NSA vs CIA: A Former Analyst Explains the Difference | Alma Katsu

Former NSA and CIA analyst Alma Katsu joins us to discuss her career in intelligence, from the analog era of NSA and early hacking programs to CIA work on social media, disinformation, and emerging technology. She also breaks down how real intelligence work differs from Hollywood spy fiction, and how her experiences shaped novels like Black Vault and her upcoming book on Havana Syndrome. This episode also digs into Iraq War planning, the failure of Phase Four strategy, AI, propaganda, tech regulation, and the challenges women faced inside the intelligence community. Check out Alma's books here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/stores/Alma-Katsu/author/B004FRX5WO?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3&qid=1778022974&sr=8-3&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=7dde9421-b9aa-439f-b0ce-7413359f4d42 GhostBed ⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 10% off! For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics... JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ PRE ORDER JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 — Start 01:34 — Writing spy fiction after a career at NSA and CIA 05:02 — Real spies, “Slow Horses,” and the myth of James Bond 07:15 — From aspiring writer to accidentally joining NSA 10:56 — Starting as an NSA analyst and learning the intelligence world 13:51 — NSA before computers: analog intel, index cards, and the digital transition 16:53 — Inside one of NSA’s first hacking teams 22:13 — Building the CIA’s early social media intelligence program 31:08 — AI, propaganda, and the collapse of trust in open-source information 39:44 — Iraq War planning and the failure of Phase Four strategy 54:23 — Leaving NSA for CIA after the Patriot Act era 01:00:02 — Secret backchannels, Havana Syndrome, and real incidents behind the novels 01:21:19 — CIA publishing battles, pre-publication review, and returning to NSA 01:36:34 — Substack, viewer questions, NSA vs. CIA culture, and final thoughts 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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• 1:30Jack Murphy?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 411 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy, here with tonight's guest, Olma Katsu. She served as an analyst at NSA and CIA, also delving into the technical side as well, some of the technological development work that they do. She is the author of 10 books, including some spy novels, the bigger one being Black Vault, which is being made into a television show, and an upcoming novel about Havana Syndrome. So, Olma, thank you for joining us on the show tonight. Your name has been circulating around for a while. I think I've had you on our list for a while, actually. I'm glad this is finally happening.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, thanks for having me here. I'm really looking forward to this. I know it's kind of confusing because I'm not really known for my spy stories, but then when people find out my background, they're like really surprised that's not all I write.

• 2:28Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I I mean, I I mean, I think it's always enjoyable when somebody kind of brings their personal experience into the novel, whatever kind of novel, you know, if you were a police officer or a CIA officer, or whatever the case may be, and kind of lend that sort of like, that insider baseball is what I think kind of like, at least for me, kind of makes the book what it is.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  It was really interesting. I never thought that I would actually write a spy novel. I tried early on when I was, you know, my very first book was, it came out in 2011, and it took me 10 years to write that book. And while I was writing it, I would jump in and try to write, you know, like a spy thriller, and I was terrible at it. So I just figured I'd never write one. And then after the first three books came out, and I was retiring from NSA, actually, it was 2017, and my editor at Putnam, and I'd done a couple of books with her, and she said, you know, I know you've always wanted to write a spy novel, why don't you give it a try? Because she knew I wanted to write one about the the

• 3:35Speaker 03

  female experience in the spy business and in CIA. So, you know, I was really lucky. I was kind of gifted that experience, and I knew what I was going to write about, because when I was there, there was a really horrible thing that happened, that if I told you, you would recognize it, because it was in the news for years, but it was never publicly associated with CIA. And I always knew I'd write a story and incorporate a version of of what happened there in it. So I got the chance to do it. But it, you know, it was really an eye opener. I don't know what your experience has been, but, you know, you go into this thinking, just like you said, I'm going to tell, I'm going to be a truth teller,

• 4:16Speaker 03

  I'm going to give the inside baseball, you know, and it feels like it's going to be cathartic for you. And then once you get into it, you realize that that's not necessarily what the public wants.

• 4:28Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  You know, they're kind of conditioned more for, you know, Jason Bourne, and Jack Reacher, and, you know, James Bond, and that's not. What the job is really like. And so as a writer, you're sort of torn between these two things. You you want to be true to your um to the profession and the wonderful people that you work with, who you want to honor, you know, and not make them into characters or, you know, that sort of thing. But but you're also an entertainer and you have this obligation to try to entertain your readers. So it's it that's made it not what I thought it would be.

• 5:05Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, in my in my mind, you know, when when I'm writing like mostly like special ops stuff, I I kind of picture that this guy is having like such a singular career, like every amazing thing that could possibly happen is happening to this one person. It's like no one has a career like that, like just to be clear, like nobody has a like something out of a video game. So yeah, it becomes like this uh, you know, combination of of all these other experiences packed into like one protagonist.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you know, in your in your business, though, at least it's full of action. In real life, for most, um, even case officers, right? It's not like they're running down the streets waving guns.

• 5:47Jack Murphy?

  Right, right, right.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  You know, which is unfortunately kind of the expectation of a lot of the public, especially if they don't really read spy novels, if really their their understanding of the profession is based on movies and TV shows, you know, which is a visual medium. There's certainly a lot of great spy novels that are more realistic. You know, I'm thinking Jean Le Carre and, you know, Charles Cumming and those kind of guys. But um, but you know, it's really hard. You know, even Mick Herron, for instance, you know, I I got to be on a panel with Mick Herron. And I asked him, I said, how did you know that there actually are offices like the slow horses? And he looked at me and he said, I didn't. But there are, and I accidentally got to be the boss of one of them once.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  When I was at NSA, one of my last jobs was um, I was made the director of one of the research labs. And I only got the job because the person who had been the director for six years was horrible and had run it into the ground. And what they had done was they put all these dead wood, all the people they didn't want to deal with in the S and T back at NSA, they sent them down to my lab twenty miles away so they wouldn't have to deal with them. So I just felt like Jackson Lamb. I just had this team of, you know, useless, argumentative.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  You know, people, unfortunately, I could not get the work out of them that Jackson Lamb gets out of his people.

• 7:11Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, no disrespect at all to anybody, any of the case officers out there, but like, it, it, and it's not just, uh, like an aberration, but I think it's like almost intentional. A lot of these guys look like insurance claims adjusters. They don't, they don't look like, uh, you know, James Bond, or, and they shouldn't, right? Because they gotta blend in in different places, you know? They shouldn't look like a CrossFit athlete.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, that's what, um, what's his name? Colby said, right? The little gray man, the man that can just blend into the background, and that's the most successful case officers. But I'll tell you a funny thing. On the analytic side, you do get some very attractive people. There was, uh,

• 7:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, we noticed, we noticed Alma, thank you.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  Not me, not me. Some of the people I worked with were, like, one of them looked just like Gwyneth Paltrow. I am not kidding. And we were thinking this particular office chief kinda went out of his way to hire really leggy, attractive blondes.

• 8:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, well, that's, we'll, we'll get into that when we start talking about the, uh, female experience at the CIA and some of the dubious characters, uh, that you cross paths with. Um, but let's, uh, uh, before we, we get too deep into the, uh, into the writing, um, I wanna kinda start at the beginning with you and ask a little bit about kind of your upbringing and how that took you towards governmental service. You know, was your first stop at the NSA? Um, or did you have something in between there? Um, just walk us through it.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  Sure. Well, when I started out, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. I mean, I think like with most writers, I was a little introvert, you know, was more comfortable with a book than with people, and pretty much spent all my time in the library, so much so that the librarians gave me a job as a page when I was 15. So kind, um, you know, and so I thought I would be a writer and I actually started out as a reporter while I was still in high school. And while I was in college and, you know, back then, this was pre-internet years, um. Most people didn't know any, you know, like a novelist, I had no idea how you would become a novelist. The only thing I could see was newspaper work where people were really making a, a living at writing.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  So I sort of figured I'd go into newspaper work, but then, um. You know, the job market crashed, this was in the late seventies, early eighties, um. And my dad, who'd been in the military, you know, he was really after me to get a government job, that's security, that sort of thing. And so, just, just on a whim, I applied to NSA. My sister, who was a wild child, she went to Woodstock and she hitchhiked across the country during the summer of love, right? She told me all these crazy stories she'd heard about the place and it was, you know, it just made it sound insane. And so I thought, well, you know, even the application process was an experience.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  You know, go down to the corner, knock three times kind of thing, right? So I applied and I never thought I would get a job with them and I never thought I would go. But they offered me a job and at the time, my job where I was working, which had only been for about a year, I was working at a, a college. Um, was looking pretty shaky, so I went ahead and took the job. And when I went, I told them, look, I have no interest in national security. You know, this is not my thing, I'm just coming here for the experience, I'll stay a few years and I'm gonna leave. That's what I told them and they were like, sure, sure, come on down, you know, uh, reel me in. And I stayed, you know, I had a thirty-five year career and then some.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  So I stayed because, as you know, right, it's such a singular profession. And you get opportunities, I got opportunities that if I had stayed in Boston and followed what I thought was my, you know, path. Um, I never would have gotten it. And when we talk about the career a little bit more, you'll see. So, you know, while it wasn't perfect and there were a lot of things that, you know, were disappointments. Everyone has disappointments in their career. You know, I, I have to say, it made me into a person that, you know, I never, never dreamed I would be. And that includes the science and technology part. Cause when I was a little kid growing up, even though I grew up in a town that was home to one of the first computer companies.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  So all of us were exposed to computers way before most people were. They still kind of treated girls like you don't know math and you're not going to be good at science. So I thought I wasn't good at math and science. And it wasn't until I got to NSA and they know how to train you. For what you need to know, I found out that I was actually good at it. So, yeah, I mean, it, it really opened up a lot of doors for me.

• 12:09Jack Murphy?

  Wha- what was the position they hired you for?

• 12:12Speaker 03

  So I got hired into what was then their intern program, which was a little bit like the PMI program. But I was hired as what they called a reporter, which is a kind of analyst. At NSA, I think it's changed now, but when I started, and this was decades ago. Reporting and I mean, analysis, I should say, was sort of a hybrid. It was, you were working with linguists. But a lot of times the linguists were not so good at stepping away from the content of what they were translating. And really understanding the so what of it. So, uh, a lot of times a reporter, someone who was better at writing would then step in. And kind of take it, um, to the final, you know, take it to a finished product.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Um, that changed for me, of course, when I went to CIA, they have a very different view on what an analyst is. And what an analyst should be able to produce. So, um, but that's how I started out. I started out as reporter, did that for. About, I can't remember how long, fifteen years or so. Made it all the way up to a Siget National Intelligence Officer in my field, so.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Very fulfilling job that got to look kind of my NIO. So when you're a National Intelligence Officer, generally that's associated with CIA. The NIC, the National Intelligence Council. But other intelligence agencies often have their equivalent to sort of lead in that particular area. And for me, it was multilateral affairs. I ended up becoming a specialist in like. Phase four operations and operations other than combat in the nineties, there was a lot of that going on. Uh, especially genocides and atrocities. It's kind of what I'm famous for. Not the thing you want to be famous for, but um.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Because my NIO, who was wonderful, David Gordon, brilliant man, but he came from outside the intelligence community. So he didn't really. Understand how intelligence supported his work, so I ended up working very closely with him and. Um, yeah, it was an amazing uh time, but. It all ended when nine eleven happened and I ended up going down to do two policy years to try to. Support the Bush administration and their objectives.

• 14:33Jack Murphy?

  Well, let's take a second um to talk about those first fifteen years at NSA. I think the people that listen to this podcast generally understand. What NSA does, that they're sort of the big ears, listening to the interceptions and everything else. But you, it sounds like you got there probably in the nineteen eighties and worked there into the nineteen nineties. What was it like at that time? I mean, technology was kind of analog, transitioning to digital. What was it like uh working at NSA at that timeframe and what were the kind of technological constraints?

• 15:08Speaker 03

  You know, so it's interesting. I came to NSA like a lot of my peers. You know, we came from all over the country. I had come from a very sort of protected. Unworldly family, right? So getting there, just trying to sort of get my feet on the ground was about all I could wrap my head around.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  And and trying to learn the job because it was so different from anything I'd been exposed to, as you can imagine, because you're not only having to say, learn a target, you're also having to absorb the culture. When you work in intelligence, you have to learn a lot of stuff like how to how to handle classification. There's just all these components that are more than what your average job is asking of you. The technology was incredibly analog. We did not even have computers. There was one computer, a Delta data, at the end of the aisle, and you you kind of sorted through your papers and looked at things and tried to draw your little conclusions. And then you would run down to the computer, you know,

• 16:14Speaker 03

  to try to access the data. It was just insane when I look back on it. A lot of analysts did their work on index cards, kept notes on everything, right? If you try to tell the kids about it today, they won't believe you, right? But I was there, I was starting to get in the upper echelons by the time the transition, what they called the transition at NSA. And that was the transition, the world's transition from analog to digital. And that was huge. That that was so eye opening, and it really made an impression on me for the rest of my career. So later, when I went into technology forecasting, I drew a lot

• 16:54Speaker 03

  on that experience, what the agency went through to, you know, you hear the expression, you're building the plane as you're flying it. They were building the plane as, because we knew if we did not change, in five years, we were going to go blind. We would not be the communications were going to move on. How you process them, how you make sense of them, everything is completely different from analog. And so it was a huge investment. They had to stop working on certain targets that were bringing that were our bread and butter, that, you know, were answering policymakers' needs today. But the management had to make this very difficult, very brave decision.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  To do that and put up with a lot of flack. I mean, you can imagine people were so upset, right? This is their, it's rice bowlism. This is their job. What are they going to do if they can't make that transition? If they can't understand how to deal with this new technology, especially as analysts, it was frightening. And we'll talk about that more because we were going through that right now. The intelligence community continues to go through a second digital age right now.

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• 21:56Speaker 03

  But um, yeah, so that was very interesting. I'd mentioned to you before the show, and I guess I need to shove this in there somewhere. Early on in my analytic career, I got to be on the team that was the first hackers at NSA.

• 22:09Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, tell us, tell us about that, yeah.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  That was a little crazy, uh, because the technology then is not the technology now. So we were chasing entities around the internet in a method that does not exist now. Um, and the funniest thing, well, the weirdest thing is I'm still friends with one of the, um, you know, I was one of the analysts, so we supported the programmers trying to find, uh, we were, it was, it was entirely a research endeavor, right? It was not operational. We were the team that had to prove that you could do this. We had to figure out how to do the backend processing, all that kind of stuff.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  So we had programmers who were just, I mean, excellent hackers, right? They were the best of the best, really, these kids. And then they had a team of, um, of reporters like me, analysts, who supported them. And we'd shift through a lot of data and look for patterns and say, okay, I think there's something here. Let's reverse engineer it, whatever. So, um, you know, got to sit in the room with them while they were doing the very first intrusions and things like that. It, it was, it was something. I mean, made a big impression on me, so much so that years later, for now, I was asked to write what we call design fiction for CIA. It's, um, fiction, it's like science fiction, right?

• 23:37Speaker 03

  But it shows a particular outcome or objective. And, um, in it, I had to do something that was very much akin to hacking. But I haven't done it in 20 years. So I'm like, I'll just write what I think might be going on. And I got a friend of mine who had been one of the programmers, and he stayed in the career field. He stayed in computers, um, security, information, operations, his whole career. And I asked him to read it before I handed it in to CIA. And he said, yep, that's pretty much what we're still doing. He made a couple of suggestions. So that was pretty eye opening.

• 24:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, so this is, again, the kids may not understand what we're talking about, but this was the days of dial-up modems.

• 24:24Jack Murphy?

  The internet was in a nascent sort of form, to say the least. It wasn't exactly what people see on the internet today. What was kind of, I understand this was sort of a proof of concept at the time, but sort of what was going on in NSA's head at this time?

• 24:43Jack Murphy?

  Because mostly it was just like universities, really, that were on the internet. Was it sort of like trying to project forward, like governmental institutions are going to be on this platform eventually, so we need to be there?

• 24:54Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I was just a little peon on the team. You know, I didn't hear what was happening at the higher levels, the direction that was being given to our management. And it was a very small office. And this was quite a few years before the transformation. So I think at that point, there were probably, knowing what I know now for technology forecasting, there was probably a lot of naysayers who were like, "This is never going to change, you're wasting our time, blah, blah, blah." What you were saying is so true. It was so unlike the internet today. For instance, back then, you got what was known as a DNI, a dialed number indicator.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  It was like a telephone number that you use on the internet. So you had to know the person's telephone number. There was no, you know, it was just so completely different. Yeah, and I can understand why it didn't take off.

• 25:55Jack Murphy?

  Oh, so at the time, the NSA was kind of like, "Yeah, we don't really know what to do with this."

• 26:01Speaker 03

  I would say, because when I started out, I was an intern for three years, and then I was pulled into an office that ended up being the beginning of something that ended up being really big for NSA. And it was their interface, really, with the commercial sector in technologies of interest. And so I was exposed, I was actually on standards committees for, I'm actually one of the drafters of an old American national standard for encryption, for key encryption. I'm sure it's been superseded many times by now. But um, so I was exposed to that world and then I had the opportunity to go work on this in this hacking cell.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  Um, just because I'd already had that sort of technical exposure. So um. I'm sure there were people who were skeptical of it. That's just the nature of of emerging technologies.

• 26:59Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  And it's a little. I'm sorry.

• 27:02Jack Murphy?

  Just any, anything new, there's always going to be some skepticism.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's always a ton of naysayers. I'd say like eighty, twenty, eighty percent are people who just think things are going to continue the way they are and, you know. So, you know, I really kind of made my name in this area with social media. I was at CIA at the time and um, the center they have that is the lead on open source was supposed to be taking the lead in developing an approach to social media. But the question at the time, I mean, this was two thousand and seven. Um, you know, none of the platforms are anywhere near what they are today. And, you know, people were just saying, this is for kids, this is not gonna, this is not a serious thing.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Um, and this is, and they needed somebody who had a technical background because they were kind of looking at it in what I call the hunt and peck method, you know, they were just looking, but they had no plan like how you systematically figure out what's out there. And and then there are a lot of associated intelligence questions with that, like, how do we know this person is who they say they are, you know, how do we know when information is authentic, just all of these sort of validation issues that as an analyst you have to be able to answer. So they hired me to be the first um, senior analyst for social media. And I spent three years in that program and I approached it like I would as an NIO, right?

• 28:30Speaker 03

  I reached out to like the best researchers in the country, you know, working with them to try to develop methodologies. I took NSA's approach where you have systematic.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  Sort of a systematic look at the environment, the communications environment. NSA does it through frequencies. We had to figure out a way to replicate that in an environment without frequencies, which we made some headway towards. So anyway, a fair amount of people ended up knowing me for that work. And when I went to Rand, it was based on that work. But oh, I kind of lost the track. What was the original question?

• 29:07Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, you jumped right onto the social media thing, but I mean, we can dwell on that for a minute. So 2007, Facebook came around 2004, I believe. And MySpace was around back in those days also.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Yep, a few years before Facebook took off. Twitter, I can't remember the exact year. 2006 was Miracle on the Hudson, which was, you know, when Sully landed the plane, you know, outside of New York. And it was the first time that we had seen the news break on Twitter faster than we were seeing it break in the news media. You know, so and.

• 29:52Jack Murphy?

  Oh, my, how did you already see? Hadn't you already seen that phenomena take place once already in your career with the advent of satellite live news from CNN and so on, starting to come online?

• 30:05Speaker 03

  Well, so that, I wasn't in a technical position. During that time, I was working, you know, operations other than combat. And so I was running a lot of war rooms. And we were having to deal with that because you'd have your policymakers, you know, listening to CNN. And you're trying to do your, keep on top of the intelligence. And at the same time, you've got to constantly bounce it against this never ending stream of open source information to try to, you know, not cross wires. If you have something that is contradicting what the media says, you've got to deal with that. So I had to deal with it more on that.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  In that regard, rather than trying to figure out.

• 30:55Jack Murphy?

  The intelligence value.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  It's roleless. When I took over as the senior analyst, it really was. The question that was posed to me is, is there intelligence value in social media? So that's what we had to answer. And to do that, we had to have a good sense of what was out there. Who's talking? You know, what are the conversations? I could go on for hours about how this is done. But it's what folks who aren't exposed don't understand is it's all that measurement is done with highly sophisticated physics models. It's highly technical. It's not just, oh, I looked at Twitter today and I saw these things or these are the top 10 trending topics on whatever.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  You know, when you're answering the president, you know, you have a very high bar. You really need to know what you're talking about. And in order to do that, you have to run all these complex analytics so that you understand, you can validate what you're seeing out there on social media, which is pretty much an invisible platform to most people.

• 32:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. And I mean, well, nowadays our policymakers are definitely taking cues off of Twitter on a daily basis for better or worse.

• 32:13Jack Murphy?

  What was the question I wanted to ask? Oh, I'm surprised that the intelligence community didn't jump on social media sooner for targeting. That all of these people, just the very nature that somebody is uploading their profile onto a social media platform must be a bonanza for targeters.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  I think targeting was probably one of the first fields that actually did take advantage of social media.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  The early years, though, for me at least, it was just so much pushback against, you know, the rank and file. And I'll just talk about this one organization, for instance, that was supposed to have the lead, and that was the Open Source Center. I don't think it's called the Open Source Center anymore. It might be called the Open Source Enterprise. But. You know, there were, just like at CIA and the DA, you know, you have all these offices that have a regional focus or they have a topical focus, right? The Office of Transnational Issues or Counterterrorism or the Office of Russia, the Office of South America. And those people at the Open Source Center, it was really run like a wire service.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  They were responsible for understanding what the foreign media was talking about in their area, right? So it was very language-based. There was a lot of translation of, you know, traditional media. And what they didn't appreciate at the time is that this was all going to be challenged and eventually done away with. Mm-hmm. That the digital revolution was going to come and it was going to make all those sources that were so important to them less meaningful, in some cases meaningless. And so they fought us tooth and nail for the three, every day in three years that I was there. It was just a battle. And the management did not want to side with us.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Because, you know, what happens is it was the same thing as with NSA during the transition. As a manager, you have responsibility to look forward and to put your agency in the best position to deal with what's coming over the horizon. But knowing what's coming over the horizon is very hard. And at the same time, you still got to deliver the mail every day. And the stuff that's coming in on your legacy systems is your bread and butter. And you don't want to upset the people who are making your bread and buttering it by telling them, "I'm going to take 20 or 25% of your resources and turn it towards this new source, which may or may not, you know, come to fruition."

• 34:56Speaker 03

  And so they, at NSA, they made the tough decision to take that 20% of the workforce and give it over to the transition so we could figure out how to do the processing and we could see where we were going. And we made a successful transition. At the Open Source Center, they did not do that. And I kind of got off the social media wagon. I mean, I was working as a consultant for companies for a while on this, but I stopped a while ago. When I did, I estimated that the intelligence community was almost 10 years behind what the commercial sector can do in evaluating social media. That was, that was the upshot of that. You know, I, I understand the attitude of my peers,

• 35:41Speaker 03

  not wanting to give up what they were doing, but it, you know, came at a great cost.

• 35:46Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, it's another tangent, but I think a lot of intelligence professionals have had sort of this criticism that there are these open source investigators that are able to put things together and connect things that even the intelligence community hasn't been able to do, or at least not able to do very well. But then there's also some thought now that because of AI, that the golden era of open source intelligence is basically over. That, that, that the information environment's becoming so polluted with artificial intelligence content and so on. That even those types of, that type of intelligence isn't going to be as fruitful as maybe it used to be.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  I, yeah, I can't imagine it would be. We are sitting, seeing the insidification of the internet. As Cory Doctorow says, he's absolutely true. AI is already messing shit up and plowing it back into the, you know, like the septic field that is our internet. Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen in the future. I did a lot of work recently before I finally gave up consulting work on generative AI and artificial intelligence. So, but I jumped off it about a year and a half ago. So I'm not up to speed on the, on what's happening now in the last year and a half is orders of magnitude and sophistication.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen.

• 37:15Jack Murphy?

  Okay, so we, we've been jumping around a little bit, which is totally fine. I, I just don't want to blow over a few things. One of them was your work on phase four operations and it sounds like you were kind of knee deep maybe in like the West Africa stuff, the Balkans and things like that back in those days. Yeah, yeah. Could you explain to the listeners what Phase Four operations are and sort of what your role was there?

• 37:42Speaker 03

  So, the 90s, which we sometimes called the Golden Age of Genocide, there were many, many civil conflicts, internal conflicts in countries, a lot of them in Africa, but not solely in Africa. And at that time, it was less, you know, American boots on the ground than multinational forces. So, the US was being called to, you know, put forces on the ground. Sometimes it was NATO, sometimes it would be a combination of things. And so, whenever that happens, the intelligence community has to support those, you know, NSA is a Defense Department institution. You are supporting the warfighter in addition to supporting policymakers. So, we would have

• 38:26Speaker 03

  to spin up these war rooms to try to help support these things. Also, just sort of the approach that intelligence agencies have, which I sort of mentioned a little bit, it tends to be sort of split up between, the offices get divided up geographically. So, you know, regions, you'll have, so you'll have the right resources to support whatever you're doing in that particular area, language, et cetera, et cetera. And at that time, there weren't a lot of people that were used to dealing with these kinds of operations. It wasn't strictly combat, there would be other components to it, usually you had an humanitarian

• 39:09Speaker 03

  component. That's why they were called operations other than combat, it wasn't just warfighting. And so, it became useful to have people like me to go from one to the next, because we carried this knowledge of what you could expect, how, how the multinational forces were going to work, how they were going to interact with international organizations, what was going to be called upon in the event of humanitarian relief. That ended up being a huge part of my job, was following humanitarian operations. And that's what I did for Rumsfeld's office when I ended up going down to OSD after 9/11. So, yeah, it was sort of a hybrid thing, and it was always, always, always, always a war room component. Whenever there

• 39:54Speaker 03

  were US forces there, when something happened, often you had to be 24 hours. With a small staff, so yeah, there was a lot of watch standing, for instance. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Two and a half years on the Balkans. I had Somalia, Sierra Leone. They're all fading in the midst of time. Rwanda, I think it started with Rwanda. D-Rock, yeah.

• 40:21Jack Murphy?

  Liberia.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  Liberia, how could I forget Liberia?

• 40:25Jack Murphy?

  Uh, and did you do, uh, North Iraq also with the Kurds?

• 40:30Speaker 03

  Not so much prior to, uh, the Iraq war.

• 40:36Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  I think there was something else.

• 40:39Jack Murphy?

  They had a, there's a, the military did a big humanitarian operation, um, to head off a famine, um, in the Kurdish areas of Iraq, uh, after the Gulf War, I believe. So maybe like ninety-four, ninety-three, or something like that?

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I, I was doing Africa then. We did have a team that looked, uh, at Iraq, but, uh, they were focused on WMD.

• 41:08Jack Murphy?

  Uh huh, uh huh. Uh, and so you had a pretty broad, you know, experience doing that, uh, in these different theaters. Uh, I, I'd be interested to ask you,

• 41:20Jack Murphy?

  what kind of grade would you give the United States? Did we do better in some areas than others? What made the difference between success and failure? I mean, just from your, like, unique perspective, I'm really interested, like, what kind of, like, lessons learned you may have pulled out of that experience?

• 41:36Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I mean, just from my,

• 41:40Speaker 03

  my little corner of it is the intelligence community. And it was sort of the same experiences when I was finding, that I would later find in the technical area. And that is, you know, when you're doing something that is not, um, the standard.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  It's it's rough because you're not going to get the resources you need. So for instance, and I laugh at myself today, but I remember when I was going through this in the nineties. And we were watching Russia implode. And um they were complaining because you know, there was a lot of call to draw down. The incredible amount of resources we threw, you know, Russia was target number one. And then with the Cold War seemingly dissolving, um, you know, did we really need six hundred Russian linguists now? You know, could I have a few of them to work, you know? I'll I'll give you an example, when I worked on the Balkans, for instance, the team I had, which was the multilateral team.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  We had maybe twenty people and that's to do round the clock operations. Whereas the Balkans office itself had a hundred and fifty people. And they NATO had blown up their communications, so they weren't even as busy, right, as we were. And yet I could not convince them to hive off a handful of people and give them to us. So, you know, I it was hard to keep the wheels on the train. And to meet the high demand from customers. When you were not being given the resources, which from my perspective, you know, I thought that was bad management. Then after I became a manager, I realized how hard it is to make people do something against their will.

• 43:23Speaker 03

  You know, if they studied Russia and got their advanced degree in it, they're really not going to want you to tell them to just go over there for a year. And do this other job.

• 43:34Jack Murphy?

  I in what year was it that you made the jump from NSA to CIA?

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Well, it was two thousand three. After nine eleven, I went downtown for two years, so I and I was still an NSAer at that time. But I was sent to State Department and I worked on um. Policy there in the multinational arena because of my background in multinationalism. And um it was to work on the team that helped prevent the um.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  People that we thought were responsible from fleeing to other countries, mostly North Africa. So we worked on the National Security Council, uh, trying to get them, you know, member states to support us in preventing this. The, it was the, what did we call it? I forget, you know, the flee states. So I did that for a year and then, uh, I ended up going to the, what used to be called the Office of Humanitarian Assistance until Bush's people decided we didn't do that. And then it became the Office of Reconstruction and something else, I forget

• 44:45Speaker 03

  now. Um, so I worked on the Iraq War Planning for a year. That was the most eye-opening experience.

• 44:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, tell us about that.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  So I was one of the few people in there who actually worked, had ever worked Phase Four Combat Operations and I was brought in to help advise on what would happen in Phase Four, which is what happens after combat, as your troops are moving through a country and you're trying to secure the back area and make sure that the humanitarian stuff is in place and all that kind of stuff. Worked with the civil affairs officers and it became quickly apparent that they had no interest in that. Um, that really, I'm not telling any secret.

• 45:28Jack Murphy?

  Because nation, nation building was a bad word at the time.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  Very much so, but also just their whole concept going into that war was wrong, was wrong. I, I, I was at the Iraq Rock Drill, which is where you get together before operations and everybody goes around the room so we are all on the same page. And it became very apparent, listening to all the different components that were there, that no one was on the same page. Some of the offices were told we are there for WMD and other offices were being told we were there for other purposes. And, um, I remember General, what is his name? The first guy we sent in, General?

• 46:08Jack Murphy?

  Franks?

• 46:08Speaker 03

  I want to see, I'm sorry?

• 46:10Jack Murphy?

  Was it Franks?

• 46:12Speaker 03

  No, the, I'm sorry, for humanitarian assistance.

• 46:14Jack Murphy?

  Oh, okay.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  He was a retired general. I can picture his face. And he realized at that moment, he was screwed. That he was being sent in there and he was gonna take the blame. And I told him, I said, you're gonna be twisted in the wind. And you know, he was sent back within six months. Cause as soon as he got there, he realized that this was a setup. So. Yeah. And so at a certain point, you know, I, I was telling people, I was telling their generals, this is not how it's gonna work. You're not gonna go in and they're gonna welcome you as saviors and everything's gonna be great. I didn't see them ripping copper out of the walls by day three, but you know, that was what happened.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  Destroying buildings and all this stuff. I, I mean, I knew from everything I had seen, we were gonna have a humanitarian crisis on our hands. And they'd better put things in place, which of course they did not.

• 47:05Jack Murphy?

  Why, why do you think there was such a disinterest in planning for this? When, um, you know, for starters, it's a part of military doctrine, the demobilization or transition process. Um, but also there's this sort of like real politic, um, just bureaucratic incentive. If you're the Bush administration, you don't wanna preside over a failed war. And if you don't have some sort of like legitimate reconstruction plan, you know, then, then you're condemning uh, our forces to just like kinda camp out there forever, I guess, which is sort of what happened.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. It, you know, I wish I knew the answer. I just know what I felt from the meetings I was in and talking to various officials. You know, I was at the ASDY level, not the, you know, undersecretary level. So God only knows what went on in those meetings, but, um,

• 47:56Speaker 03

  partly there was just a feel, a feel, I think, that we had the most powerful. War machine on earth, there was no way we were gonna fail. Sure, we were gonna be able to take the country pretty easily. And I don't know why they didn't think that that it was gonna be as hard as it was afterwards. But also going into it, you know, there was a big um fight between the agencies. There were um departments like State Department that did not agree with what Bush wanted to, well, Bush, what Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted to do. And they actually started their planning process first.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  And they held conferences and they brought in as many Iraq experts as they could. And um the Defense Department really wanted to get a hold on their strategy, but State Department wouldn't give it to them. And I was one person who really knew the guy at State Department who was running that really well. And so I was kind of caught in the middle for a little while. And we tried to hold our own conferences. But when the experts told the defense officials the same thing, this is a horrible mistake and you're not looking at this correctly. They basically just told us to pound sand. I mean, I was called a traitor to my face.

• 49:15Jack Murphy?

  Really?

• 49:15Speaker 03

  After twenty, yes, after twenty years working in intelligence, being a national intelligence officer.

• 49:20Jack Murphy?

  That you like lacked sufficient patriotism to support the war, that kind of thing.

• 49:24Speaker 03

  Right, right. So um we tried our best to advise and um they didn't want to listen to us. We tried our best to try to manage the chaos afterwards. But it just could not be helped. I mean, it's, I'm, you know, it it's a crime, really, what they did.

• 49:48Jack Murphy?

  It's the uh the saddest thing for me is that we have learned basically, or we have learned absolutely nothing from the experience. Um if you look at what we're doing in Iran right now, there's no plan. There's no plan for this. You know, the plan is, hey, we're gonna drop some bombs. And if that doesn't work, we're gonna drop some more bombs. And no, no one's thought beyond that.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  It's absolutely ludicrous, but the only way, of course, that this administration can get away with this is that they have people with absolutely zero experience leading these departments. And it's such a disservice to the professional people who have run this government and the people in the military and you know, the government workforce who worked so hard to develop this expertise so we understand how to do these things. It's like it all over again, but worse. Like having a clown tell you, you know, to shut up and sit in the corner and you're absolutely right. There's no plan. I have been through war planning for something like this. There's nothing even remotely like it. So

• 50:53Speaker 03

  the American people, I don't, I don't understand. I just don't understand what they want.

• 50:57Jack Murphy?

  Well, well, the American people have this weird thing and, you know, they've been conditioned also for uh, 25 years at least now, maybe more, that airstrikes and special ops is not war in their mind. I don't know why that is. Um, they think that like if we're blowing the shit out of like a girl's school in a foreign country, in their mind, that's not war. I, I, I don't get it, but they've been conditioned to believe that.

• 51:24Speaker 03

  That's true. That's true. And yeah, I don't understand either. Is it the movies? Is it because they see it on a movie and they think, well, that's different. It's not real to them. I don't understand.

• 51:35Jack Murphy?

  I think that's a big part of it. And I, I think also there is a, a such thing as, you know, the, the Fortress America and just the dis- the distance we have from it, that politics doesn't have the immediacy for us that it has for people who live in contentious parts of the world where you know, the politics go haywire and your country's being invaded. You know, we don't really have that sort of experience here.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  That's true, but you know, even in the nineties, you know, where I was closer to this, there were other things that the American people cared about and that registered with them, right? So, and yet none of that seems to have the same impact anymore on Americans. Where, what is important to us? Like, and you know, I actually blame technology for a lot of this. I do feel that, um, you know, especially social media. Social media is how people around the world communicate now, right? Used to be telephones and letters, not anymore. It's all through social media and it's different, right? It's asynchronous. And it's also all propaganda. That was a big part of my work.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  My first teams, we, we are the ones who started looking at how do you measure disinformation? How can you, you know, authenticate information? How can you authenticate users? What the hell's going on out there? And we are just totally in an age of propaganda now. You, you really can't believe anything you hear from people. And you know, when I say that to people, especially kids, they're like, yeah, yeah, we know. And yet they don't.

• 53:04Jack Murphy?

  Right, right. And that, but they go along believing it anyway.

• 53:07Speaker 03

  Right, right. What's the answer? I don't know. I've been yelling for years that really what we need in this country is strong, um, regulation of, uh, technology, especially social media. And we need it for AI too. Uh, it's from what I saw working with these companies. When we first started doing, uh, the disinformation work and I had ended up retiring and was working, uh, with one of these companies, um, helping them in their outreach, especially the government. So we did a lot of case studies and that sort of thing. And at that time, Congress got it, but unfortunately Trump was on the horizon. And they knew he did not want any policies, uh, looking into,

• 53:52Speaker 03

  he did not want, you know, regulation of the technology and, and didn't believe, said he didn't believe that disinformation. So, you know, that kind of closed the door then. There was a time when Congress kind of looked at whether or not we should do this. So a lot of the people I knew and I still worked with on the outside researchers, they were working on projects for the big platforms. They worked with Google, they worked with, uh, Facebook, they worked with Twitter. And, you know, and then they told me and we would just, what we needed was like a quasi-governmental organization. Because the platforms won't talk to each other. They see each other as competitors. And you can't shut down disinformation.

• 54:38Speaker 03

  Platform by platform because the actors jump around, they move, they're very fluid. There has to be coordination and the only way that we could see that working was through a quasi-government governmental organization. We actually came close to having some of Congress support that. But it passed because, you know, went away because of Trump and we're in this mess we're in today.

• 55:00Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it it does seem that um our government has been so captured by these companies at this point um that they're they're uh uh the possibility of regulation just seems so far away. It's almost inconceivable. Um even though I I think everyone knows exactly what you said, that kind of we desperately need some type of regulation. Um that also protects people's, you know, right to express themselves and and so on. Um but

• 55:28Speaker 03

  It can be done, but it would shut down this open season on lying, right? Like, but obviously there are some, especially politicians who have a vested interest in that this

• 55:42Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  You remain.

• 55:44Jack Murphy?

  Well, and also the the companies themselves bounce around too. Um they're very nimble in how they're able to court the government, you know, whether it's Democrats or Republicans, they'll go and tell them what they want to hear in, you know, walk away with goodies from the government. It seems that it's not a big deal for them.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  It's not. I mean, and early on, though, I will say that they were uh it wasn't even handed. They were courting um conservatives because the conservatives were so critical of the social platforms. Right around the time I retired and I was looking for my next job, I was looking at what was available at places like Google or whatever in the policy areas and they were looking for policy people, uh government to be liaisons with the government, but they only wanted them for right wing organizations. They weren't doing anything for the the left-leaning organizations.

• 56:36Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. I I mean, definitely, there's this sort of like bouncing back and forth and you know, I think we can all remember like the rhetoric about big tech and they wanted to get big tech under control. And then, you know, after the election, Zuckerberg and and Elon are there at the inauguration. It's like all that just went away, apparently.

• 56:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 03

  It's um, yeah, that is, that that's a big tragedy really for this country. And maybe it'll swing back. I mean, there was the finding against Meta recently that they all, they did contribute to mental health.

• 57:13Jack Murphy?

  Addictive behaviors.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, which they certainly did. You know, it's, it's just insane that you can see these behaviors out there. You know, they're doing it. They're lying about doing it. You know, it's gaslighting, to use a popular word, I guess. Maybe that'll make a difference. I don't know.

• 57:31Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's really depressing. Um, you know, how our government has sort of abdicated its responsibility to protect the public. Um, even like the, the FBI saying recently that you should use Signal or another encrypted app to protect your communications because we can't and won't protect them. Uh, how, how does that work? I don't know.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  Uh, hopefully the people of Signal are overjoyed. Of course, they started because they didn't trust the government. So, um, yeah, that's kind of interesting. Um, well, you know, we did put ourselves in this fix. One of the technologies that we have, that I've watched my whole career is computer security. And the companies know, everybody knows we need more computer security baked into our products. But companies have said, we're not going to put it in there unless consumers want it and consumers don't want it enough to make it, you know, worth the investment for them. We do this to ourselves.

• 58:34Jack Murphy?

  Um, so to get us back on the timeline a bit, um, after the Iraq war planning, what was sort of the next step in your career?

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Well, I was at the Pentagon when, uh, who was it?

• 58:53Speaker 03

  Hayden. Now, I love Hayden, General Hayden. He was the chief of NSA uh for the transformation and like I said, he did a tremendous job. But um I was there when he came to talk to the workforce about the Patriot Act because of course it had a big impact for NSA, right? And it really ran against the policies that SIG and analysts are trained to go by. And I was, it just shocked me how much he was in Rumsfeld's pocket and you know that there was no pushback on this. So I was complaining to David Gordon, my friend, who was the NIO and at the time he was a office manager at CIA. And I said, I really don't want to go back to the Defense Department. And he said, come work for me.

• 59:38Speaker 03

  So I went to CIA at that point. They hired me and I went and I was the senior humanitarian analyst for five years.

• 59:46Jack Murphy?

  Cool.

• 59:47Speaker 03

  And so I had to become an all source analyst, had to learn how to do that. It was a really eye opening experience because I was coming in as a mid careerist. As you know, probably most agencies, government agencies like you to come in as a young person and so you come up through the ranks and you really are just, you know, immersed in the culture. And all those things that I talked about, you know, like learning, classification and all that. You learn their ways and it just seeps into your pores, right? So everyone has the same experiences and so it's hard when you come in mid career. Uh it's very hard bringing in people from industry, you know, from outside the government. You bring them in for their expertise in a particular domain,

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  but they didn't come up through the ranks and so they don't have the same experiences and the same understanding and all that. It was very hard and um David uh brought several folks in from other agencies as mid careerists. And it it was hard for all of us. Yeah. So at the end of five years, he ended up becoming assistant secretary for Condoleezza Rice. He left. Left me high and dry and then I had to fight off the wolves because you know, I was an outsider. Um but af- after five years, um that's when I got the gig, basically. I did a year of recruiting and during that time

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  uh Open Source Center came to me and said, we need someone who has a technical background to work on social media, so.

• 1:01:19Jack Murphy?

  And what was this horrible story that got turned into a novel?

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  I can't tell you.

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  It happened in, um, when I was in the Office of Transnational Issues. The new office director, um, who had been my friend David's deputy, did a really stupid, stupid thing. And he, he basically dabbled in operations without telling the directorate of operations he was doing this. And it was a disaster. I mean, like a really bad disaster. And they frogmarched all the analysts into the bubble and said, "You're never going to do this again." And they put down all these new coordination rules, you know, so no one would ever make this horrible mistake again.

• 1:02:15Speaker 03

  And, um, yeah, that's the most I can tell you about it. Sorry, because if I say anything more, you'll know what the incident was.

• 1:02:24Jack Murphy?

  Uh, well, how did, how did that get fictionalized in the book?

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Well, um, so somebody died during this operation that this guy authorized. And, uh, in a denied territory. And, um, so I just, how to put this? I thought it was interesting that a manager could, well, he didn't survive. He, he got thrown out, but he should have gone to jail. Somebody died. Uh, but, you know, that's not what happens in the intelligence community, especially CIA, right? Their mandate is to, to do these impossible things, you know, for a policy objective, basically.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  And, you know, he wanted the right outcome. He just went about it the wrong way. And so his punishment was to be banished from the kingdom. But I just thought that was so weird. And I'll tell you, in publishing, when I talked to my editors and agents, and I told them the story as much as I could, they were flabbergasted that all he got was fired.

• 1:03:37Speaker 03

  That he didn't go to jail. Um, I, I think it, it kind of showed that the public doesn't really understand what intelligence does, what, you know, the rules that apply to it and that sort of thing. I can't, I really can't tell you more, even though it's been quite a while.

• 1:03:55Jack Murphy?

  The, um, uh, was, I mean, that's like one of those kind of like hard lines, right? That analysts aren't supposed to be running operations.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely, absolutely. But this guy, you knew dealing with him, that he thought too much of himself.

• 1:04:13Jack Murphy?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:13Speaker 03

  And he was always, he prided himself on thinking outside the box. And you had to be prepared to tell him, no, I won't do that. Amy, you'll do that. You have to find another person to do that for you. And a couple of people didn't tell him that.

• 1:04:32Jack Murphy?

  It, it reminds me, as you're telling me this story, it reminds me about, uh, you know, what's been said about Oliver North in the 1980s, that he was going to these embassies and saying, hey, I'm a direct representative from the White House. I have this letter from President Reagan saying this to the station chiefs. You're going to do, you know, parallel unilateral operations for me. And all the station chiefs reported back to the CIA, even though they, Oliver North said you, not to tell anyone, all of them reported back. I believe the one that didn't was the station chief in Honduras and he was the one that cut the can.

• 1:05:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. See, they were smart. They were smart. Now, the Havana syndrome story has something in it that was another thing that happened in my career, happened when I was at NSA. And it has to do with, uh, an official on the policy side, getting caught making a secret deal with the enemy. So that was fun. I got to go back and, I mean, it wasn't fun at the time. We felt very bad for this person. This person, his heart was actually in the right place. He was trying to do the right thing. It's just that he believed the adversary, when the adversary puffed up his ego and told him, you know, you're the only one and you're going to be our man and all this.

• 1:05:52Jack Murphy?

  Peace is going to break out if you work with us.

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  Right. Uh, yeah, something like that. And he couldn't say that he was, he was doing a treasonous thing.

• 1:06:05Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  But we caught him on intercept and we had to tell his secretary. And that was not a pleasant thing. Um, yeah.

• 1:06:16Jack Murphy?

  Um.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  But I, it was another one of those instances that I thought, if I ever write a story, I'm gonna stick this in there.

• 1:06:22Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I, I mean, so while we're talking about that, this is the, uh, um, the, well, first off, tell us, what, what's the title of, um, the novel about the analyst that was, you know, that you fictionalized the, the, uh, analyst dabbling in operations? What was the, the name of that book?

• 1:06:40Speaker 03

  That was my first spy novel. It is called Red Widow. Came out five years ago, I think.

• 1:06:47Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 1:06:47Speaker 03

  And there was a second book in the series, Red London, um, came out three years ago. And unfortunately, those are the only two books in the series. We will not be getting any more red books. Um, I, I'm very proud of the books. They did well critically. Like Red Widow was a New York, the New York Times book editors picked it as an editor's choice. And it was nominated by international thriller writers for best novel of the year. And it got optioned a couple of times, but it, it ended up not being picked up. Um, and then I did a couple, um, like novella length pieces for Amazon original stories. So, um, one

• 1:07:30Speaker 03

  is Black Vault, and that is actually a UFO story.

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  Because you probably maybe had the same idea when the 60 Minutes piece came out about the Navy, you know, and everybody was talking about it. And I was like, oh, there's gonna be a congressional directive, which means every agency is gonna be told to do a report, um, you know, what are your experiences? And I know exactly how the CIA one's gonna go. So I wrote a story about that. And it's basically this case officer 15 years ago, he has what seems to be like a close encounter with the UFO. And like an idiot, he insists on writing a cable about it. And he's told by his people station, don't do that. You're

• 1:08:17Speaker 03

  gonna destroy your career. You're gonna make us look like idiots. They're gonna think we're smoking something out here. But it falls through the cracks and it gets released. And it ruins his career. Fast forward fifteen years, the Navy sixty minutes piece comes out, the congressional directive comes through. So what does CIA do? It sets up a task force to write the report and he is assigned to the task force. He is six months away from retirement. He thinks somebody is yanking his chain and trying to get him to quit by putting him on this task force. And you know what these task forces are like. It's dead wood. That's where you send the people who are not doing the lick of work anyway, you just don't want to look at them for a year.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  So it just gets filled up with all these useless, you know, slow horses characters. And he goes down there and he's just furious and he ends up mouthing off to somebody, somebody who's high up, who used to be a friend of his. And he says, you can't put people who know that the last thing you can do at CIA is fail. They're not going to write a truthful report. You've got to put young people on it who don't know to be afraid to fail yet. And so the guy does. And they end up finding out what actually happened fifteen years ago. And they uncover this massive, there was a massive mole problem and it blows the doors open that maybe there are aliens out there.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  So that's the story that it got picked up by, for TV, by AMC. And the producers of Breaking Bad and the producers of The Walking Dead are my producers on it. And right now, we're looking for a star to attach to it. It has been, it was such a fun story to write and the reaction from Hollywood has been very gratifying.

• 1:10:09Jack Murphy?

  That's cool.

• 1:10:10Speaker 03

  They really liked the story. So fingers crossed, we'll see something before, before two long.

• 1:10:14Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, no, I'm glad to hear that, that, you know, it got the attention after the, the two spy novels, it sounded like they really resonated with people. Um, but it, for whatever reason, didn't get, you know, maybe the traction that you'd hoped for.

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  Well, you know, my experience with Hollywood has been interesting. Hollywood, um, versus, uh, the books. Sorry, I'm looking at myself here, my hair looks terrible. Um.

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  Readers seem to like books that follow sort of a predictive, a familiar pattern, right? Whereas Hollywood likes stories that are grounded, very truth-filled. So there's some of that, but it takes you beyond that. So unfortunately with the red books, because they're women protagonists, and even the antagonist is usually a woman, it really is written from that point of view. But the readership of spy novels tends to be male. It's one of the few categories in literature, in fiction, that is more male readers than female readers.

• 1:11:18Jack Murphy?

  Maybe science fiction is the only other one.

• 1:11:19Speaker 03

  Maybe, yeah. And, and, you know, they find that men tend to not want to read a story from a woman's point of view. So the main character, you know, like putting themselves in the head of a woman and seeing how she sees the world. And they tend not to want to read books by women, too. So that, that has been sort of a double whammy for, for the red books. But oddly enough, Hollywood loved the idea. Unfortunately, the movies from a woman's perspective don't tend to do as well either. So, uh, that's the lesson I took away from all that. Uh, so...

• 1:11:56Jack Murphy?

  I'm su- I'm surprised, for one. I mean, I would rather watch a movie with Charlize Theron than Gerard Butler or somebody. It's my, just my opinion, take it for what it's worth.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  I agree. I love The Atomic One.

• 1:12:08Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Um, and so the, the Havana book, um, you have a working title for that?

• 1:12:15Speaker 03

  The Invisible Enemy.

• 1:12:17Jack Murphy?

  And so I, I've done a lot of like journalistic work on Havana syndrome, and I've had folks tell me, and this has been reported publicly now, too, that it's suspected that the first Havana syndrome victim was actually an NSA employee in the 1990s. I was wondering if you ever crossed paths with any of that back in those days?

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  So here's a crazy story.

• 1:12:41Speaker 03

  And it'll lead to the book, I swear. In, uh, two thousand, I, I was a, a national intelligence officer at the time. I was supposed to go do, uh, participate in a war game for a friend of mine. I woke up and I had complete vertigo, spin, spin, spin, and the worst head pain of my life. I, I thought my skull was splitting open.

• 1:13:10Speaker 03

  This went on for nine months. Now, it didn't come out of the blue. There had been, I'd had a couple of years of continuous problems with my head and pressures and ear and all that kind of stuff. But of course NSA didn't want to talk to me about it. Um, if you had been in the building at the time, you would have thought, there's got to be environmental issues here because the building was not kept up well. But the main thing was the roof, and this was, I was always in the main headquarters building. The roof was completely covered with microwave antennas. The walls were riddled with cabling where transmissions are going around you and underfoot. You were just,

• 1:13:55Speaker 03

  and occasionally you would get somebody else complaining of the same issues that their heads felt funny and whatever. But they would do nothing for you. So, long story short, I thought I was going to have to retire. We didn't know what it was. It took nine months to get to Hopkins. They have a special program. And, um, they gave me a diagnosis and I stayed under their care for six years. To this day, I still take daily medicine to try to suppress a migraine. That's how it is, right?

• 1:14:32Jack Murphy?

  What was the diagnosis that Hopkins gave you for that?

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  So. Twenty-five years ago, the diagnosis is this rare form of migraine called vestibular migraine.

• 1:14:43Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 1:14:43Speaker 03

  Where it affects your vestibular system.

• 1:14:45Jack Murphy?

  Yes.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  So, um, it was twenty twenty-one, I think, that I ran into. Oh, I should explain a few things. One is, um, they got it under control enough so that by the time nine eleven came around, I could just go from the frying pan into the fire. You know, I was in the office of the Secretary of Defense for the Iraq War. Right? If pressure was gonna make my head erupt, that would have been it. I was literally working like sixteen-hour days and commuting three. So it didn't come back. Uh, I went back to NSA in twenty fourteen, and it wasn't until that day I thought, oh, I haven't had those problems since I left that building.

• 1:15:28Speaker 03

  I wonder if I'm gonna have those problems if I have to go back to that building. Luckily, I did not have to go back to that building. I ended up being in the outbuildings. But also, they cleaned up their act. There's not an army of, uh, microwave antennas on the roof anymore. So, didn't have any problems. Twenty twenty-one, I think, I was at, um, a speaker at a conference, one of Valerie Plame's conferences, and she had Mark Poliroff. I scrub his name, Polly. Thank you. He talked about his experiences with Havana syndrome. And you could have knocked me over with a feather. It was exactly the same. What he went through, the feelings, the headaches, the, just crazy.

• 1:16:11Speaker 03

  When he finished, I sat down with him and I said, look, I'm not saying I had what you had. I'm not saying you had what I had. But this is weird. And he agreed. It was weird. That's actually how the book that I worked on, The Invisible Enemy, came about. Cause, um, when CIA came out a little while after that with their, they said, we don't believe it's a directed energy weapon. He contacted me and he said, you know, he was doing a lot of interviews at the time. And telling them his experience and how he felt betrayed and that the, the agency, you know, was doing a disservice to his fellow officers who'd also been struck. And he said, we need to write a story about it.

• 1:16:56Speaker 03

  And he said, that story is not gonna get you what you want. You know, it's not gonna do any better than your nonfiction. He said, I don't care, I want a story. So that's why I ended up writing the story. At the time, I was doing a lot with Amazon and I thought for sure they would publish it. And so I wrote it to a novella length and um. Long story short, it took a year and a half to actually get them to. Give me a contract on it and they wanted it a novel length by then, so I had to take extra time to write it. And in that time, some of the more recent developments came out. But, a couple of years ago, I had a relapse, it was the first time.

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  And Hopkins took me back and I was talking to one of the doctors in the special program and they said, you know, we've learned a lot about brains. And heads since you were here before. And they were telling me that they think this condition is, you have to, it's like congenital. You have like a malformation or a deformity in your head. That makes you more susceptible to these kinds of vestibular disturbances. And it just all clicked into place when they told me that. Because like I said, there were other people at NSA. Who had some of the same. Physical symptoms that I did. But NSA would always push back and say, well, why aren't the other people next to you having the same problems?

• 1:18:22Speaker 03

  It can't be real. I think it's a combination of. The effect of the emanations. And whether or not you have these congenital problems, whether or not you have malformations that predispose you to this.

• 1:18:35Jack Murphy?

  Here's a, here's an interesting parallel, um.

• 1:18:39Jack Murphy?

  So, most of the people out there have probably heard of Gulf War Syndrome, which was also something that our government denied, you know, like Agent Orange, and then it was Gulf War Syndrome. That we had Gulf War veterans coming back and they were kind of like, bedridden, depressive, like they were experiencing strange symptoms. No one could really explain why they were having them and the government said it doesn't exist. There's actually some science out now, like credible science, showing that what happened was Saddam Hussein did not deploy chemical or biological weapons, but we did blow up some bunkers during the Gulf War where those weapons were. So there were very low levels of some of that stuff in the air in certain places.

• 1:19:24Jack Murphy?

  And again, why did some people have Gulf War Syndrome and some don't? Well, they saw that it has to do with a genetic receptor that certain people have. Not everyone has it, so some people are uniquely susceptible to those low levels of like sarin gas that gives them these symptoms. So I think that, you know, what you're describing, exposure to microwaves, why does it affect some people and not others? I think it makes a lot of sense. But then, when we talk about actual Havana Syndrome, now we're talking about a system that is weaponized and designed to hurt you. So, I don't know if that would hold true when you start talking about people who are specifically targeted with a weapon.

• 1:20:07Jack Murphy?

  Probably at that point, it doesn't matter, you know, what the genetic receptor is or the shape of your brain. Probably you're gonna get, you know, microwaved regardless.

• 1:20:18Speaker 03

  Possibly, but let me ask you about this, because you've probably looked into this part more than I have. You know, if you think back to the 50s and 60s, when the Russians were bombarding the US Embassy, right?

• 1:20:30Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  It wasn't, it was a collection attempt, right? They were trying to collect information and it was just pulsed microwave, that's just a band of the radio spectrum, radio frequency spectrum. And that's used for a lot of different technologies, not ones that most people run into every day, like radar systems or something like that, but it's there. And I know of, God, it must have been 30 years ago, seeing NSA knew about these types of collection systems, right? Where you collected the emanations and you could... Pull information out of them. So I do think in a lot of these cases, it's not that they're trying to intentionally hurt

• 1:21:13Speaker 03

  an individual, but they're aiming a collection device against them. You know, and, and this comes up in my story. Uh, but now of course we are seeing the age of using these kind of disruptive technologies that the, um, the prohibition, the moral prohibition is off. And we're seeing more development of these kind of pulsed weapon systems.

• 1:21:39Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, uh, you know, the, some of the doctors I've spoken to, they think that, um, and apparently the, the military is testing some captured device. Um, so maybe they'll have better information, but the best, to the best of my knowledge, the theory is that it, it is pulsed microwaves. Um, but when I say pulsed, I mean like hundreds of pulses a second. And that's creating some sort of like cumulative effect inside the human cranium. Um, that, that's the prevailing theory about how it works right now. And I mean, I certainly would not preclude that there are people that, you know, the Moscow Signal and others, you know, people who are harmed by, uh, you know, attempts at, um, collecting intelligence.

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• 1:23:51Jack Murphy?

  But I would, I would assert that there are quite a few people who are deliberately targeted with a weaponized version of this.

• 1:24:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there's research programs now, even in the United States.

• 1:24:05Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:05Speaker 03

  That are looking at, you know, what's his name? What's his name? The president, when they did the Venezuela hit, right? He was talking about his disruptors.

• 1:24:14Jack Murphy?

  The, yeah, I think that's BS myself. The discombobulator ray.

• 1:24:19Speaker 03

  Discombobulator.

• 1:24:20Jack Murphy?

  And then more recently in Iran, we got the ghost murmur. You know, we can read a heartbeat from 10 kilometers. Like they're, they're kind of like inflating themselves up, I think, a little bit here.

• 1:24:33Speaker 03

  I do think some of that technology, the descriptions are overblown, but that is some of the applications, at least in the research stage for these types of weapons that you can use them to disrupt, you know, a computer system or something like that or take down, you know, in movies, they always make EMPs as like this world ending thing. But actually in real life, you can design EMP attacks, you know, that can be very localized, like against a room or against a campus, you know, it'll be less effective, of course, across the campus. But I think, you know, that's the class of the next generation non kinetic weapons we're talking about.

• 1:25:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. No, it's fascinating stuff. And your book is about a, is it a CIA officer that gets hit in Central Asia?

• 1:25:23Speaker 03

  Yes, he's, he's in Baku. He's there meeting an asset. He runs into, just by chance, an old adversary, who, a Russian, who happens to be there. He does the best SDR of his life. He feels like he can go ahead and meet his asset. He comes back to the hotel. He knows there's a watcher out of downstairs. And then he's hit that night and doesn't know what hit him. And it ruins his life.

• 1:25:51Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Yeah, that, that part is, uh, not fictional.

• 1:25:56Speaker 03

  Yep, sadly true. But then, um, a, a White House staffer is hit, in the parking garage, near the White House. And it just incenses him. And the president at the time, of course, is talking about how the Russians are going to be our new best buddies. And so, nothing is being done about this. And, you know, everything at the agency about, um, for Havana syndrome is being smothered. And he just is furious. And so, he decides he's gonna conduct his own investigation.

• 1:26:30Jack Murphy?

  Okay, yeah, so they're going off book.

• 1:26:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:26:34Jack Murphy?

  Cool.

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  So, there's a lot of mark in it. It's not all mark.

• 1:26:39Jack Murphy?

  When, uh, when is the book due out?

• 1:26:41Speaker 03

  It's gonna be spring of next year. Uh, looking like March at this point.

• 1:26:47Jack Murphy?

  Uh, as we get, get back to your story, um, where did we leave off going to work with S and T?

• 1:26:57Speaker 03

  Let's see, what happened? I, I was the lead analyst for, um, social media. I sold my first book in 2010. And in 2011, when the book was coming out, CIA started giving me a lot of hassle. They were hassling me and the book has nothing to do with intelligence. It was like a fantasy book, right? And I told them, there's no reason why you should need to review it or anything like that. And they didn't believe me. But then it came down to press, being able to interact with the press. And my publisher at the time, Simon and Schuster, decided it was gonna be a big book. So, they were sending me on tour. And, you know, you go to a festival and you sit in a tent

• 1:27:41Speaker 03

  so any press person can come up to you and ask you questions. And CIA said, no, you have to give us four days to approve any contact with the press. You don't get the golden ticket in publishing every day, so I quit. And I went to work for RAND for a few years and then NSA hired me back and I was working in science and technology at that point. Did the office director thing, helped them set up an office to do um technology forecasting, which I had done at RAND and done for CIA as a contractor.

• 1:28:15Jack Murphy?

  It's unfortunate sometimes the way the CIA makes it uh difficult for employees to, you know, be a human being. Um, you know, I've heard all all kinds of stories over the years about somebody who um works at the CIA. Uh falls in love with a British citizen, they want to get married. And the CIA, even though it's a Brit and there's not a an intelligence threat there, they're like, no, you can't marry this person. Well, like they can actually put the kibosh on it, like that's wild.

• 1:28:45Speaker 03

  It is crazy and I want to feel like they're getting better over time. I put NSA in a separate box because it has incredible management issues and always has. Now, my experience at CIA is was different, right? Like I said, I came in as a mid-careerist. So maybe I didn't see the things that people who came up through the ranks would see. Or maybe it's just the comparison to NSA, but CIA didn't seem as bad. You just had to remember that it was.

• 1:29:18Speaker 03

  You know, they could they could sometimes come up with the right answer, you just had to figure out a way to get them there. Whereas at NSA, a lot of times it was like a bad parent, there was just no way to get them to be reasonable. Um, yeah. So I I don't doubt that some people have had very unreasonable experiences with CIA. I mean, the Ford, I don't think they would probably do that now to people. You got to remember too, this was right around the time that um Mike, what's his name? He wrote Imperial Uberus and he really pissed off.

• 1:29:51Jack Murphy?

  Jewelry, yeah.

• 1:29:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Bush administration and Cheney was furious and he didn't want any more CIA people to get publishing contracts after that. And so they were really clamping down on everyone and they couldn't really clamp down on me because it was a fantasy book, right? So they needed some other way to control me. So.

• 1:30:11Jack Murphy?

  Funny. Yeah, I was, I heard a gentleman speak. I don't want to speak out of turn, but he was a former CIA case officer and he was talking about, he wrote a nonfiction book about his experiences early in the Afghan Afghanistan war, working with special forces and fighting Al Qaeda. And this, this story or other people's similar stories has been written many times from the CIA perspective, the special forces perspective. And the CIA came back to him, they're like, no, you can't publish this because we don't, we won't let you publish anything about CIA and special forces working together. And it's like, they made a movie about, I mean, what, what are we, what are we doing here? And this, you

• 1:30:55Jack Murphy?

  know, it's probably about the current administration and the current political appointees at the agency are just like, we're not doing books.

• 1:31:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, it was very much in my experience, like a pendulum swing, right?

• 1:31:08Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:08Speaker 03

  So when they were getting political pressure, they would really clamp down on things. Other times, they could be very reasonable. I mean, when I started vetting books through them, which was in the mid 2000s, you know, they would not let you use the expression chief of station in the book, even though of course it had been published and was in movies and all this stuff. And their argument back to you was, well, you're, you know, you work here, so you're validating this. You know, now they'll let you use chief of station. You know, it's, it, I think they do.

• 1:31:41Jack Murphy?

  I'm trying to.

• 1:31:42Speaker 03

  I mean, they can't say no to me, but I imagine if you're in, in the building, they would.

• 1:31:46Jack Murphy?

  Some of my favorites, oddly enough, they would let guys use the term special forces, but not the term special operations.

• 1:31:58Jack Murphy?

  Um, one of my favorites, I spoke to this gentleman many years ago now, I should try to go and find him. He wrote a book, put it through the PRB, and there's a scene, I believe it's a memoir. He goes and meets with his source at night in a field, and he says the field is a bunch of rocks, football-sized rocks in the field where he meets his asset. And the CIA is like, no, you can't say that because it could identify, you know, what field that you met the person in. And he had to have his lawyer go back and forth with the CIA people. And like they confabulated with themselves and came back and they're like, okay, we'll give you rocks. You can have rocks.

• 1:32:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, you hear those kinds of stories and you think it's run by crazy people. But, you know, part of it sometimes, depends on the situation, just the threat of the legal, you know, problems they think might deter you or deter your public.

• 1:32:58Jack Murphy?

  That's exactly what it is. It's the same with the family members and everything else. The CIA is not going to press charges. And can you imagine the discovery on some of these cases? Like, it's never, ever going to happen.

• 1:33:10Speaker 03

  I have a friend who's a talking head on the news and stuff a lot. We were both interns together at NSA many, many years ago, and we've stayed friends. As a matter of fact, I fictionalized him for a character in Red Widow. And, um, you know, so I was asking him at one point, what do you do? You know, sometimes I'll get these questions and I don't feel comfortable just, you know, do I need to go and tell NSA in advance or CIA in advance, I'm going to be talking about this? And he said, you know, I used to worry about that, but I don't anymore. They can just catch me.

• 1:33:48Speaker 03

  And they never have got back to him. Can you imagine? They can't keep an eye on all of us.

• 1:33:53Jack Murphy?

  The only thing, and this is reasonable, I understand, they get pissy when you start naming names. People who are still under a cover, certainly you don't want to be talking about sources and assets and that kind of stuff. And I get that, I understand that. But there's a lot of other stuff, anecdotal stories that can be told in more vague terms. And sometimes it's funny what they won't let you say.

• 1:34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, maybe I shouldn't have admitted this. Maybe somebody will be watching, but I generally don't go back to him for anything. But mostly when I'm asked to speak.

• 1:34:27Jack Murphy?

  You also learned over time like what you would need to and what not. Yeah.

• 1:34:32Speaker 03

  Right. And I'll tell you what was really helpful in that is working in recruiting because you would be going out and you're speaking at conferences constantly and you really have a sense of what's allowable to and what people need to hear.

• 1:34:45Jack Murphy?

  And the kids are asking you questions all the time.

• 1:34:48Speaker 03

  You stay away from sources and methods and mostly because the last part of my career was in technology, I ended up talking a lot about, you know, how technology is used in intelligence, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, it's all, it's all open source information.

• 1:35:06Jack Murphy?

  And so, I mean, that's really interesting. I didn't know that you retired from the government so that you could become a writer. That's awesome.

• 1:35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was not maybe the best decision of my life, but I was so mad.

• 1:35:21Jack Murphy?

  I know. Well, you, you did your 35 years. I think that's great. And you were ready to transition into something new. And, um, you know, it sounds like the time was right. Um, so you started off in fantasy novels and, uh, there's, and then later the spy novels. I mean, what are the other ones? I mean, is it, you know, you do some saucy romances?

• 1:35:45Speaker 03

  I'm not good at saucy romances, but the, um, so the fantasy novels came at a time when those kinds of books were very popular.

• 1:35:53Jack Murphy?

  Harry Potter.

• 1:35:55Speaker 03

  Well, no, not Harry Potter, more like, I hate to say it, but like Twilight. Okay. Like so these dark, you know, kind of tempestuous romances, but I did not write YA and I did not write romances. They were very dark. Um, and also it took me 10 years to write it. So by the time I got it to the point where it was saleable, That genre was kind of on the downhill slide. So by the time the third book came out, the market had really fallen away. And so at that time, uh, my agent came to me. He had actually been approached by uh, this, these people who um, needed a writer.

• 1:36:38Speaker 03

  Now normally, this is what we call work for hire. If you're a writer and you're hired to do an idea, uh, companies called book packagers will come up with the idea. They'll put the deal together, they'll hire a writer. And this company was very successful with their film rights. They hadn't been around very long, but like ninety percent of their books got the film rights option. And I was having a really hard time making that jump. So I said, I tell you what, all, this was gonna be their first adult book. They only had done young adult up till then. I said, we'll be partners. I am not work for hire, but if we go partners on this, I'll give it a shot.

• 1:37:18Speaker 03

  So that first book was The Hunger, which is um, considered horror, but really it's more mainstream fiction. It's a reimagining of the story of the Donner Party with just this little twist. What if there was something following the Donner Party? That is my most successful book ever. It has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. It was translated in twenty languages. Ridley Scott optioned the film rights. He's about to option them again. Cool. Um, it was very, uh, very lucky with that book. So then I wrote three, uh, two more historical horror novels and got the opportunity to do the um, uh, spy novels. They kind of inner, inner wove like that.

• 1:38:03Speaker 03

  And uh, now I'm probably known for the horror novels more, yeah. The next one that's coming out is a horror novel. It's Incarnate, but it's also actually sort of based on.

• 1:38:16Speaker 03

  How I view technology now. It's about technology. It's about social media and deep fake. Yeah. And it's gonna be interesting promoting that one.

• 1:38:26Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that is like, that's definitely the modern horror novel, right? It kinda has to be about that almost.

• 1:38:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. I went to Hollywood to talk to some of the producers I deal with and asked them, I said, I can't imagine that you're really interested in like, artificial intelligence horror. And they said, no, we're really getting slammed with kind of the same pitch over and over again. So we're just about to go out with this book, um, to pitch it to studios and carnit. I'll let you know. It's not quite what you think the book's gonna be about. But it is about influencers and what we used to call fake personas, avatars.

• 1:39:08Jack Murphy?

  Cool.

• 1:39:08Speaker 03

  You know, how it can now, now it's, you know, in the news constantly. Um, as a matter of fact, I just did a Substack newsletter on this. But, um, you know, fake influencers and how it's, that's gonna be the norm pretty soon.

• 1:39:23Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Okay. No, that's a very topical, uh, subject.

• 1:39:28Speaker 03

  Let's hope.

• 1:39:29Jack Murphy?

  Um, and, and so is this what you do full time now? You're a full time writer?

• 1:39:34Speaker 03

  Full time writer and trying to get the media side of things up. So we have about four or five projects in development right now.

• 1:39:46Jack Murphy?

  You mean like screenplay, screenplays or like?

• 1:39:50Speaker 03

  I'm sorry?

• 1:39:50Jack Murphy?

  What, like screenplays and?

• 1:39:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't write. I don't write screenplays. They don't like novelists to be anywhere near a script, apparently. You really have to convince them that you can do it. Uh, so I'm gonna be working on a script. But, um, usually we try to get me in as a producer of some kind. So I'm trying to learn the business. It's tough. It's really tough to get something made these days.

• 1:40:14Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Um, well, I mean, this has been super cool. Is there anything else that I haven't asked or anything else you'd like to talk about? Um.

• 1:40:24Speaker 03

  Not really, I guess. I could bitch, but uh

• 1:40:28Jack Murphy?

  Go ahead, go ahead.

• 1:40:30Speaker 03

  But um

• 1:40:30Jack Murphy?

  Airing of the grievances?

• 1:40:32Speaker 03

  The airing of the grievances. I guess the one thing, you know, you've heard me talk and maybe some people just don't believe I did all these crazy things that I did over my career. I did. Believe me, no one's more amazed than me, especially the the technical stuff, which was so rewarding. But it's very frustrating trying to get people to pay attention to you when you're a woman and you're old. You know, um, I've also been a critic. I was a book reviewer for the Washington Post. I have a master's degree in fiction. I'm an analyst, so I'm highly analytical when it comes to evaluating things. And I know my writing's good. I mean, I won a bunch of awards, too.

• 1:41:17Speaker 03

  I end up, you know, it comes down to our society especially, but many societies around the world do not value women and they especially do not value older women. But I do think I have interesting things to say and that I could say them in very interesting ways and Hollywood agrees. I'd just like to get more readers to give me a try.

• 1:41:39Jack Murphy?

  I, you know, if you need a pen name, you know, you'd feel free to use Jack Murphy and see if that gets you some traction. It hasn't worked out so great for me at all times, but you know, maybe you'll have better luck. You never know.

• 1:41:52Speaker 03

  I'll keep that in mind. Thank you.

• 1:41:57Jack Murphy?

  You know, I can see that for sure. That's got to be very frustrating that.

• 1:42:05Jack Murphy?

  I don't know. It's a novel. It's like, why would I necessarily even care if it's a it's a man or a woman writing it? I mean, I think the only time that it would make a difference is there's certain types of like literary genres where, you know, if it's the female author talking about, you know, how she has her hair highlighted and her nails done like I only have so much patience for that, but it's a woman writing a spy novel or a political thriller. It's kind of, who cares? You know?

• 1:42:34Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I'm glad to hear that. I I know there are men like you out there that are more open minded, or maybe don't even give it a thought. But you'd be surprised how many times I'll be doing a book event or something, and some white haired man will come up to me and kind of imply that I should be writing romance novels or children's books. You know, that what makes me think I can write an adult book? And it's all I can do to not just slap the shit.

• 1:43:05Jack Murphy?

  Ain't you a little missy? Let me tell you something.

• 1:43:07Speaker 03

  Really? It's just like, hmm.

• 1:43:12Jack Murphy?

  Uh, where can people go to find you? Do you have a website? I think you mentioned a Substack?

• 1:43:18Speaker 03

  Yes, the the Substack took over my newsletter, um, because it just is such a great platform for that sort of thing. So you can find me at Alma Katsu, my name and books, AlmaKatsuBooks.com, or just look for me on Substack. Um, I would love it if your listeners would subscribe. I kind of rotate between writing about writing, like the craft of writing, or talking about the business of writing for those who want to break into writing. I write occasionally about technology. Uh, I have a whole series on Gen AI. Hey, I spoke at MIT. I know what I'm talking about. And uh, and then I also just kind of give personal things because some people like to hear about my crazy life.

• 1:44:05Jack Murphy?

  Uh, and we'll have some links down in the description, um, for folks that can go subscribe to the Substack. Check all of that out. Um, and I believe we have a viewer question for you, Alma.

• 1:44:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, we have multiple, actually. Um, from Alexander, he asks, what's the best slash worst part of working for this NSA and CIA respectively?

• 1:44:27Speaker 03

  Well, the worst part of working at NSA, which you gotta understand, you know, I grew up there, right? So, as a matter of fact, when I left the first time and I did my exit interview, um, the woman who interviewed me had also been a, a secret national intelligence officer. And she said to me, "Oma, why do you think it's gonna be any better at CIA?" And I said, "Maureen, it's like this. This is like my first marriage, and NSA broke my heart. I'm going into my second marriage a little wiser." So NSA is, it's really, really misogynistic, even to this day. I mean,

• 1:45:11Speaker 03

  the stories I could tell you from my last three years, and I was fairly senior at that point, and still, the way I saw them, the way they treat women, and how it's baked into the culture, which is terrible, because especially as you move more and more into emerging technologies, new technologies, you need every brain you can get your hands on. You cannot afford to put, you know, a whole class of people off to the side and not value your, their input. You need them. So that was the worst thing. The best thing, I don't know. Hmm, they had good cookies at one point. I don't think they have those cookies anymore.

• 1:45:51Speaker 03

  CIA, oh my god, there's so much there, so much. I saw that as a recruiter, that you could go into that database and you could hire a locksmith, someone who was in prison for being able to, you know, break and enter. You needed those skills as much as you needed, you know, the post-doc uh, in artificial intelligence. Just the range of things you needed was mind-boggling, and you could end up working in any of those areas, you know? It, it was really something. It's very elitist, though. That, that is the bad part.

• 1:46:32Speaker 04

  All right, we got one from V. You kind of answered this slightly. Uh, what could CIA slash NSA do to improve working conditions for women?

• 1:46:40Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, oh, my goodness. Um, so much. I, I, you know, I can't even imagine it at NSA. It would be like, uh, you know, like a fantasy just one, I, you know, how to tell you, it's like, it's baked into the culture that they're just not gonna see women as whole human beings. It's insane. Um, CIA, so my perspective is different. I mean, I do think that operations is still tough for women to crack. Um, I would imagine some of it comes down to the types of, of characteristics and skills that they value.

• 1:47:21Speaker 03

  That maybe is hard for a woman, a woman to embody without not being a woman anymore. Uh, on the analytic side and science and technology, I think it was a little fairer, believe it or not. Um, it's, it's more just dog eat dog on the analytic side. It's incredibly um, combative. You, you have to be able, but it's all, you know, brain power. You're, you have to brainstorm constantly. And so, like the thing I described with the Open Source Center, where you would have the senior analysts of, say, the Russia shop, argue with me about the value of social media in the Russian population. You know, you were doing that every time you turned around. You were just, but that was so that

• 1:48:06Speaker 03

  uh, you were coming to the right conclusions. You had to sort of fight it out to make sure that the best thought, you know, raised to the top.

• 1:48:17Speaker 03

  No one's gonna wanna work for CIA or especially NSA if they, after this interview.

• 1:48:24Speaker 04

  We have one more from Joe. What are your thoughts on media consolidation in the Paramount, Warner Brothers Discovery deal in particular?

• 1:48:32Speaker 03

  Well, I haven't watched that super closely. So one thing, and you've probably experienced this with other analysts on the show, is we don't really like to talk about things unless we really know what we're talking about. We tend not to be bullshitters. So I don't really have much to say on that. Also, you know, people in intelligence, I don't know about now, but when I was coming up, we really tend not to focus on domestic things. We really focus on foreign intelligence. So I just have this bad habit of not following domestic situations very well. All I know is, for me, as now somebody who's trying to break into that side of media, it's probably a really bad thing.

• 1:49:15Jack Murphy?

  Well, Alma, thank you for taking some time out of your evening to do this interview. Really appreciate it. Any final thoughts before we go tonight?

• 1:49:24Speaker 03

  Well, thank you. I hope I didn't sound like too much of a jerk. And it's not often where you just get to pontificate about yourself for way too long. So thank you very much for putting up with me. This was so much fun. You are so sweet and really appreciate it.

• 1:49:41Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, thank you. And everyone else out there, thank you for joining us tonight, and we'll see you guys next time.

• 1:49:52Jack Murphy?

  Hey, guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House Podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free. And what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the Team House, on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show, and also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you'll go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis.

• 1:50:36Jack Murphy?

  You can find our newsletter at teamhospodcast.kit.com/join.

• 1:50:43Jack Murphy?

  Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join.

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  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.

• 2:02:57Speaker 05

  Games on a break? Don't doom scroll. Try rips on Underdog. Buy a digital pack, rip it open, and reveal a real, physical card. Football, basketball, even Pokemon. Packs start at just $5. Ship it straight to your door, or sell it back instantly at full market value. Max value up to $125,000. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Deposit $5, get five free packs. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18+, terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 2:03:27Speaker 07

  Ready to feel more energized and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At OrderlyMeds.com, you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at OrderlyMeds.com. That's OrderlyMeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. 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.

• 2:04:09Speaker 07

  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.

• 2:04:33Speaker 05

  Games on a break? Don't doom scroll. Try rips on Underdog. Buy a digital pack, rip it open, and reveal a real, physical card. Football, basketball, even Pokemon. Packs start at just $5. Ship it straight to your door, or sell it back instantly at full market value. Max value up to $125,000. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Deposit $5, get 5 free packs. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18+, terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 2:05:04Speaker 06

  Looking for a new way to take control of your health? If diet, exercise, and willpower alone haven't gotten you where you want to be, visit orderlymeds.com to learn about GLP-1 treatment options. With a convenient virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical providers from home and see if treatment may be appropriate for you. Visit orderlymeds.com today. That's orderlymeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 2:05:34Speaker 07

  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.

• 2:06:10Speaker 05

  Games on a break? Don't doom scroll. Try rips on Underdog. Buy a digital pack, rip it open, and reveal a real physical card. Football, basketball, even Pokemon. Packs start at just $5. Ship it straight to your door or sell it back instantly at full market value. Max value up to $125,000. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Deposit $5, get 5 free packs. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18+, terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 2:06:41Speaker 07

  Ready to feel more energized and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At OrderlyMedds.com, you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at OrderlyMedds.com. That's OrderlyMedds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. 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,

• 2:07:26Speaker 07

  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.

• 2:07:49Speaker 05

  Games on a break? Don't doom scroll. Try rips on Underdog. Buy a digital pack, rip it open, and reveal a real physical card. Football, basketball, even Pokemon. Packs start at just $5. Ship it straight to your door or sell it back instantly at full market value. Max value up to $125,000. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Deposit $5, get 5 free packs. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18+, terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 2:08:20Speaker 00

  Ready to feel energized and in control again? At Orderly Med's, we have helped thousands just like you take charge of their health with a GLP-1. If you've tried dieting, exercising, and relying on willpower and nothing seems to stick, then it might be time to talk to a licensed provider about your options. That's what Orderly Med's is for. This fall, choose healthier habits for yourself with a visit to OrderlyMed's.com. You don't need to visit with a physician in person to become eligible. Orderly Med's has a simple, virtual process. Connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether a GLP-1 treatment may be appropriate for you wherever you are. Get started from the comfort of home online. Change your habits and consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit OrderlyMed's.com to learn more.

• 2:09:05Speaker 00

  That's OrderlyMed's.com. OrderlyMed's.com. Gain confidence and choose better habits this fall. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 2:09:20Speaker 07

  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.

• 2:09:56Speaker 05

  Games on a break? Don't doom scroll. Try rips on Underdog. Buy a digital pack, rip it open, and reveal a real, physical card. Football, basketball, even Pokémon. Packs start at just $5. Ship it straight to your door, or sell it back instantly at full market value. Max value up to $125,000. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Deposit $5, get 5 free packs. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18+, terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 2:10:27Speaker 07

  Ready to feel more energized and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At orderlymeds.com, you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. 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.

• 2:11:09Speaker 07

  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.

• 2:11:29Speaker 05

  Games on a break? Don't doom scroll. Try rips on Underdog. Buy a digital pack, rip it open, and reveal a real physical card. Football, basketball, even Pokémon. Packs start at just $5. Ship it straight to your door or sell it back instantly at full market value. Max value up to $125,000. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Deposit $5, get 5 free packs. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18+, terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 2:11:59Speaker 07

  Ready to feel more energized and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At orderlymeds.com, you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 2:12:29Speaker 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 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.