Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to episode two hundred and fifty four
Speaker 1: of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave
Speaker 1: Park and our guest on tonight's show is former CIA
Speaker 1: officer Louis Rudaph You guys missed the pre conversation that
Speaker 1: we just had about the Roman Empire and ancient Greece.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll get back into that one. But Lewis served
Speaker 1: as the head of Operations in Iraq, chief of station
Speaker 1: in New Delhi, lots of assignments in Central and South America.
Speaker 1: Was there for the invasion of Grenada. I mean, a
Speaker 1: very extensive career at Central Intelligence. And Lewis, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us tonight.
Speaker 2: My pleasure, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to hit you up right off the bat.
Speaker 1: Tell us about you know, where you grew up, how
Speaker 1: you grew up, and how that took you towards the CIA.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a story. I was born in Cuba. We
Speaker 2: had to flee immediately after the Bay of Pigs, and
Speaker 2: we ended up in Miami for a while. And there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of detail.
Speaker 3: In the Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to interrupt, but when you say I had
Speaker 1: to or or your family had to flee right after
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs. It sounds as if maybe you
Speaker 1: had family members who were involved.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I had. My father and an uncle were
Speaker 2: involved in what passed for the anti Castro underground on
Speaker 2: island in Cuba, and the whole Bay of Pigs invasion
Speaker 2: had been compromised from the get go. My father and
Speaker 2: uncle were going home after work one day and some
Speaker 2: women from the town they lived in right outside Havana
Speaker 2: came running up and said, don't go back into town.
Speaker 2: They were arresting all the men. They know what's coming.
Speaker 2: So they spent the night at the cemetery and then
Speaker 2: got refuge in the Brazilian embassy. After a few months
Speaker 2: they let him go and they landed in Mexico, and
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, at the foot of the stairs that they
Speaker 2: came off the plane was a State Department councilor officer
Speaker 2: from the US embassy and said, would you guys like
Speaker 2: to go to the United States? And they said yes,
Speaker 2: and there we were sit up there. Moved to New York.
Speaker 2: I grew up in an extremely anti communist household, as
Speaker 2: you can imagine, with a sense that not only were
Speaker 2: we engaged in a life or death struggle against communism.
Speaker 2: But we owed the US a lot for having taken
Speaker 2: a sin. I think every every male member the family
Speaker 2: volunteered for the military got when they got asylum in
Speaker 2: the US. And so I grew up with that sense
Speaker 2: of I owe the country and we really are in
Speaker 2: a struggle that if we lose, we're screwed. So I
Speaker 2: thought of, you know, what I want to do, and
Speaker 2: the agency offered that. And it also offered the ability
Speaker 2: to pick up and move, move every two or three years.
Speaker 2: You know, I get bored easily, and it's it's hard
Speaker 2: to stay at the same job or the same place
Speaker 2: for long. Uh. And the agency offered to you know,
Speaker 2: a young guy. They offered adventure and excitement. So I joined.
Speaker 1: Where did when did the idea? I mean, I understand
Speaker 1: the motivation now when you describe it, like when did
Speaker 1: this sort of come up on your radar? I ticket
Speaker 1: when you were in college, did you interface with like
Speaker 1: an agency recruiter.
Speaker 2: That's very precent of you. Yes, I had a Russian
Speaker 2: history professor who looks as a spin image of Teddy Roosevelt,
Speaker 2: and uh he he sort of suggested and directed me
Speaker 2: toward you know, I might be might be interested in
Speaker 2: this kind of work in this this field. Uh, And
Speaker 2: I spect he might have been spotting for the agency.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I can't say, but he steered me.
Speaker 2: And in my senior year, I applied, knowing that the
Speaker 2: process took a while. Usually it takes about a year
Speaker 2: just to get in. And I remember having received a
Speaker 2: letter from the agency and it scheduled an appointment for
Speaker 2: me at the Federal Office building at that time at
Speaker 2: the World Trade Center for an interview. And I went
Speaker 2: down there dutifully. You know, the interview was at two
Speaker 2: o'clock in the afternoon. I got there early, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't find the office it was. You know, I had
Speaker 2: a number, and I kept looking. There was no number.
Speaker 2: I couldn't find it. For the life I mean, I
Speaker 2: was now at this point, I was late, and so
Speaker 2: in desperation, I walk into a nearby office, which is
Speaker 2: the Wildlife Licensing office where they give you the fishing
Speaker 2: license and all this kind of stuff. And I asked
Speaker 2: the lady behind the counter, I said, look, I'm looking
Speaker 2: for room whatever. It was two twenty one. She goes, oh, sweetheart,
Speaker 2: you want the CIA. Yeah, there in the office between
Speaker 2: the the broom closet and the bathroom and and I
Speaker 2: walked down there and there's this little door with a
Speaker 2: tiny little number and a peep hole. And that was
Speaker 2: my introduction to the agency. I went in there for
Speaker 2: the interview, and the process took about a year before
Speaker 2: I got the the Okay.
Speaker 1: What was that part of the test to see whether
Speaker 1: or not you can find the door?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't. I don't think it was because
Speaker 2: the guy was kind of annoyed that I was, that
Speaker 2: I was late. He had other people to talk to. Uh,
Speaker 2: but it's it's you know, it's one of the things
Speaker 2: we found about the agency. Uh. The quirkiness is sort
Speaker 2: of a nice way to put it. There's some there's
Speaker 2: some oddities that seemed to work across purposes to what
Speaker 2: they want to accomplish.
Speaker 4: We talked to Rick Prato, also another Cuban American, about this.
Speaker 4: What about sort of the staunch anti communist you know,
Speaker 4: the Cuban Americans? What was there was that represented pretty
Speaker 4: well in the agency.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's you know, it's probably an exaggeration, but there
Speaker 2: is a sort of quasi Cuban mafia, uh in the
Speaker 2: agency specifically working Latin America. I knew a lot of people, uh,
Speaker 2: and who were Cubans and had joined the agency. Again,
Speaker 2: you know, it's the egg. The Cuban exiles were staunchly
Speaker 2: anti communists. Uh, true believers. You know. My father used
Speaker 2: to tell me, look, you know they got they got
Speaker 2: a name on our names on a list, and if
Speaker 2: if the US loses this struggle, we're all going to
Speaker 2: get lined up against the wall and shut. And so
Speaker 2: there was that that deep belief that this was a
Speaker 2: life or death struggle, and a lot of them joined
Speaker 2: because they wanted they wanted to fight back.
Speaker 1: And tell us about you know, when you show up
Speaker 1: at the farm in your training, like what year was this,
Speaker 1: and you know how what was your thoughts about you know,
Speaker 1: the farm and in that experience, if you have any
Speaker 1: any memories that stand out for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well memories Jesus. You know, George Washington was president
Speaker 2: when I went down to the farm, it.
Speaker 3: Was still a farm.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh, it's it's an interesting place. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: really it's a very well run program, I have to say.
Speaker 2: And at one point in my career I ran the program,
Speaker 2: the Field trade Craft course, and as a student I
Speaker 2: found The training logical and at times very challenging. It
Speaker 2: is meant to build up, to start slow, get you acclimatized,
Speaker 2: get you used to it, and as it builds and builds,
Speaker 2: a pressure starts amount until you near the end of
Speaker 2: the training and you're thinking, you know, shit, I hope,
Speaker 2: I hope my job is not going to be like
Speaker 2: this for the rest of my life because you're you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's like a lot of those those kinds of
Speaker 2: training you're functioning on on four hours. Uh it is.
Speaker 2: It is not designed to weed people out. Uh. It
Speaker 2: is designed to train you. Uh. It does have it
Speaker 2: does weed people out, but again that they don't They're
Speaker 2: not there to harass you and break you and do this,
Speaker 2: but they are there to test you. Uh. And all
Speaker 2: the instructors function under the understanding that sometime in the
Speaker 2: future you will work for me or with me, and
Speaker 2: I have to understand that I want you there, right
Speaker 2: and and uh an interesting story which is really has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with all this farm. Uh hm. At
Speaker 2: the end of the farm, like like most places, you
Speaker 2: you put in your wishliped and you put in the
Speaker 2: top three areas you want to go work for Africa,
Speaker 2: Latin America, Europe where and they have a thing they
Speaker 2: call Division Night on a Sunday night. Every each weekend.
Speaker 2: It's a different area. Division. Latin America Division will come
Speaker 2: down one night. Europe Division will come down and they
Speaker 2: bring a team of people and they give you a
Speaker 2: dog and pony show and explain to you why you
Speaker 2: want to come and work for my division. And that's
Speaker 2: one of the things that left me an impression. I
Speaker 2: remember two presentations. I remember the presentation from Africa Division
Speaker 2: because they brought a team that had just returned from
Speaker 2: the field. Most of them look like they had died
Speaker 2: in the field, they had suffered from dysentery, malaria, typhoi whatever,
Speaker 2: and spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how
Speaker 2: wonderful the metavac facilities were and how they blew you
Speaker 2: out and they let you bring all this food because
Speaker 2: you couldn't get this food, and you could walk barefoot
Speaker 2: because these weavils would go up your feet, and all
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. And I thought, never, no, thank
Speaker 2: you very much. And then what was se Soviet and
Speaker 2: East European Division Night came and this gets into you know,
Speaker 2: the anti communist thinking and the chief that division went
Speaker 2: down into the arena, the auditorium and gave his presentation,
Speaker 2: and it was one sentence. He said, the CIA exists
Speaker 2: because the Soviet Union can wipe the United States off
Speaker 2: to faith the earth in twenty minutes, any questions, and
Speaker 2: that encapsulated in a nutshell. While we were here. It
Speaker 2: was at least for us, we believed it wasn't the
Speaker 2: fence of the United States because we had a foe
Speaker 2: that can destroy us. And that left an incredible impression
Speaker 2: on me.
Speaker 1: And it's the CIA's job to prevent strategic surprise.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so you know that was it. That's where
Speaker 2: I wanted to go. I wound up in Latin America
Speaker 2: because we were fighting the wars in Central America and
Speaker 2: like most places, they had a draft on they were
Speaker 2: allowed to take half the class. Yeah, I mean Tagusigappa,
Speaker 2: Honduras was the largest station in the world at the time.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is like nineteen eighty five six.
Speaker 2: Ah yeah, let me see, I got a eighty three.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, we were right macdeb in the middle
Speaker 2: counter insurgency in Guatemala and Salvador insurgency in Nicaragua, and
Speaker 2: plus we had all the other programs in Afghanistan and
Speaker 2: gold and everything. So the agency was hopping and what
Speaker 2: they had done at the time. In addition to the
Speaker 2: operations course, which runs a little over four months, because
Speaker 2: the agency was managing so many COPD action program they
Speaker 2: felt that the case officers, the operations officers, should understand
Speaker 2: and POWA military operations. So they ran us through a
Speaker 2: four month paramilitary course. It was good and was bad.
Speaker 2: It was bad because it came after four months of
Speaker 2: being down there and then they turn you around and
Speaker 2: bring you down to another four months and you just
Speaker 2: really don't want to go there. But it was great,
Speaker 2: let me tell you it was. It was splendiferous.
Speaker 1: You got a couple it was then uh huh, you
Speaker 1: got a couple jumps in.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and that just that. They had an armory
Speaker 2: in the back that had weapons from WAW two on.
Speaker 2: I got to fire MP forty's, car ninety eight k's
Speaker 2: and every other kind of weapon you can imagine. Light
Speaker 2: machine guns, heavy machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers, we get
Speaker 2: air operations, maritime uper It was you know, if it
Speaker 2: was for the fact that you were gone for another
Speaker 2: four months, it was. It was a blast. But everybody
Speaker 2: got a lot of paramilitary experience at the time.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to ask you about Central America, but
Speaker 1: before we get to that, I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about the nineteen eighty three invasion of Grenada in your
Speaker 1: role there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had been overseas at that point for three
Speaker 2: months and I was home and I got a phone
Speaker 2: call one night about ten o'clock from the secretary at
Speaker 2: the office asking if I could come in. So I
Speaker 2: went in final Okay, showed up and the chief was
Speaker 2: there and he handed me a ticket and said, you're
Speaker 2: flying out to Barbados tomorrow. We're invading Grenada. Okay, my
Speaker 2: first invasion. Do I hate to bring anything? Well, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but bring your soup, just like Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll be a very well dressed invader. And I got there.
Speaker 2: Somebody met me at the airport. They took me and
Speaker 2: it's like, we're going to fly you in that night.
Speaker 2: And it was I think it was emblematic of a
Speaker 2: lot of experiences I had with the agency that it
Speaker 2: is small, inelegant, but gets the job done. And so
Speaker 2: these guys said, we're going to take you to the airport,
Speaker 2: We're going to fly you to Grenada, and we were
Speaker 2: driving down toward the airport and I noticed we missed
Speaker 2: the two exits to the airport, and I said, hey,
Speaker 2: we just we just missed the exits. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we're not going there. And we pull up to the
Speaker 2: back of the airport by the chain link fence and
Speaker 2: there's a hole cut into the fence. Because go through
Speaker 2: the hole. See that plane there with no lights on.
Speaker 2: That's ours. Get on that plane and we get on
Speaker 2: the I get on the plane and you take off.
Speaker 2: There's no there's no lights, there's nothing, totally blacked out,
Speaker 2: and we're flying over Grenada. And the guy, the crew chief,
Speaker 2: hands me envygs and it says, take a look. And
Speaker 2: you know, remember this was my first time it never
Speaker 2: been in the military anything. And I put my the
Speaker 2: MVGS on. I looked down and tracers are going back
Speaker 2: and forth and bombs are going and the US is
Speaker 2: just blowing the ship out of the place. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: that's going to be wasted on this thing. Uh. And
Speaker 2: I spent the next two weeks debriefing, uh, you know, exploitation,
Speaker 2: finding documents and things in whatever where they were located,
Speaker 2: and living kind of kind of rough in a in
Speaker 2: a house with sixty guys, but it was it was interesting.
Speaker 4: Did they did they tell you what your mission was,
Speaker 4: what what they wanted, what information they wanted you to find,
Speaker 4: or was it just go see what you can get?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a lot of the stuff is it's
Speaker 2: on the fly, you know, and this is this is
Speaker 2: clearly to military operation. The military has its its mission
Speaker 2: and whatever, and we're sort of there to to support
Speaker 2: that and support US policy. And US policy was find
Speaker 2: whatever you can get your hands on. From the agency's
Speaker 2: point of view, there was a Cuban presence. Uh, So
Speaker 2: our goal was to find out anything we could about
Speaker 2: the Cubans. Who were they, what did they have, what
Speaker 2: their intentions were, what their capabilities had been. Uh. We
Speaker 2: were trying to find out the details of what had
Speaker 2: happened because you know, remember they've had they had a
Speaker 2: socialist slash communist revolution and then they had had a
Speaker 2: counter revolution where they killed Maurice Bishop who was a
Speaker 2: prime minister and were taking over. And we did not
Speaker 2: know whether that was a genuine, uh internal movement, whether
Speaker 2: that had been directed by the Cubans or the Soviets.
Speaker 2: We need to find out what the intents they were
Speaker 2: building this airport in Grenada that would have handled the
Speaker 2: largest Soviet transport aircraft. So we wanted to know was
Speaker 2: that indeed the intent were they going to use that
Speaker 2: as a launch point. So we were looking, we were
Speaker 2: looking for stuff and whatever we get our hands on.
Speaker 1: Did you find any evidence of you know, Soviet or
Speaker 1: malign you know, communist influence and Grenada as you're doing
Speaker 1: your job out there, Yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's It's one of the things I have learned
Speaker 2: through my almost thirty year career. Just like beauty is
Speaker 2: in the eye of the beholder, malign is in the
Speaker 2: eye of the beholder. Yeah, there was communist influence. Yes,
Speaker 2: the Cubans were there. The Grenadians wanted them to be
Speaker 2: there to help them because nobody else was going to
Speaker 2: help them, so they thought, you know, they could help
Speaker 2: with this that We didn't find any hard evidence that
Speaker 2: the Russians or the Cubans were going to use Grenada
Speaker 2: as a jump off point to some larger nefarious plot.
Speaker 2: They were sort of like, you know, reacting like the US. Hey,
Speaker 2: here's an opportunity, let's take advantage of it. See what
Speaker 2: comes out of this. But there was no overarching plan
Speaker 2: the Cuban presence. You know, everybody was, oh, there's a
Speaker 2: Cuban combat troops. Yeah, no, there really wasn't. There's about
Speaker 2: thirty five Cuban military advisors because they were trying to
Speaker 2: build a Grenadian military and the rest were Cuban construction units. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, like all Cubans, they were trained as a
Speaker 2: paramilitary force, a reserve force. They all knew how to
Speaker 2: use an AK forty seven. That was about it. I
Speaker 2: talked to these guys, and you know, they were pure
Speaker 2: construction workers and wanted nothing more than to get the
Speaker 2: hell out of there because they went in there. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm a bulldozer operator, I pour concrete, I do this.
Speaker 2: Have you been trained the military, Well, you know, I
Speaker 2: get two weeks a year how to fire in AK. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't the threat that it was brought out
Speaker 2: to be, but it was a potential long term threat,
Speaker 2: and that's one of the things that we looked at.
Speaker 2: It's you know, today, it's not a problem, but next
Speaker 2: week you never know.
Speaker 3: So how how long have you been on the job
Speaker 3: at this point?
Speaker 2: I think six months?
Speaker 3: Six months? Yea, How was it for you?
Speaker 4: Because I don't know when if you had interacted much
Speaker 4: with the military prior to this, But how was it
Speaker 4: for you to be kind of thrown in this environment
Speaker 4: and now interfacing with the military wanting to, you know,
Speaker 4: to to debrief their you know, their pow stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did my first time really dealing with the military.
Speaker 2: I've done that extensively throughout my career. Uh. And I
Speaker 2: gotta tell you, it's it's it's it's great. I've never
Speaker 2: had any problems dealing with the military. Uh. It is.
Speaker 2: The military speaks a very different language than we do.
Speaker 2: H and they look at things slightly different. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, their their goal is to is to destroy things.
Speaker 2: Our goal is to sort of just not be seen
Speaker 2: and go and move around. But our objectives are pretty
Speaker 2: much the same and they sort of go hand in hand.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. I found the US military to be professional, direct. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we all have our assholes, no doubt about it. You know,
Speaker 2: we're human beings. But overall, it was it was great.
Speaker 2: They were very supportive of us. We did what they
Speaker 2: needed us to do for them. It was good.
Speaker 1: And while we're at it, please also consider supporting the
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Speaker 1: out there. So Lewis, I apologize for the for the interruption.
Speaker 1: I think I'd like to jump off, if it's okay,
Speaker 1: on sort of a larger conversation about your time in
Speaker 1: Central and South America, if we were to move a
Speaker 1: little further forward, or let's say, from eighty three into
Speaker 1: the into the mid to late eighties. You know, it's controversial.
Speaker 1: The Contras were not a perfect partner for us, for
Speaker 1: the United States. But at the same time, Daniel Lrdego
Speaker 1: is going to Moscow and receiving Soviet military aid, which
Speaker 1: got the United States involved in the in the conflict
Speaker 1: in Nicaragua. Could you tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: your perspective and what you experienced while you were down there.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm still processing the Breakfast for Life Free. Well yeah, sure, Ah,
Speaker 2: you know it's I do think about Central America somewhat
Speaker 2: often nowadays. Uh, and it's it's it's one of those
Speaker 2: very difficult subjects.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Sandinistas, uh and the Salvador fmlen were communists, Uh,
Speaker 2: they were hell bent on installing communist regimesh Yet at
Speaker 2: the same time, we were supporting regimes that were brutal
Speaker 2: and killed their own people and slaughtered and tortured and
Speaker 2: and trying to put myself in the shoes of of
Speaker 2: everyday Central Americans. And it's and it's one of the
Speaker 2: things I think that case officers try to do is
Speaker 2: to understand all the different sides and necessarily agree with them,
Speaker 2: but you have to understand, uh, what their thought process is.
Speaker 2: You're facing a choice of I have a government now
Speaker 2: that is pretty much oppressing and trying to kill me,
Speaker 2: versus the government's gonna come in and oppress me and
Speaker 2: trying to kill me, right, and a lot of these people,
Speaker 2: you know, were we're taking the choice of, well, I'd
Speaker 2: rather get the ones that are coming in to kill me,
Speaker 2: because I know these guys have killed me and my
Speaker 2: family and this kind of stuff, and I want revenge.
Speaker 2: We were not we were not helping ourselves to drum
Speaker 2: up support against the fml N or the Saint Denistas
Speaker 2: by supporting regimes that would be no better than what
Speaker 2: we're going to come in. And we were not offering
Speaker 2: the people a real choice. It was you can you
Speaker 2: can have hell or you can have hell. Take your
Speaker 2: choice instead of you know, eventually we got around to
Speaker 2: giving Salvador some degree of of democracy where they eventually
Speaker 2: had a free and fair election. But I think it
Speaker 2: would have gone better for us if if we did
Speaker 2: that from the get go. There was in a I'll
Speaker 2: give you an example of one of the things that
Speaker 2: I did admire about the other side. And they worked
Speaker 2: their insurgency much more different than we did. We took
Speaker 2: the contras and you know, we created this, and we
Speaker 2: we equipped them, we managed them, we did all this stuff.
Speaker 2: The Cubans were faced with five different insurgent groups and
Speaker 2: the Cuban attitude and what they told them was, okay,
Speaker 2: here's two things. We will give you. Aid if you,
Speaker 2: as an insurgent group, can survive on your own for
Speaker 2: two years, and that way what they were doing is
Speaker 2: this becomes a viable group. It's not something we're imposing.
Speaker 2: They can survive their viables that will support them. And two,
Speaker 2: we will support you if you join the Umbrella organization.
Speaker 2: If you don't, we'll make sure you don't get you
Speaker 2: starved of everything, and we'll crush you but if you
Speaker 2: come into the umbrella you have survived, then we'll help you.
Speaker 2: And and they created they helped create viable, sustainable organizations.
Speaker 2: We created groups that could not survive without us and
Speaker 2: who had a hard time developed being the support among
Speaker 2: the population because they were, you know, they were viewed
Speaker 2: as as alien, these guys, these American tools.
Speaker 1: They had bourgeois leadership that was hanging out in Miami exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's not like the fml L leadership was any better.
Speaker 2: They're all, you know, sitting in Mexico or Havana and
Speaker 2: not living hard. But the fact that they have sustained
Speaker 2: themselves over time and they had to live among the
Speaker 2: people gave them a degree of cachet among the population,
Speaker 2: which made it easier for them and harder for us.
Speaker 1: What can you tell us about your own experiences down there?
Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned you did a couple of trips
Speaker 1: down to Guatemala.
Speaker 2: I was I was a signed I did Guatemala for
Speaker 2: about five years. Yeah, uh, you know, it's I like
Speaker 2: the country. I enjoyed my time there. I have to say,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a point where you start to realize
Speaker 2: you are supporting a horrendously brutal regime. Ah, you know
Speaker 2: it was. I gotta tell you it was. There was
Speaker 2: a part of Guatemala this and this was before I
Speaker 2: got there, And this is a story I had been
Speaker 2: told by guatemalas Uh. There was there was an insurgery
Speaker 2: insurgency operating in the Patent, which is one of the
Speaker 2: regions in Guatemala, and the zone commander in the p
Speaker 2: ten had offered a bounty fifty dollars was a lot
Speaker 2: of money then in Guatemala for each pair of ears
Speaker 2: belonging to gorillas that you brought back. They brought back
Speaker 2: three thousand pairs of ears. The insurgent group was estimated
Speaker 2: at one hundred and fifty. And you have to ask yourself,
Speaker 2: what are we doing? Right? Yeah, right, we are not
Speaker 2: going to win these people over, and we're you know,
Speaker 2: you can stand in the halls of Congress and spout
Speaker 2: Jefferson and democracy and shit, but you get down there
Speaker 2: and that's not what's going on. And the people know that,
Speaker 2: you know, they they may be uneducated peasants, but you
Speaker 2: can't fool them. They see exactly what's going on. And
Speaker 2: you start looking and say this is this is a
Speaker 2: no win situation for us. We have we have chosen
Speaker 2: the wrong side.
Speaker 1: I sense, and correct me if I'm wrong, lewis that
Speaker 1: you're excuse me, your heritage is you know, being a
Speaker 1: devout anti communist a little bit conflicting with your values
Speaker 1: as an American. And I think that, and I mean,
Speaker 1: I want you to hear your opinion, but I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that conflict there really is, you know, that
Speaker 1: defines the nature of our presence in Central America at
Speaker 1: the time, This conflict between these two, these two values.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, it's I can be as as as ruthless,
Speaker 2: as amoral as an ex guy. Yeah. And uh, if
Speaker 2: I look at it coldly leaving leaving those issues aside,
Speaker 2: it strikes me as a no win situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and we are we are digging a hole for
Speaker 2: ourselves that we don't need to dig and we shouldn't
Speaker 2: be in. If you bring the moral aspects in it,
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, you know, it's something that the US
Speaker 2: has struggled with, right for decades. Right now, at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, I believe for all the faults
Speaker 2: we have, and we have many, uh, the fact that
Speaker 2: the US exists is one of the reasons this, this
Speaker 2: world hasn't turned into a bigger pile of shit than
Speaker 2: it is now. Uh. And you know, I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a story. There was two Egyptian journalists
Speaker 2: talking when the US invaded Iraq, and and one turned
Speaker 2: to the other and said, oh my god, what are
Speaker 2: going to do? The Americans are just they're out of control.
Speaker 2: They're bombing everywhere, they're invading everywhere. What do we do?
Speaker 2: And the other one turn said, we do what we
Speaker 2: always do. We wait till the Americans fixed themselves and
Speaker 2: and and for me, that's always been the thing. Eventually
Speaker 2: we will look and say, okay, this is not this
Speaker 2: is not the way to go, and we try to
Speaker 2: do we try to do better. Unlike a lot of
Speaker 2: other countries where they sit there and they look at
Speaker 2: the look at the Russians in the Ukraine, they're just
Speaker 2: going to dig themselves in and they're never just just
Speaker 2: gonna walk away. We'll look and say, okay, this is
Speaker 2: not the right way to go. Uh. But that haven't
Speaker 2: been said. You know, we we have chosen sides in
Speaker 2: battles where you clearly look and say this is a mistake,
Speaker 2: this is this is not what we are supposed to
Speaker 2: stand for. Uh. And this is not what's going to
Speaker 2: give us the victory that we need to stop the
Speaker 2: other side. Yeah, there's a there's a conflict, and I
Speaker 2: think anybody who has who has a shred of of
Speaker 2: has a moral compass, will say, yeah, Okay, I'll do
Speaker 2: what I gotta do, but this is not the right
Speaker 2: way to go.
Speaker 1: How did you feel when the elections were held in Nicaragua,
Speaker 1: I think it was nineteen eighty nine when the Sandinistas law.
Speaker 1: Did you see that as a victory or did you?
Speaker 1: I mean, what what was your view of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It was it was a short term, tactical victory.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I tend I tend to look at things because I
Speaker 2: you know, I did study history and and I tend
Speaker 2: to look at things long term. Uh. And I don't
Speaker 2: think the history and the victory of Central America has
Speaker 2: been written yet. But I saw the elections where the
Speaker 2: Sanistras are thrown out as as a victory. But now
Speaker 2: we're faced with the same thing. The Santinists are in power,
Speaker 2: and the Sanisis are not going to let go of power. Uh.
Speaker 2: And unless something gets done, Uh, you know, they're going
Speaker 2: to stay in power for as long as they can,
Speaker 2: and you could you could see the whole thing repeating itself,
Speaker 2: and eventually it will be another revolution and someone will
Speaker 2: try to oust them. And you know, depending on who's
Speaker 2: in the White House at the time, you know, do
Speaker 2: we get involved, do we not get involved? Let it go.
Speaker 1: It's it's just it's just like it's a history of
Speaker 1: personal fiefdoms. And you know, I've had people tell me
Speaker 1: to this day, if you go down there and you
Speaker 1: buy off the right generals, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, In Guatemala, there were three hundred families that
Speaker 2: control the country. They they owned all the businesses you
Speaker 2: had to deal with them. They owned the land, they
Speaker 2: owned the farms, and with these people they funded everything.
Speaker 2: And between them and the twenty or thirty generals who
Speaker 2: ran the military, that was it. That was a power structure.
Speaker 2: Nobody else had to say in what happened. You know,
Speaker 2: the CIA gets.
Speaker 4: Hate sometimes along with like special forces working with indigenous
Speaker 4: and the sense of like the contrast. You know, it
Speaker 4: is promoted as these CI run desk squads. But you know,
Speaker 4: I would you say that America goes into these situations
Speaker 4: sort of with the same repeating sort of naivete.
Speaker 3: You know that they see us take a strategic purpose.
Speaker 4: And they imagine that the people that are against the communists,
Speaker 4: the bad guys, the terrorists, whomever it is, are by
Speaker 4: by the very the very nature, going to be the
Speaker 4: good guys.
Speaker 3: And that's not always the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's you know, that's a very good question. Uh.
Speaker 2: And and I could do an entire entire show on
Speaker 2: that on that issue. Uh.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the problems with yeah, we are naive. Uh
Speaker 2: and and we are simplistic in our views, like, as
Speaker 2: you pointed out, communists bad, anybody against them good? No,
Speaker 2: not no, there's it's it's we like black and white.
Speaker 2: We like the movie High Noon and Gary Cooper walking
Speaker 2: down the street, and they're the bad guys. Life isn't
Speaker 2: like that, and it is. It is messy, it is dark. Uh,
Speaker 2: there are there are usually other choices, but we tend
Speaker 2: to pick the easiest choice. But these guys here, they're
Speaker 2: anti communists, they're in charge. Let's go with them. Uh.
Speaker 2: And it's easier because despite the fact that we're democracy,
Speaker 2: it's a mess dealing with the democracy. Holy shit, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, you got one policy going the next next year,
Speaker 2: there's an election, the policy changes and who's up who's
Speaker 2: down this kind of thing. Here, we got a dictator
Speaker 2: and that ain't gonna change. And it makes it easier
Speaker 2: for US policy. But again that's not necessarily the right
Speaker 2: the right way to do it. Uh, to your to
Speaker 2: your comment about you know, CIA funded desk squads and stuff,
Speaker 2: it's it's one of my pet peeves.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's because that idea, you know, oh,
Speaker 2: the CIA overthrow this government. The CIA did that is
Speaker 2: only partially correct. The more accurate statement is the US
Speaker 2: of a over through that government. The CIA doesn't run
Speaker 2: around sitting there. You know, we're sitting there on a
Speaker 2: Friday afternoon having a few drinks and said hey, let's
Speaker 2: overthrow the government at the right. Yeah, exactly. It comes
Speaker 2: down from the White House. And I said, we don't
Speaker 2: like this. I mean Chile is a great example. The
Speaker 2: White House came and said we don't like these guys.
Speaker 2: And the agency said, you want to come after that.
Speaker 2: We think it's a bad idea. What comes after them
Speaker 2: is going to be worse. And they said we don't care.
Speaker 2: We want these guys. We want Allende and his crew. Okay,
Speaker 2: you know, at the end of the day, we salute
Speaker 2: and we go do the job. But it's it's not
Speaker 2: a you know, the CIA executes it, but it's not
Speaker 2: the CIA's policy. It is the White House policy to
Speaker 2: use government policy. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: which is something I always say, which probably does not
Speaker 2: make me popular, it's the American people's fault. We live
Speaker 2: in a democracy. You chose these guys. This is what
Speaker 2: they did. You don't like it, get off your ass
Speaker 2: and get them out. You know, it's it's we as
Speaker 2: a people bare degree of responsibility and representative democracy.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: And this was a topic that would rear its head
Speaker 1: many years later for you in Iraq, but we'll get
Speaker 1: to that. But after after Guatemala, I mean, you had
Speaker 1: some other interesting assignments in like South America. I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you if you could talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, after you know, after the Central American Wars,
Speaker 2: narcotics reared it's ugly head. I mean, it's always been there,
Speaker 2: but it becomes the flavor of the month. And it's
Speaker 2: one of the things I've I've noticed that a lot
Speaker 2: of this stuff is driven by domestic politics, and so
Speaker 2: if there's you know, some domestic political gain to be had,
Speaker 2: or there's a problem in the States, it'll eventually start
Speaker 2: making its way overseas. And that's what happened with narcotics.
Speaker 2: And then the US government, including the Agency, the State Department,
Speaker 2: the Defense Department, DA engaged in decades long war against
Speaker 2: narcotics cartels, and I spent a lot of time doing
Speaker 2: that in South America, in Central America, because everything once
Speaker 2: the Central American Wars were over, everything shifted toward counter narcotics.
Speaker 2: Like most government agencies, organizations, private sector stuff, everything moves
Speaker 2: where the money is, and there was money in counter arcotics.
Speaker 2: They were dumping billions and everybody got money. Everybody got
Speaker 2: directed to do this, and so huge programs were created
Speaker 2: and everybody chased archittists. For me, aunt narcotics was the
Speaker 2: most frustrating job I've ever had. You know it is
Speaker 2: it's a proverbial whack a mole. For every every narcotics
Speaker 2: organization you dismantle and guys put in jail, there's one
Speaker 2: hundred people waiting to take their place. There's nothing you
Speaker 2: can do in that regard. They're willing to die for
Speaker 2: that kind of money, right, cartels. When I was there,
Speaker 2: and this was a long time, this was shit. Thirty
Speaker 2: years ago, cartels were making profits of one billion dollars
Speaker 2: a year each. They couldn't process the money. They had rooms,
Speaker 2: and I'm talking rooms stacked ceiling to floor, wall to
Speaker 2: wall with cash. They just couldn't launder the money fast enough.
Speaker 2: I went to a DA conference and they had a
Speaker 2: narcotics financier who had turned state's evidence of witness protection
Speaker 2: the whole thing. And he gave a talk and it
Speaker 2: was the most scary thing I've ever heard. He said,
Speaker 2: for you to make a dent in our finances, you
Speaker 2: have to interdict ninety five percent of the drugs coming
Speaker 2: into the US. That's when we start making When we
Speaker 2: stopped making a profit, ninety five percent, we were interdicting
Speaker 2: five percent. And you know, he said, what you guys sees,
Speaker 2: you sees two tons here, five tons, twenty tons, that's spoilage.
Speaker 2: That's just the cost of doing business. And you know,
Speaker 2: I was in Bolivia and you can buy a kilo
Speaker 2: of pure cocaine hydrochloride, pure cocaine for nine hundred dollars
Speaker 2: a kilo. It was selling in New York for eighteen
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a kilo at the time. Time just I'm
Speaker 2: not good at math. Just do the markup. That's a
Speaker 2: profit and that's pure. If you cut that thing two
Speaker 2: or three times, oh my god. So it's It's another
Speaker 2: one of these things that frustrates me is you know
Speaker 2: when when the politicians talked about, well, we're gonna go
Speaker 2: in and we're gonna bomb Mexico, We're gonna do this,
Speaker 2: We're gonna send me It's like, guys, we have been
Speaker 2: doing this for decades. Uh. The war on drugs that
Speaker 2: was fought very quietly in Latin America was no there
Speaker 2: was no gloves on. I mean we it was you
Speaker 2: go and do it. And and you know, you you
Speaker 2: watch the movie Scicadio. It's like, yeah, I lived that.
Speaker 2: That's that's what we're doing. And and and it had
Speaker 2: zero impact on the drug trade because you're not attacking
Speaker 2: the root causes the consumption in the United States, the
Speaker 2: movement of weapons from the US into Mexico, and the
Speaker 2: laundering of money in US banks who are making a
Speaker 2: fortune off this money.
Speaker 1: The poverty these in the countries where this starts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, a cop in Mexico makes I don't know,
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty bucks a month. Trafficers show up
Speaker 2: and say, yeah, I'll give you five thousand a month.
Speaker 2: How can you compete with that?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Right? I mean I was I was at a country
Speaker 2: team meeting where AID Agency for National Development was talking
Speaker 2: about the Alternative Crop program and how they were they
Speaker 2: were going to help the farmers who grew coca gonna
Speaker 2: grow corn or whatever, yeah, and change it into they're
Speaker 2: gonna make them strawberries. And the reality of life was,
Speaker 2: you know, picking strawberries. Growing strawberries a backbreaking, labor intensive work,
Speaker 2: and at the end of it, they're getting about five
Speaker 2: dollars a kilo or something. I mean, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: what the numbers are, but it's five dollars a kilo cocaine.
Speaker 2: The coca leaf basically grows wild. You don't have to
Speaker 2: do much. You plant it and you sit back and
Speaker 2: let it grow. Doesn't require a lot of tending. It
Speaker 2: has two to three growing seasons a year, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna get five hundred for the kilo of the leaf. Again,
Speaker 2: we're we're picking the wrong fight here. You just not
Speaker 2: You're not going to get them. I want you to
Speaker 2: work harder and make less money.
Speaker 3: Right, right, right?
Speaker 4: And it was funny to see that repeated in Afghanistan
Speaker 4: with poppy fields. Yeah you know, Oh, we'll have them
Speaker 4: to plant something other than poppy. It's like they're not
Speaker 4: going to plant something other than poppy. No, why they're
Speaker 4: not stupid?
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 2: I mean, which American can you go to and say, hey,
Speaker 2: I want you to work harder and make less money. Right.
Speaker 2: Nobody's going to buy that deal, right, we expect them
Speaker 2: to do it. No, it's you know, you you got
Speaker 2: you get with the problem a different way, because all
Speaker 2: we're gonna do is get stuck in another war.
Speaker 1: So you you must have been down there during like
Speaker 1: the bad old days of the Papulo Escobar and all that.
Speaker 1: I mean, any any any war stories from that time
Speaker 1: that you can share.
Speaker 2: Uh. I do have some, and I can't share them.
Speaker 2: I would get in serious trouble.
Speaker 1: Uh if you leave out names and specific locations, it's okay.
Speaker 2: Now because no it's bad stuff.
Speaker 4: So that'll be some that'll be some post show spice
Speaker 4: just for us.
Speaker 3: Jack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tell you offline. Uh. And I'm and I'm
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to there's a lot of stuff I'll
Speaker 2: tell you. I'll tell you one sorry, which is is
Speaker 2: not but it shows you the scope of the problem.
Speaker 2: No names, no countries. But a representative of trafficking cartel
Speaker 2: went to the office, sought an appointment and got an
Speaker 2: appointment with the Attorney General of the country and came
Speaker 2: into the office and he had a suitcase, and he
Speaker 2: put the suitcase on the guy's desks, opened it up
Speaker 2: and said, here are five million dollars. It is yours.
Speaker 2: If you listen to our offer. You don't have to
Speaker 2: do anything. Just listen what I want to tell you.
Speaker 2: And the guy just looked and you know, closed the
Speaker 2: suitcase and put it under his desk and said go ahead.
Speaker 2: And they said, we will give you eighteen million dollars
Speaker 2: a month if you get the police to the other
Speaker 2: way at certain times on certain dates. That attorney general
Speaker 2: stayed in office for one year and then bought a
Speaker 2: mansion in a unnamed European country and move there after
Speaker 2: that year.
Speaker 1: Good work if you get it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd sell my principles probably for eighteen million a month.
Speaker 3: Like, uh, case you get million.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I mean I know this is like a
Speaker 1: sensitive question. Uh, you know with agency people getting pitched,
Speaker 1: but I mean with the drug cartels and the kount
Speaker 1: of money that you explained, I mean, were there was
Speaker 1: there any time where they tried to buy you off?
Speaker 3: No? Uh, damn it.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you this. It's it's one of the things
Speaker 2: that has amazed me throughout the years. I mean, we
Speaker 2: have we have problems, and we'll have problem children in
Speaker 2: the agency. Uh, but I've I've never seen or heard
Speaker 2: of anybody in the agency being bought by by narcotics cartels.
Speaker 2: We've we've been bought by by the Russians, We've been
Speaker 2: bought by the Chinese, but nobody has succumbed to the cartels. Uh.
Speaker 2: And and that's a hell of a lot more money
Speaker 2: than Russians.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And And for the life of me, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I used to when I was in headquarters, I used
Speaker 2: to sit on camera the name and I think it's
Speaker 2: we used to call the Personnel Evaluation Board, and that's
Speaker 2: the board that meets as the final say and whether
Speaker 2: you get fired or not and referred to the Justice Department.
Speaker 2: And never did I see anybody come in or that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. Never have I heard of an operation
Speaker 2: being compromised because somebody got bought by the narcotics traffickers.
Speaker 1: Before we move on from Central South America, there was
Speaker 1: one more question I wanted to ask about, you know,
Speaker 1: your your Cuban heritage, but it sounds like they didn't
Speaker 1: actually have you work in Cuba. And I was just
Speaker 1: interested in did you ever touch Cuban operations or you know,
Speaker 1: go to the island or Oh.
Speaker 2: No, I never went to the island. Interesting enough, I
Speaker 2: was pitched by the Cubans real yeah, when I was
Speaker 2: in I was in Guatemala. There are no Cubans in Guatemala.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: They take a dim view of communists. Uh. But my father,
Speaker 2: who has the same name or had the same name
Speaker 2: as I did, receive the letter. He was living in
Speaker 2: New York. Uh Staten Island, and he received the letter
Speaker 2: from the Cubans. They were thinking he was me ah
Speaker 2: and it and it basically gave a pitch where you know,
Speaker 2: they said, look, you know, after after alder James, Uh,
Speaker 2: the agency is looking at at barn Born officers and
Speaker 2: looking at Cubans. Your career is going to take a hit.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have a problem. YadA, YadA, YadA. Next time
Speaker 2: you're out, you know, we'd like you to reach out
Speaker 2: and talk to us and this kind of stuff. Uh.
Speaker 2: I found out about this, and my father called me
Speaker 2: on the phone and and was virtually incoherent. The the
Speaker 2: only words I can under staying with a stream of
Speaker 2: obscenities because you're so pissed. Yeah, oh god, was he pissed.
Speaker 2: I just just calm calm down. This happens all the time.
Speaker 2: Send me the letter. And then I went back to headquarters, said, look,
Speaker 2: this has happened. Yeah. Yeah, they said, yeah, we've had
Speaker 2: about eight or ten of these things happened since Ames
Speaker 2: was arrested. And the Cubans are making an effort to
Speaker 2: use that to try to recruit our people. But other
Speaker 2: than that, I have, you know, and in some places
Speaker 2: there are Cubans and and you do get involved. In
Speaker 2: my first tour, I was involved in some Cuban operations,
Speaker 2: but I did I didn't do a lot of that,
Speaker 2: just it didn't interest me and was probably a good
Speaker 2: thing because those those Cuban operations were a disaster that
Speaker 2: the agency ran.
Speaker 1: Now I've been told the d d G I is
Speaker 1: like particularly sinister I don't know about sinners. So boy,
Speaker 1: they're good. They are really good.
Speaker 2: And they are They are good because of I think
Speaker 2: two main reasons. They are great risk takers, very creative,
Speaker 2: very imaginative, will take risks that we would not do.
Speaker 2: And they have, for all intents and purposes, one target,
Speaker 2: the United States. And it makes life easier when all
Speaker 2: you do is focus on the one, one country, one target,
Speaker 2: instead of thirty forty one hundred, one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: different countries. And you got to they become experts. They understand,
Speaker 2: they know, they are formidable organization. They're very good, and
Speaker 2: they have they handed our lunch to us.
Speaker 3: Do you do you.
Speaker 4: Think that Cuba eventually learned the lesson their lesson about
Speaker 4: like pitching Cuban you know, officers with a Cuban heritage.
Speaker 4: I mean they got Animontes who was not Cuban. She
Speaker 4: was Spanish, right, I think Spanish, She's Puerto Rican, Puerto Rican, Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh yeah. I mean the problem the Cubans have
Speaker 2: faced is that the the the first and second trunch
Speaker 2: of Cuban exiles are are really fanatically anti communists. Right.
Speaker 2: The Again, I'm not trying to cast as spurgeons on anybody. Uh,
Speaker 2: but you'll have you know, those memories, those feelings start
Speaker 2: to die out over time. I mean you you saw
Speaker 2: it with with people like like Aimes and Hansen. You
Speaker 2: know that that whole thing when when when the wall
Speaker 2: came down and the Sovietian clubs, they started to lose
Speaker 2: that inherent anti Russian communist Soviet attitude, and it was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, money is money, and you make money. I
Speaker 2: think you know, you could see you know, the next
Speaker 2: generation of Cubans lose. I mean, they're all going to
Speaker 2: run off and work for the Cubans, but that that
Speaker 2: intensity of feeling is not going to be there because
Speaker 2: they were born here, they grew up here. They don't
Speaker 2: they don't have that sense of we lost everything. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, I had family members in jail, all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Uh you know that that goes just
Speaker 2: the way it's it's gone. Hell. I mean, you know
Speaker 2: we've got politicians who are are siding with the Russians. Uh.
Speaker 2: When you start losing that sense, it's gonna make it easier,
Speaker 2: right right.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And after this period of your career, you uh moved
Speaker 1: on to Eastern Europe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went, I did you know, I got. I
Speaker 2: got tired of Latin America. So I it's you sort
Speaker 2: of you're sort of dealing with similar issues all the time.
Speaker 2: I got. I got tired counter arcotics because that just
Speaker 2: it wasn't you know, you have successes, but in the
Speaker 2: big scheme of things, a big strategic picture, you had
Speaker 2: no success. Yes. Uh, they were all tactical. You know,
Speaker 2: you were you were you were winning battles and losing
Speaker 2: the war. So I went to the farm. Uh and
Speaker 2: eventually was running the trade craft course. Uh. That was
Speaker 2: sort of I requested that that for you know, it
Speaker 2: was for me. It was a reward. Uh. You know,
Speaker 2: you lived on a really nice base. Uh for for
Speaker 2: three years I had I didn't even know where my
Speaker 2: house keys were because you never bothered locking the door. Uh.
Speaker 2: Your your commute to work is five minutes. I used
Speaker 2: to bitch when I had two cars in front of me,
Speaker 2: I thought, my god, rush, Uh it's you know, it
Speaker 2: was really nice. And then I got offered a job
Speaker 2: up in Washington do East European operations. UHH. That was
Speaker 2: interesting in that it came at a time the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union had died out and the East European countries were
Speaker 2: all pushing to join NATO. UH. One of the tactics
Speaker 2: they were using to to gain entry into NATO was
Speaker 2: a very close intelligence cooperation with the US UH. And
Speaker 2: again you know, can't discuss it, but they would do
Speaker 2: things for us that we desperately needed to do that
Speaker 2: we couldn't do ourselves in the hopes successful that they
Speaker 2: could use that to get into NATO.
Speaker 1: And as we soke up a certain country that's very
Speaker 1: helpful today with Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh. And and there's a lot of countries that
Speaker 2: were helpful in a lot of different places. UH. And
Speaker 2: I really I enjoyed working with the with the East Europeans.
Speaker 2: They were they were good, they were very professional. Some
Speaker 2: of those services, you know, clearly trained by the KGB UH.
Speaker 2: They were top notch, top tier. And and I still
Speaker 2: remember the the Russians were bitching, I guess, to the
Speaker 2: to the polls, how they could side with the West
Speaker 2: and this kind of stuff, and the Foreign Minister just
Speaker 2: turned to them and said, we are the and you know,
Speaker 2: you know, for me, that was the final nail in
Speaker 2: the coffin. They said we are not with you, We're
Speaker 2: over there. And that was interesting. And then I got
Speaker 2: I was offered a job which was probably one of
Speaker 2: the best jobs I had in the agency, and it
Speaker 2: was it was scut work. I was. I was made
Speaker 2: executive assistant to the Deputy Director. And what that is
Speaker 2: is it's a glorified gopher job. You're there at the
Speaker 2: deputy directors beck and call, you get him ready for
Speaker 2: meetings at the White House, make sure he gets briefings,
Speaker 2: You handle liaison visits, trips and everything. And the beauty
Speaker 2: of it is you saw everything. You saw the entire
Speaker 2: US intelligence community. You saw how US policy has made
Speaker 2: You saw how the White House functions, how the different
Speaker 2: departments function. I mean, I was sitting at my desk
Speaker 2: one day and somebody drops a piece of paper on
Speaker 2: it on the desk and it's the entire US Nuclear arsenal,
Speaker 2: all the weapons, all the warheads, where they are, what
Speaker 2: they're doing. You're looking like, oh my god, this is amazing.
Speaker 2: And you saw all this stuff because you had to,
Speaker 2: you know, you had to prepare the deputy director and
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff, and you learned so much.
Speaker 2: You learn bureaucratic stuff. But at that stage of my career,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a there's an acceptable assumption that I
Speaker 2: know my trade as an operations officer. I know how
Speaker 2: to recruit, I know how to handle I know how
Speaker 2: to produce intelligence, I know how to run COVID action.
Speaker 2: I know this stuff. Now you're being taught a different
Speaker 2: skill set. And yes, the bureaucratic skill set, but when
Speaker 2: you start moving your way up the chain, they're looking
Speaker 2: for a different skill set. You know, if you, as
Speaker 2: a senior officer, have to go out and recruit sources, well,
Speaker 2: you know, the agencies is destroyed. That's what other people do.
Speaker 2: Your job is to motivate those people, guide them, to recruit,
Speaker 2: to represent the agency, to manage resources, people, money, all
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. And and that job was it
Speaker 2: was a year long job. It was you know again
Speaker 2: long hours, six in the morning till about eight or
Speaker 2: nine at night. But it was an incredible learning experience.
Speaker 2: I learned tons of stuff. The agency, the DOO, I
Speaker 2: should say not the rest of the DOO doesn't really
Speaker 2: have a lot. That's for those out there don't know.
Speaker 2: Director of Operations doesn't have a lot of leadership training.
Speaker 2: It's one of the things I've always admired about the military.
Speaker 2: You know, the military has got one third of the
Speaker 2: force doing the job, one third refitting, and the other
Speaker 2: third preparing. And that includes going off to war colleges,
Speaker 2: going off to this assignment, that assignment to prepare you
Speaker 2: for bigger pictures. We don't do that. We're just always
Speaker 2: going overseats, Go over seas, go see. Now that's great,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't create a core of senior leaders who
Speaker 2: have experienced doing that. This job gives you that kind
Speaker 2: of experience. It's sort of a training course. And from
Speaker 2: that then I slid into Chief of Rock Operations.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about you know, kind of the run
Speaker 1: up to that, I mean two thousand and three, the
Speaker 1: invasion happens, and sort of like where are you and
Speaker 1: what's that lead up to you go into Iraq?
Speaker 2: Well I was. I got to IOG a rack Op
Speaker 2: Operations Group in two thousand and one, and it was
Speaker 2: obvious from the get go that the incoming Bush administration
Speaker 2: was serious about a ROCK. Under Clinton, they'd probably have
Speaker 2: an Iraq meeting once a month. Under Bush they were
Speaker 2: having two to three meetings a week. So you know,
Speaker 2: clearly that was you know, something was going to happen there.
Speaker 2: And I got to a Rock operations, and the task
Speaker 2: became you need to develop a COVID action program to
Speaker 2: support regime change in a rock. That was an experience
Speaker 2: in of itself. I mean, I had plenty of experience
Speaker 2: in COVID action at all different levels, but to be
Speaker 2: handed a program to develop a program when there wasn't
Speaker 2: anything there to build a program on right with a
Speaker 2: serious test, I mean, you know, people have a sort
Speaker 2: of a semi false image of what the agency does
Speaker 2: from Hollywood's and books and stuff. And you flip a
Speaker 2: switch and you got all these guys all over the
Speaker 2: place and they're doing this, and they're doing that, and
Speaker 2: they're blowing this up, they shooting. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: And if you want to have a successful program, there
Speaker 2: has to be something there that you build on. There
Speaker 2: has to be people. There has to be opposition groups.
Speaker 2: If you have to build them from whole cloth, you're
Speaker 2: going to have problems. There have to be people there
Speaker 2: willing to do the job with you. I had a
Speaker 2: senior officer tell me, he said, you know, the one
Speaker 2: piece of advice I have with you is if you
Speaker 2: have to work with these people, work with patriots. Don't
Speaker 2: work with people who there for money or personal power,
Speaker 2: work with people who want to do right for their country,
Speaker 2: and finding people like that was difficult.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting because you mentioned how, you know, working
Speaker 4: with the contras and the leadership was elsewhere here. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't know when it was decided, but it was Chilabi, right,
Speaker 4: a guy who lived in Virginia and setting.
Speaker 3: All these contents lived in London or London London? Okay,
Speaker 3: but how how does that.
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 4: Somebody who had previously had on the show said that
Speaker 4: there were people, uh in the in the administration, like
Speaker 4: long term administration, you know, the bureaucrats. There were people
Speaker 4: who had been gunning for Iraq for a very long time,
Speaker 4: and and Bush was the right uh person to receive
Speaker 4: that message.
Speaker 3: Uh, Like how were they when they're.
Speaker 4: Asking you, you know, come up with plans for this regime change.
Speaker 4: I'm sure that there was pushback from your own analysts,
Speaker 4: from State Department, from people who knew like what was
Speaker 4: supposed to be the counterbalance to Iran if Saddam went.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me tell you I was for a very
Speaker 2: long time as as I was a red headed stepchild. Uh.
Speaker 2: People people hated me, didn't want to see me and
Speaker 2: when they saw me come it was painful. Uh. You
Speaker 2: had you gotta remember at the time we started the
Speaker 2: Iraq program, we had just had nine to eleven UH
Speaker 2: and the agency, the do O, was in full counter
Speaker 2: terrorism swing. The the agency is not a big organization
Speaker 2: and the Director of Operations is not a big organization.
Speaker 2: UH in terms at that time, I don't know what
Speaker 2: it's like now. Case officers worldwide and in headquarters numbered
Speaker 2: less than the Ranger Regiment would And that's what we
Speaker 2: had to do. Everything we had to do from you know,
Speaker 2: the latest kop and bongie to you know, Chinese and
Speaker 2: North Korean missile tests and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And CTC, the Counterrism Center, put a strain on the
Speaker 2: system when they basically said we're going to increase by
Speaker 2: three to four fold what we have here, and the
Speaker 2: agency was like, we don't have them. They physically don't exist, right,
Speaker 2: And they were pulling officers, closing stations, and this huge
Speaker 2: stress hit the system. And then a rock shows up
Speaker 2: and says, oh, by the way, we need to do more,
Speaker 2: and it was just like, oh, it's just physically impossible.
Speaker 2: So there was a lot of pushback from my own
Speaker 2: people in the building. There were elements within the analytical
Speaker 2: community that said, this is probably not a good idea.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, the the the sense the analyst had was
Speaker 2: and correctly. So. You know, Saddam is a pain, but
Speaker 2: he's not a direct threat to the US. He's not
Speaker 2: going to attack the US. Uh. He's he's he's a
Speaker 2: problem in the region, but he's a problem. He's not
Speaker 2: a threat the military. The regular military is pretty much
Speaker 2: rotted from the inside. Uh. He doesn't have the capability
Speaker 2: anymore to launch a major invasion of any other country.
Speaker 2: He could, he could harass, he can attack and do
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. At most, He's a regional annoyance, right,
Speaker 2: and probably not worth a war. Uh. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, you had elements. Uh, as you pointed out,
Speaker 2: they were long term elements. Uh. That a lot of them,
Speaker 2: I would say, we were political guys who came in
Speaker 2: and out of government. Uh, that top tier, who are
Speaker 2: political appointees, but who have done multiple tours of duty
Speaker 2: in the Pentagon, in the White House.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: You know, Cheney is a great example. He had done
Speaker 2: this rum self the same way that had been in
Speaker 2: the White House. They had been in the Pentagon back
Speaker 2: and forth. Uh. And you had these guys who were
Speaker 2: hell bent on we you know, we got to finish
Speaker 2: the job we started in the first golf for right.
Speaker 2: And and you had a group of neo cons especially
Speaker 2: people on the outside of the Pentagon who were advisors
Speaker 2: to the Secretary of Defense and to the Vice President,
Speaker 2: who's who kept saying, uh, touting the we are now
Speaker 2: in a unipolar world. We're the top dog, and we
Speaker 2: have to we have to show we want to demonstrate
Speaker 2: that we can act unilaterally in a light, efficient, rapid
Speaker 2: manner and and bring about change that we want. And
Speaker 2: we pick a rock.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, hw Bush did it in the Gulf War
Speaker 1: to show that you could build this global coalition. But
Speaker 1: I mean after nine to eleven, I mean, for the
Speaker 1: reasons that you just laid out, I mean it's completely unnecessary.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, in no word, even they weren't
Speaker 2: even concerned about building a coalition. They're added to us,
Speaker 2: we can do this by ourselves. I was I was
Speaker 2: at a meeting with it at sent Common with General
Speaker 2: Franks and Rumsfeld had called on the phone and I
Speaker 2: could only hear one part of the conversation, but they
Speaker 2: were going back and forth on the plan, and Franks
Speaker 2: had been able to strip the thing down to two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand troops, and I you know, you
Speaker 2: could you could hear from his tone that he was
Speaker 2: getting a lot of pushback, and he eventually hung up
Speaker 2: and said, we are at one hundred and forty thousand.
Speaker 2: That's what the secretary wants. That's where our secretary is
Speaker 2: going to get and you can see them. You know,
Speaker 2: we have a theory, we have an idea, and we're
Speaker 2: going to prove it and we're going to test it
Speaker 2: out here, right, And it gets to some of the
Speaker 2: subsequent problems. I'll give you an example. We had the
Speaker 2: Agency had gotten in touch with many, many, many of
Speaker 2: the major unit commanders in the Iraqi Army and we said,
Speaker 2: you know, this shit's gonna happen. You don't want to
Speaker 2: be in the way. And they all say, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: we're going to surrender, but hey, we're not going to
Speaker 2: surrender until we see US troops. You know, you did
Speaker 2: that to us last time and we got hosts. So
Speaker 2: when the US troops show up, we're going to surrender. Well,
Speaker 2: the the unintended consequence was as as send Com explained,
Speaker 2: we have one hundred and forty thousand troops that leaves
Speaker 2: us one MP unit and their sole job is to
Speaker 2: keep the tr traffic flowing from Kuwait to Baghdad. We
Speaker 2: can't take prisoners, and so the military launched a leaflet
Speaker 2: campaign before the invasion telling people go home, put your
Speaker 2: cities on, and go home because there's no facilities. We
Speaker 2: can't take prison We don't have enough guys to do prisoners.
Speaker 2: We got enough to punch our way up to Bagdad.
Speaker 2: That meant that four hundred and fifty thousand Iraqi guys
Speaker 2: put on civilian uniforms and they're eight ks with them.
Speaker 2: I went home.
Speaker 1: It's ideological beliefs just completely overwhelming any sort of strategic rationality.
Speaker 4: And like just wishful thinking and not good planning. Like
Speaker 4: you know, I'm like I said, they're very smart analysts,
Speaker 4: both in the State Department and the agency and the military.
Speaker 4: And you know, you have all these soldiers who why
Speaker 4: don't you drop pamphlets and say remain in place, We're
Speaker 4: going to take over your pay. Uh, you know, like
Speaker 4: don't like stay in your barracks, don't come out, but
Speaker 4: will take over your pay. But this whole thing we
Speaker 4: went through with depathification, Like it's almost like nobody thought
Speaker 4: this through, or they did or or they did think
Speaker 4: it through, like smart people thought it through.
Speaker 3: And then I don't know whoever.
Speaker 2: Looked at it, you know, oh god, it was Look,
Speaker 2: you're right, there's there's a lot and it's one of
Speaker 2: the one of the things that that is, at least
Speaker 2: in my profession, the most dangerous is wishful thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if I do A, then B is going to happen.
Speaker 2: The other guy's thinking, no, no, no C is gonna happen. No,
Speaker 2: no B is gonna happen. And there's a lot of
Speaker 2: wishful thinking. There was a lot of good advice that
Speaker 2: the powers in charge decided not to accept, h the depathification.
Speaker 2: You know, they were told time and time again. Uh,
Speaker 2: the Army, I mean the agency went in said, the
Speaker 2: army is not a problem.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The army right now exists, the regular Army, not the
Speaker 2: Republican Guard. The Army exists as a social welfare program.
Speaker 2: You've got four hundred fifty thousand guys plus families plus
Speaker 2: people who depend on them, who get a salary and
Speaker 2: they go do their stuff. You know two three million
Speaker 2: people depend on that. Don't disband them. Take them and
Speaker 2: put them on the borders as a border police force.
Speaker 2: Pay them a salary, have them guard the borders, keep
Speaker 2: all the Iranians out, and all this stuff. And I
Speaker 2: was at a mediate at the White House and Bush
Speaker 2: asked how many Bathys are there? I said about seventy thousand,
Speaker 2: and he said, well, how many we got to take
Speaker 2: care of it? I said, it's only about five thousand
Speaker 2: or so. Who really a hardcore believer? The rest of them,
Speaker 2: It's like the Communist Party. You want to be a teacher,
Speaker 2: you got to be a party member. You want to
Speaker 2: be a copy you got to be a party member.
Speaker 2: You want to run the oil fields party member. They
Speaker 2: don't give a shit. What they want is a job.
Speaker 2: So all you got to do is deal with five thousand.
Speaker 2: Well what do they do? Get rid of all seventy thousand?
Speaker 2: Now you got four and fifty thousand unemployed soldiers, seventy
Speaker 2: thousand unemployed bathies, which meant that the teachers were all fired,
Speaker 2: which meant that you had thousands of teenagers with nothing
Speaker 2: to do. And you know what happens then, and it'll
Speaker 2: all turn to shit very quickly.
Speaker 4: And all the public works, like every functioning part of government. Yeah,
Speaker 4: was like suddenly out, Yeah, you do you I mean
Speaker 4: you may not want to throw shade or spill the tea.
Speaker 4: But were there specific people who were responsible for these
Speaker 4: decisions that went against all logic?
Speaker 2: Yes, oh yes, I mean yeah. I for your listeners,
Speaker 2: you know, I would refer you to there's a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of books out in Iraq that does name names
Speaker 2: and identify the people. But there was a coterie of
Speaker 2: senior people who were most definitely responsible for the mess
Speaker 2: that came after they were handed a document that said
Speaker 2: you shouldn't do this, this, this, and this because it
Speaker 2: will lead to that. And they took that document literally
Speaker 2: and said we're going to do this, this, this, and this,
Speaker 2: and then they're stunned. I mean I went again. I
Speaker 2: was in the I was in the sit room. No
Speaker 2: names mentioned, but the but the some senior officials in
Speaker 2: the Pentagon were briefing the president on the day after
Speaker 2: what are we going to do with the rock?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And the first line that goes up is the US
Speaker 2: occupation of Nazi Germany in forty five, and based on that,
Speaker 2: they start their presentation, and it was so bad that
Speaker 2: the Secretary of Defense had to stop it and say, still, okay,
Speaker 2: we're not ready, mister President. We'll get back to you.
Speaker 2: And clearly they had no idea what they're doing, he said.
Speaker 2: The analysts were saying, you can't use Nazi Germany as
Speaker 2: a template for a rock right right, And and there
Speaker 2: was no plan. Literally, there was no plan. It was good.
Speaker 2: It was it'll fix itself. And that gets to your
Speaker 2: mention of Challaby. Chalibi was a very articulate, very poised,
Speaker 2: westernized rock. He wore four thousand dollars suits Taylor made
Speaker 2: in savile row in London, spoke excellent English, and had
Speaker 2: snowed all these senior officials. And his argument was it's
Speaker 2: gonna be okay because I'm gonna be welcomed, my guys
Speaker 2: will be there, we'll fix everything for you. And it
Speaker 2: gets that wishful thinking, it's gonna it's gonna be fine,
Speaker 2: this is what's gonna happen, and they bought it. It's
Speaker 2: gonna happen.
Speaker 4: Was there any intelligence supporting that or did he just
Speaker 4: do like the right politicians and make them believe it.
Speaker 2: There was no intelligence supporting that. You know we told them,
Speaker 2: and they senior officials in the Pentagon hated us because
Speaker 2: we went in there, and they hated the State Department.
Speaker 2: We said, Chalab is a con man. Chalabi doesn't have anything.
Speaker 2: All the exiles have been exiles for thirty years. They
Speaker 2: have no following inside a rock. They have no infrastructure
Speaker 2: of capability, no organizations. They can't deliver on anything. And
Speaker 2: we're gonna it's it's gonna go into these hands and
Speaker 2: we're gonna have to deal with it, not them. It's
Speaker 2: not going to get fixed. Nobody listened Jolla B. Excuse me,
Speaker 2: Challa B worked his magic on him and they bought it.
Speaker 2: They believed he's gonna fix it, and he.
Speaker 3: Got there and he's a total outsider with like nobody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell us about your your experience landing in
Speaker 1: Baghdad and running ops.
Speaker 4: Let's do this real quick, because you have the Iraq
Speaker 4: Operations Group started, you know, you start there in two
Speaker 4: thousand and one.
Speaker 3: How did we get to w d's and yellow Cake.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's a good question. I don't know. Uh, it's
Speaker 2: not a cop out. And back to our early discussion.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna paraphrase Julius Caesar UH. Iraq was divided into
Speaker 2: three parts. UH. The counter Terrorism Center handled Iraq counter
Speaker 2: Terrorism issues, Counterproliferation Division CP IRAQ handled WMD, and then
Speaker 2: everything else else in the COVID fell to a rock
Speaker 2: operations group. I was on. I mean I was in
Speaker 2: a periphery because I would sit in some of the briefings.
Speaker 2: But the best I can assess is there were no
Speaker 2: reliable human sources on a rock WMD. Most of what
Speaker 2: we had came from liaison services, you know, Germans, Brits, Italians, whoever.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know. I'm just rattling off names.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they provided anything technical means, And
Speaker 2: as the analyst explained, it pretty much a formula. In
Speaker 2: the First Gulf War, Iraq had so many chemical weapons,
Speaker 2: so many were decommissioned after and this much is left.
Speaker 2: So this is what they have chemical weapons.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Then there was a whole host and one of the
Speaker 2: one of the problems you face in any kind of
Speaker 2: intelligence operation is, especially when it starts to be big
Speaker 2: like this and people UH smell money in the air,
Speaker 2: is you get a lot of fabricators, people who will
Speaker 2: make up ship and tell you stuff in return for money.
Speaker 2: They say, oh, we can get some money. The yellow
Speaker 2: cake thing came out of if I understand it correctly,
Speaker 2: and I could be wrong, came out of Nigeria. I
Speaker 2: think it was or niger I'm not sure which that
Speaker 2: they were. The Iraqis were buying the stuff, uh, but
Speaker 2: it was. It was not very well sourced and it
Speaker 2: was weak. But we had elements of the administration who
Speaker 2: would latch onto anything right that would make their case.
Speaker 2: So I'll give you an example. I was sitting in
Speaker 2: my office in CIA headquarters and a message came in
Speaker 2: from one of our stations saying that this guy, this
Speaker 2: Iraqi had volunteered, walked into the embassy and said he
Speaker 2: had information from the head of Iraqi intelligence who wanted
Speaker 2: to cooperate with us. So I had him do a
Speaker 2: check and by the time the information on this guy
Speaker 2: came back to me, I had a senior agency officer
Speaker 2: we won't name names, standing in front of me saying,
Speaker 2: the Vice President wants you to send somebody to meet
Speaker 2: this guy because he has valuable information. And somehow he
Speaker 2: had gotten this information. I don't know how we got it,
Speaker 2: probably from the briefer. And I said, well, we ran
Speaker 2: checks on this guy. The CIA terminated him for being
Speaker 2: a fabricator, terminated him for being a fabricator. The Austrians
Speaker 2: terminated for him for being a fabricator. I think he's
Speaker 2: a fabricator. And I think the guys here with the
Speaker 2: load of bullshit just to get some money. And they
Speaker 2: kept insisting you got to meet the guys. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to waste somebody's time flying out there talking to
Speaker 2: a guy who's lying to us and then putting the
Speaker 2: information out knowing you it's a lie, right, And I said,
Speaker 2: you know, you guys pay me for my expertise and
Speaker 2: my experience, and when three different intelligence services terminate somebody
Speaker 2: for being a fabricator, I don't want to have to
Speaker 2: do it a fourth time. I looked like an idiot,
Speaker 2: and boy did I get a load of shit.
Speaker 1: You were not their buddy.
Speaker 2: After that, no, and you know it, they tried to
Speaker 2: send somebody else out there. And we had a lot
Speaker 2: of this stuff where there was at least sourced information
Speaker 2: or suspect fabricators, and they kept trying to force us.
Speaker 2: We met a guy who claimed to be an a
Speaker 2: rocky nuclear physicist, and we thought, now this guy's a fabricator.
Speaker 2: I said, no, what do you think he's a fabricator? Oh,
Speaker 2: because Chalabi's people have directed us toward him, so we
Speaker 2: had to send people out. So we had to send
Speaker 2: people out. This came out from the White House. So
Speaker 2: we sent people out to debrief the guy, and they
Speaker 2: were doing the debriefing, and the guy was clearly nervous
Speaker 2: because he kept going to the bathroom all the time.
Speaker 2: We're fifteen minutes. He had a p Fortunately, we had
Speaker 2: an analyst there who was a nuclear physicist, and the
Speaker 2: guy went to the bathroom. It's one of those old
Speaker 2: fashioned doors. We had the glass pane on top. And
Speaker 2: the analyst stood in a chair and looked inside the
Speaker 2: bathroom and the guy was pulling his sleeve out and
Speaker 2: reading all the notes that he had written on his arm,
Speaker 2: and that's where he was getting his information. FOW and
Speaker 2: he came back and he said, sky's nice. He's not
Speaker 2: a physicist. Doesn't know what he's talking about. I asked
Speaker 2: him two or three questions. He doesn't understand UH. And
Speaker 2: and the White House had had the Defense Intelligence Agency
Speaker 2: parole the guy into the us UH to provide additional
Speaker 2: debriefing and information. We said this this.
Speaker 1: This stuff is like, I'll be honest to leis is
Speaker 1: it's like mildly traumatic to hear because you know, I
Speaker 1: served in Iraq in the army. Dave served thousands of
Speaker 1: American soldiers served a lot, My son served in Iraq
Speaker 1: in the army. A lot did not come home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and to hear that, you know, our our troops were
Speaker 1: sent under such dubious circumstances, it is difficult. It's difficult
Speaker 1: to process.
Speaker 2: It is incredibly difficult to process. It is you know,
Speaker 2: I again, I it's one of the things I struggle with. You.
Speaker 2: You can make you can make a logical argument that
Speaker 2: the neocons made that you know, we're trying to create
Speaker 2: a better rock and and you know Saddam was was
Speaker 2: a savage and his sons were savages and the world
Speaker 2: is better off without them. But the end result is
Speaker 2: is we left a much more unstable Middle East. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we created a lot more terrorism, more insurgency. We lost
Speaker 2: a lot of goodwill that we obtained after nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: And I have a friend who you know, he worked
Speaker 2: with me on a rock and he's gonna be pissed
Speaker 2: about this stuff. But because he's a believer in getting
Speaker 2: rid of Saddam. Uh. But we sent a lot of
Speaker 2: American men and women into a situation they didn't have
Speaker 2: to be in. Uh. I you know, I my son
Speaker 2: was in a rock and I spent a year. I
Speaker 2: couldn't even watch the news because I and you know,
Speaker 2: and he's he lost friends and I I I understand
Speaker 2: that at the end of the day, the soldiers fight
Speaker 2: for each other, and that's what they're there for, to
Speaker 2: make sure the guy next to him doesn't get killed,
Speaker 2: that they have their back. Uh. And it's it's it's
Speaker 2: that bond and that whole flag ship and whatever. It's
Speaker 2: nice and the big picture is nice, but at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, you fight for your buddy. Uh.
Speaker 2: And that's the only the only saving grace I have
Speaker 2: towards this whole rock thing. You know, people people who
Speaker 2: didn't who never served their country in that capacity, had
Speaker 2: no qualms about sending men and women into this this
Speaker 2: ship storm.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: For you know, it's probably bogus is too strong a word,
Speaker 2: but it's you know, it's a cause you you look
Speaker 2: at it's not necessary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Congress, Yeah, I'm sorry, Congress.
Speaker 3: Wasn't that divided on this either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, uh you know it's it's and and it
Speaker 2: pissed me off because it didn't have to be as
Speaker 2: hard and painful as it was, right, exactly right. They
Speaker 2: made it worse. They and they kept making it worse.
Speaker 2: And it gives I remember sitting in uh in the
Speaker 2: sit room they were having a meeting. I always went
Speaker 2: with a director as a plus one, and the president
Speaker 2: was there, and they were all going back and forth.
Speaker 2: And and the only two guys in the room who
Speaker 2: kept raising objections, uhh were Colin Powell and Richard Armitage.
Speaker 2: And they were the only two guys in that room
Speaker 2: had fought in combat. And they kept saying, you know,
Speaker 2: you're this is this is not just doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 2: right and and and everybody else who did not never
Speaker 2: did and their kids never went. None of them this ship.
Speaker 2: They they just did. They didn't. They didn't heed the advice.
Speaker 1: Lewis, what what was could you tell us about your
Speaker 1: personal experiences in Iraq when you were running ops over
Speaker 1: there and back.
Speaker 2: Then, No, I ran I did, I did headquarters, I
Speaker 2: did the lead up to the war and the end
Speaker 2: of the conventional operations. Uh I prepared for my next
Speaker 2: overseas assigning, which was India. I watched I watched operations
Speaker 2: there from Afar.
Speaker 1: Oh I see. Okay, So let's jump into your time
Speaker 1: then as cos in New Delhi, because I think India
Speaker 1: is just an absolutely fascinating country, pivotal pivotal country perhaps
Speaker 1: in some of the conflicts that we're looking at in
Speaker 1: this century. Let's let's talk about that.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I mean, I agree with you. When I
Speaker 2: joined the agency, Uh, India is one of those places
Speaker 2: I wanted to go to. I wanted to go to
Speaker 2: places that were as different from the US as I
Speaker 2: can get. I wanted a different experience, and in India,
Speaker 2: let me tell you it is. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've ever been there, but it is a feast for
Speaker 2: the senses, fascinating place. I enjoyed my time in India. Uh.
Speaker 2: Work there is challenging.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: The Indians are all over you it. There are still
Speaker 2: significant elements of the Indian government and security services that
Speaker 2: grew up in a very pro Russian world. Uh. They
Speaker 2: were part of the non line movement. But I may
Speaker 2: tell you their buddy buddy with the Russians. And you know,
Speaker 2: the Russians are their main suppliers, their main trainers. UH.
Speaker 2: And we are viewed as as the Indians have three
Speaker 2: main enemies. The first one is obviously Pakistan. Uh, the
Speaker 2: second one is the US and the third was China.
Speaker 2: When I was there, what.
Speaker 1: Was your opinion of R A W and I.
Speaker 2: B Uh not bad there are I mean the I
Speaker 2: the the I B is a good domestic security service.
Speaker 2: H R a W has Uh. I think a good
Speaker 2: regional coverage.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: There their officers are fairly well trained.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: They have good training program. Uh. The the Indian services
Speaker 2: are getting or getting better because they are being pushed
Speaker 2: to expand capabilities. When I was there, the Indians were
Speaker 2: still struggling with what they wanted to be. They were
Speaker 2: trying to develop strategies, what the future was going to be,
Speaker 2: what their role was going to be. Was it regional?
Speaker 2: Did it expand more? Uh? And one of the things,
Speaker 2: obviously was their intelligence capability and so they were trying
Speaker 2: to come to grips with that. Uh. You know. One
Speaker 2: of the the challenges. And I used to laugh with
Speaker 2: them because I was declared to them and I dealt
Speaker 2: with the with the Indian Services. One of the challenges
Speaker 2: they were facing was keeping, retaining and hiring employees because
Speaker 2: everybody says, oh, you know, India to the land of
Speaker 2: a billion people and they must have hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of surveillance and stuff. No, they were losing people to
Speaker 2: the IT industry.
Speaker 1: Makes sense, like the dot com boom in America. I
Speaker 1: mean we dealt with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, the guys were talent. It
Speaker 2: used to be the Indian Civil Service was a highly
Speaker 2: prestigious organization. They they went to schools, to colleges, they graduated,
Speaker 2: they have they call them batches almost like military academies
Speaker 2: where they all graduated stuff. And uh, it was good
Speaker 2: paying jobs. You got a pension, they gave you housing,
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff. And then the IT boom
Speaker 2: came in, and you know it companies and call centers
Speaker 2: are paying three four, five, six times uh what an
Speaker 2: ib or raw officer would get. And they're saying, we're
Speaker 2: having a hard time. We're competing, and you know, the
Speaker 2: agency was faced the same thing with you know, we're
Speaker 2: competing with with for university graduates who can make three,
Speaker 2: four or five times what they make at the agency. Uh,
Speaker 2: but you know they were they were you know, we've
Speaker 2: we've seen it with all these these accusations of of
Speaker 2: the Indians assassinating seek separatists in different countries. Uh, they're
Speaker 2: they're starting to feel their oats. Yeah, and they're getting
Speaker 2: out there. And it's a multipolar world. Huh.
Speaker 1: It's a multipolar world, yes.
Speaker 2: Uh, in India is now. I think they have settled
Speaker 2: on the the abroad as they call it, the Indian
Speaker 2: Ocean area East Africa, their environment. But I think, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: we look at them as instrumental in some of our
Speaker 2: strategies against China and in the Indian Ocean. India is
Speaker 2: never going to be the ally we need. And I
Speaker 2: don't say this maliciously or not, but for us to think,
Speaker 2: I mean we look at an ally as somebody with
Speaker 2: shared common interest and agreed upon goals. We're never going
Speaker 2: to get that from India. They have different goals, they
Speaker 2: have different interests, They have still a sense of a
Speaker 2: non aligned movement that they don't want to get tied
Speaker 2: to the US.
Speaker 1: What do you think of Like I believe it was
Speaker 1: Ambassador Blackwell pend Apiece and Foreign Affairs about how we
Speaker 1: should basically just arm up the Indians, and they're naturally
Speaker 1: going to do what we want them to do.
Speaker 2: Never do what we want them to do. If anything,
Speaker 2: they'll get pissed off if we if we assume they're
Speaker 2: gonna do what we want them to do. Uh, it's
Speaker 2: it's the Indian they don't like that they have And
Speaker 2: this is where we get into that wishful thinking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we.
Speaker 2: View China as a threat. India must view China as
Speaker 2: the same threat. Uh. You know, you look at the religion.
Speaker 2: Pakistan views India as a threat. India doesn't view Pakistan
Speaker 2: as a threat. They them as an annoyance. They view
Speaker 2: China as a threat. China doesn't view India as a threat. Uh.
Speaker 2: They're they're a competitor. But there's no way that the
Speaker 2: Indians are going to be a threat to China. They're
Speaker 2: not going to invade China. They're not going to take over.
Speaker 2: They're not going to push China out of their spheres
Speaker 2: of influence, whereas China could do that to India. India
Speaker 2: doesn't want to have a problem with Pakistan. They understand that.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're going to be a power, a
Speaker 2: regional power, at least you can't spend time with bullshit
Speaker 2: border problems. The pakistanis. They can't afford India not to
Speaker 2: be a threat. The Pakistani military has so much power
Speaker 2: and authority and money because they have blown up the
Speaker 2: Indian threat to such a large extent. And if they
Speaker 2: turn around and say, hey, let's make peace with India,
Speaker 2: which India would probably buy, then someone's gonna say, well,
Speaker 2: why do we need all this crap that we give you?
Speaker 4: So so India is basically the counter narcotics program of
Speaker 4: the eighties for Pakistan's military and intelligence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you can say it that way. You know,
Speaker 2: I just India is not going to give us what
Speaker 2: we want. They'll they'll give us peacemeal stuff, They'll give
Speaker 2: us things where they think they will win more. It's
Speaker 2: sort of a you know, a trade off. But they're
Speaker 2: not going to They're not going to be for us
Speaker 2: like Japan is or Australia or.
Speaker 4: You bring up an interesting point because I always wondered
Speaker 4: why we didn't more, you know, court India more, because
Speaker 4: it seems as though there are a regional counterpoint to
Speaker 4: China that that that we have a lot of alliances,
Speaker 4: but what is it that uh India you know, wants
Speaker 4: for themselves that that wouldn't be in alignment with the
Speaker 4: US's strategic goals.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think India. India wants to I
Speaker 2: think be the premier power in the Indian Ocean. Uh.
Speaker 2: The US is uncomfortable with letting anybody be a premier
Speaker 2: power anywhere. Uh. They want to have the greatest extent
Speaker 2: of influence in East Africa. UH, We're probably not comfortable
Speaker 2: with that. They want to be able to secure the
Speaker 2: lines of communication into the Middle East because of oil
Speaker 2: and the oil coming back and forth. We don't want that.
Speaker 2: I'll give you. I'll give you a fine example. During
Speaker 2: the Iran Iraq War. Iran was mining the Gulf and
Speaker 2: attacking shipping and stuff, and the US sent in the
Speaker 2: navy to secure an escort the ships out and secure
Speaker 2: the Gulf, and we guaranteed the free passage. And this
Speaker 2: is where you get to You can't do wishful thinking
Speaker 2: or mirror imaging. Because we saw ourselves as we are
Speaker 2: now guaranteeing freedom of the seas. China and India saw
Speaker 2: the opposite. Their attitude was if the US can keep
Speaker 2: the Straits of Hormuz open, they can close them and
Speaker 2: in a time of conflict, that's exactly what they're going
Speaker 2: to do. So we need to build naval capability to
Speaker 2: get in there and keep the straights open ourselves, which
Speaker 2: is one of the reasons why the Chinese are starting
Speaker 2: to build a big navy that will eventually start to
Speaker 2: go into the Indian Ocean, which is why the Indians
Speaker 2: are going to get started. You know, we got to
Speaker 2: stop the Chinese. We need to build a big ocean
Speaker 2: because both these countries get a significant portion of oil
Speaker 2: from the Middle East, so in that regard, you know,
Speaker 2: we're all going to be competing for space and primacy
Speaker 2: in that area.
Speaker 1: So I mean, look, the United States Army has been
Speaker 1: conducting training exercises for the Indians. They did one this
Speaker 1: last year, or in twenty twenty three, they did one,
Speaker 1: you know, not on the Chinese border, but within like
Speaker 1: one hundred kilometers. Like, this relationship exists, and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of probe you a little bit as
Speaker 1: far as like, what do you think is a realistic
Speaker 1: US India security relationship.
Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the first things is, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's going to happen, but what
Speaker 2: the Indians would like to see in order to improve
Speaker 2: that relationship is for US to begin divesty our obsession
Speaker 2: with Pakistan. That has always been a sticking point with him.
Speaker 2: When I was there, Uh, the Indians were always pushing
Speaker 2: you need to help us with Pakistan. Pakistan is sponsoring
Speaker 2: terrorist attacks against India. And the US was so heavy
Speaker 2: invested in Pakistan giving us a card or into Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: that we weren't about to upset the Apple card.
Speaker 1: Could that change now with the with our extraction from Afghanistan?
Speaker 2: It can if the US policy starts to shift, and
Speaker 2: if the US has got to make a clear decision
Speaker 2: we're choosing India over Pakistan because Pakistan has pretty much
Speaker 2: chosen China over the US, which is yeah, freaking the
Speaker 2: Indians out. Uh. And and and now China is working
Speaker 2: on port facilities in Pakistan and the Indians are really
Speaker 2: getting getting tense about that. Uh. But we've got to
Speaker 2: make a very clear situation. The Indians are are interested
Speaker 2: in getting from US military. Know how, everybody has seen
Speaker 2: how the US military functions, and they understand, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're going to fight a war, that's the model
Speaker 2: to follow right now, So yeah, they're going to host
Speaker 2: US forces in India. The Navy the air Force, the army.
Speaker 2: They're going to want to do joint things because they
Speaker 2: want to learn from us. But you know, the trust
Speaker 2: issue remains. Are these guys gonna ditch us as soon
Speaker 2: as Pakistan comes calling?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: We you know, not to not to not to beat
Speaker 2: the US about the hidden and shoulders, but but our
Speaker 2: reputation over the last fifteen twenty years has suffered significantly.
Speaker 2: We are not the reliable partners that people used to
Speaker 2: think we were. Right. You know, you got you got
Speaker 2: the Europeans right now planning for the eventuality that if
Speaker 2: Trump gets elected and decides to yank US out of NATO,
Speaker 2: they're on their own. So how do they cushion themselves?
Speaker 2: And other countries are watching them, saying if you're if
Speaker 2: if the Europeans can't rely on them, we surely can't.
Speaker 2: So so you know a good deal is going to
Speaker 2: be We've got to rebuild those those alliances, those trusts, Uh,
Speaker 2: those capabilities. It's you. I'm just I know I'm preaching
Speaker 2: the choir and I'm just babbling here. Uh, but people
Speaker 2: don't understand. Yes, the US has untold bases overseas. You know,
Speaker 2: how the hell do you think we project power. Uh,
Speaker 2: you're not. You're not gonna land. You're not gonna go
Speaker 2: from Missouri to to Pakistan overnight. You need bases, you
Speaker 2: need facilities. How do you think we get are wounded?
Speaker 2: Where do we get them to Frankfurt? You pull on
Speaker 2: that crap out and we're we're out. We're out of
Speaker 2: the Middle East, We're out of South Asia, We're out
Speaker 2: of all.
Speaker 1: These places isolated island.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so in everybody in all these countries are looking, uh,
Speaker 2: and they're looking with with with two ideas of mine.
Speaker 2: Is the US dependable and trustworthy? And if the answer
Speaker 2: is no, how do we slip in and take over?
Speaker 2: And I don't mean, you know, conquered, but how do
Speaker 2: we fill in that vacuum? Because that's there's going to
Speaker 2: be a vacuum there and we need to fill it
Speaker 2: sooner rather than later.
Speaker 4: I know we've had some, uh, some challenges dealing with
Speaker 4: Pakistan in the past, and partly because we've had an
Speaker 4: ambassador too that had been in love with Pakistan and
Speaker 4: just would not let anything happen in their yard. Do
Speaker 4: do countries like India do they have that benefit also
Speaker 4: where ambassadors will just just go to bat for them.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's it's it's it's interesting to watch. And not
Speaker 2: just ambassadors.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a reason why we have two and
Speaker 2: three year assignments, and that's to avoid client titus. And
Speaker 2: the longer you stay in a country, the more you
Speaker 2: get client titus. I have I have seen ambassadors in
Speaker 2: India who are are a big cheerleader for that country.
Speaker 1: And there are appointees they don't know anything about diplomacy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and you know, and they forget. I mean
Speaker 2: I worked for one ambassador who was he is independently wealthy. Uh,
Speaker 2: so you can't say, you know, you don't forget who
Speaker 2: pays your salary. He didn't even take a salary. Uh.
Speaker 2: And and you know they see they see it to
Speaker 2: some extent from the locals eyes, from the Indian eyes,
Speaker 2: and they instead of becoming a representative of the US
Speaker 2: toward that country, they become representative that country toward the US.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: And a lot of these countries work really hard to
Speaker 2: establish that relations. They do it to our chiefs of station. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, there's nothing like if you're the chief of
Speaker 2: station and the director of the CIA comes to visit,
Speaker 2: that the local services can get the director of meeting
Speaker 2: with the president or Prime minister. They take them on
Speaker 2: this trip and they go here and he says almost
Speaker 2: kind and the glory goes back to you always got
Speaker 2: everything plugged in. Uh, you don't want to upset the
Speaker 2: Apple card. They're making you look good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, So you know you tend to be hands offish.
Speaker 2: We don't want to we don't want to press them
Speaker 2: on some issues. And I've seen that where where you
Speaker 2: know the US policy is we got to press them
Speaker 2: on it said, oh, you don't want to upset them. Uh.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it goes, It happens, and it happens not infrequently.
Speaker 1: So what was what was the next stop for you?
Speaker 1: After Chief of Station of New Delhi. Oh that was
Speaker 1: out of all bizarre things. I went to be the
Speaker 1: scholar in residence in Miami, University of Miami.
Speaker 2: Uh. My then wife, her parents had moved to Florida. Uh.
Speaker 2: Her father had had his second heart by paths and
Speaker 2: her mother was recovering from breast cancer. So we needed
Speaker 2: to ah be close. So there was an opening where
Speaker 2: you know, I taught uh national security issues and I
Speaker 2: did a couple of years there, uh, and then went
Speaker 2: back up to Washington to do uh counterintelligence for CTC
Speaker 2: and retired out of there.
Speaker 1: And how is uh, how have you enjoyed retirement? What's
Speaker 1: that like?
Speaker 2: Oh? God, I love it. Uh, I got I gotta
Speaker 2: tell you. It's uh being in the director of operations,
Speaker 2: especially overseas, but in some headquarters assignment UH from the military. Uh.
Speaker 2: It is a demanding job. Twelve hour days are the norm,
Speaker 2: working six five and a half six seven days a week,
Speaker 2: not unknown. When I was doing a rock I would
Speaker 2: be in the office at five point thirty in the morning,
Speaker 2: go home and ten at night when I didn't sleep
Speaker 2: in the office. You know it even overseas, you're you
Speaker 2: know you especially when you start out you have a
Speaker 2: regular job and then you got to do your agency job,
Speaker 2: which tends to be at night and weekends and stuff.
Speaker 2: So it takes as toll after a while. It is
Speaker 2: also it's an isolating job psychologically, and then you retire
Speaker 2: and it's like it's it's When I went through the
Speaker 2: retirement program, they had a speaker who was a psychologist
Speaker 2: and he specialized in retirement stuff and OLASA and he
Speaker 2: said the number one thing that that people extole about
Speaker 2: retirement is sleep. And the fact that they can sleep.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's nice, it's it's different. You you
Speaker 2: you know, like you're in this. You're in the agency,
Speaker 2: and you're you're very isolated. You're in the building, you
Speaker 2: can't you can't take phones in. You don't have access
Speaker 2: to streams information. Uh people outside. You can't really tell
Speaker 2: what you do. You can't discuss your day even when
Speaker 2: you go home, especially overseas, and you go home, you
Speaker 2: can't talk to your spouse and say, how how was
Speaker 2: your day. You don't know if somebody's listening. Uh. So
Speaker 2: it tends to isolate you and you retire. And I
Speaker 2: mean a guy I worked for retired. He's teaching at
Speaker 2: one of the universities. He is. I don't I can't
Speaker 2: see ever going back. I am. I am now so plugged.
Speaker 2: Did so much information, talking to people and all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, which you don't do even inside the agency.
Speaker 2: You know, we function on the need to know basis.
Speaker 2: So I'm not telling the guy next to me who
Speaker 2: sits next to me necessarily what I'm doing or how
Speaker 2: my cases are gone, because he doesn't have a need
Speaker 2: to know. She doesn't have a need to know. So
Speaker 2: it does tend to get you isolated. That changes when
Speaker 2: you retire.
Speaker 1: Where are you at today? What are you doing now?
Speaker 2: Talking to you?
Speaker 3: And we appreciate it.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not doing anything. It's you know, I live
Speaker 2: in d C. For a while after I retired. I
Speaker 2: did some contracting work that about for five years or
Speaker 2: so after I retired, and you know, it's okay. A
Speaker 2: lot of people turn around and go back working for
Speaker 2: the agency as a contractor. It's I got to do.
Speaker 2: I'm fortunate. I got to do pretty much I want
Speaker 2: when I joined the agency, and so there's nothing left
Speaker 2: to do, and other than it would be there collecting
Speaker 2: a paycheck, which is not intellectually stimulating for me. I
Speaker 2: write a blog just to keep my you know, my
Speaker 2: mind going. I read I got a twelve year old
Speaker 2: daughter who's in school that you know, sucks up a
Speaker 2: lot of my time, wonderfully so, and not much.
Speaker 1: Where Where can people find your website?
Speaker 2: It's called the Debrief, a rundown of today's national security interest.
Speaker 2: I should have given you something, but I'm too goddamn
Speaker 2: lazy to do anything about it. Again, it's, you know,
Speaker 2: it's the website. The blog is is we'll put it
Speaker 2: in the description.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's uh, for those of you listening, it's debrief,
Speaker 4: Uh debrief A rundown d E B R I E
Speaker 4: F A r U N D O w N dot com.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's it's geared toward non professionals. Uh, it's
Speaker 2: you know, I believe that it is important for layman
Speaker 2: the people out there to understand how intelligence functions, because
Speaker 2: we go to war or not based on intelligence. It
Speaker 2: affects our lives whether we know it or not. And
Speaker 2: while people do not have access to sources and methods,
Speaker 2: they should understand how it works. Uh uh and the
Speaker 2: complexities involved, because again, it's not it's not what you
Speaker 2: see in Hollywood. It's not some guys SIT's in computer
Speaker 2: flips to switch and he's got all the cameras in
Speaker 2: the world pouring in there. It doesn't work. It is.
Speaker 2: It is a different skill set. It is labor intensive. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I'm babbling, but it is. And every now and then
Speaker 2: I babble on about what's going on in the world.
Speaker 1: That's great, No, Lewis, this has been like a super
Speaker 1: informative episode and actually I would love to have you
Speaker 1: back at some point to talk like like maybe zero
Speaker 1: in on some specific like geopolitical issues. But this has
Speaker 1: been a this has been a great conversation.
Speaker 2: I'd be happy to come back to this. There's no
Speaker 2: case officer on Earth who doesn't want to babble to
Speaker 2: an audience and say listen.
Speaker 3: To me, Well, we we deeply appreciate it.
Speaker 4: I don't want to keep you too long, but I
Speaker 4: do want to ask you one question about your time,
Speaker 4: as you know, doing counterintelligence. We had James Olsen on
Speaker 4: you know, who was Director of counter Intelligence for a while,
Speaker 4: and he talked about how it's very different than being
Speaker 4: a case officer and that it if you let it
Speaker 4: get to you, it can make you very paranoid. And
Speaker 4: how was that for you ending your career in a
Speaker 4: sea ipost.
Speaker 2: Well, I've I'll give you the the spiel should be
Speaker 2: that every case officer does counterintelligence. It's it's the only
Speaker 2: way you survive in the field. And I've had several
Speaker 2: counterintelligence positions. Mister Olsen is you know, the term is
Speaker 2: used too loosely nowadays, but it does apply to him
Speaker 2: that he is a living legend. He is really good
Speaker 2: at what he does, and he's he's right. The more
Speaker 2: you do it, the more paranoid you become, because you
Speaker 2: understand what can happen. And a good counterintelligence officer understands
Speaker 2: all the possibilities, all the permutations, and starts looking to
Speaker 2: see which is actually the case in this situation. But
Speaker 2: it does. I tell you I have been retired since
Speaker 2: twenty ten, I still look for surveillance. I step out
Speaker 2: of my house and the first thing I do is
Speaker 2: I look up and down the street to see what
Speaker 2: cars are there? Do I know the cars? Are the
Speaker 2: people sitting in the cars? What are they doing? And
Speaker 2: it's stupid because nobody's gonna be following me. I'm nobody
Speaker 2: other than you know if it's criminal activity. But just
Speaker 2: like like an army officer can never look at a
Speaker 2: piece of terrain without thinking, how do I hold it?
Speaker 2: How do I take it? A case officer looks at everything.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good dead drop. Oh that's a good
Speaker 2: meeting site. Oh I can turn. I mean I turn corners,
Speaker 2: and I do it in a fashion that gives me
Speaker 2: a logical way to look behind me. So, yeah, you
Speaker 2: do get a degree of paranoia.
Speaker 3: You do.
Speaker 2: You do get jaded. I am not judgmental about Yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe I am, but I'm not stunned by the things
Speaker 2: people do. Uhh. I gotta say, I've probably seen it all.
Speaker 2: Uh and I have dealt with people who have done
Speaker 2: it all. And and there you know people that I
Speaker 2: would never have over my house for dinner. Ah. So
Speaker 2: it does skew your view of people and life in general.
Speaker 2: H it it again. I apologize for the landings, but
Speaker 2: it does fuck you up beyond belief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's got to be hard too.
Speaker 4: Because you could potentially ruin somebody's career if if like
Speaker 4: you're wrong and you know uh oh yeah, but but
Speaker 4: you but you ruin your job if you're if you
Speaker 4: don't pursue it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's.
Speaker 2: It's a high wire act. I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 2: always this just just like what you just did right
Speaker 2: now is what a CIOF is going to be doing.
Speaker 2: I could do this, this could happen here it is
Speaker 2: and you start looking a different permutations and start spinning
Speaker 2: you up.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it seems like a tough job. Let me
Speaker 4: get some questions real quick. Olms, thank you very much. Headphone?
Speaker 2: Is that chilly cool?
Speaker 3: Thank you?
Speaker 4: That's probably some meaning that I just don't get I'm
Speaker 4: too old. Chop At TV, thank you very much, Number one,
Speaker 4: Ryan Joffrey, thank you very much for my dead father.
Speaker 4: Chris incredible man, Patriot, our condolences. And Corbyn, thank you
Speaker 4: very much. After the two thousand and eight Mumbai attacks,
Speaker 4: the relationships between the US and India begin to solidify.
Speaker 4: In any form of cooperative training.
Speaker 2: Training, No, not from the intelligence perspectives. The Indians are
Speaker 2: extremely proud and do not take agency training lightly unless
Speaker 2: it's of a technical nature that they don't have a
Speaker 2: capability of which they're pretty well heals. No, it did
Speaker 2: not change. Uh. It actually to some extent exacerbated the
Speaker 2: relationship because we would not help them as much as
Speaker 2: they wanted us to help them because the Pakistan issue.
Speaker 3: What is there? Where is their background in terms of
Speaker 3: their intelligence training? Who did they like?
Speaker 4: Did they base their intelligence methodology often in particular country?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they started from the British. Yeah, okay, it is.
Speaker 2: It is. It is modeled on m I five and
Speaker 2: m I six. Uh. But somewhere in the sixties that
Speaker 2: split off and the organization stayed the same. But a
Speaker 2: lot of the training came from the Russians.
Speaker 3: Okay, and then on Patreon. Oh, this is what we'll answer.
Speaker 4: This is this question about Ranger tab we weill uh, well,
Speaker 4: we'll answer this.
Speaker 3: Question on Patreon. So that's it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: We deeply thank you for having me enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this has been an awesome interview, and like I said,
Speaker 1: I love to talk to you again. Should I announce
Speaker 1: who's coming up next week?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: I uh, I'm sorry if I'm a little delinquent on this.
Speaker 3: Well, Jack's looking that up.
Speaker 4: Make sure you check out check out debrief a rundown
Speaker 4: dot com.
Speaker 1: And please take a look at our friends at Casa
Speaker 1: Carabello Cigars Casocarabeo dot com. That's what we've been smoking
Speaker 1: here on the show.
Speaker 2: Next week, we're gonna have Frank Delasio. Thank you for
Speaker 2: another ATS agent in studio.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Frank was on the episode once or was
Speaker 1: on the show once before, and he's gonna come in
Speaker 1: studio and I think actually he's gonna he's bringing one
Speaker 1: of his buddies with him too, So we'll have him
Speaker 1: here next Friday. We're definitely excited about that. Thanks for
Speaker 1: reminding me. So, Louis, thank you for an awesome episode man,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Yeah, I have a great rest
Speaker 1: of your weekend and I hope to talk to you
Speaker 1: again soon. All right, thanks Mal, all right, see you
Speaker 1: guys soon. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thanks everybody.