David McCloskey // From the CIA to The Rest is Classified...

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Depending on the relationship with the host government. You might
be declared to them right as CIA or you might not.
You know, they would follow you around all the time
just to kind of check you out, and you don't.
But it's not weird, like I didn't mind it.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Sees the YA Podcast. Busy and happy
are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
one way. So this is a platform to hear and
explore the stories of those who found lives they adore,
the good, bad and ugly, the best and worst day

(00:34):
will bear all the facets of seizing your YA. I'm
Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned
fuentrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found
matcha Maiden and matcha Milk Bar. CZA is a series
of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring
the self doubt, challenge, joy and.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Fulfillment along the way. Lovely Able.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
It has been an absolute delight over the past two
weeks to see just how many of you share in
my passion for espionage or intelligence stories and to hear
that you so enjoyed our last episode with a real
life Australian spy.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
I still can't believe that actually.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Happened, but one of the most common follow up questions
from that episode from you guys has been my top
recommendations for spy books, TV shows or podcasts, and funnily enough,
my own current favorite podcast was also the one that
our AZIO intelligence officer mentioned as her favorite. Since it's
launched late last year, I have not only binged every

(01:35):
single episode of the Rest is Classified podcast, but even
signed up to their paid Declassified club so that I
could get as early access as possible to each of
the series that they've released so far, covering everything from
the Bin Laden operation, Edward Snowden, the history of CIA
mind control, and even the contentious.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Topic of UFOs.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Hosted by former CIA analysts turned best selling espionage author
David Klosky and veteran British security correspondent Gordon Carrera, the
show unravels the world of intelligence and COVID operations, enhanced
by their intimate and expert perspectives on these events, along
with incredible guests, including the Likes of the former head
of the CIA and the former head of m I five.

(02:17):
I know, absolutely mind blowing. You can therefore imagine my
levels of excitement sending a casual DM to one David
McCloskey asking if he'd ever consider joining our own humble
show and getting an enthusiastic yes. Not only are we
sharing today some of his insights on the intelligence world
from inside the CIA, including through his experience across field

(02:41):
stations in the Middle East, but also on his life
after the agency. Yes, you can leave and live to
tell the tale, and tell the tale in such a
way that you become a Sunday Times best selling author
of three soon to be four incredible espionage books. So
both in the realms of nonfiction and fiction. I have
followed closely and thoroughly enjoyed David's work, and to have

(03:03):
him on the show is a real treat. I hope
you guys enjoyed this one as much as I did.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
David McCloskey, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Hey, thanks for having me on. Really excited to be here. Sarah.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Oh, I'm so excited to have you. I have listened
to hours of your voice. Now since the rest is
classified came out late last year, and it's actually quite
surreal to have you replying in real time.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Hopefully it sounds the same. We're using very little voice
modulation on the show, so hopefully.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
This is thanks. Yes, this is your real voice.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
This is accurate to your expectations. But it's really good
to be here, and thanks for inviting me on.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
We are very grateful to have you.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
As I mentioned before, I have a lifelong fascination with
the world of intelligence. So to have not only a
former CIA man, but a best selling espionage author sometimes
referred to as America's answer to John lecare.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
Is, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
I highlights for the show today.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
It's helpful for the marketing material, even if it's not true.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Well, that's far too humble, and of course we will
make our way through your incredible career. But I also
like to make all our guests feel really at home
right up front, so I thought i'd bring this out
for those of you who are not able.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
To say the video at home.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I've just brought out my tinfoil hat that I've made
because I've had David is quite a big fan of
these devices, since he's work with UFOs.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
This does make me feel at home, so thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh it's the least I could do for you after
your alien abduction. Your podcast listeners will know about of course,
we'll have to talk about that today as well.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
What a story we promised that story?

Speaker 1 (04:30):
I think in the for like the club members, and
I don't think we ever followed through on it. It's
perhaps one of many unkept promises that will will exist
in the world of the rest is classified.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Well, I live in hope that one day you'll spill
the story. But I'll continue keenly listening because it's become
my favorite podcast listeners. If you like this episode, you'll
love the show. David and his co host Gordon cover
the most fascinating real life spy and intelligent stories with
such an entertaining dynamic. I love that you well just
a little bit rogue and Gordon is constantly trying to

(05:03):
rein you in talking about bin Laden's polygamy and all
his wives. Like we said, you're alien abduction. I feel
like it's kind of a like a micro version of
the Brits and the Americans generally, like as an Australian,
a third party kind of watching the TI you fight
it out I'm like, oh, this is this is a
nice dynamic.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Gordon does try to censor my sort of shambling Americanism
at times, and I never he never quite manages to
do it, I think.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Which, no, no, you refuse to be caged, which I enjoyed.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's right, that's right, And I think Gordon maybe secretly
enjoys it. He's never told me that he does, and
sometimes he does look at me with deep sadness and
or regret, but deep down he likes it.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, it's an incredible show, and we'll get to how
you ended up hosting. But I think I also mentioned
we recently had an ASIO officer on the show, which
unearthed a whole espionage fan base within our listenership. But
what's exciting today for the listeners is we had to
obscure a lot of detail because she's still at ASIO,
Whereas because you are no longer with the CIA, you

(06:07):
have a little bit more leeway to share with us
what your life looked like, what your job involved, which
I can't wait to get into. But I'd love to
start all the way back at the beginning, back in
your childhood, because I think that detail gets skated over
a lot and for you know, the young aspiring intelligence
officer out there, it often seems impossible that they could

(06:28):
ever end up in a job as cool as working
at the CIA. So take us back to your childhood,
back to Minnesota, the son of a college professor. Was
intelligence ever on the cards?

Speaker 3 (06:40):
And did you think.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
That you'd end up as a CIA analyst?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
I would say that CIA intelligence was never something I
thought I would do. It was one of those things
that just sort of happened, I mean really by accident.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
I mean, as you.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Said, Greba, Minnesota, my dad's college professor. You know, I
read a lot of spy novels because he did, and
so I remembered that kind of being a feature of
you know, not every book on the shelf was a
spine novel. He wasn't like demolishing the whole genre, but
he was reading a lot.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Of it, so he wasn't me is what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Exactly exactly. I just remember that kind of being something
that's like, oh, this is this is interesting. I like
reading about this stuff. I like reading about the world.
I would like to understand how the world works, and
I would like to travel in it. Right, And I
went to college with those two things in my head
as like goals. I went to college. I was an
international relations major, which basically meant I had no idea

(07:39):
what I wanted to do with my life.

Speaker 4 (07:40):
I was just interested in the world.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
And my mom was horrified because she thought I would
never get a job anywhere with a degree like that.
When I was a freshman. So first year in college,
the CIA came and recruited on campus, and they came
through because the guy who was running the Middle East
analytics shop at the time was an alum. He said, look,
you're two young to apply this year, you need to
wait a year, but we come back next year.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
You can apply for.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
An internship because the CIA does internships no way. Oh yeah, yeah,
and they do it even earlier now, because really you're
trying to recruit kids who are like eighteen and nineteen.
I mean for a bunch of reasons, but primarily my
understanding is because marijuana is still federally illegal in the
United States, and if you use, if you smoke pot

(08:27):
at any point in college, you're basically you can't get
a job at the agency. Right You'd have to wait
at least like five years, and that's going to rule
out a whole bunch of people by the time they're
twenty two or twenty three. So the agency tries to
get to people young so they can get them in
the pipeline so that they'll pass and get security clearances
and get into the agency.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Right, that is not what I thought you were going
to say. Just then, I did not know you were
going to say to get them before Wade hits them
before a week.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, I mean there's other like kind of simplifying it,
but there's you know, there's other reasons. But it's so
so I went back, and you know, the agency came
back when I was a sophomore, and honestly, at the time,
it was like, look, my work experience was that I
had dug holes for a sprinkler system company in the
Minneapolis St. Paul suburbs, and I had been a cashier
at Wendy's, the burger.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Chain, and so like paple skills, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Exactly have like the sort of resume that I thought
the CIA would be interested in. And yet at the
same time, I was like, well, why don't I just
try and just see what happens, Right, I've got nothing
to lose by applying this seems like a cool job,
and then you know, lo and behold, I got the
offer to join as an intern, and so I did
that for two summers and then joined full time when
I graduated. So it was this very like accidental journey,

(09:39):
which I imagine it's typical of a lot of a
lot of kids who are like, this seems kind of interesting,
let's see what it's like, and then you realize that
you know, you got in.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
You actually like it.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, I feel like that seems to be the resounding
message from all the sort of spies or intelligence you know,
professionals that I've followed or met or read about that
you don't start out thinking that you're the stereotypical, you know,
perfect candidate, and then you realize there isn't really one.
You know, they're looking for such a wide range. In fact,

(10:09):
if anything, the less stereotypical you are, the less you
look like a typical spy, the more eligible you become,
because you know, you need a broad range of skills
and interests and people and backgrounds in some way like
the CIA.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
So that's fascinating that it was an accident.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Totally no, And I mean to the point on like
a bunch of different backgrounds and interest and experience.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
You know.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
I've been fortunate since I left to occasionally go back
into the agency to meet with people or whatnot. And
they actually have outside the museum at Langley, which is
not open to the public. Is the wrong word, because
you have to get into Langley to see the museum.
But the museum is not like behind any kind of
you know, sort of vault door. They have a wall
that has a list of all of the different jobs

(10:51):
at the CIA on it, and there's like, you know,
like fifty jobs on there. So there's there's a lot
of different things that you can do at an organization
as big as the CEO.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Oh my gosh, I want to go to the museums
so badly, and I have so many questions, like about
the actual building at Langley and what it looks like like.
I don't even know where to start. But perhaps since
we're speaking about the roles, let's get into yours first
and then we can go back and sort of orientate
the CIA as an organization in the intelligence landscape generally,
so most of us have heard the title CIA analyst.

(11:25):
A lot of us may have heard of it through
Jack Ryan all the movies, but we've mostly heard of
what you used to do. But it's the actual day
to day that I love to focus on on this
show because we hear of sort of the macro titles
that people have or the jobs that you know is
someone's goal to become one day, But you know, I
think we often forget to translate that to what your

(11:46):
life actually looks like when you're doing it. So a
lot of the time, I assume you were based at Langley,
which is the CIA headquarters in Washington, DC, and then
you also spent time on some Middle Eastern st overseas.
So as much as you are permitted to share with us,
what did you do whole day? What did your life

(12:07):
look like at the CIA?

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, again, it'll be different for each of those roles, right,
So the case officer answer will be different from the
analyst answer. And I'll give you the analyst answer because
that's what I did. So there were periods of time
when I was there where I was working at foreign stations.
But give you the Langley answer because it's probably the
more typical one. So you know, you'd get in to
the office at somewhere between, like you know, seven thirty

(12:33):
and eight thirty. The organization is hierarchical in the sense
that information, particularly on the analytics side, is looked over
by all of the worker be analysts and then sort
of passed up the chain to determine what's important and
relevant that day to go into the President's Daily Brief

(12:55):
the book like the next day. So you have teams
who come in early look through this stuff. We would
always have a morning team meeting where everybody who let's
say is working on Syria will literally come out of
their high partition cubicles and literally brief what we called
the traffic right, it was the traffic meeting, the morning
traffic meetings, So it's like what's come in overnight, what

(13:17):
came in late yesterday, and there's a team chief at
those meetings taking notes and trying to figure out what
they are then going to brief up at the next
level of meetings.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
And so you might occasionally have a day where something
has come in where you say, look, that actually is
really important, or it changes a line of analysis that
we've got, and if that's the case, someone will typically
get commissioned to write an article for the President's Daily
Brief or there's another publication called the Wire, the World
Intelligence Review, and that person who might consider themselves lucky

(13:52):
to get that opportunity, or depending on what they had
scheduled to go on later that day or at that evening,
might have just received a cent to stay in the
building until one or two in the morning while people
ten levels higher than them edit down to the word
the things that they wrote earlier that day. And then
you have your team where you have some people who

(14:12):
might be writing really current stuff or other people who
have avoided kind of that you know, that shotgun and
get to write longer term things, or go do briefings
down at the NSC or Congress or to other parts
of the intelligence community, and you're kind of like writing
and briefing and processing that stuff all day. And so

(14:33):
I think overall, the way I like to describe the
analytics side is it's like it's like a clandestine version
of journalism.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
Is really what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I mean, the fact that's something that you are analyzing,
even though you described it as sort of like the
minions in your cubicles processing information, the fact that that
could end up in the president's daily briefing and then
have national and international consequences is so cool, but also

(15:01):
I can imagine like so scary as well.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, it's like all those things at once, right, I mean,
there's there's definitely moments where you're writing particular pieces where
you're thinking, like, oh, this will actually have a good
chance at shaping the way that the president or others
around them might think about this issue. Right, And the
start of the Syrian you know, uprising and then eventually
a civil war, like in particular, the first you know,

(15:28):
three to six months of it, I felt like, you know,
you do feel that responsibility because there aren't that many
of us working on this, and the stuff we're writing
is being read daily by the president and so that's
you know, both terrifying and also a tremendous honor. And
then you also have other days, like in any big organization,
where you're like, I am writing something and I'm spending
a lot of time on this, and.

Speaker 4 (15:48):
Nobody's going to read it.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
You know, it's just going to go out into the
ether and who knows what happens, And it makes your
feelings in any given day pretty complicated.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
And there's a lot of people, you know, in an
organization like.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
That who are like, I don't want to rate the
pdbs anymore because I want to go home at six
o'clock and you know, crack open a beer. So you've
got all kinds of people on your team at any
given point in time, and people who are really motivated
and excited about it, and then people who are retired
on active duty essentially and phoning it in.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
I mean, even the fact that there are those different
dynamics is so unique and kind of unfathomable to the
average person because work life balance in a normal job
has such a different meaning I think, to the world
of intelligence or anything that involves global politics or the
new cycle or things where like time has such a
different meaning to you guys, because if you know, something

(16:37):
like nine to eleven happens, there is no clocking off,
there's no nine to five. You know, you just live
in such a different world to the average person. But
before we go a little bit further into your operations
and then your work in the Middle Eastern field stations,
I probably should have started with this question, But for
anyone who doesn't know the background of the CIA as
an organization, can you sort of explain where it sits

(16:58):
in the overalltelligence landscape. So in Australia we have ASIO
as our National Security Service or domestic Intelligence Service, which
would be the equivalent of the FBI for you guys,
or the FEBS as I think you called it.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
And THEBES. I don't know if they like it, but
I like calling them that.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
I'm sure they love it. Whereas the CIA is more
the foreign or external Intelligence Service, and our closest equivalent
is probably a ZI. So can you explain a bit
more about that distinction. But you also mentioned your role
as an analyst in contrast to the role as a
CIA case officer, So maybe just breaking down some of

(17:36):
those terms so our listener can understand where everything's it.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
So I'll start inside the CIA. We talked about how
there's a lot of jobs. The two big ones in
the CIA are analysts, which is what I was. So
you're sort of you're looking at all sorts of intelligence.
It could be human intelligence, it could be signals intelligence,
you know, intercepted phone calls and emails and facts and
all that kind of stuff, imagery, satellite imagery, reporting from
our You're looking at all this stuff and you're writing

(18:02):
the kind of what why and so what on a
particular question, right, that's the role of the analyst. The
case officers are the ones who are trying to find
humans who are out in foreign capitals and you know, abroad,
who have access to secrets that we want, and the
case officer attempts to recruit these people to give us

(18:25):
these secrets. So the case officer essentially facilitates the theft
of state secrets from other countries and they try to
recruit and handle human assets that provide those secrets.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
Right.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
But then inside the United States intelligence community, there are
like this is bewildering, right, there's like seventeen I think
intelligence agencies that are technically part of this intelligence community.
Most of them are not as large as the CIA.
But you have things like the NSA, which does all
of the signals intelligence. You have elements of the FBI,

(18:57):
so the FBI has like an intelligence agency side of it,
but its primary role is really domestic law enforcement. And
then you've got other, you know, other agencies like the
Defense Intelligence Agency, Like the Coastguard has their own intelligence agency.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
Right, like the Navy.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Right, yeah, examh absolutely, So you've got like this sort
of bewildering cluster of security organizations that, while they might
all have their own specialty, also do have real overlapping capabilities,
teams and mandates. It's all extremely interesting to me as
somebody who is in this world and writes about it

(19:32):
and fiction and then tells stories about it on the
rest is classified. But it's also like deeply redundant at times, right,
it's a massive bewildering.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
We've got behaymoth of overlapping exactly.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
And so that you know, the stories we tend to
tell on the on the pod and that I tend
to write about in the books are about you know,
the CIA, or they're about the FBI. They might have
a role for the you know, the NSA, the second Collectors,
but a lot of the smaller agencies just kind of
don't I don't know, they don't play at the at
the same level.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, they're not up with the big dogs like you guys.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
Well now, and by the way, everybody hates the CIA.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Too, right, because we're the CIA is seen as sort
of hopelessly arrogant and you know, a bunch of like
slightly over educated and weird people who are out collecting
useless information like that would be the that would be
the kind of critique that you would get like the FBI.
That's what the FBI would say, right the thebes they
would they would rag on us for that.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
I feel like you guys do have big interagency rivalry
over there.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
Absolutely. I mean we're doing so.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
We're recording a series right now on the Hunt for
Pablo Escobar in and Yeah, which has been fun. I
mean I kind of knew this, but I didn't know
the depth of the hatred.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
Like the DEA, the Drug.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Enforcement Administration, which has a sort of human collection capability
inside of it, it has agents and the CIA. I mean,
they hated each other during the hun hated each other.
The memoir from the DEA agents and I don't think
this is true, but they legitimately thought that the CIA
had tapped their phones at home, so listen to them,

(21:08):
like they included this in their memoir.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, I guess that's one thing that the TV shows
get right about all the agencies muscling in on people's
jurisdiction and all the agencies having a brawl about it.
But another thing.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
That you see a lot about in the sort of
Hollywood depictions of the CIA is the farm and the
crazy training that goes on there with people training to
do dead drops and learn about brush passes and being
doing survival training. So how did you train for your role?

(21:43):
Do analysts have to go to the farm?

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Did you actually go there?

Speaker 4 (21:47):
I was an analyst. Yeah, you don't. You don't go
through it.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
I mean, so you say, right, maybe.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
Put my tinfoil hat on so I can speak truthfully.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
I think the Hollywood concept of like the Jack Ryan
who's like, I'm an analyst, but then he's doing all
of the other crazy stuff. Right, it's like the CIA.
It's the stovepipes have gotten a little bit less rigid
in the past decade.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
But analyst is a.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Different job than case officer, and so the training and
the continuous education stuff and all the experiences are like
they can be really and probably rightfully, So are are
totally different from one another? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:22):
I was going to say, so you are basically a
real life Jack Ryan, but you just clarified.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, yes, Jack right and I share the same job title.
But other than that, it's it's different experiences. As I
learned about, you know, two days into the CIM, like, oh,
this is not like a Tom Clancy, you know Jack
Ryan stuff.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
This is a little bit more contained, let's say.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
I mean, it still sounds like I mean, I definitely
want to pick your brains about the Hollywood representations that
you do think are more accurate. But before that, you
mentioned like your expectations going in and then what you
ended up doing. You did end up working around the world,
you know, during the sort of Arab spring, which was
right in the thick of when you were in Syria.
You were at the CIA during the abottabadmission to eliminate

(23:10):
Asama bin Laden, like it really crucial big moments in
history for the CIA.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
And we've talked about our shared love of Zero Dark
thirty as a movie.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Can you tell us about what you know to the
extent that you can some of those things that you
were involved in that we would recognize for the news
and that were part of your career and what your
role was, Like, I know, you delivered some classified testimony
to Congress, So even if you weren't sort of cultivating assets,
you were working on these massive, cool international intelligence tasks.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
I think that the bit of my career at the
agency that would probably most overlap with what intelligent observers
of the world would would recognize, would be that there
was a pretty small team working on Syria in twenty
eleven when the protest movement that we kind of now
know is the Awakening orb Spring began and that ultimately

(24:04):
set in motion, you know, a set of protests and
civil unrest and eventually a civil war that led fifteen
years later Tubasher and Alasad finally you know, being pushed
out of power, and for the first few years of
that you know, sort of crisis. I was one of
the analysts working on Syria, both from Langley and the region,

(24:27):
and so I think even though there's not like an
operation that I would point you to say like, oh,
I did this thing, it was a really deeply formative
period for me because it was like a pretty small
group of people that were kind of, I think, helping
to shape the way that the Obama administration dealt with Syria.

(24:47):
And obviously, you know, there's a lot of a lot
of ways that the administration dealt with Syria that I
think were big mistakes and there were a lot of
missed opportunities. Like that period of kind of helping to
shape the government's understanding of what was going going on there,
you know, is something that I look back on with
a lot of pride.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Oh my gosh, So you were located, you know, when
you're at a field station. You moved to Syria, you're
working out of the embassy there. Talk us through like
the day to day when you're working offshore?

Speaker 3 (25:15):
What is that? Like? How much of Damascus Station the
book is accurate?

Speaker 4 (25:22):
Well, so, yeah, you know the novel.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
I mean, I really tried to render the station as
accurately as I possibly could. And it was easier because
by the time I was writing, the embassy had shut
down and the station wasn't there anymore. So I was
describing something that you know, had existed but didn't exist
at that time, which made it a lot easier to
get through the CIA's kind of sensors. What I really
wanted to do in the book was to take events

(25:44):
that had happened both when I was living in Damascus
and then when I was back at Langley in kind
of the first couple of years of that civil war,
and just build them into the novel and create a
plot line around the reality of the war in its
first you know, twenty four to thirty six months, and
so the list of stuff that happened is absolutely shocking.

(26:06):
I mean, there were sectarian massacres, the use of chemical
weapons on the battlefield, you know, the attempted assassination of
a bunch of OSAD senior security officials that did kill
his brother in law at like, you know, the equivalent
of serious CIA in Damascus.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
Right.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
So there's all these kind of crazy events that had
happened that had shaped the war, and that I had
been intimately involved in analyzing that. I wanted to basically
take change a little bit and then put them in
the novel. So they worked to kind of propel the
storyline forward. But to the question on you know, like
what it's like to work in the station, I mean,
the great thing about working in one of these field stations,
particularly a smaller one, is that you're dealing with a

(26:45):
lot less of the bureaucracy than you are back at Langley.
And you're working if you have a good chief of station,
you're working for somebody who's got a ton of authority
in leeway and can kind of, you know, use you
however here she wants. And I was lucky to work
for a lot of great Cos's overseas who were willing

(27:06):
to basically kind of let me do things that you know,
I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do back at Langley.
So those were really great experiences, and I was very
fortunate to have been able to serve in Damascus prior
to everything kicking off.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
Oh my gosh, that I kind of imagine what an
experience that would have been, especially knowing like was that
the first time you had lived and worked overseas And
I think you know a lot of us have experience
as expats, but not necessarily at an embassy and in
this world where you are analyzing real time information when
such huge events are happening. For anyone who hasn't read

(27:44):
Damascus Station, we will get to your books. Can you
explain a little bit about the embassy setup? So you know,
all countries sort of have embassy set up in other countries,
but then there's you know, the politics and diplomacy, and
then the CIA obviously is inside that. So are you
sitting elsewhere? Are you allowed to tell people where you work?

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Did you feel like you were a target walking around
the streets because people knew you were American?

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Like?

Speaker 3 (28:08):
How much of that stuff was real?

Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (28:10):
So you know the embassy there was in this beautiful
part of kind of just really in central Damascus, right
on this traffic circle. It was great because it was
integrated with the city, but it was very unlike a
lot of the embassies that the US has now all
around the Middle East in that it was like the
setback from the road was like two feet, right, So

(28:33):
from the standpoint of being protected from car bombs, it
was not so great, but it felt like it was
part of the city. You know, on the embassy kind
of compound, you do have these different sort of layers, right,
You've got the marine guards, You've got you know, Syrian
kind of foreign nationals who work in the embassy, right,
But then you do have pieces of the embassy in

(28:54):
the kind of chancery part where you've got the political
and economic sections of the State department, ambassador, you have
the deputy chief emission, and then you have in Damascus,
it was like below that you've got the station, right,
and you don't have This was the case in most
of the places that I served. I mean, you know,

(29:15):
if you're the CIA there, depending on the relationship with
the host government, you might be declared to them right
as CIA, or you might not, and you have some
form of diplomatic cover, so you're working, you know, in
the economics section, or you're working as a consular officer,
or you're working as a political officer, but you know,

(29:36):
your real job is to work in the station, and
those covers, depending again on where you are, can either
be basically wayfer thin and useless or it can you know,
you can really try to make sure that it holds
up to some degree so that those officers have, you know,
the sort of freedom to go around and meet people
and not be watched all the time. But in Syria,

(29:58):
where you know, as a prior to to the war
was you know, a fairly effective police state, you know,
they would follow you around all the time just to
kind of check you out, and you don't. You don't,
but it's not weird, like I'm an analyst there, Like
I'm not conducting an operational act. So to me it
was also I didn't mind it because I thought, you know,
if if there's if anyone tries to like mug me,

(30:18):
one of these guys is going to is going to
stop it from happening. So I kind of felt like
you've got some extra muscle with you.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
I'd think your own bodyguards exactly.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
They just don't know it.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
I can't imagine that being followed and knowing that everything
is being watched because they don't know that you're just
an analyst, right, Like, wouldn't they always be assuming that
you were doing something else.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
They're probably always checking you out, Yeah, to see and
figure out weird you Well, no, it was. It wasn't
weird because it was just like part of the deal.
And you know, again, I'm not like trying to hide anything,
and so you just kind of go to a place
like Syria with the understanding that you don't have any
privacy and that's just part of the deal.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, Oh my gosh, that's nuts. Did you ever feel
like your life was at risk? Like, were you ever
sort of at a station where there was, you know,
a security event happening.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
No, you know, I did not do a tour in
Baghdad or in Kabble. I mean a lot of a
lot of my comrades would have would have gone. Those
stations were massive back in those days, right, and there
was I guess more of a possibility there was long
about there's more of a possibility there that something might happen.
But I think it's one of the misconceptions about the
work is that it's like your life is regularly in danger,

(31:31):
you know, or anything like that. I just, especially as
an analyst, I mean, I just I never felt I
mean I felt very, very, very safe. The only time
I ever thought like, ooh, this is you know, maybe
a place I shouldn't be is I actually had when
I was in Syria. I heard a driver to take
me down to this city in the south called dra
that has this wonderful Roman amphitheater. This is actually the

(31:53):
city that, you know, like two months after I visited,
it was going to be the first place that protests
erupted in Syria and kind of that to some degree
the cradle of the protest movement there. And I remember,
after visiting the ruins, the cap driver took me to
this place and we're just kind of having lunch and
talking and you're looking around and I'm kind of thinking,
like I stand out like crazy here and I'm not
particularly welcome. I never felt like, oh, my life is

(32:15):
in danger or anything like that, but it's just this
kind of feeling.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
Of like we should leave.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, but that was as bad as it got, right,
And you can have that kind of feeling in a
lot of different places in the.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
United States too, or it's like you shouldn't be here. Yeah,
that's what it felt like.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
What about some of those hair on the back of
your neck crescendos, like when you were part of the
announcement that the CIA got bin Laden in that compound, Like,
what are some of those moments in your career where
you were just like, wow.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, that was you know again, I'll just preface I
had absolutely nothing to do with the with the hunt
for a Samma bin Laden while I was at the agency,
but I remember hearing about it as I drove into
work that day, and then then Director Panetta did a big,
like you know, sort of all hands briefing that morning
for the entire workforce. He said a lot more than
he was supposed to say because he was so excited,

(33:04):
and I still remember it. He was using all kinds
of profanity and he was overjoyed with what had happened.
It was like Christmas morning for Leon Panetical. It was
like one of the best days of his life. And
I think, you know what I felt in that moment,
and what it felt like at the agency was like
even if you hadn't been on the team hunting in right,
you just have this sense that like, I'm proud to

(33:25):
be part of an organization that has accomplished this, and
it's really really cool to be able to hear from
the director exactly what happened and then get to sort
of like compare that to what gets leaked out to
the press, right, And that high is a fun one

(33:45):
inside the agency, and it is one that I still
miss because the other I guess event from my time
there that would maybe resonate with listeners is when the
United States just about bombed Syria after the outside regime
used chemical weapons in twenty fourteen. That moment of like

(34:06):
being inside and seeing just how close we got to
doing that and then comparing it to kind of what's
going on the outside. Like in that case, it was
actually really really, really frustrating, because I think a lot
of us felt, like you said, there was a line
and we kind of need to punish the regime for
doing this, and then we did end. But that was
one of those moments where you're kind of seeing what

(34:27):
you're working on at your desk playing out in real
time in the news and in the world, and that
feeling it's hard to replicate that anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, I can't even imagine. I'm so excited just listening
to these. So in terms of that, like divide between
what it actually is like versus the depiction in popular culture.
I feel like there's obviously a high level of secrecy,
but there seems to be a lot more declassified around
the CIA than there was, for example, without as officer,

(34:58):
because yeah, I don't know, maybe because we don't have
Hollywood here, and also our sort of history instruction is
a bit different. But you know, we all know about SDRs,
we know about brush passes and dead drops, Like how
much of that is real? And are there movies that
you think or from what you've seen from the inside
that you're allowed to say You're like, yes, that is

(35:21):
very accurate. And then on the flip side, how many
myths do you see that You're just like that, I
need to bust that, Like that is frustrating because that
is nothing like the intelligence world in real life.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
So answer the first question is that, yes, I mean
all that tradecraft and the stuff that I'm trying to
bring into the novels, like that that exists, right and
is real. Now there might be pieces of it that
I'm not elaborating on, and in particularly when you get
to the tech side and how communication happens between case
officers or the CIA and assets like that, stuff gets

(35:52):
starts to get super sensitive. Right on the Hollywood side,
like the vast majority of the entertainment, it can be very,
very entertaining, and I do tend to consume most of it,
but almost all of it is completely inauthentic, right, and
so if your lens is like to enjoy this, it
needs to be authentic. I don't have a lot of

(36:15):
great representations of the work to like put in front
of you and say go and read this or go
and watch this.

Speaker 4 (36:23):
Right, there are.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Elements, I think of different spy franchises that do get
bits of it right. So the Americans, I don't know
if you're familiar with that show about you know, Russian
Legals and the States, like, they get the a lot
of the street tradecraft is pretty good. They get the
disguises rights like things like little things like that. But
there's a whole bunch of crazy pieces in that show,

(36:45):
and the operational tempos insane, and you know, it's unrealistic
right In total, the biggest thing For me though, in
terms of the representation that I think is wrong is
you do have a tendency in Hollywood to create superhero
spies who are you know, well armed, very much above
average looking and operating in the United States, you know,

(37:07):
and maybe bipolar, like in Homeland with Kerry Matheson. Right, So,
like that representation is totally wrong for the actual work
of intelligence, Like it's actually just not what the job is.
I don't know, it's kind of a negative answer. There's
there are other there are other like you know, spy
films and things like that that do get pieces of it, right,

(37:28):
Like one that sticks out to me is there's a
it's actually a Netflix series called The Spy that has
Sasha Baron Cohen in it.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Oh, yes, I love that one.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Which is great, Yeah, which is great, And I think
that it's said in the sixties, but he's basically playing
in Israeli knock an officer under non official cover in Syria,
and that does a great job with like the psychology
of a deep cover officer.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
Right.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
But I think what I'd probably say is like, if
you want some accuracy, like definitely don't watch Hollywood films
about the business because it's just not gonna it's just
not going to do it.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
I mean, of course we know that Hollywood is taking
some creative license. But what I found really interesting was
you ask all your guests on The Rest is Classified
what their favorite espionage movie or TV show or book is,
and sometimes they do say that certain parts are rendered
really accurately according to the official reports. So for example,

(38:19):
zero Dark thirty, the mission sequence or the part of
the movie that reflects the raid on the Abodabad compound
where Osama bin Laden was goes for the exactly amount
of minutes as it actually went in real life, and
that all of the operational details are accurate. But then,
even taking away the Hollywood element, when I listen to
the Rest is Classified and all the stories you tell

(38:41):
their real stories, and they all sound that level of
dramatic and intense operationally like they sound Hollywood worthy, particularly
the episode you did on the most bonkers things that
the CIA has ever done, like MK Ultra and Operation
Atomic Kitty or whatever it was called. So tell us

(39:02):
about some of those operations.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Yeah, I mean, I guess if you stack up decades
of its history and sort of put stuff in the
crazy column, you can definitely get there.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
Right.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
So you mentioned mk ultra you know, sort of search
for a mind control capability that involved testing LSD and
a whole bunch of other drugs on a bunch of
unwinning Americans, including prison inmates, right, like, and injecting an
elephant with LSD.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
So there's all kinds of insane stuff, right. There have
been you know, a lot of there was a lot
of work back in the fifties and sixties on poisons,
very exotic poisons. I think the CIA for a while
had the largest quantity of distilled shellfish tocsin in the
entire world. So that's that's another like very strange one.
I mean, the Intersection will do a series at some

(39:48):
point on the intersection of the CIA and magic because
the CI actually did a lot of work with magicians,
number of magicians back you know, back in like the
fifties and sixties on sort of how might you incorporate
techniques from magic into tradecraft, right in particular, like slight
of hand movements for brush passes and things like that.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
Oh, that's so cool.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
One of those kind of things are bonkers, Yeah, And
it's really fascinating, right because there actually are applications and
use cases for magic in the world of intelligence. I mean,
you know, the disguised stuff I always find fascinating. I
think that is a really cool little kind of subgenre
inside the world of the CI. I mean, the masks
got and the disguises got so good that the John A. Mendez,

(40:33):
who is the agency's chief of disguise for many years,
and it's kind of you know, publicized some of this.
I actually went to a meeting a briefing for George H. W.
Bush On, I think the disguise program in disguise, and
it couldn't tell it was her, and she literally like
pulled the mask off like possible, like halfway through the briefing,

(40:57):
and you know, they're like audible.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
Gasps from the president and his chief staff.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
So there's all these, you know, all these kinds of
like bonkers things, because you do end up even though
the agency we've talked about it is like, oh hey,
it's a big bureaucracy and you know, it's got its stuff,
the things that's doing at some kind of pointier tip
of the spear are kind of insane when you list
it off, like the agency is trying to convince people

(41:24):
to betray everything that they know and love and doing
it successfully every day. It's a weird mission when you
think about it that way. And as a result, it
leads and it's done in sort of the shadows, right,
and so it leads to some like kind of crazy
stuff happening right and in particularly if you go back
into the like fifties and sixties, you just have a

(41:46):
whole raft of like nutty operations and ideas. I mean
the agencies, you know, like trying to overthrow leftist governments
left and right back in that period, right, and considering
assassinating foreign leaders and why you're tapping domestic protest movements
in the un asked to see if they're a chock
full of communists. So the agency got up to some
proper trouble back and back in the day.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
What a rogue era. That sounds like I.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Think they might have been having more fun. Yeah, a
lot of it was illegal, but I think.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
I mean, self administering LSD sounds like a wild thing
to have to do at work.

Speaker 4 (42:17):
But I know, I know, it's just it's it's fun.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
I mean literally spiking coffee pots with LSD at the agency.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
What, Oh see, it's so funny.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
It's like some of the things that the movies aren't real,
and some of them aren't even close to how weird
it actually got exactly.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
That's right, that's fun Some of the things.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
The other things that ask spot on that I think
you have mentioned in the podcast are like there is
a hot dog vending machine? What else is in the building?
Like there's a Starbucks? Is there a disguise room? Like
did you guys ever.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
Go into it?

Speaker 2 (42:48):
And also did you ever do weapons training? Like does
everyone have to do that?

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Not everyone has to do it? And I did not
do it when I was there, but you can do it.
And there are like classes that you could sign up for,
even as an analyst. To one of my friends, and
I actually deeply, I deeply regret not signing up for this.
One of my friends, she's an analyst. She went out
and did this like small arms training course and there's
a picture of her firing like a rocket propelled grenade,
like out in the middle of No Virginia. And I'm like, oh, man,

(43:13):
I should have gone and done that.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
I can't believe you'd out.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
What was I thinking? Inside the agency? There's a lot
of crazy stuff, right, So it mixes this weird. It's
again it's this coming back to this weird blend of
like you mentioned the Starbucks. So there's a there's a Starbucks,
there's a Dunkin Donuts. There used to be a Peruvian
chicken Blaze. There's a frozen yogurt. There's a credit union,

(43:37):
there is a little convenience store, there's a gift shop. Right,
so there's all this stuff where you're like, Okay, that
seems just kind of totally normal for a big corporate
campus where you're in this you're not in a remote
area of Virginia. But it's also not easy to like
leave during the day and come back. It's not quick
to do that, to like go out and have lunch.
So you got a big cafeteria, but then you've got

(43:59):
like you go downstairs to a room in the basement
that's sort of unmarked and open it up, and you know,
you walk inside and there's a bunch of surveillance drone
feeds in there, right, that are monitoring a Middle Eastern
country's military sites.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
Right, So you're like and it's like below the Starbucks.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
That's so this is all happening in the same in
the same place. It's a bit of a surreal enviola.
And you've got like, you know, a parking lot that's
got like you you know, set up for intermoral basketball games.
But it's right sort of, you know, within spitting distance
of an A twelve ox cart, which is the precursor
to the SR seventy one spy plane that's just set

(44:37):
up there in the parking lot. Right, So you've got
all this, like it's the mixture of those things. It's
like a bunch of normal stuff and then some stuff
where you're like, wow, that's we don't have that on
at and T from a big organization in the States,
you know.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
Well you might have a Starbucks.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
But like I was reading about how like so many
people can't use their real names and so.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Like how do you identify it?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Like when people are yelling out people's names for their coffee,
It's like, how do you do that?

Speaker 3 (45:04):
In the CIA, they.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Don't They just yell have to drink what they don't?
I mean, And you can't use a credit card on
the campus, yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Because it's your real name.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah right, Oh my god? And what else is stuff
like that? Like see that's so normal to you guys,
but to us. That's like, what do you mean?

Speaker 1 (45:19):
And I guess I guess that I should caveat that
was if you were if you were an overt employee, yeah,
that's fine. But if you're like you're a case officer
who's undercover or something like that, or an analyst who's undercover,
or no credit card, you're using cash, and yeah, the
Starbucks like, it's not like you'd give your name. You
would just they would call the order out, as opposed

(45:40):
to you know, saying, oh, hey, this is Sarah.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
No, it would be like, oh my gosh, it's a
Grande American. There you go, you know.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
And then and then if the two people have ordered it,
you sort of have to like look at it and
talk to the person figure.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
Out what's in it.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
So, oh, this is bizarre. The hot dog machine, incidentally,
has been removed.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
At rip Oh that's a real shame.

Speaker 4 (45:59):
I know.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
I was devastated. I actually went back in and looked
for it and it's gone. I can confirm firsthand knowledge
it's been ripped. It's been ripped out.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Okay, Well, one thing you are a real life example
of is the fact that you can actually leave the
CIA and maintain a good relationship to be invited back
because I sort of was like, can you ever really leave?
I mean it sounds like proof that you can because
you have gone on to do other things and got
permission to actually publish books that are fiction but do
have a lot of tradecraft and details about as you mentioned,

(46:29):
like stations. So you left the CIA, Wynja McKinsey did
consulting from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty one, so.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
Quite a big chapter.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
But then have made your way back into the world
of espionage as a best selling author and now host
of The Rest Is Classified with Gordon Carrera. Tell us
about life post CIA, adjusting to that but also finding
your way back, Like was that because you missed it?

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Well, you know I did.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
So the thing that I always did miss as a
consultant was I felt like, this is not a knock
on the corporate world.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
It's just it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
It wasn't for me, Like I was never as interested
in the problems as I was in the problems I
was looking at at the agency, and so for me,
like coming back to this world was again a bit
of an accident because I had started writing something when
I left the CIA and then put it aside when
I joined a consulting firm, but had really loved the writing,

(47:26):
and so when I had the opportunity in twenty she
was twenty nineteen to kind of take some time and
to write full time for a little bit, just to
see if I could finish it and get it done.
Like I jumped at it. I think, you know, for me,
it was like, well, I will try to write. The
process of writing that I had started when I left
the agency was really about Syria. I said, Okay, I'm
going to try to write a spy novel because that'll

(47:48):
be a good way to actually write a story set
in Syria right and try to get Syria right and
try to get the Cia right. And I just loved writing,
and so I was like, all right, I'll see where
this goes.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
It was of these things of like baby step into
that and then finish the book, get an agent for
the book, sell the book, book does well, and then like, well,
I'm going to write another book, well to be a
spy novel. And so you're sort of I'm starting to
like dip back into this world, but very much kind
of by accident or happenstance. But I've found in kind
of getting back into the writing that like, I'm really

(48:21):
interested in what's going on in the world of espionage.
I'm really interested in these kinds of stories, be they
fiction that's sort of based on fact or you know,
the kind of stories that Gordon and I do on
the pod.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
I just like this stuff.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
This is the stuff that I like reading. I like
thinking about this world. And so it's been this weird
kind of journey back to have now shed most of
the work that I'm doing in the corporate world, any
kind of consulting, and just be doing the podcast in writing,
and it's it's quite refreshing to be back.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
I love this part so much.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Normally it's spend most of the episode on this, but
I could not resist. I mean, my own passion and
joy on the show we call it like yay my
own ya is obviously this world of espionage and yeah,
I just had to pick your brains about everything I
could within the CIA. But normally in an episode we
would spend more time on this. The fact that in

(49:12):
every pathway we're all trying to find I think we
spend a lot of our lives trying to pursue success
or meet society's expectations of what our life is supposed
to look like, and you might find it in one
role and you know, be a CIA analyst. And then
that chapter comes to an end and sort of like, well,
what do I do next? And it's funny that I
think the dot's all connect, Like you've got your joy,

(49:34):
You've got that one thing you're interested in, and it's
just manifested in slightly different ways throughout the different chapters,
but you still found a way to keep it alive.
And I love that, like going all the way back
to your childhood. I was reading that at UNI, you
worked on a satirical publication called Off the Records, So
you've always been a writer. I look at our life
or our ultimate joy as a jigsaw puzzle, and every
new experience you're adding new pieces or getting rid of

(49:57):
old pieces and kind of trying to find new ones.
And perhaps Mackenzie didn't meete all the pieces that you needed,
but you've gone on to find new pieces that still allow.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
You to do all the different things that you love.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
And I think that's that's like my favorite kind of
career path to show people is you can piece lots
of different pieces together and never know. I mean, I'm
sure you never knew you'd end up as a best
selling author with a podcast.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Absolutely, and yet here you are. Yes, No, it's I
would be the first to admit. My wife would also
emphasize this that like, I'm not really a futurist, Like
it's hard for me to sort of see that far
into the future, right in particular as it comes to
sort of my life and career. But what I am
or at least try to be open to or intuitive about,

(50:40):
is like where's the next step or two? What doors
are open in front of me? Or what opportunities might
I have? And it just kind of has you know,
worked over time to like put these little things together
and to like, Okay, I want to write a book,
so like write the book, right, And then it's like, well,
you write a second you have an opportunity to write

(51:02):
a second book, right. You don't have the opportunity to
write the second book if you don't write the first book.
The opportunity to do the podcast came about because of
the books, right, So you can kind of like funnel
a lot of the different jigsaw pieces like kind of
funnel back to a decision that I made to really
take this hunk of paper that I had been working

(51:22):
on back in twenty fourteen and really try to turn
it into something that I was passionate about. I don't know,
It's not like a sappy Jaseer Dreams kind of speel, but.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
It was this feeling off.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
This gives me energy and I need to keep doing
it right, Like this is fundamentally part of who I am,
Like I need to write this, and so much has
sort of opened up from I think being open to
that and not kind of because there very much would
have been a world where I could have just closed
that down and turn that voice off and just kind

(51:54):
of kept on going as a consultant, and I wouldn't
be enjoying my day to day and week to week
and month of mine as much as I am today
if I had like kind of turned that voice down,
you know, six years ago.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
So oh oh, that is such a powerful SoundBite for
what I What I always try and remind people on
this is that, like, it isn't always a sappy Chase
your dream's kind of story because you often don't know
what the dream is like. You didn't know that this
was your dream to become a best selling author. You
just were like chase the energy, like you said, like
follow the things that give you energy. And I always say, like,

(52:27):
you don't have to see the whole staircase to take
the first step. You just took a step and then
that led to the next step, and you don't need
to know what that next step is. But you've just
got to keep putting like one foot in front of
the other, closer to the thing that makes you feel
the most like you. And that gets like their sliding
doors moments sometimes in decisions in life give me goosebumps
to think of what you could have ended up not
doing if you hadn't followed that one thing that was

(52:49):
like no, come back, come back.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
Totally, no, exactly.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
And it's it's a confusing thing to work out in
real time because you know, you can talk yourselves into
all kinds of pathways that it's not like, you know,
I would have been going down some journey into like,
you know, human misery.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
Right like it it would have been.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
It would have been probably would have been okay, but
it would have been a lot less interesting and fun
and creative in many ways than what I'm doing now.
So yeah, that that kind of for the energy thing
resonates with me because it's also if I like take
a magnifying glass from life and career down to just
literally the writing process. Like it's also how the how

(53:30):
the books get written. It's trying to figure out like where,
what settings, what characters have energy, and how do I
sort of like lean into that and dive into that.
So I'm very that very much resonates with me.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
I mean, guys, this guy just decides to try and
write a book, not knowing that he's going to be
an author, and the former chief of the CIA calls
it the best spy novel that he's ever read. So
you've gone on to not just like try your hand
at writing, but become a multi best selling author. I
believe you have a fourth book coming out this year,

(54:03):
The Persian, Is that correct?

Speaker 1 (54:04):
That's right on September thirtieth in the States, the Persian
will drop. It's a standalone So, I mean, my books
are not really a series, but they all kind of
exist as part of the same universe. This is the
first time that don't have any overlapping characters with the
other books. It's in a story about the Israeli Iranian
shadow war, which I hope is very timely given what's
going on in the news now, and it'll be out

(54:26):
here in the States on September thirtieth, and then in
the UK and Commonwealth, I believe in January. We don't
have a set date yet, but it's coming soon.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
And then of course we have the rest is classified.
If you guys are interested in any of this, there
is so much to consume now. From November there's like
twice weekly episodes since then, covering all kinds of incredible stories.
And these are all like true stories that you and.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
You and Gordon cover. Do you have a favorite episode
or series for.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Anyone, like what would be the gateway drug into the show?

Speaker 4 (55:01):
Oh, that's a good question.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
So I think I think the two series that I
would recommend to people that I think the storytelling is good.
I think the subjects are fascinating, and I think kind
of the back and forth between me and Gordon is
humming along.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
I mean, I think it's all good.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Of course, it's amazing, guys. I pay for a subscription,
like I want the episodes in advance, so I'm a
secret squirrel in case anyone else wants to join. I
don't have a discount code, but I highly recommend you join.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (55:27):
I also highly recommend that everybody joins.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
The two series I would recommend would be the one
we did on Edward Snowden, the series we did on
Osama Bin Laden, and we try to do a really
kind of wide range of stuff, historical, more present day.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
We do short series.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
It could be two episodes in some cases one or
it could be stuff that's up to six episodes. But
those two, I think are that's the gateway drugs. So
if you want to see what we're all about, that's
the interesting The Edward Snowden, that's the LSD which I
got snowed in and check out Osama Bin Laden.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Oh David, thank you so much for your time. I
could listen to you and pick your brain forever. But
I'm so grateful for you coming on the show. And
i can't wait for the next book. I mean, I've
got this on here, I've got all of them so far,
I've been devouring them. So congratulations on everything.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
No, thank you, this has been wonderful, Sarah, thanks so
much for having me.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Clearly I could have continued this chat for days, if
not weeks and months, but you'll just have to head
on over to the rest is classified if you're after more.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
If you enjoyed listening or.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Had any big takeaways, please do take a moment to
share those or share the episode tagging at McCloskey books
to thank David for his time and to help him
share his work as far and wide as possible. I'll
also include links to his books. Both Nick and I
have poured over all three of them and cannot wait
for the next installment later this year. I promise that

(56:45):
we will take a little break from the spy content
with our next guest for those of you who aren't
as into espionage as I am, and I finally do
have some more season Baby episodes coming your way. But
my goodness, I have enjoyed this past few weeks. It
has been such an indulgence of my personal placed. So
thank you guys so much for listening and following along.
In the meantime, I hope you're having a wonderful week

(57:06):
and seizing your ya

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