The Team House - Former CIA case officer Lindsay Moran, Ep. 90

Episode Date: April 24, 2021

Lindsay served in the CIA as a case officer and is the author of Blowing My Cover. In this episode we talk about her upbringing that lead her into the CIA, her training at the farm, her first assignment in Macedonia, rubbing shoulders with a paramilitary goon squad, preparing for the invasion of Iraq at Langley, and much more. Her book can be found at: https://www.amazon.com/Blowing-My-Cover-Life-CIA/dp/0425205622/ Get access to bonus segments with our guests: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 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/RemixSampleBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Special operations, covert ops, espionage, the team house with your hosts, Jack Murphy,

and David Park. Hey guys, this is the team house coming at your live. Episode 90. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park. Our guest tonight is Lindsay Moran. She is a former CIA case officer. She's the author of Blowing My Cover, which I read, what, about a week ago? Super cool book. Really enjoyed it. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, yeah, me too. Part of the bromance. Yeah, we are a bro show. There's not a bro quota. I'll say that. But occasionally we let women invade our secret tree fort, you know, that we make with the couch cushions and everything and the Nerf guns.

Yeah, yeah, we're okay. We take down our no girls allowed signs. Lots of like cooties getting spread around and whatnot. But, you know, we're okay. I'm growing up a little bit. with it. No, so Lindsay, the first question we always ask our guests is about their superhero origin story. If you were a superhero, how did you get your start? Were you put in like a vat of some sort of liquid while they fused adamantine to your skeleton, where you bit by a radioactive spider,

locked inside a nuclear reactor and hit with gamma rays? I don't know. What happened? Oh man, that is like a curveball question right off the bat. And I will say foremost, superheroes are not my jam. Like, not into them. Don't believe in. It's just not my thing. Thanks everybody for joining us tonight. It's been great. I'm just talking. But, okay, let me think about that. If I think that I, my superhero origin story, and forgive me because I know no real superhero origin. stories. But I think that I was like, it was kind of like Willie Wonka in the chocolate factory. And I was the kid who wanted to, wasn't there a kid who dove into that chocolate river? Sure. I think that's what I did. But it was like a river of cynicism and wit.

Nice. I just floated down that for a while and came out and was like, hmm, I think I'll take these skills and join the CIA. So would your superhero name be like Sardonica or something along those lines? Yes, I love that. That is my superhero name. I was keeping that to myself. Well, you're also like the quintessential Gen Xer, I think, by running around with like tore-up jeans as a teenager. And that's where the cynicism and wit comes from. I'm still in torn-up jeans. I'm not going to stand up to show you all, but I am in jorts. Yeah, no, I am a total Gen Xer, closet slacker,

not even so much a closet slacker. But yeah, I'm proud of my Gen X roots. So what about your Gen X roots? Like how did you grow up? And was it something in your environment, your family, things you read or saw on TV? Like what led you to the CIA? Yeah, that's a good question. It was absolutely 100% my environment. I grew up in the D.C. area. and I was obsessed with this character Harriet the Spy. Those were my favorite books, and I liked this little girl who'd like sculpt around and spied on people. And I kind of fashioned my life after her spying on the neighbors and my family

and nobody was ever doing anything interesting. But also my father worked for the Defense Department and he designed ships for the Navy. And so he was doing top secret work. And I at that time didn't really understand the nature of his work, but I kind of assumed that he was a spy because, you know, I would call his office and someone would answer and say, this is a non-secure line.

And I knew that when he traveled overseas, and sometimes I would go on business trips with him, we couldn't go to Eastern Bloc countries. And he was always really paranoid, you know, looking at his suitcase. packing his suitcase in a particular way to make sure that nobody had tampered with it. So I kind of thought he was a spy. I also, my grandfather had a past that seemed like maybe he could have been a spy. That is, he was supposedly an engineer for the U.S. Army. But as I delved into it, I noticed that wherever he went, there was like a coup six months later. So I kind of got it in my mind that

that joining the CIA and becoming a spy was like a right of passage to me, that this was like my birthright. I graduated, I guess, from Harriet the Spy to James Bond and was really obsessed with those and would go to James Bond triple features. Now I can't stand that Hackney Crapola and cannot wait until Bond drops dead of syphilis. But in any event, ultimately I learned that my father was, was not a spy. I still don't know about my grandfather. Even after I joined the CIA, I still have my suspicions that he might have been in the OSS. But to me, it was an obsession from a very young age.

I was going to be one of two things. A pirate, like could be longstocking or a spy, like Harriet's spy. But I thought it was interesting that you didn't take the traditional 1950s career into the CIA. Well, you kind of did go into Ivy League schools. But you were also like some sort of Pinko liberal commie. And I've heard, I heard a rumor in your book that you might have smoked the reefer. Well, yes. And it's interesting that you bring that up, Jack. But yeah, when I, there were, I didn't approach, I mean, the CIA didn't approach me. I approached the CIA. And there were only three people that I told that I was going to approach the CIA. My father, my mother, and my brother, all of whom were opposed to that decision.

My father, most of all, was like, the CIA is never going to take you. And he was like, you know, if they want you, they will come tap you on the shoulder and you should be president of the Young Republicans Club. And I was ignoring all that. And then finally he said, and also you've smoked pot. And that used to be, I think at the CIA, you know, that used to be a disqualifying factor. But come on, like the main, the main. the main skill you have to have as a case officer is to be able to assimilate and relate to people.

And in 1997, when I applied to the CIA, if you were someone who had never smoked pot, you're going to have a hard time going out and relating to other people in the world, frankly. So, yeah, it was almost my dad saying, you know, they're never going to take you that I thought, hmm, I'm going to prove him wrong. And they did. They took me. Yeah, it was funny how he, at least the way you write in the book, he was like the quintessential boomer voting for Ronald Reagan like, oh, they'll never take you.

Yeah, my dad is a hardcore libertarian. And that was the ethos that I grew up in. So I have become increasingly pinko-comi liberal as I've grown older. So at the time that you applied to the CIA, I mean, were you, I mean, did you sort of have more like, liberal, I don't want to say liberal, but more like socialist leanings or were you more following your dad's footsteps are libertarian? Yeah, no, I would say at that point in my life, when I was, you know, in my early 20s, that I did have a probably a much stronger libertarian streak. But, you know, I've always considered libertarianism that point in the circle where the left meets the right.

and I believe that to this day. But a few things drew me to the CIA. One was just that it had been my childhood dream, and I thought that would be like a really cool job. The other was actually a very strong sense of patriotism. And I think that's something that's that you see a lot at the people who are drawn to the CIA, both then, now throughout history, have that strong sense of patriotism. And I did have that gen X.

I grew up with that, you know, we are the good guys. I was always very interested in and intrigued with almost obsessed with Eastern Europe and the Soviet bloc. And I traveled to the Soviet Union when I was 17 on one of the first U.S. Soviet student exchange programs. And I remember this being kind of a big deal for my father, who was working for the government at that point and designed. sub and Navy ships and was certainly not allowed to go to Soviet bloc countries or the Soviet Union. So the fact that a 17-year-old daughter was going to go over there was a big deal, and he had to get clearance through the government for that to happen, or at least he told me. I'm not quite sure that he actually got that clearance.

But my father warned me before I went to the Soviet Union that, you know, I for sure, would be followed, that there would be KGB handlers all along the way. But back to your original question about my politics then, it was really a very strong sense of patriotism that drew me to the CIA and a desire to serve my country in a way that I thought was suited to me. My brother is a naval aviator and spent his career in the Navy. And yes, it would have pleased my father to no end if I had done an ROTC scholarship and join the military. But that wasn't the right fit for me. So the CIA seemed to me like a kind of place where I could serve my country, but I could also be my crazy, quirky self. And you do have a lot of crazy quirky people at the agency.

And you still took this sort of meandering route there. I mean, you were living overseas in Bulgaria, rock climbing. You were, you were. accepted to different graduate programs. I think it was it a Fulbright scholarship that you got? You delayed your service into the CIA after you had applied to go and do graduate school. What was it that finally you turned away from academia in this bohemian lifestyle and took the plunge and went through the process? Yeah, a good question. So at the time that I was, I mean, I guess I was about 25, 26 years old and I was sort of trying to figure out what I was going to do. and I had spent a year living in Bulgaria as a teacher

where everybody thought that all the American teachers were spies. But I came back and it was at that point that I decided to really pursue an earnest, the agency, and sent my resume in, I mean, like old school, you know, folded it up, putting an envelope CIA in Langley, Virginia, and sent it away. At the same time, I applied for a Fulbright, Scot. to go back to Eastern Europe to Bulgaria. And at the same time, I applied to Berkeley Law School. And they all kind of came in at the same time.

I was hired by the CIA. I got the Fulbright, and I was accepted into Berkeley. And I deferred Berkeley for a year, and I deferred the CIA for a year. At first I told the CIA, I was like, look, you know, I'm so excited to come, but I've got this Fulbright to Bulgaria. So I'm going to go do that. And they were, the CIA was like, no, we don't think so. you know, we're starting to question your commitment.

And I spoke to my brother, who's the most reasonable and rational and thoughtful person I know. And he was like, look, Lindsay, you don't want to be part of an organization that's not going to let you do a Fulbright scholarship. Right. So I called the agency's bluff and I said, you know, I'm going to go do the Fulbright. And they were like, okay, get in touch with it. Do not get in touch with us while you're overseas. Get in touch with us in a year. I also deferred Berkeley another year.

And living overseas for another year, again in Bulgaria, love the Balkans, love Eastern Europe. That kind of misery just really appeals to me. And it was there that I realized, you know, I just, I really, I like being overseas. I like interacting with foreigners. I like being a global person. And so it was, I did not get in touch with the agency.

I came back. They had to redo my background investigation, but then ultimately I was accepted into the clandestine service. And, you know, it was one of those things. Everybody, well, everybody, there were three people who knew my brother, my father, and my mother. And they kept telling me it wasn't the right fit for me, but I'm kind of one of those people who I'm going to do what I want.

Sure. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, piracy hadn't really become the rage in Somalia yet. So it was the CIA at that point. Oh, I know. I sent my resume there too, and that was the one place that they were like, no, I don't know. You're not really what we're looking for. Yeah.

When you interviewed for the CIA, and you know, you said that like smoking pot and things like that used to be disqualifiers, were you forthright? Did you tell them like, or forthcoming, did you like tell them stuff, you know, the things that you thought might? Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Work against you?

Yes, I was. I mean, I was fairly forthright. Like, I didn't list every occasion on which I'd smoke marijuana, probably, because I did not have those dates in my calendar. So I was fairly forthright. I said that I had smoked pot like five or six times in college. Maybe I underestimated it by a little bit. Interestingly, I never had any problems with the drug question on my polygraphs.

The question that I got hung up on was, have you ever willfully destroyed government property? Right. And I had a polygrapher, you know, he said, you're, you keep, I know you're lying, you're lying about this question, you keep getting caught up on this question of did you ever willfully destroy government property? And truly for the life of me. I mean, I had shoplifted, you know, as a kid, yeah, I'd smoked pot. I had never willfully destroyed government property. But the best thing was, at one point, he looked at me very seriously and he said, you know, this could cover of variety of offenses. For example, taking a sledgehammer to a fax machine, which really dates me and the polygrapher. But I mean, I almost burst out laughing because I can't imagine that that's the one thing someone's going to hide is taking a sledgehammer to a fax machine. So back to your original question because I've given you a long answer. But the short answer is I was fairly forthright. I had done enough research on the polygraph that I knew the polygraph is not a scientifically

accurate tool. The polygraph will certainly measure your physiological reactions to questions in the situation you're in, but it's not going to tell people if you're lying. I will say this. It is an incredibly effective psychological tool, particularly on Americans. And I think the C.S. uses it to its advantage when they're hiring people because it is a very powerful psychological tool. I was, I stonewalled the polygraphers. I at some level knew that this was part of a game, and I felt it was part of a game or a process. And at some level, I felt bad for some of my fellow trainees, people who were hired around the same time as I was, who were squeaky, squeaky, who had never done any drugs and who ended up going in for their polygraphs again and again and again

because the polygrapher simply wouldn't believe that they'd never smoked pot. Right. I think it's interesting also that you say that it's an effective tool for Americans because one of the things that not a lot of people know is polygraphs don't really work on people of different cultures if they don't sort of have a guilt-based culture. If they have more of like a shame-based or whatever, it doesn't. always, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't measure things that they feel like the bad things they did, they did for the right reasons or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, that certainly was driven

home for me from my years living in Eastern Europe. And, you know, I started out in, in the Balkans, in Bulgaria as a teacher. And all of my students were these incredibly bright Bulgarian students. And I was young. I was 24 at the time. And they told me, me years later that they couldn't believe I gave them a test and I turned around and faced the other direction. I don't know. I was writing something on the blackboard. And they couldn't believe that I turned around and face the other direction because they all had these ingenious methods of cheating, you know, these scrolls that would come out of pens, like much better gadgets than we ever had at the CIA. Right. At the school I was teaching, half the faculty was Bulgarian and half was American. And there was

kind of a debate about cheating because as Americans, it's, you know, we have, I think, this honor code about, about honesty. In some ways, we're naive. And what became clear to me is that, at least in the Balkans, and certainly, you know, in communist Bulgaria, that you have to get by by line. You have to figure out a way to work the system. And that's how you survive. And that's you get ahead. And so this notion that you're going to feel really guilty about telling an untruth is kind of preposterous. Now, the CIA does use, as many people know, the CIA uses the polygraph, not just on applicants and employees, where I do think the CIA is able to use that effectively and is able to get people to admit things that they might otherwise not, because again,

it's a powerful psychological tool. I do question how effective the polygraph can be in terms of vetting foreign assets and foreign agents, because in a lot of other cultures and in a lot of other situations, there is no guilt associated with that kind of lying and doing what you have to do, whether it be for your country or your family or yourself. Well, and if you look at somebody like Ames, you know, he reportedly, passed the polygraph every five years like squeaky clean no problem so yeah and i and i will say um it was actually aims aims as i said it had always been my dream to to join the cia when i first graduated from

college i sent my resume to the cia and they got in touch with me immediately and i decided not to go through with the process at that time because i was 21 years old and i was like i was cognizant that that entering this place was going to, you know, it's like dive and head first down into a rabbit hole. It wasn't until 1994. I was living in Eastern Europe. I was living in Sophia, Bulgaria. Actually, no, it was right. I was preparing to move to Sophia Bulgaria when Ames was arrested. And those headline, I read those headlines. And that really, in a way, kind of reawakened my sense of patriotisms. I was so outrage that this person had worked for the CIA and been in the position he was in and was selling secrets to the Russians over over more than a decade. And that was when

I finally decided, you know what, I'm going to go back. I think that's what I want to do. So you go back, start the process. Before you are able to go to the farm, you do, I guess it was like some on-the-job training. You had a variety of outrageously ridiculous assignments at the headquarters in Langley. Before we get into the farm, I just wonder if you could tell us a little bit about some of those things that you ended up doing. Well, let me say this from the get-go. I never, as a younger person, I might not have ever identified myself or said, I'm an idealist and I'm a feminist, but I am. And so I, you know, I joined the CIA.

I've got two Ivy League degrees. You know, I've always been an advocate of women's rights and social justice and so on and so forth. So one of my first tasks at the CIA after some initial orientation is I'm not an intern, but I'm doing like entry level work in what at that time was called CE Division. And there was a contingent from Kazakhstan coming over. And so my job was to research titty bars in Washington that we could take these guys to and we could show them a good time. And then there were also, my job was to research like activities.

Some of them had their wives coming over with them. that we could entertain the wives. It wasn't going to be me taking the dudes out to the titty bars, but I was responsible for finding different ways that the CIA could show these partner organizations a good time in Washington, D.C. And that's what the CIA does. You know, like we, as an organization,

we provide training, we provide perks in order to get allies and potential, potential allies to work with us and to share intelligence with us. So, you know, at the end of the day, it's kind of a dirty business and maybe like I was a little bit naive, but there was a point where I'm like, I cannot believe this is what I'm doing. Did you get reports back on the research that you had done? Was everybody happy about it? I never asked. I moved on, I moved on to a different, what's called an interim, you know, where we spent, we as the young trainees would spend three-month periods in different parts of headquarters.

And I moved on, I think, to my counterintelligence interim. And, you know, I mean, I saw people like lifelong bureaucrats sleeping underneath their desks. So very early on, I got a sense of this is not the omnipotent organization that I thought. it was. You know, this is not the best of the best. You talk about the two old ladies that are basically having like a conversation and farts across the office, you know, back and forth. It's like, wow. You know, I feel bad about writing that kind of stuff in my book because I'm always, you know, thinking that's a, I think I've become more humanistic in my old age. But yeah, it was,

there was so much of the agency, you know, from the outside looking in, I think I had revered this organization. And many people, people either love it or hate it. But from the outside looking in, I was like, this place is so cool. And then, you know, when I got on the inside and I realized, you know, it's a lot of people in sensible shoes. It's not what you see in in Hollywood. Well, doesn't it kind of go back to that old saying

like never meet your heroes? Yes. I might have been better off to never meet my heroes. No. And then you get to the farm. And I went through, this was back in the day

when they made it, everyone do like paramilitary training also. Well, can you talk a little bit about that and also getting into the trade craft training? because it was interesting that the PRB let you write quite a bit about what it's like to go through that whole process and be trained as a CIA officer. Yeah. Yeah, the training was the best part.

I mean, that was a blast, especially the paramilitary training, which of course had no bearing on what our actual careers would be. We all became airborne qualified and jumped out of planes, you know, as if we were going to show up at our first post like a, flying Elvis or something. But, you know, I didn't, I kind of knew it wouldn't have any bearing on our future careers, but it was great. I could not believe that I was being paid to sort of participate in this extreme sport adventure that most people would pay for. And we did, you know, we garnered some amazing, very tangible skills in land navigation and

maritime operations, defensive driving. I got the most improved award and that's called affectionately the crash and burn course of the CIA where we're racing cars around racetracks. I loved all that. I loved the paramilitary training. I loved all that. I loved our instructors, some old, you know, Vietnam vets and old CIA and military hands. And they were just great, great people. That aspect to me, you know, if my whole career had been that, That would have been fantastic. But of course, that's not the reality. And in addition to the paramilitary training,

there was a couple months of paramilitary training. And then there's tradecraft training. And tradecraft training was kind of a blast too, although it was very high pressure. And I kind of recognized early on that the CIA paradigm or what they're doing, which I think is smart and effective, is they're putting their trainees in a very, in a pressure cooker to see how they're going to react when they load more and more work on you.

The aspects of trade craft training, probably the most important aspect was surveillance detection. And, you know, I like everybody else had watched movies and thought, okay, when you're being followed, your job is to lose your tail and start racing around the back streets. And obviously learned that your job is to bore your surveillance to death so that you don't blow your cover. but there's extensive training in surveillance detection, which, you know, as a woman, as a person, like both situational awareness and surveillance detection and garnering skills in that arena, something that would serve me and still serves me well for the rest of my life. The agency has a very good training program, I think, for case officers, something that would,

is a criticism I had of the agency, and that I don't think I'm alone in this, is the agency's training paradigm is really geared toward Cold War operations. And the agency was very slow, I think, to adapt to the new reality of the war on terrorism. And the reality that a traditional case officer, and especially a female case officer like me, is going to have, is going to be able to be effective in some arenas, but is not going to be effective in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. And I think that we've seen being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey.

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at least on the inside and on the outside to a certain extent. We've seen the agency and the intelligence community playing catch up in a couple of arenas. The war on terrorism and also cybercrime because at a certain point, you know, training people to go around to a diplomatic cocktail around the diplomatic cocktail and try to recruit foreign sources. Oops, there goes my water. is not effective, you know, is not going to be effective for the intelligence that we need in the theater of war, in the theater of conflict. So saying that like when you went through or the training was molded towards the old paradigm in the Cold War and they were slow to, you know, adapt to the new paradigm, how do you think that would have been reflected in the training? How would have been different?

It's tough to say because I think you're, you have to recruit a different kind of person or you have to really target. You almost have to like create different kinds of case officers. That is, I as a woman could be and was a very effective case officer in the Balkans and can be a very effective case officer in the Balkans and can be a very effective case officer in some of the former. Soviet republics, whereas I'm not going to be in the Middle East, in places in the Middle East. The other thing is, I think the agency and the military had to come together in a way. That is, you know, and I, to put it bluntly, the agency, at least for the past more than a decade, has needed some kind of hybrid between a door kicker and a case officer. And I think they've been trying to create that, but it's not the kind of thing that you can create overnight.

It's a little bit more aligned probably with what, you know, like a typical massage combatant can be. You know, someone who has that military and paramilitary experience, but also can operate on any kind of social circuit and can assimilate into any kind of culture. And quite frankly, that's a very specific and very rare kind of individual. You know, I'm not the kind of person who can come up. That's pretty much J.SAC took that away from the agency. And there's a lot of debate to this day. I mean, should J.SAC have all those capabilities and have the paramilitary capability or should it reside in the CIA?

There's a lot of nostalgia for the old Office of Strategic Services. should it be both melded into one? I mean, I don't know. It's not for me to say what the right answer is, I suppose. You know, I think there's room for both. I think you can have both. And I think you, you know, the qualities that go into making a good case officer are so, I don't want to say specific, but it's almost like a perfect storm or like a number of

of different ingredients that you wouldn't think. You know, you don't have to be the smartest person. You don't have to be the braoniest person. You have to have this kind of secret sauce of social skills, of ethics, of ability to relate to other people. And, you know, I've spoken a lot about the role of women in intelligence and female case officers, because it is a very male-dominated environment. And yet, the best case officers I knew, the best recruiters I knew at the CIA were women. And I wasn't a mother at the time that I was a case officer. I am now. It was after I became a mother that I looked back on my kind of natural talent as a case officer and realize part of it is kind of like maternal instincts. When you're handling foreign sources, you are everything to that person.

You are their employer, you're their psychologist, you're their confidant, and you're the person who listens to them. You're the person who strokes their ego. And some of those capabilities and qualities were things that I felt, I've been doing this my whole life, you know, as a, as a woman I've been doing this my whole life. And I felt like that made me a very effective recruiter and certainly other women at the agency who had far longer careers than I did. I know we're very effective recruiters. Now, is there a place for for those women in the theater of war? Maybe not. But there certainly is a place for them in the world of human

intelligence. In your book, you also talk about how this was the point where you start to realize the truth, the reality of the CIA is not exactly what you had envisioned. Like, you thought you were going to be the spy, that you were going to be wearing the black cat suit, you know, repelling through a skylight somewhere and cracking open the safe. That very, very rarely do CIA officers get to do something like that. But actually, you're more like a case officer. You're or like the term implies, like a social worker, like you manage a case or a series of cases, those being assets.

What was that like for you as that kind of dawned on you and you began to even have some moral qualms with what you were being asked to do? Yeah. Well, let me say this from the get-go. The CIA is a hard place and the world of intelligence is a hard place to be if you can't operate in the gray.

you know, if you think in black and white. And that's certainly true in terms of morality. I won't say ethics, but in terms of morality. Because at the end of the day, as a case officer, you're using people. You're manipulating people. You are going into a foreign country and you're trying to spot the people that you think have access to information that the U.S. government might want. And then you're playing them, you know, like figuring out what are their vulnerability.

and what can I do to make this person share secrets with me? So it's very manipulative. It's very cold. And at the same time, it's something you can't do if you don't have human empathy. But I think if you do it for a while, you start to wonder, like, is this what I want to do with my life? And for me, what was most important was keeping sight of the higher good. I'm serving my country, I'm doing something good. So it's okay that I'm lying to everyone that I know. It's okay that I'm manipulating people and using them and playing upon their vulnerabilities,

because I'm serving my country. And at a certain point, I realized, you know, I don't know that I'm really serving my country that, well, not just me personally, but this organization. There's a lot of careerism at the CIA because there's careerism in in any arena, in any bureaucracy. And I think if you lose sight of what the high, at least for me, if you lose sight of what the higher goal is and the higher aim, you're not going to be affected at your job and you're not going to be happy there for the rest of your life. And I will say, quite frankly, like, I'm probably have become more of a global citizen. as I've gotten older, you know, that I grew up in an era of good versus evil and thought that we were the good guys.

And I don't think it was just my time at the agency. I just think it's the reality of the world that I realize, you know, we're not special. American hubris is just that. And as I've grown older, it's become much more important to me to be a global citizen. So I think that realizing two things. One, I don't know that I'm really serving my country. I don't know that this organization is really serving my country made me realize that this is probably not a place that I want to spend the rest of my life. At the same time, I do think there is tremendous value in human intelligence.

And, you know, I've never thought, okay, we should abolish that. you know, we shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't be spying. I mean, there is, there have been, I think, 9-11 was a big intelligence, a huge intelligence failure, the intelligence failure of our time. We haven't had something analogous since 9-11, since 2001, and I think that is in large part to the parts of the intelligence community and the CIA that do function well. And also, I thought this was very interesting And really, if somebody was telling me, and I'm probably going to get in trouble with somebody somewhere for saying this, especially if a woman I knew was interested in joining the CIA, I would want them to read your book. Because you talk about the lifestyle challenges that this career field presents.

And I think people are kind of familiar with the sacrifices soldiers make and you're deployed away from your family. You know, if you're a Marine, you're going to throw your, yourself on a hand grenade to save your buddies, that kind of thing. And I don't mean to make light of the intelligence community, there is a sort of sacrifice there that they're making in terms of their family and just human relationships. Like going out on a date with somebody becomes like, or can become this huge ordeal. No, that's very true. And again, when I was at the CIA, I was single. I didn't have kids. You know, I was unencumbered. But it's also, yeah, it's a

very hard place to have a relationship because you can't be truthful with anyone. You know, so the basis of any sort of romantic relationship is, it's based on lies. Less so when that person is an American citizen. You know, a lot of people think the CIA won't let you tell people that you're involved with that you work for the CIA. That's not entirely true. The CIA actually leaves it up to the discretion and judgment of most of the people. in the clandestine service. And in my case, there were three people who knew my mother and my father

and my brother. But yeah, you know, I was 20-something and single, and it's really, really, as a woman, it's hard to have a relationship under the best of circumstances. But when you're working a very high-stress job, you have to lie about what you're doing. And you also, you've got to make yourself sound as boring as possible. You know, that's the best cover. It's like, you don't want to titillate anyone, so to speak. So, you know, you present yourself as someone who's working like a dead-end bureaucratic job. You talk about how it was especially difficult that you initially, at least you had a boyfriend from Bulgaria. And you ended up really, I don't want to say it was all based on, maybe it was all based on your entrance into the CIA. But it just got to a

point where that relationship couldn't work. And the agency was, you know, all up in your business because you're with a foreign national, he's staying over at your place. Is she compromised? You know, all these kinds of questions. Yeah, no. Yeah, I broke up with him

because I joined the CIA. And, you know, I reported my boyfriend at the time as a close and continuing contact to the agency. And they, it was kind of funny. They vetted him.

You know, I was pushing this paperwork through the CIA because he was going to come visit me. And I was a neophyte spy and totally stressed about the ramifications that having a foreign boyfriend could have on my career. And the agency wasn't getting back to me and wasn't getting back to me. And then finally they got back to me and said that they had conducted an investigation of him. And that he was okay.

I was allowed to date him and he could come to my house. He was a rock climber. but they spelled his name wrong. So it was like a guy who didn't even exist. And, you know, we used to joke among colleagues, men and women, but particularly the women, you know, as we assessed men, we'd be like, you know, you've got to decide if he's worth the paperwork. And I don't know what the, you know, what the protocol is now,

but at that time, one-night stands were okay. Like, if you had a one-night stand with a foreigner, you didn't have to report it. So, you know, that was sort of the litmus test. If there was a hookup or something like that, then you had to decide, like, if I'm going to see this person again, I'm going to have to file paperwork on them. And, you know, we would openly discuss, yeah, that person's not worth of paper. Right, right.

It's an even bigger decision of whether you're going to shave your legs or not, right? Much bigger decision. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, it's hard. But, I mean, back to your original question, it's, it's hard as a single. person and it's and it's um it's also hard as a married person you know the agency has a very high divorce rate people tend to people tend to marry at least in the clandestine service people tend to marry other case officers so you've got two people who like lie cheat and steal for a living

who have cover for being out at all hours of the night um it's rife with opportunity for infidelity and indiscretion. So those marriages usually end. And then the people end up marrying someone else in the agency. And, you know, a funny story, one of my, one of the first female mentors I had at the CIA, I just started, I was still in that period where we were just working at headquarters. She and I went down to lunch together at the agency cafeteria. And she'd been at the agency for like 20 years. And she said, take a look around because one day you're going to be married to one of these assholes. I think she'd been married to two of those assholes.

But, you know, that's sort of how it works at the CIA. So most people in the clandestine service, either they're going to marry or have relationships with other people in the clandestine service, or they're going to have romances with foreigners because you live overseas. And so those are problematic too. you know, if you marry a foreigner, it's a big setback in your career. And I was very cognizant of that, joining the agency. This was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

And I was dating this guy. And quite frankly, I was like, this is just not going to work. You know, this is, I can't continue this relationship. So he read about himself, you know, years later in my book. And, you know, he went on to get a degree from UCLA. and like particle physics. That was funny to me too, because at the agency, one of the agency HR people said to me, you got to lose this weightlifter.

I'm like, he's not a weightlifter. He's a rock climber, you know, but I guess because he was Bulgarian, she assumed he was a weightlifter. But there was just this assumption that, you know, he's a foreigner and that's bad. And, you know, incredibly bright guy who, yes, as I said, got a degree in particle physics. And then realized years later, when he read a translation of my book into Bulgaria, and what I actually did. So let's get a bit of goss going.

You couldn't tell him why you were breaking up with them. What did you tell him? Do you remember? I think I said it's not you, it's me. And I put him on a plane and sent him back to California. I think I dated a lot of women that were in the CIA. Yeah, possibly. If that's the line.

That's one of the first things you learn in training. is when you're breaking it all. Actually, no, I mean, you bring up an interesting question because the process of recruiting a foreign source is very similar to a courtship. And when you get to that point where, you know, you're pitching someone for a recruitment, it's almost like, you know, you're asking that person to marry you.

Similarly, when you terminate a source, And by terminate, I mean terminate the relationship. I don't mean off the person. But it's almost like a breakup. You want it to be friendly, firm, and final. So similar to breaking up with someone, you know, you want to make it nice. You want to make sure there's not going to be a boiling rabbit on your stove. But you want it to be final.

and you want it to be firm, you know, like there's no going back. There's no chance we're going to get back together. So in a weird way, the CIA kind of trained us in how to break up with someone. Well, speaking of which, you graduate from the farm and get sent to Macedonia as your first assignment. Could you lay out the political situation, late 1990s in Macedonia, why this was an important place for the agency at that? time. Yeah. Kind of funny because I, you know, graduated. I mean, it's not like it's ranked, but I knew that I was like top of my training class at the agency and could have gone anywhere. And at that time, I don't know if the CIA still does it that way, but it's kind of like, you know.

Like graduating at the top of your class at West Point. They gave you choice of assignment. Yeah, well, it's more like the different divisions, you know, will trade players and such. But I wanted to go to what was then C.E. Division, which was Central Eurasia, which was the former Soviet states, different from Russia House, but also the Balkans. And I wanted to do that because I had lived over there. I had a little language capability. When I lived in Bulgaria, I picked up Bulgarian. And I just liked that part of the world. It's kind of screwed up. And also, you know, I also was like, this is a place where as a woman, I can be an effective case officer. So I was sent to Macedonia, which to my fellow trainees, they're like, you know, it wasn't even, now it's called Northern Macedonia. At that time, it was called the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because there's a big controversy between Greece and Macedonia about the name, but I won't get into that.

But in any event, Macedonia at that point, or FIROM, at that point, was one of the few former Yugoslav republics that had not disintegrated into bloody civil war and ethnic cleansing. And then I showed up and pretty quickly things went south. And it was funny because my mother, one of the few people who knew that I was working for the CIA. And once she figured out that I was not in Madagascar, where she thought I was for a while, but that I was in this place called Mastro. Macedonia. And all of a sudden it's going to hell in a handbasket. And there's quite a bit of ethnic stride, there's quite a bit of civil unrest between ethnic Albanians living in Macedonia, which is just south of Kosovo, and Macedonian nationalists and the Macedonian army. It was a great place to go as a neophyte spy because it was, we were really interested in what was

going to happen there. We were also tracking former Yugoslavian war criminals. So that was something that we were really active in. And this was like a very target rich environment and a small place. So it was a great place to go. But it was interesting to me. I think it was Sebastian Younger wrote a piece in Vanity Fair. And I read it while I was in Macedonia. And it was all about how dangerous Macedonia was and you couldn't even go out on the streets and you know I was living there at the time and yeah I mean I would go to sleep at night with shelling in the distance and there was definitely you know there were roadblocks there was unrest there was um there were a lot of shootings our embassy was attacked we ended up having Marines come to the embassy uh to protect the U.S.

embassy so but the weird thing was uh I never felt in danger and this will go back kind of to something that that you brought up earlier, Jack, which is that people always ask, I think, CIA, or, you know, if they know someone's been a CIA officer, you know, did you ever feel in danger? Did you ever fear for your life? And I have to be honest, I never did. And part of that was because I was much more stressed about my foreign sources that I was handling. That is, um, someone, who's doing something that you know is against their best interest that they could end up in jail, they could, you know, in some parts of the world executed, and you're the one responsible for their safety.

That was very daunting to me and very stressful. So I was never really worried about my own well-being. I was more worried about making sure that my foreign sources and the agents that I was handling were okay and that they wouldn't get wrapped up. Could you tell us a little bit about some of those sources that you're, what you're allowed to talk about as far as, you know, the ones that you, if you inherited them or the ones that you recruited, you know, by hand and developed on your own, there's, there's some great stories. I was actually going to ask a question that kind of like leads into that. When you show up your first tour, you've never worked as a case officer before, how does that, how does that handoff work? And then when you are given like your first source to

recruit, how does that feel for you and does it all work like training? And then, you know, and then the sources you had. Yeah. I will say the training really, you know, did, I think, serve me well and served all of us well in terms of that process of developing us, spotting sources, developing sources, and recruiting them. To me, what was funny was, you know, you do a lot of training at the farm for what's called blowback. That is, you know, if you're going to pitch a foreign agent, if you're a foreign source, and you're going to try to recruit them.

You want to be prepared if that person loses their shit. And, you know, so we would do training at the farm where an instructor would turn over a coffee table full of cheese and crackers and be like, you know, I'm going to report you to the local authorities. So we've done training in that and how to handle that. And then interestingly, to me, the first source that I recruited, actually, when I first broke cover with him

as a way of getting him not romantically interested. And this is something we can talk about if we have time, but a tightrope that all female case officers walk, I think, is you're, you know, most of our targets are men. So you're going to a foreign man and flattering him and acting interested in him and then over time suggesting that you meet more clandestine venues and parked cars and hotels. And the whole time you've got to make it clear that you're not going to sleep. with him. And this is something that's very difficult and challenging to do. So the first guy that I recruited,

who was an Albanian businessman, who was very well connected. And, you know, he was always thinking we were going to have a romantic relationship, even when, you know, I kept telling him no. And it was a relief to me when I decided to break cover and clear that with headquarters. And I told him, you know, actually, I'm a CIA officer, or I might not have said CIA. I said, you know, I work for the government. and this is what our relationship is. And he threw up his hands and he said, I love the CIA. I hadn't trained for this kind of enthusiastic response.

I loved the dialogue in your book where you're like recruiting him. And you know, you're trying to explain like, yeah, you're going to work for the CIA now. And he's like, yes, yes. So then we make the sexy time. And you're like, no, no, no, no. I give you money. You give me information.

And he's like, yes, yes. And then we make the sex. And you're like, no, no, you don't get it. You have to do the job, which is a very serious and stressful job, but you have got to have a sense of humor because it's like you're living in a borat movie. And, you know, the funny thing I remember with that particular source is, you know, I finally said to him, like, we are never. going to have so. Like that is never going to happen. This is a business relationship that's never

going to happen. And he kind of paused for a minute. And then he was like, even holding hands? And then the other thing is, you know, like, you're looking out for your sources. And we by that point, you know, we all have extensive training in personal security and surveillance. And And so, you know, again, this particular guy, and this is not a unique experience, but, you know, I had given him what security training I had. And I remember going to pick him up at a car pickup site and we were going to conduct a meeting in my car. And so he had specific instructions. I was going to pull up in my car. He was good. I would push the, you know, I would have, I would have my, what's a call? called, I don't know, the rearview mirror thing, but not the rear view mirror thing, down so that he would know it was safe to enter my car. He had his safety signals. And I told him, you just hang out in the bushes. And then when I pull up, you get in the car, you know, stay in the bushes. And then you get in the car. Well, one time I went to pick him up and he comes out and he had like a bouquet of flowers.

And he's like waving them around like he's bringing in an airplane or something. So that's another thing that's, I think, stressful. This is not just true for female case officers. This is true for case officers in general. The people that you're recruiting, these are people who are committing espionage. These are people who are like the Aldra Games of their country. So they're not always the most stable people. They're not always going to do what you tell them to do. And no matter how much you try to train them in safeguarding themselves, they might put themselves at risk. And And that's a, it's a, you know, you go to sleep and wake up a lot with a pit in your stomach of worry. And how are you feeling about this as you kind of develop some of these sources, recruited others?

You're right in, you know, presumably a lot of cable traffic back to headquarters. What do you start to, how are you feeling about your CIA career? How are you feeling about this job now that you're actually doing it? It was very weird for me because I was good at it. You know, I was, I was, I was a good case officer. I think I was talented at it. I'm a people person. And I was like, I'm good at this. And I'm hitting the ground running. And at the same time, I didn't like what I was doing. I didn't get a rush from recruiting a foreign agent. I didn't feel what I think is really essential to thrive in that career. I didn't feel a, I felt acutely like this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. And part of that was political, part of it was philosophical, but part of it was just plain personal,

that I was looking ahead to a career and a lifestyle where I would be cut off from my family and cut off from normal relationships. And at some point I thought, I'm starting to lose sight of who I am. And the other warning that a mentor gave me once, also a female mentor, and she said, you know, you have to be careful because you start to lie for your career and you end up lying about everything.

And I found that to be very true. That lying was so, it became so inherent and so innate to me that I was lying to everyone, to the people closest to me, about things that even I didn't have to lie about. And I didn't like that. I'd like to hear about this tasking. I mean, it was a tasking, but also something that kind of happened by happenstance to you, where you started looking at gathering information about the ultra-nationalist paramilitary groups in Macedonia. And if you could kind of tell us how that came about.

Yeah. So, you know, pre-9-11, we were the U.S. and the CIA was really interested in what was going to happen in Macedonia. I mean, there were later related to the war on terror. Macedonia and the Balkans are a big transit point, or we're at a transit point for Islamic extremists and for all kinds of activity, nefarious activity. But at that point, we were very interested in what was going to happen in Macedonia,

believe it or not. And so, you know, I was tasked with kind of infiltrating these, nationalist groups. And a lot of them were, you know, former military or former law enforcement. And they had kind of silly names, you know, similar to what we see happening here in the, in the, you know, the proud boys. I mean, they, the, in Macedonia. Oh, it's like like the lion of Macedonia kind of stuff.

Yeah. You know, so they all had. And, and so I remember once I was targeting this one, um, individual and, you know, went to a bar in Macedonia and there was like a raid, like a law enforcement came in and asked everybody to put their weapons on the table. And literally everybody, you know, weapons start coming out and I was the old, here I am. I'm like, I'm like the CIA person and I don't have a weapon. And everybody else is just like a popery of well, conocorpia of weapons. So, and

And the other thing that I think you really have to do as a case officer, that wasn't hard for me, is you've got to be a chameleon. And, you know, you're recruiting sources who might be expressing views that are abhorrent to you. And in the case of the Macedonian nationalist at that time, you know, they were very anti-American. America was seen as siding with the Albanian Muslims. and so the Macedonian nationalists were quite angry at us. And, you know, I would find myself in situations where very racist or xenophobic opinions were being expressed. And it was the kind of thing where I had to kind of play along or act like that didn't bother me. Already then.

Yeah. And that's not my nature. So, and that's something that I think diplomats have to do as well. And it's, you know, it's like if you, if you can believe you're serving your country to do that, then okay. But, you know, as I think I've shown in my post-CIA career, I'm probably more attuned to being outspoken. But this whole thing was like even weirder because I think what were you were like on your way to prepare a dead drop or something like that where you were right on your bicycle and like eagle? and Ivan are in the bushes preparing to ambush you and like they click their safety off their Kalashnikov and you ride your bicycle by like, holy shit. Yeah, I was riding my bike up, um, up, uh, Mount Vodna, and I was, I was going to make a chalk mark on a, uh, water fountain.

And that was like a signal to one of my agents. And so I'm riding my bike up and I see this kind of motley crew of like paramilitary looking guys as I'm on my bike on the way up and I pass them. I think, oh, that's sort of a sketchy-looking trio. And I had my hair back, baseball cap. Like, for all intensive purposes, I probably looked like, I did not look like a female. And so after making my chalk mark, I'm flying down the mountain. And I see these guys ahead of me,

because they're still kind of on their way up. And they all, and they've all, you know, they're all armed. And they jump into the bushes. And I was like, oh, shoot, shit. I probably thought something else. But anyway, I kind of screeched to a halt where they were. And luckily, I knew I spoke Serbian well enough at that time to issue some obscenities. And they realized probably from my voice and my accent that I was a woman and that I was an American and they came out. You know, we ended up having a nice talk and being friends. And it was one of the those guys that he was like, oh, you know, I'm looking for a visa to the United States. And I'm like, oh, well, you know, why don't we meet? We can talk about that. And he was someone who I ended up

targeting and developing. The other thing, and I don't think I wrote about this in the book, maybe just because it was too complicated, but I was wearing a t-shirt, an old t-shirt that I have that had applique across the front that was originally lucky. It was the word lucky. but the L and the Y had fallen off and it was just Uchekha or UCC, which was the name of one of the insurgent group that did not work in my favor either.

I don't know, I think in the book I thought that was way too complicated to explain. But yeah, there I was like with an Uchekha T-shirt riding down the hill. And then this got even weirder because I was like, couldn't believe this part where, like, you brought one of your girlfriends into this from, like, New York City. And, like, she was chilling at, like, the ultra-nationalist cafe with you and all this, this, like,

rag-tag militiamen. So, yeah, two of my closest girlfriends, one of whom's Bulgarian by birth, and the other, who's a novelist, and I have another story to tell about that. But yeah, she had a Fulbright scholarship to Bulgaria at the time, which to this day, she is convinced that I pulled some kind of CIA strings to get her a Fulbright to Sophia, which I did not. She got that on her own merit. But, yeah, she was in town and, yeah, perfect cover. You know, I'm just like a girl with my American girl. So I would drag her, you know, her parents and family probably would have killed me.

They knew what was going on. But I would drag her along for some of those adventures. Yeah, and she was like, Lindsay, like, I do have to tell you about her because it's a kind of, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So her name's Annie Ward, and she's a novelist. And she had a book come out, I think it was two years ago called Beautiful Bad, which she sold in like a three-way bidding ward of Harper Collins. She's an amazing writer.

But anyway, Annie's book is a novel. It's a thriller in kind of the Gone Girl style, and there's three characters, one of whom is based very closely on me. And before Annie sold her book, she kept telling me, you know, you have to read this book because the character, who I got the sense was kind of a villainous character, is based very closely on you. And, you know, I want to make sure you're okay with it. And I, you know, she's my best friend. I was like, I don't care if my character eats her own in the book. As long as you don't use my name and it helps you sell the book. She sold her book.

After the book was sold, the character that's based on me, the editors were like, look, this woman is not believable because she's just like way too badass and like she's a CIA person and nobody's going to believe that. It's not relatable. So you have to turn her into something else. And so she made that character, Joanna, not a CIA character, not a CIA officer. But so of everything in my life, my one, I feel like the one thing that I'm most proud of is that who I actually am was too badass to be. In a novel.

Yeah. That's awesome. And it was, I thought it was hilarious when, you know, you took your friend with you to this like cafe where everyone was like brandishing the. these weapons and like you get outside and smoking a cigarette or something and she's like, what does she say to you? She's like, Lindsay, are all of your friends like this? How do you? What do you? You know, God bless her. She was always up for the adventure. And through me, she met her future husband who's still her husband today, who's one of the third characters in her, in her thriller. But yeah, the night that she met her husband, it was just one of those nights where I was like,

all right, tonight we're going out with like a British security detail. She's like, all right, whatever. So, yeah, but, you know, none of my friends knew what my job was. I think a couple of them had suspicions, and she, of all people, certainly saw me, you know, very, very stressed. Didn't know what I was stressed about, but she was in Sophia and I was in Scopeia, Macedonia when 9-11 happened and she got on a bus that night from Sophia and came and stayed with me and so this was like a you know obviously 9-11 was a seminal moment for all

Americans who were alive at that time for me personally and I think for everybody working for the CIA you know there was no there was no getting around the unsurricular. spoken truth that this was the biggest intelligence failure of our time. And it was a very weird and hard experience to feel in some way responsible. And how did that change things? How did things shake out? Because at the same time, correct me if I'm wrong, but like tensions were starting to flare up in Macedonia, independent, having nothing to do with 9-11. Like you tell a story about how like your cat and all of our kittens got poisoned by the neighbor because

of anti-Americanism had gotten so strong. Yeah. Yeah, there was a very strong anti-American sentiment in Macedonia at that time. After 9-11, there were celebrations in the street in front of our embassy.

And that was, you know, that was hard. It was upsetting. Again, yes, I had a cat who had kittens and they were poison. I wasn't the only CIA person there or American person there who I think had those kind of repercussions or that kind of backlash. And I will say this, I already had, you know, pretty significant misgivings about staying with the agency. And for a little while after 9-11, I was very committed to staying with the organization because I felt like this 10th,

terrible thing has happened. And now, you know, we, we are all united in this. And the agency will get its act together and it won't be a big bumbling bureaucracy and there won't be careerism and there won't be lack of accountability. We're all going to, you know, ban together and fight this war on terror. And then I, you know, I quickly realized that that probably wasn't going to be the case either. But it was a hard time, I think it was both a hard time and a and a revitalizing time because I think I wasn't the only one. You know, we all felt very passionately about tracking Osama bin Laden, about eradicating al-Qaeda, about fighting this war in a way. But, you know, these are these are very complex issues. And the CIA, you know, it became,

like a game of racemole to a certain extent. And instead of being able to go and, you know, kick some ass over in Afghanistan, you got roped into the preparation for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. So, I mean, could you tell us about that? Like, how did that make you feel, you know, as a self-avowed, bleeding heart liberal? I mean, I see now here in 2021, I can tell you perfectly well how I feel about. that what a disaster that war was but at the time i was what 19 or 20 in the army in ranger training all stoked up i i've just missed the invasion barely myself i wish i could have been there um but

this is like an example of how your feelings about things can change over time i'd like to hear your thoughts yeah and perfectly honestly um i didn't go i was surge i was in uh language lessons for a follow-on tour. I can't say where that was going to be, but I can say that I was in Russian language lessons at the time when I was back in the States and I was taken out of those language lessons and what's called surged into Iraqi operations. So I wasn't thrown into Iraq. I mean, we were preparing for the invasion. But I was at headquarters supporting Iraqi operations from headquarters. And that was not my area of expertise. WMD, counterproliferation. I mean, Iraq. That was not, you know, that was, that was not my bellywick. But at the CIA, and this is very

common at the CIA, you know, you go where you're asked to go, and you become an expert pretty quickly. And one of the first things that happened when I was surged into Iraqi operations was I ran into the person who was the head of Iraqi operations, who I knew from the Balkans. And he was like, yeah, I got to tell you, we don't have any Iraqi sources. Like, we just don't, like all over the world, we don't have any Iraqi sources. I'm like, hmm, that's not really good. And then I spoke to analysts who had worked at its issue in this region for years, who also told me, yeah, we don't have any evidence of a link between Iraq and WMD.

And there's also no relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. So it was a very surreal experience for me to be, you know, waking up in the morning and looking at the Washington Post and reading one thing. going into headquarters and realizing that what was being presented to the American public was not the truth.

And I think a seminal or watershed moment for me at headquarters was I was not at this particular meeting, but a colleague told me about it, a colleague from County Proliferation, who was in the County Proliferation Division,

who said that, like, not a middleman, a fairly high-level manager had gathered a group of them, maybe 50 people together and said, look, let's face it. The president wants to go to war, and our job is to give him a reason to do so. And that just really, really, you know, struck me to my core because that's not why I joined the CIA, and that's not why the CIA exists. Yeah. We had Scott Ritter on many minutes ago, who was a UN, its weapons inspector through, I mean, before all that.

And he said that ever since Bush 1, through the Clinton administration and the Bush 2, like elements of the government, they were gunning for Iraq that entire time. We've had Sam Fattis on the show. We have had Tracy Walder. We've had all these different people. And, you know, I don't say this to kiss the CIA's ass by any means. But I think there's enough people have come forward. There's enough evidence that, like, the CIAs.

CIA was not on board with all this malicious bullshit, quote unquote, intelligence that there were WMDs in Iraq. And just as you said, Lindsay, that a policy decision had already been made. And now the CIA was being, like, forced to legitimize that decision. Yeah. And I think, you know, as much as I both criticize and poke fun of the CIA in my book, and I've done so publicly, I met some of the brightest. most dedicated, most ethical individuals there. And when I joined the CIA and people who were at the CIA before me, you know, it really, there is, you park your politics at the door.

You know, it tends to attract, you know, it doesn't, I might as well have been, I'm not that far left, but I might as well have been like Joan Baez, you know, strumming my guitar because the CIA tends to mean right. It tends to attract those types of people. At the same time, I never felt like my work was politicized. You know, my work, if anything, there was an element of careerism that I think was stronger than the politics of it. But I would say that CIA clandestine officers go out there. They want to recruit sources because that will get that will further their career. But also, I think there is an ethos to get the truth and to get the information that's not

being conveyed in diplomatic channels. And there's not a political agenda behind it. And where and how that became derailed, you know, in my mind, it was with the Bush administration and Dick Cheney drove a lot of that. But again, that's when I was there. And that's what I saw and that's what I heard about. It's been very disheartening to me since then to see the agency portrayed as a kind of political organization. And if it's not the right wing, this notion that the agency is some kind of, you know, that there's the deep state and it's all these liberals.

I mean, that's like preposterous. You mean the CIA is not woke? It's so far from woke. I mean, maybe it's more woke now, but, you know, at the time that I'm at the time that I'm, was there, yeah. If you look up anti-woke and dictionary, you might come to the agency. So what was your experience like after, you know, that initial reception working Iraqi ops at Langley? I mean, what was that experience?

How did that all go down through your time there and the invasion? Well, that was where I, you know, at that point, I was like preparing my exit strategy. You know, and a lot of people said, oh, she joined the CIA so she could write a book. not at all. But I did also reckon I'm like, you know, I kind of has something to say. And I think I can get this cleared and I think people should know it. And it was my thought process was do a fold. One, I wanted to put a human face on what it is to be a spy. And I do believe, and I've had other people tell me that my book was one of the only books to do that in a very genuine manner. And the other thing was, you know, the intelligence budget is classified,

but we as American taxpayers spend an inordinate amount of money on the CIA, on the intelligence. So they're on the intelligence budget. So there was a part of me while we're gearing up for this war in Iraq. You know, we were supposed to have been devoting all our resources to finding Osama bin Laden and to tracking al-Qaeda and eradicating al-Qaeda and all of a sudden were in Iraq. You know, it was like, did we throw a dart at the map? And so there was a part of me that did want to expose that, but wanted to expose it in a way that wasn't going to land me in jail. So I decided that, you know, I would write a book and I would try to get it cleared. I will say it was a very disquieting time, though, because, you know, you're, you're already,

I'm already lying to everyone I know. And then I'm going into headquarters knowing that, you know, that I'm going to leave, knowing that I'm not devoted to, to this place. And knowing that things are happening that are not right. When I first joined the agency, one of my final interviews was, with a woman who had been at the agency for decades. And she said to me, if you ever see or sense something is not right, you need to speak up and you need to tell your superiors.

And I remember being so heartened by that because I thought, not only am I joining this organization that I have always wanted to be a part of, but this is a moral place, or this is an ethical place. This is a place where there will be accountability. And I think in the time that I was there, I saw that not only was there not accountability internally, but we did suffer one of the biggest intelligence failures of our time. And then we cooked the books for a war where a lot of lives were lost. And we created, I think, in my opinion, a breeding ground for further terrorist activity.

So the invasion was in March of 2003. When did you go to the Iraqi working group? And how long had it been in existence before you got there? I don't remember the exact dates, but I believe that I was surged over there in December of 2002, or it might have been January of 2003. So it was a short period of time. And it was kind of like, yeah, we were gearing up. We were gearing up for war.

so it was an all-hands-on-deck scenario where people who weren't already out in the field working on critical missions or are serving in critical posts, a lot of people who were in language lessons back in the States or were in some other part of headquarters were surged to Iraqi operations. Right. And so there's this Iraqi operations group planning for this invasion. You don't have any sources in Iraq. you don't have any intel on or intel on nuclear weapons.

What did you guys focus on or work on from like December to March? Well, there was a fervent effort to try to get some Iraqi sources. I mean, we had CIA case officers all over the world, you know, chasing Iraqis in their pajamas down the streets of London, you know, cold pitching them. I mean, we were like, we were desperate to get, to get some sources and to develop, to develop some sources, either that, you know, then we could place back in Iraq after the invasion, but, you know, it was a real kind of desperate game of, of, of ketchup that would have been funny if it were not so serious. Yeah. I mean, I think that like Chalabi's position and where,

he wound up, kind of pointed to the United States' total unawareness, you know, unawareness of, you know, what was going on and who was important and sort of who mattered in that area or region at the time. Yeah. And I mean, it's worth noting that that's not the first time that's happened. That's not the first time that the agency has propped up its leader of choice and that that has been a flop or a failure. You know, I always say human intelligence is very important. It's a critical part of our national security. But, you know, you would have to be an idiot not to look back at history and look at the things that the CIA missed in terms of predicting them. To look at some of the damage that has been done by some of our operations and to not wonder, like, is it really worth it? You know,

Is this an organization that does good or does it do more harm than good? And I'm not saying definitively, but I think it's certainly something that's open for debate. You know, one thing that I think the agency is not good at and differ. Regime change. What's that? Regime change. Yeah. Oh, he's fucked up the regime change.

Damn, can't we get that right once? Well, that, but also I talked a little bit before about accountability. But beyond accountability, it's looking back and being self-critical. You know, how many times have we given weapons and training to insurgency groups or rebel groups that have then turned that around on us? Countless. And, you know, I remember talking to my brother, you know, served his career in the Navy and also spent his adult life, you know, in the Persian Gulf and serving in Iraq.

And the one thing that, you know, he would always talk about are these kind of the ways in which the military will look back on failed operations and learn from those and adjust in the future. And, you know, maybe it doesn't happen all the time, but I think it's a protocol that the military follows, whereas at the agency, it's like, oh, geez, snafu, let's sweep that under the carpet and, you know, make sure nobody finds out about it. You know, the CIA does have historians, and they write white papers, and, you know, nerds like me actually read them as they're declassified. They do look for those lessons learned, but I think you're right, that there is something, some sort of disconnect, and there is a story that has not yet been written. And of course, that's

the story of our covert operations in Syria, where we turned around and made all of these fucking mistakes all over again. I wonder, and you might have some deeper insight into this, is how much of that is driven by politics? Because generally, the CIA isn't out there making up their own sort of target list or, you know, we want to do this. Like, it's generally coming from somewhere. and unlike the military where if the military is set somewhere and it turns out to be an error, everybody in the world knows.

If the agency goes somewhere and it turns out to be an error, you know, they go back and... Oh, that's an interesting point. And the politicians who directed it, whether, you know, the Republican or Democrat, because they both do it. It's easier to wash their hands. Yeah. And that, you know, so, what... 100% the agency gets these things wrong, but also I wonder how many times they're under pressure from the politics of the day to make something happen. I think that's a part of it. And I also think, and I'd be the first one to say, we generally hear more quickly about phenomenal CIA failures and that the successes are. understandably and necessarily kept under wraps.

And so, you know, it's, and it's a challenge of the job, you know, when you sign up to be a case officer to work for the CIA, you know, you've got to go and you've got to park your own ego at the door. And you've got to go in knowing, okay, I might have the coolest job in the world, but I can't tell anybody about it. And in successes that I have, I can't tell anybody about that. So, you know, I certainly think, I certainly think that that is at play, that there's a lot that, you know, people don't know. And then, you know, years later, some stuff is declassified and nerds like Jack read it. And so there's some of the, or there's a movie like Argo. And so, you know, some of the successes, some of the successes are showcased. And I love those.

Like, you know, Argo is one of my favorite movies. Like my favorite scene in Argo is where the CIA people are presenting the idea. I think it's to the vice president or definitely to the White House. And it just seems like such a preposterous idea. And I think it's the vice president or someone from the White House is like, you know, do you have any more bad ideas? And the CIA person says, no, sir, this is by far the best bad. idea we have.

It's just, you know, it really, in a way, it makes me feel warm toward the agency because you do have people in there throwing crazy ideas at the wall. And the one thing that I do think I appreciated about it that is unlike the military is like, all right, you know, let's try this crazy idea. And when it doesn't go right, it, you know, it really, it really doesn't go. Right. I mean, you guys are probably, I'm sure you're familiar with the agency op that was collecting DNA evidence in Abadabad and Pakistan under the guise of polio vaccinations. And so, you know, that created, once it was revealed, you know, it created extreme distrust.

And there was a resurgence of polio in Pakistan. And I remember hearing about that and thinking, I can just see a bunch of CIA people sitting around roundtable. And someone's like, I've got an idea. Let's offer polio vaccinations and get DNA and see if any of these people are related to some of them in London. It's like, all right, it's a good idea, but, you know, the ripple effects and the blowback are probably going to be pretty significant. Yeah. And it's like you say, had that operation been successful, nobody ever would have known about it or how successful it may have been. Exactly.

Yeah. Like had that never, you know, had that never come to. light. I mean, you can, you know, you can argue about the morality and ethics of it. And this is something that I struggled with. And one reason I think the CIA was not, you know, not an appropriate place for me to spend the rest of my career. Because at a certain level, I am an idealist and I am a, you know, a moral purist. And that, and the CIA is no, no place for someone like that. So, Lindsay, you get out of the CIA. You write this book. By the way, it's called blowing my cover. you guys should go check it out on Amazon.

Lindsay tells me the book is coming out an audiobook, there it is, up on screen, it's coming out on audio book, what, next week? It is. And, you know, full disclosure, the book, like me, is old, but still relevant.

And yeah, I, during lockdown, I haven't read my book in years. I haven't looked at it in years. You know, I wrote it over a summer, just wrote it and was like, I'm going to send this to the CIA and see if they'll chop off on it. And they eventually did. That was a bit of a, a bit of a saga and a redeal. But it remains, it remains really relevant. I wrote it as, you know, as on the one hand, kind of a lighthearted memoir. I really wanted to put a human face on what it really is to be a spy because I think that was

something that we had never seen before. The Hollywood portrayals of spies and intelligence operatives are way far off the mark, or at least at that time. Or anyway, during lockdown, I started listening to Audible books. And all of a sudden I thought, I should get my book out on audible. So I called my agent and I said, yeah, can we get this done? And so yeah, yeah, so it comes out next week. Yeah, it's on Amazon. You can pre-order it right now. I'm going to paste a link to the audiobook that you can pre-order in the chat. I have to say, no, I really enjoyed it. I read a lot of these memoirs, especially doing this show. We try to read the book of every guest we have on, if they have one. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a great read, and it is really funny also.

And on that note, I'd like to hear what the reception was to your book, because I know not everyone in the agency was necessarily pleased with you or the book when it came out. I did say the least, yeah. It got a lot of guys' panties in a twist, that's for sure. And I think for a couple of reasons, it wasn't so much that it was critical of the agency because there have been other memoirs and books that have been critical. of the agency. And it wasn't so much that it revealed a lot because I was very careful. And in fact, when the agency cleared my book, I can count on both hands the number of words, probably they had

me change in terms of redactions. Yeah, my book was one of the, as far as I can tell, one of the few books where there were very few redactions. I mean, I had already written it with the aim toward not exposing any sources or methods or classified information, but telling my, story, a very kind of personal story. But it, you know, it poked fun at the agency and it pulled back the curtain a little bit, I think, on this mythical, omnipotent

organization. And it exposed, I would say less the evil of the agency, because it's not an evil organization made up by evil people, but a little bit more of the incompetence, the bureaucracy, some of the double standard, some of the lack of accountability.

and, you know, I still have friends who are still at the CIA, although, you know, we used to joke that there's a kind of like reverse Darwinism there. You know, it's sort of the survival of the most mediocre. I think the best and the brightest don't end up spending entire careers there. But when the book came out, you know, a friend of mine called me, I don't know, I think he even called me from a pay phone at like the basement of headquarters. he was like, there's people walking through the hallway, you know, with the book. I mean, it's sold out at the Tyson's Corner borders or Barnes and Nobles very quickly.

And people were probably looking for themselves. But there was definitely a split. I think the kind of old school, good old boys network, you know, were outraged. She was a woman who, A, was a woman. B had not been at the agency very long, who was. in their minds, exposing things and also didn't know, you know, what she was talking about. And that's fine that, you know, they're all entitled to their opinion. There was a whole other camp of people who were like, you know, this is pretty accurate and

it's funny. And it was interesting when I was getting the book cleared by the pre-publication review board, which for listeners who don't know is the entity that vets and clears or doesn't clear, written by former CIA officers. The head of the pre-publication review board at that time was a former Justice Department lawyer. And in the back and forth, the agency had originally told me, you're never going to get this clear. It's not going to happen. Give it up.

Forget about it. And I was prepared to go to bat against them because I had read pretty much every other agency memoir that was out there, all of which had been written by men at that time. I knew I hadn't revealed anything that had not been revealed before. So I was prepared to challenge them on that. By the time I resubmitted the book and finished it, there was a new head of the pre-publication review board, and he said to me, he's like,

I'm not supposed to say this, but you really captured the people there, and this is really funny. It's my thought that he kind of went to bat for me against the agency, and any sort of people said, you know, we can't let this out there and said, look, she doesn't have classified information in here. This is her opinion. You can't censor people's opinions. So, yeah, there were two camps. I've always been amazed by how relevant it has remained. I've had people who've gone to the agency and left the agency who've said that when they were recruited, their CIA recruiters will say, okay, here's a list of books you should read. And whatever you do, don't read blowing my cover. Right. And so, of course, you know, you're recruiting people for the city. They're all going to go get that. So thank you CIA for helping the book sales. And everybody I know who's read it,

who's ended up at the CIA, has said the same thing. And it's the same thing with me. If I had read a book like mine before I joined the agency, I would have joined the agency anyway, you know. Right, right. And as a service attracts people who have minds of their own and they're going to, you know, they're going to do what they want anyway. But the book has certainly stood the test of time, you know, and I still have particularly women who leave the CIA and tell me that they read my book before joining. They joined anyway.

And then as they made that decision to get out, they kind of looked at my book as like the shining light that gave them hope. Yeah. Folks, if you have questions for Lindsay, please get them in. We have one here for you, a viewer question. Jim G he asks Does she think that anyone who know

I'm sorry I lost it Does she think that anyone who knows May let future historians know Why we really invaded Iraq In 2003 Kind of answered that But do you have anything mad to that Well I mean I think there's a lot

That's been written about that There's a lot that's been written about The You know the Cheney agenda or the administration agenda to go into Iraq. I mean, are you ever going to have someone who, you know, comes out and says like, look, we at the CIA knew that there was no, you know, evidence of WMD and yet we put, that's not really what happened. You know, it wasn't like a diabolical plot or anything.

And it wasn't really, you know, sort of a geopolitical scheme, you know, with with leaders in a room going like this. I think there were specific geopolitical reasons and agenda for for wanting to pursue that tactic in Iraq. And, you know, George Tennant, who was the head of the CIA at that time, he was, I would say, like, to a certain extent, you know, kind of a yes man. I mean, he had close relationships with every administration that he served. I mean, I'm not saying, again, I'm not saying that there was a mandate, you know, that conversation. that I referred to previously about the man saying, the sort of senior level manager saying, our job is to give the president a reason to go to war.

That was written about. I wrote about it in my book, and also James Bamford wrote about it in his book. So it was reported elsewhere. But do I think there will ever be a comprehensive book explaining that? I think it probably would have come out by now. But there's certainly been plenty of evidence to suggest that that was a misguided misguided war effort.

Brad asks, familiar with Ishmael Jones' book, Human Factor, and take on bureaucracy of CIA being risk-adverse management, I guess he's asking if you're familiar with Ishmael Jones and what you thought of his book. I am familiar with him. Yeah, I know him.

We've met on more than one occasion, and kind of funny story. He sent me his book in galley form, I think, years ago before it was published, and asked me to read it and write a blurb about it for the book. And I did, and I thought it was funny, and I thought it was well written. And I was like, here's someone who, you know, spent a lot longer career at the agency who was saying a lot of the same stuff. politically, I think he and I probably have, you know, sort of different political bends, but, you know, really poking fun at and criticizing the bureaucracy of the agency.

I wrote him a great blur for the book, and then I said, you know, jeez, how did you get that clear? I'm really, really surprised that you were able to get that clear. Turns out he had not. And so, you know, the human factor was taken off all the shelves. he lost a lawsuit against the CIA or I guess you know the CIA I'm not sure he said the CIA or they sued him but but he lost that lawsuit um kind of a shame because it was a it was a really it was a really good book I still have my copy and you know I don't know maybe he's lucky

he didn't end up in jail holy shit he's very lucky he didn't end up in jail and you know he's a really you know I've met him in person really interesting interesting smart guy and I think was, you know, very good at his job as a knock. But he, yeah, I mean, I mean, there was a certain amount. I was shocked that he did that. Shocked that. That's a chance that I send my Christmas card to the CIA to be clear. You know, I don't mess around with that because I don't want him up in jail.

Isaac says, Vice wants a piece, I guess they ran a piece when they brought a nuke leftover from the SU. Do you have a guess of much material or unaccounted for waste is on the black market?

That's a little bit confusing. About the Soviet Union? Soviet Union. I guess, yeah, he's asking a question if you know about a lot of unaccounted for fizzile material from the former Soviet Union that's floating around out there, I think on the black market, I believe that's what he's asking. I don't. Full disclosure. I mean, I'm sure there is.

You know, again, I referred, you know, previously to, you know, when, and this is related, doesn't answer the question, but somewhat related, you know, that we've given training and weapons in the past to various different groups and then, you know, ended up years. later running around trying to buy back our material and our weapons. But yeah, in terms of that, kind of that that's not my area of expertise. So I don't know. When you were in Macedonia and your friend came out, obviously it was, there was violence going on and all the armed people.

But were you and your friend, were you relatively safe as Americans? Was most of the violence more of like ethnic cleansing or, you know, like, ethnic oriented and not just sort of rampant violence? Yeah, you know, again, I never felt like my life was in danger. And also, I blended in quite well. You know, I'd look like I could be Macedonia and I spoke the language well up at that time. I didn't generally hang out with other Americans or expats. I had a robust, I think, network of local friends, you know, hung out with like rock climbers and weren't part of

any of that violence. And, you know, it's funny because now, you know, I'm 51, I'm a mom. I look back on the life that I led. My mother, my grandmother, my mother knew that I worked for the CIA. I had no idea what I was up to. My grandmother didn't know until my book came out, and they were just floored. But I never, you know, I really, there were a couple occasions where maybe like I was a little bit nervous. You know, I had a safe room in my house. And I just remember thinking, like, if everything went to hell in a hand basket, I was not.

not going to like lock myself in that bathroom. I was going to like go out in the street and kind of blend in. But I, I don't remember ever feeling scared. I really don't. I think it's also, I think it's also interesting that you said that when you were in the bar and everybody put their guns on, you know, condoned on the table and you didn't have one. That's very, that's the polar opposite of what most Americans think of the CIA and foreign countries. Like you, you know, you're part of a hit squad, right? You're part of a hit team. Yeah, she has the briefcase that opens up and there's a sniper rifle in there that you put together from like three different parts. And the briefcase is bulletproof so you can like use it for cover while you're running from.

Yeah. But I didn't need a gun because I had these little daggers that popped out of my shoes. Right, right. Then the flower that's sprayed poison. And years later, I did a long term substitute teaching position as an English teacher at this kind of Tony private school in our area. And that students knew that I used to be a CIA officer. And so at the end of English class, these were eighth graders, at the end of English class every day, I told them that at the end of class, they could ask me one CIA question a day. Every day they asked me the same question.

Did I ever kill anyone? And every day, I was like, okay, I told you yesterday. I didn't kill anyone last night. So we're still, let's change it up. But, yeah, again, you know, people have this very skewed idea of, you know, CIA, you're an assassin, your skin. And, you know, in the defense of the American public or the general public, you know, that's what Hollywood has tended to portray. A show that I really love the show The Americans. One of the reasons that I like that show is because I think it does a very good job of depicting the FBI officer.

or the FBI agent, and it does a good job of depicting the Soviet embassy. But the whole notion of the character, I think her name's Elizabeth, where she kills people in parking lots with a single blow. Like, I hate all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Because it really, it dehumanizes what the job is. And there could not be a more human role than being a CIA case officer. Yeah. Jameson says someone on Amazon wrote a review, I guess, of your book saying there's way too much rock climbing. What does that mean?

Well, so many people in my life would agree with that. Way too much rock climbing dated way too many rock climbers. Yeah. You know, I've always had a, I guess a thirst for adventure. I am a calculated. risk taker. I'm not a climber anymore. Not necessarily by lifestyle. My life doesn't allow room for it. But yeah, there's no real connection or correlation between being a rock climber and being a CIA operative. But I, yeah, I could have scaled walls, I guess, if I wanted to. Patrick, thank you so much. Lindsay, if I can ask you to stay, around for the bonus segment after we finish here. I think that would be a good time to talk about

your previous, your work on talking about the torture program. Yeah. And in the meantime, you know, as we're kind of starting to wrap up a little bit here for tonight, and thank you everyone who joined us tonight watching this show live and please subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. And we'll post a link down in the description to Lindsay's book.

going to be out on audio next week and there's also going to be a link down there to our Patreon page if you want to have access to our bonus segments so thank you everyone I think we have like a couple things that we missed John Duggan do we he says cheers thank you and let me see if there was one more

but I wanted to ask you about your work with the EIA and what you're up to today you know your kind of post service career post-searchie career. Yeah, sure. So my undercover days are over for the most part. Yeah, I have two teenage boys who are kind of like foreign agents in a way, less easily controlled and manipulated. But yeah, I would say like as I've evolved philosophically and politically and psychologically, I really wanted to

devote the rest of my life to being maybe less of like an American and more of a global citizen. I work as head of communications for a small nonprofit called the Environmental Investigation Agency

that does undercover investigation to track environmental crime and criminals and does a lot of advocacy to try to create or put for policies that will enable environmental and social justice. So it's kind of in many ways like a perfect fit for me. You know, again, I'm not the head of communication,

so it's not, I'm not doing the undercover work, but I feel like I'm bringing a lot of my background, both in investigation and also communications. I've done quite a bit of television work through the years and public speaking. And bringing that to a cause that I think is probably the most important cause of our time, which is combating climate change and trying to save this planet and making it habitable. And, you know, a lot of people, I think, don't realize how closely aligned climate change and environmental degradation are with national security all over the world.

and hopefully we can combat all of this in a way before it's too late, but you go to any part of the world and you have dwindling resources, dwindling water, dwindling food, the ripple effects of climate change, and those are all of the factors that add to civil unrest, that add to growth of terrorist networks and to wars, to famine, to all of those things that create the atmosphere where there's going to be, where there's going to be need for intervention. So in a weird way, it seems like a far off trajectory from where I started,

but to me it seems more like a natural evolution. Do you feel as though you missed your call with piracy? Sometimes, you know, sometimes I look back and I think, You know, what if I had gone to Berkeley Law School? Like, what would I be doing now? I think the- You wouldn't be on the Team House podcast. That's what you wouldn't be doing.

You never know. You never know. I mean, I think that the one thing that is that I have not had a traditional career trajectory by any stretch of the imagination, whether it be for a CIA person. You know, a lot of people, other people leave the CIA and they go into government. contracting. That's kind of the natural progression. Or we've had people who, increasingly, we've had former CIA officers going to politics. My trajectory has not been traditional, but I will say the one thing that I think has been consistent is that personally like passion and purpose have always been,

have always been core to me. And I don't think I'm unique in that way. I think that's very true of a lot of people who join the CIA. You know, very few people or who join the clandestine service. You know, there are some who, who, you know, really think it's just going to be this exciting life of intrigue. But I would say that most of the people I knew

were drawn to the career by a sense of patriotism, a sense of wanting to do something good. And that's probably why they've all left, too. James and Price, thank you very much. And let me make sure we don't have any more questions before the... I think that's all of them. Lindsay, this has been really fun. And I always have a...

It's always enjoyable whenever we talk. And I don't know. Is there anything we failed to cover that you want to bring up? Anything that I've failed to mention? I don't think so. No, this has been really fun. Yeah. We really appreciate it.

We will post... Guys go to Amazon, check out a book. You can pre-order the audiobook. Audio book Audio book Yeah And if you have Audible

You can get it As one of your free books Next episode 91 Episode 91 Next Friday We're going to have Mike Perry

On the show He is a retired Special Forces officer This guy's Kind of a wild man Had kind of Also a non-traditional

career trajectory I guess you could say So we're excited to have him On the show We'll be here next Friday usual time with Mike.

And that's it. Lindsay, so we'll do the bonus segment and we'll close this thing out here. Thank you again so much. This has been awesome. Yeah, no, it's been really fun. I'm going to start to watch now. I'm going to, you know,

you should. You only have about 90, 89 times. To catch up. 270 hours worth of program. Tell your friends.