hello and welcome to inside intelligence brought to you by the Johns Hopkins University and advanced academic programs today's program features Jack Devine discussing the session on spying and covert action Made Simple my name is Peter Huggins I'm the event producer today's event will be recorded and uploaded to the AAP YouTube channel under the inside intelligence playlist and that'll be uploaded most likely by tomorrow if you have any questions during today's event please use the Q a function in Zoom webinar and we'll get to as many of the questions as possible over before we finish off at one o'clock I'd like to introduce the moderator of today's session Dr Michael Ard who is the program director and Senior lecture for the MSN intelligence analysis program with that I'll turn the program over to Dr Ard thank you very much Peter and welcome everybody to inside intelligence we're very pleased to have with us Jack Devine uh who is founding partner and president of the Arkin Group which specializes in international crisis management strategic intelligence investigative research and business problem solving he's also a 32-year veteran in Central Intelligence Agency he served as both acting director and associate director of cia's operations outside the United States from 1993 to 1995 where he had supervisory authority over thousands of CIA employees in addition he served as chief of the Latin American Division from 1992 to 93 and was principal manager of the CIA sensitive projects in Latin America between 1990 and 1992 he headed cia's counter-narcotic Center which was responsible for coordinating building close cooperation between all major U.S and foreign law enforcement agencies in tracking worldwide narcotics and crime organizations from 1985 to 87 Jack headed cia's Afghan task force which successfully countered Soviet aggression in the region and for which he was awarded cia's meritorious officer award is also the recipient of the agency's distinguished intelligence medal and several other emeritorious Awards he's recognized expert in intelligence and has written numerous op-ed articles and is the author of good hunting and American spymaster story and the spymaster's prison which came out in 2021 he resides in New York City we welcome Jack Devine to our program and uh Jack uh we have it we have a good agenda today spying and covert action Made Simple so let me start out with a simple question why spying why is it still important when there's so many resources that we can rely on including technical collection open source uh and even you know Digital Collection of computers why do we still need spots well this is why you're going to make this simple for everybody um so first of all spying goes back to the beginning of time as far as I know and so through the even from the Bible you'll hear about spying on Jericho and and even covert action in the case of Jericho so it's been part of uh our human existence every and if you come to the United States and you start looking at presidents George Washington was a great Advocate and user of it so it was Abraham Lincoln Franklin Roosevelt depict all the top presidents during wartime and they they all have how a put a heavy emphasis on intelligence there was one Secretary of State if I remember and his name will come to me in a minute but that gentlemen do not spy right now he went late he didn't run in his career yes later on he changed his mind right but today your point is a real uh particularly good one when I first joined the level of Technology was infantile compared to what we have today I mean the concept of of Big Data being able to Google something and have it your finger test let alone catch EBT in other words the amount of information that is so available in the social media one of the problems in the analytical side is how do you sift through all of it how do you make sense out of it there's so much repetition false information so there are challenges however the question is if you're looking at a crisis somewhere what isn't going to help you is what is what is the president of that country's policies what is he thinking where is he going and some of these things are helpful but I would say the ability to have human sources close in to decision makers and hostile governments will always be of high value so I I think it's it's a crowd of space intelligence is so much bigger we were just talking about it no University had an intelligence program now all the schools the major schools have it it's indicative just how much it's become part of the our culture today we are much more involved in intelligence in every every aspect the concept has become somewhat democratized as as everybody you know gets in as so many people studying it but also having access to information that they've never had access before um you raised something about covert action early on on the Bible it goes back to the Bible um and uh where we see examples of covert action and uh at work what about that though I mean we want to talk a little bit more about that today and how what role that plays in under the general uh rubric of spying let me go to our theme about trying to make it simple so let's move right from Modern Times to CIA by moderate I'm talking about 1947. that's when the agency was created and that's when they were given a legal Charter for spying okay what's interesting in the charter is it says you know you're authorized the spine your president United States believes we need this information and you're the collected for human sources and Technical beings we didn't have satellites until a few years later but early on they sensed that but there's one clause in it that says and carry out those special activities as directed by the president United States that's the CIA Charter for your feed today that's what covert action is not collecting information it's taking actions on behalf of the president anywhere he wants to go I want to hit one of my key points at this point it usually comes up much further in the discussion um I'm able to write books because I was involved in a lot of program action issues pointed out most of my colleagues 95 would prefer to have nothing to do with covert you know covert action because it's fraught with problems that usually hits the press and it becomes sometimes it's a very controversial issue but I've studied covert I practiced it I studied it and the history of it and I suspect it's very much true today there I know of no case in the history of the CIA where covert action was used without the approval of the president United States and no example from 1973 that wasn't in writing and all the things that you talk about that I did in the film reaction Arena were all in the direction of the president United States I think the average American and probably uh large segments do not believe that but I defy anyone to come forward and show code redaction that was not authorized by the president United States so that's first simple point that everybody bear in mind one of the quests one of the things that you know comes out in your book and you know because you saw it before the church committee and after so there was a period of time when you were working in this area and uh and then uh before you know the the uh committee hearings in the mid 70s and then later so let's talk about maybe uh one of your initial cases was in Chile which was in the early 70s before the church commission and uh what and your experiences with that and covert action so I think that's a really good case study and it was very formative people need to realize that I saw my very first assignment green in a foreign foreign land and I was thrown into the second most important covert action operation in the agency at that time the other one was Vietnam Vietnam is largely power military but the second most important place was Chile the president United States Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger felt that there was a major national security threat coming out of Chile and that there would be their quote red sandwich that if you had Cuba and Chile that you would be able to convert the southern hemisphere into Economist area so no one invited me in to discuss the policy right I just went out there in fact I was on the the special task force was set up when actually was decided to take be undertaken and it became cover action that is the president United States said do whatever it takes to prevent India this socialist Coalition which included the Communist Party from taking power and this is also important presidential director the chief of station who was a old time World War II veteran from OSS days wrote back I actually looked at it that I was giving you something and he said please do not tell people that there's a Surefire way of solving this problem this we do not have the capability it's going to cause bloodshot it will fail it receive the note from the director based on the president's wishes and give it a try that's bad covert action okay now I know we can get into we could spend this whole session talking about what happened in Chile I'm going to try and keep it tight and again this means that the audience has to have understood some of the history so Back in 1970 president Andy was elected with a plurality of 39 of a leftist coalition and became president before he was president the CIA tried I'll try and be nice here a wrong-footed effort I mean they just didn't have the capability but why they were running around trying to find some general to take action a splinter group of retired military came up with a bright idea unrelated to CIA and without its supporter guidance and tried to kidnap the commander Chief of the Armed Forces he was killed in the process to command or chief and the country completely turned around on that spot and the sympathetic allendy that he should be president it's just an overnight everything in turn President Nixon sent out a note saying there'll be no more covert action that's no no more excuse me let me correct that no more conspiring with the military but proceed in covert action and supporting the opposition so if you fast forward I was there in 73 my wife is I may have mentioned to you one of my agents got the first report but I was out having a nice Italian lunch and one of the officers ran her down and said um your wife is ran me down and said that your wife is trying to reach you because it's very important well it turned out one of my agents walked by the house is not going to just said I'm leaving the country I can't get all the Jack this is free cell phone and all those fancy things and and there's going to be cool this starts on the 11th it'll start at seven radioactive tour will announce it so I got the report and it went in so much has been written so many movies that was the first official notice that we had any idea that the military was about to bring it off because people can believe it don't believe it you pointed out something which is really a good reference material for people on this show and that is go read the sentence investigation I was appalled as a young man I was in my at that point in Earl very early 30s and I said God you mean I'm out here working now I'm going to read everything I did the cable is in that file um and many of the things I did at her in the file not identified because I was said to cover at the time and I thought this is outrageous but with the advantage of age and experience I look back and re-read it I thought well you know they did an excellent job they really did they investigated they talked to everybody the story they tell is the story I would tell and have told in the books that you mentioned so uh the agency is often identified as the work with the military to overthrow just as not true thanks don't support it but was I out there meeting political parties supporting them supporting the media against the opposition which was trying to crush them and that was indeed uh something that I engaged in and I feel comfortable then I feel uncomfortable now I wish we had State the course on that but the pre the military preempted this with a Coke it certainly was I mean Chile then was certainly a cold war Battleground obviously uh that something that people sometimes forget the Cubans were there the KGB was there I mean it wasn't like it was uh it wasn't like it was only CIA was there there was a report that came in uh sometime thereafter uh this was the Russians uh attempt to bring the Communist Party to power through The Ballot Box that they thought they could manipulate we have very good sources in the feminist party back in those days best source and they were pretty cold-eyed they knew again these weaknesses they were predicting his shortcomings and the Russians began to back off because of it because they thought he was he was going to fall but the Communists as I said were were very much in the now so um what happened is we got a report saying this was we tried it we tried to get through The Ballot Box we're never going to do that again we'll use Force so in a way that turned the tide in terms of the Russians ability or willingness to pursue The Ballot Box they thought we could beat them in that that plating field so to some degree that was a success I was not happy with appendician I never I didn't feel that was the right answer and uh as a young man I said we should get him out and get the parties back in power but again unfortunately no one put that in paper and send it anywhere but I think uh you know it was important to stop what was happening but the way it ended would not have been my my preferred path uh one thing I wanted to just a reminder audience today uh we have a great turnout today um we'll try to get to as many questions as possible do um write them short so I can pick the I can pick them out and uh relay them to Jack quickly um so we don't get bogged down sometimes if you write a lot I I will skip it so uh so try to write uh short 50 questions if you can um Jack let's talk a little bit more if you don't mind I caught I caught one out of a quarter of my eye which yeah yeah try to listen and I'm trying to follow yeah I I don't do that but I I couldn't help it it said I'm surprised Jack's able to talk this way yeah and I most of my colleagues can't because and so half of my career was involved in Espionage which is a different story and I did know Ricketts doing well and we can talk about that side of the business but the reason I can talk about it is so much of it became public everything I did became public and this is the lessons to those that want to get into this business and CIA when you go into it be prepared if you live long enough you're going to read about it so there's nothing don't worry about me being drugged out in the middle of this interview because I'm passing on inside information and CIA CI people come and drive me away it's not going to happen I so feel a little comfortable about that but there is a lot to be said in a lot of thought that is not you know that that's different than just straight facts and that's what I hope to bring bring to the table today uh let's uh let's talk about um Iran uh because that was also one of your important accounts and uh in the mid 80s a fateful time to be on on the Iran desk and um uh let what uh that was another example of a covert action uh effort that uh didn't go by the book this is this is one that is so multifaceted that I really was tempted to write a book just on on this issue I actually even tried to convince somebody in the media business because I think it's such an important lesson for America and for those who are practitioners in foreign policy military policy and particular CIA so for those in the audience that aren't aware or too young to have been part of it the reckon Administration is strong and as popular it was in the scenario it's uh the second term it almost fell apart over the Orion country Australia so if we're going to try and do this as tight as I can I was a chief of station in Central and uh not in Central America but not far away and uh I wasn't happy the way it was shaking out so I thought well maybe a change of environment so I uh I knew the chief of the Middle East Deputy Chief and he invited me to go over and take over a run so I thought I was out of Central America made a brilliant move now I'm going to work against this demon demon uh State that's out there out to kill us literally so I started working and all of a sudden one day I got a call from the director's office they want you up here right away because we're worried about the hostages and we've got a source who may really be able to help us I said what's his name go Bonnie for it I was not seasoned in Iran I knew how to run operations but I was not an expert my Deputy for she was he said Jack before you go out the door to answer this file and this guy's bad news and he's been two burners you know he's been polygraphed he's lying he's uh you know be careful don't get us involved Jack you know that was like a major maybe a colonel like Colonel if you were converting it so here I am going at the center for at the state and so the White House had identified a source and I don't want to bog that story down but they found the source that would go by me for her and he was a bad source as far as I'm concerned and the director thought that he had information about hostages and we were very sensitive about hostages that the Iranians had held and or chief of station in Beirut and James Buckley was kidnapped and murdered under heavy torture and they sent the videos for the president and the head of the CIA both of them sat down and watched these horrible things that were determined to do something about the hostages so this is rooted this bad operation is rooted in the best of intentions to help the hostages but there's you know there's issues that then unfold from it so I said look uh maybe has information but we better polygraph him because this is a a a person and it's well known to the specialist in this field and they think he's unreliable so I'm as authorized I was pleased with that I went out with the polygrapher just the two of us polygraphed them in Georgetown he flunked every relevant question now I wasn't in a room I'm clear on that I did know the questions I wanted to make sure they you know we were hitting the right questions and he laughed in the White House consultant said oh call me tell me tell me how it went well the consultant wasn't aware that I worked for the director of CIA and I didn't report to him so I left and we were going to have a meeting with the the head of operations the next day but the consultant somehow was random raving now that those opposite and saying I want to talk to that guy because whoever did it he beat up and go body form which isn't true I mean I'd like to maybe maybe that was a maybe he was reading my mind but that didn't happen so when I got a call deputy director of operation what happened Jack and I said let me tell you missed all of this all of his questions so they said we're out of it and I you know young and naive I pinned the medal of myself for doing what my deputy said keep the salad well line in now is the director turned around and gave it off to an analyst I'm sure didn't want it and they continued to work with it and this was in in the in December and I got a call excuse me but I was dealing with him this December I got a call in February to be the head of the Middle East Division and I went up and he said jacket I feel like this the president has signed the directive that we're going to trade missiles for us he did will you put the flights together so I got involved in the logistics of making the place I was I thought it would never happen because it's a bad idea and it was against our policy the U.S policy policy there's no trading hostages uh no no trading uh for hostages and the reason was in the decades before people were being kidnapped around the world and if you paid the hot and paid the hostage fee then they would kidnap someone else and raise the fee so it was a policy policy to change is the entitlement of the president the president on the spot can change the policy that's his decision so he changed the files I wasn't happy about it but um so I went ahead and made the the uh the transfer of the the weapons what I didn't know is that Joe bonifar was double charging and the rest of the money was going into a secret bank account and that the White House was working its own operation with some folks off of the books and they were all dedicated they all wanted to be successful in Central America and defeat the Communists at the time their motives were good the problem was the Congress had passed the bill called the ball of Amendment which was made it illegal for any money to come into the treasury and to be used for the Central America when that happened the law was broken and it was that moment I was sitting in South Jersey at the beach vacation or whatever and um you know I gotta when I got back to the house I turned the TV on and there's the Attorney General announcing this what had happened and the lens we had that huge investigation Congressional investigation it was never quite clear what the president now and didn't know so the reason I think this is such an important case is this is covert action and when you're doing covert action you must always stay within the lines and I said before I know of no case where the agency was involved in one that wasn't approved this was approved but the agency was not involved in the actual there was no one there were a few officers that on their own did that and they were penalized for it but the agency wasn't involved in Breaking the bowling Amendment some of its officers were and sadly because I know they were all people of you know strong national interests in our country and so on but you have to stay within the lines and I disagree with the policy of trading hostages for missiles and um and I I think that that was a mistake but that's that's not a CIA decision that's a presidential policy decision so this and the hostage some hostages were released others were seized and unfortunately the spark or chief Buckley James was was that at the time and we didn't find out about it until later but so that is a bad case of code reaction and a lot of lessons to be learned and we talked about Chile Where part of it was bad and and part of it I would consider within the bounds of what I felt comfortable doing I hope we get to Afghanistan where I think we have a good chance I don't want to do all bad cases we we can let's talk about a good one let's talk about Afghanistan and your role in that well I've addressed it in both of the books and I and the one that I the second one is interesting because there's so many lessons in spy Masters prison that apply to the Ukraine situation right and uh and frankly I I have a fairly long section on Ukraine because I was there in 8 2018 when I was doing the writing on this book and I said you know Putin's going to underestimate the Ukraine this is there he's going for a real fighting he's coming in here and then this is going to be the center of the third Cold War right right so leaving that aside uh I was as I said during Iranian operations and when all this uh stuff was unfolding but down a hole was a room with a red door and notice nothing on the door but in there was our Afghan program and the president United States uh Jimmy Carter back then when they invaded the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 79 passed the covert action finding do what you can to to push back and over the years the program got stronger and better we would do some new things that Russians would do back and forth but maybe late 85 Washington sentiment and including the media was that the mujideen was lucid and again I just want to mention the word Ukraine once in a while and the the president had a meeting I was not involved as a second-hand information with the top policy makers and said are we going to plead Russia to that or is there an end game and the the decision was let's give it one more used push well we had a budget of some around 200 to 300 million depending on which part of the year you're talking and it went to a billion dollars almost a billion dollars and which was a lot of money in those days and for covert action the largest budget in our history up until recent times there's much more money spent and the decision was to triple it and we were I was put in charge of the the new Surge and the fellow no Bearden was an outstanding officer and a a real commander in the field went out there takes over an Islamabad and was a big Push by many many people to try and make it work but we were stymied because of the helicopters that the Russians put in the play the Hein helicopter we couldn't move nine million pounds of orders across the border I had mules ready everything trained I mean we were all set couldn't move it and we've been trying one way after another to try to get a a missile system that would knock out behind and we tried Sands and blow pipes and on various nothing worked and I was invited down to what I think would be some cabinet type meeting and there was a demonstration of a mocked behind helicopter getting hit by a stinger and we have to have that now the truth of the matter is everybody in the room wanted to have it six months before that and the agency was not inclined to do it because they're worried about World War III not now I get it better I endorsed it before I know it I got a cold said well the president signed to you know signed the authority You've Got The Stingers then I had to go over and talk to State I was not State Defense I was the least popular guy that week when I remember and said I went your Stingers the lieutenant General charge all the Chelsea said Jack the troops on the front line don't have it I'm not giving you those two and I said I understand but you know I've got to play anymore and I left the White House you know was well I called them and they called him and I went back and we were never friends but we got the missiles and the amazing thing is we didn't really know what was going to happen and the first when it was deployed the field the first missile no one knows this or it's not popular but the first one went out sixty thousand dollars were bouncing along the ground field team called back the the Milton said oh that the mindset is a piece of Joy it was where more uh more critical than that but for your audience I want to be delicate but the next three shot down the helicopt is one two three and there was video of it and oversight overhead imagery and the next day I had the imagery I think it was September 26 of 86 and um but when I put it on director Casey's steps and sometimes you have almost a non-verbal discussion until we got to the point where it was this this is the end this this is going to change before and I believe that but I didn't believe it as dramatically as it happened because what it wasn't shooting down the helicopters the next day the Russians started flying out of the range which allowed all of the support to go across the border and the decision makers back in Russia started talking about this time we this is going to know where we're going to get out of Afghanistan and I believe they're exit from Afghanistan along with their economy in terrible tradition and the the exhaustion of the Communist line came together at just the right time and I think it was a contributor it was probably it is the only if I had to look at my career I think I did a lot of lucky to be doing a lot of interesting it's the closest I've got to I think we could say history history changed and I was somewhere in the environment of that when we were fighting the Russians and that that missile system went in that's a good covert action sir why is it a good covert actually we had a real enemy going in threatening a region that we really cared about we had people on the ground we were ready to go we had bipartisan support don't forget that one ample funding this wasn't dabbling of you know so someone can say back home I'm supporting this you know it was a very measured measured effort so and the outcome we were optimistic we'd be able to hold them but the outcome turned out even better and how the the departure now I did get to stand on the Friendship Bridge with no Bearden and KGB offices in 91 and I'll we'll get to that story maybe at some point but this is an example of it being done right the American people were behind it Congress was behind it president behind it you had a country let me add we had allies the pakistanis were with us the Egyptians and believe it or not in today's environment the biggest supplier of arms to me were the Chinese and this is not a secret anymore but it wasn't so that's what makes for a really good program the one in Chile I said you know you don't do something when you know it's not going to work I mean that's you know that's irresponsible code redaction you don't in the Iran case get off the tracks and do something that's out of uh out of out of sync with our laws and I I Look to and there's many many covert actions that have been successful over the years one of the most famous being 48 in Italy and stopping communism rolling over here but so when you're looking at covert action you know I'm an advocate for it and I'm a practitioner but under very strict rules and there was when before you start to apply this is why I come back to you know you come back to your theme that's simple but very simple thing you better be straight with yourself about will I succeed is this feasible and do I have the resources in that country you're not going to force feed any cover action if you don't have people on the ground it will fail so there are principles that need to be followed and are not as complicated as one may think um that's a great answer for that listen and Conor I think uh that may get after one of our uh uh questions here with Connor Connor right back if uh you want more on that but I think I said a lot about how in a society sections are as a Democratic Society and the use of covert action the importance of having the Congress and the public behind something is something like that for it to work and for that and for the officers involved be to be protected now let's get to another question I think that uh from our audience and this gets to your uh Russia interest Jack is um what's going on now how is covert action being employed and how should it be employed well first of all it should be employed uh in within the uh the context of what I'm saying in terms of the rules let me put a footnote on The Afghan program uh before I address that if you don't mind sure I wanted to mention you know there's a great a good movie called uh Charlie Wilson's one and uh Charlie Wilson is the congressman in western Texas flamboyant guy traveled with a and we're the war was called Charlie Wilson's law and um I told Michael this the other day I said Charlie once at a restaurant with our spouses reached across and put his arm handle my arm and said you know you didn't like the book you're gonna hate the movie you had a great sense of humor I didn't think it was as funny as he did but the reason is it wasn't a congressman's war I went to American people to understand this this was a U.S government sponsored by the Congress and the president United States and Charlie Wilson deserves a medal um and the people like me get credit but the truth of the matter is the cable that was sent out from the field said we won and that meant there were a lot of people involved in it and I also wanted to underscore well Charlie was a great contributor covert action really has to be run by the government and controlled by it they didn't have any decision about what weapons were used who got them and maybe four or five calls that were operationally oriented absolute most over a year and a half of dealing close for them never interfered with it at all so I wanted to set that aside when we go to the modern world I read the the other you know when Putin invaded uh Ukraine I went to my closet to find my dagger because oh we're going to come out of Duty here we are back in the Cold War I mean it was there it is again I had written a number of pieces talking about the need to return the Russians to return with us for the old rules we had in the Cold War they're called Moscow rules about what you do and what you don't do in the in the war and he wouldn't play apparently so he unilaterally has a vision that is reminiscent to me of everything I see in a cold war you know he invaded a country that I believe uh was uh Democratic leading in our certainly in our Direction aligned with us um and Putin doesn't have communism and I think that's a great weakness if he hasn't happened it doesn't have United Unity um ideology but he has this Wagner group they're all around the world people need to stop and look in Africa they are operating an entire military ways supporting people and trying to work against the West the West being our NATO allies but also our friends in Asia and around the world they're everywhere and this is we can address how this flew up in his face but there's no mistake that he's out there pushing covert action he's a spy Master of the 1950s generation he's not even in my generation mentally he's back in the Carla Cold War dreds that anything goes so he he is a practitioner and therefore there's room on our side for covert action and um My Hope and expectation is and everything I read would leave me with a sense I'm not this is the part where I will not reveal anything because I don't know anything but that I I do think that the world now we have to counter him wherever he tries to push him whether it's the Middle East or Africa in the Venezuela I mean I I think he's uh he's in a battle I think he said way off this way over his skis I think I have two lapis in the Wall Street Journal one when he went in saying he just sowed the season of his own demise and I want another one just for a few months ago saying it's not just about Ukraine it's about the balance of power between the U.S its allies and non-democratic countries like right Russia and we this is this is a new struggle and so you use the tools of the trade which includes covert action there is one other characteristic about covert action one of the principles is you have to exhaust everything else right you don't jump in and I I've been opposed to putting standing armies in places where I would rather have done covert action covert action is what you do when let's say you're in Africa and you you've tried everything else then you do covert action and if that doesn't work and our national interests are truly at stake then we begin to talk about do we use military intervention I'm very hesitant most people I know most people in senior positions the government the last thing they want to do most generals the spread going into war because they know the price that is paid by the young men and women working for them so I the world we're in I think co-production is back should be by the um let's talk about the counterintelligence aspect of uh this uh two Jack I mean in terms of it in terms of uh uh say confronting the Russians in their uh International Grand strategy how is uh our our counterintelligence play a role in this today well you know at the very beginning you started why do we need human sources one of the Endeavors is what is the enemy doing to your own government I mean so if you'll bear with me for a second the most famous spy inside the CIA was all retains whose fate would have it but he first joined the agency I sat 10 feet from him I was invited to his wedding and went and later in my career I actually supervised them for several months and I knew Rick very well um and he had flaws that I think are those that make you vulnerable in becoming a spy for the other side but many people inside the agency had trouble accepting the fact that we could have a spy inside in other words that we were so so patriotic so loyal so that spies didn't come you know would never have a spy and I sat there I was I think you number two are number one at the time but in operations and I sat there thinking you know we get spies in theirs they've always had spies why would anybody be surprised the job is to protect yourself from it and one of the ambitious administrating officers put out buttons all these free buttons never again after hurricanes was was wrapped up but the truth of matter is I knew that Robert Hansen was was out there and therefore I mean well I refused on principle I just didn't believe that never again we were going to have spies I don't want to alarm the director and there's probably one floating around somewhere and you've got to be alert how do you find them is by having one in the Russian side and that's how you you need to be aggressive collecting human intelligence you have to position yourself because sometimes those sources volunteer they come to you and you almost always catch a spy through another spot we've lost we lose our agents because the Russians had a spy in our place and Rick allridge's Case he coughed up the names of 11 of Our Best Buys in the Soviet system they were all executed and the way Rick was eventually wrapped up was because they the spy in there had access uh the information about him in the case of Hanson they actually had a video that the Spy came out and gave us another video or a recording of his voice and the FBI sat there and heard him so yes the battle's engaged and this is why I I think I have no trouble relating to this environment in the context of the Cold War the big thing that's missing and huge Advantage for us is there is no ideology I mean he's just the uh you know someone to try and recreate a czar relationship without the the the the blind right of kings so you know he's he I believe he's way out of risk he's because of that uh one of the questions was about um Wilderness of mirrors and the legacy of uh James Angleton and as uh the counterintelligence chief in in CIA for many years um what how looking back on that I mean obviously angleton's big Obsession was moles within the agency moles within the US government and and uh but did this did this create more uh problems for us uh did we become too paranoid about it and did this there is a real Temptation a little dose of paranoia and my line of work was was useful right not too much and you got to wait it but Angleton knew um can philby I think they were friends at one point and it really sours you when a friend becomes a spy it just like you know you're just sees sees with it's betrayal he betrayed his country he protected his friends so I think Angleton had a deep-seated interest in counterintelligence he built a myth around himself I think uh I never worked for him um a friend of mine did but I did remember you know you'd go into his office and the room was dark just that little green lamp on there and he was made himself bit of a mystery man and um and but he he had a lot to say about penetrations inside of the agency he got Hoodwinked in my opinion this is very controversial number of CIA people will say I'm totally wrong but the preponderance in the final decision comes down where I would come down before and I did not have part of the role in the decision and that was a Defector came out and uh we had him uh you know under um under containment if you will for a couple of years and no one believed him but earlier a Defector had come out and and for whatever reason Jim Angleton just believed that the guy was right he said and you have all these penetrations anybody coming here saying they're a spy want to work for you they're bad and he believed that and he said you have some in there now and he gave initials I think one was K one was asked and that they were at Eastern European or Russian or uh orientation there were a number of officers their careers were ruined because the agency thought they fit or angleton's counterintelligence thought they'd fit the bill uh years later Angleton was removed when when director Cole became the power he was fired the next day was the first thing that happened and they cleaned they cleaned houses the counterintelligence area and those people were were rehabilitated in a way in which you know they were able to see rep reparations if you will for it but it doesn't fix your heart so they lost their lost their career so there was a I'm I'm sure and I'm assured that he's done he did great things but I at the time I thought this even as a young person I could feel that there was some drag on our effort to recruit Russians and I think it was in the overweighting of the counterintelligence threat and that everybody isn't a threat and you have to take some chances so it's a very very difficult part of the business but betrayal is Central you know we do another one someday on buying you know what makes people spy you know why you know why does that happen well how do you protect yourself as a theme well beyond covert action but it's uh it's very germane to the business we're gonna jump around for uh to cover some questions maybe the themes will change quickly uh one back to Iran um Iran obviously has uh since you know you were working the issue um has probably expanded its um influence in the Middle East um where where we to um passive about this where should we have been using uh instruments like covert action more attempting to um to check Iran's advances within the Middle East well I think regime change probably would have been desirable by everyone but let's come back because first of all national security threat but then you get to my second principles do you have any opportunities for regime change and we've been looking at this since 78 right and the truth of the matter is there is no no organizing there's nothing there to work with right it's you could go in and make a lot of trouble because of sterile problems but the ingredients aren't there if you came to me and said Jack I got a great idea I wouldn't change the regime and so tell me how you're going to go and uh I think the possibilities are there so your best effort is to get the best intelligence you can make sure you understand what you're doing and you block them everywhere outside of there and you contain them you make like miserable for them so that the Iranian people decide that they want to change when that happens then then you can revisit the issue to give them a little extra push at the end I in the op-ed I wrote about Putin about to jump from place to place I'm very clear in there that uh he is if he when he falls and I believe he will it has to be by the Russian people and do not try some some some wild idea to create trouble in there so he's going to go it just isn't going to work it'll turn and flip on you I keep coming back to the same point you have to do a really careful intelligence analysis of a country it isn't just you're annoyed and you want to stop somebody you're obligated and I believe ethically to make sure that you can bring success so you're not going to have Bloodshed you're not going to cause problems and come up with a goose egg so I I would say to you we should be trying to block them everywhere we can outside of Iran and keep pressure on them internally but I do not see a role for covert action inside and I've looked at it many years ago and I looked at it closely and it just it wasn't there it's not there today there's more tension inside than than in their husband a long time but the people who've been coming to you for years that said just light the match I almost named titled one of the books all it takes is a spark because I can't tell you how many people would come and say Jack my country's in trouble if you folks would just go in and light it match you know it'll all work and I said come back when you have all the plumbing in they're not let's not talk about matches let's talk about what you're going to do and you know and what your real the real situation is but all it takes is a spark have you ever hear anyone come into a meeting and a policy to run yeah throw them out don't run away keep your job right something good is bound to happen it's so it'll it'll work out and this is the Tilly case it literally said give it a good try you can't do that that cable should never be written exactly okay that that's um uh um several questions uh touch on disinformation which is part of this it can be part of corporate action uh certainly uh part of the general you know spying work how do we deal how uh do we best deal with this as this is becoming more of an acute threat it's something that you point on your book I said it's the beginning when I was in the business of covert action we were in our the media side of it influence side and disinformation in its infancy right I'm not even giving it childhood you know if you wanted to have a demonstration you put up some you know some uh um placards that slogans on it today I can sit here and start start to get a crowd rolling and you know downtown uh Buffalo by sending out a series of messages right no one even has to see me and I can cause trouble right so the power the disruptive power of this information the blogs and the ability to get misinformation into the system is mind-boggling right AI is going to make us feel like we're in high school today right because it's going to advance the ability to do this so from an intelligence point of view how you sit there is one the second is the social media has a tremendous intelligence disruptive capability you can destroy anything you can't build anything from it but you can sure as hell destroy uh destroy people destroy companies and cause problems again I would come back you better have a you better have a policy and you better have what I was hoping is that would be some understanding between the big practitioners let's say or adversaries that are ourselves one-on-one any document designed at the U.N or the agreement between this country and I just ignore it it's there are people everywhere going to use cyber to their maximum and so including our adversaries I hope we were in the game about their eyes and I believe we are eyeballs and so there needs to be be rules but the power of it is mine mind-boggling and it's so much harder it's so much harder but the average CIA person has so much more power at their disposal if authorized by the president of the United States and overseen my kind of risk uh get into a few more and um sorry if I'm if I'm skipping around a little bit here but um we we also talked about um we talked about a couple of covert actions that didn't go very well um how does a how does the how does policy recover from that how did we how do we recover from that on uh say uh Chile or or Iran what are the what were the consequences the big Fallout well let's do the bad pigs was one of the big failures and it predates me but a number of the people that were in it including the advisor that brought me to Latin American Division we played a big part in it and I'm grateful that and the uh the problem is but Jack Kennedy said to Alan Dulles who was the head of the CIA you just had a big problem and one of us has to go and guess who and so it was Adam does I believe right so uh and then there's a tendency to pull your horns in okay we're never going to do that again and that was a mistake we could Analyze That in this theme but not at the time time left the problem is it's not an accident that in the charter it says carry out those special activities assassinated by the president of the United States so every time there's a flat people pull back but then they realize we can't deal with this problem militarily we can't fix this problem economically or any other way we need we need to find we need to bring resources to the table and it comes back so hopefully we learn lessons uh hopefully but let me the book is out I'm not writing a book saying we finally figured it out so the Next Generation can handle without the Plex but I think you're on safe base if you start with you have bipartisan support if you start with that your chances of a flap are greatly reduced whatever you may think of our Congress today all of them have the same thing they want to be re-elected and therefore not out of altruism but they are going to decide what the people will want and accept this issue so you're you're not going to get much if you fail and you give it a you know you gave it your all and it was sensible the American people will be with you as long as you're you know as long as you're candid and full with them but you save yourself the trouble if you follow the principles have been laid out historically for a just war or any use of force and if you have bipartisan support that's a striking com uh chapter in your book on just war and how it how it corresponds to put over action and especially the need for being proportioned to what the threat is and what the potential and what the potential uh costs are I think it's been around you know Augustine wrote to it and the theaters in the 13th century it's not novel other than they didn't know anything about bipartisan support right but but for generations and those that study ethics and so on I mean this has been an issue for a long time but most of the people that I know may not even heard of you know the arguments were just for but they go through the same the same practical considerations they're practical is it really a threat you know is it something we can get done or is this the last resort have we minimize Bloodshed right and you know do we have the team to get it done so you know if you stick with that without the without a formal training unit uh you know you're the world would be a better place Jack thank you very much today for uh being with us and talking about your your uh great career and some of the lessons that you've learned on spying a covert action over the years um I'm just going by the way uh folks uh some few of you have been asking about what books to read things to get ready or maybe a career um you know certainly I would I would pick up Jack's book the spymaster's prism you'll learn a lot um I uh if you want to read Legacy advances go ahead just don't know right Tim and I go back Tim and I go back a long way the writer of the book he and I are not in agreement but we maintain a friendly relationship but uh Tim and I do not agree I just want to make sure your readers understand that the legacy of Ashes Eisenhower authorized 300 covert action operations and he quotes Eisenhower so it's uh you might enjoy just remember having the back of your head jack Devine doesn't agree that's right and and uh um so thanks thanks again and uh thanks everybody for being uh such a a great guest for our program today um please uh keep an eye out for more uh inside Intelligence webinars coming up and Jack we hope to have you back soon to talk to us again great pleasure thank you