he set it up and I met the guy and

52
00:02:54,719 --> 00:02:57,680
he said, look, you're the guy we're looking for. You've

53
00:02:57,719 --> 00:03:01,520
got Asian experience any more. You got to you get

54
00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:06,759
your master's degree, You've got language, and you've got people's skills.

55
00:03:07,039 --> 00:03:10,240
And I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm

56
00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:12,919
a lieutenant in the Marine Corps. I'm going to War

57
00:03:13,439 --> 00:03:18,840
Okay next year. And the guy said, take my card.

58
00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:22,879
Handing me his card, he said, if you live, call

59
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,000
this number six months before you get out of the

60
00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:30,479
Marine Corps. So I survived Vietnam, even though I extended

61
00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:33,599
my tour there, and I came out. I was a

62
00:03:34,159 --> 00:03:37,439
made captain in the Corps. I was a company commander

63
00:03:37,479 --> 00:03:42,560
at Camp Pendleton in seventy one, and I remembered this

64
00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:47,159
guy and as a whim, I had six months to go.

65
00:03:47,319 --> 00:03:51,759
I called the number. Didn't expect it, didn't expect to

66
00:03:53,599 --> 00:03:56,560
talk to anybody that knew me. And the guy came on.

67
00:03:56,719 --> 00:03:59,159
He said, wait, let me get your file. So he

68
00:03:59,319 --> 00:04:04,080
comes back. He said, okay, tell me what's happening. I said,

69
00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:05,919
I'm getting out of the corps in six months and

70
00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:08,719
you said to call. He said, are you still interested?

71
00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:11,400
I said, I am, but only to be an OPS officer.

72
00:04:11,479 --> 00:04:15,080
I don't want to be an analyst in Washington. He said, okay,

73
00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:19,920
meet me at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego Thursday

74
00:04:19,959 --> 00:04:23,600
at six o'clock. We'll have a drink. I met him

75
00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:26,959
and he signed me up. And so fifteen days after

76
00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:29,000
I got out of the Marine Corps, I was in

77
00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:32,439
the CIA for the next twenty five years.

78
00:04:33,199 --> 00:04:37,519
Speaker 2: Wow, well you enjoyed it, obviously I did.

79
00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:41,000
Speaker 3: I enjoyed every minute. Now.

80
00:04:41,439 --> 00:04:42,959
Speaker 2: I don't know what you can tell us on this.

81
00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:45,040
I know most of the stuff I usually don't get

82
00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:49,959
very much and a former officers, But what was it like?

83
00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:52,279
What can you share about What was it like the

84
00:04:52,319 --> 00:04:54,600
first six months to a year being in the CIA.

85
00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:56,839
I mean, it was it difficult training, It was a

86
00:04:56,879 --> 00:05:00,279
lot of physicality, was it a lot of intellectual what

87
00:05:00,319 --> 00:05:00,759
was going on?

88
00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:04,240
Speaker 3: Anything you can share, Okay, Now, it's kind of like

89
00:05:05,319 --> 00:05:08,720
joining a fraternity. I was in a fraternity in college.

90
00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:13,439
And when you join the Clandestine Service of the CIA,

91
00:05:14,439 --> 00:05:16,959
and I think it's pretty much the same now, although

92
00:05:16,959 --> 00:05:19,920
there have been a number of changes. You belong to

93
00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:25,959
an area division, So in my case, I went to

94
00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:29,959
East Asia Division, and that is your home base for

95
00:05:30,199 --> 00:05:33,920
pretty much your career. When you get into senior ranks,

96
00:05:34,519 --> 00:05:36,800
then you can pretty much go anywhere, but for a

97
00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:42,560
long time you're home based in your division. And they

98
00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:46,839
give you a couple of temporary assignments ninety days each

99
00:05:46,959 --> 00:05:51,720
one in the DdO, the Directorate of Operations at that time,

100
00:05:52,439 --> 00:05:55,519
and these are your spies. And then you get thirty

101
00:05:56,120 --> 00:05:59,519
six now ninety days with the DDI, the Director of

102
00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:03,040
intelligen and these are the analysts. And in my case,

103
00:06:03,079 --> 00:06:05,560
I was lucky enough to be on the Cambodia desk

104
00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:09,000
of both, and so I saw the raw reporting coming

105
00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:11,279
in from the field, and then I saw how that

106
00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:18,560
reporting was massaged and turned into fixed, final finished intelligence

107
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:21,920
by the DDI. And then when you're through with these

108
00:06:21,959 --> 00:06:26,120
two interim assignments, and this is part of the career

109
00:06:26,199 --> 00:06:29,839
training program of CIA, the CT program, and this is

110
00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:34,279
kind of the a track for career people. Then you

111
00:06:34,639 --> 00:06:37,040
decide you want to go d d O. DDI in

112
00:06:37,079 --> 00:06:40,759
my case was always DdO. I had very good people.

113
00:06:40,839 --> 00:06:42,680
I was working with them, in touch with some of

114
00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:46,480
them today, including my main mentor it'll be ninety seven

115
00:06:47,120 --> 00:06:51,800
in July. Dan Arnold was his name. Dan was wounded

116
00:06:51,800 --> 00:06:54,560
in the Marine Corps and forty four in the Pacific,

117
00:06:55,240 --> 00:07:00,160
worn strong. And so I went DdO. And when you

118
00:07:00,199 --> 00:07:03,319
do that, the next thing is the Basic Ops course.

119
00:07:03,480 --> 00:07:08,040
This is training, intense training to learn to be an

120
00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:16,360
intelligence recruiter and handler of agents and producing intelligence, running agents,

121
00:07:16,439 --> 00:07:21,279
recruiting agents. And this takes place at our training facility,

122
00:07:21,959 --> 00:07:25,759
which we call the Farm. And it was the best

123
00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:29,000
training I ever had. And that includes basic officer training

124
00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:32,319
in the Marine Corps, which I thought was the best.

125
00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:37,519
It was more interesting, more fun, and less hazardous. At CIA.

126
00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:40,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me, I guess I got blittney of questions

127
00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:42,240
before we move on to your book in a second here,

128
00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:46,560
But who did you report to? I guess out there

129
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:48,199
you can you even mention that.

130
00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:52,519
Speaker 3: Well in the field. In the field, we have stations. Okay,

131
00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:55,839
stations are run by the chief of station as a

132
00:07:55,879 --> 00:07:58,959
deputy chief of station, and depending on the size, we

133
00:07:59,079 --> 00:08:02,519
have one man's stations in some little countries that most

134
00:08:02,519 --> 00:08:05,959
people never heard of, and we have huge stations and

135
00:08:06,079 --> 00:08:10,600
places where we're having wars like Vietnam and Iraq and

136
00:08:11,199 --> 00:08:14,600
you name it. But in my career, I was twice

137
00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:18,920
chief of station, once deputy chief of station, and twice

138
00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:22,399
a branch chief, and then once I ran a clandestine

139
00:08:22,959 --> 00:08:28,439
covert action paramilitary program with my own staff.

140
00:08:29,759 --> 00:08:32,000
Speaker 2: A curiosity. Again, I don't know how much you can share.

141
00:08:32,039 --> 00:08:33,960
But when you were doing the intelligence training and the

142
00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:37,679
office tream recruitment training, do they teach you folks body

143
00:08:37,759 --> 00:08:40,320
language things, to be able to read people at all,

144
00:08:40,519 --> 00:08:41,559
anything like that. Yeah.

145
00:08:41,679 --> 00:08:44,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of hands on. To be a

146
00:08:44,279 --> 00:08:47,120
successful case officer, you need to be a bit of

147
00:08:47,120 --> 00:08:50,480
a salesman. You've got to be able to get the

148
00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:55,600
person's trust when you're recruiting them because very often their

149
00:08:55,679 --> 00:08:58,799
life is in your hands. And there's an old MI

150
00:08:59,159 --> 00:09:02,759
six office or I worked with on a successful hard

151
00:09:02,799 --> 00:09:07,120
target operation. I traveled with this guy for a couple

152
00:09:07,159 --> 00:09:09,639
of weeks tracking a target that the Brits had been

153
00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:14,440
after for twenty years, and I learned more. I learned

154
00:09:14,480 --> 00:09:17,600
a lot at the farm, but I learned more practical

155
00:09:17,720 --> 00:09:23,559
stuff sitting at at the feet of this superior British

156
00:09:23,600 --> 00:09:29,600
case officer. And the theme that I've taken up many

157
00:09:29,639 --> 00:09:34,720
times with my own junior officers was to convince them

158
00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:38,200
that we are in the business of making dreams come true.

159
00:09:38,840 --> 00:09:42,360
Everybody has a dream, whether you're a KGB officer, or

160
00:09:42,399 --> 00:09:47,840
you're a past over professor, or you know you've got

161
00:09:47,879 --> 00:09:51,240
an your dreams for yourself, your family, your future. You

162
00:09:51,279 --> 00:09:55,600
need to find that dream and very often the CIA

163
00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:58,080
can make that dream come true, whether it means coming

164
00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:02,679
to the States with your family after serving in place,

165
00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:08,639
maybe in Moscow or other places. And we have a

166
00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:13,279
lot of opportunities available to these people, and it's a

167
00:10:13,279 --> 00:10:17,840
matter of learning what they want and being able to

168
00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:22,240
convince them to make the big step.

169
00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:27,279
Speaker 2: Fascinating stuff, fascinating Did you work? Did you working with

170
00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:27,919
the I six?

171
00:10:29,240 --> 00:10:32,919
Speaker 3: I enjoyed it immensely. Now I had been a schoolboy

172
00:10:33,039 --> 00:10:37,080
in England for four years when my father, an Air

173
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:43,320
Force officer, was the Engineer Office Engineering officer for RAF

174
00:10:43,440 --> 00:10:47,279
menstin on the English channel. So I had four years

175
00:10:47,279 --> 00:10:49,879
at a boys prep school in England which trained me

176
00:10:50,039 --> 00:10:55,000
and learned it met me playing cricket. I got into

177
00:10:55,039 --> 00:10:59,200
the Seattle Cricket Club in the Bangkok Royal Bangkok Sports

178
00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:04,320
Club ticket team years later. So I think that is

179
00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:06,879
one of the reasons I was tapped to go out

180
00:11:06,919 --> 00:11:11,519
on this joint operation with I six because I had

181
00:11:11,559 --> 00:11:15,159
this British background and the operation went well. It's in

182
00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:17,559
my book. I won't tell you what happened. It's kind

183
00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:21,320
of a weird situation. Make a good movie someday, but

184
00:11:21,919 --> 00:11:25,279
I really enjoyed working with I six in particularly with

185
00:11:25,399 --> 00:11:26,080
that officer.

186
00:11:26,559 --> 00:11:28,919
Speaker 2: That's always the tough part about when we bring authors

187
00:11:28,919 --> 00:11:31,519
on is we don't want to give everything away, right

188
00:11:31,879 --> 00:11:34,919
And the book again folks called risk Taker, Spy Maker

189
00:11:35,399 --> 00:11:39,240
Tales of a CA Case Officer written by Barry Michael Broman.

190
00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:42,200
Bro m Am, I guess my last question before we

191
00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:43,799
start hitting into the book and what motivated you to

192
00:11:43,799 --> 00:11:45,519
write it and tell us about the story a little bit,

193
00:11:45,759 --> 00:11:51,120
is I'm curiosity. Today's where we get direct deposit? I

194
00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:53,240
always wondered I never asked for some reason, I always

195
00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:56,120
forget to ask case officers. But how did you guys

196
00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:58,080
get your money? Did you get like a check mail

197
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:00,399
to you or do they have direct deposit? Fifty years ago,

198
00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:01,360
we didn't know about her.

199
00:12:03,399 --> 00:12:08,399
Speaker 3: Okay. Most of our case officers in the field are undercover.

200
00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:12,200
In my case, I was under State Department cover, so

201
00:12:12,279 --> 00:12:14,960
I got to check every month from the State Department.

202
00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:17,759
Speaker 2: But it went somewhere like your primary residence or.

203
00:12:18,759 --> 00:12:21,519
Speaker 3: Went to my bank, went directly to my bank. And

204
00:12:22,039 --> 00:12:26,679
then when when we're that's just sort of you know, housekeeping,

205
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,600
that's how it's done. But when we're running operations, of course,

206
00:12:31,639 --> 00:12:34,679
I have another bank account that belongs to the agency,

207
00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:39,200
and all of the money that goes to paying agents

208
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:43,840
salaries and travel and entertainment that comes out of your

209
00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:44,799
ops fund.

210
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:47,480
Speaker 2: Okay, So you have a certain balance you get to

211
00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:49,799
play with or do you have to actually mark on

212
00:12:49,919 --> 00:12:51,840
everything you've been spending? So if you take somebody.

213
00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:55,799
Speaker 3: Account for every penny, okay. And having said that, it's

214
00:12:55,879 --> 00:13:01,279
quite generous. In the agency, we had free, free accommodations,

215
00:13:01,639 --> 00:13:09,240
sometimes vehicles. Staff covered lots of entertaining travel. So it

216
00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:11,840
can be a very useful career.

217
00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:14,000
Speaker 2: I can see why. Twenty five years.

218
00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:17,559
Speaker 3: All right, So tell us about what motivated you write

219
00:13:17,679 --> 00:13:21,039
this book in this particular story. Well, this book is

220
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:24,440
a memoir, Okay, this basically covers my life a number

221
00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:27,799
of people. I'm a storyteller, Okay, I've got a lot

222
00:13:27,799 --> 00:13:31,360
of stories. I've got hundreds of jokes. I even mentioned

223
00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:36,559
a Russian joke. A gru Russian military intelligence colonel told

224
00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:40,000
me a great story, and that's in my book. So

225
00:13:41,039 --> 00:13:43,879
it's a collection of stories. In fact, I'm working on

226
00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:47,320
a sequel to the memoir. It should be out next

227
00:13:47,399 --> 00:13:51,240
year after my novel comes out later this fall, and

228
00:13:53,159 --> 00:13:57,120
it basically tells the Barry Broman story, starting as a

229
00:13:57,240 --> 00:14:00,879
kid in school in England and then ap photographer at

230
00:14:00,879 --> 00:14:05,000
eighteen in Bangkok, and then a Marine Infantry officer in

231
00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:10,720
Vietnam in sixty nine, and then quarter of a century

232
00:14:10,879 --> 00:14:16,039
with the agency running, mostly running and recruiting agents recruited

233
00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:19,759
over forty and then the last twenty five years, I've

234
00:14:19,759 --> 00:14:27,879
had a career in still dealing with Asia, but consulting

235
00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:30,639
doing this and that. I've done a dozen books, mostly

236
00:14:30,679 --> 00:14:35,960
photo books. Nine documentary films I did in Burma and Thailand.

237
00:14:36,919 --> 00:14:39,200
And so that's about all of those things. The people

238
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:42,159
I met along the way. That's basically that story.

239
00:14:42,679 --> 00:14:44,879
Speaker 2: So what was going on in Cambodia when they decided

240
00:14:44,919 --> 00:14:45,840
to send you over there?

241
00:14:47,159 --> 00:14:49,919
Speaker 3: Well, my first posting in the agency, well, i'll go

242
00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:53,320
back to ap Ape sixty two sixty three. I was

243
00:14:53,399 --> 00:14:57,240
based as a Bangkok stringer. I wasn't staff, I was

244
00:14:57,279 --> 00:15:00,759
locally hired and I was paid when employed, and so

245
00:15:02,679 --> 00:15:05,360
that was Bangkok. But I had an assignment to Cambodia

246
00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:09,960
in sixty three and the correspondent who was supposed to

247
00:15:10,039 --> 00:15:12,879
do the writing for the story didn't make it out

248
00:15:12,879 --> 00:15:15,679
of Saigon in time. So I got my first byline

249
00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:19,159
writing the story out of Cambodia when the President of

250
00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:23,519
China liushout Si came down to Cambodia and I covered

251
00:15:23,519 --> 00:15:26,360
that for AP So that was my baptism. That Ten

252
00:15:26,440 --> 00:15:30,720
years later to the day, on one May seventy three,

253
00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:36,159
I was back in Cambodia with the CIA under State

254
00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:39,840
Department covered and I was there until Cambodia fell in

255
00:15:39,919 --> 00:15:45,480
seventy five, which time I made it out barely. Actually,

256
00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:48,519
I was on the last fixed wing plane before the

257
00:15:48,600 --> 00:15:51,279
choppers came in. I took out some people, took out

258
00:15:51,279 --> 00:15:57,480
some documents, and so then I followed Cambodia from Bangkok

259
00:15:57,559 --> 00:16:01,639
for about five years, and then ultimately in the eighties,

260
00:16:02,519 --> 00:16:05,799
I was in Paris and I worked at Cambodia Target.

261
00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:08,519
This is at a time when we were working with

262
00:16:08,639 --> 00:16:14,120
the resistance against the Vietnamese who had occupied Cambodia in

263
00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:18,559
seventy nine, and so we were with there were actually

264
00:16:18,679 --> 00:16:23,120
two different groups, the Royalists and the Nationalists were allied

265
00:16:23,159 --> 00:16:26,799
against the Vietnamese, and I was tapped to run that

266
00:16:26,919 --> 00:16:33,240
program in nineteen ninety one with three of our Asian allies,

267
00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:37,440
and we had about thirty thousand men under arms that

268
00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:42,840
we supported, and we won. In ninety one, the Vietnamese

269
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:48,279
agreed to ceasefire and the UN came in and supervised

270
00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:52,279
free and fair elections in Cambodia, which resulted in a

271
00:16:52,320 --> 00:17:00,000
win for our Royalist faction, and ultimately I felt justified

272
00:17:00,639 --> 00:17:03,159
spending all those years on the Cambodia Target.

273
00:17:04,039 --> 00:17:06,559
Speaker 2: Anything in Cambodia that stood out for you, any kind

274
00:17:06,599 --> 00:17:10,000
of recruitment, anything at all that you were like, this

275
00:17:10,079 --> 00:17:11,759
is a this is all worth it, or this.

276
00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:16,319
Speaker 3: Is well, it's scary. But I've been in the Marines

277
00:17:16,359 --> 00:17:21,319
in Vietnam and been shot at and missed, and the

278
00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:24,119
physical danger didn't wear me too much, although we were

279
00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:28,039
taken up to two hundred rockets a day and at

280
00:17:28,079 --> 00:17:31,440
the end and we've been surrounded for a year, and

281
00:17:31,799 --> 00:17:33,720
we had the Marine Corps had a plan to come

282
00:17:33,759 --> 00:17:36,319
and get us, and ultimately they did and we got out.

283
00:17:36,319 --> 00:17:39,960
We didn't lose anybody, but it was it was an

284
00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:45,160
intense time because of the fighting and death and destruction

285
00:17:45,319 --> 00:17:50,839
all around. I handled some of the senior reporting assets

286
00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:57,400
a Bank of Penn station, and that was interesting. I

287
00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:01,759
had a chief of station who was a patrician from

288
00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:07,519
South Carolina and a marvelous fellows spoke fluent French, educated

289
00:18:07,559 --> 00:18:13,799
in France, and his motto was give them their intelligence

290
00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:19,359
with their coffee. And Panom Penn was twelve hours ahead

291
00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:23,240
of Washington, d C. So nine in the morning in

292
00:18:23,559 --> 00:18:27,039
Washington was nine at night in Panom Penn, and a

293
00:18:27,079 --> 00:18:30,960
lot of my meetings were safe house meetings in the evening,

294
00:18:31,839 --> 00:18:37,799
and in a normal environment I would have written the

295
00:18:37,839 --> 00:18:42,160
stuff up and sent it out the next morning, but

296
00:18:42,319 --> 00:18:46,160
the boss said to get their coffee, with their intelligence,

297
00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:51,519
with their coffee, so I would dash into the station,

298
00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:54,920
write it up and then go to the chief of

299
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:59,559
stations home, which was nearby, and he would read it

300
00:19:00,079 --> 00:19:04,440
invariably chop on it, very few changes made. Then I'd

301
00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:07,839
take it back to the embassy and send it out

302
00:19:08,039 --> 00:19:10,920
so that they would get it fresh with their coffee.

303
00:19:11,559 --> 00:19:13,599
Speaker 2: Now, if I remember correctly, you were also a chief

304
00:19:13,599 --> 00:19:15,440
of station twice or something.

305
00:19:16,039 --> 00:19:19,000
Speaker 3: I was chief twice, once at one of our domestic

306
00:19:19,119 --> 00:19:24,240
stations in the US, and later my final posting, I

307
00:19:24,279 --> 00:19:28,160
was chief of station in Rangoon, Burma, which was another

308
00:19:28,319 --> 00:19:32,799
interesting place because there the target was opium heroin and

309
00:19:33,039 --> 00:19:36,640
we ran some very successful operations in this case with

310
00:19:36,759 --> 00:19:40,680
the Burmese. But earlier I was back in Thailand running

311
00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:46,480
operations with the Thaie against heroin traffickers. My first operation

312
00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:52,519
with one of my Thai sources yielded five hundred and

313
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:59,400
fifty one kilos of heroin and the second olf was

314
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:02,559
three hundred kilos and a good a good bust for

315
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:06,599
DEA in Bangkok would be twenty kilos. So that was

316
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:09,880
a that was a go go time for Asian operations

317
00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:12,240
in counter narcotics.

318
00:20:12,799 --> 00:20:14,400
Speaker 2: That's huge. How long was that operation?

319
00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:20,000
Speaker 3: Well, that was just one bust. Okay, we in this

320
00:20:20,119 --> 00:20:24,079
case we're working with the royal type police and in

321
00:20:24,640 --> 00:20:29,279
cooperation in liaison, as we say. And so I had

322
00:20:29,279 --> 00:20:34,400
a very good old personal friend, senior police officer who

323
00:20:35,039 --> 00:20:38,599
outdid himself and his cooperation with the US.

324
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:42,079
Speaker 2: I was it working with time police. Did you notice

325
00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:44,880
some differences between them and the US or how they

326
00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:45,759
handled things anything?

327
00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:49,880
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's a lot different. But one thing, most

328
00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:51,920
of the type police, I'm just going to say this

329
00:20:52,119 --> 00:20:56,559
for the record, a corrupt. Okay. They don't get much pay.

330
00:20:56,759 --> 00:21:01,440
They have to augment their pay some times it can

331
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:05,599
be serious. In the case of my friend, he had

332
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:10,599
independent wealth. He was always he's always been known as

333
00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:14,039
the most honest cop in Thai police history.

334
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:15,119
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

335
00:21:16,799 --> 00:21:20,200
Speaker 3: Of course, no money changed hands. This is a government

336
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:24,920
to government thing. But he risked his life for us

337
00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:28,599
several times. Now I have to say that's working with

338
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:31,039
the Tay police, and I enjoyed every minute of that.

339
00:21:31,519 --> 00:21:35,000
I spent more time on the Cambodia project as we

340
00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:38,880
called it, working with the Thai army. And in that case,

341
00:21:40,319 --> 00:21:44,519
here we've got I'm dealing with four major generals. One

342
00:21:44,559 --> 00:21:48,039
of them went to vm I, Virginia Military Institute. One

343
00:21:48,079 --> 00:21:55,519
of them went to Sandhurst. The British Military Academy. One

344
00:21:55,559 --> 00:21:59,359
of them was a finance major from the US, and

345
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:04,240
the worth guy went to the time military Academy. But

346
00:22:04,319 --> 00:22:08,720
he was very, very unusual in that his father was

347
00:22:08,759 --> 00:22:15,240
a member of the Central Committee of the Thai Communist Party.

348
00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:20,079
In fact, he was fighting against his dad then he was.

349
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:23,000
And all four of those generals I worked with retired

350
00:22:23,039 --> 00:22:27,960
as four star generals. And the guy I mentioned he retired,

351
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:32,319
see he'd been He retired as chief of the Army,

352
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:36,559
but later became Prime Minister and really a fantastic guy.

353
00:22:37,079 --> 00:22:39,160
So I was really lucky in working with some of

354
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:40,920
the best people at that time.

355
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,960
Speaker 2: Absolutely, how was the How was the Cambodian military or

356
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:46,279
police ever engage with them at all?

357
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:52,960
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the Cambodians were smaller, they had less training.

358
00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:57,480
It was. It was very tough. And so again I

359
00:22:57,519 --> 00:23:02,119
was lucky to to work with some good guys in

360
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,319
the resistance. One of them had been a fighter pilot

361
00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:09,519
and suddenly he finds himself as chief of staff of

362
00:23:09,559 --> 00:23:13,680
the army. He had about ten twelve thousand people under

363
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:16,920
his command. Was an excellent guy. I dealt with him

364
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:20,640
in French. I spoke French with the Khmer and tie

365
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:25,319
with the tie. But he went into the attack one

366
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:27,240
day and had a heart attack and I was in

367
00:23:27,279 --> 00:23:30,240
Bangkok when it happened, and I was notified by one

368
00:23:30,279 --> 00:23:34,000
of his cardinals up on the border, and they evacuated

369
00:23:34,079 --> 00:23:36,039
him to Thailand and he woke up in a Thai

370
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:40,279
hospital and three days later discharged himself and went back

371
00:23:40,319 --> 00:23:44,039
to the front. Okay, and he lived. He survived the war,

372
00:23:44,119 --> 00:23:47,039
became a governor in Cambodi. After the war. He helped

373
00:23:47,039 --> 00:23:50,480
me on a couple of my civilian projects as a

374
00:23:50,519 --> 00:23:55,119
consultant for the Orient Express. Another great guy. So I

375
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:55,640
built with.

376
00:23:55,680 --> 00:24:02,640
Speaker 2: Some good people, really tough people. Man. I know there's

377
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:05,720
a mention about your favorite agents. It's something about that

378
00:24:05,799 --> 00:24:08,279
he demanded a silence that would be life threatening.

379
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 3: Yeah. In my book, I have a story about the

380
00:24:13,279 --> 00:24:16,880
guy I call my favorite agent. Everybody's got Every case

381
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,160
officer has a favorite agent. This is a guy who's

382
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:27,240
a European and I met him through a State Department

383
00:24:27,279 --> 00:24:32,440
officer who bumped into him at luncheon. He said, I

384
00:24:32,559 --> 00:24:36,079
met the strangest guy last night at this cocktail party.

385
00:24:37,039 --> 00:24:39,640
You got to meet him because he's too good to

386
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:42,440
be true. I mean if he's telling the truth about

387
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:44,720
what he's been doing. You got to meet him and

388
00:24:44,759 --> 00:24:48,720
he's and the guy had an Asia connection. So through

389
00:24:48,839 --> 00:24:52,440
the State guy, I meet this fellow and right away

390
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:56,640
this is bullshit. This guy cannot be telling the truth.

391
00:24:57,279 --> 00:24:59,799
But he was a pleasant guy and an older guy,

392
00:25:00,079 --> 00:25:03,200
and I respected him even though I didn't believe it.

393
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:07,319
So we had lunch and he brought photos and Jesus Christ,

394
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,839
it was unbelievable. The people he knew, I won't say,

395
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,640
I can't say who they were, but they were really

396
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:22,359
of interest to the CIA. So now I considered him

397
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:25,319
a this is a target, This is a guy we

398
00:25:25,519 --> 00:25:29,000
really need to work with. So after a number of

399
00:25:29,039 --> 00:25:33,519
meetings and this and that, I had approval to pitch

400
00:25:33,599 --> 00:25:38,640
him to try to recruit him. And he smiled. When

401
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,359
I pitched him, he smiled and he said okay. He said,

402
00:25:43,319 --> 00:25:46,319
I was hoping you were CIA, okay, because you know,

403
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,319
you say your state and I'm not really interested in

404
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:53,200
helping the State Department. And I said, well, you know

405
00:25:53,319 --> 00:25:57,240
this is You've got these interesting connections around the world,

406
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,000
and I can see you know where it would be

407
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:05,599
very useful for you to be working for us secretly

408
00:26:06,279 --> 00:26:09,640
and of course you know we we pay well. And

409
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,759
he said, okay, well I can work for you. Don't

410
00:26:13,839 --> 00:26:19,720
worry about the money. You you pay me what it's worth. Okay.

411
00:26:19,759 --> 00:26:22,680
You give me an assignment and then you decide what

412
00:26:22,799 --> 00:26:27,720
it's worth. Now that's I've never seen that before. Money said,

413
00:26:27,759 --> 00:26:30,680
but I do have one condition. And I said to myself,

414
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,359
I knew it. I knew it too good to be true.

415
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:38,119
I said, Okay, what's the condition? He said, I I

416
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:43,359
will only accept assignments that are life threatening. Okay. If

417
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:47,599
if my life isn't, send somebody else, okay. And so

418
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,920
I said, well, maybe maybe we can do that. So

419
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:58,359
my my very first I would call it a trial mission. Uh.

420
00:26:58,759 --> 00:27:05,039
Mission took place in Asia where we could use a

421
00:27:05,039 --> 00:27:09,720
guy with his particular skill set in a life threatening

422
00:27:09,759 --> 00:27:15,079
situation which he almost got caught. He almost got would

423
00:27:15,079 --> 00:27:19,599
have been shot on the spot, but he didn't. He survived.

424
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,960
And then I sent him on another mission, and in

425
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,559
another part of the world. And he went in with

426
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:34,559
a fairly narrow set of instructions which he accomplished and more,

427
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:38,880
much much more. And he came back. And first of all,

428
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,680
he was late coming back. We thought he had been killed.

429
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:46,279
It was in a war situation that he survived, and

430
00:27:46,319 --> 00:27:48,359
I said, well, why were you so he said, I

431
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,920
loved it. I loved him minute those little guys, I

432
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,359
love him. And so that was the second mission, and

433
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:58,759
then another mission. He came to me and he said, look,

434
00:27:58,839 --> 00:28:01,559
I know a guy who can get me in with

435
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:06,720
this group and it's a group of terrorists. And I said, okay,

436
00:28:06,759 --> 00:28:10,359
well let me check with headquarters because this is outside

437
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:13,119
my area of knowledge. So I went back to the

438
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,079
headquarters and they came back and said, well, you know,

439
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:19,279
we'd love we'd love to have a guy go where

440
00:28:19,279 --> 00:28:22,400
he says he could go, but we cannot support this

441
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,960
because we've never had a guy come back alive. So

442
00:28:26,319 --> 00:28:28,599
I went, I went to my agent. I said, you know,

443
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:32,000
they'd like you to go, but they won't because it's

444
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:37,880
too dangerous. And he said, okay, I'm going. Okay, i'll

445
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:41,640
take I'll pay my way and if I live, and

446
00:28:41,799 --> 00:28:43,960
you pay me what you think is worth. And he

447
00:28:44,039 --> 00:28:50,440
lived and ultimately I turned him over. You know, my

448
00:28:50,599 --> 00:28:53,400
tour was up, and I turned him over to another

449
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:58,519
officer and I never gave it a thought. You know,

450
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:03,119
his life goes on, years go by. I'm in Washington.

451
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,640
It's a ninety three. Maybe I'm chief of the Tiberma

452
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:12,240
branch at East Asia phone rings And a guy says,

453
00:29:12,279 --> 00:29:14,079
are you mister so and so? And he uses my

454
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:16,880
work name and I said, it's me. He's on a

455
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:20,119
secure line, but it's me. He said, well you must

456
00:29:20,599 --> 00:29:22,799
you must know so and so, and he uses this

457
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:28,640
guy's pseudonym. And I said, yes, you recruited him, right,

458
00:29:28,759 --> 00:29:32,319
I said, I did. Is he still alive. Not only

459
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:36,279
is he still alive, we're giving him a medal and

460
00:29:37,359 --> 00:29:40,559
he want and he's in Washington and he wants you

461
00:29:40,599 --> 00:29:45,079
to be at the presentation. And then we took him

462
00:29:45,079 --> 00:29:47,279
out to a big dinner. They brought him into the

463
00:29:47,279 --> 00:29:51,240
building black and I went up in the director's private elevator.

464
00:29:51,799 --> 00:29:54,119
That medal ceremony, A medal I never heard of.

465
00:29:54,799 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 2: Oh my god.

466
00:29:55,799 --> 00:30:00,119
Speaker 3: It took him back because he can't keep it. I

467
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:02,799
kept in touch with him until he passed away. He

468
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:03,559
was the best.

469
00:30:04,079 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's that's saying something. We have a

470
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,400
CIA case officer who doesn't even know about the medal either.

471
00:30:10,599 --> 00:30:13,119
Speaker 3: It's not in the list of awards that you know.

472
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:16,799
I can get her other off. It's a special award.

473
00:30:18,079 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 2: That's intense. You know, I've only heard that type of

474
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,559
a personality in a couple situations. Obviously, I'm a forensic

475
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,839
psych so I've heard psychopaths, but I don't want to

476
00:30:27,839 --> 00:30:30,319
give him that label. But I've heard special forces tend

477
00:30:30,319 --> 00:30:31,960
to do that a lot. They tend to wish the

478
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:34,319
Delta Force guys, I really love getting in the middle

479
00:30:34,319 --> 00:30:35,759
of things. They're a little different than some of the

480
00:30:35,799 --> 00:30:38,480
other special Forces guys against for the thrill.

481
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:42,319
Speaker 3: He lived for the three and he was married. After

482
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,000
he retired. He had a girlfriend for years and when

483
00:30:45,079 --> 00:30:47,680
I sent him on his first mission, I knew about

484
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,119
this girl and I said, look, if you if you

485
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:55,000
get killed, you want me to tell her? No, bury

486
00:30:55,119 --> 00:30:58,400
me where I fall. That's what he said. And then

487
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,559
when when he got his medal, he was married and

488
00:31:01,599 --> 00:31:05,720
I said, toward the end, I know he knew he

489
00:31:05,759 --> 00:31:08,880
was dying, and we were talking and I said, now

490
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,039
do you want me to when you pass, you want

491
00:31:11,039 --> 00:31:13,839
me to tell her? He said, no, no, she has

492
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:14,759
no need to know.

493
00:31:15,359 --> 00:31:16,039
Speaker 2: And he died.

494
00:31:16,559 --> 00:31:19,839
Speaker 3: And to this day this woman doesn't know what she had.

495
00:31:20,839 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 2: Oh man, would you consider him because there are difference

496
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,880
between brave and fearless. Somebody just doesn't have any fear,

497
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:31,599
but somebody was brave at the same way. Would you

498
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,960
think about him, Well, I mean he lived on the edge.

499
00:31:35,119 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 3: You know, he had a very successful career apart from

500
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:45,079
being oh yeah, internationally known. There is a guy that

501
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,880
wants to do a film about it. Wanted to not now,

502
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,720
but I wanted to do a film about him, not

503
00:31:50,799 --> 00:31:56,359
knowing he worked for the CIA. Wow, he liked living

504
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,559
on the edge, and he talked himself. You know, he

505
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,440
was He'd been arrested in various places and he always

506
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:05,279
got out. He always got out. He escaped from this

507
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:10,759
group that I was initially dubious about him, evering had

508
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:13,279
kind of he escaped from them, the only person ever

509
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:14,759
ever escaped.

510
00:32:15,319 --> 00:32:18,599
Speaker 2: That's crazy. That's fun again, folks. The book Tales of

511
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:21,839
a CIA Case Officer, risk Taker, Spymaker by Barry Michael

512
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:25,440
Broman b R. O. M A. D. Let me ask

513
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:26,960
you this, Barry, as we get ready starting to wrap

514
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:28,720
it up a little bit, I want to ask you

515
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,119
some stuff. I guess a bunch of questions I want

516
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,599
to tie up in my head that I have in

517
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,920
regards to we talked way ago about body language, but

518
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,680
did you notice a lot. Was it a big problem

519
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:46,559
culturally initially going into Cambodia and trying to recruit because

520
00:32:46,599 --> 00:32:49,480
you have to understand the culture of the individuals. You

521
00:32:49,519 --> 00:32:52,319
have to understand possibly the role religion plays, the role

522
00:32:52,319 --> 00:32:54,440
of their in the family that they play, it was

523
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:57,920
patriarchal society and so forth. Was that initially a challenge

524
00:32:57,920 --> 00:32:59,160
at all? Oh?

525
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:03,599
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely. One of the strengths of the agency, as

526
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:06,319
I said, is you're an area specialist. You know, you

527
00:33:06,359 --> 00:33:10,400
spend your career in my day in that area. So

528
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,039
then in my case, I had a master's, I knew

529
00:33:13,079 --> 00:33:15,599
a lot about Thai culture history, et cetera, et cetera.

530
00:33:16,559 --> 00:33:19,759
Same with Cambodia. They have some shared history. But you

531
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:24,400
definitely a language helps a lot. Most of my Cambodian

532
00:33:24,519 --> 00:33:28,400
recruitments were in French, which was actually the official language

533
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:34,680
of the government at that time. But you definitely have

534
00:33:34,799 --> 00:33:40,519
to appreciate their culture history and you have to know

535
00:33:40,599 --> 00:33:46,279
their individual situation, aspiration, the dreams and all that. And

536
00:33:46,319 --> 00:33:50,640
then you have to I don't say you have to

537
00:33:50,799 --> 00:33:53,400
like the people, but you have to make them like you,

538
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,319
or at least trust you with their life. And so

539
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:01,680
now that's why I after two weeks in Bangkok in

540
00:34:01,759 --> 00:34:04,640
nineteen sixty two, I said I'm going to be at

541
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:08,960
Asia hand in college. My freshman year of college, I

542
00:34:09,039 --> 00:34:12,199
was going to be a South America especially forget that

543
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,519
I'm an Indo China guy. And after I retired from government,

544
00:34:16,559 --> 00:34:20,000
I spent years making films, doing books, doing work in

545
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:25,239
Southeast Asia. And that's that's my area. That's what I like.

546
00:34:26,079 --> 00:34:31,599
Speaker 2: I've talked to other case officers before, and we've sometimes

547
00:34:31,639 --> 00:34:34,079
they've share this. Sometimes I've asked them myself after I

548
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:38,320
learned really about this, was there any money you recruited

549
00:34:39,639 --> 00:34:42,360
that you thought, oh crap, this isn't going to work out,

550
00:34:42,639 --> 00:34:45,280
or oh man, this guy's in really danger or girl

551
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:47,760
was in real danger. Any moments like that at all

552
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:48,679
for you that you could share.

553
00:34:50,679 --> 00:34:55,079
Speaker 3: Well, you know, recruiting agents for the CIA is not

554
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:59,599
like batting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. You know, I have

555
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:04,039
three one hundred percentage doesn't cut it, Okay, you don't.

556
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:09,800
You don't want to be turned down because if you're caught,

557
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:12,239
or let's say the person you pitch turns you into

558
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:16,440
the local intelligence service, you're gone. You know, you're out

559
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:20,119
of country in twenty four hours persona non grada. So

560
00:35:20,159 --> 00:35:23,280
you've got to be fairly confident that that they're not

561
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,440
going to turn you down. The worst case would be

562
00:35:26,559 --> 00:35:31,239
getting thrown out. But so I'm forty one for forty one. Okay,

563
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:35,920
Oh wow, I look at it, and probably probably the

564
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:40,599
best agent that I will have ever recruited. I've recruited

565
00:35:40,639 --> 00:35:42,920
after I retired, and I sort of gave them to

566
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:45,480
the agency and that case is still running.

567
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,199
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus, we won't ask much about that one. Was

568
00:35:49,199 --> 00:35:50,239
there any I didn't.

569
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 3: Lose any I didn't lose any agents, No, nobody. Nobody

570
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,159
was arrested, and so I'm happy.

571
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 2: Okay, that kills them. My next question, I thought I

572
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,320
was going to get through. Then a couple of other

573
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,000
case officers I think they had one time with one

574
00:36:03,039 --> 00:36:05,599
of their agents was in a really hairy situation and

575
00:36:05,599 --> 00:36:07,840
they were really getting work. Is you developed relationships with

576
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,320
some of them, You actually do care about them, you

577
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:11,599
want to protect them as well? Right?

578
00:36:13,159 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 3: Well? Absolutely. Now. One of my one of my cases

579
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:21,320
was in Cambodia and at the end, you know, things

580
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,639
were falling apart. We knew the war was over. Congress

581
00:36:24,639 --> 00:36:29,440
had cut off financial support. So Cambodia was screwed. And

582
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:32,440
the people in it that did support us, they were screwed.

583
00:36:33,039 --> 00:36:36,840
And a lot of these people died. And one of

584
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:40,519
my agents was a senior military officer. In our last meeting,

585
00:36:40,559 --> 00:36:43,559
he pulled out a gun and I thought, this is

586
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:45,119
this is not going to end well.

587
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 2: And he said.

588
00:36:48,679 --> 00:36:52,280
Speaker 3: I got on on aircraft about three days later and

589
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:56,840
he said, this is my side arm. I want you

590
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:58,840
to have it. I don't want the kamer rouge to

591
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,360
have it. I want you to take this gun and

592
00:37:01,519 --> 00:37:05,280
remember me from this weapon. And he didn't leave. He

593
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:07,760
didn't surrender, but he was killed.

594
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

595
00:37:09,159 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 3: We offered him a ride out and he didn't take it.

596
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, this next question, you have to be careful. I

597
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,320
guess make sure your wife's not around in case depending

598
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:21,199
on your answer. But did you ever get into any

599
00:37:21,199 --> 00:37:23,079
honeypot situations?

600
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 3: No? This is that's a term coined by John Lecare. Okay,

601
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:33,400
in fact, a man who I defeated at darts in

602
00:37:33,599 --> 00:37:37,639
panom Pen in nineteen seventy four when he was researching

603
00:37:37,679 --> 00:37:40,880
the Honorable Schoolboy, and I found him a charming fellow

604
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,679
and not much of a dart player. But when you're

605
00:37:44,079 --> 00:37:47,880
when you're an Eaton graduate, you don't play darts. Okay,

606
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:54,400
oh honeypot no, we don't do that, okay, agency, that's

607
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:54,960
not one of.

608
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 2: Our If you were a target, oh.

609
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no, no, I was, but we

610
00:38:01,039 --> 00:38:03,159
don't know. We don't do that to others. They do

611
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:06,360
it to us, and the Russians have been successful over

612
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:11,039
the years in dangling uh women. But no, it was

613
00:38:11,119 --> 00:38:12,679
never there.

614
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 2: Now.

615
00:38:13,519 --> 00:38:17,639
Speaker 3: I knew a marine general who had been the naval

616
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:24,320
in Moscow years ago, and he was a bachelor, and

617
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:29,800
he told me that every week they say is they

618
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:34,559
threw women at me? And I caught everyone. There was

619
00:38:34,599 --> 00:38:38,400
no threat, There's no there was. He wasn't breaking any laws,

620
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,119
he wasn't being unfaithful to his wife. He was a bachelor,

621
00:38:42,559 --> 00:38:44,239
and finally the Russians gave up.

622
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 2: I guess it's safe to say you were in a

623
00:38:48,559 --> 00:38:50,360
Romeo spy either, as they call him.

624
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 3: The real story is a lot different than Hollywood story.

625
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,199
Speaker 2: That's my last question, at least the last direction to

626
00:39:00,199 --> 00:39:03,079
go a little bit is I was curious with CIA

627
00:39:03,239 --> 00:39:05,800
officers watch if they watch anything at all, because I

628
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,440
know there's movies like Taking Born Identity, which kind of

629
00:39:09,519 --> 00:39:11,159
insinuates the three letter agents.

630
00:39:11,159 --> 00:39:14,159
Speaker 3: So I don't speak for the guys. You know, we

631
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:17,719
appreciate good stories. I mean the Hunt for Red October,

632
00:39:18,039 --> 00:39:21,360
not espionage, but it's a great story. And in fact,

633
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,599
I was reading the book when I was a young

634
00:39:23,639 --> 00:39:27,519
officer and I got on an aircraft four US Navy

635
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:31,039
captains in uniform and there were all sub mariners, and

636
00:39:31,079 --> 00:39:33,400
I held the book up to one of my I said, Skipper,

637
00:39:33,559 --> 00:39:36,719
you read this book. He said, Son, that's so goddamn

638
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:38,679
true it scares me.

639
00:39:39,199 --> 00:39:39,679
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

640
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,199
Speaker 3: We appreciate good books, you know, The Born Identity nothing,

641
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:47,599
no bearing on reality, but it's a good tale. And

642
00:39:47,639 --> 00:39:50,639
then we appreciate that. And then there's just Joe, you know,

643
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:56,239
the whole James Bond stuff that was kind of written

644
00:39:56,280 --> 00:40:00,920
as a spoof, initially by a good intelligence off in Fleming,

645
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:05,039
Royal Navy World War two intelligence officer. But there's no

646
00:40:05,119 --> 00:40:08,400
bearing on reality. We don't Those guys don't exist.

647
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,360
Speaker 2: I've been blessed enough to interview Nigel West. You probably

648
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:15,199
heard of super nice guy. But I guess it's the

649
00:40:15,199 --> 00:40:16,880
first question, first time I've ever asked anybody is the

650
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:18,079
first TME I ever thought about it, So I guess

651
00:40:18,079 --> 00:40:20,920
you'll be the first AI case officer, I asked, But

652
00:40:21,039 --> 00:40:23,800
I have talked about BOND to everybody else. You know. No, No,

653
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:28,880
it's nothing, nothing in roll real the interesting thing. I

654
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,480
actually two comments I want to ask you. One, do

655
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,960
you think it actually helps the spots? Because he was so.

656
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 4: Outrageous, so exaggerated of a figure that people would look

657
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:41,400
at somebody else who's just average and think he's never

658
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:43,119
going to be a spy. Do you think it actually

659
00:40:43,159 --> 00:40:46,440
affected how people perceive spies in other countries especially.

660
00:40:46,079 --> 00:40:49,320
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it's entertaining. Of course, then

661
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,920
these shows are good. They got good looking girls I

662
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,920
would have chosen. I would have chosen Kissy Suzuki one

663
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,800
of the girls. If they were going to throw any

664
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:02,199
better at me, that would have been somebody I would

665
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:07,960
would have caught. Maybe maybe, but no, it's just kind

666
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:11,800
of good fun. But there is danger, and there's more

667
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,159
danger now than there was in my day. You know,

668
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:18,239
if you're an embassy officer at many places around the world,

669
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,840
you're a target, either a target for recruitment or a

670
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:26,480
target for assassination. So this isn't something anybody should get into.

671
00:41:26,599 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 2: Lately, it's changed a lot, so what I've heard, a

672
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:33,639
lot of case officers are much more easily compromised than

673
00:41:33,639 --> 00:41:37,199
they used to be, from what I've been hearing. And

674
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,760
that's a tough business out there, and technology has made

675
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,599
it even harder for you folks as well. Yeah for

676
00:41:43,679 --> 00:41:46,000
ci con easy in one way and harder than another.

677
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:49,639
I guess my last question maybe my last one, but

678
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:51,880
I spy. I'll bring it back to that for a second,

679
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:53,840
because I did get case officers who thought that was

680
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:57,599
probably the closest one to being realistic, just because of

681
00:41:57,639 --> 00:42:00,159
the way they interacted with people all the time. A

682
00:42:00,199 --> 00:42:01,360
tennis player and all that.

683
00:42:01,519 --> 00:42:06,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no way. Now. This guy, Robert

684
00:42:06,599 --> 00:42:12,400
Coult played the star and then he was what we

685
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:17,719
would call a knock n oc non official cover. And

686
00:42:20,199 --> 00:42:23,760
we don't do that, Okay, we don't have tennis stars.

687
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:28,679
We don't have celebrities going up doing doing the dangerous work.

688
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,000
That was an entertaining show. I watched it as a kid.

689
00:42:32,039 --> 00:42:35,000
It had no bearing on my going into the CIA.

690
00:42:35,519 --> 00:42:40,119
I enjoyed it. It was well written, It had no

691
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:43,599
hope of ever being close to anything true. A real knock,

692
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:49,920
and I've handled knocks in the field are good. They're

693
00:42:50,039 --> 00:42:56,960
good agent handlers. They're not recruiters. But because they're not

694
00:42:57,119 --> 00:43:02,039
in the embassy, they're not known or suspected of being

695
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:06,840
c I A. And therefore it's it's safer to let

696
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:10,760
a sensitive agent be handled by a knock than an

697
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:15,000
inside officer. That's what knox are really for. And I've

698
00:43:15,159 --> 00:43:17,320
I've had some very good ones worked for me, and

699
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:21,320
they're they're little gray people. They look that way that

700
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:24,199
you don't know. They could be a businessman, they could

701
00:43:24,199 --> 00:43:29,920
be we've new guy under hippie cover, okay and uh,

702
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,480
And they're good people, but you don't hear much about him,

703
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:33,159
and that's good.

704
00:43:34,119 --> 00:43:36,599
Speaker 2: That's interesting, I know, speaking to other guys and drug

705
00:43:36,639 --> 00:43:40,159
cartels and DEA guys, it's always interesting sometimes people picture

706
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:43,519
drug cardtail members all being the same, rough guys with guns,

707
00:43:43,519 --> 00:43:45,079
and a lot of times I got the account that

708
00:43:45,119 --> 00:43:48,280
comes in you couldn't tell anything, but he's making millions

709
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:51,000
of dollars with a cartel. Did you have any preconceived

710
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,880
ideas going into the CIA? Did you think, now I'll

711
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:56,639
know who shot JFK. Now I'll know who.

712
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:59,599
Speaker 3: Did this or anything like that when you when you

713
00:43:59,679 --> 00:44:03,280
get it of the know. My main ambition was to

714
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:07,320
serve in Asia and if I if I hadn't gone

715
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:09,960
with agency, I would have gone back to Associated Press

716
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:15,079
and been a a newsman. And in some ways they're

717
00:44:15,119 --> 00:44:18,320
the same, you know, we're both looking for information. The

718
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:21,199
CIA we get to pay for it. The newsmen have

719
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:25,159
to get it for free. But same with the State Department.

720
00:44:25,199 --> 00:44:28,719
They don't pay for information, but we pay for secrets.

721
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:35,440
And that's the difference. But no, I think that Asia

722
00:44:35,559 --> 00:44:38,719
was the motivation once I got into the business and

723
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:43,119
started working with these men and women of the CIA,

724
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:50,039
outstanding people, you know, they're really interesting people. And one

725
00:44:50,079 --> 00:44:52,800
guy I was having a martini lunch in Bangkok with

726
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:56,559
this guy. We called him the Bear, great guy, great linguist.

727
00:44:57,119 --> 00:45:02,119
He was in Cambodia, Vietnamese was Khmer linguist, tie linguist.

728
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,840
Great Guy. The Bear lifted his glass and he said,

729
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:11,400
you know, Broman, they baid us to live here. That

730
00:45:11,559 --> 00:45:12,159
tells it all.

731
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:16,079
Speaker 2: I guess we'll wrap up with this again, folks. The

732
00:45:16,079 --> 00:45:18,639
book is called risk Taker Spymaker Tales of a CIA Case

733
00:45:18,679 --> 00:45:20,880
Officer by Barry Broman. The last question, Barry, what is

734
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:22,840
the book coming up in the fall? He got something cooking.

735
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:29,119
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is my first novel, Carlos. It's based it's

736
00:45:29,199 --> 00:45:32,440
loosely based on a true story. Takes place in Paris

737
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:34,719
in the eighties when I was in Paris, so I

738
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:39,400
have kind of area familiarization. It's got a backstory that

739
00:45:39,519 --> 00:45:42,960
deals with Cambodia, and so that's more more or less,

740
00:45:43,159 --> 00:45:48,320
you know, true. But the actual case itself is serendipitous,

741
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:51,239
and these things happen this way. This thing is the

742
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:53,719
way I like to look at it. I view it

743
00:45:53,719 --> 00:46:01,000
as a love story that has an espionage association, and

744
00:46:01,039 --> 00:46:07,760
it's chasing a Soviet diplomat. And hopefully it'll be the

745
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:08,800
first of a series.

746
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:11,320
Speaker 2: Excellent. I can't wait. Whatan to bring it back for

747
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:11,920
that one too.

748
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 3: It's called The Spy from Place Sansul Peace in Paris.

749
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:22,639
Speaker 2: I'm not eve gonna bother with my friends. Fascinating stuff again, folks.

750
00:46:22,639 --> 00:46:24,840
One more time. The book called risk Taker Spy Maker

751
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,480
Tales of a CIA Case Officer Barry Broman. I highly

752
00:46:27,599 --> 00:46:30,880
recommend it. Fascinating reed. Thank you so much Berry for

753
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:31,400
being here.

754
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,000
Speaker 3: Carlos, thank you very much for having me I hope

755
00:46:34,039 --> 00:46:35,280
to talk to you again someday.

756
00:46:35,519 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thank you everyone for listening. Make sure to share, subscribe,

757
00:46:39,119 --> 00:46:40,960
hit that like button. Stay safe,