Special Forces to CIA in Afghanistan Fighting the Soviets | Mike Vickers (throwback)

original air date 12/1/23 Michael Vickers joins us to discuss his path from 10th Special Forces Group to the CIA, including Cold War missions, Berlin tradecraft, Grenada, Beirut, and Ground Branch. We also get into the covert war in Afghanistan, the Reagan Doctrine, working with foreign partners like Pakistan and China, and how the U. S. helped drive the Soviet Union out by all means available. Grab Mike's book here: https://a.co/d/05Lzlki9 00:00 — Start 02:19 — Michael Vickers’ Origin Story 03:39 — 10th Special Forces Group During the Cold War 07:14 — Berlin, Detachment A, and Denied-Area Tradecraft 08:28 — Training With Man-Portable Nuclear Weapons 12:30 — OCS, Panama, and 7th Special Forces Group 15:16 — Embassy Rescue Prep and the RST Mission 21:16 — Leaving Special Forces for the CIA 22:27 — CIA Training, Suriname, and the Road to Grenada 26:16 — First Combat in Grenada 30:33 — Beirut, Hezbollah, and Failed Policy 33:49 — Ground Branch and the Afghanistan Assignment 40:31 — How the Afghan Covert Action Program Evolved 45:12 — “By All Means Available”: Defeating the Soviets 50:45 — Blowpipe, Stingers, and Escalating the War 53:12 — Selling the Strategy to Foreign Partners 56:18 — Working With Chinese Intelligence 01:00:07 — The Soviet Withdrawal From Afghanistan 01:03:32 — Reagan Doctrine and the Global Irregular War 01:10:21 — CIA Covert Action vs. Special Forces 01:18:23 — China, the New Cold War, and U. S. Power 01:30:38 — Cyber Attacks as Acts of War 01:37:09 — Chips, Rare Earths, and Protecting U. S. Infrastructure Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:56Jack Murphy?

  So, Mr. Vickers, really appreciate your patience with us and your being gracious with your time. We'll jump right into it here. Could you tell us a little bit about your origin story, sort of about how you grew up and how that took you and led you towards governmental service?

• 1:11Speaker 03

  Sure. So, I grew up in Southern California and went to Hollywood High School and had dreams of being a professional baseball player or football player or quarterback. And my passions were much greater than my abilities. So, as I completed high school, I started thinking about what else I wanted to do. And as it turned out, a high school teacher gave me a copy of the New York Times or put it in front of my desk when I was in the school library, and it had an article about CIA's big paramilitary operation during the Vietnam War in Laos supporting the Hmong tribesmen and said, "You might be interested in this." And, you know, it was about secret armies.

• 1:56Speaker 03

  It's the first I had heard of it. And I thought, "Yeah, you know, I think I might want to be a CIA officer." And so, that kind of planted the seed. And then I thought the best path for doing that was to go into the Special Forces, which I did after a couple of years of college and then became an officer and then actually then became a CIA Operations Officer.

• 2:17Jack Murphy?

  So, tell us about landing in 10th Special Forces Group. And I mean, this is during the Cold War, of course. What was 10th Group like at that time? What was your initial roles and duty positions?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I completed the Special Forces qualification course as a weapons sergeant in May 1974 and then was assigned to the 10th Group, which had two battalions at Fort Devens, Massachusetts at the time. And, you know, as you know, Special Forces groups are oriented toward different regions of the world. And after Vietnam, the number of groups collapsed down to three, but the 10th Group had Europe and the Soviet Bloc and basically the operational detachments were divided.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Some of them would go, their operational areas were Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and that's the part I was in, so I had Russian and Czech. And then others had the stay-behind mission if the Soviets overran Germany or Scandinavia or others, and so they learned Norwegian and German and French and Danish and that sort of thing. And the group was really a fantastic learning experience. You know, I was kind of the youngest guy on the team. Most of my teammates were Vietnam veterans, some had participated in, you know, very

• 3:49Speaker 03

  sensitive reconnaissance operations in Laos and North Vietnam with MACV SOG or, you know, studies and observation groups that were doing these dangerous special reconnaissance missions. And then we also had a number of Eastern European emigres, you know, who were born in Czechoslovakia or elsewhere. One of my group commanders was born in Georgia. And battalion commander was born in Czechoslovakia. And so they were a great source of knowledge about, you know, if we actually had to deploy into our unconventional warfare operational areas, what it would be like to live there and everything else.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  So it was a tremendous learning experience for me. And, you know, they sent me to a lot of training then. You know, in the post-Vietnam era, we didn't have a lot of operations. And so it was mostly a great deal of training till the 1980s. We did have one, you know, our job was mainly to prepare for World War III. And...

• 4:59Speaker 03

  Our job was either to do special reconnaissance behind enemy lines or direct action and then if there was a resistance movement unconventional warfare. And one special mission we had, a few of us in the group was to train with very small nuclear weapons, man portable nuclear weapons, to actually try to stop the Soviet advances, you know, by interdicting the second echelon forces. Had one potential combat deployment to Angola during that period. Angola had gone into a civil war, but it was aborted at the last minute and the president

• 5:41Speaker 03

  decided to go the covert action route rather than overt military or special operations use.

• 5:49Jack Murphy?

  Would you like to talk a little bit about what one thing I thought was unique and interesting about your book was you talked about getting sent to Berlin to do like some clandestine tradecraft training?

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the 10th group in those days, you know, I mentioned two battalions in the group headquarters at Fort Devens. There was a battalion forward at Bad Pultze in Bavaria. I later served in that unit. And then there was essentially a company sized force in civilian clothes that was in Berlin called Detachment A, changed its name in the 1980s to something else. But they had a stay behind mission, you know, if the Soviets overran Berlin and then also potentially to go out into East Germany, you know, given the location of Berlin in the event of war.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  And so one of the training episodes I had was to go serve with them and do essentially urban unconventional warfare, you know, how we would sabotage facilities and how we would clandestinely communicate so we couldn't be found out by the secret police. And so a lot of, a lot of denied area tradecrafts.

• 7:03Jack Murphy?

  And then you touched upon it, the training with the special atomic demolition munition.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:10Jack Murphy?

  You tell us a little bit more about what that entailed?

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, so.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  From the early, I guess the late 1960s and early 1970s up until the mid 1980s, special operations forces, mainly SEALs and Green Berets, a select portion of them were given this mission to train, to place, to arm and place this device. And, you know, so with all nuclear weapons, you have personal reliability programs, you know, you have to do extra vetting of the people selected for this. And pretty intensive training, you know, it's really a no fail mission.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  So you'd have these operational readiness evaluations by nuclear inspectors to make sure you knew how to do everything. And the command and control for those things, obviously directed from very on high. So there's communications procedures you have to learn. And so it's pretty intensive training and as I said, the standards were very high for that. And, you know, it was probably considered one of the most risky missions. And I mean, they were all risky in those days if general war broke out.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  But this thing in particular to have to, you know, in place it and had a timer on it that, you know, you could arm and then you'd have to get in an overwatch position to maintain custody of it. So, you know, the kind of the gallows humor among those trained in it was as soon as you, you know, touch that dial, the thing would, you know, if it was in place, it would detonate. And, but yeah, it was, it was a very interesting experience. And then, you know, learning how to parachute with it, either free fall or static line.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  And you could also scuba with it too. So that's hence the SEALs or special forces scuba teams.

• 9:15Jack Murphy?

  I've actually been doing a lot of research on the green light teams recently. And I think that it's

• 9:22Jack Murphy?

  It's easy for us today to look back on it as this sort of strange Dr. Strangelove sort of-esque mission, but what I'm struck by, all the people I've talked to is like, how deadly serious all of you guys were about this mission and completely ready to execute it if they were called upon.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I mean, so some context, you know, beginning in the 1950s, you know, Soviets had numerical superiority in Europe. And so we kind of went the route in the Eisenhower administration and through the 60s and 70s to make up for that numerical inferiority by having lots of tactical nuclear weapons. So artillery shells, mines, you know, things you can drop from air, bombs from aircraft. And then this was just part of that family, you know, that this was the special forces and SEAL role, you know, to go behind enemy lines with a small nuclear weapon. But, you know, it was part of a, part of a larger

• 10:19Speaker 03

  family and it was a very, very serious mission.

• 10:25Jack Murphy?

  So as a, as, you know, the, the kid, the teenager that read the New York Times article about special ops in Laos, I mean, was this, all of this sounds like a dream come true.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I had to pinch myself. I was really lucky, you know, you know, the path actually worked out in terms of, you know, I, I originally thought I would go into special forces for maybe, you know, five years or something and then go to CIA. And I decided to become an officer and, and ended up staying for 10 before I went to CIA, you know, so I, I really loved it. It was just, just a great experience.

• 11:06Jack Murphy?

  So you went to officer candidate school and then you got to do a pretty big venue change from Germany in 10th group to 3rd Battalion 7th group that was down at Fort Gulick Panama, right?

• 11:19Speaker 03

  That's right. Yeah, I was on the Atlantic side of the canal zone rather than the Pacific side. So, most of the forces in Panama were over on the Pacific side, but there was an infantry battalion and a special forces battalion on the Atlantic. And, you know, the reason I chose that, when I graduated from OCS, we didn't have an SF branch in those days. And so I was an infantry officer, went to infantry officer training. And the assignments officer came down to our class as we were getting our assignments and said, "How would you like to go right back to special forces and be a detachment commander? Because you don't need to be a platoon leader, given your enlisted experience, you could go right into company

• 12:02Speaker 03

  command." And I thought, "Well, great." So, I get a captain's job as a lieutenant, and then I have a captain's job as a captain. And, you know, there were three assignments offered, the 10th group, the 5th group, and 3rd of the 7th. And I was very tempted to go back to the 10th group. My former battalion commander had become the group commander, and he just got the Medal of Honor award in Paris Davis this year. And, but, you know, the insurgencies were really heating up in Central America. That was the big focus, you know, a communist insurgency in El Salvador, and then the Sandinistas had taken over in

• 12:44Speaker 03

  Nicaragua. And, you know, it's always good to kind of follow the sound of guns, you know, to go where the action is. And so, I learned Spanish and ended up in 3rd Battalion 7th Group. And as it turned out, I was get, you know, after the Iran rescue attempt and the taking of our, I should say it the other way, the taking of our hostages in Tehran, and then the Iran rescue attempt, we became very concerned about Other high-threat embassies. And so I was given essentially a troop command of two operational detachments that would go around to high-threat embassies in Latin America, mainly Central America, but Colombia

• 13:27Speaker 03

  and others too, to make sure that if we needed to do a rescue, you know, our special mission forces, that they had the blueprints and, you know, knew where the cameras were and, you know, all the things you would need to do to a rescue like that. So, you know, it caused me to interact a lot with the State Department and with CIA, you know, across the region, and again, a great learning experience.

• 13:51Jack Murphy?

  I thought it was really cool as I was reading the book, this, I think you said it was the AST mission and then became the RST mission. This is that sort of nascent, what we would call today, advanced force operations is probably the term that you probably use nowadays.

• 14:11Jack Murphy?

  As I was reading the book, I read about this operation that you guys got sent down to Honduras and I was like, oh, I remember hearing about this years and years ago, but I had no idea it was you. Could you explain a little bit more about like what the mission entailed and how you guys went over to sort of prepare the environment?

• 14:27Speaker 03

  Sure. So, you know, the, the normal mission was, you know, intelligence collection. So, you know, visiting these embassies and making sure we had all the information we would need for a rescue beforehand. And then if there was an actual terrorist incident, then a small portion of my team would deploy to be the first on site where we'd been to this country several times and start preparing the environment for the rescue force that would come in, but also provide special operations advice to the ambassador and the country team, chief of station, ambassador, et cetera.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  And so in late April 1982, a Honduras, Honduran terrorist group, supported by Cuba, hijacked an airliner, a dash seven airliner, a prop plane in, in Jagusa Golf Airport, the capital of Honduras, with 58 hostages on board and 10, 10 of whom were Americans. And so we got deployed right away by Southcom to the embassy. To meet with the ambassador who I served with a lot of years and he ended up becoming ambassador

• 15:51Speaker 03

  multiple places, John Negroponte, and then Deputy Secretary of State. And about military options, including bringing in, you know, some of our special mission forces to be in a position to do a rescue. And so they came in and there was a three day standoff with this terrorist group with the hostages. I was up for three nights essentially, you know, with my little team, my four man team, doing surveillance around the airfield and with our Army Special Operations counterparts. And we had one interesting incident.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  The terrorists had a homemade improvised explosive device with nitroglycerin on the plane. And, you know, the airplane was getting really hot and nitroglycerin can become unstable when it gets hot like that. So the terrorists actually asked for assistance in that regard. And we had to scramble to how they would defuse the bomb. And it turned out, you know, kitty litter was a pretty good field expedient to do. So we raced out to De Guisagolpa to procure some and that that kind of did the trick. And some of the hostages were able to escape from the plane on the third day.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  And gunfire, but fortunately they were only injured from the fall, not from the terrorist shots. And then the terrorists decided to give up the ghost after three days for safe passage to Cuba. And so that was incident number one. And then four months later, a similar terrorist group took 109 hostages in San Pedro Sula, town in the north of Honduras, including three government ministers. So we did it all over again and went there and did a, you know, 10 day siege and it ended the same way with negotiations.

• 17:53Jack Murphy?

  And also showed the capabilities of, you know, that the concept worked as far as the reconnaissance.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. So it was considered a model for the combat, for other combatant commands to then follow SOFCOM's lead on having this kind of capability. And that eventually led to more special operations intelligence units and then the RSTs, as you mentioned.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  When you guys were developing this capability, you know, if you're, you're developing a capability, there's not necessarily groundwork that's been laid before, you know, laid before. How, how did you guys go about that process?

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it was a, you know, kind of a one of a kind unit at the time, made out of two ODAs. And people were selected for their fluency and, you know, civilian clothes and long hair.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Selected for their fluency in Spanish and their intelligence tradecraft in addition to other special operations skills. And, uh, and then, you know, had to have training. We were kind of ahead of our time on satellite communications. Uh, so we had really reliable communications, um, uh, some technical surveillance, um, devices and stuff that weren't organic to the, to the special forces battalion that we had to procure commercially and learn how to use. And so we were really building this from the ground up, including, you know, learning how to put these target folders together of what exactly was needed and how

• 19:27Speaker 03

  to present it to the operators, you know, who would do the rescue. And, uh, so you needed to know a lot about close quarter battle and sniping and lots of other things. So right before I had that command for a few months, I had, uh, command of a sniper team, which also was useful, uh, you know, personal preparation before I took this, um, counterterrorism intelligence mission.

• 19:53Jack Murphy?

  And then, uh, let's talk a little bit about how you made that transition from special forces to the CIA. Like, how did that take place for you?

• 20:05Speaker 03

  You know, so my original goal was to serve in the special forces and learn more languages and get competent in all these disciplines and then go to CIA. And then I thought, well, maybe I'll make the army a career. And, you know, I went to, went to OCS and had this command. But, you know, as I was wrestling with it, I thought, okay, I've had this great experience as a lieutenant and captain commanding this troop and participating in real operations. You know, but my next assignment would be infantry company command in a peacetime army. And I thought, I wanted to join more of the Cold War fight. You know, I saw what was going on in Central America and what CIA was doing.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  And, uh, and I thought potentially I could contribute more if I went to CIA. And, uh, so I applied for the career training program and, uh, you know, got accepted and uh, and joined the agency.

• 21:02Jack Murphy?

  And the, the way I, I read it in the book, if I, if I understood correctly, you had some adventures before you even got trained as a CIA officer.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the, in my day, the career training program for operations officers, we had a, a 10-week course, you know, kind of introduction to CIA and the intelligence community, all the different directorates and learned how to write reports and do analysis and some basic tradecraft and learned about our satellites and, you know, the science and technology side and et cetera. Had senior case officers come in and talk to us about agents they recruited and, uh, including Russians that were handled in Moscow and, you know, so it was pretty good training.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  And then you typically do two, three-month assignments on a operational desk to learn operations more. And then you would go to, um, the operations course, what we call the FARM, a special facility. And then in those days, we also had a 12-week paramilitary operations course called special operations, uh, training. Um, and during my...

• 22:18Speaker 03

  First assignment in Latin America Division. I was selected for this because there was a coup in Suriname. And a former Dutch colony in northern tip of South America. And we had assets in prison. And the branch chief wanted to do a jailbreak essentially and thought I had the right skills to help plan that with the assets and stuff. And so that was kind of my introduction to CIA. And then low and behold, a crisis occurred in Grenada as I was some weeks into this

• 23:02Speaker 03

  assignment, working on this jailbreak plan. And, you know, we had 600 medical students attending training in Grenada, American medical students. And, you know, the situation deteriorated, the coup leaders killed the president of the country and some others. And President Reagan made the decision over a weekend to do the invasion of Grenada. It was combination of special operations forces and Marines. And I was, before I had even completed my CIA operational training, I was called into headquarters and said by the, who was going to become the chief of station, a man named

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Bill Rooney, very distinguished career in CIA, said, "You're going to Grenada with me and a communicator." And we were going in with the special operations forces and the main effort in the South. And I didn't know that at the time. I was just told to come into headquarters and pack for two weeks on a Sunday. And so I thought I was going to be going to one of the bases, supporting the operations. And so I packed a bunch of suits and as soon as I got in and I was told I was going into combat, you know, I was glad I had a few casual clothes in my luggage. You know, so we got weapons, we got a lot of cash so we could pay assets and stuff.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  And the Satcom radio got a briefing and had an airplane take us to a staging base and then went in with the invading forces. And so I went into combat with a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, some linen pants and some loafers and a weapon and a big bag of cash at the Satcom. You know, you got to hand it to CIA. They go to war in style. You know, this is not quite how we did it in the special forces.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  And the military, the military elements you're leaking out probably looks you go CIA. They don't know anything.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Right, right. Yeah. And, uh, and so, you know, our task was to establish a station and then, you know, bring in people to, uh, interrogate Cuban prisoners and others. And then, um, you know, we had some other things, um, um, to do that, um, led to my first combat experience in Grenada, um, uh, in looking at a, an arms cache in a, in the very, very forward lines where there was still a lot of combat. Um, and it was a, a company of the 82nd that we were actually visiting at the time. And, uh, you know, lo and behold,

• 25:39Speaker 03

  as soon as we got there, uh, Cubans, uh, attacked the position and, you know, all we had at the time were Browning high-power pistols. And so I thought about it for, you know, as we're face down in the dirt, I thought about it for a few seconds and I thought, I just saw a bunch of AKs and ammunition in this warehouse, you know, that were, uh, Cubans for the Grenadins. And I thought, you know, we could use some of those if we're going to get shot at and shoot back. So, little crawled over there, got some, gave, gave one to my chief of station and one for me and battle was over in 10 minutes. But, uh, uh, it was an interesting experience.

• 26:15Jack Murphy?

  And so you, I think you said you spent like a week, uh, crawling around Grenada and then showed up back home, you know, covered in dirt in your Ralph Lauren polo shirt that you'd been wearing for a week.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it was actually almost two weeks and we had another mission where we were told to apprehend a Libyan intelligence officer on the island who had been ordered by Gaddafi to take American hostages. And before we could capture him, he had fled to the Soviet embassy, but we had this chase around St. George's, the capital. And yeah, toward the end of the operation, that when the training staff learned that I had been in combat for 10 days, they weren't too happy about it. And so they said, okay, war's over for you, come

• 27:09Speaker 03

  home. And so I hitched a military flight to Barbados, took off, went into the bathroom, took off all my dirty clothes, threw them in the trash can, you know, put on some fresh civilian clothes, took my Amex card out, bought a plane ticket, you know, for the States and came home.

• 27:29Speaker 04

  I'm really surprised you didn't get like a deal with Ralph Lauren after that and like they didn't develop, they didn't develop a new combat line of leisure wear.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, there you go.

• 27:41Jack Murphy?

  Um, so now you finally have the opportunity to go to the farm and become, you know, a formalized officer.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, so before that, um, you know, when I came into the agency, I had Czech, Russian and Spanish. And I was debating whether I would go to Latin America where the wars were, or, you know, to Moscow or somewhere for a first assignment. And so I thought I would get assigned to Soviet operations when I came back from Grenada. That's what I had requested. And they called me in. As it turned out, we invaded Grenada on a Tuesday. The Sunday before, the marine barracks were blown up in Lebanon. And and then months before that, our embassy had been blown up by, you know,

• 28:30Speaker 03

  what today we know as Hezbollah. And so I was called in and said, the Near East Division wants you assigned to them for a special counterterrorism task force to identify the perpetrators and develop response options, et cetera. And I said, you know, I don't know anything about the Middle East, you know, and and well, it's a directed assignment and they want you. And so that was my introduction to the to the to Middle East to work with our station there on assets who could report on Hezbollah and then develop various strike options. And then after that, I went to the farm.

• 29:09Jack Murphy?

  Um, I mean, just to wrap up Beirut, I mean, was there any kind of final thoughts or anything come out of that time that you spent there that you thought was notable or important? Or even personal reflections?

• 29:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, I mean, one, you know, Grenada was this great exhilarating experience, and it felt like a real extension of what I'd been doing in special forces, particularly the last years as an officer in Latin America. And, you know, I knew the people we were going in with. And so it was like old home week for me and the operation. There were problems, but the operation was generally a success. With Lebanon, you know, we had a peacekeeping force in there with the Marines who did not have good rules of engagement, very restrictive rules of engagement. And, you know, it was really kind of muddled policy for a country

• 30:08Speaker 03

  that was, you know, essentially heading into civil war and sectarian conflict. And the same thing, our station had similar challenges, you know, and so Americans started getting kidnapped, including our chief of station, the late Bill Buckley, tortured and killed. And so it really was a searing experience for me in terms of, you know, failed policy

• 30:36Speaker 03

  You know, we weren't in it to win it and we essentially put ourselves in a position where we were, we were very vulnerable and, um, and, uh, you know, and as I said, it was my introduction into the Middle East and then later, you know, decades later, when I, uh, was involved in Iraq and others, you know, seeing that sectarian conflict again, back all those memories.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. When, when you did go to the farm now, now you're going to the farm, but you've already had combat experience as a CIA officer or CIA employee. Did that help you or hurt you? Or did nobody there know about it?

• 31:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, they knew about it and it was both, you know, they, uh, the chief instructor pulled me aside, you know, I got an award for heroism and, uh, one of the top agency officials came down and they talked about it and, you know, some of the instructors were, okay, let's test this guy's metal some more, you know, so he doesn't think he's too big for his britches and all that. But others, you know, were, were impressed. And one guy said to me, geez, you really just, you know, picked up the weapons and did this, you know, I don't know if I could have done that in that situation. And this guy had served in mostly Europe. And I thought, well, you know, this is kind of what I'd been trained to do for 10 years. So it's kind of

• 31:55Speaker 03

  a teacher. But, uh, yeah, so it was a mixture actually of both, you know, some, uh, let's screw with them a little bit and then others, you know, I was in a little bit of a special class.

• 32:06Speaker 04

  But some of them were sort of like, okay, you can handle Grenada, but let's see how you handle the seedier sides of Virginia.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  Right. Can you man up?

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:23Jack Murphy?

  Um, and after the farm, you got what I, as I recall, you describe in your book as sort of your dream assignment. You got assigned to ground branch.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, you know, after the operations course where you're trained to recruit and handle agents, then we had this special operations course, including another airborne school, you know, five parachute jumps, you know, which was old hat. But, uh, you know, it was sort of like a special forces qualification course, again, not as strenuous, but same basic tactics and techniques. And then, uh, uh, as I came out again and was thinking about where I would go for an assignment, which division or part of the world, you know, Soviet, East European, or Latin America, the, what today is the Special Activities Center, that was called International Activities, because it had counterterrorism and counter narcotics, as well as the paramilitary

• 33:18Speaker 03

  stuff. Um, the division chief there said to me, uh, "We would like you to come to this division, uh, because we're creating a program to fa- fast-track a few officers for leadership of our covert action that would combine case officer work with management of these covert action programs." And, and said, "We want you to be the first case." And so, how are you gonna argue with a senior official and, you know, and fast-track to the top? So, I did, and then he said, "Where do you want to go? You want to go to El Salvador? What would you like for a first tour?" And I thought, "Well, there's a lot of wars going on, and so, if you don't mind, I'd like to go to Ground Branch first, and then do the case officer stuff next." And said, "Sure."

• 34:02Speaker 03

  So, I got assigned to Ground Branch, um, i- in, uh, Special Operations Group. And then, within, uh, a couple weeks, I was told that they were creating this new position, uh, for the Afghanistan covert action program, combining two jobs into one, essentially. Uh, the program officer, o- o- o- overall, uh, oversight of management of the program, which had been a senior CIA case officer, and then the chief paramilitary advisor, who had been a marine colonel on detail, and they were combining them into two, and, uh, interviewed a bunch of candidates and thought I was the right guy for the job.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  So, it was really like the job of a lifetime for me, you know, and I, I thought, um, you know, instead of just fighting Soviet surrogates in Central America or elsewhere, uh, now we've got the main enemy in Afghanistan, and it, you know... And so it really seemed like the job of a lifetime.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  Prior to that, though, you know, you going to or volunteering to go to a grand ranch like you said, is that was that a um, did some people consider that like a misstep in a career? As it wasn't really attached to a larger division or whatever and like, did it have legitimacy in the in the wider agency at the time?

• 35:24Speaker 03

  Um.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Yes and no. I mean, there were a lot of paramilitary operations going on that hadn't been before, you know, uh, Central America and Afghanistan. And so that raised the important, you know, the first one since Laos in a.

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• 37:38Speaker 03

  But, yeah, in those days, ground branch officers didn't become chiefs of station. Later, they would. Integrated more into the director of operations. And so, that's why I kind of chose the general operations track. I knew I could do the paramilitary stuff, but I didn't want to just do that, you know, since I have aspirations to become a chief of station and other things. And so, you know, and my reasoning was just, this is a unique time. We're in a lot of wars, and I have skills that can contribute to this. And so, I want to do this first, but I knew I'd have to do the other stuff.

• 38:18Jack Murphy?

  Right. So, as you get on the Afghan program, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, I mean, you dedicated your book to Gus and Bert Dunn. And I'd love to ask you about those two gentlemen, and if you could tell us about coming on to the program and working with them.

• 38:36Speaker 03

  Sure. So, the Near East and South Asia Division was responsible for agency operations from Morocco to Bangladesh, and essentially divided in half. You know, the Arab-Israeli world up to the, you know, Arabian Gulf, the Gulf States and Iraq, and then Iran over to Bangladesh for South Asian operations. And Gustav Ricciardo, a veteran case officer and Greek-American, was the chief of South Asian operations. And so, he's the guy who wanted to create this new position.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  As program officer and and chief paramilitary advisor into one and brought me in. And then Bert Dunn was his boss. Bert Dunn had just come in as the chief of Near East Division. And Bert was one of the founding members of Special Forces, West Virginia lawyer. Uh, founding members of Special Forces in 1952. And uh, had been in the 82nd before that, you know, in his, his, his army time. And then joined the CIA uh, after law school. And his first assignment was in Pakistan and learned Pashto.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  He was the agency's most fluent Pashto speaker. And set up the Pakistani Special Forces and went all over, you know, the tribal areas. Uh, in those days, we had the U2 flights over the Soviet Union out of Peshawar. Uh, Gary Powers and all that. And so I was involved in that too. And he'd served in all these difficult places around the world. Um, uh, he'd been a chief in Afghanistan. Um, he'd served in Pakistan, India, uh, supporting Tibetan insurgents. Uh, when we were doing that in the sixties, uh, against China. Um, served in Vietnam, um, and then in Africa.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  And so he was my kind of, both of them were really my kind of guys, you know, street smart, but also, um, you know, a guy who went to the sound of guns and had the, you know, the Special Forces background. And so, uh, we just clicked and, and, and they were very good to me.

• 41:01Jack Murphy?

  And I, as the, the program, I mean, I'd love, I'd love to hear in your words, how this program evolved as, as it sort of got off the ground. And there was a presidential finding for Afghanistan. And the, the impression I get reading through your book is that as time went on, this bigot became fully open, like we were really about sticking it to the Soviets in Afghanistan.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, um, you know, as background, um,

• 41:28Speaker 03

  There was, you know, there was kind of this great game, you know, first between the Russians and the British and then the 19th century and then later in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union for influence in Afghanistan, you know, and the Soviets generally got the better of the deal. They built a tunnel, they trained a lot of Afghan military officers, you know, and then they started underground communist parties in the 60s. And we focused on agriculture in the south, in Helmand Province, and, you know, up to that period. And then in 1973, the king's cousin overthrew him after, you

• 42:12Speaker 03

  know, several decades of royal rule. And the prime minister ran the country for five years, and then he was overthrown in 1978 by the communist parties with Soviet support, launching a communist revolution in Afghanistan. And immediately it triggered resistance, you know, trying to impose land reform, which really means land appropriation, and then, you know, atheism, you know, just not gonna fly in Afghanistan. And, and the communist Afghan government asked for Soviet assistance, and Soviets were given a lot but didn't want

• 42:56Speaker 03

  to intervene, you know, until they did, finally. And, and so, before the Soviets intervened in December, late December 1979, that summer, there were a couple of what we call non-lethal findings to provide political and psychological support to the resistance and money, essentially, and communications support. And, and then when the Soviets invaded in force, then three days after that, President Jimmy Carter signed a lethal finding authorizing CIA, the third finding, authorizing CIA to support the resistance, you know, fully with, and so

• 43:40Speaker 03

  within 10 days, CIA actually had weapons starting flowing to the resistance. But for the first five years, President Carter's last year and President Reagan's first term...

• 43:54Speaker 03

  The program was reasonably big. It was, uh, we had a lot of foreign partners and Saudis being one, obviously Pakistan. The Saudis matched this dollar for dollar. And so the US government budget was 60 million and the Saudis matched that. So it was 120 million dollars a year. And, but analysts thought there was no chance that the resistance could defeat the Soviets. The policy goal in the finding was just to make the occupation as costly as possible for the Soviets. So the war kind of settled into this stalemate and the resistance was lightly equipped,

• 44:35Speaker 03

  mostly with small arms, not a lot of heavy weapons, mortars and anti-tank weapons and rocket launchers and stuff. Very few surface air missiles, you know, a handful of them, 20 or so, not a lot of training, communications, not, not a lot of intelligence, but they were still holding their own against the Soviets. And then in the summer of 1984, Congressman Charlie Wilson from Texas, who was on the House Defense Appropriation Subcommittee, really wanted to expand the funding for the program.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  So CIA went in for a 10% budget increase and Wilson quadrupled the budget, you know, 300% increase, which you don't see every day. And, but that's right at the, you know, and so that naturally caused a lot of concern in CIA about, you know, can we execute this, you know, is it too much money? Can the resistance absorb it? And that's exactly the moment that I got the job and I thought, hell yeah, we can execute this.

• 45:45Jack Murphy?

  18 Bravo, of course you think you can execute.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Right, exactly. Here's what people are doing with this, you know, and so.

• 45:52Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, developing plans and, and everything else. And so a series of things led to a big change. That was the first one that, you know, the, the funding just went way up and the Saudis agreed to, to match it. And then.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Five years into the war, we were getting some criticism in Congress. You know, and Central America was already very controversial. You know, you had a thing called the Bolan Amendment that suspended aid to the Contras for a while and other things. But the controversy on Afghanistan was, you know, some Republicans felt that the Pakistanis were a corruption problem. The Pakistanis were keeping all the weapons for themselves and they weren't getting into the resistance. So we had to show that, and that CIA's management of the program wasn't very good because we were letting the Pakistanis control the end distribution. And so we had to address that.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  And then on the left side of the aisle, there was concern that this was a hopeless war and we're just fighting to the last Afghan and it was immoral. And so that triggered a National Security Council review of the program, how to deal with these political problems, you know, from both left and right. But as any good NSC review, it also said, okay, what are we trying to do here? We're five years into this thing. What are, should we revisit our goals? And the inner, what today we would call a paper, Principles Committee meeting, the

• 47:37Speaker 03

  NSC staff circulated documents with questions that the State Department, Defense Department, and CIA were supposed to answer about, you know, our goals and what we thought we should do. And one of them was, instead of, you know, stay the course, et cetera, it was to change our goal to defeating the Soviets and drive them out by all means available. It was in the working papers. And I liked the phrase, I remembered it 30 years later and, you know, made it the title of my book, but I thought, that's the one we want to do, you know, with all this new money. And, you know, didn't really have an idea yet totally how we would do that, but we programmed everything I could in terms of more heavy weapons, more this, more of that.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  But I knew it wasn't going to be enough yet. And lo and behold... George Shultz at the State Department and his key deputies went along with this. CIA's leadership did under Bill Casey, Casper Weinberger in defense did, you know, on the policy side. And so our goal then became to defeat the Soviets and drive them out. And President Reagan signed a top-secret national security decision directive, which has been mostly declassified for the past decade, with that goal in mind, that that was our aim there. And so, in a sense, now we had a hunting license to do what was required to do that.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  And so then that triggered, okay, do, when can we get all our partners to escalate with us? And so that meant resting strategic control, so we controlled the strategy from the Pakistanis, you know, and that would help solve this issue of are they controlling too much or diverting things? But also for us to put in all these new weapons and both quantity and quality. And then getting our suppliers, the Chinese were a big ally of ours, and our largest arms supplier, and Egypt was another, would they agree with the escalation? And not only escalation in quantity, but also in more advanced weapons, you know,

• 49:48Speaker 03

  rocket launchers from the Chinese, surface-to-air missiles, you know, that would really make our partners more vulnerable. And, you know, Pakistan in terms of subversion and maybe invasion, you know, the Chinese with diplomatic repercussions when their weapons are found, you know, surface-to-air missiles are shooting down Soviet aircraft. And so I had to go to all these countries with the top leadership of their intelligence services to try to get them to go along with the escalation, and they all did within six months. And then that included trying to get a more advanced surface-to-air weapon, you know, in covert action programs.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  You want a plausible deniability, you know, so what covert means for your listeners is you're concealing the sponsor of the operation, but not the operation because you're influencing events, you know, you're supporting a war, you're doing political action or whatever it is, but you don't want the United States role to be apparent, you know, even if people suspect it, you're not acknowledging it.

• 51:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  And, you know, so in paramilitary operations, the ones that are kind of the most deniable are when you're using the enemy's weapons, which is what the Afghan program was for the first five years. And then, you know, you can lift up the skirt a little more by going to Western weapons, and then even more with US weapons. And within 12 months, we kind of went to the spectrum in certain high areas, you know, we went for Western surface-to-air missiles, a British blowpipe, and then eventually the US stinger, you know, so further escalations in that regard. And so first, the Brits turned us down on the blowpipe, and then we went back to them,

• 51:46Speaker 03

  and Prime Minister Thatcher agreed, and so we started that program up. And then we went back to Congress and said, you know, we now have a strategy and a real detailed plan, and we know you just quadrupled our budget, but we actually need double that, you know, if you'll just double it one more time and take us up to a billion, billion two, we think we can actually achieve this objective in a couple of years. And lo and behold, Charlie Wilson came through again that summer and transferred money from the Department of Defense, and the Saudis matched it.

• 52:26Speaker 03

  And so within less than 12 months, the program had increased by a factor of more than 10, you know, from like 120 million to almost 1.2 billion, where it leveled off. And then lots of, you know, we went from 20 surface-to-air missiles, some of which didn't work, to, you know, damn near 2,000.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  Increased our training by factor of 10 and you know all sorts of other things and so the tempo of combat went up, the number of aircraft shot down, the size of ambushes, the attacks on urban areas and bases, shelling with rockets, shelling into Kabul, you know, all that just increased dramatically and at the same, at the same time Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in March 85, just as we were beginning on this escalation path all of 85, took his top general from Eastern Europe, East Germany and put him in charge, said got two years to win the war, we'll give you 25,000 more troops to

• 53:31Speaker 03

  the 105 that the Soviets had there already. So we had this dual escalation, you know, ours covert and theirs over and within 12 months, we had won that battle of the surges and Gorbachev started looking for the exit.

• 53:44Speaker 04

  Mike, when, I just, out of curiosity, when you're going around and selling, you know, partner nations on the idea of increasing their investments, increasing the weapons shipped to Afghanistan, things like that, do you need a different pitch for each country? Like, because Afghanistan isn't like necessarily strategically necessary for anybody, is it just the idea of bleeding the Soviet Union?

• 54:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it differed in each case. So, you know, with China, they had had a border clash in 1969 and we had, you know, the opening to China led by Henry Kissinger and then, and Nixon and then consolidated in the normalization of relations under President Carter and started an intelligence partnership with the Chinese and then started supporting the Afghan program because they wanted to weaken the Soviets and have them tied down in a war because, you know, they were worried about a Soviet invasion of China from the north. You know,

• 54:50Speaker 03

  Soviet priorities were NATO number one, you know, that was the big war, China number two and then maybe Iran number three and Afghanistan was kind of number four there, which is why we thought there were limits on their ability to escalate. And so with the Chinese, it was really more a case of they're already in it, are they willing to go in it even more with more sophisticated weapons and numbers of weapons and.

• 55:15Speaker 03

  You know, there was a debate about whether they would. The National Intelligence Officer for China told me, there's no way they will give you these surface-to-air missiles, and they ended up doing it, you know. And where with Pakistan, you know, it was a function of the Islamic world not liking these infidels invading a Muslim country. And so that, you know, affected Egypt and Pakistan. And then with Pakistan, there was the really the risk of, you know, cross-border raids with Soviet special forces, airstrikes, sabotage by the KGB and Afghan Secret Service, and maybe an invasion, because the Soviets would do these big sweeps, you know, search-and-destroy

• 55:59Speaker 03

  missions right up to the border. And so it was a little different. And they were in it, but it took some convincing more about the risk of, you know, escalation that would directly affect them as the frontline state. I meant, I should have mentioned Saudi Arabia too, another one, you know, was mostly helping fund the program, but again, it was the invasion of a Muslim country. And then with the Brits, you know, it was more high technology. You know, we were partnering on intelligence collection and other things and support for resistance commanders, but it was, it was really, you know, do we want to stick it to the Soviets with this advanced weapon that they're not going to, you know, that shoots down more aircraft?

• 56:43Speaker 03

  And same for the US decision. So, yeah, you know, the pitch was tailored to their own interests in Afghanistan in each case.

• 56:50Jack Murphy?

  I, I think you answered at least half of my next question, but because you talked about it in the book at some length, I wanted to ask you about the covert operation, cooperation that you mentioned with China, which is this interesting historical interlude, almost impossible to imagine something like that happening today. But I just wanted to see if I can tease out of you a little bit, any sort of a cultural observations about their approach to warfare, covert operations, or anything else that you took away from those numerous meetings where you interfaced directly with the Chinese intelligence apparatus?

• 57:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, so.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  You know, it was very interesting in a sense that, you know, they had the long Chinese Civil War and, you know, Mao was, had been dead for almost a decade, but, and Deng Xiaoping actually approved this big escalation. But, you know, so in our initial discussions, we had big debates about guerrilla warfare strategy. And, you know, so try different visions about how to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. You know, is it really lots of people armed with AKs?

• 58:12Speaker 03

  Or is it combined arms and stuff, which I was pushing and more, you know, when shift the anti-air balance more in the insurgents' favor and stuff. And so that took some convincing. You know, we went back and forth and, you know, they're, you know, they're saying to me, "Look, we really know guerrilla warfare, you know, we, we, we overthrew our own government this way." And, and I'd say, "Well, yeah, I know something about it too, and here's why I think we need to do this." And, and they, they, they finally, you know, went along. But it was very interesting, it was very interesting culturally in a sense that their negotiating style, you know, you, you, you weren't allowed to, when you make presentations,

• 58:55Speaker 03

  they would just say, "Continue, continue with no break." You know, and if you said, you couldn't ask them questions when they were talking for 30 minutes and they didn't want any interruption. If I'd say, "Well, okay, you want me to elaborate on this or something?" Then, "Just continue," you know. And so we were really almost like ships passing in the night. And then, you know, as they often, as I later learned, they do with businesses a lot, you don't clinch the deal until the very end. And so it looked like we weren't gonna get everything we want. We were heading to the air, we got some things. We were heading to the airport and they're waiting for us in an airport lounge with drinks and stuff,

• 59:34Speaker 03

  was the head of armaments for the PLA. "Okay, read everything." Better late than never. But yeah, it was, you know, and I... I imagined myself when I was in special forces, you know, in the 10th group, where we had this World War III mission and, you know, to liberate Eastern Europe. You know, I thought this would be, if this ever came to pass, this would be, you know, T E Lawrence and all this great stuff. But I also thought I'd read, you know, about World War II and OSS in China and others. And I knew about the border conflict that they had had in 69.

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  I'd studied that as I was completing my bachelor's degree. And I thought, well, maybe I'd find myself on the side of the Chinese against the Russians. You know, that would be really exotic, you know, Eastern Europe, I kind of know, but this one would be exotic. And lo and behold, they became my partner to fight in Afghanistan. You know, I didn't have the imagination to think about that, but.

• 1:00:42Jack Murphy?

  As far as the end game in Afghanistan, I mean, the obvious end of the conflict is the Soviet withdraw. When did you know it was over?

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  Really, in sort of early 1986, Gorbachev gave this open speech in February 86 about bleeding wound and we've got to extricate ourselves from this. And our escalation was just starting. I mean, we had, we had flows of stuff going there through 1987. And, you know, this meant strengthening the logistics system from ships to what you do at ports, to railroads, to trucks, to warehouses, and then to Toyota Land Cruisers and even, you know, 10,000 mules. You know, I grew up in Hollywood. I didn't know a damn thing about mules.

• 1:01:36Speaker 03

  And suddenly I find myself dealing with China about, you know, 10,000 of these things. And it turns out Chinese mules were better for Afghanistan than Tennessee mules, which, you know, who would think? But the mountains and.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  So, you know, it really was pretty clear in eighty-six, but then you had this dance of negotiations, the first Soviet six regiments come out that summer, but the Soviets are hoping that we'll leave the Afghan government in place. And so there's negotiations about that. And the US rightly holds firm. And then eventually Gorbachev says, okay, we just want out. We don't care what kind of government is there. And that's since the deal. And then from the time the agreement was signed, they withdrew in two big phases.

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  And so that was not quite a year, like nine months, but you know, it so it just played out in slow motion. But the writing was on the wall. Their their tactics shifted there. Once we started shooting down so many aircraft, they started flying above surface-to-air missile range, which meant they couldn't do close-range support very well. They didn't do offensive operations as much anymore. You know, they just kind of hunkered down to their bases. And, you know, so it was pretty clear. And also, they announced this policy like we did in Vietnam, the Afghanization, you know, to basically shift to an indirect role where the Afghan, the communist Afghans are going to do the fighting, and the Soviets

• 1:03:19Speaker 03

  are going to support them, but not do the combat. And, you know, so we saw all that. And that that kind of, you know, led to the led to the endgame. What was important was holding their feet to the fire, you know, really sustaining this through this period. And this is where I really give, I think there's important lessons from President Reagan in this, is that, you know, as relations were really warming between Reagan and Gorbachev, and, you know, big breakthroughs in diplomacy, we kept the heat on in Afghanistan and pressure. And still said, look, we want to do business with you. This can be great, but, you know, we disagree on this one thing. And, you know, he ended up getting his way.

• 1:04:03Jack Murphy?

  The, a- a- as we kind of get towards the end of part one of our interview with you, I wanted to ask a couple of questions that are sort of like big picture, things that I think maybe you're uniquely qualified to answer. At the time, we've talked at length about supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. At the same time, there were paramilitary programs supporting UNITA in Angola and the FDN or the Contras in Nicaragua. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about these three anti, essentially anti-Soviet covert operations around the world, and what was the global strategy behind them?

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, and there was also a brief period of supporting Cambodians against the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, although it was very, very small. So, you know, it really, we started this period on defense in Central America. You know, Nicaragua had fallen to the Sandinistas, you know, and there was a sense that the Soviets and their Cuban allies and others were really on the march. And insurgency really exploded in El Salvador,

• 1:05:22Speaker 03

  and, you know, so we were counterinsurgency and essentially dealing there. And then the Contra program is kind of the first big one in a sense, because Afghanistan is this, we're doing what we can there, but there's no thought you're going to win, where we really didn't want to lose. And we certainly didn't want to have more countries fall to communism in Central America. But there was even a hope, well, maybe we could defeat them in Nicaragua, and at least in our backyard, you know. So it starts off fairly modest. And then as you move to 1984, one, the Contra program becomes politically controversial and has this hiatus. And it's, you know, it's doing so-so. We had a lot of success

• 1:06:07Speaker 03

  in counterinsurgency in El Salvador, but not as much, you know, on the offensive side in Nicaragua. And then, as Afghanistan escalates, that then becomes the real main effort. And so, people's minds change between, "This is hopeless," to, "Maybe we can win there, and if we win here, it really matters." You know, this is the, the, the main enemy in the, in the big enchilada, where if you win in Nicaragua, you know, you move a pawn on the chessboard, rather than a, than a queen. And then Angola picks up, I think in eighty-six or so, uh, and, you know, the Cubans had, uh,

• 1:06:46Speaker 03

  sent a big proxy army into, uh, uh, Angola, twenty-some thousand troops. And that kicks in, uh, uh, as well. And then President Reagan gives the Reagan Doctrine speech, which is, "We'll support anti-communist insurgencies." And I wanna say that's, um, early, early eighty-five, uh, if I remember right. And it provides kind of the strategic framework for this global irregular war that kinda came in parts, essentially, and at different times and different emphasis.

• 1:07:24Speaker 03

  And it's tied to a broader strategy of, um, restricting technology transfer, uh, hurting the Soviets with low oil prices, uh, uh, you know, other things to kind of weaken, uh, weaken, um, the system. And then, of course, the Reagan buildup, you know, that they really can't match this

• 1:07:45Jack Murphy?

  The Star Wars.

• 1:07:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that, you know, missile defense, uh, and, um, uh, and then since the late seventies, we started shifting our strategy, our conventional strategy in Europe, to deep attack. You know, we knew we really couldn't, you know, up until, say, nineteen seventy-six, our strategy was to trade space for time, essentially, to withdraw under pressure of a Soviet advance. And- Every war game showed that they could break through on multiple fronts and it just didn't work. Once we developed the precision weapons and the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  and other things, the first stealth aircraft, the F-117, the Army Tactical Missile System, you know, that's finally getting to Ukraine today, the joint surveillance and target acquisition, J-Stars, that really worried the Soviets about their strategy, that, you know, all the second echelon forces would be vulnerable and, you know, rather than having a tank battle right up at front, those reinforcing forces could get hit. And that's why the Soviet general staff backed Gorbachev because as they looked out, you know, 10, 20 years, they thought, we're just going to fall further behind the United States in technology and we got to do something to

• 1:09:09Speaker 03

  revitalize our system to catch up. And so all that weighed them down.

• 1:09:14Speaker 04

  Do you think that all of these-

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  I would add to support for solidarity in Poland. You know, that was a big one, too, keeping them alive.

• 1:09:22Speaker 04

  Yep, yep. Do you think that all these, these, these counter sort of Soviet wars that we fought, that, you know, are challenging because you can't, you can't always mold the, the indigenous peoples that, that are your proxy soldiers, right? They're doing their thing. But do you think that all those led up to Gorbachev, to, to the, you know, because in 89, we saw the fall of, of the Berlin Wall, like, that, do you think that we basically defeated the Soviet Union through these, even if we didn't win in the specific places all the time?

• 1:09:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I think, you know, in Nicaragua, the result was a little more ambiguous because the Sandinistas got defeated in an election in 1990. And, but, you know, pressure from the insurgents. In Angola, we really defeated the Cubans. And in Afghanistan, defeated the Soviets. And it was the only defeat the Red Army had suffered in its history. So a real blow to its credibility and claim on resources and- Same with the KGB and you know, I I do think that had a big effect on um on the Soviets. You know, it's not the only thing that led to the dissolution of the Soviet empire.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Gorbachev's critical in that in a sense, not using force in Eastern Europe when you know, the wall starts crumbling down and solidarity gets elected and you know, all that. Uh, but the defeat of the Red Army was was was a big deal, yeah.

• 1:10:53Jack Murphy?

  Uh, another sort of like big picture, and this is more of a institutional question, and I hope I won't start a food fight with this one, but the differences between the Special Activities Division and Special Forces, or or between ground branch and Special Forces, what are the pros and cons of each? Why do we maintain these two, in some ways, parallel capabilities?

• 1:11:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, so that's a question that's been debated over the decades, you know, should CIA just focus on intelligence and not covert action, and particularly paramilitary covert action where, you know, the military has very strong capabilities? And so, you know, part of the reason for that is the political benefits of covert action to begin with, you know, so the way I like to describe it, if we're going to support an insurgency against a hostile power in peacetime, presidents overwhelmingly defer to CIA there. So it's not a question of capabilities, it's a question of plausible deniability and escalation

• 1:11:58Speaker 03

  control and, you know, if we had Special Forces doing Afghanistan, it's not that they couldn't do it technically, it's that you run a higher risk that you're going to trigger a direct war than if CIA is doing it, you're still killing Soviets, you know, I mean, it's still a war, it's just that it provides this level of control that president seems to go to. And then, when you go to war, um...

• 1:12:26Speaker 03

  You know, particularly a big war, you don't have enough CIA for that. And then there's no reason not to use your military, you know, for that. And then all these other missions, counterterrorism and, you know, that require real surgical skill and everything, that's properly the military, you know, and those things occur in peacetime. But, you know, so there's this kind of division of labor based on, you know, the politics of it and whether covert or overt makes sense or whether, you know, and then CIA essentially working through partners with a smaller footprint rather than, you know, something more muscular.

• 1:13:11Speaker 03

  You know, as you get to the more muscular side, you get to DOD. And, you know, that's true in a number of areas, whether it's drones or whether it's cyber, you know, you have these equal, you have capabilities in both areas, but for different purposes. And so I think it serves the country, it gives the president more options and it serves the country well to have both, but you got to know the limitations of both.

• 1:13:39Speaker 04

  There's sort of this idea or rumor, I guess, that Republican presidents will lean more heavily on the military and Democratic presidents will lean more heavily on the CIA. Do you think that's an actual thing or is it just sort of whomever fits best?

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think that bears out necessarily in, in history. I mean, the, you know, from the last two decades of the Cold War and maybe parts of the last 20 years, you know, the differences in general about aggressive foreign policy have differentiated the parties until recently, you know, when, you know, you've got all this isolationism strain creeping in, but.

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  Part of the reason, I think analysts explain that Republicans won five out of six presidential elections in the late Cold War is because they were trusted more on national security. So I think it, rather than military or CIA, I think it's more how aggressively you use either one. Mm-hmm. There's still nuances in both, like I said. You know, what Carter started, Reagan continued, and then Reagan escalated, but it took a while. Right. And, uh, and then, you know, after nine eleven, uh, President Bush, uh, for the invasion of Afghanistan, went with essentially a CIA-led plan because it was very rapid.

• 1:15:14Speaker 03

  And, you know, of course, the military was gonna fold in on that. You know, CIA wasn't gonna fight the Afghan war by themselves, but you needed air power and you needed special forces and all that. But, uh, you know, the initial options that the military came up with weren't unconventional. They were airstrikes or massive invasion, and President Bush didn't wanna, you know, airstrikes were too little and massive invasion too late. Yeah. You know, so, um, you know, so that's what kinda drove it. Do we have any questions? And then, you know, the other thing that drives it is our foreign partners. You know, a lot of times, for their own risk, they'll wanna deal with CIA or intelligence channels because they think it, uh, provides them more, more protection.

• 1:15:59Speaker 03

  And, you know, and then it's, it's also flexible, like, we can, uh, you know, if CIA needs certain capabilities that the Department of Defense has, we can loan them to them, you know? Right. So, you know, and so then it's just a question of what authority do you want? Right. I, I think we have a few, uh, viewer questions. Yeah, we have some, we have some great questions. Um, uh, first off, Rory, thank you very much for the donation. I didn't see a question, if there is one, please throw it in chat and we'll keep an eye out for it. Uh, Andrew Dunbar, thanks, buddy. Um, do you have any funny anecdotes about dealing with the State Department? Uh, seems like SF and the diplomatic service would be a bit of a culture clash.

• 1:16:41Speaker 03

  Um, well, yeah, I, I, I don't know how funny they are, but you know, when I was dealing on the counterterrorism intelligence collection, you know, in case our embassies were seized by terrorists.

• 1:17:03Speaker 03

  You know, the diplomat, the ambassadors and the diplomats thought, okay, this is a good thing to have. I want someone to come and rescue me if things go bad. And so, you know, I dealt with the security people and the ambassador and the chief of station, and they were all, they were in high threat areas. So they were supportive of having the military, you know, prepare for this. And, uh, you know, more, I think what your listener is referring to is approaches to foreign policy decisions and use of force, the interagency, where we do have differences of opinion, you know, sometimes, that's where the different departments, uh, you know, can diverge sometimes.

• 1:17:46Speaker 03

  But on, on what I did there, I don't think, and then also generally, I wouldn't say all ambassadors, but lots of ambassadors welcome all the help they can get, you know, so they've got us, you know, whatever size country team, but you know, if you can send them a few people that will really augment them and do something for them useful, they generally welcome it. You know, it's, it's more for their empire and more, more ability to do good things, you know, in, in their particular country. So, yeah, I didn't, I didn't really have that experience.

• 1:18:19Speaker 04

  They, they didn't look at you as atavistic knuckle draggers who should like sit in a corner and only come out when, you know, break when.

• 1:18:27Speaker 03

  They'd laugh, like, you know, like, uh, one ambassador, you know, I mentioned John Negroponte earlier, that I served with over several decades, you know, uh, when we were both in the Bush II administration, he said, "I remember you as a special forces captain and, you know, you wanted to take pictures of my bathroom." And all this other stuff. "If you're being held in your bathroom, we're gonna wanna know how to get in there."

• 1:18:57Speaker 04

  Spencer Devens, thank you very much. From your perspective, what does the United States need to address the PRC going into the rest of this century? Good question. When does your recommendation need to be done by?

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  Ah, so I have a chapter in the book called Winning the New Cold War that deals with how to compete, how to prevail over China over several decades and Russia is an ally of China as well. And, you know, probably the biggest factor since they're a global power in an integrated world is really the economic and technological competition. We've been the dominant economic power in the world for a century and we never had a rival in the 20th century that had more than 50% of our GDP. So we had this economic escalation dominance, you know?

• 1:19:54Speaker 03

  World War II is the best example of that, you know? We get surprised at the beginning, but then we mobilize American industry and, you know, we flood the Pacific with ships and, you know, other things and landing craft to go to D-Day and all that. And, you know, that may not be as true in the 21st century if China continues to grow. Now, they've been stumbling. And then you also have this revolution in technology with AI and quantum, and that can remake the world and we don't want to be on the losing end of that.

• 1:20:23Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:20:24Speaker 03

  And then those things translate into, like the original Cold War, into competitions for global influence, you know, all around Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. And as warfare has evolved, you know, our position has been eroded in the Western Pacific. So China kind of went to school on the US military more than any other country in Desert Storm or in the aftermath of Desert Storm. And the big conclusion the Chinese drew out of this was terrible idea to give the United States six months to build up massive combat power right on your border.

• 1:21:04Speaker 03

  Then beat your brains in, you know, and so they developed this anti-access strategy to try to prevent US force, hurt the ones that are in the region by attacking air bases and surface ships, and then prevent the reinforcements or make it very costly for them to come in. And they've, they've pursued that strategy for several decades. And now you have these new warfare domains, space and cyber that are inherently global. And while the Chinese are pretty powerful opposite Taiwan, you know, once you get out of missile range, you know, if we were both projecting power, say to Africa or somewhere, you know, the US would dominate. And we'd like to keep it that way. And so we have undersea dominance, you know, we have

• 1:21:47Speaker 03

  really more in long-range strike, we have better space systems. I'd like to keep it that way because the way for China to become a global military power is to gain advantages in those areas. And, uh, you know, so there's a number of things you have to do to strengthen regional and global deterrence. But then you gotta win this Cold War, which might be from proxies and influence and a lot of the covert action and the special ops stuff that, you know, below direct conflict. Cause you know, another characteristic of the old Cold War and this one is nuclear weapons tends to put a little bit of a break on conventional war. You can't do World

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  Two the way, you know, you otherwise would. And so that means you gotta get at your adversary through more devious ways. And, uh, you know, we've got our work, work cut out for us, uh, for there.

• 1:22:43Speaker 04

  Uh, M. Corbin, thank you very much. If possible, any commentary on the lasting impact of the ISI Director, General Ahamed Ghul?

• 1:22:54Speaker 03

  Ah, so, uh,

• 1:22:57Speaker 03

  He, funny question. So he, he came in late in the Soviet Afghan war and was a conventional armor officer and wanted to shift the insurgency into conventional battle essentially and, and ordered assaults on cities which played right into Soviet and, and

• 1:23:26Speaker 04

  Doc from

• 1:23:27Speaker 03

  Afghan government hands, you know, like you make yourself a big target and stay there long enough, we'll pound you, you know, you don't want to do daylight assaults on cities generally, but particularly when your enemy has artillery superiority and air superiority and, you know, everything else. So he was a pretty disruptive force in the end game of Afghanistan. And then became very anti-US. And so over time, you know, supported the Taliban and others. Over time, really became an agitator for, you know, essentially not

• 1:24:12Speaker 03

  partnering with the US and everything else. So he's, he's, he's not my favorite Pakistani gentleman.

• 1:24:18Speaker 04

  Spencer Devens, thank you very much. He has a couple of questions coming up. He's in a meeting, so he's going to get to these later. Do you see any sort of scenario where we risk becoming Eisenhower's feared garrison state while we try to maintain escalation dominance with an adversary that could have a larger DDP than we do?

• 1:24:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. So that's the challenge of the economics is when I say now China may have peaked and they're, you know, they're emphasizing political control over economic growth. And so they're kind of killing their golden goose right now. So it may not be as dire as, as we think, but you know, they could, they could recover. And, you know, the genius of Eisenhower was to

• 1:25:10Speaker 03

  Recognized that the Cold War would be fought, hopefully, short of conventional war because of nuclear weapons. And in fact, you know, he emphasized nuclear weapons very dramatically in his strategy, the national security strategy, the new, the new look. But he also thought it was very important to put the United States in a long-term competition on a sustainable fiscal path. You know, we had spent a lot of money mobilizing for Korea, you know, demobilized after World War II and then ramped up for Korea. And it really created a lot of budget problems and everything. And so Eisenhower kind of put us on a steady state where innovation was emphasized.

• 1:25:52Speaker 03

  Nuclear weapons would be used to deter war and hopefully bring an end if you, if you had one. But, but also all these innovations in, you know, after Sputnik and the space race NASA and DARPA was created and then the NRO. And, and so, you know, it was a, and then used covert action, you know, to compete in the third world. And so it was a pretty effective grand strategy. And you know, and then even on the economic side, you know, the interstate highway system, you know, was, and so it's a good model for, you know, you know, at the end of the day, I think who wins this new Cold War between us and China

• 1:26:37Speaker 03

  and its allies will be who has the strongest overall system, which means our domestic power base, you know, which it's got resilient. You can't spend yourself into oblivion and, you know, and what, you know, one of the dangers of great powers is they, you know, both we and the Soviets made these mistakes in the Cold War is, you know, strategy is an art, not a science. So you can overreach and make yourself vulnerable on peripheral things, or you can underreach and not do anything and then the world really gets bad for you. And you know, we've done over various periods of time. And you know, and you want to find that realm where you're adding to your power,

• 1:27:18Speaker 03

  not depleting it and, and then taking advantage of your adversary when they make a mistake. You know, and that's what we eventually did in the late Cold War. You know, you know, I like to describe the Cold War. We started off pretty strong, you know, the first decade and a half. We kind of had trouble in the middle couple of decades and then we finished strong. And that was enough to win it.

• 1:27:41Speaker 04

  Great answer. Um, also from sensor, if, if it's possible, how would you seek to make covert action programs immune to the polls of the US domestic, uh, domestic political theater?

• 1:27:54Jack Murphy?

  I'm not sure it works like that.

• 1:27:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, you know, intelligence.

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• 1:29:55Speaker 03

  Since emphasizes our republican form of government, where a couple committees in Congress do the oversight for the American people to keep things secret. But, you know, one of the tests of a covert action program is, you know, it ought to be consistent with broader US foreign policy interests and goals. And when it's too disjointed from that, you know, and then the likelihood that it's going to get leaked by opponents goes up as well, you're going to have trouble, you know, you're going to have controversy. And so, you know, you'd like, the test of it is you'd like the American people to say, okay, yeah, I see, I see why my government's doing that. It's in our interest and I see why it was secret, you know,

• 1:30:40Speaker 03

  rather than what the hell are you doing? Right, right. Uh, you know, and so, and so we've had both over decades and, uh, you know, hopefully we, we've learned how to do that. Um, you know, the answer is not to do covert action. I mean, presidents will differ on, you know, how aggressive they want to be. But, you know, when it succeeds, it really succeeds very well. And it's generally our biggest programs that are the most successful. Um, uh, but then we've also had spectacular failures like Bay of Pigs and Right. others. You just got, you know, got to avoid the dumb shit and do the smart shit. Right. And unfortunately, sometimes you don't know if it's dumb shit or smart shit until it's already done.

• 1:31:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. I mean, sometimes, um. That's right. Uh, how involved or aware should the average American be about national security topics? And how would you amend current engagement?

• 1:31:43Speaker 03

  Well, I think we're very affected by what goes on in the rest of the world. And, you know, it's incumbent upon our political leaders, you know, to make that case.

• 1:31:56Speaker 03

  And then, you know, and I think engagement is important. And, you know, and one of the reasons we're connected is not just trade and others, although that matters. It's also the reach of weapons, you know, and the destructiveness of weapons. So, beginning with nuclear weapons, but also now there's more ways to reach intercontinental distances, cyber being one example, you know. So, the two oceans don't protect us in the way they have in the past. And, you know, what happens overseas matters to us. And it's the same thing, you know, as terrorists go from a local or regional problem to ones

• 1:32:38Speaker 03

  with global ambitions or extra-regional, you know, it affects our interests more. And, so, you know, generally, when we've disengaged, we've paid a price for it down the road. Now, that doesn't mean over-engagement, it just means you can't completely disengage. You know, you use economy of force in a lot of places, and that's enough, but you can't just up and leave and say, "I don't care about the place."

• 1:33:08Speaker 04

  Mike, you know, you've mentioned cyber a couple times, and I'm curious about your position on this. And obviously, sometimes the cyber gangs are in China or in Russia, they're in a non-permissive environment. But, you know, we do see like ransomware attacks on hospitals, where a hospital will get locked down. If a group of armed people were to go into that hospital and lock it down, we have specific reactions to it. Do you feel as though the US government should start viewing certain types of cyber attacks as actually offensive military or... Acts of war. Acts of war or acts of terrorism and treat them as such?

• 1:33:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a great question. So, so one, you know, cyber is this unique weapon that it, you know, it can be used by states, it can be used, you know, to harass and destroy, you know, distributed denial of service attacks and then really destructive attacks. It can be used for intelligence collection as well as force, et cetera. So it has a lot of, lot of different attributes. And so where

• 1:34:22Speaker 03

  a lot of supposedly non-governmental cyber actors are operating hostile territory and hurting you, you have to have some kind of diplomatic or some response because they're operating on this guy's territory, probably with his

• 1:34:45Speaker 03

  and they're hurting you, you know. And so mainly a problem right now in Russia, but it's also China, China as well. And then,

• 1:34:55Speaker 03

  you know, as you mentioned, we had this experience, you know, when I was under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, North Korea whacked Sony Pictures and the Iranians whacked Saudi Arabian Oil, you know, Abkak and others, oh, big destructive attacks. And as you said, had North Koreans walked into Sony and blew up those computers, there'd be no doubt about a response. But, you know, you do it with cyber, it's this, well, what is it? And, you know, it's just a computer and or thirty, thirty thousand computers or whatever the case is. But, so we have a ways to go in this

• 1:35:36Speaker 03

  nascent field to develop, you know, in a way it was easier to develop strategy in the nuclear world after the advent of nuclear weapons than it has been. You know, cyber's been around now for a couple decades and we're still struggling with what does it mean and how is it fit in the world of force and what's acceptable intelligence collection and what's not, you know. So like this intellectual mass on a massive scale, this intellectual property theft, you know, like one of the things I thought In the Cold War against the Soviet Union, you know, where we really didn't interact economically and we restricted technologies, they got some of them, but I thought, you know,

• 1:36:19Speaker 03

  you really can't steal your way to economic competitiveness, you know, so they're trying to get our computers through, you know, clandestine means and stuff like that. And it seemed like we had enormous advantage. Cyber and the Chinese have changed my views about that.

• 1:36:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:36:34Speaker 03

  Given massive gains they've made economically from taking intellectual property, it looks like crime pays.

• 1:36:42Speaker 04

  Right, right. And it's also tough because we've had people on the show in the counterintelligence industry or from, you know, the FBI, the CIA, who are like, when every, you know, Chinese national or Chinese descendant who has relatives in mainland are a potential spy for the United States, like, how do you stop, how do you stop your technology from walking out the doors when the Chinese government can walk up to them and go, hey, I saw your grandmother last week?

• 1:37:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you know, the FBI's job jar has grown dramatically with this technology problem and the proliferation, you know, the traditional counterintelligence problem of I've got, you know, 100 intelligence off, hostile intelligence officers working in this country has changed pretty dramatically. And then you've got, you know, still international terrorist extremists and domestic, so they got that.

• 1:37:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:37:39Jack Murphy?

  Maybe we'll do one more before we let Mike.

• 1:37:42Speaker 04

  We have, we have like three more, if that's okay, because one, like, is a very generous donation, I want to make sure we get to it. I read in your bio that in 1978, you went to over, over to Hereford, UK and completed a British SASU B course. How did you get that opportunity and how was that experience for you?

• 1:38:00Jack Murphy?

  It's also in the book, by all means available, which I hope you guys will go and take a look at.

• 1:38:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, so you know, we were just starting to develop

• 1:38:12Speaker 03

  precision counterterrorism capabilities in the late 1970s, you know, after the Munich massacre in 72 and some airline hijackers or hijackings. And, you know, so the Israelis were ahead of us and the Brits were ahead of us in certain ways. And then we started building this capability. And I was fortunate enough, I was in a special forces unit in Germany at the time, and Bob Tolts part of the 10th Group. And I got selected to go to this training early on. And, you know, it not only gave me some new tactical skills, this close quarter battle, and they had a lot to teach us then. Today, you know, we're the best force in the world in those areas, but and

• 1:38:57Speaker 03

  have been for the past couple of decades. But, you know, it started me really on this counterterrorism track that became a pretty big part of my career, along with unconventional warfare and, you know, other parts that, you know, so it was more than just tactical training in a sense that, you know, got me thinking about precision counterterrorism operations and all that goes into it and stuff. So it was a great experience.

• 1:39:26Speaker 04

  So we have four questions left. I'm only going to ask one of them, and then we'll get the other three next show. We don't want to keep you too late. We know you're on a timeline.

• 1:39:35Speaker 04

  Mohamed Sabani, thank you very much for the very generous donation. Love the show as always, y'all. What actions, if any, can be taken for America to compete in hardware chip production, with the entire rare earth processing and supply chain being owned by Chinese? Also, how can America protect its infrastructure from cyber attacks?

• 1:39:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, two great questions, really at the heart of this new competition. So one, you know, we've got this CHIPS act to try to repatriate production that had gone overseas the past couple decades. In advanced chips, you know, we really are still ahead, but then you want to restrict some of that. So I think, you know, and that's companies like Nvidia, you know, the GQs and stuff, that's been subject of some administration restrictions and things. I want to maintain that lead. There are certain areas where we're behind in, you know, Precision, you know, how many things you can fit on a chip and stuff, the scale,

• 1:40:39Speaker 03

  nanometers and things, that Taiwan semiconductor, you know, is more advanced than us, but it's just a critical area. It's an area that, you know, we invented, we dominated, it had military implications as well as commercial, economic, and, you know, it's going to be just as important in this century. And then the caller, two other parts to that, one, you know, the de-risking of supply chains. Now, I think there's more, we're discovering more rare earths everywhere, you know, China has pretty big dominance now, but, you know,

• 1:41:21Speaker 03

  they're all over the world and including in the United States, you know, Wyoming and elsewhere. And so, we just got to have the right policies to go after them and then the relationships with some foreign governments to compete in that area. And then, you know, where we're dependent in pharmaceuticals, as we saw in, you know, in COVID and medical supplies, you know, you got to de-risk that. Doesn't mean decouple completely, but you have to have alternative sources of supply and assured sources of supply. Doesn't mean everything has to be in the United States, just can't all be in China. Right.

• 1:41:57Speaker 03

  And then, on cybersecurity, you know, that's a tough one because the public-private partnership only goes so far because, you know, we've got a free market system and it's sensitive, you know, companies don't want to tell you all their vulnerabilities or, you know, for lots of reasons. And so...

• 1:42:23Speaker 03

  You know, our Cyber Command Commander has three missions essentially to support combatant commanders, to defend all of DOD's networks, but then to defend the United States against a massive attack, you know, something that's beyond crime and everything else. But he's the only commander who really can't see the battlefield. You know, he sees part of that field, or if he can, if he can target the attacker, you know, where it's coming from, he can see that. But, you know, if the attacks, if he doesn't see the point of origin, and it's hitting all these other places that he doesn't have visibility on, he got a challenge

• 1:43:01Speaker 03

  with that. And so, um, you know, and I, you know, there's a big debate about cyber offense and cyber defense. You know, I think some of the advances in AI are going to really enable the offense going forward. We need a lot of, you know, attention to this. And, you know, if quantum computing comes around in the next decade or so, I'm into it. So, yeah, I mean, it's great. Those are both really strategic questions, and it's not something National Security Councils typically are trained or, you know, to kind of problem.

• 1:43:39Jack Murphy?

  Well, Mike, I really appreciate you, you know, being willing to tackle so many of these difficult subjects. And this turned out to be a pretty wide ranging interview, actually. I hope that all of you out there will go and check out his memoir, by all means available. I read it. It was terrific. And we will have Mike back next Friday for part two, where I'm sure we'll have more of these policy discussions. And we'll also be talking about the latter part of his career, where he served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Ops and Low Intensity Conflict, ASD SOLIC, and also headed up USDI. So, again, Mike, thank you very much for taking the time for this interview.

• 1:44:17Speaker 03

  Thank you both.

• 1:44:20Jack Murphy?

  And we will see all of you next Friday.

• 1:44:22Speaker 04

  Also, real quick, make sure you check out Jack and I being interviewed on the Cleared Hot Podcast with Andy Stumpf. He was generous enough to invite us out to Montana and

• 1:44:30Jack Murphy?

  It's out there now.

• 1:44:31Speaker 04

  Sat around and shot the ship for a while. So, and Mike, thanks so much.

• 1:44:35Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Ashkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:44:50Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:45:01Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:45:06Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:45:12Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:45:32Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:46:00Jack Murphy?

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:46:27Speaker 04

  We'll see you on Friday.

• 1:46:29Jack Murphy?

  Okay, take care.

• 1:46:30Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 1:46:34Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:46:49Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic. In a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:47:00Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:47:05Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:47:11Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:47:31Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:47:58Jack Murphy?

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:48:33Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:48:47Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:48:58Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:49:03Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:49:09Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:49:29Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, Study Mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch, OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:50:34Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:50:49Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:51:00Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:51:05Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:51:11Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:51:31Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more. Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing,

• 1:52:15Speaker 00

  and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently.

• 1:52:18Speaker 05

  Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:52:35Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:52:50Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:53:01Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:53:06Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:53:12Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:53:32Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:53:59Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:54:34Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:54:49Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:55:00Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:55:05Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:55:11Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:55:31Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, Study Mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:55:58Jack Murphy?

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:56:34Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Ashkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:56:48Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:56:59Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:57:04Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:57:10Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:57:30Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:57:58Jack Murphy?

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:58:32Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:58:47Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:58:58Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:59:03Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:59:09Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:59:29Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval.

• 2:00:34Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:00:49Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:01:00Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:01:05Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:01:11Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:01:30Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:02:34Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:02:48Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:02:59Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:03:05Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:03:10Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:03:30Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch, OnDeck's small business line of credit, gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:04:35Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:04:49Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to "I'm deathly allergic", in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:05:00Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:05:05Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:05:11Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 2:05:31Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:05:59Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses, like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab.

• 2:06:36Speaker 07

  It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens. Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported.

• 2:07:20Speaker 07

  Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair. This is an advertisement for Zolair, paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 2:07:28Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more. What would you like today?

• 2:07:57Jack Murphy?

  Can I get a number two?

• 2:07:59Speaker 00

  Anything else? Same shift.

• 2:08:02Jack Murphy?

  Different day. I need a smoke. What can I get you? Can I get a number four, number seven, number eight? Same shift. I need a smoke. Different day.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  Using nicotine to relieve stress might just make you feel... worse. Break the cycle and quit nicotine with free daily texts, expert tips, and community support from X Program. By Truth Initiative. Visit Xprogram.com to start your quit journey today.