Pod Insights SNAFU with Ed Helms Entering the world of a Former KGB Spy (with Jack Barsky) About this episode Welcome to another Bonus Episode of SNAFU! Today, sit back and enjoy Ed's conversation with a real, genuine former KGB Spy! Jack Barsky was a Soviet operative who defected, risking his life, and family, to remain in the United States. His story is full of twists and turns, and is truly a unique perspective behind the Cold War curtain. Enjoy Ed's conversation with Jack Barsky and we'll be back with new episodes next Wednesday.
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Transcript 7,105 words · 10 speakers
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1:35 Speaker 04 Hey there, Snafu fans! It's Ed again. I mean, honestly, who else would it be, right? This is my podcast. Okay, I'm excited that today, we're sharing another episode from way back when. In fact, this was one of the bonus episodes for the very first season of Snafu, all about Able Archer 83, the NATO military exercise that nearly started an actual nuclear war. If you missed it back then, go back and check it out. You're in for a treat. And in this particular episode, I get to talk to a real spy. Yeah, a real frickin' spy. It was one of the highlights of my career to have this conversation.
2:18 Speaker 04 So here it is, my special episode talking to Jack Barsky, former KGB spy. We get into all the Soviet era paranoia and KGB chaos during the Cold War. From someone who saw all of it, right from the inside. This guy is quite a character. We had an incredible chat. You're not going to want to miss this one. Also, just be aware, next week, we'll be back as usual. All right, enjoy.
2:49 Speaker 04 Hey, snafu listeners, this is your host, Ed Helms, back in your feed for another bonus episode. This one is really, really cool. If you told me a year ago that I would be having a conversation with a former KGB agent, I would just tell you that you're cuckoo bananas. But it actually happened. Now, over the course of our show, we got a healthy dose of espionage intrigue through our friends Oleg Gordievsky and Reiner Rupp, the two spies at the center of the Able Archer story. But the KGB had a whole network of operatives all over the world, each one on their own separate mission. One of those spies was a man named Jack Barsky, who infiltrated the US in 1978, then eventually defected from Russia and became a US citizen.
3:34 Speaker 04 Just like our pals Oleg and Reiner, Jack's story is full of danger, intrigue, and incredible twists and turns. I had a chance to sit down with Jack recently, and it was a really exciting conversation. He was completely transparent and forthcoming, literally nothing was off the table. And he provided some amazing, fresh insight into the Soviets' Cold War mindset. And we even had a few chuckles. I really enjoyed this interview. I got a ton out of it, and I think you will too.
4:11 Speaker 04 Hello, Jack Barsky. It is a pleasure to meet you. You have an incredible story. KGB spy here in the United States for about a decade. So let's just dive right into to your origin story. Tell me about growing up. Where exactly did you grow up?
4:31 Speaker 05 Where I was born was in the Soviet occupied part of Germany. Very, very poor, very rural. I was taken care of fundamentally. We had enough food, maybe 50% was potato based, but I can't remember ever having been hungry. And I didn't know that I was poor because everybody else was poor.
4:52 Speaker 04 Sure.
4:52 Speaker 05 So you got at Christmas time, you got a bunch of presents and there was only one that you really wanted. The rest of it was underwear and socks.
5:00 Speaker 04 Wait a minute, Christmas time?
5:02 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah.
5:03 Speaker 04 How did you have Christmas? There's no, you didn't, no one believed in God?
5:07 Speaker 05 No, but but you see, Christmas also has a pagan tradition.
5:10 Speaker 04 Sure, okay.
5:11 Speaker 05 And in the communist countries, that was the tradition that was kept. I honestly had no idea that the rest of the world was celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. I had no idea Jesus even existed.
5:29 Speaker 04 That's, yeah, that's pretty extreme.
5:31 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah.
5:32 Speaker 04 So you didn't get a lot of, in your education, growing up, you weren't learning about other ideas?
5:39 Speaker 05 They were teaching us the wisdom, and there was only one truth. There was science and math, and then there was ideology. And the ideology was treated as if it was a science. Marxism, Leninism was considered a science equal to physics and chemistry and so forth.
5:59 Speaker 04 Wow, that is fascinating.
6:01 Speaker 05 If you grow into that kind of an environment, What are you gonna do? You don't know anything else. There's no other, no other opinions. The only thing that went across borders was shortwave radio. But we, we didn't listen to shortwave talk. We listened to rock and roll.
6:20 Speaker 04 Very cool. Do you remember any bands you were listening to at that time?
6:24 Speaker 05 Initially, it was a couple of singers, Americans, who sang in German. Gus Bacchus and Bill Ramsey.
6:32 Speaker 04 Huh.
6:33 Speaker 05 Pigalle, pigalle, das ist die große Masse, fall der Mitten in Paris. That was, that was Bill Ramsey. But one day I heard a band called The Beatles.
6:46 Speaker 04 Yeah, they'll change your life. The Beatles.
6:49 Speaker 05 And it doesn't matter how communist we were, so to speak. We all loved that music.
6:58 Speaker 04 Oh, wow. This is, this is fascinating. I wanted to talk about the pop culture that you were absorbing, not just Western things, but things coming out of the Soviet Union and East Germany, particularly movies. You know, the spy stories have always been such a rich part of cinematic storytelling. And so what were you seeing at the time? And did you have a perception of like, of the spy life?
7:26 Speaker 05 Fundamentally, there was this dichotomy. So we were listening primarily to music that came out of the West, West Germany and England and the United States. But the communist art wasn't so bad. There were like some really good movies. There were inspirational stories. Particularly when it came to espionage. There was a series that was called The Invisible Visor. It was about an East German who penetrated West Germany to find Nazis after World War II.
8:02 Speaker 05 And make sure that these Nazis would meet the fate that they deserved. And eventually, he rose up in West German government and did a lot of interesting things. He was all over the world, you know, he was driving fast cars. He was our James Bond, okay? And he got the woman. And this is what I thought would espionage would be like. Obviously, it was highly ideological, fighting against bad capitalists.
8:36 Speaker 04 Sure, sure.
8:37 Speaker 05 So, but it nevertheless was well done, artistically speaking.
8:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, I think that there's a great appreciation creatively and artistically for so much of what was coming out of the Soviet Union at that time.
8:55 Speaker 04 So let's transition from some of these cultural considerations into you specifically. You're sort of working your way through school. At what point does, you know, an actual spy life start to coalesce for you?
9:13 Speaker 05 Yeah, that took a while. So elementary school, I was just playing along, you know, I didn't care much. And in high school, I was still playing around, you know, but I became a little more ambitious. And I managed to have nothing but As on my last report card. And so that allowed me to pretty much have my pick what university to go to. I aced university as well, but here's a big but. It's not because I was the smartest guy, because I was clever. There were a couple of guys, at least that were smarter than me, but they didn't know how to manipulate the system.
9:54 Speaker 04 Ah, yeah, okay, interesting. So you're kind of, it's not just your intellect, it's sort of your savvy.
10:00 Speaker 05 Exactly, sort of street smarts. At one point in my third year, there was a national scholarship and I suggested that I be submitted. And the fellow who wrote the application, he showed it to me. I said, that's, that's not gonna work. I rewrote, I wrote my own application and I was awarded that scholarship. And that, I believe, got the KGB to pay attention to me.
10:29 Speaker 04 That's it. That's what, that was the sort of opening volley that, that put you on the KGB's radar.
10:34 Speaker 05 I, I, I believe so because you, you couldn't like, if you wanna work for the CIA, you could just like, you know,
10:41 Speaker 04 Sure.
10:42 Speaker 05 contact them and
10:43 Speaker 04 Go online, fill out an application.
10:44 Speaker 05 Uh, there was no such thing. Uh, you could not contact the KGB. They came to me.
10:50 Speaker 04 Hmm. So you're, you're clearly a sort of, um, a desirable candidate.
10:56 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah.
10:56 Speaker 04 Um, and, and, and you think that's what actually put you on the KGB's radar. What was your first point of contact?
11:03 Speaker 05 So it was on a Saturday afternoon. I was sitting in my dorm room and I get a knock on the door. So in comes a, a short, um, man who was not likable, even, even just looking at him.
11:19 Speaker 04 It was not James Bond.
11:21 Speaker 05 No, he, he was German. And, and he said, hey, are you, I was, I said, yes, I am. Oh, um, I just wanna talk with you about your plans after you graduate. That was the dumbest cover story in, that I've ever heard in my entire life because in those days, when you, when you were done, you were assigned.
11:45 Speaker 04 Oh, you didn't get to just kind of pontificate about what you might wanna do.
11:50 Speaker 05 No, no, no, no.
11:51 Speaker 04 And that's how this guy started the conversation?
11:53 Speaker 05 Yeah.
11:53 Speaker 04 So you knew right away, this guy doesn't know what's up?
11:57 Speaker 05 Yes. He pretended to be an employee of the, the biggest company in town, but I thought he was German. I thought he was East German secret police Stasi.
12:09 Speaker 04 Okay, but aren't you nervous anyway?
12:11 Speaker 05 No, no, not, no.
12:13 Speaker 04 I mean, I, I would think, uh, I would think a Stasi knocking on your door might rattle anybody.
12:20 Speaker 05 I, I have always been fearless.
12:23 Speaker 04 Interesting. Okay. So that is a different, that's a difference between you and me. I clearly have a more fearful constitution and you, you, you're fearless.
12:33 Speaker 05 Yeah.
12:33 Speaker 04 You're really fearless?
12:34 Speaker 05 Well, I'm afraid of my wife.
12:37 Speaker 05 But but generally, generally, I I have always done risky things that other people wouldn't do. So so this guy, you know, was lying to me and we were talking a little bit for a while. And then after about 10, 15 minutes, he he changed his tune. He says, you know what? I I gotta, I gotta confess, I'm not really from that company. I'm from the government. He said, the government.
13:04 Speaker 04 And you're like, I know.
13:06 Speaker 05 Yeah, I, I, in my mind, I was thinking, maybe I should ask him what part of the government, but I didn't. So I said, yeah, OK. And he said, can you imagine one day working for the government?
13:18 Speaker 04 He didn't ask you to join the KGB, right?
13:21 Speaker 05 No, no, no.
13:22 Speaker 04 OK, he's still sussing you out.
13:24 Speaker 05 Yes, and the next meeting was in a restaurant, the most expensive restaurant in town. And he, he said, we're gonna meet there. And when I get to the table, there was another fellow sitting there. And this guy, who never introduced himself, said, by the way, this is Herman. We're working with our Soviet comrades.
13:45 Speaker 04 Wow, this is exciting, right?
13:47 Speaker 05 Yeah.
13:48 Speaker 04 You're a third year in college and and the KGB is is taking you to a fancy restaurant?
13:53 Speaker 05 Oh, the KGB was known to us as the most powerful organization on the planet. You know, there, there was a KGB mythology.
14:02 Speaker 04 And philosophically, right now, you're, where, where are you with regards to the Communist Party?
14:10 Speaker 05 I was a member of the party. I was very active in the, the youth organization at university.
14:17 Speaker 04 And was this because it was just convenient to do that? Or were you a true believer?
14:20 Speaker 05 I was a true believer.
14:22 Speaker 04 True believer?
14:23 Speaker 05 Absolutely, 100%.
14:24 Speaker 04 So that makes the KGB super exciting.
14:27 Speaker 05 Oh, my God, yes.
14:28 Speaker 04 Wow.
14:29 Speaker 05 Absolutely, yeah.
14:30 Speaker 04 And, OK, so you meet with Herman. Herman says, uh.
14:37 Speaker 05 Let's, let's, let's meet again.
14:39 Speaker 04 Oh, OK.
14:40 Speaker 05 OK.
14:41 Speaker 04 So it's just lots of meetings.
14:43 Speaker 05 It was a very slow ramp up. Initially, I would meet with him in his car, sort of at the edge of town. After some, maybe three, four months, he must have determined that I was a really good candidate.
14:59 Speaker 04 Wow. Was there anything in your recruitment that made you think they want me to be capable of extreme violence? Or, you know, that spying involved, you know, like scary altercations, weaponry, and close quarters combat and all that sort of thing?
15:16 Speaker 05 No, no, no, no, no. All the people that I worked with, both in East Germany and then during my time in Moscow, were gentlemen. Our weapons were supposed to be our brains.
15:31 Speaker 04 Hmm. So, let's talk about the training. What specific skills are you learning? What kinds of devices, tradecraft is entering the picture here?
15:42 Speaker 05 You'd be surprised. The very first document they gave me to read was a book about the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
15:51 Speaker 04 Okay. Just more indoctrination.
15:54 Speaker 05 Oh, you bet. But with regard to tradecraft, we're starting out with a shortwave radio reception Morse code. And then I was taught how to produce secret writing.
16:07 Speaker 04 Hmm.
16:08 Speaker 05 That is a skill. It isn't just something you just do. The KGB produced pieces of paper that were impregnated with just a trace of a chemical. The way to do this right, I had to be really, really careful. I had to make sure that everything was totally clean. If you didn't know what you were looking for, what chemical you were looking for, you wouldn't find anything.
16:33 Speaker 04 Oh, wow. That's cool. So, so you're getting some of these, these skills, what was it, surveillance detection or something?
16:41 Speaker 05 Yes, surveillance detection route. This is, this is actually an internationally recognized abbreviation. The FBI uses it the same way. So, this is what, what you do. Counterintelligence need to follow you when you're out.
16:56 Speaker 05 And about. And so the idea was that you have to have a fictitious reason to go there, there, there, department stores, going to a movie and buying a ticket. And the whole idea is if counterintelligence follows you, they know that you're doing what you're doing. However, there's no proof. If you see the same face twice within three hours, you know that you're being followed. I had really an extensive training in Moscow where I, we, we practiced this about a dozen times. And sometimes I had nobody following me,
17:39 Speaker 05 and sometimes I had a whole team following me. And it was a competition. And the test was to figure out who was following you? Yes, I won every time. Oh, nice.
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18:29 Speaker 01 Pumpkin carving sounds fun, until you're elbow-deep in pumpkin guts. There's an easier pumpkin tradition: Reese's Pumpkins. No seeds, no giant kitchen knife, no pressure to create a masterpiece that's just gonna shrivel up on the front porch three days later. And if something goes wrong, just eat it. Every mistake is still pretty delicious. So this Halloween, skip the mess of pumpkin carving and stock up on Reese's Pumpkins.
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20:16 Speaker 04 So you've, you've got, you've got some serious skills now. You're, you're getting training in Moscow. Let's move on to your placement. So you were born Albrecht Dietrich in East Germany, but to get to the United States, you needed an American identity. How did all that go down?
20:35 Speaker 05 Well, first of all, we had to have some documentation that allowed me to live in the United States, right? There was only one paper that was important. There's a, it was the birth certificate of Jack Barsky, a child who passed away at the age of 11. This, this is what, this is what the KGB used to steal identities and this is what's still being used if possible.
21:03 Speaker 04 Wow, Jack Barsky was a real, there was like a birth record then and, and a birth certificate.
21:09 Speaker 05 Yes. One of those diplomats and who worked in Washington DC, he was wandering around, around in cemeteries and he found the.
21:19 Speaker 04 Tombstone, yeah.
21:20 Speaker 05 Tombstone, right. And it says, yeah, Jack Barsky, born 1944, passed away in 1955.
21:28 Speaker 04 And you want a child because then there's, they don't have a life of, of, of records and all of the evidence of that.
21:36 Speaker 05 That's correct.
21:36 Speaker 04 Wow, that's kind of dark.
21:38 Speaker 05 And, and though, in those days, in those days, it was really easy to get. A birth certificate, you didn't have to show why you were entitled to get it. You, all you had to do is, you know, fill out a form and then pay the fee.
21:55 Speaker 04 Hmm, so active agents kind of procured your papers.
22:00 Speaker 05 That's correct.
22:00 Speaker 04 And then you, and then you had that to travel with.
22:04 Speaker 05 Right.
22:05 Speaker 04 So, so how did they decide? Did they have a conversation with you? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?
22:10 Speaker 05 No, no, this was, uh, there was never a really well constructed plan. It was more of an idea, you know? You just go and then you do good things.
22:25 Speaker 04 Ah, so basically the assignment is just go and be curious.
22:30 Speaker 05 Go and find your way up in society. There was a master plan that if that had succeeded, I would have become a really, really dangerous agent. The plan was for me to get all the documentation that you need to operate in the United States, work there, including a passport. And with that passport, they were going to send me back to a European country that speaks German, like Austria or Switzerland. And then they would have had me, uh, open some kind of a company, establish a company, and they would funnel a lot of money into that company. So within two years, I would go back to the United States, a millionaire.
23:15 Speaker 04 Oh, that's nice. Well, what happened to, this is a great plan. You, and, and you get to be a millionaire.
23:20 Speaker 05 Yeah.
23:22 Speaker 04 That's a hell of a plan.
23:24 Speaker 05 Yeah, I failed. I was able to, when, when I get, got to the United States with that birth certificate, I was able to get a social security card. I was able to get a driver's license, so I was functional in the United States. But, uh, the journey was really well planned, except for the very last leg of the trip. The way I traveled, it was impossible to trace me back to Moscow. So from Moscow, I took a plane, I went to Belgrade. From Belgrade, I took a train to Vienna, neutral country. In Vienna, I changed passports. I met a KGB agent diplomat who gave me a second forged passport.
24:08 Speaker 05 And I gave him back the first one that I used. From Vienna, I traveled by train to Rome. Now we are in NATO territory, right? But I'm already like twice removed. And there I got a Canadian passport.
24:23 Speaker 04 Okay. And that gets you into, in where? Where do you go from there?
24:28 Speaker 05 From Rome, I went to Mexico City. And in Mexico City, I bought a ticket to my hometown to fly back to Toronto with a stopover in Chicago. So they had me deplane at O'Hare. And that's when the troubles started. I mean, I should, I should have been busted right then and there because the KGB had nobody. There were no Soviet citizens in Chicago. Nobody knew about Chicago, anything.
25:00 Speaker 04 Wow. Okay. So when you first stepped off that plane at Chicago O'Hare and you're, you're suddenly you're walking on American soil, is that, that must have been an incredible rush.
25:10 Speaker 05 Yes, particularly once I got through Customs and Immigration, I said, yes, I did it.
25:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
25:17 Speaker 05 But, but before that, it was like anxiety.
25:21 Speaker 04 Yeah.
25:22 Speaker 05 A lot of it.
25:23 Speaker 04 Okay. I would imagine. I mean, I would be crippled with fear at this point, but you, being fearless, get through it.
25:38 Speaker 04 Okay. So you get to New York City eventually. I'm so curious, you know, we talked a little bit about your assignment, but like, what the hell are you doing day to day?
25:50 Speaker 05 I had some tasks. There were a couple of times where they actually asked me to do something really important. One of them was to find an ex-KGB agent who was actually an assassin who had defected.
26:05 Speaker 05 And it was under a death sentence and they wanted me to find out where he is.
26:10 Speaker 04 Did you find him?
26:11 Speaker 05 Yes, I did.
26:12 Speaker 04 Whoa, and did they send someone after him?
26:14 Speaker 05 They didn't, thank God. It's it's another one of those movie scenes. I went to San Bernardino and they told me, see if he's still teaching at the University of California.
26:26 Speaker 04 Wait, an assassin had gotten a job as a as a college professor?
26:30 Speaker 05 Yes, well, yeah, he defected, you know.
26:32 Speaker 04 Yeah, but still, that's a pretty different skill set.
26:36 Speaker 05 Well, you know, an assassin has to be really smart to get away with what they're doing, right?
26:40 Speaker 04 I guess so, yeah.
26:42 Speaker 05 So, so I'm walking up and down the hallways of the University of California Bernardino. The last door on the left, there's a nameplate that says Nikolai Kokloff. That's the guy I was looking for. And as I'm looking at this, at this nameplate, the door opens and he comes out. This is this like delicious situation where an ex KGB agent who was under a death sentence is looking at a KGB agent who's trying to find him. Neither I nor he knew who we were. I found out much later. He died from natural causes.
27:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, right. Yeah, right.
27:27 Speaker 05 I was also asked to operate as a spotter. You know, when the KGB had a methodology, how to recruit people. First, you got a spotter who looks who looks for talent.
27:41 Speaker 04 So are you looking for people to to flip, Americans who might work for the KGB?
27:46 Speaker 05 Yes.
27:46 Speaker 04 Okay, so at the time, the Soviet Union has this this this kind of research process called Operation Ryan. Just for the listener, Operation Ryan was this kind of insane thing where spies all over the world were were asked to just give the Soviet Union confirmation that America was going to start a nuclear war, basically.
28:11 Speaker 05 You are the first and only interviewer who knows exactly what that was. I didn't know at the time. I wasn't told there was an operation, but I was told to keep it periodically, take a look at the Navy Weapons Station at the shore of New Jersey.
28:34 Speaker 04 To just go look at it, or what?
28:36 Speaker 05 Look at, see if I, if I see, if I see signs of preparation for war.
28:40 Speaker 04 Yes.
28:41 Speaker 05 I was also trained to recognize, based on, on the silhouette, what kind of ships are out there.
28:49 Speaker 04 Oh, wow.
28:50 Speaker 05 And, you know, I had no idea I was part of that, that program.
28:56 Speaker 04 But you're reporting back on sort of what you're seeing as possible, as possible war preparations.
29:02 Speaker 05 I never saw anything out of the ordinary, and in fact, there was no preparation for war. But, you know, the fellow who was in charge of the KGB at that time, Andropov, was absolutely certain that Ronald Reagan will push the button.
29:18 Speaker 04 Okay, that's fascinating, because there's controversy over whether Andropov actually believed Reagan wanted to start a nuclear war, or if they just wanted us to think they believed that.
29:34 Speaker 05 No, I, I, I believe, my interaction with my handlers in Moscow indicated to me that they, they were really afraid of Ronald Reagan. And there was some, some element of cultural misunderstanding, because Reagan was a believing Christian.
29:55 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
29:56 Speaker 05 And he, he sometimes quoted the Bible, particularly the Book of Revelation.
30:02 Speaker 04 The scariest book of the Bible.
30:04 Speaker 05 Right. So, in a communist country, nobody had any kind of idea, particularly the ones in, in the decision makers. They didn't have context as to what, when you quote the Bible, what that means.
30:18 Speaker 04 Hmm.
30:19 Speaker 05 And clearly, Ronald Reagan was not, he didn't think he was appointed to accelerate the end of the world. But, you know, Andropov and, you know, the Central Committee of the party, they, they were really afraid of this man.
30:36 Speaker 04 They, they believed that Reagan wanted to end the world? Is that what you're saying?
30:40 Speaker 05 He wanted to start a war, and, and the war would have. Been the end of the world. Yes.
30:45 Speaker 04 Well, of course.
30:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah.
30:46 Speaker 04 Of course, it would have been Armageddon, but what? How do you know that? What signals were you getting that that Andropov really thought Reagan wanted to start a war?
30:59 Speaker 05 Obviously, I never had a conversation with Andropov, but I had a conversation with people that were in his organization and they were all like deathly afraid of Ronald Reagan.
31:11 Speaker 04 Wow. Wow, that is fascinating. And are you aware of the the Able Archer eighty-three military exercise that was happening?
31:22 Speaker 05 I wasn't aware of it when it happened, but I know what you're talking about. During the Cold War, we came close three, four times to a nuclear exchange and every time it was based on a misunderstanding. And that is what I'm worried about right now. With Russia being on edge. And you know, the mistakes can be made and you know, you have one mistaken launch. It's over.
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32:36 Speaker 01 Pumpkin carving sounds fun until you're elbow deep in pumpkin guts. There's an easier pumpkin tradition. Reese's Pumpkins. No seeds, no giant kitchen knife, no pressure to create a masterpiece that's just gonna shrivel up on the front porch three days later. And if something goes wrong, just eat it. Every mistake is still pretty delicious. So this Halloween, skip the mess of pumpkin carving and stock up on Reese's Pumpkins.
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34:05 Speaker 09 I'm not great at costumes, but I know which bottles to bring. Every Halloween, I stop at Total Wine & More before the party. Cold beer for the crew, ready to drink cocktails for the night, and a bottle of tequila for whoever wins best costume. Halloween plans come together fast, and Total Wine & More makes it easy to bring something for everyone at the lowest prices. I'm ready for Halloween. Are you? Get the party started for less at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B21.
34:37 Speaker 04 So I want to back up a little bit. You had a few specific tasks, but you also had this kind of grand, larger mission that was really up to you, it sounds like. How were you communicating with Moscow while you were in the United States? What were some of those tricks as a lone wolf?
34:57 Speaker 05 Yeah, so if you ever watched The Americans, there are a lot of scenes where the handler of the two illegals is meeting with them. That never happened. There was a hard rule that you do not meet...
35:18 Speaker 05 An illegal will not meet with another agent in the country where he operates. So, so communication was, uh, it wasn't direct, it was indirect. They, they sent me the stuff, whatever they wanted to communicate in Morse code, once a week.
35:35 Speaker 04 Ah.
35:36 Speaker 05 By the way, that's still being used and it's, it's significantly better than using, uh, social media or the internet because when you, when you send signals out into the ether, you know, people know where it came from, but people don't know who's actually listening to it.
35:55 Speaker 04 Right. And then to communicate back to Russia, what are you doing?
35:59 Speaker 05 Secret writing. Uh, I had, uh, what they call convenience addresses. These were, uh, collaborators with the KGB in other countries. So I would write a letter as if I knew about them. I knew anything, said, I'm sorry, you knew, you know, you broke your leg or something like, like open text.
36:20 Speaker 04 Sure.
36:20 Speaker 05 And then I overlaid this with some secret writing. And then I would mail this thing and then it would, uh, they would know that this had to be hand, handed over to the KGB agent.
36:32 Speaker 04 That's wild. Okay. So at some point during this, uh, process, you decide you don't want to be a KGB agent anymore. What happened? Where was the ideological shift? Because now you're an American and you seem to like America a lot.
36:48 Speaker 05 Yeah, well, it, it was a, what I call a slow decontamination. The first thing that I realized was that, uh, capitalism isn't really as oppressive to the workers as I thought, because when I started working for, uh, MetLife as a programmer,
37:10 Speaker 05 it was a nice place and they treated us well. We got free lunch. Other than like, you know, bad bosses and, and, uh, and.
37:20 Speaker 05 Not very nice coworkers. I couldn't find uh uh in institutional evil wasn't there. But but when when I resigned from the KGB, I I put in my letter explicitly, I will not betray the cause. I will not betray my motherland, East Germany, and I meant that. And you know, and then I had a career. I developed my version of the American dream. It wasn't ideological, but it was like, you know, I liked it here, you know, and I became what they wanted me to become, a real American.
37:59 Speaker 05 You know, I led a normal life. At one point, I I became a professional. I worked as a computer programmer. And you know, if you're a young man, you have some, you know, your hormones are still there, right?
38:17 Speaker 04 Sure. Your job is inherently lonely as hell.
38:20 Speaker 05 Yes. So I started dating and I I found a really pretty young woman who was safe because he had immigrated from South America. If I had gotten close to him, born American, they would have figured out something something odd about this guy. She wouldn't have known. Turns out that she had immigrated, but she was actually illegal. So I helped her to become legal.
38:48 Speaker 04 Oh, you you married her?
38:50 Speaker 05 I married her. And so um in nineteen eighty seven, my daughter was born. And you know, this is, I don't know, do you have? Do you have any any girls?
39:03 Speaker 04 I do have two girls.
39:05 Speaker 05 Okay. Don't you love them? Didn't you love them like crazy when they grew up?
39:10 Speaker 04 Uh, well, they're still quite little, and I will say it is a form of love that I never even contemplated before.
39:17 Speaker 05 Exactly.
39:18 Speaker 04 So deep. It is so profound.
39:20 Speaker 05 And and that is exactly what happened to me. I mean, this this girl was and still is extremely pretty, huge eyes, and I mean, just like, just beautiful and
39:34 Speaker 05 When she was 18 months old, the KGB sent me an urgent message that I should return to the Soviet Union because I was about to be arrested by the FBI. It was a red herring. It wasn't true, but they believed it. And obviously, I should have believed it too, right?
39:52 Speaker 04 And you couldn't bring the child back to Russia with you?
39:55 Speaker 05 Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I kept the fact that I married this woman.
39:59 Speaker 04 Oh, okay.
40:01 Speaker 05 I didn't tell.
40:02 Speaker 04 You were keeping secrets from the KGB now?
40:04 Speaker 05 Yes.
40:05 Speaker 04 Oh, wow.
40:06 Speaker 05 Of course.
40:07 Speaker 04 You really are fearless. Your love for your daughter is what kept you in the United States. And explain to me why you don't just say, I'll just keep being a spy in the United States. You actually want to leave the KGB at this point?
40:22 Speaker 05 Well, they thought I was about to be arrested. So they wanted me back in the Soviet Union, and that forced my hand.
40:31 Speaker 04 I see.
40:32 Speaker 05 Because I had to tell them that I'm not coming.
40:36 Speaker 04 Right.
40:37 Speaker 05 So they wouldn't search for me. And so my last letter in secret writing stated the following. Thank you for pointing that out. I'm going to be careful, but I can't come because I have HIV AIDS.
40:56 Speaker 04 Whoa. But you didn't?
40:59 Speaker 05 Of course I didn't.
41:00 Speaker 04 And so, once the KGB finds out that you have AIDS, or that you've said you have AIDS, they're terrified. They don't want you back.
41:08 Speaker 05 Oh, no way.
41:10 Speaker 04 Okay, so now you're off the hook with the KGB, but...
41:14 Speaker 05 I didn't know this. I was hoping for it, but I actually was 100% because they went to my German family and told them that I already died.
41:24 Speaker 04 Wow. So then they just forget about you?
41:26 Speaker 05 They did. Absolutely did. I spent about three months after I mailed that letter being very cautious, careful, looking for FBI surveillance, looking for KGB.
41:38 Speaker 05 I was so well trained, I knew that there was nothing happening. So I told the mother of this child, I said, okay, you know what? We should start looking at moving into the suburbs and buying a house. That's when I, that was my first step to become an American.
42:11 Speaker 04 Wow. All right. So a million questions, but the big one is you left the KGB. Eventually you actually became an American citizen. The FBI got in touch with you and you became, you know, an open book to them. They then offer you citizenship. And here's my question. Once you became public, why isn't the KGB trying to kill you now?
42:40 Speaker 05 Well, first of all, my case is really old.
42:44 Speaker 04 Hmm, but you're still a liability. I mean, you're, you're telling these stories all about kind of Russian tradecraft and all these things. And might I add, sometimes it seems that Russian assassinations aren't just about keeping someone quiet. There's an element of vengeance there.
43:01 Speaker 05 Yes.
43:02 Speaker 04 Why are you safe?
43:03 Speaker 05 If they had a list of, you know, priorities, I'm near the bottom.
43:08 Speaker 04 Got it. Okay. Next question. It has been said that there is no such thing as a former KGB agent. You are now living your life very publicly and openly and transparently. But who's to say you're not still sending secret messages back to Russia? And I say it with a laugh, but it's a serious question.
43:29 Speaker 05 Yeah, no, you, you, you gotta trust me.
43:32 Speaker 04 Oh, is that right? I just have to trust you.
43:34 Speaker 05 Okay. All right. So, so here's the thing. When I was debriefed by the FBI, you know, and I, I dumped everything that I could possibly remember on them. The last thing they had me do is I had to pass a lie detector test. I passed that test. And then I spent, I don't know how many years, but seven, eight years as a trusted source. I flipped completely. I'm as anti-communist as you can get.
44:03 Speaker 04 What is Jack Barsky's philosophy at this point? What have you learned from everything you've been through?
44:10 Speaker 05 That question was asked of me several years ago, and I wasn't prepared. I had to think about it. But I came up with the best answer. It sounds a little bit hokey, but it's true. And this is what I'm telling you. Love conquers all. That's it.
44:35 Speaker 04 That's it?
44:36 Speaker 05 Yeah.
44:37 Speaker 04 You know what? It does sound hokey, but it isn't. It is very profound.
44:42 Speaker 05 It's true. It's true. I lived it. Okay? Because I, if I had not been in love with this little girl, I would have made the beeline to Moscow in East Germany and lived the good life. Because at the time, I had nothing but good things back there. And the love kept me here.
45:07 Speaker 04 Well, I think that's a great place to wrap it up. And I cannot thank you enough for your generosity with your time and your life and your story and sharing all of it. Jack Barsky, I really, really appreciate it. Thanks so much.
45:23 Speaker 05 You're welcome. Take care. Bye bye.
45:29 Speaker 04 Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. If you want to learn more about Jack's amazing life and his crazy story, check out his book, Deep Undercover: My Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America. There's also a really cool podcast all about his life called The Agent. Definitely check that out. All right. This is your host, Ed Helms, signing off.
45:57 Speaker 04 Snafu is a production of iHeart Radio, Film Nation Entertainment, and Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. It's executive produced by me, Ed Helms, Milan Pipelka, Mike Falbo, Andy Chug, and Whitney Donaldson. This bonus episode was produced and edited by Olivia Canny. Our lead producers are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Our producer is Carl Nellis, associate producer Tori Smith. Our senior editor is Jeffrey Lewis. Olivia Canny is our production assistant. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley. Special thanks to Allison Cohen and Matt Aizenstat.
46:40 Speaker 01 Pumpkin carving sounds fun, until you're elbow-deep in pumpkin guts. There's an easier pumpkin tradition: Reese's Pumpkins. No seeds, no giant kitchen knife, no pressure to create a masterpiece that's just gonna shrivel up on the front porch three days later. And if something goes wrong, just eat it. Every mistake is still pretty delicious. So this Halloween, skip the mess of pumpkin carving and stock up on Reese's Pumpkins.
47:10 Speaker 09 I'm not great at costumes, but I know which bottles to bring. Every Halloween, I stop at Total Wine & More before the party. Cold beer for the crew, ready-to-drink cocktails for the night, and a bottle of tequila for whoever wins best costume. Halloween plans come together fast, and Total Wine & More makes it easy to bring something for everyone at the lowest prices. I'm ready for Halloween. Are you? Get the party started for less at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B21.
47:40 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
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