The Team House - CIA Deputy Director of the Counterterrorism Center | Darrell Blocker | Ep. 175

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Darrell M. Blocker is a former American intelligence officer who served for 28 years with the Central Intelligence Agency. He held prominent positions including deputy director of the Counterterrorism Center (CTC), Chief of Africa Division, and Chief of Training at Camp Peary, Virginia, better known as "The Farm". Within the intelligence community, Blocker was known for participating in a number of semi-professional musical ensembles during his postings abroad. He retired in 2018 as the most senior black officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations. Since 2019 Blocker has been chief operating officer of intelligence and advisory firm MOSAIC, and a contributor for ABC News. In November 2020, Fox News reported that president-elect Joe Biden had included Blocker among his shortlist of candidates to nominate for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; in the end, the position went to William Burns. Today's Sponsor: SAP Gear (Stately Asset Protection)  https://SAPGEAR.com Veteran-owned company, Stately Asset Protection’s retail store specializes in handmade and unique survivability products. Use the code “TEAM” for 15% off your order! https://SAPGEAR.com To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -2 bonus episodes per month  -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests -Ad Free audio feed Subscribe to our Patreon! 👇 https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Team House merch:  https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media:  The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:  https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):  https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: 👇 [e-mail] #cia #counterterrorismBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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why don't you just send us an email and we'll talk about it. Special Operations. All right. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hopes. Jack Murphy and David Park.

Hey, everyone, this is Jack Murphy. I'm here with David Park. Today, we are here on episode 176 with our guest, Daryl Blocker. Daryl served in the CIA, stationed all over the world, all over to Pakistan, to Switzerland, to all over Africa,

served as the chief of Africa Division, and finished out his career as the deputy head of the Counterterrorism Center. So we've wanted to have Daryl on the show for a long time. We're really excited to have you here tonight. Daryl, thank you for coming on the team house. Thank you for having me. Absolutely, man.

So, you know, the first question I want to ask you, of course, is your origin story. I want to hear a little bit about how you grew up and sort of what the path was that took you towards the Central Intelligence Agency. Well, if I could begin with my brother is a man of few words. unlike myself, I'm a little verbose. When one word is enough, I usually choose two or three. But I started a day with a text from my brother, and it was on the 11th month, the 11th day at the 11 hour, lest we forget. So to all the veterans out there who are listening, thank you for your service. My brother and I served, and we followed our father into the intelligence.

community through the Air Force. So my origin story begins. I was a third of four kids born into a military family, grew up in the Hill of the Boot, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, and then moved to Texas, San Antonio, Texas, where I was nine years old then, so going into the fourth grade. And then my dad retired two years later, and we moved to Augusta, Georgia, where both of my parents were from. So my origin story is I was a Cub Scout, I was a Boy Scout, I was ROTC in high school and college. I went in into the Air Force myself,

served as an 80-75, that Air Force Specialty Code doesn't exist anymore. I don't know what the new one is, but I was a command briefer and an intelligence officer, where I served at OSign Air Base Korea the year before the solo Olympics. So it was an absolutely fascinating and amazing time to be in a theater that was absolutely on the brink of war as it is today. Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un, was literally known to be or believed to be a god. And so landing as a young second lieutenant in the Republic of Korea in 1987.

I never knew that eventually it was going to take me to the CIA. But having that military experience and having that background in intelligence, it was a natural progression to join the CIA, which I did in the fall of 1990 and walked out the door 28 years later on the same day that I raised my hand and took the oath in the bubble at CIA headquarters. So that's, I mean, I guess pretty natural having been born into a military family that it would. take you into the Air Force. After spending some time there, though, what was it that kind of pushed you towards central intelligence? What was it that even put that idea in your mind? I get this question a lot. I answered an ad in a newspaper. I'm not joking. My then ex-wife, my now ex-wife, but my then-wife was reading a newspaper, as I recall,

airport in Wisconsin and saw a, um, saw an ad in a paper above the fold, you know, big logo. Would you like to join CIA, travel the world, do interesting things? And so I wrote a 1500 word essay. They said write a 1500 or submit a 1500 word or less essay about anything that you feel passionately about. Well, I'm passionate about my faith. I'm passionate about the Middle East. I'm passionate about history and international affairs. And so the Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israel was going on at the time. So that's what I submitted. And someone could see that I could, you know, I had good reasoning and could put, you know, put a sentence together or two. and that started the next series of taking a series of battery of tests,

and then, of course, medical and poly and 28 years of absolute bliss. And, well, let's start off sort of at the beginning of your journey and intelligence then. If there's that term that the agency doesn't like former employees to use, but you went through the iconic training institution that the agency provides. for new officers. Right. You can say the farm. I just can't talk about being associated with.

But everyone who went through the training that I went through the farm. And quite frankly, at that time, everyone at the CIA, no matter which directorate, I was from the director of operations, also experienced a large portion of their, kind of their inboarding down at the farm in one course or another. And what was it like for you going through there as still a young man? Well, I made the mistake once of telling my ex that it was the best six months that I ever spent that I ever spent to my life. It was it was fantastic. We learned a lot about ourselves.

We learned a lot about each other. And quite frankly, those folks that I went through that training with are still a part of my life. there's still a part of many of the decisions that I make and come to. I bounce ideas off of classmates that I've now known for, you know, 30 plus years. And I mean, coming out of all that, you're now a, I mean, they were, they were still case officers at that time rather than ops officers, right? Right. Right. And where was the first place you landed? So I landed in West Africa after spending six months in French. which was really interesting because my my middle name is maurice so uh when i would deal with the

french i would say uh maurice com chevalier maris chevalier is a very famous french actor and of course no one is ever going to hear my french and mistake me for being french but i worked hard at it um it was just a skill just like anything else and and quite frankly i loved it but uh West Africa and probably one of the poorest countries on the planet. And that assignment was truncated because my now 32-year-old son got sick and almost died there. So they didn't have the medical care to get us through the second year. So the family went back home and I stayed out there several months, you know, closing off things and making sure everything was okay before coming back.

And I think essentially launching me into what was that made my success through the rest of the, through the organization, where I was assigned to the Somali Working Group about a month before Black Hawk down. Wow. So what was what was going on at the Somali Working Group at that point in time when you showed up? So by time I arrived in the fall of 1993, Yes, in the fall of 1993, we had already gone back in. President Bush, the 41, put us into Somalia. It was a humanitarian mission that eventually, of course, turned into the hunt for IDD. And we all know how that ended. Ended on the 31st of March, 1994.

And I spent January and half of February several months after the incident. on the ground in Mogadishu as quite frankly if I recall the youngest and most junior case officer to actually have that experience. I'd be really curious because I mean we've heard quite a bit about the incident Operation Gothic Serpent from a military point of view. What was it like, what did you see from your perspective as a young CIA officer, you know, kind of before, during and after the incident in, you know, sort of America's presence in Somalia? Well, the Somali working group wasn't that large. As I recall, there may have less than 10 of us for certain. So it wasn't a big effort from the agency's perspective. Then, of course, as soon as

Black Hawk Down happens, now what was, you know, yesterday's news is front page news all day, every day. Right. And because of my experiences as a command briefer for a very difficult three-star general as a young, literally straight out of Intel school general in Korea, and also serving in a what we call a deployable unit. We were assigned to the 82nd Airborne out of my mobility unit in Texas. So I was constantly at war, either in the Korean Peninsula or in the hunt for. Manuel Noriega. I was maybe 200 meters away from him when he got on the back of that 141. Oh, wow. In early February of 1990, yes, early February of 1990. So I had come from war experiences. The entire year in Korea was one long military exercise. So by time I got to the

Somali working group, it was, I won't say it was, you know, second hand, but it was natural to me. And briefed every station sheet that went out, all the senior military folks that went out between September of 93 and March of 94, they were all briefed by CIA, and I was the person that was the mouthpiece. So I saw a lot. I saw folks that were just amazing. You know, we made mistakes just like we have in a lot of places,

but the mistakes that we made were not, didn't result in Black Hawk down in the Black Hawk situation, not from the agency perspective anyway. Yeah. I'm nursing a little bit of cold here, so I'm going back and forth between my tea and my bourbon. That sounds like the, right way to do it unless you do the hot toddy and put it all together.

I thought about that, but yeah. I was kind of curious. So when you were in Somalia, you said you were on the ground in Mogadishu, even after the event, how were you guys conducting operations at that point in time? Because I imagine there was, you know, a lot of activity, local activity. A lot of activity. Mostly we were winding down operations. There wasn't a lot of agent meetings going on. They were still being held. It was really interesting because, again, my first tour in West Africa was truncated. So I didn't get to get the full experience of being, you know, a CIA ops officer in the field. But by time I got to Somalia, I had a force recon unit. that was assigned essentially to me to protect me. I went out with them quite a bit,

and I learned a lot about how they went about doing business. They protected me. I protected them. But it was amazing flying with people who were former CAG, former Delta guys that were now working for the agency and taught me a lot about air to ground, stuff taught me a lot about how the agency and the special special ops world worked together. So I got steeped very, very quickly and under dire circumstances.

So that's for me kind of sealed, not my fate, but sealed my attention and my focus on counterterrorism for essentially the rest of my career. When you're in, whether it was before or after, but when you're in, whether it was before or after, but when you're in a place that is semi to non-permissive, how do you make the decision? Is it left up to you or who makes the decision to, all right, we're going to roll out with three up-armored, you know, land cruisers, or we're going to roll in thin skins, you know, all kind of, you know,

camouflaged up and blending in? Essentially, it's done collectively, you know, the people that we have there are really bright. We've been there before. They know what the limitations are. It's based on the environment, you know, on the moment in which you're about to roll. But collectively, it's a team. But as if it was a, you know, a Title 50 operation, then, of course, it was the agency. Yeah.

I was deciding that. But we always, always made sure that if the operators, the military guys, had any discomfort or any questions or concerns, their voice was just as valid as anyone. Right. No, that's fascinating. So then what happened after a Somalia for you? So Somalia, I came back and then I did a domestic assignment because my son who had the medical issue,

you have to be medically cleared in order to go back overseas. So we knew it was going to take a time. And I didn't want to stay in the Washington. So they sent me to the Midwest where I end up doing the same thing working counterterrorism the two years prior to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, working very closely with the FBI, working very closely with the FBI and CIA headquarters. So essentially it went from, you know, from West Africa to Somalia to the Midwest and all focusing on, on. terrorist threats. Can you tell us a little bit about what it's like for the CIA working in America because it's very different, right?

It is very different. And we don't really talk about the national resources side of our house outside of, you know, outside of the intelligence community. But the NR portion actually existed prior to even OSS. So General Dadovin, when he was the coordinator of information, the same. COI, which later became the Office of Strategic Services, he recognized that corporate America was actually living in some of the countries that we were about to go to war with. There were American companies in Germany.

There are American companies in Japan. There are American companies in Italy. So he tapped into essentially an existing kind of business and then brought it into the OSS. I understand that that is what in our division became. In today's paradigm, of course, is always done in concert with our FBI brethren and colleagues. I know people still want to depict, you know, friction between the CIA and FBI, and I honestly never saw any of that personally in all of the time that I was in. I know the personalities clash, but I had nothing but much respect for FBI.

So we're working with them against all the threats that against the homeland. Of course, you're still trying to find what we call the hard targets. They're Russian, the Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians, terrorists, those type of folks. They're not just abroad. They're operating right here in the United States. and because we have the natural experience with and background, we partner with the FBI in terms of chasing those folks within our, within our, you know, within our territory.

And when you, when you got to NR for your, you know, for the first tour, were you surprised by the amount of activity that there was? Were you surprised by the amount of activity there wasn't? What were your general impressions? I'm not surprised by much. Okay. I honestly I wasn't surprised. I was surprised at the breath and depth of the involvement of the CIA, of course, because when you grow up, you never hear about the CIA operating domestically unless you hear the one case, which is Watergate, and that was an anomaly, and that wasn't really CIA sanctioned.

And, you know, so people think that we're here chasing Americans. I can put people's, you know, minds at ease to see you are not that interesting to the CIA for us to be worrying about and following you on American soil because we don't go after Americans. Right. Unless, of course, your ISIS or Al-Qaeda or something else, you know, that or people who are, you know, selling out our country to the Russians or the Chinese or whatever. Okay. So are there, obviously there is work for you guys. Are there a lot of threats that get stopped by the CIA and the FBI? Would people, would people be concerned if they found, like, I don't know what the scope of the threat is.

Honestly, the scope of the threat, it's really hard to tell. It's hard to disprove a negative. Okay. And you never know when. something happens in Manila that stops something from happening in Philadelphia. And again, I just threw two places out of, you know, out randomly. Right. So I don't know if I can, I don't know if I can answer that question,

but I can make sure that people's minds that are at ease that there are professionals who wake up every single day and their only job is to make sure that you don't have to deal with the things that we have to deal with. where you don't have to be concerned about the things that we have to have to think about. Now, last week I was at my alma mater, University of Georgia, where I addressed a number of different groups, including veterans, some who are active duty, some who are former, and some who are in reserves. and I got that very, I got a very similar, very similar question to that. And the other students have no idea what these students have been through, that they've served in Iraq, that they've served in Afghanistan,

that they have almost for their entire lives, done nothing but try to protect, you know, the rest of Americans from seeing the ugliness that we've had to see abroad. And I spoke about working for six different administrations. I worked for every president from Reagan to Trump. And quite frankly, all six administrations. I gave them all a pass that first year because even presidents don't really recognize how dangerous this world is. Right. And we start to see just everything.

And it takes them all a while. Some of them never get it, but most do. And at some point, these threats are not Hollywood created. These threats are not something that somebody has just made up. These aren't conspiracy theories. These are real world problems or real world people. And there are people out there who take some sense of pride in destroying or bringing down others. Those are the people that we try to take off the play and feel.

So you say the presidents you gave a pass that first year, but you felt like that the administration, that whoever was sitting in that seat at that time, that they were serious about what you needed to do? Yes, for the most part. Okay. Yes. So, and that was four Republicans and two Democrats. Yeah. And intelligence officers, and I'm sure you, in 175 episodes, you've spoken to many, have to. have to leave their political affiliations outside the discussion, just on the outside.

You can vote one way or the other. You can be an independent like myself. I voted Republican. I voted Democrat. I vote for who I think is the best person for that particular job at that particular time. But I think five of the six got it. And I won't get into the one that. didn't. Okay. So then, so you did your N.R. 2. Are there any stories from there that you want to tell or can tell, or should we move on to the next phase of your career? We can move on. Okay. So where was the next station then? So after the domestic one, North Africa.

and then back to West Africa. And then, so I had three consecutive ones, two in French-speaking places where I was able to solidify my language that got disrupted by my truncated first tour. So by time I left my third, my fourth, my fourth tour, I felt that I understood what I really needed to do and how to go about doing that. And then the agency rewarded me with my first field assignment as a commander. And it just happened to be 2000 to 2002. And of course, we all know what happened on 9-11 of 2001. So again, chasing, you know, if I had an expertise, I would say it was North Korea, Iran, terrorism. and by extension from North Korea and Iran, counterproliferation.

So being pulled back into the counterterrorism world in West Africa and walking in to our counterparts and basically saying, you know, gentlemen, life as we as we knew it before now doesn't exist. And we need to come together and figure out how to stop this from spreading, this virus called al-Qaeda. Before we hit 9-11 and the war on terror, I would like to ask you a little bit about your time serving as an ops officer in Africa. I mean, well, first off, let's talk a little bit about Africa itself.

Africa, I know you know far more about this than I do, Daryl. But Africa is a big continent, a lot of diversity across that continent, more ethnic groups than any other continent in the world, probably more spoken. languages than any other place in the world. Can you tell us a little bit about your interactions on the African continent in these various countries and what it was like there for you to work as an ops officer? It was the most amazing experience that just I allowed my, it allowed me to have my children grow up in different cultures and different countries as my parents travel allowed me.

And for my two kids to grow up in countries where everyone they saw from the president to bank presidents to the guy who is homeless on the street and all of them were black and there was no judgment. There was no year less than or greater than or any of that. I think that was important to me as a black father. And I think it's important to my kids to kind of see that. But in terms of the work there, the best in the world. It's kind of like the Wild West, no matter where you were, northeastern or west where I served. They were all pretty much the same.

But I think people lose sight of how big that continent is. So I live in California now, and I've lived in Texas many times. And my first assignment, the country was larger than California and Texas combined. But when you see it on the map, it's like that big. And you can fit three continental United States inside of the African continent. It is immense. It is huge. Culturally, it's diverse.

The music, the food, the people, the smells, the everything about it was, to me, a perfect place to be raising a family. Even I live in places where we live in. drank out of, you know, filtered water for literally the first 10 years of my kid's life. And I remember leaving, I remember we had to transit Switzerland in between assignments. And my daughter saw me brushing my teeth with the tap water. And she's like, no, daddy, don't use that water. She only knew that water couldn't be drank unless it was filtered or boiled. And I remember telling us to know, baby, you can drink this water.

And then about two or three minutes later, she and her brother in there with the tap, literally just drinking handfuls of water out of the sink because they never could before. Yeah. It never done on them that they could like pour their own glass out of the faucet. and you know some people might see that story as sad it wasn't she knew no no daddy don't brush your teeth with that water that was her only thought not bad is just you just don't do that right that's also got to give them a i imagine a great appreciation for what people in other countries go through and don't have compared to what we do growing up you know growing up here or living here absolutely they've seen they've seen real poverty right not seeing that there isn't real poverty

here in the United States, there is just like there is anywhere else in the world. But true to your core poverty, they've seen and witnessed. And we always made sure that we adopted an orphanage or a local school or something where my kids could see the difference between the education that they were receiving and then the village kids that were receiving their education so that they would know that you are privileged. And so at the same time, you're cutting your teeth as a operations officer. Right.

And so where were you when 9-11 struck at that time? Nigeria. And what was that day like for you at the station when you walked into work? Well, my ex was a teacher at the school. And I remember picking her up. And the headmaster for the school was this very small Filipino woman who was just an adorable person. She came running out to my car. And, I mean, just this look of, I mean, you've seen fear before.

She had real fear in her eyes. And I just thought something had happened at the school, something that happened. And she was just rambling on about, you have to go home and turn on the TV. Go home and turn on the TV. So by time she and I got into the car and drove home, got down and sat in front of the television. Within minutes, the second tower was hit. And like much of the world, I was in shock. It's still shocking today.

And it changed everything. For you, I mean, specifically and for your colleagues, what changed? for you guys. It made it real. You know, when you're chasing guys that you know are bad guys that you know are intending to do harm to others, and you can hear about a car bombing here or a suicide vests blowing up there. But when it's brought to your shores, when it's brought to, you know, to your home, whether you're from New York or not, if you're an American, that's, that's sacred. and I think it was validation that we were chasing the right people. It was validation that these people intended to do us harm.

It brought us together as a family. This was 10 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. So this was a transition time, you know, the great, you know, the big bear didn't really exist anymore. And now this new threat is out there. And it wasn't like a lot of people think that, you know, the agency didn't know where it stood or didn't have a mission. I never felt that working on the African continent because we did everything.

You know, we chased Russians, we chased Chinese, we chased North Koreans, we chased terrorists. We traced all the people that we knew wanted to, you know, harm us in some way economically, politically, militarily, whatever it happened to be. Yeah, I mean, I remember reading, maybe it was in Milt's book, actually, talking about how one of the big reasons why we have such a presence in Africa is because we were having, I mean, recruiting people in Moscow is almost impossible, but we could try to recruit their people who are stationed at Russian embassies and in places around Africa. Right. Milt Bearden?

Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah. Well, that's all true. You know, you can't recruit a Russian inside of Russia. It would be full hardy. So, yeah, most of them are recruited outside of Russia.

But we, you know, we moved into stations. Most of the African nations gained independence between 19. In 1959 and 1961, Angola was kind of an exception to that. It was mid to late 70s. But we wanted to be there because the Russians were expanding. Most of the young African nations didn't, they wanted to distance themselves as much as they could from their European colonizers, whether they were Portuguese or British or French. They were kind of, it was a natural, a natural kind of segue for them to be Marxist or to be Leninist or to be communist.

Except for the first leader of Ghana, who, no, the first leader of Ghana basically told, said, we look neither east nor west, we look forward. And I thought that was, I thought that was genius. It was his way of telling the American. that listen, we're going to have probably some ties with the Russians and telling the Russians that, yes, we're going to have some ties with the Americans, but we're going to chart our own way forward. And then post 9-11, I mean, for you, were you seeing or did you feel that this was sort of an escalation that you had? What was it, 97 or 98, the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania of our embassies there? USS coal happens in Yemen, of course, but in that neighborhood. And it was 9-11? Did you see it as a series of escalating events leading up to this?

Absolutely. Yeah. No question about it. Well, I mean, honestly, that started in Mogadishu. Al-Qaeda itself claims its first punch in the nose of the Americans was they trained the folks who were responsible for shooting down the helicopters and desecrating our soldiers in Somalia. that's al-Qaeda claims that and must be and that was in October in January they attacked the World Trade Center for the first time that was January 1993 I think seven or eight people died but then they said we're coming back and we knew they were coming back and there was a small

people who did nothing but try and figure out when they were coming back and unfortunately we weren't able to stop it from happening. Right. And so now post-9-11, I mean, is it game on? What was the next, what was the job for Daryl? Honestly, some people went, you know, swung so hard, swung so hard towards the counterterrorism target that when you did work other targets, you always didn't have the money. so you had to make sure that you were doing very, very niche and specific things. But it didn't change.

It didn't change what I did. I was never a one-trick pony. I get bored doing any one thing. I never stopped doing the terrorist target, but I also never stopped chasing Iranians. I never stopped being interested in Kim Il-sung and his regime, whether it was him or his son or his grandson. Right. So, no, it didn't. It didn't change it.

that much for me other than the fact that I'd kind of been in that game for about eight years by that point. And I think I maybe knew a little bit more than others and certainly not as much as some of my fellow folks in the intelligence community. But it was never far from my thoughts. It was never far from trying to track down the perpetrators of the Dar Salam and Nairobi Embassy bombings. I had friends that died in Kenya. I had a classmate who died at the Pentagon on 9-11. This wasn't something that was, it wasn't theoretical. Right.

It was real. It's very close to you. Very personal. Yeah. Dave, do you want to give a shout out to our sponsor? Yeah, so we want to thank our sponsor, our longtime sponsor, Spockgear. Check out their website, sapgear.com.

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Okay. Thanks everybody. And thanks for being bearing with us, Daryl. So. I should have. No, they're great. I mean, if you've ever, if you need to, everybody has to keep a door open sometimes. time.

And you're not trying to wet something under it. It doesn't. Yeah. Literally the door that leads to my balcony is one of these really heavy doors that every time someone pushes it, they're not really. I'm like, no, no, you have to manhandle this door. I cannot put anything under that door that keeps it open. So I will be investing in a couple of years.

I'll tell you what, we will send you this one. Yeah, I'd be happy. And, and, yeah, I'm going to send you that one. All right. All right. Definitely. Thank you. So, you continue doing your job.

But now we're getting into the war on terror years. Right. What was the next kind of step in your career's trajectory from there? So I kind of break up my career, my 28 years into three distinct kind of phases. The first nine years, of course, was spent doing case officer work on the streets, recruiting spies, producing intelligence, meeting folks, you know, hearts and minds, that type of stuff. And it was as very little that comes even close to matching how amazing and how fantastic that was. That was like an exhilarating experience. Yes.

Now, the next phase, of course, was me moving from being. you know, on the field to managing folks who were doing those things. That was a rough patch for me. Now, personally and professionally, I hit one roadblock, but I was really hard on myself, and I held on to a lot for many, many years after that. And just as an example, I mentioned that I was in Nigeria during 9-11. And the organization sent me to a leadership class afterwards where I had to do 360 feedback.

And the 360 feedback basically said that I was a failed leader for all practical purposes. Now, by all the markers of success for, you know, for a case officer, recruitment, intelligence, production, you know, support to covert action, all of those things, they were off the charts, but they were only off the charts because the officers that I had working for me, and I, of course, get credit for that. But I wasn't the leader that I thought I was. And so a part of this 360 feedback, we actually had a clinical psychologist who sat down with us to say, here's how to overcome your, you know, your weaknesses. Well, I wasn't in receive mode. I wasn't prepared to accept the fact that I wasn't the leader that I thought I was. Right.

Until this empirical data that came from my superiors back in Washington, my contemporaries in the field, and the three folks that worked for me. And it was pretty clear that all three of them were telling me the same message, you're not the leader you think you are. and you have a lot to learn. Well, I did take that to heart. I did do all the, you know, the self-improvement and listen to all the, you know, I read everything that I could get my hands on. And eventually, I overcame myself. I had to get outside of my own ego.

I had to get outside of my own holier than thou approach to many things at that time. So moving from the kind of the troops into leading troops was a little rough. Would you be comfortable talking a little bit more in depth about that? Was it that you were too abrasive or too introverted? What was sort of that like moment of reflection? Smoking Joe in the hallway like knife-handed people? He thinks he knows everything. Probably a brunt.

I'm a blunt. And I actually respond better when someone just tells me, you know, you're an idiot as opposed to kind of talking around it. Right, right. Just tell me I'm an idiot. And I'll fix that if I can. I might not agree with you, but I'll, you know, I'll appreciate that. And, well, maybe not at the moment. I might not appreciate it.

But yeah, abrasive, no at all. I was compared to whatever bad leader you've ever heard in your life. pole pot Kittler Chang is Khan I'm not joking so they were swinging for the fences yeah that's a bit much

yeah it was it was ugly and I just remember the clinical psychologist coming up to me because he had multiple students that he was observing

in this particular course and he comes up and he says are you ready to listen and of course I'm like yeah I'm ready to listen He's like, no, no, I don't think you understand. Are you ready to listen? And if you or any of your listeners can think of any story in the history of mankind, where it started off with, are you ready to listen where it turned out well for the person

that's not listening? And it didn't. And then I actually told this story as a part of my healing process, as a part of my learning process as a part of my moving into leadership i hold this story and um it had to do with some advice that i got from my for my ex-wife where she said listening is not waiting for your turn to speak right and that resonated with me so strongly and it's something that i try to think about today listening is not waiting for your turn to speak and listening is tough man that's Why I talk so much, so I don't have to listen.

Listening takes energy, takes a lot of energy, but it is so important. And people have asked me over the years, what's your superpower? And I said, well, I know what it is now. It's listening. I literally learned. I taught myself how to listen. I became an international coaching federation certified coach where you literally have to sit stock still.

You're not a therapist or anything, but you have to. learn not to be a part of the narrative. It's not about you. It's about the person that you're trying to heal. It's about the person that you're trying to talk to. And I just remember, even when I was in training at the farm, this one instructor who didn't use the words that those people used many years later, he said, Darrell, you have to turn that mirror around. You have to see this scenario from the perspective of the person that you're dealing with. And, for the first time in my life, I actually took measured steps to do that. And like anything that I grabbed onto, I grabbed onto it with gusto and I improved.

Do you think that's maybe something you brought with you from your background as a military briefer where you kind of stand behind the podium and you tell people what they need to know? And now you're in a different, you're in a leadership position needs to be more of a two-way street. Yeah, partially. I don't know if I've ever thought about it in those terms, but yeah, that absolutely makes sense. That's honestly to me, though, that's an amazing story because people quit jobs because of their bosses. They don't quit because of their pay. They don't quit because of their benefits.

They quit because of their bosses. And I believe everybody, if they took a minute, well, not a minute. Like, it's not easy. It's very hard for us to recognize that, you know, we have challenges. all of us in whatever area that is. And I just, I think that's such an amazing testament to, like, your character and the fact that you, you, you took that look at yourself, which, that can, that, you know, when we're like looking at ourselves, that's not a good feeling, yeah.

Under the light of, you know, under the, it can, it can hurt. Honestly, that was 20 years ago. Yeah. It is no less painful. I think I can hide it a little better than I did back there. But being told that you're not as good as you think you are is still very humbling. They were absolutely right. And it took me some time to realize that I could continue on in this, you know, this farce.

or I could genuinely try to change and be a better boss. And I know that I am because I am still mentoring a lot of people and people still reach out to me, whether they're from my high school, college, military, or agency career that still rely on me for advice. And they know that I'm going to tell them what they need to know, not what they need to hear, but in a much less abrasive. But yeah, I knew that.

That was it. That was for me. 2000 to 2005 were huge for me on a personal, personal growth. Darrell, I'll just share with you this anecdote that the reason why I tried so long to get you on this podcast is because I asked people about you. And they told me he's a good person and he's an honest leader. That's really the reason why I've been asking for so long to try to get you on this show. Right. And you know what? So when I left the agency in 2018, the first thing that I did was a podcast. I did it because I thought it would be cool. It would be an

opportunity for me to actually talk about my career in the intelligence community in a forum that I found interesting. And out of that, several things happened. I kind of got used to doing podcasts, and I enjoyed them. But then I felt that I'd done too many. So when you guys reached out the first time, I was like, yeah, I'm kind of over that. But it's still great for explaining to folks who the agency is and how they do things and don't believe everything that you read. Don't accept. And I tell people don't accept everything that I'm telling you. Check my facts.

Fact check me for sure. Go back and look at some of the things. But I try to be as honest as I can. And I've learned, even if you're giving hard news to someone who absolutely, does not want to hear it, it might take them a while, but eventually they'll come back around and thank you. Or maybe they won't, but you know that you've changed them in some way. And there's a very specific young man that I'm thinking of who came to the United States speaking no English, learned English by joining the Air Force and then joining the FBI,

and then eventually joined the CIA, who thought he was. suited to be an operations officer. I knew that he didn't have the skill set. I knew that he didn't have everything to do it. And it took me three years of battling this young man before he eventually just disregarded everything that I ever said. Fast forward five years after that assignment, he reaches out to me to thank me for being what he said was the only person

who was ever honest with him. Now, I dis-disolved him. Basically, I told him that certainly I wasn't the only one who was ever truthful with him. But he did have leaders that were not up front with him, that weren't giving him the best advice for that individual. Not for the agency, for this person. Right. And that's what we have to be able to separate. And, yeah, he's a, he's a friend.

He's someone that still reaches. out to me to check up on me and see how I'm doing that and I've gotten out. But it was also a very hard thing for him to come to grips with because he just knew he had what it took and sent him to specific training where he learned that he didn't. And it was, it's hard. It's hard seeing the truth sometimes. But eventually he appreciated it. And he's a very good man and a good father and husband and, you know, it took him, just like it took me time to get to that. I knew it would take time. So after your self-improvement part of your career, where did you get assigned afterwards?

So all of my last, so the last third of my career I went from being station chief and, East Africa to being the number two in Europe, to running the training for three years. And then back to back jobs, deputy director of the Count Terrorism Center to Chief of Africa Division to my final assignment, which was a domestic assignment where I was the senior representative, the station chief.

So they were all running huge major offices and dealing with, you know, people in our government and in other governments as well. And so what were you seeing from your point of view as the war on terror, you know, builds up and continues. Afghanistan happens. Iraq happens. And, I mean, we all know the history, of course, and kind of how some of those things turned out. But I would be, you moved up the fairly high up in the organization. I'd be really interested if you could share any of. your insights of what happened throughout the course of the war? The war on terror? Well, that's not over.

And I'm not sure. Like the nuclear race and cyber today, I don't think terrorism is ever not going to be a part of what the agency does, but it's not the only thing the agency does. And, you know, there are people who thought that the agency was so invested in the CT that we lost sight. of our true, you know, of our true roots. Well, my argument was our true roots were the military. The Office of Strategic Services was, yes, a civilian service, but of course it was made up of people who were military and non-military that all went through training because they were heading out to, you know,

defend our nation in the Italian theater, Europe, in Germany, Italy, Japan, and all through World War II. So we were always had boots on the ground from 1942 forward. And quite frankly, we're going to have boots on the ground in 2042. So it didn't change for me other than making sure that people recognize and understood that counterterrorism was important. But so was Russia. So was China. So was Iran.

So was North Korea. and proliferation and all the other things that were charged with keeping tabs on. And I still speak in terms of we as if the agency cares to, you know, anything about me anymore. I'm sure they know who I am, but I still speak in we just because 30 years later, it's kind of hard to remove that from your vocabulary. But when I'm saying we, I'm talking about CIA specifically. What was it like coming back and running the farm that now you're, I don't want to say the old guy, but you are the veteran, the experienced guy who's able to come back and, you know, share some of those experiences with a younger generation? It was probably my most challenging job. Now, imagine being, you know, a case officer who now has an entire staff of people who are case officers.

or op support guys as your instructors and students who are all wanting to be what these instructors and the chief of training are. Type A personalities almost to a person, very set in their ways of doing things. And if you think managing, you know, 50 to 100 case officers is an easy task, let me tell you, it is not. But it was the funnest job I ever had. It was a job that allowed me to learn a whole lot about things that were, that I just never came, you know, came across in my career at that point. So being the head of that institution was scary because, you know, you don't want it to fall apart.

Right, right, right, right. If anything ever happens. And I know Doug has been on the, has been on the show before. So I was Doug Wise's number, number two. And then as Doug would do, After one iteration of the training, he went to start what became the tradecraft and training division. So an entire new component was being created at the same time.

Yeah, he talked a little bit about that. I was asked that we were asked to revamp this iconic training that it existed for 60 years at that point. And so, yeah, it was scary. But it was rewarding. It was, I would think by now that those folks that went through training in my early days are now reaching the point where they're now going out as deputy chiefs of station and as chief of stations. And if they remember anything that I wanted to get across to them that this is never about you. This is always about protecting our nation. this is always about protecting the sources of our information.

This is always about someone else. And I would tell all to a person, during the hiring process, it's about you. And the next time it's about you will be at your retirement party. And if you can't live with that, if you can't deal with that, then you're not the right person to be here. And we can't use you and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. And I did have that conversation quite a bit. bet. And so hopefully that that generation, which is now probably entering the, you know, the mid careers

that they have, you know, held true to the training that they received and not just the training, but the intent and the humanity of human. And I think people forget that humanity has to be a part of human intelligence. These are people's lives that we're dealing with. That's the part of Hollywood that I just abhor is that they make the CIA have their assets as disposable as napkins, just use them and throw them away. Absolutely not. They would die for us.

We would die for them. And so that's what I'm hoping those folks who are going to be. the next generation of covert operators are still doing and still teaching. Yeah. Had training changed much from the time you went to the time you arrived, when you went back? Yeah, honestly, it's constantly evolving. It's ever evolving. But what hasn't changed is human nature.

Human nature hasn't changed. So that aspect of the training in terms of, How do you tap into someone's ego? How do you tap into someone's fears and desires? How do you tap into that person in a way that's going to get them to do what you need them to do? Because at the end of the day, it is about manipulation, but manipulation doesn't have to be a negative thing. Babies know how to manipulate before they can even speak their first words.

And if you don't, if you've ever been around an infant and they can play their parents off against each other, that is manipulation. That is in our DNA. It is brought to us. The agency just uses that and homes that and trains that in a way that allows it to do it for the, you know, to, for the greater good. And who gets to define the greater good? We do. Right. And, you know, our greater good is in our, our greater good is in our, you know,

best interest and by our I mean the United States government I mean the American people and I was never asked ever in 28 years to do anything that was against my moral compass against my upbringing and Jim and Becky those my parents would expect a certain thing from me and so kindness was always my approach and I've been able to kind of refine that since I've retired and I've given a TED talk about it, you know, speak less, listen more, and choose kindness. But kindness can change lives. And hopefully, if I'm ever remembered for anything, that will be it.

Well, it's probably what made you an effective ops officer, too, Daryl. I want to take a... Empathy is important, Jeff. Yeah. A little bit of a... This is not really so much a training issue as much as a... a recruitment issue, but I want to touch upon it with you because we had spoken about it previously. You told me about some experiences where there are some recruiting issues with black Americans

who feel that there's for historical reasons, things that factually did happen in our past. You know, black people can be, in some instances, be distrustful of the federal government, particularly a organization like the CIA. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. If there's anything we can do as a country to recruit better or I shouldn't say recruit better, but to reach out to some of those populations that feel disenfranchised. I think the agency is doing a better job of that. I think the intelligence community is doing a better job of that.

But we're still mistrusted within brown and black communities. I volunteer with a group called Peace for Kids. It's a youth advocacy group, youth in foster care. And I also sit on their board now. And one of my dearest friends is her parents immigrated from Central America. And so for the first three years of me being a volunteer at Peace for Kids, I couldn't share with them that I was CIA because I was still active. And so once I retired and I was actually able to share more, you know,

more about my past, she finally came up to me one day. And this is a woman that has now known me for three years as just Darrell, another volunteer every Saturday to, oh my God, you were CIA. My family's from El Salvador and telling me all these horrible stories about CIA and her country and all this kind of stuff. So that's what we're dealing with. And in Los Angeles, there are people here who still think the CIA is responsible for bringing crack to Los Angeles.

So Jack, I believe the specific story you were talking about is I was at a CIA career fair booth at a historically black, historically black college and university down in the Hampton Roads area. And there was a young man who kept walking back and forth by the booth, but he never, he never approached. So when the, when the kind of the audience died down, I saw him and I waved him over. and I said, well, obviously you have questions or you're interested, but you didn't want to come up. And no preamble, no nice to meet you, how are you doing?

He looks at me and says, how can you work for an organization that did experiments on black people? Boom. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And I said, you know what? I said, I hear you. I said, but you do understand that happened before even. I was born, the CIA of the 1950s and the 1960s is not the CIA today. If you want to talk about what it's like to be a black man in the CIA today,

we can talk for the next couple of hours. We can talk for the next couple of weeks. The opportunities are so amazing that anyone who doesn't consider U.S. government work, you're missing out. You don't have to believe everything about, you know, I told my girlfriend that I bleed red, white, and blue. And that concerned her at first. She had never met anybody who said they bleed red, white, and blue. She didn't know what that meant.

My point is, I'm a constitutionalist. I believe that our founding fathers were absolutely right, not absolute in the terms of absolute, but they were more right than they were wrong, that the, the, the, principles that they created and that they made were not their own. They got it from Plato and Stoicism and a whole bunch of other stuff. But at the end of the day, they were right. They were right. And to a more perfect union, that's always striving towards.

And if black folks are not going to be involved in that process, then of course things aren't going to change. If brown people are going to be involved in that process, they're not going to change everybody has to recognize that our differences are our strength, not our weakness. Our differences are what makes us who we are. And if you can't embrace that, if you can't recognize that, if you can't, if you see woke as a negative, then you don't have empathy. If you think that telling the truth about who we are as a nation and what we've done, then I don't know what to do with that. And I'm an intelligence analyst to my heart.

That's what I started off as. I look at just give me the facts and I'll figure out all the emotion part of it, emotion part of it later. Not saying that I believe and trust everything that's being told to me. I fought the system. I got the stars

proven that I fought the system, but I won more battles than I lost on the inside because I knew I was right. And I knew pushing for right. And once you have right on side, right as might. Yeah. How, you know, what for people out there who are considering, like, are thinking maybe the CIA is for me, what are, you know, we, what are the different types of jobs

that people can do in the agency? Well, the agency literally is its own world. Whatever job exists out there, um, in any, in any world, whether you're in facilities, whether you are, a nuclear engineer, whether you're a statistician, whether you have a political science degree, it doesn't matter. They will find a job for you. There's a job for you already in the career field that you're already interested in, but you're only doing it for a very niche purpose. And it's not for everyone. I've had 27 address changes in 58 years on this. this planet. Twenty-two of those since I graduated college in 1986. It is not for the fate of heart. It is not for everyone. And quite frankly, my message to folks when they said, everybody,

everybody should do an assignment in the war zones. No, every one of us has met someone that should absolutely never, ever, ever be sent to the wars. Right. It's not for everyone. But for those people who found their place, and that newspaper article that I answered changed everything about my path. I went from being a happy, soon to be successful, about to be promoted to captain, which I turned down in order to leave to join the agency. Now, I don't think I would have done a full 20 like my dad did, but it would have gotten me moving in the right direction. intelligence was really comfortable for me. I literally begin every day or end every day or begin every morning doing puzzles. I love puzzles.

CIA is dealing with the most intricate and dangerous puzzles that mankind can throw at it and solve them all the time every day. Why? Because we have smart people. We have people who are trained. We have people who have oversight. We have people who have attorneys, and a lot of them making sure that we're doing things the right way. There are no rogue elephants in the agency. That's all Hollywood created and perpetuated.

We kind of skipped over this part. But when you joined the agency, what did your parents think? Because I had just gone straight from military intelligence in the Air Force to the CIA. They know that I wanted to continue to live abroad and do things like that. So it didn't surprise them. I think they were, I mean, they were really proud when I made it to, you know, to the flag ranks when I was promoted into the SIS, the general ranks. And I think they were proud of everything that they, you know, that they witness. So, yeah, I think they were happy for me.

That's fantastic. And so what, so after the farm, then what? So after the farm, then what? Because that was another big step for you, right? After the farm. Yeah. So after that was to Washington for two years. That was when I was the deputy director of the counterterrorism center.

And then what I think was, I mean, it was my dream job, chief of Africa division. And I can say that I was the last chief Africa division. But that's only because now the Africa Division is the Africa Mission Center. The divisions don't exist anymore. And that happened all in the last couple of years of me leaving CIA. So, okay, so we'll talk real quick, but then about the deputy director of CTC. What did you think when you got that and how did you roll into that position? That was, so the guy that was the director of the counterterrorism center,

it was the third time I had worked for him. He was the deputy chief of the Somali working group when I was in between my first assignment and heading out to the Midwest. And then he was a very senior officer throughout my career in Africa division. So quite frankly, everywhere I served in Africa, I've worked for him. But the third time, the job that I went into was a job that was created. much, many years after the counterterrorism center, and it was recreated in response to the inspector general's report on the coast bombing. So it was a brand new position.

I was only the second person that had ever gone in, gone into that, gone into that role. So it was, you know, creating a new position. I knew that I would, when I got in, into that job, which had been vacant for about a year. No matter what I did, I was going to be stepping on one of three toes, three feet, three pairs of feet, excuse me. And so I was kind of like the, I'm the warm and fuzzy guy because the director was not. And he's a good man, he's a good man, and I love him.

But he brought me in because of my empathy. He brought me in because of my kindness. He brought me in because of my reputation. He brought me in because he knew I could do the job. And my job was keeping everyone focused on the mission, but also focusing on the people. I was the people person. He was the mission people. And how long did you spend there?

That was about 15 months. Okay. And then the deputy director of operations, director of the National Clandescent Service, I think they're interchangeable in that era, was a good friend also who's now passed, Frank Archibald. And Frank called me. I know the date three June and offered me the job of Africa Division. And I was, I went, I left Deputy director to take over to take over that role. And unfortunately, that got truncated. I didn't even spend a full year in that job because Director Brennan had started a process where he was doing a

reorganization, and I was not asked to stay around to be the head of the Africa Mission Center for several reasons, but let's just say the director and I had philosophical differences on the direction he was going, but I was not one of those people who was going to stand in his way. In fact, I did everything that I could to make sure that Africa Division was going to be the one leading

the charge and the changes, but that didn't translate to him keeping me around. So when a new director comes in, then is it standard for them to sort of clean house to only have people who agree with their vision? No, not at all. No. No, that was, that was, I mean, I mean, he was the director when I was the deputy director at the counterterrorism center, saw him three days a week for 15. So he knew who I was. Right.

And he approved. Of course, he had to approve me being chief of Africa division. Right. But what he didn't, I guess what he wasn't prepared for was someone to actually question. him on on his premise i see and his and his premise was that we're now living in the most dangerous time that we've ever lived in the history of man and i i didn't believe that then and i don't believe it now right this was the modernization process right that was very controversial uh 2000 2014 2015 is when that process was being it was beginning to launch yes I mean, can you sort of give us an example or show us what it looks like where he thinks that it's the most dangerous time for humanity or for humans and how that would manifest?

Or how, you know, what he would do to prepare for that or whatever? Well, I mean, obviously what he thought would prepare us was the reorganization. And listen, African Division, Africa is a big continent. But in terms of CIA, it's, it's, it's one. of the smaller components on the operational side. And there are benefits, but there are downsides to that. The benefit is as a young officer, I was involved with virtually everything from the moment I hit the ground in November of 1992 to when I left the continent in 2007.

So you got steeped in some of the most intricate, sensitive, and quite frankly, amazing operations on the planet. So I just had something delivered. Nice. Where was I? Oh, so I just didn't believe that we're more safe than we were during the Vietnam era, the Korean era, World War I and two. And that was only in the 20th century. I'm not even talking about, you know, 500 years ago when basically everybody was hacked to death or stabbed to death. Right. Or whatever happened to be. It's no way that the world is more dangerous. It's only more dangerous or appears to be more dangerous because everybody has one of these.

Everybody has this thing we call a cell phone, but quite frankly, is not just a cell phone. It's everything to us. All of our data is in there. all of our likes and fears and all of that. And quite frankly, I can do real time right now and find out what's going in Kisnau or in Cartagena or wherever in the world you happen to be. I can tap in and figure out what's going on right now. Does that make it more dangerous?

I don't think so. I think it makes it more. It exposes all of us to it right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Could you, I mean, I don't know how much your, I mean, some of this is public, but I mean, what was, could you lay out a little bit of the, what that modernization process was, like what, for instance, the Africa division was versus how it became the African Mission Center? Like, organizationally, what were the differences or the changes that were made?

You know, I have, listen, I have a lot of respect for John Brennan. John Brennan was a good director. John Brennan made some decisions that I'm sure were against his personal, his personal references. And so I got to give him that. And the discussions that he and I had were more personal than they were on the professional front. Because I was part of a, I was part of the directors. leadership seminar where he bounced off a lot of ideas for modernization off of this group of 20, one, two, and three star generals, you know, for lack of a better comparison. And I don't think

he got the response out of us collectively as a unit as he was anticipating. So there was a lot of back and forth with him long before the modernization even began. So I had that experience in my mind. and I, yeah, I don't, I don't want to touch on modernization because quite frankly, it takes about seven years. If you're looking at organization, it takes about seven years. And we're at that point right now. And I've been gone for four, so I can't speak to what he, what he envisioned and what he had in mind was actually successful.

And anybody to wish that for that to fail is crazy. only for wishing harm on our on our country so i don't know if i can really speak for that yet fair enough um how about that um i mean before we talk about your retirement and in your you know post service years um i would like to hear you know just your thoughts about that that year you spent running africa division and what what it was sort of like sitting on top of that um now seeing all these agency personnel working in all of your former former haunts former alleyways and streets that you used to walk. Every day I felt blessed.

Every day I felt excited. Every day I felt that it was, I think I mentioned it to you earlier. Literally, if I had died on the day that I became, here, here. I'm getting a refill. If I had died on the day one of me being Chief A.F. I know I'd be in heaven because I was so happy about getting to that point. And, you know, I was, when I joined the agency, I had only, I knew I wanted to go to East Asia.

I knew I wanted to do EA. I grew up in Japan. I had served in Korea as an adult. And my first three months at, my first three months at CIA was on the North Korea desk. So for me, I was going to East Africa. I didn't want to be the black guy going to Africa. But then I met Bill Mosby. Bill Mosby, if you close your eyes and envision the great white hunter, you know,

handlebar mustache, and yes, he had one. And, but this man knew everything about Africa. This man knew every leader. He knew the history of everything. He knew all the people in his component. And I'm not talking somebody standing behind him and say, Hey, Darrell, this is Jack and David coming up. They serve here and that.

No, he knew these people. He knew their spouses. He knew their children. He even knew some of the pets. And I was just blown away by Bwana. Bwana is the reason that I joined African Division. Bwana is the reason why I got over myself and ended up being the black dude going to Africa. And I thank him all the time for giving me that opportunity and having that experience.

It's so cool, Daryl. And then you hit that point. I guess maybe it was because, I mean, you tell me if it was during that modernization process, was it time for your retirement? And you felt like I kind of. Yeah, you know, I was, listen, I was going through a separation and divorce at the time. I didn't want to go back overseas. The only job that I ever wanted and didn't get, I had bid on and got beat out twice,

I didn't want to bid on it a third time because I felt if I didn't get it, then I'd leave disgruntled. But one of my mentors, and quite frankly, to this day, still one of my dearest friends told me you'll know when it's time for you to retire. I'm like, what kind of advice is that? We'll just know. And sure enough, when the bid list, that's the assignments that are coming up that you can bid on for your next tour, it came out. And I wasn't that excited. There were a couple of jobs on there that were interesting.

I'm an Athens, Georgia guy, so I thought it might be fitting to end my career in Athens, Greece for, you know, just for a minute. That job was open, but nothing else really grabbed me. And it was the first time where I didn't look at something. So, oh, I can go here. I can visit that. I can do that. And I just knew. And I had about a year and a half from the time that I didn't bid to when I walked out the door to get my mind prepared. for that transition out the door. And then what was it like for you when you did transition out that door? I mean, you served, you know, pre-9-11 and then really through the bulk of the war on terror.

I mean, that's a lot. Right. It was easy. It was seamless and people asked me if I miss it. I don't. I miss the people. I missed the camaraderie. I miss the, you know, I just miss the love that.

that I felt in that building because we're in the trenches together, if that makes sense. But no, I don't regret it. I did everything that I wanted to do. And I did it the way my parents would expect me to do it with dignity and with, you know, just do good. So that's what I tried to do. I tried to do good.

It was easy for me. And the. director at the time was Gina Haspel and I remember she asked me she said well what are you going to do next and I said boss I have no idea but I'm not going to do you know A B or C well a month after I left I had done two of the three one of one of them was one of them is working in Hollywood on season two of Condor which is on epics. I consulted on season two and then I started working for ABC News as one of their contributors. So I told I wasn't going to be on the news and I told I wasn't going to do Hollywood stuff. My girlfriend's an actor. My girlfriend has been in the business for a long time. She's a fantastic storyteller. She's a New York Times bestselling author. So I knew with her

writing skills and my knowledge of how the intelligence community and how the real world works would be a pretty powerful combination. And we're now four years into our collaboration. And starting to make a couple of moves here. And maybe you all will hear some stuff in the future. Maybe not. I hope so. Well, everybody comes to Hollywood with a dream.

And the thing is, lived my dream. My dream was the life that I lived. Right. I loved everything about it. Right. It happens great. If it doesn't, I'm okay with that as well, but I do think Hollywood could do a better job of depicting CIA writ large.

Because if you think about it, outside of Bourne, which of course is an assassin, and Bond, which of course is just a figment of Ian Fleming's imagination, every person that you've seen in a movie that CIA is literally the most despise. character and the entire and when people meet me, they're like,

but you're too nice to be CIA. All the CRE folks that I work with were nice. Almost all of them. They're very few assholes. Now, they have them.

Don't think that they don't. Right. They are so few and far between that I am just blown away by how different we're depicted and how we really are. So I'm trying to tell stories that are authentic to my experiences in. And my experiences were diverse. I've had female station chiefs. I've had black bosses. I've had white bosses. I mean, you name it. There's not very few experiences that I didn't have

and all of them were positive, and very few of them are depicted on anything we're seeing nowadays in the espionage genre. I mean, without giving away your screenplays, I mean, what are some of the types of spy stories you'd like to tell? Honestly, they're not even spy stories. They're human interest stories. They're mothers and daughters and generational, you know, generational stories. There's one, it's a working title, is legacy, and it's about a mom who is a collection management officer, a CMO, a reports officer, who has a daughter who becomes a case officer. And there's a natural friction between case officers and reports officers. It's always existed. It always should.

Because when you're always on the same sheet of music, you start to, you know, you can get, you know, tunnel vision. but it's also a story about mothers and daughters and the friction that is there sometime. So yes, it's about CIA, but it's more about mom and daughter. And of course, the granddaughter who through the arc of the first season recognizes that not only as her mom, but her grandma are both kick-ass CIA officers. So those kind of stories. Daryl, I mean, yeah, that actually resonates. It's like, I don't know if you knew her, but we interviewed on the show a ways back, Erin O'Wallon, and her mother was in the agency before she became a case officer.

And there's a little bit of that there, yeah. Right. I'll have to go back and listen to our episode. Yeah, I would be happy to introduce you guys if you're interested. What else has your post-retirement journey taken you on? What other journeys have you been on since then? So I'm the chief operating officer of a niche boutique security firm called Mosaic. We mostly deal with high net worth individuals.

We are dealing with some governments. We specifically haven't sought any U.S. government-type contracts because it's just, it's so intense and so involved that that's not really the way we want to go. You know, just in the last 15 months, Mosaic has taken me back to Africa for the first time since I left the agency. It's taking me to Europe and London and India. So I still get to travel and meet with interest in people and help resolve people who are kind of trapped up in circumstances beyond their control. It's not CIA, but it's kind of similar. And of course, they now know my background because I came out from undercover. So that kind of puts people at ease when they realize that I've been here and done that kind of before.

So there's Mosaic. I mentioned earlier that I volunteer and I'm on the board of a group called Peace for Kids where a part of mosaic also is involved with human trafficking or countering human trafficking. So all of my worlds are kind of intermingled, whether it's the security, peace for kids, and sadly, the feeder pipeline for human trafficking in the United States taps into a lot of children who are caught up in the foster care system. And I'm using those same stories and creating some espionage themed type stuff. So almost everything that I do ties back into one of the four areas, foster youth, security, entertainment, and not entertainment in the sense that that is entertaining, but more educating, I guess, should be the way I could do it. And then I sit on a number of boards just because I'm interested in Africa writ large. I think Africa is the future that maybe in 1960 was envisioned. But right now, the number of economies that are growing there, the rare earth minerals that are involved in UNET is an organization that I'm on the board.

I'm a part of the black professionals and the intelligence or in international affairs, BPIA. I do the things that I want to do now. I work with the people that I want to work with. And a lot of them is giving back to the black community and trying to do things that I couldn't do when I was living when I was living abroad, like volunteering my time. And that's, yeah, that's where I am. Dave, do we have any questions from viewers? We do have some questions. We have some great questions.

First, let me get the one from Patreon. While we wait, Daryl, I just want to tap into that one of that last. points that you made there, you know, West Africa had this moment, I guess, of opportunity that you mentioned, post-colonialism. And, you know, things didn't go the way probably anyone wanted them to. But it seems that now we may be at this, at the, a similar moment, these sorts of rising economies, getting interested in the tech field. What do you think, what do you think the potential future could be for West Africa in the next, let's say, 25 to 50 years? Not even West Africa. I'm talking about the entire continent. Now, listen, Black Panther was released today. So I think I'd be remiss in not mentioning the Wakanda.

Now, it's not going to be Wakanda, but people need to recognize that that continent has been kind of sidelined for a long time. East Asia was sidelined for a long time. And now, if you look at the economies that are growing there, I think that's what we're going to see. Africa over the next 25 to 50 years. Economic growth that cannot be ignored by the rest of the world. And investment and investment is going to be the result. You think there could be like a like they call South Korea like the tiger of Asia. You think there could be a tiger of West Africa that that could. Yes, I think American Express has been inside of Ghana for maybe 10 or 15 years now. There are examples of businesses that recognize long before, you know, long before now that Africa is the way they want to go. But I still think there's a lot of trepidation.

If you look at what's going on in the Tigray, with the Tigray people in Ethiopia right now, when I joined the agency in 1990, the end of what was then the longest civil war in Africa happened where Eritrea and Ethiopia were. where Eritrea was separated from Ethiopia, became its own country ending a two decades-long civil war. But now it's gone back to that. Somalia. We went into Somalia because of the famine. Now we're seeing that again. So people are afraid that that's going to be yet.

But don't judge the entire continent by what's going on in very small or relatively small areas in comparison. to the rest of the continent, judge each nation by its own potential and it's wide open. What do we got? Okay. So, this from Isaac. First off, happy Veterans Day and thank you all for your service. Thanks, Isaac.

China has been making a lot of investment in Africa for technology and minerals by building factories, contribute to local economies, giving low-skill and low-paid jobs, while Chinese figures hold higher businesses. But is it possible they're setting up these communities for a debt trap? If that's true, is the CIA taking this seriously? China wants to control the tech infrastructure in Africa, and if they get Taiwan, they will control the world's biggest supplier of microchips. So this is a potential problem for the whole world.

Is there anything that can be done to keep Africa out of the PRC's hands? I think the PRC is going to keep Africa out of its hands. So the Chinese are not, they're not like the United States and the Americans. When we go into a country, we try to engage with the communities in which we're moving. We don't isolate ourselves. We don't, you know, carding ourselves off. And that's what China has done on the African continent and everywhere they go. Quick example, in Nairobi, there was a Chinese restaurant that refused to serve.

Kenyans. I think this is crazy. They literally spent those Africans allowed in this restaurant. Of course, that restaurant was burned to the ground. That is the mentality of China. They will come in and now they do give a lot. I will not take that from them. They give a lot, but they're taking more than they're giving. And they're just not ever going to be, they're not winning hearts and minds on the ground. Right. In Africa. I'm not as concerned about Africa, China in Africa as many others are. And they're going to find, they're going to find the thing out that every other country that has ever tried to expand it where he learned along the way is money does not buy love. Exactly. Exactly.

So, Isaac, I hope you answered your question. Travel with love. Thank you very much. Thank you and all for your service. Well, thanks. We appreciate that. David Maynard. Thanks, buddy.

What is your favorite depiction of the CIA in movies? I don't know what this favorite depiction of the CIA is. It's certainly not Zero Dark 30 or whatever that debacle for Benghazi was. But there is one story that I always, when people say, give us an example of, what a case officer, what a case officer does. Philip Seymour Hoffman played the role of a German intelligence officer. That's a great movie. In a movie called A Most Wanted Man.

There's a scene in the final third of the movie where he has to convince this very reluctant agent source from going back in one more time and doing what he needs them to do. that was as close to being a case officer as I've seen depicted in anything. So if you haven't seen it, watch the movie. It's beautifully done. And the thing about that movie is you never know whether that guy is really a threat that is implied throughout the film. So that's what you're dealing. You deal with a lot of ambiguity in the intelligence world.

And if you can't deal with ambiguity, if you need concrete yes or no, you can't be in the intelligence world. That's really not the world we live in. The world is great. So, yeah, most wanted man. I love that movie. Oms, thank you very much for the donation. Joe's got you.

Thank you very much. Did you ever work with the Army Centress, Spike, in the 90s. I didn't. I haven't heard that name in forever. I did in Somalia, as a matter of fact. Mustafa,

thank you very much for their donation. How in the world can West Africa be stabilized after seeing what's going on there? I mean, West Africa is huge. West Africa is the size of the United States of America. So I don't think that's, there's not

enough specificity for me to There's one. Senegal, Senegal has been stable since independence. It's one of the few countries. Yes, there's a rebellion in the Kazimans that's been going on for a long time, but overall, historically, it's been

one of the more stable places. Ghana has been stable. When I joined the CIA in 1990, there was that many examples, zero of power being handed over from one leader to another through the ballot box. Now there are more examples on the

continent, then more examples of that being done, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, and I know I'm missing Liberia. I know I'm missing others. It's happening, Nigeria even. It's happening. Things are changing. Things are getting better, but they're not going to change overnight. They're going to change throughout our lifetime. Invest in West Africa, invest in North Africa, invest in the continent. Yes. I just got a hot tip on a Singalese restaurant in uptown Manhattan yesterday. I can't wait to go to you.

Oh, yeah. Jebogen, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

I've best food I've ever had in my life, Senegal. It's a rice with a shrimp in it, right? Yes. Rice and fish. Rice and fish. Oh, man. Connor Halsey, thank you very much. Could you go into the specifics of what?

a CTC SO does. I've seen the name a lot, but never actually got it, got it how their mission was different from broader CTC other than they worked AQ post 9-11. Sorry, dude. I don't know if I can, I don't know if I can answer that one.

Okay. I apologize, no. Okay. Thanks, Connor. We appreciate it. If you have another question, you want to ask, throw it up there real quick.

Travel with Love, thank you very much. Thousands of years apiece and one billion scientists. I think a statement. And Michelle Allen, thank you very much. Oh, wow. Thank you very much for the very generous donation. Happy Veterans Day to all of you.

I salute all of you in many ways you serve our country. That's very kind. Let's see if anything else came in real quick. It looks like we have some spam bots in there. I think that's it. But, um, okay. Do spam bots? actually ask questions? No, no, they

they're, they're they're, they're they're trying to hook us up with lovely young women. Oh, yes, aren't they all? Yes. So guys, uh, next Friday we're going to have Matt DeVos on the show, uh, cyber, um, computer dude. Uh, actually been kind of on the ground floor for it, um, from a DoD perspective. Um, so we'll have him here next Friday. Daryl, any final thoughts and let people know where they can find you if they want to have you come as a speaker or they want to get in touch with mosaic i mean

where can people go to find you the quickest way is find me on lincoln darrell m blocker um and you can email me at dmb at mosaic s cc dot com that's m osaic s cc dot com yeah those are probably the two easiest way. LinkedIn or just hitting me up on the on an email. All right. Outstanding. Daryl, thanks so much for your time and, you know, spending some of your Friday with us. Yeah. And Izzy, thank you very much for that last minute

donation. We really appreciate. Oh, yeah. I did, I did miss one thing that I wanted to cover. I've talked about for peace for kids. I've talked about my volunteer work. But if you all are avid podcast listeners, there's a fantastic podcast called Bonus Babies. that is done by a CASA, which is a court-appointed special advocate. These are people who are involved in the foster care world, and she tells stories from the perspective of people who are in the foster care system,

whether it's the child or the attorney or the educator. It's a fantastic podcast, and she's also my creative partner and girlfriend, so I'm invested in it financially, I invested in it emotionally, and I'm vested in the future of our nation, which is always our children. And those in foster care need us more than anyone else. Right. And can you, will you give that podcast one more time? Bonusbabies.org.

Okay. Bonusbodies.org. Yes. Jane Amelia Larson is the host, and she just completed her second season. and it's always fascinating and great stories and some of the things that these people have been through parallels and matches anything that any vet has ever seen in their life and they didn't bring any of it on themselves. Right.

That's the, right. Right. Yeah. Daryl, thanks again, man. Really appreciate your time. Gentlemen, thank you. We deeply appreciate you. We would love to have you on anytime.

And, you know, let us know when you've got stuff going on. If this comes out, you know, if you got something coming out in Hollywood, let us know we're going to, we'll plug it. Oh, absolutely. All right. Maybe a couple tickets to the premiere. That'd be cool. The flights.

All right, guys. We'll see all of you next Friday. Take care, everyone. Thanks, everybody. All right.