The Eric Metaxas Show - Jack Barsky (Encore)

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Jack Barsky tells the real-life spy story of how he came to America as a Soviet sleeper agent for the KGB, but started enjoying his new life in America so much he dangerously chose to leave his old life behind.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noble gold investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxus show. I shouldn't tell you this, but Eric hired someone who sounds just like him to host today's show. But since I'm the announcer, they told me, so I'm telling you, don't be forward. the real Eric's in jail. Folks, welcome back. We're talking to our friend, Kevin McCullough. You are somebody that appreciates CSI Christian Solidarity International

and what they've been doing to free slaves. I always forget the slaves are currently held in Sudan. Northern Sudan. Sudan as a country kind of stopped existing a few years ago, largely due to the efforts of John Ibner from Christian Solidarity International, who really drew attention to the Civil War and got the Bush administration and the Tony Blair administration and a few others to get involved and to say,

hey, we need to end the Civil War. Sadly, when the world got involved, they brought the two sides together, settled, made peace. That's how South Sudan came into existence. But nobody did anything about the slaves. And so while they're all patting each other on the back, hey, look at what a great job we did. Meanwhile, there were 185,000 South Sudanese that had been taken captive by Arab jihadists in the north, and none of them were released via the agreement to bring an end to the Civil War. So what CSI has been doing diligently these many years is sending essentially underground railroad stop runners to the north to find where the slaves are, to negotiate their freedom,

to negotiate their release and to bring them home to where they need to be. And this is an amazing work. These people, largely women, have gone through excruciating life events while they've been in captivity. And if we went through the list, some of them would be so difficult. I would have a hard time being able to describe them on our airwaves. But the truth is they've been brutally, systematically abused in every form of life, emotionally, physically, sexually. They've been starved.

They've been told that they've been verbally accosted with a language and a descriptor of an animal that's so profane that we don't even have an English equivalent when you try to translate it. But they have been, they have received this treatment. every day in captivity. And some of them taken when they were five, six years old as little girls, and some of them are now in their 20s and 30s, having been kept in captivity 15, 20, 25 years in some instances. And it's what CSI is doing. No one else is doing. So it's your listeners on your show, Eric.

It's my listeners on my show. And a handful of other people across the country that have come together and said, we're going to do something about this. Thankfully, praise God, over the years, that number of 185,000. has been reduced to what we think is now around 35 to 40,000. But that means that there are still a lot of women in captivity. Some of them have had children. Praise God, the last couple of years, CSI has actually been able to negotiate the children's release in some instances as well.

The slave masters have never been open to that in the past. They are now opening up to that concept. And so we're seeing even some moms and children being reunited. but it is it is an amazing work that nobody else is doing and unless we talk about it and nobody will even know that's why what we're doing is so important well that is why ladies and gentlemen um i exhort you to join us in this um it's it's exciting that we get to do this that we get to free slaves um and and it's difficult to think that there are people enslaved but it's more difficult uh to think that you could do something about it and wouldn't do

something about it. The only question is what you might do about it, but something. You've got to do something. So the website is metaxistalk.com. I'm talking right now. I am Metaxis. Metaxistalks talk. com. You'll see it. Just dropping your first name now. It's just right at the top of the the webpage there. Metaxistalkis talk.com. You'll see the banner. You click on the banner and it will lead you to the links. Now, this is God's work. Let's be clear. We get to participate in God's work. God is against slavery, and he has used Christians in particular through the centuries to stand against slavery. So the fact that we have to do it now is horrifying, but the fact that we get to do it now is wonderful. And so jump on this, folks. Metaxis talk.com is the website. Right at the top of the page,

you'll see the link. And you can give monthly, I say this to people that, you know, maybe as a family, you want to say, well, what do you say, kids? We're going to give $25 a month. That adds up to more than $250 a year, which means that at the end of the year, you freed a slave. Every $250, according to CSI, frees a slave and sets them up in a life of, freedom. They don't just free them. They free them, which is the most difficult thing, but then they go the extra mile and they set them up in a life of freedom, which Kevin can talk about. But I want to give the phone number. I haven't given the update. As of today, May 8th, Thursday,

we have raised on this program $4,000, which is 16 slaves will be freed as a result of those of you who have given. So those of you who have given, God bless you, thank you for doing that. But we have a long way to go. The goal is to free a hundred slaves. Obviously, we'd like to free a thousand slaves. But our goal is 100. We have so far as of today, 16. So whatever you can do, every $250, frees a slave, sets them up in a life of freedom. Some of you can do many multiples of that. Suzanne and I will give generously, but we need everybody to step up

because this is something that you can't leave it to somebody else. Everybody has an opportunity to step up at whatever level whatever it is. Even if it's a small level, please give something. So the website to metaxis talk.com, you'll see the banner

at the top of the page. The number, the phone number, some of you would prefer to call. And I would ask you to call as soon as we come up to the break here. But the phone number, please write it down if you would like. 888-253-3522. 8-88-253-35-22. 8-88-253-3522. 8-88-253-3522. Before we get back to more news of the day with our friend Kevin McCullough, Kevin, I wanted you to talk a little bit about how CSI sets these folks up in a life of freedom because that is

really, it's amazing that CSI has been doing this for a long time. It's the secret sauce to giving these people a life that they've never had. And you were mentioning how families should do this together. Our family took a significant step forward during COVID because I was going to DSI on the air. And my kids overheard me doing the show from the house. And they came in and they said, dad, what are we doing about that? I said, well, we free to slave this year. And they said, no, we're going to And they said, no, we've got to do more than that. And so imperfectly, and I'm not saying we're 100% on this, but as best as we can, we ask God to try to help us be able to free one slave every month in the McCullough household. And if somebody would join us in that effort here on the Metaxa show, you're going to bless 12 human beings with brand new lives.

But let me tell you how that happens. You talked about the $250. A very small portion of that is what is needed to secure the vaccine that is actually the bar. bartering tool to get the slave released. They barter the life of their cattle for the life of a human being, and the vaccine is something that CSI can provide. It helps keep the cattle healthy. The rest of that $250 is 99% used for their relocation and starting a brand new life. And what we're talking about is a wide array of services and needs. First of all, when they're released, they get back to the border of South Sudan, and there's a recovery camp that they get.

go to where they are allowed to just talk and tell their story. They're allowed to talk with counselors. They're allowed to get medical attention. Many of these people have been maimed and butchered in ways that have left permanent health marks on them. And so there's medical needs, there's psychological needs. Those things are all offered to them at the camp. They're allowed to spend as many days there as they need to kind of get nutritionally built up. Some of them have not eaten consistently. Everything they need to, you know, kind of live that life. They've got tarps and other things that help keep them protected from the weather, blankets for the cold. It's a brand new life. Please, 888-253-3522. Please dial 888-253-3522. There's been a national focus on

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dot com. Folks, it's here from Taxus show. We've got great music, but we've got even better guests and stories. I cannot, I don't know where to begin. I'm sitting here in the studio with the author of a book called Deep Undercover, My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB spy in America. The story sounds unbelievable. It sounds like fiction.

It is an utterly true story. here with the author and the man who has lived the story, Jack Barski. Jack, welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me. Your story is truly unbelievable, and I had you on this program two and a half or so years ago. I wanted to have you back in this beautiful studio to tell the story to a new audience. Your story has several happy endings to it, so as dark as it gets, it ends up really, really beautifully. But let's just go back to the beginning.

The title says my secret life entangled allegiance is as a KGB spy in America. Tell us the first part of the story. How did you get to be a KGB spy? Yeah, well, that's not something one could aspire to. I also never thought it growing up that I was going to be a policeman and agent or in the army. I had no clue what to do. You grew up in what was the former East Germany. Yes, the Soviet-occupied East Germany.

The DDR. German Democratic Republic. We, and I grew up in a rather backward area, there wasn't much there. But the one thing that was good about East Germany, the education was excellent. It was all state education, and we were drilled. And I worked my way out of this backward area, step by step, to university. university and when I was at university, I studied chemistry. Where were you in the university?

There was in the town of Jena. Jena, in Dunea from Leipzig. I know this area. I have to, from my audience, in case anybody's missing this because I'm all a Twitter here, my mother grew up in this area. So my family is from the Ostzona, which, of course, they've been there long before it was the Ostzona, but I've been there so many times, and those people are my people, mine are familia. You know, we go there any opportunity we get.

So when I first heard your story, I said, wow, this is amazing. This is a man who grew up in this area that I know. But you really went over to the dark side. You didn't choose the path. So let's say you grew up. You just said you became, you were studying in the university, studying chemistry with no ambition to go into. to being a spy for the KGB, God forbid.

The ambition at that point, because I was an ACE student, I pretty much aced everything, my ambition was to become a tenured professor, and I was already on a path that would have succeeded. Now, if you had become a tenured professor, even in the United States, you would be a communist. So the only thing that saved you from that was becoming a KGB agent. Okay, so you want to become a tenured professor. Your ambitions are in chemistry and in the economy. academy. So what happens? Well, one day, I was in my third year of study. I'm sitting in my dorm room on a Saturday doing some work. My roommate wasn't there. There's a knock on the door.

Excuse me. This is in the 70s? Yes, it was around 74, I believe. Okay. It's 73. knock on the door, that knock was odd to begin with because the custom was for our students when we visit each other to knock and come in. There was a knock and nobody came in. So I knew there was somebody who didn't belong on a Saturday. We usually didn't have people come visit

unless they were girlfriends, and that was sort of not quite legal anyway. Anyway, so I said, come on in And in comes a man I had never seen. And he was German. And he introduced himself very quickly as a representative of Carl Zeissiana, which is still in existence. It's an optics company of international repute. Yeah, Zeiss.

Right. Of course, yeah. And he said he wanted to talk with me about my plans after graduation. Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing. What an idiot. I'm sorry. He was operating on behalf of the KGB and used a cover story that was not credible. Because in those days, when you graduated from college, unless you were at the very top,

that means you probably would have decided to stay there. Everybody was assigned someplace. And this guy wondered as if he was going to recruit me. So that's interesting. So I know already something was up. But Americans, it's interesting because we would never even think about this, that you're in a system that's so oppressive that you're not even given a choice where to work. They just send you here or send you there.

That is fundamentally, it was fundamentally correct with the exception of the superstars. And I, you know, I'm not bragging. I was a superstar. So I sort of had my choice. I was actually also recruited by the party organization and by the youth organization to, at one point, they wanted me to run the youth organization for the entire university. And so I had three things that I factor

and then came to KGB. But why would it be so strange if a representative of Zeiss comes to you knowing that you're at the top to say I want to talk to you about recruiting? No, it wasn't done. And this would not have been a plum job.

Right. To be, you know, if you come out of academia, you know, you steeped in that. You want to do more research. You want to do something like important, not be an industrial chemist. Uh-huh. Right.

So that didn't fly. So the guy knocks on your door in 1973, 74. What's the conversation? So I knew something was up, and my first thought was he's probably Stasi, East German secret police. Were you scared? No, not at all. I had nothing. I was a party member in good standing.

I had nothing to be afraid of. My family was quote-unquote clean. we didn't have any relatives in the West. So I knew he was probably going to go along the path of recruitment of some kind. You know, the Stasi also operated with a lot of unofficial, you know, contributors, so to speak. Yeah. So, you know, I'm already, this conversation is already favored in my favor. I knew who, I thought he knew, I knew who he was and he was, he was, you know, just,

trying to figure out how to talk to me and get what he wanted. So, you know, we did a lot of small talk, and then eventually he started, you know, zeroing in on this thing. And he changed his tune. And he said, you know, I have to be honest. I'm really not from Carl Seitz. I'm from the government. So, you know, my thought was, you know, I could really make him uncomfortable by asking what part of the government. So it's okay.

I let it go. I said, okay, and then he asked me the question that he, the one question he came for, could I envision myself working for the government one after graduation? At that time, I was still a student. And I gave him the answer that he was looking for without us ever saying what it was. I said, yeah, but not as a chemist. So he knew. He knew that I knew.

So he had me on the hook. and so we decided to meet again that next time wasn't a restaurant, the best restaurant in town. I got a nice free meal out of it. Do you want me to go on? What happened at that meeting? I think you've said enough. We're here to hear your story. Now, we have to say, by the way,

before you do tell what happened, I mean, you end up, of course, joining the KGB and then being planted as a spy in the United States. This is what makes your story absolutely crazy and amazing that there were KGB spies working here. You were one of them, and now you're sitting here. You have a different story. So let's go back to that, to the meeting. He takes you to a restaurant.

What's next? All right. So we, I don't know, maybe it was three in the afternoon, because in Germany you eat your big meal sometime in the middle of the day. So we had agreed to meet at a certain time. I entered the restaurant and I see the fellow at the table and it was another guy sitting at the table. Now, that is not unusual in those days in Germany.

People would share tables, strangers or not. So I didn't know should I approach him or not. So I'm going very careful, but he steps up to me and says, you know, it's all right. And he introduces the fellow next to him. And now I forgot his name, but it was a Russian name. Oh, this is... It was a Russian?

No, it was not a Russian name. He says, this is Herman. We are working with our Soviet friends. Herman is, you know, Germann. That's a Russian word. Hermann. Yeah, Herman. Yeah, that's what he called it, Hamon.

Hermann. We're working with our Soviet friends. We are working with our Soviet friends. Hang on a second. Folks, this is a story. You cannot. You won't believe this. We'll be right back talking to Jack Barski.

The book is Deep Undercover. My Secret Life Entangible. Allegiances as a KGB spy in America. It's the Eric Metaxas show. Hey there, folks. I'm talking to Jack Barski, not his real name, or is it his real name? Jack Barski, now it is your real name, isn't it? It is my legal name, yes.

But you grew up as Albrecht Dietrich. Very well said. Thank you, well, it really, it's amazing that you have lived this life. And, you know, as I say, I have relatives who lived today in what was the former East Germany and all my German relatives almost are there. But you are getting to this exciting part in the story now. So you are sitting down in this restaurant with a member of the KGB, and he doesn't reveal himself. But then he says, we're working with our Russian friends.

Of course, East Germany in those days was effectively, you know, a Russian satellite. There's no question about it. Part of the Soviet Union's empire, evil empire, in the words of Reagan. So what happens? So you sit down and you know when he says we're working with Hamon, this friend from Russia, you know this is something's going on. Well, the little German, and he was a short guy, then said goodbye. He says, you're going to be working with Herman. He hands you off to Herman.

And, you know, there was no choice or nothing. He just disappeared. I never knew his name. He had never introduced himself even with the first name. You know what? It's about time. Jack, I was that guy. You don't remember.

You don't remember. No, actually, you are much better looking than him. Oh, well, I don't want to know about that. Okay, so now you're alone. You're sitting here with a Russian guy. Right. What happens? Very nice fellow.

Yeah? And he spoke German quite well. And, you know, this was a very, very slow getting to know one another. What they were looking at me from the beginning was getting me trained. and launching me as an agent, as an undercover agent initially in West Germany. So those kinds of people you really have to get to know. You need to know whether you can trust them. Are they capable of doing this?

And it's a two-way street. The prospective agent also needs to be comfortable with that task. You don't force somebody into that. You can force spying by blackmailing and bribery. for somebody who really has secrets, but an agent who goes into, you know, behind enemy territory, needs to do this voluntarily. So I worked with this fellow for a year and a half,

and there was some, he gave me some training tasks, and we talked a lot. We became really good friends. I liked him a lot. He liked me too. And what was his name? That was Herman. Hey, man.

Yeah. At one point I made a mistake. I asked him, is he a real name? German, and he looked, and he was angry with me for that because I must, that was a no-no question. You know, it was all secret. But anyway, he liked me well enough, and I

guarantee you, we met once every week or sometimes every other week. Every time we met, he wrote a report and it became a big file. I mean, this is exactly like out of a movie, and somebody, you're probably talking to people about rights to your book. I

sold them. You sold the rights? Yes, to do a series. is not a movie. To do even better. Oh my gosh. Well, that's exciting. Well, I got to say that I just want you to keep talking. So please continue with the story.

So, and as I said, he liked me well enough. Eventually, he set me up before meeting with headquarters. That was headquarters in Berlin. That was my very first secret meeting. So I was given an address and a time. and a location where I would meet another agent. That was another Russian. So, and we, I don't know what the,

there were code words that we exchanged, so we knew we were both who we thought we were. Yeah. And he took me into headquarters. You know, that is a place where normally Germans had no access. That's where there was headquarters of the Soviet administration, including the KGB. What part of Berlin are we talking about?

Balin-Kalz-Holst. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's, the building still stands. Like, typical. I'm sure it's ugly. Greenish, yes, greenish gray, pretty ugly. Yeah. Like a monster.

Yeah. So, and, and, uh, we, we are received there in an office that was decorated with, you know, Lenin pictures and, and a bust of, um, the founder of the KGB. What's his name? The Polish. guy, Jejinsky. Jejinsky? Jejinsky?

Felix Jejinsky. Yeah, okay. And another short, like, unimportant-looking man sat behind the desk. The moment he opened his mouth, you know that he was not an unimportant man. It was a voice of steel came out of him, very high authority, and he spoke only Russian. Now, my Russian was sort of, my school Russian was good enough to understand. and most of what he was saying. There was a lot of initial propaganda

and why we're doing this and who the enemy is and all that nonsense. And then he switched gears like out of the blue. He looked at me and said, so are you in or not? And not with a smile.

And I wasn't prepared for that question. I didn't know that it was coming. So I was trying to play for time. I wasn't ready to answer. So I said, well, you know, I'm not really well trained. I got to learn this. I got to learn that. And he said, don't worry about it.

We'll train you. I want an answer. And I want an answer by tomorrow at noon. Wow. That made for a sleepless night. Because it was not an easy decision. You know, on the one hand, you know, my, my, Yena had become my hometown. I loved it there.

I played basketball on the university team. I had friends. and I had this career, and I was already somebody, and I would have to say goodbye to all of this. Forever. Forever, pretty much, and start over again. Yeah, we're going to go to another break. I'm talking to Jack Barski, sort of his real name.

The book is Deep Undercover. It's the Eric Mattaxas show. The former KGB spy, so let's turn the music down. Seriously, Jack, your story is unbelievable. Let's continue. are you're spending a sleepless night because you have been asked by this tough guy, this Soviet apparatchik. Right.

Are you in or out? That's a big life-changing question to answer. Huge. Absolutely huge. And I didn't know the extent of it, but I knew that I would have to pretty much drop everything that I had become, including all the relationships. including telling my mother a big lie about where I was going. And on the other side, there was this opportunity.

And you mentioned that I joined the dark side. To me, it was the light side. It was helping the Soviet Union and us to liberate the enslaved working classes. and create Nirvana on the planet. Yeah. I believed in that 100%. And then there was two other things that appealed to me personally, first of all. There's a very famous British agent who was once asked, Kim Filby.

I was just going to say, is it Kim Filby? It was Kim Filby. I can't think of too many agents. Kim Filby? He once asked why he joined the KGB, and his answer was, if you're asked by an elite organization to join, you don't think very long about it. So I felt very special. And the Germans have something that doesn't have a good translation in English called Wanderlust.

We like to travel. And I knew I would be able to go to places that more close to us. In America, we call it Cabin fever. That's not true. Vandalust, Wanderlust. The joy of wandering around. Yeah, no. It must have been very appealing, very flattering.

Absolutely. But the idea that you have to lie to your own mother about who you are, what you're doing, that's a price to pay. Yeah, but, you know, the rationalization was I was doing it for a cause. And you've got to understand. In East Germany and also in the Soviet Union, in the Eastern Camp, there was, there was. a mystique that was built about folks like us, agents, who would sacrifice a lot for the cause. Sure. There was in literature in the movies and sometimes in the newspapers, and I was going to be one of them.

That was enough of a reason to lie. Yeah. So it's a big step, but it sounds like you knew what you wanted to do. It's interesting that they asked you, you know, you. You have to know by tomorrow. That's interesting. I think there was a good thinking behind it. Yeah.

If I hesitate any longer, I'm not a good candidate. Right, right. Okay, so what happens? Well, I said yes. Okay. My, my, the fellow who kept in contact with me while in Berlin, Boris, you know, we met. Literally named Boris? Yeah, no.

Well, names are meaningless. You know, when people introduce themselves, I'm so-and-so. Yeah. Everybody knows that's not your real name. Okay. My cover name was Dita. Yeah. And I introduced myself to all the other KGB folks that I met as Dita.

That's interesting. My cover name is also Dita. Okay. So let's continue. So you say yes? What happens? I tell Boris, yes. And so now we are working on my departure from Yena, because I was already an employee at the university.

I was in my second year as an assistant professor. working on my doctorate. Right. And so now I had to quit. And I had to quit in such a way that people wouldn't like whisper. People whispered probably anyway. But the cover initially was I was going to go to Berlin to work for the State Department. All right.

And I had to, on my way out, I had to hand over my party book. And the fellow who received it, the party official of the university, he said, he sort of knew. He said, yeah, there's some... Excuse me. This fellow said there's some people that we don't hear from anymore, but we appreciate you.

This guy knew. Oh, he kind of knew. He guessed it, yes. Wow. You know, the party book was almost like something considered holy. You have to keep it safe and, you know, it was part of you.

The party book? I mean, we don't know what that is. Well, there's a little booklet with your name, and then they make the entries when you pay your dues and all that. Interesting. To be a member in good standing of the Communist Party. That's correct. Like Bernie Sanders.

I mean, his book. Well, you know what, actually, I don't want to get political. So we're going to move on. Okay, so you then moved to Berlin. I did. And so I packed my bag and I had one suitcase and another, you know, bag. And I get on a train and I now have another secret meeting. This guy, this time with the fellow who would actually be with me throughout my training in Berlin.

His name was Leonid. Leonid? Leonid. As in Brezhnev. Yeah. Yeah. And Brezhnev was the head of the Soviet Union at this time. He was.

Yeah, indeed. So another one of those meetings at a street corner, then he takes me to his car, and now I'm hoping he's going to take me to an apartment, right? Because I had lived in Vienna. I had lived in a dorm. Yeah. With roommates or in a really, really small place with shared toilets and bathrooms.

Yeah. I was going to get an apartment, right? Yeah. Because, you know, I'm working for the KGB. Sure. So what he said, right off the bat, he said, your very first task is to find yourself a place to live. My heart went from here to there because there were no places. There was a severe shortage, housing shortage, and all housing was controlled by the government.

So you couldn't just... So that was, here's the thing. This was my first task. I could have failed at that one, and they would have kicked. me out. Find an apartment in the place where you're on to East Berlin. It's kind of funny because one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is I want people to know what communism is because there are many young people today have no idea. I mean, my mother and father taught me growing up over and over and over what it is to live in a place that's not free. It's hell. But most people in America have no idea.

So it's interesting to hear your point of view. We're going to be right back. We're talking to Jack Barski. The book is Deep Undercover. It's the Eric Mattaxas show. Hey folks, this Eric Metaxis show, and I'm talking to a former KGB spy, Jack Barski. Your story just gets crazier and crazier. We're just at the beginning. So what happens at this point? You're looking for an apartment? I'm looking for a place to live.

I mean, as I said, there's no place you can go and say, well, there was nothing available. So it's almost like going to a city, strange city, like in action, and you'll find your way. So I figured the further away from the center of Berlin you go, the more of a chance you might have. So I took the train, and I didn't know Berlin. I took the train to one of the final stops. I walked around there, and I started asking people, well, this is what you do. You improvise. And one said, maybe you're going to ask over there, ask over there, ask over there, ask over there.

Eventually, I get to a point where I talk to an elderly woman who had a lot of teeth missing, and she says, yeah, I can, I have something, that something was an outbuilding that had a stove, a bed, and a chair, and running cold water. I took it. You took it? I took it and I lived in that place for about six months. Welcome to Bernie Sanders America. Okay, so we just have a couple of minutes left in this hour.

We're going to continue with your story after this. But, okay, so you are now living there. You can't take a hot shower, but you are a KGB agent in Berlin. In training. What happens? In training. So now I get training. First of all, the very first thing that,

I had to do was read the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It's about this thick, interesting thing, because I'm now getting the real history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. There was so much whitewashing. It's just totally amazing. But that was a requirement. The training, other than that was, oh, I was told every agent that we're sending needs to learn one other language. So I picked English. Oh, sweet. We wouldn't be sitting here if you hadn't picked English. Absolutely true. Okay, this is pretty amazing. All right, so you pick English? I pick English. So when I started, I had school English, but I pretty much learned it from scratch with a tutor.

They paid for it. Yeah. Then there was the operational training, you know, how to conduct meetings, surveillance detection. They're called dead drop operations. I don't know what that means. Oh, I'm a spy. I know all about this stuff. So maybe we can do one of those.

Yeah. Do a dead drop operation. Morse code. Yeah. Decryption and encryption, secret writing, microdots. You went to spy school. Yeah, but it was all one-on-one. There was no.

But I'm just saying you're learning how to be a spy. And the fact is, I mean, we have to remember this was at the height of the Cold War. You were on that side. We Americans were on this side. and you were learning how to do battle with the enemy, which is the free West. Correct. And you believed in it. You were a soldier who believed in his mission.

Absolutely. We're going to go to a break. This is the end of part one with Jack Barski. Jack, it's wonderful to have you here and to hear this story. When we come back, we're going to hear the rest of the story. Folks, you ain't heard nothing yet. But trust me, a crazy, amazing story behind enemy lines in the United States of us. America, it gets crazier and crazier.

It's the Eric Metaxus show, our website, Metaxistalkis Talk.com. Stick around.