CIA Senior Intelligence Service Officer | Doug Wise (throwback episode)

original airdate 5/27/22 Douglas H. Wise retired from CIA as a member of CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service (SIS-6) in August 2016 completing nearly three decades of service. He finished his career with CIA in a Joint Duty Assignment as the Deputy Director of the Defense intelligence Agency. As the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Doug was the Chief Operating Officer for a 20,000 employee, global defense enterprise supporting senior Defense and National policymakers and the war fighting commands. 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 ___________________________________________________ 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 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:58Speaker 02

  The Team House with your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us on The Team House, episode 147. I'm Dave Park. This is Jack Murphy. Actually, Jack is cuing us up behind the deck right now. Dee couldn't be with us tonight, but so Jack's filling in for Dee and Jack. And we have a great guest with us tonight, a very special guest, Douglas Wise, former SIS6, correct? SIS6 of the Central Intelligence Agency. So Doug, the way we love to start these things is, you know, by learning how you got your superpowers. What is your origin story? Where do you come from? How did all this happen in the very beginning?

• 1:57Speaker 04

  I mean, like many of your guests, first thing is, let me just say it's an honor and a privilege to be with you and to be able to help provide a little bit of insight through my experience, you know, to this arcane world of, you know, special operations and in the business of national tactical intelligence. I also think it's a great thing for you guys to, you know, provide a platform for veterans, you know, to give voice to the voiceless, which I think is spectacularly great. And I just want to thank all of the people that have dialed in and logged in today, you know, for supporting the program and for making this such a great success within the national security and the veteran community. So I

• 2:42Speaker 04

  think it's absolutely great.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  It's because of people like you, Doug. I mean, honestly, like you make the show, not us. We're just a couple of dudes yammering. So we appreciate you.

• 2:51Speaker 04

  Well, I think your participants are going to find me yammering a lot myself. So I'll do my fair share of yammering.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Perfect.

• 3:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. So let me start at the end for just a sec, and then I'll come back to the beginning, if we could. My beginning is kind of unusual. I grew up on an Amish farm. I don't think many people in the intelligence community started out, you know, harvesting crops by hand in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. You know, at the end of the ride, you know, I had the pleasure of serving in public service for 50 years. That's a half a century. And it was, you know, as I've said, and I think many of you who are listening to me and watching, I think you can kind of resonate with this, that, you know, I never had a bad day. I've had better days.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Right. But I've never had a bad day. I think the worst day that I ever experienced was probably in December 2009, when I was in Iraq and we had eight of our colleagues who were, you know, murdered at Coast Base in Afghanistan. And I knew every one of them, from the base chief on down. I knew all the, all the officers, including the GRS guys who were, who were wounded and, and fell in the line of duty. So, you know, that was not a good day. Right. But in the end, you know, I looked for the positive that, you know, their sacrifice was not in vain because we took a hard look at what was the cause of that. And we were a better agency. And so they didn't die in vain. Their sacrifice actually produced probably

• 4:32Speaker 04

  life-saving changes in the way we did business. But I never had, had a real, a real bad day. But one of the things that's interesting is after you come out of the ride, and for those of you that are younger on this podcast and have either at the beginning of your national security journey, or you, you know, are contemplating, you could take a look at me, this is on Photoshop, this is what you're going to look like at the end of the ride. So if you want to, if you want to look, if you want to look like a, a hard-ridden mule, you know, beaten mule, well, then, you know, you may want to get off the train right now. But anyway, it was, it was great. But, you know, the challenges galore throughout my entire career. And it

• 5:17Speaker 04

  didn't end when I left, as a matter of fact, because when I became the Deputy Director of DIA, they rolled back my cover from day one, which went all the way back to 1987, when I entered on duty with CIA. And, and if, if either of you gentlemen are interested, you know, I'm more than happy to talk about that, that process as well later. But, you know, one of the things that when I came out from undercover and, and I'm able to tell people, you know, with even with great pride, quite frankly, and legitimate pride for, for the officers like you both, who, you know, I served with, served for, who

• 5:59Speaker 04

  served for me, made it, you know, always a good day and, and often a better day.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  But, you know, I, when you come out from undercover and you can kind of shed and take off the jacket and you really expose your real self, you know, there's a lot of benefits to that because you can talk about the power and the majesty of what you've experienced. And help to provide a little bit of insight into what those of us who are working outside the public eye, you know, what contributions we're making, what the risks we're taking, the challenges we face, and how we feel when we do that, sense of pride, the sense of accomplishment. And so, you know, being able to discuss that finally and attribute it

• 6:49Speaker 04

  to CIA is a wonderful thing. But then what happens is usually to the person that you're talking to, who may not know you, particularly when I public speak, as I do a fair amount. You know, you collide with the public perception of what a CIA officer looks like. And I think that, you know, David, you and Jack would agree, I do bear a striking resemblance to Daniel Craig, but I'm maybe Matt Damon, I'm not, I don't, I don't look a lot like Matt Damon. But the perception of what a CIA officer is, is really framed by Hollywood. Right.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  I do a fair amount of gage with Hollywood, and if you want to talk about that, we can talk about that as well. But I was given a prestigious invite to go speak at, give an evening lecture at Chatham House in London, on St. James Square, wonderful institution. It is one of two think tanks that exists in the United Kingdom. In America, we have a lot of them. In the United Kingdom, they have two, RUSI and Chatham House. And Chatham House was where Chatham House Rule came from, and they're the ones that started it. And so it was really an honor, and I had never been there, and I had no idea what to expect. So I'm waiting in the wings of this huge auditorium inside the building.

• 8:14Speaker 04

  With my American program counter sponsor, my wife Cindy, you know, who was a just absolutely spectacular lady, put up with me for decades and was a super professional in her own right as an FBI special agent, pioneer female, first pilot for the bureau, female pilot. I'm more proud of her than I am of myself. But she was in the audience because, you know, we thought it'd be a great thing to share. And, and so the audience, quite frankly, the auditorium was getting full. So I turned to Jacob and I go, hey, Jacob, is this a big audience? And he looks at me, says, second largest audience we've ever had here at Chatham

• 8:56Speaker 04

  House. Second, second largest. I said, who, who, who said, who drew the biggest crowd? And he goes, Benjamin Netanyahu. He was here two weeks ago. And I go, well, I'm honored, but I'm not a Benjamin Netanyahu glass figure. But the attractiveness for all of these people was the fact that I was an acknowledged and open CIA officer, served in clandestine service. They marketed it heavily. As a note for our audience, the British secret intelligence service have a secrecy agreement. We have sort of one, but they have one for life. Right. Where they can't, they can't acknowledge their association with MI6. So the fact that

• 9:40Speaker 04

  I was a spy and could acknowledge and could discuss spy stuff, even though my topic was actually Russian disinformation, I think they came to see what a real spy looked like. So I hadn't really thought through what the, what the collision would be from perception to reality, but I learned that pretty soon after the thing was over. So Jacob and I walk in, we sit down on the stage, there's a podium there, he's going to go introduce me. In the meantime, my wife's in the crowd. And being an FBI special agent, one of the, you know, hey, your time on target, gotta be TOT is now, this thing should have, this thing should have begun here at, you know, at, at 7pm. You know, she leans over, you

• 10:25Speaker 04

  know, it's now 7:10, 7:15. So she leans over to ask the British guy sitting next to her in the audience. And she goes, hey, 7:15, it's supposed to start at 7. When does this thing gonna start? And the guy goes, ah, ma'am, I think it's gonna be when that fat old guy introduces the CIA speaker.

• 10:46Speaker 04

  And so when she's telling me that story, I go, well, well, babe, didn't you only put him on the spot? Tell him you were married to me? And she goes, nah, I had to apply the need to know principle. He didn't need to know that. I'm under no illusion, you know, that, you know, what I represent may be a dissonance with what the public expects. So again, kudos to you, gentlemen, for creating this platform that allows, you know, your guests, many of whom have done much more than I have, along this special ops espionage journey, you know, to kind of, A, inform, dispel mythology and to be able to maybe not inspire,

• 11:27Speaker 04

  I don't think I'll be inspirational, but maybe to, you know, get over some obstacles and come and join the family, you know, put an application in and be part of service to America and the safety and security of American people. But anyway, back to you, gentlemen.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Where you want, where you want to go.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Back to you. You're on an Amish farm, churning butter, I suppose.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  Oh, harvest, harvesting crops by hand.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  That was, that was nice, but I, you know, it's a long, complicated journey to go from the Amish farm to Northern Ohio. But it was my, my, my father who actually ended up going, you know, greatest generation, World War II vet.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  And, you know, decided that, you know, he didn't want to do farm stuff. So he went to get an education, became an academic and moved the family. And so we moved to Northern Ohio, which was kind of an interesting experience, although Northern Iowa is very agricultural. So that wasn't, wasn't all that bad. You know, people didn't dress the same as we did, but the.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  But it was kind of interesting and I grew up there, you know, typical Midwest kid, you know, monocultural experience, you know, I don't believe there was a single Hispanic in my town. There was, I think, a small number of African American families and most of us were sliced white bread kids, you know, growing up to, you know, four hundred kids in high school, two varsity sports. And, you know, ultimately it was John Glenn that appointed me to the Military Academy at West Point. So I joined a class in nineteen seventy-two and nineteen sixty-eight. Not a bad, not a good time in America. A very unpopular war. And so joining the military was not, was not fashionable. Can I say that? What John Glenn

• 13:19Speaker 04

  did was, he used a screening mechanism that doesn't exist anymore. And it was a civil service aptitude test, kind of like SAT-like. And all he did was use that to discriminate, you know, first order, throw out the people that can't fill out the circle with their number two pencil, you know, throw that guy out. So told to go to Findlay, Ohio, which is a modest sized town in Northern Iowa, a little south of Toledo, and go to the post office, upper, upper level, inkwell desks. You come in, they give you the test booklet, tell you, don't open it up until we tell you, because it's a timed test. Fill out the first page. And the first page is all biographical, right?

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  So you're writing all that stuff down, putting your initials of your name, you know, down in the, in the block. And then the seminal block, it's down about midway, was what academy are you, are you, do you wish to attend? My dad flew in World War II. Ultimately, my younger brother, he flew F-15 Strike Eagles. And so I was raised to, to be an Air Force kid, you know, so my job was to go to the Air Force Academy. So it was a no-brainer for me. So I marked, I put that dark in that little circle, you know, USAFA. So there's a seat in front of me and

• 14:44Speaker 04

  All of a sudden, puff of air, plop. This guy sits down in front of me. His name is Kent Cartwright. You know, Hollywood name and Kent looked like the epitome of, you know, weightlifting surfer, if there was such a thing. Broad-shouldered, narrow waist, captain of both the football and the basketball teams, had an active social life, which I didn't have, and was an academic star and was the most popular guy in school. You know, homecoming king, it all works. So I tap him on his shoulder and I go, hey Kent, what academy are you going, what academy are you going to? And he turns and looks at me and he goes, I'm going to Air Force Academy. And I go, me?

• 15:27Speaker 04

  So I turned that number two pencil around and I just erased that USAFA and I just mark sense, not the Coast Guard Academy, not, not doing that, Naval Academy? Nah, my mom knew my dad, I wasn't eligible to go to that academy. So I'm going to USMA. So I'd maxed and said it. The winds of fate blew Cartwright to the Air Force Academy. They threw him out after a semester. The other wind of fate blew me to West Point and as I said, I entered and commissioned a second lieutenant in 1972. So that's kind of my journey to, to get to that point.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  And not some, not an outcome that I think anybody, any of my relatives back in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania would have anticipated. But, but anyway, that's, that's, that's my early story.

• 16:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. And you've had a, a pretty interesting military career. I mean, can you tell us a little bit about becoming a junior officer or some of your duty stations and what that was like for you?

• 16:27Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, that's a great question. Thanks, thanks for asking. In 1972 was a bad time to be in the army. It was, you know, racial violence. It was narcotics related violence, ill-discipline. You know, it was a draft army.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  And it was a combination. There were, you know, volunteers and the army was trying to transition. You know, read the book Prodigal Soldiers and you'll, you'll really understand, you know, some of the courage that was necessary for the army to transform itself. And we had not yet gotten to the point where we even, you know, began the first step of a 12-step program by acknowledging that the army was really in harm's way, quite frankly. De-professionalized, it was ridden with all kinds of, of corruption, moral corruption, ethical corruption, tainted by this unpopular war, you know, underappreciated, not even under, but not appreciated by the American people, really not understanding what Vietnam veterans had gone through, you

• 17:29Speaker 04

  know, all of the horrors of war, all of the trauma, all the shock, you know, all of just the horrors and then to come back and, and not be welcomed back as, as a member of American society. And of course, you had the, the whole thing of a deranged Vietnam veteran, right? You had that, that kind of mindset that I think a lot of people, a lot of people had. So, uh, entering the, the army at that time was, was a really difficult time. I can, I think one or more of your guests, I think, had mentioned, uh, you know, pulling duty officer armed because, you know, as a young officer, if you were alone, you didn't go alone into the barracks. Cause that was, that was the same thing as going, being a point

• 18:11Speaker 04

  man, you know, on a, on a jungle patrol. You know, you're going to hit a tripwire and you were going to be the first casualty of that. And, uh, you know, it was, it was frightening to say the least. But, you know, here's how my first day, you know, uh, in, in a real unit began. You know, I show up in the unit and I show up into the replacement detachment. On the walls of the replacement detachment, these big posters, and it said, if you're going to this outfit, call this Audubon number, somebody from the unit will figure out how to, how to get you there. And so I called the unit and it was, uh, The unit was the first battalion five oh nine parachute airborne mech infantry.

• 18:53Speaker 04

  If there ever was a dichotomous concept of having mechanized airborne battalion. We didn't do a lot of mech because none of those M one one threes worked. And we never did any maintenance on them to make sure they didn't work. Cause we prefer to be paratroopers rather than the motor pool monkeys. But uh, it was an elite unit at that time of the US Army Europe. We were an entire airborne brigade of the eighth division. So I call, you know, uh, my sponsor expected to show up. First Lieutenant Morrison was his name. I don't know why I remember it. And all of a sudden I hear my name, you know, and I jump up excited. And I go, Lieutenant Wise, and I go, yeah, yeah, here, here, here.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  And E seven walks over and introduces himself because, hey, sir, welcome to Charlie Company, first battalion five oh nine parachute infantry. And I said, well, thank you, sir. I appreciate the welcome. Where's my sponsor? I thought he would come and get me. And he goes, nah, he de-rose out, he's gone. And I said cheekily, not seriously, but cheekily, I said, well, uh, I'm surprised the company commander didn't come to personally welcome me to the unit. And he looks at me and he goes, Lieutenant, you are the company commander. I'm your first sergeant. So, so you can imagine, you don't even know where to put your second lieutenant bar.

• 20:22Speaker 04

  You didn't even know, yes, go on the left or right. You know, and all of a sudden now, you know, everything you've ever been taught is now going to come into sharp focus or PT focus. So without a doubt, I was the acting company commander for about 90 days of Charlie Company. And without a doubt, for me personally, it was the most formative, immersive, challenge laden, leadership, development experience that just really.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  Educated me on the good, the, the things to do and things not to do as the leader in, in that, in the Army of 1972. And for me, it was a, just a platinum, gold standard, absolutely spectacular leadership experience.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  How, how so? Can you, can you give us some examples?

• 21:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll tell you, I, I, I'll explain what I mean by that. Uh, and, and my, having said that, that it was a formative and very invaluable leadership experience, to your question, I think if you asked the, the troopers at Charlie Company, I'm thinking they'd have a whole different perspective on my 90 days in command. Uh, I think they, they were sitting there happy that they weren't back in Vietnam. Every one of them were Vietnam vets. Every one of them were draftees. You know, they knew that nobody could, they could act any way they wanted. And so, um, they knew that there wasn't enough time for you, you know, you to threaten somebody with sending you back to Vietnam. Draftees had come out, did 13 months in Vietnam, come back, they had a short time left, and then they were

• 22:02Speaker 04

  leaving the Army for the most part. And so, using the power of majesty of a gold bar of a second lieutenant, and to be able to issue peremptory orders and expect them to be obeyed like, uh, like all military academy cadets and, you know, pretend second lieutenants at the infantry officer basic course and ranger school, pathfinder school, and, and all the other courses that I jumped at school that I went, that I went to in preparation for this assignment. You know, all of those skills were, were helpful, but not, not, not essential. And so you quickly found out that, you know, ordering, pressuring, you know,

• 22:41Speaker 04

  directing and acting like an imperious, uh, you know, company commander was not going to get you to an outcome that would be useful for you personally, and more importantly for the unit, or would it benefit the soldiers at Charlie Company at that point. And so I realized and got a chance to learn. That sweet spot, you gotta be in, you gotta be strong and you gotta be, you gotta show confidence but not overconfidence. You gotta make good decisions. You gotta allow the soldiers to have some freedom of action, particularly at that point. You gotta allow the NCOs to really, you know, you command and the NCOs lead, and I really learned the

• 23:23Speaker 04

  distinction between that, as the Russians are finding out now, you know, when they're performing so poorly on combat because the NCO, we always joked, right? The backbone of the army was the non-commissioned officer corps. Well, guess what? It turned out to be true. You know, Ukraine has proven that to the Russians beyond a shadow of doubt. And so, knowing that, determining where that sweet spot, how hard you could push, you know, how often you had to push, but how much freedom, but not too much freedom, you know, what kind of relationship that you had to have with your E7 first sergeant and your E6 platoon leaders, you know, because I was the only officer in the company on

• 24:06Speaker 04

  top of that, you know, at the time. And so that was an interesting experience, to say the least. And, uh, you know, and the way you learn, at least the way I learned, it's not, not the best way to learn, but the way I learned was by making mistakes. But you don't want to make big mistakes, because then your soldiers will lose confidence in your ability. But you do have to, you do have to get out on the edge, not over the tips of your skis, but you gotta be leaning forward. And you gotta be, you gotta be, you gotta be comfortable in taking some risks when you're an inexperienced, you know, really

• 24:50Speaker 04

  naive commander, and you're trying to command, you know, men who are really combat veterans and who are, you know, quite jaded and, and affected by the attitude of the American people and by the experience that they had, traumatic in many respects. But, you know, learning where that sweet spot is, and learning how a good leader will, will be able to operate in that sweet spot, to be effective, to be confident, not overconfident, not to be unaffected, to really be able to

• 25:24Speaker 04

  Have your soldiers benefit for the period that you're in command. To have soldiers be at one level when you begin and have them be at a better place at the end. I'm not sure I did that real well, but learning that I needed to do that.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  In that ninety days was probably the most important thing for me. And I'll tell you what, the lessons I learned in those ninety days carried me forward. And later on in my career, I mean, I was, I had the honor and the pleasure to be a company commander in the first Ranger Battalion. When I was established, I was in the second wave of company commanders and then the only battalion. And, you know, had I not really learned those lessons and applied those lessons. You know, I don't think the chief staff of the army would have selected me as one of the captains to come in and command then the premier unit in the United States Army, quite frankly.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  And I would have never, I would have never developed into something that would have been even competitive for them. And then later on in my career, and as many of your guests have said, you know, it's a little awkward to talk about yourself accomplishments. It's easy to talk about what you did. Talking about what you've accomplished gets to be a little self-serving. But, you know, I, I had the unexpected honor to be, you know, two years below the zone selecte to oh four.

• 26:55Speaker 04

  And there's goods and bads in that. I lost a lot of time to learn what it's like to be a major in the United States Army. And that was unhelpful to me. But at the one, at one point, you know, I think the statisticians would tell you, I was one of six youngest lieutenant colonels in the United States Army when I made oh five.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  And, and, and so that's a good thing if your name is me. It's a bad thing if you want a lieutenant colonel that's got all the experiences that you want a lieutenant colonel to have when they make lieutenant colonel.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  And so for me, I found myself to be at a professional personal disadvantage by the time I got to oh five. Proud to be early select, but really paid a huge price for that because I was woefully untrained and inexperienced to be a very good lieutenant colonel. After my time in the Rangers, it was interesting because, and I mean no disrespect to the US Army Recruiting Command or whatever they're calling it now. But I remember the team from Milperson from the Hoffman Building, then the head of all Army personnel and people from infantry branch or whatever, I don't remember.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  You know, they came down to Fort Stewart and they were giving us career advice and guidance and talking about, you know, what we done and what was in the future and, you know, giving us an opportunity to say what we wanted and they had the opportunity to totally reject all that and tell us what we're gonna do anyway. And so, you know, I go down and they go, "Well, let's look at what's coming next for you." And so, they open up the big musty book of common knowledge, you know, this big tome, "Hmm, boom!", and they flip through some parchment and then they go down and they find, "Yeah, wise, wise, wise, yeah, there you are, yeah, you're gonna go back and teach at the military academy." And I said, "No, sir, I'd rather just stay with troops, that's all right."

• 28:49Speaker 04

  And they go, "Okay, so you don't wanna go back and be a member of the faculty at the military academy?" I said, "No, sir." They want you to come back. And I said, "I'm proud of my four years there, I didn't enjoy my four years there, I wasn't a good cadet, I was a crappy cadet. And quite frankly, if I never go back there again, I'll be perfectly happy." Ironically, my wife just encouraged me to go back to my 50th reunion. And I will tell you this, when you have a 50th reunion of any institution, there's a lot of old people there. You know, I like to think I wasn't one of them, but there's a lot of old people there. A lot of guys brought their dads, I think. And so, I said, "No, I'd rather not go."

• 29:32Speaker 04

  And they go, "Not a problem, not a problem, we're flexible. Here, let's see what the book of common knowledge has for you." So they go back a few pages and they go, "Oh, you're gonna command a recruiting battalion in Detroit."

• 29:46Speaker 04

  And I, you know, kind of looked and went,

• 29:51Speaker 04

  hey, can we go back a few pages and talk about that West Point thing? And they go, yeah, we thought you'd come to your senses anyway. I ended up, you know, going off to graduate school and teaching, teaching at the military academy. But I only did two years there. So I went to troops, back to troops and I had a couple of tactical assignments and then I ended up at the Pentagon in desk ops. For anybody that served in the deputy chief staff for operations, I think it's called the G3 of the Army now. And I was in the basement of the Pentagon where all the special ops guys were. One day I got told that go up to the personnel office, you've got an RFO, request for orders.

• 30:33Speaker 04

  You know, you're going, you've got a new job. I got, didn't ask for a new job. They go, we're not interested in what you want. You go out and get your RFO. So I go up and an RFO, it was pink, if I recall correctly. And, you know, it was a form. It turned it out on pink paper. And it was at my name and date of birth and social security number and all that. And then it said, assignment date effective, and it was like tomorrow. And then the, to do what? So classified, to do where? Classified. To do, so the whole thing was just useless in terms of me being able to figure it out. Nobody in desk ops knew what was happening. And so what, what had happened is

• 31:16Speaker 04

  apparently CIA had asked for a military detailee with, you know, some semblance of my background. You know, at my, at my rank. And so the next thing I know is, you know, I'm going off to some mysterious organization. So I was told to call this number. So call this number. And a guy at the other end goes, hello. And I go, oh yeah, this is Colonel Wise. I just got a military piece of paper that told me that I was getting a new job and I was supposed to call you and I don't know who you are. And so I apologize if I'm bothering you, but, but maybe I called the wrong number. He goes, nope, you called the right number. Here's what I want you to do. The intersection of 395 and Franconia Road. Do you know where

• 31:59Speaker 04

  that is? I go, yes. There's a hotel there. Interestingly enough, some years later, a Russian KGB officer, you know, undercover was arrested by the FBI there, meeting an American spy. So anyway, he says, go to that hotel, walk outside into Portico, have a red ball hat, have a magazine under your right arm. He's going to pick you up in a pickup truck. He's not, you get in the back. Don't talk to him. He's not going to talk to you. And all will be explained in due course. So, you know, I do the whole ball hat, magazine under pickup truck shows up, Johnny on the spot. I get in the back of the truck. You know, I want

• 32:41Speaker 04

  to be able to say, hey, thanks for giving me a ride. But, you know, I'm, I follow the rules. So, you know, I have no idea. And then they drove me to CIA headquarters where it became obvious to me, may not be the brightest bulb in the drawer, but it became obvious to me that now I understand, you know, what I'm going to do. Well, it turned out, you know, to be a, a, a, a temporary status as a detailee while all this security process. And at that time was totally different than now. We had to be assessed as a full staff officer for CIA, not just as a detailee, go through the, you know, the counterintelligence

• 33:21Speaker 04

  polygraph. We had the whole lifestyle thing, get abused by the polygrapher. And, you know, someday when I pass away and I meet one of those.

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• 35:21Speaker 04

  This guy's in hell. I'm gonna kick his butt because, you know, a number of them abused many of us. But I was asked to join the Counterterrorism Center, which was quite a new institution, was an innovative institution at the time, because the Director of Operations for CIA was organized geographically. And of course, as some of you that are older than others, who may remember terrorism in a time of hijacked airplanes, the Entebbe raid by the Israeli Defense Force. And that period of time, Steadam being murdered and

• 36:06Speaker 04

  thrown out on the tarmac. You know, Egypt there, you know, aircraft being hijacked to Malta, you know, all of this stuff, all of which was state sponsored, but all of which was transnational in its execution. And so having to deal with the issue of terrorism, which knew no boundaries, terrorists generally don't care about political boundaries, and they don't care about national affiliation so much. And so, you know, some iconic last in CIA took a big risk.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  And created the counterterrorism center and pulled us, pulled people out of the geographic divisions, which is what they were called, and put them into the counterterrorism center. Uh, Phil Mudd, for example, you see him on CNN all the time. He and I were branch chiefs in counterterrorism center together, same time. Mike Shoyer, a little crazy. Uh, you know, Mike Shoyer was another branch chief, you know, at that time. But, uh, you know, I think the reason why I was there, one from my military background. And, uh, to be able to, uh, you know, so they didn't have to waste a real talented, real CIA officer in

• 37:20Speaker 04

  this experiment known as the counterterrorism center, which was not career enhancing, quite frankly. You know, you as a young operator, you wanted to grow up in an area division, the feudal lord owned you, abused you, rode you like a rented mule. And but at the same time, if you were worthy of, of his attention and investment, you know, your career, you know, would be guided and enabled and nurtured by, by your division chief. Uh, serving in counterterrorism center wasn't going to get you that nurturing and, and that mentoring and that, that, that developing. And so nobody wanted to go there. So I'm, I'm being honest. I think, you know, they, they picked me for a couple of reasons. One of which was they didn't want to waste a perfectly good CIA officer, you know.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  Just real quick, because you know, for a lot of our younger audience, you know, if they know anything about the CIA, like the Counterterrorism Center, the CTC, has been basically the star of the CIA since 9/11. And so they might not understand why, you know, like, why it was such a risk for somebody to take this idea, when all these other, like you said, regions were so siloed. Like, what was so groundbreaking about CTC? And what were some of the naysayers about it? Like, like, what? Because you think, now we think, oh, a counterterrorism center, that makes sense. Why wouldn't, you know, why would that be a problem? But like, what were the problems that they ran into in the early days?

• 38:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll try to answer your question in a way that's understandable. You know, as I said, the Director of Operations, both in Washington DC and in the field, and the interaction between a CIA Station Chief, which is the senior CIA officer in a foreign location, and the headquarters component of that are all ruthlessly geographically defined. Not anymore, but in the context of your question, back in the day, when, before the comet hit the earth and killed all the dinosaurs. And to give you a sense of scale, when I joined CTC back then, Counterterrorism Center, there were 94 of us, and that included

• 39:32Speaker 04

  four contractors. At the time that I served in CTC as a, as a Senior Intelligence Service Officer, when I came back to be the Assistant Director of Operations, there were 2,200 officers in that center.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  To your point.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 39:48Speaker 04

  And further to your point, if you were a traditional CIA officer in a traditional geographic division, and you hadn't served in a counterterrorism capacity, that had some career impacts, too. And the idea was to incentivize talented officers to, to acquire that experience. And we needed that talent, and we needed those officers to contribute. My career, like many, like you, gentlemen, your career is defined by 9/11. You know, mine, mine as well. And so back to your question, you know, the, the demarcation between authorities were, were sharply defined by geography. You had the Near East Division.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  You had European Division. You had Africa Division. You had Latin America Division. You had, you know, Asia Division. And, and the bor- and the, and the boundaries between those divisions bureaucratically were impermeable and, and imporous. Nobody crossed. And there were no defectors generally who, who, who were of any value. You know, if you were a talented officer and you decided, hey, you know what? I'd like to serve in Asia Division. Your European Division would, would say absolutely and they'll shoot you in the back as you kind of climbed over the border. It was, it was real, I mean, and I use the term feudal lords in a way that is very accurately descriptive.

• 41:17Speaker 04

  And yes, it has negative con- connotations and, and so, uh, yeah. There were some negative aspects to both the people and, and the organization. So when the CIA, and I wasn't part of the discussion, obviously.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:32Speaker 04

  You know, I came in after the decision had been made. So there are probably many people who you could get on your podcast who could talk to you about the early history of the counterterrorism center, much more authoritatively, incredibly than me. But if you look at somebody who wanted to literally sh- shatter the organizational structure of the Director of Operations, somebody had to make that decision.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  And obviously that decision had to be made, had to be endorsed or made, you know, at the director's level, right? It couldn't be made down at the GS 12 level. And so you not only had to create a raison d'etre for this new enterprise. You had to rationalize the value it would, it would bring because it would create all kinds of chaos and disruption. If for another reason, just in a personnel system, in the cable traffic system, because nothing existed, you know? This was new enterprise created out of whole cloth and it's a zero sum game in CIA. So it's not like you could just hire 94 additional officers to, to be professional counterterrorism officers. And in fact,

• 42:43Speaker 04

  The term of art was you were home based in the geographic division. There was enough resistance that the senior leadership of the agency said, "Will authorize CTC to be, to come into existence, but it won't have the authority to home base officers." They didn't want officers to permanently homestead, like you could in the geographic divisions. So I can only infer from what I know of the rigidity structure, remarkable flexibility operation, let me tell you.

• 43:16Jack Murphy?

  I, I think Rick, when we interviewed Rick Prado, either, either in his interview or in his book, he was talking about the really unique thing about CTC at that time, being that they could read the reports, the cable traffic coming from any division.

• 43:30Speaker 04

  From everybody. Yeah, you're right. And, and thanks for, for mentioning that because I was going to talk about, you know, one of the, some of the challenges that the creation of CTC and some of the value. Rick and I were, were in CTC at the same time. So I'm, I'm a big fan of Rick Prado. Uh, he really, he, he, he made a huge contribution, let me tell you, as you all know already. Now, I haven't written a book yet and I don't think so because, you know, I don't have a big family, so I wouldn't sell very many. But the, uh, uh, but you can imagine the terrorist, you know, a terrorist originates, you know, even if state sponsored terrorists, it originates in one country, transits to another country, ends up in, in a, in a third country,

• 44:12Speaker 04

  links up with another dude, then travels to another part of the globe, gets all gunned up and equipped up, you know, does his all pre-mission rehearsals and, and, and then does it. So you can imagine if there is ruthless guarding of operational turf created by the structure of the DO, you'd have to coordinate and, and who, who would do the coordination?

• 44:37Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  Whose terrorist is that?

• 44:39Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  You know, is that terrorist, the wholly owned property of where that dude originated, where he transited, or where he's going to conduct the operation, or everybody? So who's in charge? Everybody's in charge, but nobody's in charge.

• 44:52Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  So somebody had the guts and the wisdom to create, as they looked at this emerging terrorist threat. As they got more violent and more large scale to create this pioneering institution called the Counterterrorism Center, which ultimately, you know, became instantiated and was truly part of the magic of CIA in post nine eleven timeframe. And so, once you add CIA to your point, able to see all of the information flow from all the area divisions, none of the other area division, terrorists could originate in any division, all that traffic gunner intelligence reasons was need to know for any division, wasn't need to know for

• 45:34Speaker 04

  AF division. So how do you break that compartmentation barrier in a timely enough fashion to actually mount an operation, counterterrorism operation to interdict and maybe remove the guy from the battlefield? And so, you know, we had an optic sitting in C2C that no other division had in the agency. And so, we proved our worth every day. I'm not saying I did. I'm saying that the officers who pioneered that center, you know, proved their worth every day in providing safety and security to Americans by this emerging threat. My job was very narrowly

• 46:16Speaker 04

  defined. I was a rendition guy. And so, my job was to help start the and perpetuate the nascent rendition program. And arguably, you know, we had modicum of success. We captured Kanzi, the guy that killed our officers. We captured Ramzi Youssef and a number of others. And we kind of learned, and those were all work-based renditions. And so, also, one of the byproducts of Counterterrorism Center was, you know, we were able to create strategic partnerships with institutions across the US government.

• 46:55Speaker 04

  None of the area divisions, it wasn't because they didn't want to, they had no need to.

• 46:59Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  With federal law enforcement, right? Who's our natural partner? Federal Bureau of Investigation, right? Federal law enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol, you know, now known ICE. You know, you had all of these partnerships because of course, in the beginning days, we didn't have, you know, non-warranted operations directed to remove terrorists from the battlefield. We didn't have lethal authority, except for personal protection when we're out on operations. Uh, and, uh, so it was warrant based and so we had to have, not only we would, in this parlance of stay in the crystal, we would find and fix.

• 47:41Speaker 04

  And then partnering with the FBI, they, we would together do the finishing. But the front face of that finishing was very naturally and very appropriate to preserve the judicial process because all of these guys, and we brought back many minor terrorists, if there is such a thing, to Ramzi Yusuf class terrorist, you know, the Bohika operation. You're gonna drop eight United Airlines out of the sky, you know, in Asia. You know, glad we took him off the battlefield. And, uh, so our team got him.

• 48:15Jack Murphy?

  And, and it still happens today, right? But you don't see the CIA fingerprints on it a lot of times.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  You, you don't, and that, and that, that is very natural and very necessary. And because, you know, our colleagues are, you know, not acknowledged. And so they can't be in, in the front face of even major successes. Obviously CIA is, has become more widely known for in the counterterrorism business because of their roles, not only in Afghanistan, but in Iraq and, and, uh, and in other places in the world. And quite frankly, you know, every station and base in the world, you know, had a counterterrorism responsibility. And we understood that that was the existential threat to America, you know?

• 49:02Speaker 04

  Eastern Europe was still coming out of the disintegration of the Soviet Soviet Union. China was still, you know, hadn't, you know, come on to the world stage. North Korea was being its petulant teenager, pubescent in geopolitical terms, you know, you know, immature, you know, infantile behavior, but which was an irritation, but not a not an existential issue, you know, and so it was terrorism that became the threat to Americans, particularly when Americas was and still is, you know, a global power with big embassies. We have very active foreign policy and we were very much at risk.

• 49:44Speaker 04

  And so having officers like many of us on this podcast, you know, to be part of that that process was was key and essential for American security and a huge part of American foreign policy and national security policy, as I think you all know.

• 50:01Jack Murphy?

  The the last, what was it like, five years of your military career, you were a liaison with the agency with CTC. Um, you spoke, you spoke a little bit about some of the things that you were involved in, what was that like for you as I guess your career evolved and maybe your thoughts and perceptions evolved about the agency? What what what were some of your big takeaways from those five years?

• 50:24Speaker 04

  Well, the big takeaway from my five years is actually the the magnitude of anti military attitudes in inside CIA. And some of that was because you had, you know, young CIA officers with a modicum of military experience that, you know, was quite unpleasant for them. And so it was an opportunity for them to action that in some degree. Some of that, some of that discriminatory and and and negative attitude was out of ignorance and out of basing on tribal lore and and and mythology that had no basis in fact. Some of that was by, you know, yet, you know, guys that just now they could call generals

• 51:08Speaker 04

  pop, you know, as opposed to general.

• 51:11Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 51:11Speaker 04

  And so I I concealed my my military affiliation in my time in the counterterrorism center, you know, I grew my hair about the same length I have it now.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  And which was quite awkward when I went to retire from the army in 1992, I had to get haircut in order to process out, you know, the bastards made me cut my hair. If you talk to anybody that knew me back then, they'd go, we always thought he was an IT guy, you know, because he had that long hair. And, but I, I found the anti military attitude was, was, was mystifying to me. The longer I stayed there, the more I understood that it wasn't out of evil. It was out of really not understanding what the power majesty that comes from the intersection of the military and CIA, which we learned and we can talk about that, you know, we learned in other battlefields and other places antecedent

• 52:06Speaker 04

  to our Afghan experience. But I had, you know, my first leadership as, as a real CIA officer. Now I had led as a branch chief, I had the rendition branch chief. And then the rendition program was taken to a fine art by generations way beyond me, you know, to, to scale and professionalism far beyond what, what I and my team would have ever envisioned. And it was also a cross discipline team, by the way, and interagency team. So it was kind of unique that we had. And, and nobody, and the nice thing about my job is nobody would say no, you know, because it would go, really? You're not interested in saving American lives? You can say no and say, maybe you don't want that guy to be a spy because

• 52:51Speaker 04

  we can't afford him. But oh, really? You put a price tag on American lives, sir or ma'am? And you immediately got to do a, well, no, no, no. Well, I mean, that's essentially by saying no to my budget request, you know, what, what essentially you're doing. Right. You're putting, so, so, and so I had actually, you know, I'm, I'm being a little facetious, but, but nobody said no, you know, to those of us who are doing God's work in the counterterrorism center. And, but the military attitude is interesting. So I retired in 1992, took an appointment as a, had to go through the whole security process again, matriculated as a full CIA staff officer, got an appointment, and then I ended up advocating for my first official CIA leadership job. And

• 53:37Speaker 04

  I found it interesting. I I interviewed with an SIS three. So he had, he had an opening for a branch chief. And I figured what a great place for me to begin. Because I just was a branch chief of a large branch, quite frankly. Okay, and so I'm having this discussion and he goes. Uh, he goes, you were a military officer when you for the last five years, I understand. I go, yes. He goes, so when you led your branch, you were using military leadership. And I go. No response. And he goes, what I need you to do is use CIA leadership.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  And I go, sir, with all due respect.

• 54:21Speaker 04

  Leadership is leadership. There's different. Aspects of leadership that are environmentally. You know, appropriate. Uh, but fundamentally defining the mission. Identifying the task or accomplished mission, build a team. You know, resource them, help them understand. Opportunities, help them understand what obstacles are, provide feedback. I said, sir, that. That's not. The sole purview of the military or CIA. That's called leadership 101. So we had these. I had a two hour conversation with this guy. And he said he was very gracious and he was very patient and he's very understanding. Of my plotting discussion, academic though it may have been. About the issue of leadership.

• 55:07Speaker 04

  And finally, at the end, he said, he said, hey, look, Doug, I really got to admire you. You gave it your best shot. He said, but you know, and I understand what you said, a lot of it makes sense. He says, but in the end, I need somebody that's led in CIA before. Now, I'm thinking back in my mind. You know, well, if. Leading in CIA for the first time requires you to have led before. Then that wasn't the first time. So how are you going to ever? Lead if you got to have led before you. So I couldn't figure out the logic that he was applying.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:40Speaker 04

  And so I finally, I said, sir, look, you, you, you've been very gracious with your time. I've taken way more time. Than than I than I had asked for. You know, you listened to me, you gave me my opportunity to speak. And I respect your decision and I'll just go away. And he goes, well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. He says, I did learn something. And I said, well, I'm glad. And I started to go and I go, but sir, can I? Can I just make one more point? And he goes, yeah, what's your final point? I goes, there's only one officer in this branch. And I'm, and that's the branch chief. It's a branch of one officer. It'd be me working for me. I said, take the risk.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  And he sits back and he goes.

• 56:28Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, that's a good point.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  So anyway, that, the point in my long story is this is all predicated in this somehow. You know, somehow the perception of what the military was. Right. And it, and as you all know. Uh, if there is. A critical, not just. N- necessary, but essential. Strategic partner for CIA among the many strategic partnerships, certainly within the IC. But outside the IC. It's certainly CIA regardless, doesn't have to be S S E, S A D in my day. You know, paramilitary.

• 57:06Speaker 04

  The strategic partnership is with the special operations community of the United States military. And if America has a machine. That is paramount and preeminent. In the world of clandestine operations. It's because of the intimacy between those two communities. Right. Extraordinary, extraordinary. Uh, we could not have done what we did without our special operations partners. Whether they were whites off, blacks off. Uh, and I'm convinced that our soft partners, if they were on, on this. I mean, don't get me wrong, CIA is an acquired taste. I get it. I get it. We're an acquired taste. We're kind of like caviar. Very expensive. And we're not very flavorful, but you know, we are nutritious.

• 57:50Speaker 04

  But the fact of the matter is that the partnership between our two communities was, was what has brought us success. In the counterterrorism domain, yes, it's from the skills and the talent, the experience and the application, the leveraging of that and the dedication and commitment of the women and men who have given up years of their lives to become experts on terrorism and how to defeat it, how to mitigate it. Yes, I get that in both communities. But the reality is that's that intersection, that power that is more powerful than the arithmetic sum of our two halves. And, you know, it is, I can say now, and I know you'd agree, and

• 58:30Speaker 04

  all of our colleagues who on this podcast who have had similar experiences would agree. You know, the collaboration and the cooperation between the two communities was not only mission success, but it was also life-saving at the same time. And I can say that today, but back in the early days, it was really hard.

• 58:55Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 58:56Speaker 04

  It was really hard. And it wasn't all anti-CIA attitude out of the special operations community, who in and of itself has a reason to be prideful and self-sufficient, you know, and highly skilled and highly committed and courageous, very capable. But, you know, we learned an awful lot of lessons, and some of them hard-won by blood and sand, by learning how to work together. But, you know, we began with baby steps, and those baby steps eventually got us to be, you know, 100-meter sprinters, we're all glass drinkers.

• 59:29Jack Murphy?

  That relationship is now formalized under, it's a defense-sensitive support system, right? Isn't that the bureaucratic mechanism that allows the two organizations to support one another?

• 59:41Speaker 04

  Essentially, for our audience, it allows, it's a highly classified process to essentially share. Capability, you know, to, to, it's a very, it's bureaucratic, but it's very crisp. And it really allows essentially, you know, special operations community to go to special operations Amazon and order up some CIA stuff and allows us to go to CIA Amazon and order up some soft stuff, you know, when we need it and, and blending of authorities and blending of funding and yeah, consistent with American law and statute.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll give a, a very public example for the audience out there. The, the bin Laden raid is alleged to be, uh, or not alleged. I think Obama said so in his memoir. That was a CIA operation executed by JSOC.

• 1:00:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. And we actually did something similar to that when I was the chief of station in Iraq. It certainly wasn't of the import by any means, but we did test this process where under my authority, we did something in a sovereign nation, non, a non-allied sovereign nation, uh, that that sovereign nation was unwilling to do at our request. So under our authority, you know, we positioned our special operations colleagues to go do something. Uh, and so, you know, learning how to work together in that very unique way.

• 1:01:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:01:07Speaker 04

  Through the defense sensitive support system is, uh, was, you know, again, this was all pioneering, right?

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:15Speaker 04

  We were all, we were all pioneers. You know, there's no, there was no book, you know, you go to chapter nine, how to work with JSOC. There, there was no such a thing.

• 1:01:23Speaker 03

  When?

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  Uh, and so go ahead.

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  No, I'm sorry, but you know, you, could you talk about this with like the CT, like CTC, sort of this sniff test that went on between the CIA and the military, you know, initially because there was distrust on both sides. Was it similar? I mean, did you have that same experience with the FBI, with the rendition program when you needed their, like, did, did they look at you like, you guys are all assassins and you're looking at them like you all have sticks up to your asses?

• 1:01:52Speaker 04

  Now, it's a good question, you know, were there similar challenges with other strategic partners in the early days? And quite frankly, my, my experience was no with, with the FBI because the lanes and road were quite clear. We were the find, we were the find and fix guys and the FBI were the finish guys. Uh, yeah, we were part of the finishing process because we had presence overseas, we could deploy overseas, we had, we had, we had, uh, we had, uh, point A to point B capabilities that the FBI didn't possess. This was before there were legal, legal attaches in every embassy in the world. And so the FBI was pioneering and having extraterritorial squads in, in the FBI and, and getting involved in,

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  in mitigating the criminal and terrorist threat before it got to, to inside the United States was pioneering for the FBI. I didn't find as much, uh, much, uh, attitudinal collision between, uh, counterterrorism center. Others may have a different view. So I was, my, my was in the rendition business. It, we, the agents we worked with, uh, were, were just extraordinary.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  So your marriage then was not one of political necessity to bring two kingdoms together?

• 1:03:05Speaker 04

  We, we, we both realized that, uh, you know, that they can't do what needs to be done by themselves. And we certainly realized that, you know, we can't acquire evidence, acquire, you know, transport fugitives back to federal custody and mount a prosecution. That's, nobody wants CIA to do law enforcement.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:32Speaker 04

  Constitution doesn't like that.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:35Speaker 04

  You know, so stick to your lanes. We were able to do that. The friction comes in generally when, when you have overlapping capabilities and overlapping authorities. And then you get into the, you know, I won't do it on the podcast, but I could show you the title 50, title 10 scars I have in the, in the, in the head when the MLE, you know, the military is on element wars, uh, in the early years. Um, and, uh,

• 1:04:03Speaker 04

  But it's really where you had, you were operating separately, but you had overlapping authorities and sometimes you had undisclosed overlapping presence

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:04:18Speaker 04

  in each other's, I use the term battle space because I think it's probably best descriptive. And, and then we learned that actually that's a prescription for disaster.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:04:31Speaker 04

  And so over time, we learned through exchange of hostages. And through just brute force, uh, training and educating and beating the drum.

• 1:04:45Speaker 04

  That, uh, you know, the military, you know, and I, and I said all the time, I said, we need to identify opportunities to help our soft brothers, you know, succeed. And I like to think that they're doing the same thing. When we observe behaviors that are not consistent with CIA normative behaviors, I urged all my officers, take a deep breath,

• 1:05:10Speaker 04

  impute evil, because what they're doing may be very consistent with their mission, their organization and their own culture and authorities. And so doing a little investigative work before you enter into judgment mode is the most helpful thing. And I told my officers every day, talk to any of the officers served with me in Iraq. I said, it's been a good day. When you can say that you helped another officer, CIA or not, succeed. That by definition is a good day, you know? And so we learned an awful lot. And I think the, uh,

• 1:05:48Speaker 04

  probably the classroom where we learned that was in the Bosnian Theater of Operations. And that's if, I don't know whether you might be interested in. Yeah.

• 1:05:56Jack Murphy?

  Was your, uh, those early assignments before you got into the Balkans? I mean, you were branch chief of one, I think you said. And, and what, what were some of those early jobs before you got sent to the Balkans?

• 1:06:07Speaker 04

  Uh, I was a branch chief multiple times. I was what was called a group chief, which was, you know, one up. Think of a branch chief as being an infantry squad. Think of a, a group chief as kind of being a little more than a platoon leader because you had more than just, you know, 20 people. But, uh, I was also, uh,

• 1:06:28Speaker 04

  You know, I was base chief a couple of times. Throughout the entirety of this process, I was a station chief four times. And I might say as an aside for your audience, you gentlemen know this, many, many in the audience do, but some might not. You know, a typical CIA station is quite small and modest and deep. And we have a broad range of obligations and requirements. And a lot of us are very sensitive and we can't talk about it here. But, but, you know, for the most part, they're, they're right, quite modest. I mean, these are not like Treadstone class CIA presence, if I could use a Jason Bourne analogy. You know, Treadstone was evil, we're not evil.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  But the, the fact of the matter is, to your question, you know, I had really escalatory and graduate, graduating, you know, leadership experiences, both at Starfleet Command, you know, and in the field, which helped prepare me to be, you know, my first chief of station job, which was in the Balkans. I was another chief of station in, in the Balkans as well. And I supported a number of programs in the Balkans. I was a base chief in the Balkans, you know. And, and that experience, you know, was where, quite frankly, you know, as, as all the people in the audience know, you know, America invested heavily in, in, in creating order out of chaos.

• 1:07:52Speaker 04

  You know, you had the Dayton Accords, which I think a lot of us who experienced and who benefited from that, you know, it's a great way to end a war and end genocide, but it's a real crappy way to, to birth a country, you know, and try to imbue it with Jeffersonian pluralistic democratic tendencies, you know, with all the trauma that comes from genocide, you know. And so America's investment, which was quite controversial at the time, and I wasn't a policymaker, so I'm not, I'm not facile in the intimate policy history and all the bloodletting that probably. Came from making this decision to deploy US military forces. Nobody wanted to put US soldiers in harm's way. Nobody did.

• 1:08:35Speaker 04

  Nobody wanted to put US forces into a situation eerily similar to Vietnam. What was the US interest in Vietnam? There was no domino theory at play here in, in the Balkans. So, you know, rationalizers didn't even have that. There was no Gulf of Tonkin analogy, you know, in, in, even though that was fake. If you read the Pentagon Papers, uh, you know, the, none of that exists. This was an unforced initiative by the United States government on both the military side and on the non-military side, particularly in diplomatic and CIA. This was unforced. We weren't required. And by doing what we did, it did incur risk. We had no risk.

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  And by putting Americans into that environment, you automatically, whether they're a 10th Special Forces group colleagues, whether they're for, you know, Dave Grange's divisions colleagues, whether they're in multinational forces, cause we're part of S4 and UN4, I4 and then S4, I was there for all of that. And, uh, this was America at its finest. This was a story that should make America's proud. It's gonna get lost in the very necessary chaos and discussion on, on Ukraine. But this was America at its finest. We didn't have to do this. No Americans were harmed by this genocide. Weren't even injured.

• 1:10:02Speaker 04

  No Americans, the big debate, no American equities. And the reason why we made this investment is because of what makes America great. American core values. That's why we were there. We were the power projection of American core values into an environment that was absent of anything similar to American core values. You were having women and children that had just been slaughtered, hundreds of thousands of Bosniaks slaughtered on the battlefields and in the towns and the villages. And when you go and part of your job is to find mass graves, which wasn't hard, cause

• 1:10:45Speaker 04

  you could see body parts sticking up out of the ground. That was the easiest part of what we were there to do. And CIA's presence was traditional CIA presence to be able to provide actionable intelligence to a wide variety of customers and to be able to inform the policymakers. Because again, America was pioneering its way through this very ambiguous, ill-defined environment, highly politically charged, you know, post-genocide, trauma and anger and need for revenge. And Americans were there to kind of be the cadmium rod in this geopolitical

• 1:11:26Speaker 04

  reactor. And America did amazing work. They did American work. Just extraordinary. And I'm exempting myself from that. But in that battle space with CIA were our special operations colleagues.

• 1:11:43Jack Murphy?

  I'll point out, we've had a bunch of them on the show. George Hand was one of the recy guys with Delta over there. Ron Mohler was there with the agency. H K Roy, pen name. I don't know if you knew him or not, but I think he opened the first CIA station in Sarajevo. He was obviously there, investigated Sabranitza for the agency. They sent him over there. Geez, who else have we talked to that was in the Balkans? I mean, quite a few people on the show in the past.

• 1:12:12Speaker 04

  Well, I worked very intimately with a young army captain named Scotty Miller.

• 1:12:18Jack Murphy?

  Scott.

• 1:12:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, who some on the podcast may know.

• 1:12:25Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Speaker 04

  You know, the future, you know, future Delta commander, future JSL commander, future ISAF commander, you know, just a legendary, iconic American in his own right. But he was just a young captain, you know, sitting up there in a special mission unit in Derslo. And so that was our, we learned very quickly that their culture and their ethos, you know, both with tense special forces as well as special mission unit, their ethos mirrored our own. And as your guests that have preceded me have told you, you know, we learned a lot. We learned, we learned how to respect each other's capabilities. We learned how to, without judgment, to understand.

• 1:13:09Speaker 04

  Shortcomings, incapabilities, understand strengths. We understood how to how to respect each other, how to not be caught up in mythology and misperception. We were we were sharing the mission. We were sharing the risk such as it was. And our success was very dependent upon mutually supporting each other. And and it was a way for us to really.

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• 1:15:30Speaker 04

  They understand. You know, how, you know, for us to learn the hard, difficult to learn lessons on how to cooperate, collaborate, how to share, and how to disagree in a respectful way that doesn't affect each other's mission or the relationship, you know. We learned that as young. I wasn't chronologically young because, you know, I had a job before CIA that wasn't working for Dad. And so I was chronologically older. And so, but all of us, I was experientially young, you know, just fifteen. And which was young, you know, in CIA speak.

• 1:16:15Speaker 04

  And so, you know, the opportunity to undertake this exciting mission, to represent the ideal of America to an environment that is absent of any concept of American idealism. And to be able to save lives, to be able to bring order out of chaos, to help United States foreign policy to bring genocide to an end and to do something about that genocide. And in many cases, to bring the perpetrators and the perpetrators of that genocide to justice. The American presence in the Balkans was all of that, was all of that.

• 1:16:57Speaker 04

  And all of us that were part of there, Ron Mueller and the other gang, we're all proud to be part of that because it's one of the reasons why we signed up for this. Me, granted, as a draftee to the agency, but I could have left. I could have retired and not signed on to the agency.

• 1:17:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:17:14Speaker 04

  But the opportunity to spend decades with extraordinary people doing extraordinary things in extraordinary places is not an opportunity you want to ever turn down. And so I was smart enough at the time to be able to say, no, you know what, I'm not interested in making money. My time, when I took an appointment with CIA, I forfeited my military retirement. It wasn't put in escrow and they pay me when I leave federal service. There was dual compensation offset statute, which lasted for eight years of my CIA CIA service. And I forfeited my military retirement.

• 1:17:52Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:17:53Speaker 04

  In exchange for, yeah, it was all, all civil service pay. They eventually, what are, what are they called? Not revoked legislation, that they, they, whatever they do to laws.

• 1:18:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, repeal, that's repeal. Uh, they repealed that because they realized they were, you know, they were, you know, essentially disincentivizing some incredibly talented, you know, military officers from joining CIA.

• 1:18:15Speaker 03

  It's almost, it's almost punitive in a way to say you can't, you don't get your military retirement because now you're, because now you're doing this.

• 1:18:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. But the bottom line of my, my long oration and my, my boviation, and I apologize to you gentlemen and to all the participants of the podcast. But, uh, you can tell I'm kind of passionate about what we did there. And, uh, we couldn't have done it alone. This was a whole of government. Uh, and it's spectacular accomplishment by the United States of America at a very difficult time. You know, political, political turmoil in America, coming out of the Vietnam experience. You know, it was the first time that the modern army, you know, the reformed army, you know, CIA came through its own reformation. The church and pipe committee hearings, all in the crown jewels and all of that. You can go back and study that.

• 1:19:06Speaker 04

  We were a totally different agency than we were back then. The United States Army Special Forces to come from my day, you know, whereas an alternate specialty. And you're a shitty SF officer and a shitty traditional officer at the same time. Worse yet, you could, you're a shitty aviator and you're a shitty tanker. You know, you weren't good at both. That was great. You always tapped a guy on the helmet and said, how long have you been flying? Well, I just came out of a tank armor company command. You're going, oh, wow. How about having that warrant officer take the controls?

• 1:19:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:19:37Speaker 04

  You know, is that, is that kind of thing? And so this was a professional army. This was a professionalized intelligence community that had learned a lot of lessons, had a lot to learn. And out of that came a lot of incredible connective tissue.

• 1:19:53Speaker 04

  That ultimately that we all who went to Afghanistan, you know, benefited from and saved lives and accomplished our missions.

• 1:20:01Speaker 03

  Douglas, that's really, that's really interesting because I feel like that's a story that doesn't really get told. First off, Bosnia is kind of, Bosnia is kind of a forgotten endeavor, you know, across, I mean, I was, I was in the military when Bosnia was going on, but, but to me, it was just something that a few people.

• 1:20:20Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it wasn't huge.

• 1:20:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, a few people went to, you know, it was this random thing. But I think that, at least for me, a lot of times, the perception is nine eleven, Afghanistan, Iraq, like nine was, was that, was that formative moment for, you know, special operations and

• 1:20:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:20:40Speaker 03

  the CIA. But, but you're saying that it goes, it goes back to actually Bosnia where those, where those roots are first, are first laid, you know, and, and it grew from there.

• 1:20:53Speaker 04

  You bet. And I believe that neither CIA nor our special forces, both white and black, special operators, both white, white and black, would have been able to be as, as, as responsive and as, and as flexible and as, and us included, if we hadn't had that experience in, in the Balkans. Yep, there's still a lot of lessons to be learned. Yeah, there are some latency, you know, and that's very understandable.

• 1:21:27Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:21:27Speaker 04

  But we shortened the timeline from orders to, to, to action.

• 1:21:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:21:32Speaker 04

  By what we, what we all experienced out of, out of the Bosnian theater.

• 1:21:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's fascinating. And, you know, like, we appreciate you sort of pointing that out because again, that is, like Bosnia doesn't get much attention.

• 1:21:46Jack Murphy?

  They were pioneering the man hunting that came to dominate what we were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• 1:21:52Speaker 03

  Right, which really is the fine, fix, finish cycle.

• 1:21:55Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. And we, and we didn't do, we didn't call it that.

• 1:22:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:22:00Speaker 04

  Didn't have Stan, Stan the Crystal creating the, you know, the, that definition of F3A, right?

• 1:22:06Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 1:22:06Speaker 04

  But, but we were functionally developing that kind of.

• 1:22:11Speaker 04

  Process, I guess, you know, in addition to national intelligence collection and provision to policymakers and ambassadors, because there's a lot of political interest in making this work.

• 1:22:22Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:24Speaker 04

  You know, I'm under no illusion, the impact of the United States from nine eleven dwarfed, you know, you know, what we did in Bosnia. And so I'm not offended at all that it has kind of fallen beneath American consciousness. But for those of us that have experienced that, I think anybody on this podcast and anybody who anybody talks to and carries some of my remarks will find a deep resonance between what we all experienced. I'm exempting the conventional unit because we didn't have a lot to do with, you know, the big armored divisions and mechanized divisions that rotated out in and out of Bosnia. But I'm talking about, you know, our special forces, special mission unit, you know, we

• 1:23:06Speaker 04

  learned a lot and we became fast friends, tight colleagues through that experience. And it's it's saved us a lot of time and a lot of lives on a future battlefield that we could not possibly imagine.

• 1:23:18Jack Murphy?

  What was the next assignment then after your Balkan years, Doug?

• 1:23:22Speaker 04

  Let's see, in Sarajevo, my third time in Sarajevo, I was promoted to the senior intelligence service unexpectedly, given the fact that, you know, most of my background was, you know, I didn't go to George Washington University, mom and dad didn't work for CIA. You know, I didn't speak five languages. I didn't, I hadn't, you know, spent an extraordinary amount of time overseas outside the military context. And so I considered, and it's very true, and I know it sounds very begging for compliments, but I considered myself part of the blue collar of the director of operations.

• 1:24:03Speaker 04

  I didn't come with the with that kind of Washington education and development kind of kind of background. And so I figured I was I was the military equivalent of, you know, in the Navy, you'd say a Mustang, right? Right. And I was the I was the CIA equivalent of kind of the, you know, the E six who went to OCS. Right. Became a commissioned officer, you know. But having said that, you know, the unexpected, totally unexpected. I think a lot of a lot of women and men who get promoted to the senior service are grateful, but they're they're they don't expect it. But I think they probably

• 1:24:44Speaker 04

  know whether they're made of the right stuff. And so the promotion isn't a surprise. And they get enough feedback on what they have to do to improve, to make themselves more competitive. And they get a lot of interaction by their senior mentors and chain of command. And, you know, I guess I got some of that. I don't remember, but I didn't take any offense if I didn't, because I didn't think I was worthy of it, quite frankly, you know. And I appealed to my boss. I appealed passionately to my boss. Please don't bring me back at the end of my command tour from to Starfleet Command. You know, I don't have my lightsaber

• 1:25:25Speaker 04

  is just not going to work back there. My Jedi night, you know, fire passion, it will go disappear. Look, send me to any crappy place you want where you need a good, solid field leader. I'll go lead myself again, as I did my first leader. I made every argument I possibly could. And it seemed to fall on deaf ears. And the next thing I know is I get a call from a guy you may may know, Jose Rodriguez, who was the DDO at the time, who said, I got some good news and I got some bad news. The good news is, we've selected

• 1:26:04Speaker 04

  you for promotion to the senior intelligence service. The bad news is, you're in a GS-15 position. You're coming back to Starfleet Command. And I and he said, so you're coming back to the Counterterrorism Center. And I was the deputy for the Director of Ops for CTC. And I did that, you know, when I came back. That was my first SIS job.

• 1:26:29Speaker 04

  And I had a couple, I had a couple of assignments. I think I was in, you know, what's now known as the Center for Cyber Intelligence. I think I dabbled in that a bit. Somebody said, well, you got a, you got a graduate degree in, in, in an arcane science. You're perfect for this. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, maybe. I don't remember any of that. I can't even read my dissertation. Uh, and understand what I wrote. And, uh, so I did that for a little bit and, uh, I had another assignment in there. Memory escapes me. Um, I, I don't know. It was a highly classified project that I worked. Um, which was known to very, very few. And, uh, it was quite an exciting thing.

• 1:27:14Speaker 04

  The cool thing is, is you can apply the cult of secrecy. And you can emanate that. You can exude the cult of secrecy and that makes you very special. The bad news is you can't cooperate, collaborate with anybody because you can't tell anybody what you're doing.

• 1:27:28Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:27:28Speaker 04

  So you gotta do all the work yourself. And that sucks. I'm just telling you. So, so team building. How you get a team of one? You know, okay, this is great. This is great. But, uh, if I, if memory serves me correctly, um, I went from there, uh, back to Iraq. We didn't talk about my formative Iraq experience, two thousand and three and four.

• 1:27:50Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, before we jump to Iraq, I want to ask you, uh, because you told me after nine eleven, like two days later, you were, you were gone. You were like out.

• 1:27:57Speaker 04

  I was gone.

• 1:27:58Jack Murphy?

  You tell, tell us what happened on nine eleven for you?

• 1:28:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And, and, and so on nine eleven, you know, I kinda, I, I've, I've kinda skipped over some history here. And, and I, I attribute that to my age. Uh, you know, I'm seventy two years old, so I'm becoming a little mentally infirm here. I don't impute that to all seventy two year olds, but to me. Um, so I was in Bosnia as part of, as I said, you know, as I gave you more than you ever wanted to hear about America's presence in Bosnia. So nine eleven, we're sitting there and the first aircraft did it at the tower. And we all rushed in to, to scramble to watch TV. And I remember to myself, it was, it was just shocking. And I remember the way I rationalized and dealt with that sickening feeling in my stomach.

• 1:28:45Speaker 04

  Was I said, oh, this is a navigation error. This is some pilot, you know, pilot had a heart attack, you know, never occurred to me, even though I had done tech counterterrorism for like 10 years, you know, the fact of the matter, I was just sitting there, you know, mystified, shocked, mystified, sickened by that. And it wasn't, but you know, after, you know, America's policymakers really digested what had happened, you know, from the attacks on, on nine 11, the two aircraft, flight 93 and the attacker on the Pentagon. And ironically, one of the officers of my cross-agency, large

• 1:29:25Speaker 04

  cross-agency team that I had in the field, from D O B, from, from uniformed military, multiple civilian agencies, and yet, and some of our special forces colleagues. So we had a pretty powerful team. One of my team members, rapidly named Mike Stan, who met, who left immediately because S A D called him back immediately, or S A D officer. And Mike, of course, is all over the snow, was the first American to die in the line of duty, you know, and the expulsion of Al Qaeda and Taliban from Afghanistan. Mike was really just a spectacular guy. He was, he was everything you'd ever want in, in any kind of officer. A gentleman warrior, you know, just extraordinary. Gracious, courteous,

• 1:30:10Speaker 04

  and yet steel heart, you know, of course, he was a former Marine, right? And so I lost him immediately. There were just like hours, if I recall correctly, boom, he was summoned back, we sent him back. Couple of days later, after they made a decision to mount the U S response, of course, you had Jawbreaker, which, you know, you've covered extensively. And my job, I was immediately summoned up to U S U Com to work with then, to me, a very unknown SEAL one star, who some of you may have heard, named Bill McRaven, who was the commander of Saqir. And we were trying to figure out what it was that the U S European

• 1:30:51Speaker 04

  Command and Saqir needed to do in response, you know, because the attack on the homeland was not going to be the only attack. And it certainly hadn't, because there have been three embassies hammered hard, the U S S Cole, Cobar Towers, we had all kinds of explosive history in the business of terrorism up to this point. And the other thing that my job was to be able to work with SOC Ure to prepare the support, the special operations support requirements because of the emerging soft contribution to America's response. Then I went back to, uh, uh, back to Washington DC to, to, you know, to, to equip myself to gun up and get ready to go to Afghanistan

• 1:31:36Speaker 04

  myself. And I, and I, and I remember one of your guests, I can't, I can't remember who, uh, Mick maybe, um, who, who said, who talked a little bit about it. I think you asked him the question, or tell us about the time that you were preparing to go to Afghanistan. Mine was spending hours in REI. I remember going in there and the place was stripped.

• 1:31:58Speaker 03

  I think Justin Sap was talking about that.

• 1:32:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I remember going in there and, and, you know, one of the REI sales, sales ladies comes up to me and says, sir, can I help you? And I go, yeah, I got this list. I need to get all this stuff. I'll pay cash. I need all this look, all this stuff and I need it right now. And she goes, you're like, you're like the 50th guy that's been here. I, I think, I think a lot of stuff, I think they bought all that stuff. So, you know, I had to run around, you know, and others like me that were in the, in the, in the latency part of the response, you know, the month after sort of thing. And so, you know, you're buying sleeping bags and, and all kinds of stuff. Because again, you know, as I, as I think a number of your guests have, you know, CIA was not, you know, paramilitary

• 1:32:45Speaker 04

  things was not de rigueur for CIA. Right? It is today. But back then it was, it was an aberration. It was an afterthought. Those were the officers that would get you in trouble. Cause those retired special forces E eights that were now GS 12s and 13s. There's no good that's gonna come from having a ground branch, a ground branch team. I've been a COS a couple of times for ground branch guys. I know the mythology. Having come from a community, I wasn't as fearful, but no good could come from having a ground, ground branch guys in your country. You know, you know, your, your, your family aren't safe, the animals aren't safe, food's not safe, there's gonna be no alcohol, you know, all of that

• 1:33:26Speaker 04

  kind of bizarre thing, you know? So there was, CIA was not prepared to, to go.

• 1:33:36Speaker 04

  I, when I, when I had my team in Afghanistan, we had a Sony Vio laptop through an encryptor to an Inmarsat.

• 1:33:48Speaker 04

  We were creating cable traffic in Microsoft Word. You know, yeah, we had Satcom and that was just to tell the gang back at Starfleet that we had a couple of files for them. And then perhaps maybe in another episode sometime, you know, if you ever want me back, I can tell you a little more about, you know, that kind of pioneering that was done by many who did way more than I did in way more dangerous places. You know, my, my gang was in Assadabad, you know, way up in the southern end of the Konar Valley, north of Jalalabad. But, uh, you know, we were learning how to, how to do this. We were, you know, creating capability on the fly.

• 1:34:30Speaker 04

  You know, and I was just a cog in that machine. I wasn't a driver. I wasn't, you know, a pioneer leader. I wasn't taking the decisional risks, you know, I was just excited and happy, you know, coming out of that Bosnian experience flush with pride, you know, wanting to, you know, be part of, of America's response, you know, bring justice and righteous revenge to those that had, you know, killed our citizens and those of other nations who had despoiled our country, you know, forever. And so, you know, I, like all of us, you know, who served there, proud to be part of that, whether in the early days or in even more dangerous, quite frankly, you know, days that most of you served in, in Afghanistan.

• 1:35:14Speaker 04

  We're, we could even go downtown and have dinner in an Afghan restaurant, you know, without getting blown up and shot and stabbed. You know, where many of you weren't able to do that. But, uh,

• 1:35:28Speaker 04

  You know, it was, and we immediately began to apply the experiences that I just discussed at length, you know, and the lessons that we learned, you know, in that, you know, what turned out to be a much more Pacific battle space known as the Balkans. But, you know, who do you find in places like Afghanistan, you know, no longer Captain Scotty Miller, I think he was Major Scotty Miller, maybe Lieutenant Colonel. So you found, it was, you know, as I think we all use the expression, same dudes, different places. Right, right. You know, and, and now I obviously don't, don't mean by using the term dude that it's just all men because a number of courageous female officers and operators have served

• 1:36:11Speaker 04

  as well and were part of our growth. But, you know, we benefited from, I think, what we learned. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:21Jack Murphy?

  Now, what was the trajectory like for you when you got into theater? And you make it sound like were you in the background kind of running logistics for these guys? Or what, what was your role?

• 1:36:30Speaker 04

  No, no, I was, I was, I was part of the operational presence there. So my, my engaging with SOC, you're on, on the support side, that ended when I left and I went back and I became part of the operational CIA operational package. I want to say initially we had, you know, probably the sum total, I think, the guy you should have on here was Hank, Hank Rupton's deputy, a guy named John Massey, an amazing American in his own right. He has a little blemish because he's a Naval Academy graduate and he's a nuclear guy too, you know. He's a new, oh, you can overlook things like that. Who's that guy, Rick Over, or is that, was that a German pilot in World War I?

• 1:37:14Speaker 04

  I don't remember. Who was the guy that started nuclear navy? I don't know. The Navy is irrelevant to me. But the, but, you know, the total numbers, but I think we only had like, I think it was like 28, you know, in the initial, initial presence there. So, but we had a huge force multiplier in, in, in.

• 1:37:34Speaker 04

  You know, the, the, the G's in Swick speak, um, the G's from the Northern Alliance. And so the picture that you so kindly put on the advertisement for this was my leadership team with my team, it was myself, a ground branch guy, and we had a hundred Northern Alliance, you know, colleagues who were there to take the fight to the enemy. And that was not unique at all. And so there were very few in the beginning. So I was in Afghanistan as an operator.

• 1:38:04Jack Murphy?

  Which, which team were you guys on?

• 1:38:06Speaker 04

  It was called Team Mike and it was on in, like I said, it was in Assadabad, the southern end of the Konar Valley. What was interesting is we occupied a totally shredded Soviet military, Russian military installation, I think it motorized artillery. It was an Mujahideen had like literally just eradicated it off the face of the earth. But I plowed through a bunch of rubble and I found, because thank you for the climate there, which is absent of rain, I found a real Russian military map with hand drawn military symbols.

• 1:38:46Jack Murphy?

  Wow.

• 1:38:47Speaker 04

  Uh, to show where they positioned, you know, rifle companies and infantry platoons in the mountains around, around Assadabad. Uh, and so I have that framed, you know, on the wall of my I love me and I love you wall, uh, here in, in, in New Mex- in our New Mexico home. But I was an operator to, to your question. And I, I came back and I was the acting, because we didn't have a permanent station, I was the acting deputy chief of station, uh, my second go around. And so that took me through the end of 2002. I became a chief of station, uh, after that for a year and then Iraq happened. And then I got a call from the deputy director

• 1:39:30Speaker 04

  of operations who said, have your wife pack you out. I want you, I want you in Kuwait in 24 hours.

• 1:39:40Speaker 04

  So that's how things are done.

• 1:39:43Speaker 03

  That isn't crazy. What?

• 1:39:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:47Speaker 03

  You know, I know that like, like bases like Assadabad and then going into Iraq when it first started, like those were very unique circumstances. But you talk about going back to Starfleet Command. Um, with your lightsaber and I, I love the, I love the collision of the two worlds. But, but you know, when you talk about Starfleet Command, obviously you're talking about Langley. What was it like being at Langley that was different than being at a base or a station somewhere else in the world?

• 1:40:18Speaker 04

  Well, I, I suppose it's kind of you all are military veterans. So you'll understand and as well, the vast majority of your audience. It's the same thing when they go, okay, you're going to the Pentagon. What? You know, your first reaction is, is you want to go vomit. You want to go, you just want to go puke in the street. You know, what did I do wrong? You know? And then what happens is you end up serving and I, and I jokingly am very critical, as are many officers, you know, who are operators. You know, there's life forms in CIA that love Starfleet Command.

• 1:40:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:40:51Speaker 04

  You know, they, they like to commute and they like to live and they don't want to be overseas. Vast majority of them are, are, you know, hunger for the core business of what CIA does. Whether you're an operator, an analyst, support officer, a tech ops officer, or something in between. But there are many officers who, who don't need to go overseas and make a seminal and existential contribution to what we're trying to do overseas. And they're very necessary. And just like service in the Pentagon. And granted, you know, I was in the Pentagon as an O5. And for those of you that have never served in the Pentagon as an O5, there is no lower life form in the Pentagon than an, than an army lieutenant colonel.

• 1:41:32Speaker 03

  A colonel. It's like being in private, right? It's like being in private.

• 1:41:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. You don't even, you don't even get donuts for generals. You get donuts for, for O6s.

• 1:41:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:41:41Speaker 04

  You know, hey, you go over there and attract the insects away from those of us who are making, you know, doing some real work. You go over there, Colonel, you go sit there in a corner. Go get me a donut. Yeah, sprinkly. I like to want sprinkles on my donut and a cream in the coffee. And let me know when it comes back because I don't want to cold. And so there's no lower. You know, you know, in, you know, just insignificant life form in it. A Lieutenant Colonel of Pentagon, but what you do see is the same thing that I found out in my service and I began life at Starfleet Command. So I understood and it made me a better field leader. I understood the culture of headquarters. I understood the challenges that they were facing.

• 1:42:24Speaker 04

  I understood the sludge in the machine and why the sludge is not capricious sludge. It is inexorable, just necessary slowness of glacial times. It's just part of large bureaucracies, even crisp bureaucracies like CIA, which is probably the crispest of them all, without question. You know, you have 16 days after nine 11, you have Gary Shron and Jawbreaker on the ground, right? No other institution.

• 1:42:52Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, the, the agency has, I correct me if I'm wrong, Doug, but I mean, the only political appointees you guys really deal with is like the director and maybe a chief of staff and.

• 1:43:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, director and the deputy director are political appointees.

• 1:43:06Jack Murphy?

  And then it, it, when I, I had someone tell me once about when, when you guys deployed for that first Afghanistan trip, like the, the very like short fuse of the chain of command, like from the president to the director to maybe like the head of SAD or something like that. I mean, you tell me, Doug, but I mean, it, it was a very short fuse going from point A to point B.

• 1:43:26Speaker 04

  You, you had it, you hit it right on the head and, and that, that, that short interval between the most senior decision makers in our government and the plebeian operator base chief like me on the ground. That was built and with great risk because all of a sudden you add a guy like me talking to a guy like George Tenet. And you could only imagine that George taking advice from a GS15 versus taking advice from SIS 4, 5, and 6, advice that is well-formed, well-studied, well-run out, well-read team,

• 1:44:09Speaker 04

  and all you got is, you know, opinions from a well-spring of opinion GS15, you know, who thinks that he knows everything or is to know that's useful for the director, you know, kind of thing. And the same thing happened when I was chief of station in Iraq, conversations with Leon Panetta, for example, when he was the director, and Leon's deputy, you know. And so that shortening of the chain of information and the chain, I guess, what was it, you know, that Air Force Colonel created that Oodaloo thing, right?

• 1:44:50Jack Murphy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:51Speaker 04

  I don't even know what those stand for, but, you know, at least one of those O's is like

• 1:44:55Jack Murphy?

  Operate, Or, Yet, Decide, and Act.

• 1:44:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. For us, it was act and then engage sometimes. And other times, it was where, you know, the director understood the competence and he had trust and confidence at all levels of his chain of command. And so, you know, being able to take a phone call from the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose par-rater is the President of the United States, the pre-DNI, you know, that shows that the agency has a trust and confidence, because if they didn't have that, they wouldn't have been able to shorten that decision-making timeline, right? You know, because nobody would have allowed a guy like

• 1:45:42Speaker 04

  me to talk and provide advice and recommendations to senior, to officers on the seventh floor of CIA, or directly to the DDO, or to the director of the counterterrorism.

• 1:45:53Jack Murphy?

  Doug, I'm gonna ask you about Iraq in one second. I just want to pay a bills here real quick and tell our viewers about SAPGEAR. They're a veteran owned company. They're a safety asset protection retail store that specializes in handmade and unique survivability products. Each innovative product is designed to be discreet while focusing on functionality. One of the company's product highlights is the GTFO wrist strap that's made out of tungsten, it has a tungsten carbide bead on it with an elastic shock band. And what you can do is snap this thing like a little slingshot and it'll break out the car window.

• 1:46:33Speaker 03

  Where is that?

• 1:46:33Jack Murphy?

  Or tempered glass.

• 1:46:34Speaker 03

  Like, oh, is it? Oh, I mean, we have the wristband. I mean, they have some nice gloves, the little operator gloves that are way better than the Nomex stuff we used to wear. They've got this badass little information blocker when you're charging, like if you have to charge your cell phone when you're in Uber or someplace or public place, you know, people can steal your information when you plug that data cable, data slash power cable into your phone. So you can get this great little blocker from them. Like, check out SAPGEAR. They have some amazing stuff on there. All kinds of like counterintelligence, you know, a lot of great gear.

• 1:47:12Speaker 04

  And they have like, do they have a Jedi Night Lights, lightsabers? Can I get a new lightsaber?

• 1:47:16Speaker 03

  They, they, uh, they might because they have some amazing stuff there. Um, yeah.

• 1:47:22Jack Murphy?

  So sap, sapgear.com. It's sapgear.com and you use the promo code TEAM to get 15% off. So sapgear.com and the promo code TEAM to get 15%.

• 1:47:32Speaker 03

  Check out their stuff. I guarantee you, you, it's like, it's like the fun.

• 1:47:38Jack Murphy?

  James Bond stuff.

• 1:47:39Speaker 03

  It's the fun James Bond stuff. What are those, not sharper, not, what are those stores that I'm thinking of that like the sharper image or Brooks and whatever? These are like, these are like the cool guy stuff where, you know, is a lot of fun stuff, a lot of very practical and useful stuff.

• 1:47:54Jack Murphy?

  And, and then the other thing I want to tell you guys about real quick before we get back to Doug is our Patreon page. If you guys are interested in supporting the show, if you want to get access to bonus episodes and segments and get access to all of our episodes ad free, there's a link down in the description of this video or podcast to our Patreon page and you can jump on there right now. And we really appreciate all the people who support the stream.

• 1:48:18Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:48:19Jack Murphy?

  Doug, back to you. Tell us about, you told us that you got pulled into Iraq on about a 24-hour notice. Tell us about that experience.

• 1:48:33Speaker 04

  Well, again, you know, I need, I need to, full disclosure, I'm on the record of having said in public, on TV, in imprint, that I thought the invasion of Iraq was the worst foreign policy decision in modern American history. It opened it geopolitical tectonic plates that we had no idea what we were, what we were creating. Because we had no plan. And the notion that we could create, you know, pluralistic Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq, with all the sectarian, vicious sectarian fighting. And anytime you remove a brutal dictator, you know, how do dictators rule very brutally? And then, and you ask, hey, you're a dictator, why you got to be so brutal?

• 1:49:18Speaker 04

  Because I'd be dead if I didn't. Because I gotta keep, you know, my hands on the pressure cooker, that lid's gonna fly right off. So, anyway, I was at the time, I wasn't quite as, as, I didn't have that insight. But I was proud again, you know, to be part of the next grand American experiment, to move American foreign policy and to kind of be part of a cog in the, in the new CIA machine. In, in the next big, big thing that we were doing, which was Iraq. And CIA played, and I don't go through the details, but there's probably some people that I give you a good, good description of what we faced, but we accomplished an awful lot.

• 1:50:01Speaker 04

  We were a lean, mean CIA machine in Iraq. And, and it was a bad time in, in the beginning, because apparently there were a lot of people there that didn't like Americans.

• 1:50:16Speaker 04

  You know, there are a lot of Kurds and a number of Shia in the beginning, who were appreciative that we removed this brutal dictator. But there are apparently a lot of Sunnis who had took great offense at our removal of Saddam and our, our destruction of the entire Sunni socialist, socialist system of power and wealth and, and support that existed, and of course, the Ba'ath Party. We were taking, I have a... It's a video, but it's it's audio because it's at night. You we we would take when we were first there. Seventy six indirect fire shots at night.

• 1:51:00Speaker 04

  At what was the American presence inside of the green, what would ultimately become the green zone. It was a gigantic impact area. Seventy six, you could count them all from artillery to rockets to mortars. And it was just a very, very difficult time. And we were getting hit every, every night. And then, of course, as the American military presence went from, you know, from, you know, invaders, and I say that in a very positive way, not in a negative way. And as they consolidated their games and as they were able to to really start to deal with some of these threats in life, strangely and bizarrely turned to normal where you could actually go downtown.

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• 1:53:38Speaker 04

  You know, along the river, and actually have some mas goof, you know, in a restaurant. Now, you know, the last time we ate in this restaurant, you know, 30 days later, it was totally blown up by a suicide bomber, and that was, that was late in 2004, I want to say. But I considered Iraq to be, you know, again, you know, just an opportunity to do a lot. And when we were sort of missionary-like, I guess, at the time, myself included, bringing some kind of better outcome for the Iraqi people.

• 1:54:18Speaker 04

  Maybe that's naive, I believe that was naive of myself at the time. But, you know, the American soldiers, tremendous courage under very adverse circumstances. And particularly as the years went on, you know, 2007, hard year in Iraq, hard year. But we were there again in the early days, you know, our natural partners, we were there with our natural partners, Special Mission Unit. And of course, it was Stan McChrystal. And, uh, and who was himself transforming a JSOC, which was the National Mission Force, into the premier counterterrorism force that we now know and love today. You know, find, fix and finish.

• 1:55:02Speaker 04

  And he and his staff battle engineered, you know, the shortening that, that information circle from, from intel to actioning that intel. Where you pull guys off the objective, you know, many of you know this far better than me. And, and many of you participated in this, you know, where you'd be pulling a guy off an objective and you'd be interrogating them in the air on the way back. Another assault force is waiting to action that before they're even back. And so you all of a sudden have one force coming back, another force going in.

• 1:55:39Speaker 04

  And that requires a professional, competent lethal choreography that is unparalleled in, in, in military experience, in my view. And it showcases just extraordinary capabilities. And so in the end, you know, that was intelligence driven. You know, you needed intelligence to make that happen. That was the fuel that, that started that process. And it was the fuel that kept it going. And JSOC pioneered a huge amount of that and, and CIA for our, through our natural partnership. You know, we were feeding into that as well. And the CIA presence, and I'm not going to talk about numbers, but you know, the CIA

• 1:56:22Speaker 04

  presence expanded dramatically, uh, in Iraq. And eventually, you know, we became the size of what you could argue was an IFTRA brigade, which isn't much for the army, but for CIA is an extraordinary investment.

• 1:56:37Jack Murphy?

  You were the Ops Chief over there early on.

• 1:56:39Speaker 04

  I was the Ops Chief in the beginning, and then I was Chief of Station in eight, nine and 10. Got an opportunity to see liberation to transition of sovereignty. And so it's interesting to see, you know, kind of those book and experiences. Uh, you know, and, uh, you know, challenging to say the least. Char- largest US Embassy in the history of diplomacy. And as my CV, my bio rip, at the time, at the time, was the largest station in the, in the agency's history.

• 1:57:13Jack Murphy?

  I have, I have a ton of questions for you, Doug. Some of them you may even be able to answer. Um.

• 1:57:18Speaker 04

  I'll try.

• 1:57:22Jack Murphy?

  You, I, I think you said you were Chief of Station four times throughout your career. What were the unique challenges of running intel, running case officers? Out into a war zone like Baghdad? How, how did that differ than some of your previous assignments?

• 1:57:37Speaker 04

  Well, if, if, for example, if you were a case officer in Geneva. You know, uh, one, you weren't likely to get killed on your way to an agent meeting. Your agent was not likely to be killed while you were meeting him along with yourself. And you weren't likely to be killed coming back. Okay? And that's not meant to disparage.

• 1:57:59Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:58:00Speaker 04

  Traditional espionage by any means. That, it is hard. It's more than just meeting a dude. Okay. And we, you could talk about, I could talk about that at length, which would be digressive for what you're trying to accomplish here. But the reality is, we had to take the traditional elements of espionage. The, the trait craft that worked for CIA for generations since nineteen forty-seven. And we had to carefully adapt that, tailor it and modify it. So that we could still do the business of meeting human beings. And extracting intelligence through that meeting without bringing extraordinary risk.

• 1:58:44Speaker 04

  To that individual that is working on behalf of the United States objectives. And our own officers. And how do you do that? Because inherently that has to be a non-public, very secret enterprise. And in a non-lethal environment, in the Geneva's, you know, in the Paris, you know, Berlins of the world. Extraordinary counterintelligence pressure. Don't get me wrong. Moscow.

• 1:59:15Speaker 04

  Impossible to to work there, you know, takes an incredibly special officer to do that. I would never be able to do that. Was never able. I would never been good enough. So I I wouldn't have done well in the traditional espionage business. But because of my military background, because of my counterterrorism experience in CIA, I think I was well experienced enough to be a constructive part of the adaptive process to figure out how does CIA do business without getting people killed?

• 1:59:48Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:59:49Speaker 04

  And still providing, you know, valuable and intelligence for the policymaker and actionable intelligence, you know, for the warfighter. And so we had to do a lot of a lot of adaptation, a lot of modification. And kudos to the officers who took those risks when we were trying new stuff for the first time.

• 2:00:09Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 2:00:10Speaker 04

  You know, you had no idea. And I don't say you implying that I was part of it. They had no idea that they were going to come back from that.

• 2:00:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:00:19Speaker 04

  You know?

• 2:00:20Jack Murphy?

  Did you feel that your mission over there was shifting from the agency's traditional strategic intelligence mission to now collecting more like tactical level intelligence?

• 2:00:31Speaker 04

  Oh, without a doubt. And that that cause and now is very necessary. Quite frankly, as I as I told my officers all the time, and I reinforced it with our colleagues, whether it was in Afghanistan, whether it was in Bosnia for that matter, or in Afghanistan or in Iraq, or in Syria later. You know, I said, job one is force protection. Keeping American soldiers alive is job one. Everything else is totally subordinate to that. Top priority, we will spare no effort to keep American women and men alive. That is a sacred obligation, and we must do that. That is job one. Nothing else can be done. The second priority ends

• 2:01:14Speaker 04

  up being providing the intelligence so that our military partners could smoke on the battlefield, those that are creating the force protection issues that we were trying to mitigate. And so job one, force protection. Job two, actionable intelligence to the warfighter. Then of course CIA, unlike, you know, our, our military colleagues that are very focused on CT, very focused on going, uh, you know, we had the broader rate broader. We had to worry about the stability of Iraq. We had to worry about Iraq. We had to worry about Saudi Arabia. We had to worry about the Gulf Arab states. We had to worry about the third country presence there.

• 2:01:53Speaker 04

  And even though Baghdad was a incredibly challenging environment, there were still other embassies that are, that were there and, and other diplomats. And they all played a role in either helping us or impeding us. And so we had to pay attention to them and had to engage them. And so the broad, incredibly complex and diverse mission that CIA has everywhere and every, every place that it is, was complicated and made more existential by Jabal and Jump. And, uh, and that required a very special structure or very special culture.

• 2:02:33Speaker 04

  And more importantly, some just extraordinary women and men who were really, who volunteered to come out to that kind of environment, you know, thrived in, in most cases in that kind of environment. And it really says a lot about, you know, those young and often inexperienced CIA officers who I hold in the highest of regard. Because they volunteered to get involved in something that they had absolutely no idea. Right. What the consequence, personal consequences were. I think a soldier kind of. Right. Recognize. You expect that, yeah. You kind of expect that, right?

• 2:03:13Speaker 04

  And, and, uh, and, and, but in, in, in CIA, because, you know, we didn't train for war. Right? We didn't train for war. And, and not, uh, not, you know, not, uh, not a, a major portion of CIA, you know, got the Afghan experience. So there were officers who rogered up to leave families, single moms, single parents, single officers, married officers, huge families, small families, you know, elder care issues, you know, all of the obligations of life.

• 2:03:52Speaker 04

  And these remarkable officers were willing to set that aside to undertake a task and put themselves into an environment that they had absolutely no conscious appreciation for.

• 2:04:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:04Speaker 04

  And it was such a dynamic and unpredictable environment that you could think that this neighborhood of Baghdad was actually pretty safe.

• 2:04:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:13Speaker 04

  And then you find out that you assessed wrong, you know, because it changed literally last minute. And so I sit and just hold in the highest regard, I obviously hold my military colleagues in extraordinary high regard and it goes without saying, but, but, you know, our, our CIA officers. And what's interesting, I mean, you'd think you had an infantry brigade size investment in Iraq. Okay. And, and I had a, a, I had like the 12th largest air force in the world. I had everything from, uh, you know, shall we say traditional CIA authorities and what

• 2:04:52Speaker 04

  else say euphemistically as non-traditional military authorities, shall we say, uh, aggressive authorities, uh, which were used in times when our military colleagues by policy were precluded from exercising, you know, their own aggressive authorities, shall we say. And, uh, you know, that was a large number of officers that, that, that were there that, you know, that, that adapted and they learned and they worked together and they were sharing the mission with their own colleagues and they're sharing the mission with their military counterpart and they were committed to each other's success. And I know I sound like I'm a Pollyanna-ish guy and I'm over-exaggerating and for those

• 2:05:37Speaker 04

  that haven't had that experience yet, I understand why you'd probably think I'm being a little dramatic, but I can't begin to tell you that I, I don't think I'm exaggerating very much. If I am, it's not by intent, but it's just.

• 2:05:54Speaker 03

  I'm curious about, you know, your, because, and this is sort of fast forwarding a bit to ask you to reflect on something that you may have thought while you were there at a future date, but you did eventually become the deputy director of the DIA. The DIA was very active, but also the DIA doesn't get much credit for anything at all, really. But they were very active there in Baghdad, particularly in those early years and everything. Being at the station and being, being the, the big dog of the intelligence world as, you know, as the CIA is, what, did you have an impression, awareness and knowledge, opinions of the DIA presence there?

• 2:06:37Speaker 04

  The DIA, I mean, obviously there wasn't, the answer was strangely, yes. I had a positive view of the military irrespective of what part of the Defense Department you came from. So, so I was predisposed to look for the positive. And maybe that maybe didn't make me unique, but it may put me in a select part of, I think, the CIA workforce. Second was, you know, I had found in my formative experience with the power and majesty of the DOD was in Bosnia, where I had a major defense human, defense case officer operator

• 2:07:15Speaker 04

  presence there, all of whom had gone through the, the formative, same formative experience, operational certification experience that, that we CIA officers went through in the same location, actually, with a shared category of trainers and educators. And in the same environment against the same tasks. So we were virtually identical life forms. And so we're now serving together. So I had an extraordinary positive. Plus, there was significant defense human separate presence there. There was a strategic base that they had. And then there was this thing, I think, that called Eskimo Base that was there that was doing their

• 2:07:57Speaker 04

  thing. And the intimacy and cooperation was, was absolutely important. And I think any of those base chiefs would tell you that CIA was was a really good partner because we really respected their capabilities and what we did. I carried that. And so, yes, there was a DIA presence in Iraq. It was right across the street at FOB Union 3, if I recall correctly, and I would go all there all the time as a CIA station chief with a major amount of presence, a massive diversity of responsibilities. Investing my time was an expression of what I thought was valuable. Right, right.

• 2:08:38Speaker 04

  I went over to that little detachment almost every day. Wow. And I I developed this close partnership. And interestingly enough, that detachment was not just what you and I now call Defense Homeland Defense Service, Defense Human, they were all, they were actually, you know, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, you know, agents that were in there. There were agents from other federal law enforcement who themselves do source operations, right? Maybe they don't use the same trade craft in the same kind of environment, but they were also out there, you know, putting themselves at risk to provide intelligence. And of course, being the, quote, the DNI rep,

• 2:09:22Speaker 04

  you know, the the director of National Intelligence Rep, the senior intelligence officer in Iraq, my job was to integrate and coordinate. So, yeah, I had an obligation to to make sure I I gathered all the intel guys, you know, under my warm embrace. But the reality is, I did that whether I I was required to do that or not. Right. Because I really thought that those those women and men over there were were bringing some significant value to what we're trying to accomplish in our our compound. Yeah. So, yeah, I, DIA was there in space. And you're right, DIA doesn't get the credit. It's due, part of that's due, it's positioning in the political battle space. Right.

• 2:10:07Speaker 04

  Of the IC in Washington DC. Part of that's due because of just the necessary obligations of secrecy. Right. And part of that's because they just don't have the prominent infrastructure for collection. I think everybody's probably heard of military attaches. Every one of them works for the director of DIA. They're all DIA officers.

• 2:10:30Speaker 04

  Okay, uh, so the Defense Attache Service works for the Director of DI. You know, some people know that, some people don't, but everybody's heard of military attachees. Probably very few people have heard of the Defense Cloud. Fewer still, because they toil away in anonymity to a degree, which is imposed on them. But it's very necessary parts so they can be effective. So, yeah, they don't get the credit they deserve. And there are remarkable officers and DIAs inherently an all source analytic agency. And that's what the culture in DI is. It's designed to support the analytic machine and the purity of the analytic process. Uh, within DI.

• 2:11:13Speaker 04

  So it is, it does have a very analytic, you could smell, you know, it's very analytic. You smell it when you enter the building. I'm joking, but you can smell it when you enter the building.

• 2:11:25Jack Murphy?

  So I know we're, we're kind of just hitting the wave tops here, Doug. And I, and I know, um, we're, we're probably going to have to have you back again on sometime because of, uh, we're, we're glossing over so much. But what, what came after Iraq for you after, you know, 2010?

• 2:11:41Speaker 04

  Well, after Iraq, uh, the, the Director of Operations, uh, thought that the best place for me to take my multiple years as a COS, multiple times a COS. And I should say for your audience that may not be as familiar with, with CIA structures as some of us are. Uh, you know, in the director, your first thing is, you know, in the Director of Operations, I would guess probably, you know, a less than a quarter operators get to be a COS one time. And with me having the privilege and the honor to be at four times extraordinary. It says more about the agency's risk taking than it does about my competency.

• 2:12:26Speaker 04

  But I think the Deputy Director of Operations, a guy named Mike Sulik, who was a consultant for the Americans, and wrote a book about the Russian intel operations in the United States. A great guy, former Marine, it's the only thing I can say bad about him.

• 2:12:43Speaker 04

  A Harvard graduate, Vietnamese linguist, if you can believe that. Marine, interesting. Mike is an amazing guy.

• 2:12:51Jack Murphy?

  What flavors crayons do Vietnamese have?

• 2:12:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, and, yes, so, so Mike decided that, you know, whatever it is that I represented,

• 2:13:03Speaker 04

  that he needed that as part of the, you know, the training machine. So, you know, the agency has not allowed me to use the F-word, and I'm not talking about...

• 2:13:15Jack Murphy?

  Oh, oh.

• 2:13:16Speaker 04

  You know, the other F-word.

• 2:13:18Jack Murphy?

  Training, training the next generation of spies.

• 2:13:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, training, yeah, training. I was in charge of all operational training for, at an undisclosed location.

• 2:13:28Speaker 04

  But, you know, Mike thought that I had a contribution to make in growing the next generation of me. And, and to be able to do that, you know, at our facility was a singular honor. And given my blue-collar perception, I was, I was kind of a fish out of water. I felt very out of water while I was there because I just didn't... Still, you know, here I am at SIS

• 2:13:57Speaker 04

  three or four, you know, with now, you know, what was that, 2010? You know, I'm now from 1987 to 2010. I had that much time in the agency and I'm still, you know, I wasn't acting like it, but I certainly believed it. You know, I still wasn't worthy of this kind of opportunity. I really didn't think I was worthy. And maybe there are others who probably agree with that as well. But, you know, that was a wonderful opportunity to kind of go back and see how, you know, the big machine, the big training machine worked. And, you know, to be an advocate, to be a champion,

• 2:14:42Speaker 04

  to be able to take credit for, you know, the training cadre of both former officers as well as current officers, military, accomplished military officers.

• 2:14:53Speaker 04

  And I should say, other non-military, non-Sixthia members of the leadership and training cadre as well, who themselves were graduates of that program. So it was a wonderful opportunity for me to really reconnect with the basics of espionage and really realize, A, how much I failed to learn and how much I had learned but forgotten.

• 2:15:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:15:19Speaker 04

  And so, for me, it really, as I think anybody who was an instructor, you know, at that location will tell you, they came out of that as a much better operator than they did going into that assignment.

• 2:15:31Speaker 03

  Had there been many changes from the time you went through to the time that you you worked there, or did they, did they really hold on to that core?

• 2:15:44Speaker 04

  Uh, the, the certification for case officers is predominantly unchanged.

• 2:15:52Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:15:53Speaker 04

  Because, quite frankly, it's all about the fundamentals.

• 2:15:57Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 2:15:58Speaker 04

  And so, even if, you know, your instructor was a retired officer who spent his or her career in Eastern Europe or in Moscow and had no exposure to Afghanistan, Iraq, coin, CTC, none of that, fundamentally, you can't be a good CTC officer unless you understand the basics of espionage, and that's where you learn it. And yes, there are adaptations there.

• 2:16:27Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 2:16:28Speaker 04

  There are always improvements to the course, as you would expect, you know, introduction of modern technology, because that was critical and important for officers to understand the benefits and the risk of technology. And what you found is, is down in those, in those locations, you found, you know, a record of science and technology, presence and training and graduate level, you know, courses, you found a record of analysis. So all of a sudden, you find in that environment, in close geographic proximity, all of a sudden, you find the other tribes that are there. And then after I left that location and became the grand poobah, I was the, you know,

• 2:17:11Speaker 04

  the emperor Palpatine of the entire training machine.

• 2:17:18Speaker 04

  You know, we tried, we built a greater integration from a visionary standpoint, you know, to even more integrate and better integrate and develop better appreciation for the different life forms within the DOs, some of which you mentioned, you know, targeters, CMOs, you know, support officers, you know, all of that. And I only, you know, kind of kicked that rock down the hill. I fought the visionary battle, but it was, you know, guys like, you know, Daryl Blocker, who's, who's an overlord officer, Mike LaComb, who was a multiple COS in Iraq, who, who had been my DCOS when I was there.

• 2:18:02Speaker 04

  There were guys like, like LaComb, who really, really made the transformation of, of that entire, you know, operational training enterprise to be a modern one, to reflect the demands of, of the environment in which modern CIA officers were finding themselves. And, and so, you know, my role was minor. Doug. And it was, and it was interesting, if I could go back to something else, I said, is, you know, what I did was created a vision where you come in, an entry on duty, and you go to graduated leadership and operational development process until you ended up as a, as a proto-wretched pensioner at the end of the ride.

• 2:18:47Speaker 04

  And there were some CIA officers who were quite, you know, you know, impervious to and insoluble in new ideas, fortunately a minority, you know, I, I had conversations like this, which is where.

• 2:19:03Speaker 04

  That's not gonna work. And I go, why not? And they go, well, because it's not. It's just not gonna work. We don't have time. Uh, we don't need any of that. And it's not gonna. And I said, what's the fundamental objection? And they would go, well, well, let me not object. Let me just say this. Let me go. You're a military guy, right? Isn't that where you came from? I go, yes, sir. And they go, yeah, that's a military thing. That whole thing, that whole thing from basic course to advanced course to Leavenworth, to the War College, you know, all of that stuff, that's a military thing. That's, that's not us.

• 2:19:41Speaker 04

  So going back to my conversation in 1992 on, you know, this non-existent

• 2:19:49Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:19:50Speaker 04

  process of military leadership versus CIA leadership. Now I'm facing that, you know, you know, as a very senior officer in the Director of Operations.

• 2:20:01Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:20:01Speaker 04

  I thought it was very ironic. The good news is that their vision didn't take the day. It was guys like Blocker and Mike LaCombe and others who followed them that really made it happen and created a fully integrated program that, you know, is still under improvement every day that that thing exists.

• 2:20:21Jack Murphy?

  Doug, this is a little spicy, but you were also a senior guy during a time where the agency had some pretty spectacular public successes and failures. You had the Bin Laden raid. You had Benghazi happen. You had the director step down. Um, I was just curious if you're, from your perspective, if you had any insights into sort of the internal dynamics of what was happening in the agency as those events kind of unfolded in a very public way.

• 2:20:53Speaker 04

  Any institution is gonna be buffeted around by anomalous behavior by the environment, outside forces, and certainly by behaviors of individual officers, whether they're junior officers or senior officers.

• 2:21:09Speaker 04

  But the agency's got a resilience that is just another example of why it's such a remarkable institution. When you have a number of very public incidents, like the one you mentioned, one you didn't mention was the, you know, the leaking of the IG investigation on the detention program.

• 2:21:31Jack Murphy?

  Oh, the RDI, the RDI that leaked out.

• 2:21:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, RDI, yeah, that was quite controversial. Quite controversial.

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• 2:23:32Jack Murphy?

  And I remember Diane Feinstein was publicly saying that the CIA was gonna be disbanded over that.

• 2:23:42Speaker 04

  Californian, what can you say?

• 2:23:46Speaker 04

  No disrespect to the fine people of California. We need California, because, you know, for various reasons. But the liberal thought, it just happens to be one in Hollywood, might be another, Silicon Valley. But the politicians, you know, Devin Nunes, others, not so helpful. But I don't want to get political here. But it really is because of the strength of the agency workforce. You know, the commitment to not only American core values, but also the agency ethos, you know, of being right when nobody's looking at you, whether you are being right. You know, you're doing the right thing when nobody's looking, kind of thing.

• 2:24:31Speaker 04

  And so you kind of, you know that stuff's gonna happen. You can't plan for it. You just plan for an existence of some negative thing. And, you know, you just get beyond it. You gotta get through all that. And because the agency officers, you know, the women and men, regardless of the tribe, you know, in the agency are just so remarkably resilient. You know, there are remarkable people throughout federal service who are remarkable, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the only remarkable stuff that exists in federal service is in CIA. You know, the personal side of me wants to say that, professional side of me wants to not say that.

• 2:25:14Speaker 04

  But the reality is, it's the strength and the caliber, the quality of the people and the leaders in CIA that make it so resilient. And we get through that stuff. Whether it's Durham investigating guys like me and others, whether it's, you know, all the things that you mentioned, whether it's RDI, whether it's, you know, traitorous behavior by respected colleagues.

• 2:25:46Speaker 04

  You know, Jim Nicholson was a branch chief in CTC when I was there, you know, and he, of course, was recruited by the KGB.

• 2:25:55Speaker 04

  And...

• 2:25:57Speaker 04

  You know, it's just to ask your question, it's the the strength of the agency's officers and the strength of the culture and the and the commitment to to do what's right. You know, we get beyond that. We just say, okay, this happened, let's fix the agency and let's move forward.

• 2:26:16Speaker 03

  Well, the agency is also sort of in this unique position where if there is somebody, if something goes wrong, or if somebody does something wrong, that like the agency, their failures, whether it's organization or or individual or or mistakes or whatever, get broadcast, but none of this successes ever really get recognized. So it it's easy for the pub, it's easy to to paint this very dark picture of this shadow organization when all you hear about it is the things that don't go right, you know.

• 2:26:55Speaker 04

  And I think that's an excellent comment. That that is, that's the most important thing, actually, that's that's been said during this podcast today is is that question. And the reason, and it really gets to the heart of why you and your platform exist, right? Why the team house exists? Because all of the professionals that you have as as as speakers, we all come from that underappreciated, under understood community. And so you give us an opportunity to appropriately explore and help to educate and help to dispel mythology

• 2:27:35Speaker 04

  and erode misperception. And that's why I'm I'm telling you, a lot of my very traditional minded CIA colleagues, probably a number of current officers who may be part of your listen to this or watch it on YouTube, might sit and go, you know, I can't believe that guy's out there just blabbering away, just yak and yak and yak and about stuff. And I think I have because I can, because I'm not undercover.

• 2:28:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:28:03Speaker 04

  And because that I my career represents a decent part of the agency. You know, and and so I can I can do my part.

• 2:28:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:28:13Speaker 04

  In taking advantage of your kind invitation and the and be able to speak and be part of this incredibly respected enterprise known as Team House Podcast. And so being able to, you know, be a little more transparent with the American people. Well, he wrote what what you said, Dave, you know, and and current officers can't do that. You know, because they because their stuff's too secret.

• 2:28:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:28:42Speaker 04

  You know, right. But former officers like me can give our opinions and our perceptions and and and to talk about, you know, the, you know, in very general terms, you know, the the magic that makes CIA so remarkable. And in the end, as I've said multiple times, ad nauseam, the the magic is because of the magicians in CIA, you know, and all of those women and men, all those officers, you know, are magicians in every way, shape.

• 2:29:12Speaker 03

  You make it sound like Disneyland, Doug.

• 2:29:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, we have a couple of goofies in there. He retired, you know, he retired to he retired to New Mexico, so.

• 2:29:23Speaker 03

  You know, did you, did you see a shift in agency culture where the PRB, where where where where it started to become OK for guys, once their covers were rolled back, to to publicly speak because, you know, that it, I don't know if it was ever a rule, but it sort of wasn't acceptable for a very long period of time that.

• 2:29:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. Early on, you know, we, as you well know, and you mentioned, we sign on entry on duty a lifetime obligation for prepublication review of any any prepared remarks, any document, any publication, or if, in fact, you had.

• 2:30:09Speaker 04

  Rendered to me all of the questions you were gonna ask me, I would have had to write up an answer sent that in. Okay, we all sign up for that. It's burdensome, it's real pain in the butt. And where the frustration came from is because the agency didn't live up to its side of the obligation. Right. Okay, and the agency would sludge it up. They found something that was unappealing, and they had amateurs that were doing it. They didn't have a system. And I'm not denigrating, you know, the earlier generations of those suffering officers that served in the PRB. But the reality is, nobody had ever put any serious systemic, any time and attention into

• 2:30:53Speaker 04

  creating a system that allowed the agency to live up to its side of that obligation. And then what would happen inexorably when the agency didn't, they shouldn't have guys and gals who would just say, you know, screw it. I'm not gonna publish it anyway. What are they gonna do? I'm out of the agency. They gonna fire me? I don't have a clearance. You know, what can they do? I don't, I don't work for the agency. I'm not a green badge. You know, what leverage do they have over me? You know, some federal prosecutor gonna prosecute me for publishing a doc, you know, a document in the SCIF a brief, you know, that I didn't clear with the PRB, you know? No, the, the agency has very little options when it comes to those of us on the outside that don't live up to our obligation. But the agency

• 2:31:38Speaker 04

  had to do its part to keep us on task because it had to create a realistic response. The response was pathetic in the early days. Horrible, pathetic. Now, it is very crisp. The other thing that the agency made a dramatic change is, in the, in the early days of the previous presidential administration, if an officer was to say something that was politically unappealing to the White House, the agency would try to wrap that up in terms of, of redacting that as a contingent, contingency for approval of your document. Why? In the, in the early days, the agency's PRB was known as the Pre-P publication Review Board.

• 2:32:22Speaker 04

  Now it's known as the PCR, the pre-publication classification of the board. Cause its mandate is to review for classified information.

• 2:32:32Jack Murphy?

  Not for political.

• 2:32:33Speaker 04

  Not, not for inconvenient facts and truths and opinions that a certain White House administration, you know, found to be unappealing and was pressuring the agency, you know, to stifle those of us that were exercising our first amendment rights. But again, back to my point about how resilient the agency is and how transformative it can be. It immediately responded when that criticism was lovely. Boom, got it right. You send something to the PRB. In some cases, they will turn it around within hours.

• 2:33:07Jack Murphy?

  Wow.

• 2:33:08Speaker 04

  They've got, they've got a crisp machine now. Now, if you're writing a book, you know, and it, and it can, and it is a turgid tome of immense number of pages and consists of every boring fact about your agency existence from all the EPAs, exceptional performance awards you've got, all the meetings you attended, everything that happened, you don't know. And, and so, yeah, they got to shop that out to people that actually understand where the secrets reside and who are the custodians of secrets. So there is a, a little latency in there.

• 2:33:44Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:44Speaker 04

  That, that is very, very reasonable and very realistic. But if you're writing an article for Politico Magazine or for the Cypher Brief, which I, I think is a great outlet too. Uh, and if you guys publish documents as part of your podcast, which I wouldn't recommend you do, I'd stick with your business file. Uh, you know, you, you'd find that the PRB was, was very, very responsive now. Uh, they made some dramatic improvements.

• 2:34:11Jack Murphy?

  I mean, I, I know, you know, some former colleagues of yours have had to file lawsuits against the agency to get their.

• 2:34:17Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Mark Zaid, a well-known attorney.

• 2:34:19Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, I mean, just from our own experience interviewing people here on the show who have had their books put through PRB. I mean, there is a quite, quite a bit of material that they do let, you know, former agency employees say publicly, which is, uh, as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, you will probably never find an MI6 officer from modern era on this show talking because they, they can't.

• 2:34:44Speaker 04

  They can't by law. Yeah. Yeah, well, you could get him on, but he or she would be a foreign and Commonwealth officer.

• 2:34:51Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:53Speaker 04

  Now, I mean, would that be a very thin veil? I think so. But, you know, you're right, absolutely right.

• 2:35:01Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:02Speaker 04

  And you got to give credit where credit's due. That's a tough job. That's a tough job. Suppose I'm writing. Suppose I'm making stuff up. I'm writing a book about my agency experience. And I talk about, you know, the agency's, you know, development of cold fusion reactors that could power the, meet the entire global energy needs. You know, and the PRB sits and says,

• 2:35:31Speaker 04

  all right, could that be compartmented? Could that be real? This guy, you know, I'm making it up, you know? So, you know, when you, when you weave fiction into very closely mirror.

• 2:35:42Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 2:35:43Speaker 04

  The real world. And even in the most naive cases where you make up some bit of trick or after you make up some technical widget, you know, wizard that only Q could love.

• 2:35:57Speaker 04

  You may, you may not even know that there is something very similar to that. Yeah, all of a sudden there's some sap someplace.

• 2:36:04Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:36:04Speaker 04

  You know, and then all of a sudden you find.

• 2:36:07Jack Murphy?

  I, I've seen it on the, on the military side where there were things, you know, factual inaccuracies in the book American Sniper that were called out. And the authors of the book said, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. This book went through DOD review. So DOD said all of this is true. It's like, no, they didn't. DOD reviewed your book for classified information. They're not a fact checker. That's not, that's not what they're doing. And that's not what a DOD review represents of your book.

• 2:36:36Speaker 04

  And when the PRB gives you their response. Uh, you know, that little caveat is, is explicit as part of the PRB.

• 2:36:45Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:36:46Speaker 04

  You know, where they sit and go, hey, all we reviewed was for, for, you know, embargoed content. We're not, we're not validating this. We're not verifying, we're not corroborating, you know, at all. And it'd be impossible for them to do that, quite frankly.

• 2:37:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and the thing is, like, we've talked about this before, when, when some of these, uh, uh, LARPers, you know, some of these people who claim to have been in the CIA but never were.

• 2:37:14Jack Murphy?

  Our boy Wayne Simmons.

• 2:37:15Speaker 03

  You know, and, and they get to a certain point, people are like, well, what, how come the CIA doesn't call him out? It's like, because that's how they retain to die an ability with, with people who were. If they were to sit there, if they call out somebody who wasn't, but then they don't call out somebody who says they were, then what does that tell you?

• 2:37:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:37:33Speaker 03

  Right?

• 2:37:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:37:35Speaker 03

  They can't get in that business.

• 2:37:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, the PRB can't be the truth police.

• 2:37:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:37:39Speaker 04

  They've got to be the classification police.

• 2:37:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:37:41Speaker 04

  And there, there are remit ends there. Uh, but, you know, bottom line is, I think the PRB's come a long way and it's, it's, it's meeting the needs of those of us that, you know, want to get stuff in the public domain.

• 2:37:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:37:56Speaker 04

  As part, as part of the providing appropriate insight so that the American people could be more informed citizens.

• 2:38:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:38:03Speaker 04

  And that's what you're all about. That's what you guys provide this remarkable platform for dudes like me, you know, and other, and others that have done far more.

• 2:38:12Jack Murphy?

  Doug, I,

• 2:38:13Speaker 04

  To be able to explain.

• 2:38:14Jack Murphy?

  I, I would love to have you back on the show again because we've, we've run two and a half hours here and we still, we still haven't talked about Ukraine. We haven't talked about Syria. We haven't talked about your time at DIA. We haven't talked about your life after the agency and, and becoming a, a wretched pensioner as you, as you refer to.

• 2:38:32Jack Murphy?

  So I, I would love to have you on again to kind of talk, talk a little bit more. Um, but I really appreciate your time tonight and kind of illuminating, uh, all of us to some of these issues. I, it's, uh, some really unique insights, I think.

• 2:38:46Speaker 04

  Well, to me, who who needs to give you gentlemen, thanks as well as the participants in the podcast. You know, both this podcast and the many others that I've honored that you've already produced. Again, you know, there's no other, you know, thing that that is like this. And so it's it was a singular honor for you to reach out to me and ask me to come on.

• 2:39:11Speaker 03

  We it's it's our honor like we're just like you said, we're a couple of shows who like have some cameras and and a YouTube channel.

• 2:39:18Jack Murphy?

  And a basement in Brooklyn.

• 2:39:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Like, we we deeply, deeply appreciate, you know, you and and everybody else who who agrees to come on and and spend a Friday night with us. We appreciate all of our viewers, you know, people who make this show happen. We appreciate our Patreon supporters a little bit more than just our regular viewers, but not much, not much.

• 2:39:41Speaker 03

  Because they pay the rent. We have a couple of questions from from our viewers, speaking of money,

• 2:39:48Speaker 03

  that we that I we want to get to. Jackson, thank you very much. He says, what was your experience with the paramilitary, the PMO's like? And how much has the organization transformed over the course of the GWAN?

• 2:40:05Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, you know, that that's a whole other episode right there, right? That we could we could discuss that. And and I think what'd be useful is to have more than just one dude on. I think we have a little panel discussion.

• 2:40:16Speaker 03

  That would be amazing.

• 2:40:17Speaker 04

  I think to to get it to get other, you know, other perspectives on that. You know, because you want to get a broad view rather than just, you know, my narrow, myopic view.

• 2:40:28Speaker 04

  One, the paramilitary PMO's, the paramilitary operations officers, which are, you know, certified to be case officers to handle, to develop and handle spies, recruit spies and handle them. And to also be able to continue to maintain their military skills. Because every one of them had a military background, whether it was, you know, 10 years or whether it was a full career. Whether you were a traditional, you know, military officer or whether you were come from a special mission unit. You know, paramilitary officers bring a unique capability to the agency. You combine. That with the extraordinary authorities, your operational authorities, financial authorities

• 2:41:12Speaker 04

  of the agency, and you got a tool, a foreign policy tool that is second to none for the President of the United States. So those women and men that are currently serving in the Special Activities Center, who are, not all of whom are PMO's, many of them are just paramilitary experts, if I could use that term. I don't know what the term of art is.

• 2:41:34Jack Murphy?

  I think they use paramilitary specialists, I think, is a term for the green badgers at this point, yeah.

• 2:41:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and, you know, I think, you know, the combination of all that expertise is extraordinary. The challenge with PMO's is you got to maintain your military, your paramilitary skills, and yet you got to maintain your case officer skills, and both of those sets of skills are quite perishable. So it is a very tough, tough job to maintain that because, you know, the two years that you're the deputy chief of station and in some station someplace, you know, that's two years that somebody else is carrying your rucksack and

• 2:42:16Speaker 04

  SAC. I have always been well-served by every paramilitary officer, whether they're PM specialists or whether they're PMO's. I have always been well-served. They are an extraordinary enabler. They are an extraordinary capability. I have found them to be consummate professionals in every way. Yeah, sometimes they wear Oakleys inside an embassy and they got fire in their pants on, but we just, if somebody comments on that, we just tell them they're from this special forces group. They don't know any better.

• 2:42:53Jack Murphy?

  Like, they chew with their mouths open, they put their elbows on the table when they eat?

• 2:42:57Speaker 04

  And I'm obviously kidding, but, you know, paramilitary officers have been, been, I've had an exceptionally positive, uniformly positive experience with them. In terms of the transformation of the agency, it is, I mean, first thing is, we have a totally re-engineered and restructured agency.

• 2:43:21Speaker 04

  Controversial to some degree. I am one of the critics of that. But then again, I never served under them. So I don't openly criticize it because who am I to criticize something I never experienced? But the agency is physically restructured to meet the modern demands on the senior agency leadership and on the intelligence requirements of its customer base. The agency's created another director, the Director of Digital Innovation. And that's to reflect, you know, the impact of digital-based technology in terms of capabilities and threats. So you have the Director of Digital Innovation,

• 2:44:03Speaker 04

  which in and of itself has evolved since its birth in some years ago. So that's all changing. And so, you know, and the Director of-

• 2:44:14Speaker 06

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

• 2:44:29Speaker 07

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

• 2:44:40Speaker 06

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

• 2:44:45Speaker 08

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

• 2:44:51Speaker 06

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

• 2:45:11Speaker 09

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

• 2:45:38Speaker 01

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• 2:46:06Speaker 04

  Port has mutated in a positive way over time. And the Director of Analysis is always so well-plugged into the customer community and the collecting community. They're the connective tissue and the bridge. And they have evolved and restructured it. And their training program has kept pace with that, with modern demands. So the agency, the Central Intelligence Agency that I served in is not the Central Intelligence Agency today. If I went back, and I don't, I've been back four times. One time to do a personal meeting with Gina Hasbro, whom I know and admire very well.

• 2:46:49Speaker 04

  And it was at the end of her ride. The other was for promotion and a medal ceremony. And so it is an agency that, in some respects, I wouldn't recognize. But the commitment, patriotism, the capability, competency, the energy, the passion, the patriotism, you know, it's the same. But the agency is totally different. And that's the way it needs to be. It needs to be a different agency. And three years from now, the kids that are serving in the agency today, I shouldn't use the word kid, but I'm 72 now, everybody's a kid. You guys are kids.

• 2:47:29Speaker 04

  The, you know, it won't be the agency that they recognize either.

• 2:47:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:47:35Speaker 04

  There'll be elements that are recognized.

• 2:47:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:47:37Speaker 04

  The core values of the agency are immutable and haven't changed.

• 2:47:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:47:41Speaker 04

  And that's the most important thing.

• 2:47:43Speaker 03

  At its core, it's still the same OSS that it was. Like, it's still the same.

• 2:47:51Speaker 03

  People with the same desire to serve the country, no matter how that service changes.

• 2:47:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, the way you serve the nation and the American people has dramatically changed. But you're absolutely right. The commitment and the focus on the safety and security and the well-being of the American people is paramount in CIA. That'll never change.

• 2:48:14Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah. And then I think last comment, even as an in question, thank you, love star. We really appreciate it. And no questions. Thank you, three for your services and sacrifice selflessly given when called upon by your tribe.

• 2:48:31Jack Murphy?

  Guys, we will see all of you next Friday with Fred Galvin, one of the first Marsoc officers. He has a book out about their Marsoc's first deployment to Afghanistan, some of the controversies around it. So we'll be talking to Fred.

• 2:48:46Speaker 03

  Big controversies.

• 2:48:47Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, big time.

• 2:48:48Speaker 03

  Massive.

• 2:48:49Jack Murphy?

  So we'll talk to Fred next Friday. Doug, again, thank you so much for joining us tonight, taking, you know, two and a half hours out of your Friday evening to speak with us. And I'll be in touch. I mean, if it's cool with you, I'd love to reschedule you again, maybe sometime over the summer.

• 2:49:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. I would, I would let the trauma of what I had to say.

• 2:49:12Speaker 03

  It was such an honor. It was such an honor for us to have you on. And we really, we deeply, deeply appreciate it.

• 2:49:19Speaker 04

  Look, you guys are remarkable. I appreciate it very much. I look forward to coming back. And we ought to do that panel thing sometime in the future.

• 2:49:27Jack Murphy?

  That would have been.

• 2:49:28Speaker 04

  Doug doesn't have to include me, but I can help you.

• 2:49:31Speaker 06

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

• 2:49:46Speaker 07

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

• 2:49:57Speaker 06

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

• 2:50:02Speaker 08

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

• 2:50:08Speaker 06

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

• 2:50:28Speaker 09

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

• 2:50:56Speaker 01

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• 2:51:24Speaker 03

  No, that would be amazing. You would absolutely count it. Thank you, Tigles. Thank you, everybody.

• 2:51:29Speaker 06

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

• 2:51:44Speaker 07

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

• 2:51:55Speaker 06

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

• 2:52:00Speaker 08

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

• 2:52:06Speaker 06

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

• 2:52:26Speaker 09

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

• 2:52:53Speaker 10

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

• 2:53:22Speaker 03

  Have a great night.

• 2:53:29Speaker 06

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

• 2:53:43Speaker 07

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

• 2:53:54Speaker 06

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

• 2:53:59Speaker 08

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

• 2:54:05Speaker 06

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

• 2:54:25Speaker 09

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

• 2:54:53Speaker 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 five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:55:27Speaker 06

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

• 2:55:41Speaker 07

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

• 2:55:52Speaker 06

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

• 2:55:58Speaker 08

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

• 2:56:03Speaker 06

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

• 2:56:23Speaker 09

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

• 2:56:51Speaker 10

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• 2:57:28Speaker 06

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

• 2:57:42Speaker 07

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

• 2:57:53Speaker 06

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

• 2:57:59Speaker 08

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

• 2:58:05Speaker 06

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

• 2:58:24Speaker 09

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

• 2:58:52Speaker 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 five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:59:28Speaker 06

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

• 2:59:43Speaker 07

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

• 2:59:54Speaker 06

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

• 2:59:59Speaker 08

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

• 3:00:05Speaker 06

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

• 3:00:25Speaker 09

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

• 3:00:52Speaker 02

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

• 3:01:29Speaker 06

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

• 3:01:43Speaker 07

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

• 3:01:54Speaker 06

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

• 3:01:59Speaker 08

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

• 3:02:05Speaker 06

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

• 3:02:25Speaker 09

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

• 3:02:53Speaker 10

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

• 3:03:29Speaker 06

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

• 3:03:43Speaker 07

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

• 3:03:54Speaker 06

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

• 3:03:59Speaker 08

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

• 3:04:05Speaker 06

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

• 3:04:25Speaker 09

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

• 3:04:53Speaker 02

  Cash Flow Crunch on Deck. 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.

• 3:05:29Speaker 06

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

• 3:05:44Speaker 07

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

• 3:05:55Speaker 06

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

• 3:06:00Speaker 08

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

• 3:06:06Speaker 06

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

• 3:06:26Speaker 09

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

• 3:06:53Speaker 10

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

• 3:07:23Speaker 11

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 3:07:36Speaker 12

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

• 3:08:19Speaker 12

  This is an advertisement for Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 3:08:23Speaker 09

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

• 3:08:50Speaker 01

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