June 30, 2025 • 54 mins
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Digital Disruption with Geoff Nielson
Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
Digital Disruption with Geoff Nielson
Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How's it going, jim?
It's been probably a year atthis point.
I mean, I think at this pointyou come on once a year, you
know, and it's been too longsince we last talked.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I was trying to remember Joe.
I think this is my third time,although it may have been fourth
.
Time flies so quickly.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, maybe, honestly , it might be your fourth.
I mean I think I had you onwhere we talked about your
background and everything, andthen the next time we were
talking about your books, right,and you know you just had your
third book published.
Congrats on that.
I mean, again, you know I'm nota big physical book reader and
I'm not a big you know fictionreader, right, and I mean it
(00:37):
reads so easy.
I'm very impressed with how youwrite it, with how you
construct it, especially with itbeing such complex topics of
espionage, right.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, you're very kind, joe.
Thank you, I enjoy writing it.
I can't run CIA operationsanymore, but I can fictionalize
and live through my characters,and that's what I enjoy a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, I could definitely tell that and I
feel like, just from talkingwith you and hearing other
interviews and whatnot, I feellike, you know, just from
talking with you and hearingother interviews and whatnot, I
feel like there's severaldifferent characters in the
world that you've created, right, that kind of resemble
different aspects of what asuccessful, you know, case
(01:17):
officer might be, that you'veexperienced firsthand in your
own career.
Right, and you know it's aninteresting way to talk about
those topics, right, Because youcan't talk about all the stuff
that you did, right, you canonly really talk about like one
you know event, one monumentalevent in the world that took
place.
But it's interesting to likehear it.
(01:38):
Like hear the book, you know,read the book, right, and
envision it like oh, you know,we talked about how he would go
on runs, right, we talked aboutyour runs.
And then in your book, you know,one of the main characters is
going on daily runs, right,which you know it provides a
whole lot of different facets.
Maybe I'm reverse engineeringit too much, you know, just from
(01:58):
my technical mindset, right,but just thinking of the
counterintelligence division ofthe FBI views this run
completely differently from howthis.
You know this completely, youknow American, you know fully,
fully loyal to their country, istaking their runs Right.
They're taking their runs aslike almost a mental check in
(02:20):
Right.
Less about actually, you know,doing anything harmful to the
country, or even developing anasset, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Right, yeah, well, I mean they say, write what you
know.
And I've been a runner forabout over 49 years and so a lot
of my characters, notsurprisingly, are runners, and I
think each one of thecharacters.
In my three books there's atleast one character who's a
runner.
And I'm not running at themoment, I'm just power walking
and I miss the running terribly,except in the ungodly heat
(02:50):
we're having here in NorthernVirginia.
I don't miss that.
But it's true, being a runner,a long-distance runner, which I
started way back in 1975, it hascertainly been a big part of my
life.
I used to consider my variousCIA operations when I was
running.
I occasionally would attractwhat I would call a't really put
(03:12):
much time into running lately,you know and my excuse is having
two little kids and getting myPhD right.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So I don't really make excuses, but that's my
light attempt at an excuse,right, so I can't really find
the time right now.
But you know, I ran crosscountry, I ran track and then I
ran all the way through collegeand beyond, not for a college
team, but just in college, right.
And whenever I go on reallylong runs I find it so mentally
(03:51):
beneficial, you know, far beyondthe physical benefits, right,
of your health and whatnot, butI feel like I always refer to it
as working out the demons,right, because for me, for my
brain, for me, to go on a reallylong run we're talking 15, 18
miles, something like that right, I have to keep my brain
(04:11):
completely occupied the entiretime.
100% of the time has to beoccupied, otherwise I start
talking myself out of running.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, no, because I hate it.
You're right.
No, it's a great time forreflection, for meditation.
In my case, the last few yearsI've used it to construct
dialogue for my characters in mynovels, and whenever I come
back home, I always quicklyscribble down my thoughts lest I
forget them.
They slip through that all tooporous sieve of my brain, and so
(04:43):
I use it for all kinds ofthings.
Nowadays, as I said, I'm moreinto power walking.
By that I mean trying to dolike a 16 or 17 or an 18 minute
mile, which requires a lot offocus to walk that quickly.
And so and especially if you'rein a hilly area like I am in
McLean Virginia it can bechallenging, but I get out, I do
it.
It's really healthy for you,both physically and
(05:04):
psychologically, and I still getnot quite the runner's high
that I did, those mentalendorphins.
I do still feel good aboutmyself and I come back and I
want to write down what I'vebeen thinking about.
So I know exactly what you'retalking about, joe.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, it's the endorphins part, that running
that runner's high is addictive.
I remember when I was trainingfor the marathon.
There are specific days of theweek that you take off and on
those off days I would be sorebut I would be so frustrated
that I couldn't go out runningor shouldn't go out running, and
(05:40):
I was thinking to myself like II actually hate this thing, but
I'm sad that I can't do it.
So how much do I actually hateit?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I have that feeling and on the days when I couldn't
run I'd be in a depressed mood,snappish, and you know that kind
of.
Usually I would do my runningearly in the morning when I
don't obstruct anybody, don'ttake up anybody else's time,
besides the fact that it wouldbe cool and dark and felt good
just to go out and do that.
But yeah, a lot of mycharacters are that same
(06:10):
philosophy, not surprisingly.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, so you know, I got to ask you, okay.
So in your book, right, thiscounterintelligence team, you
know, identifies your maincharacter as being a potential
mole right in the agency, and Idon't want to give away too much
, but it's also very like hinted, you know, in your first
paragraph of your first chapterand whatnot in your experience,
(06:34):
can you talk to how that isreally, you know, managed or
mitigated?
Because I'm thinking about itfrom an operational perspective.
Right, where you're somewhere,you're in another country, right
, you have an operation thatyou're running, you're trying to
, you know, gain targets orassets for a certain goal that
(06:58):
you're trying to fit, all whilebeing investigated by this
counterintelligence team.
You know, great professionals,very well skilled and everything
.
And I'm trying to think through, because the actions that you
would take to gain that asset,to gain that resource, would
probably look very suspicious toa counterintelligence team.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Exactly.
And so how do you?
It's just what James JesusAngleton, the CIA chief of
counterintelligence, called thewilderness of mirrors.
It was, you know, I mean, whatthey're looking for.
What the counterintelligenceteam is looking for, especially
the counter espionage CI team islooking for is a spy, just like
(07:41):
the type of people I recruited,and looking for what would be
the motivations for somebody tobe a mole?
And, as I've told you onprevious programs, there's all
kinds of reasons for espionage.
The most salient one typicallyis revenge or ego.
And so they're looking for whywould this person commit
espionage?
And it's the same thing that Iwould look for in my targets,
(08:03):
because I'm trying to convincethem to become moles in their
government.
So it really is like thatendless wilderness of mirrors
where you're looking to try andcause something and other people
are looking at you trying todecide are you the person who's
leaking?
Are you the person who isrevealing who our assets on the
(08:24):
other side are?
And I was in my book, in my newbook, the Traitor's Tale At the
acknowledgments, I talk aboutthe fact that I was betrayed by
a friend of mine named Ed Howard, who defected to the Soviet
Union in 1985.
Ed and I had been friends, wehad dined in each other's homes
(08:45):
several times I was jealous ofthe fact that he was selected by
our then called Soviet Europeandivision so that he could have
a tour in Moscow.
One of the most difficultplaces to operate in the world
is right in Moscow, under thenose of the then KGB.
And I was jealous of the factthat they selected Ed out of our
(09:06):
training facility at the farmto go to this elite first tour
of Moscow and they gave himRussian language training at
Georgetown University.
At the same time.
I was getting consular trainingfrom the Foreign Service
Institute and I was I was morethan a little jealous of Ed
getting this plum assignment.
And then I was shocked.
About two years later I camehome from a trip.
(09:30):
I was in Bern, switzerland.
I came home from a trip and mywife Ellen said you know, ed
Howard called today and he askedfor you and you weren't here.
So we chatted for a while andshe said that he quit the agency
and is now working for the NewMexico State Legislature.
And I thought, why would he dothat?
Well, what I didn't know wasthat Ed had all kinds of
(09:51):
suitability issues.
He had drinking problems,substance abuse problems and he
also had anger managementproblems, including one
egregious incident on anaircraft on a commercial
aircraft where a woman who wasseated next to him, who had a
small baby, and that baby wasbeing very, you know, baby-like,
(10:12):
crying and stuff, I know youknow that with two small
children Well, she gets up fromher seat and goes to the
bathroom with the infant, leavesher purse there and Ed is so
angered he rifles her purse andsteals $20.
I mean, we're talking about aguy who's got some real issues.
So the agency fired him.
Basically they fired him.
(10:32):
They found him a job with theNew Mexico State Legislature,
but that wasn't obviouslysuitable for Ed.
He was so upset he ended upvolunteering to the Russians and
in doing so he betrayed one ofour most valuable assets, the
one that David Hoffman in theBillion Dollar Spy wrote about,
(10:52):
alfred Tolkachev.
Tolkachev had revealed all ofthe Soviet avionics designs,
things like that.
It was calculated that it wouldhave cost the Department of
Defense, our Pentagon, over abillion dollars to develop these
same things that Tolkachev gaveus.
Well, ed betrayed him.
Tolkachev was shot and also hebetrayed everybody he knew,
(11:19):
including myself.
I was going to go to anotherpost in Scandinavia and we
always do a counterintelligencewrite-up where headquarters does
a description of what yourcover exposures have been.
You know who knows that you infact are CIA.
Well, so I got a copy of thecable, the write-up that they
were sending to my new post, andthey send a courtesy copy to
(11:40):
you at the old post.
And my copy read simplybetrayed by the traitor Ed
Howard.
I went whoa, and sure enough,ed had told the KGB who I was,
because I could never get any ofthe KGB officers out one-on-one
with me because theircounterintelligence chief said
stay away from Jim Lawler, he'snothing but trouble.
(12:01):
And he was right.
I wouldn't be nothing, I wouldbe nothing but trouble.
But it's a terrible feeling tohave, you know, a guy who I
thought was my pal, my buddy,and he basically stabbed me in
the back and said yeah, jimLawler, he's a CIA officer you
better stay away from him.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, I couldn't even imagine the betrayal that goes
into that.
I mean, you know you're puttingyour life on the line every
time you go out of the country.
You know, I mean probably eventechnically, if you're in the
country, right, like you couldbe a target of something right,
a foreign, foreign adversary,and you're risking everything
(12:37):
going over there Maybe it's evena benign trip, right, and a
colleague is going to betray youlike that, knowing full well
that your life is on the line.
I mean that's really hard tocompute for me.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I know, but the feeling was it really was like a
cold knife in the back.
And then years later in fact itwas only about, I guess, about
eight or nine years ago well,after my retirement, I decided
with my wife that we would takea Baltic cruise.
We would visit Sweden, we'dvisit Finland and we'd call in
the former Baltic republics andin St Petersburg, russia.
(13:14):
Well, I still have a clearance.
And my headquarters said no,you're not going to Russia.
So we docked in St Petersburgand I stayed on the ship for
three days while my wife wentashore.
You know, it was a Vikingcruise or something like that.
But I stayed on the ship andthen, more recently, about, oh,
and I guess it was in January orFebruary, I had a visit from
(13:37):
three not three, but two femaleFBI agents who came to my house
and they said Mr Mr Lawler, wewant to give you an advisory
that you should not travel toRussia, china, cuba or North
Korea because of the operationsyou were involved in.
And I thought, well, okay, noneof those are on my bucket list,
fortunately, so I don't haveany plan to go there, but you've
(14:00):
got to watch where you travel,because I'm well known to some
very hostile services.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, that is.
You know it's interesting,right.
So I've never done anything,you know, as awesome as you have
, obviously, I mean I just havea podcast, right.
But you know I was talking to avice admiral of the Navy one
time and my traffic in China andRussia and you know all of
those allies, right, our enemiesover there all just black holed
(14:27):
my traffic after Russia invadedUkraine, you know, in 2021 or
two at this point, and thetraffic completely dropped off.
I love to travel, I love to seethe history, I love to, you know
, get my feet on the ground andsee the culture and experience
it.
You know I liked it puts me outof my comfort zone.
(14:48):
I really love that, you know,because it kind of adds like a
it's like a nervous energyperspective of it.
Where you're in a foreign land,you don't know the language
that they speak there,necessarily you have to work
your way through it, right, andyou know you're learning all the
way along the way.
So it really like intrigues meto do things like that.
(15:08):
And you know I was talking tothis vice admiral and I
mentioned, you know I'd reallylove to go to China someday and
see the Great Wall of China andjust see everything.
And he told me you know, maybeyou should hold off on going.
And if you do go, you know,just expect you're going to be
monitored the entire time, fromthe time you get off that plane
(15:29):
until the time you leave.
There's going to be someonewatching you very physically,
like they will be there theentire time.
And I thought to myself likeman, I just have a podcast.
You know, all I talked aboutwas, you know, I was calling
Russia out in the in thebeginning, when they amassed a
whole bunch of tanks and, youknow soldiers on the border of
Ukraine.
And then, when they finallyinvaded, the only thing that I
(15:51):
said was one I called it threemonths ago and two, you know
they're not going to stop untilthey get all of Ukraine right.
And that it was wrong.
And you know, immediately,blackholed by traffic,
immediately saw a decrease in auseful idiot.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That would you know basically parrot the Beijing
(16:28):
line or the Moscow line orwhatever.
These people do it again,either wittingly or unwittingly,
and maybe they get paidsometimes to praise Xi Jinping
or praise Vladimir Putin, and soyou know a podcaster absolutely
just the same as being ajournalist.
They have journalists on theirpayroll.
I'm sure they have certainpodcasters on their payroll.
(16:49):
So you would be maybe not forharassment although possibly but
more as a target for possibletarget for recruitment.
I mean, it would be a nicerecruitment target for them.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, I guess I never really thought about it like
that from a disinformationperspective, right.
And I'm sure it becomes moretempting for them the bigger the
platform gets you know andsomething.
So I've actually watched, youknow, the UFC, right, since
since it came out, I mean late90s, right.
And so Joe Rogan I don't knowthe guy, obviously, but I know
(17:27):
of him and whatnot, and he wastalking at one point in time on
his podcast about how he doesn'tgo overseas for the UFC.
He's the most famous UFCcommentator, his voice is
synonymous with the UFC.
He's commentating his knowledge.
Really everything about the UFCgoes hand in hand with Joe
(17:49):
Rogan and vice versa.
And he was talking about how heabsolutely refuses to go
overseas because not only doesit mess up his schedule but he
has to bring enhanced protectionwith him.
That isn't cheap.
He's not flying commercial,he's flying private, you know,
and he has to do all these otherthings and you know the
security doesn't want him to goanywhere outside of the hotel or
(18:12):
the stadium.
That he's announcing it, right.
And to him he said that takes,you know, the fun out of it
going to a new place, seeing newcultures and everything but the
security risk around him, Iguess, of becoming that
disinformation.
You know, podcast right is toogreat for his security team to
allow it right.
And it's a frustratingsituation because, again, I
(18:36):
watch all of the pay-per-viewsand so I want to see, I want to
hear.
You know Joe Rogan out thereevery time and you know he can't
do it because he doesn't gooverseas like that.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well, I also wondered if you know my three novels are
very well.
I mean, I'll be quite honest,they're very pro CIA, very pro
FBI and very pro America and Itake no.
You know, I criticize Russia,china, cuba, north Korea in
these novels and so I've notmade some friends, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah, I mean.
It's interesting, I guess, howthe team that came over that you
just mentioned, they said don'tgo to North Korea.
My immediate thought is well,who vacations in North Korea?
Very few.
Like, how do you even book aflight to North Korea, you know?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Well, that's a good question.
I think you go through China.
Is there one way to get there?
Maybe through Moscow, I don'tknow, but you can't do it
through South Korea.
I know I have no desire.
I mean, really the only one Iwould kind of like to go to and
I've been only once is to Chinato see the Great Wall, like you
said, or see the various things.
China's a big country.
(19:45):
I actually did go on a liaisonvisit there back in the year
2007, so 18 years ago, and thatwas an official liaison visit,
and so we were received, ofcourse, quite graciously, but
going as a single person, theywere saying you better not do
that.
So I thought, okay, fine, I'vegot a lot of other places I'd
like to see in the world.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So there's really two more main questions that I have
from reading your third bookhere, and I don't want to rush
the conversation or anythinglike that.
Right, we got some really greattopics that we're going to dive
into right after this, thatwe're going to dive into right
after this.
But when you're labeled atraitor and maybe you've
(20:30):
witnessed it from colleagues orsomething like that, but it
hasn't been proven out, rightYou're kind of labeled as that
because this counterintelligenceteam goes and meets with you
and they interview you andwhatever else they might do, it
leaves a stink on you, rightwith your colleagues.
What is that like, from yourthird-party knowledge, of course
, and is there even apossibility of erasing that at
(20:53):
some point in time?
I mean, what is that even like?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Well, one of our CIA officers in fact I loosely
patterned my character after him.
His name was Brian Kelly, andBrian Kelly, for at least a year
and a half, maybe two years,was in fact suspected of being a
mole, a Russian mole, and itturned out he wasn't.
He was ultimately exoneratedand the real mole was the FBI
(21:17):
agent, robert Hanson, and theyhappened to live fairly close
together.
They happened to have virtuallythe same access.
There were other things thatcaused the FBI to suspect that
it was the CIA officer, brianKelly, and not one of their own,
robert Hansen.
In fact, it was a bit ofarrogance on the FBI's part to
(21:39):
think that it couldn't be an FBIguy, it had to be a CIA guy.
I mean, this was after AldrichAmes, and so it was proven that
CIA had some problem children.
Jim Nicholson was another one,and so they did not think that
it was.
They thought it was reallyBrian Kelly.
Well, it was proven beyond ashadow of a doubt that it was
(22:00):
Robert Hanson, and but poorBrian Kelly he had been, as you
said, got the stink on him likethe scarlet T.
Instead of the scarlet letterof A for adultery, he had the
scarlet T for traitor on him andso people were avoiding him.
He went into kind of apurgatory.
The agency tried to, you know,exonerate him, to rehabilitate
(22:22):
him.
They gave him a medal andeverything else, but the poor
guy was so crushed thatultimately he died prematurely.
He was just how would you likeyour friends thinking that
you're a spy?
And so I patterned my characterafter him a little bit.
After poor Brian Kelly, and thefeelings that would go through
your head is good, friends ofyours would start looking the
(22:43):
other way.
They wouldn't want to talk toyou, they wouldn't want to have
lunch with you in case thattaint of espionage was to rub
off on them.
And you start thinking, well,who are my real friends and who
aren't?
And in my novel, my character,the people that are close to him
.
They stick with him, they knowthat he's not the spy.
And so you find out who yourreal friends are.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, and for and for the counterintel team.
You know they have tounderstand that there's a great
risk that if they're wrong andthey go down that path, you
could push someone that had nointention of ever becoming a
mole to become a mole.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And that's exactly what happens in my book.
We won't go into it.
Yeah.
He ultimately decides OK, tohell with them.
Well actually he's talked intoit.
I don't want to ruin thepremise, but he actually becomes
right, probably from like areverse engineering perspective
right.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
How do they?
I mean, I guess if I word thequestion like that, you won't be
able to tell me.
But how in the world do youmanage multiple covers like that
?
The reason why I ask is becauseI'm thinking from a cover
officer perspective overall.
Just you doing your job duties,right, whatever that entails.
I envision it as that's takingup 100% of my brain power, right
(24:13):
?
And now I have to add onanother layer of another cover
for an intelligence service,right?
How does that balance out?
How does that work out?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Well, it's a bit like method acting you put yourself
in the mind of if I'm supposedto be an international attorney
I mean, I actually do have alegal background then that's
what I today I'm aninternational attorney.
Or if I'm an oil and gas traderanother cover I used at one
point vis-a-vis a certain targetthen I happen to know a lot
about oil and gas trading andcome from the state of Texas and
(24:46):
I'd taken courses in oil andgas law, so I put my mind in
okay, today this is what mycover is.
But the interesting thing is isI rarely, if ever, had anybody
probe my cover, becausetypically people aren't
interested in you.
They're interested in talkingabout themselves, and so in that
respect, I shared that interest.
(25:07):
I wanted them to talk aboutthemselves and we didn't have to
talk about me and I, you know Iwould be able to steer the
conversation back around totheir favorite subject, which
was themselves.
So you know the cover it had tobe good, but it didn't have to
be so airtight.
Now, what makes it difficulttoday is all of the internet
profiles and LinkedIn andFacebook and things like that,
(25:31):
and if you're not on LinkedIn orFacebook, people look at you
and think well, why not?
Why would an internationalattorney not be on one of these
social media outlets?
And so, if you are, you've gotto have maybe you have to have a
phony account.
If they've got facialrecognition software, which is
quite common with AI these days,they're going to find out.
You know, this guy's name isn'tJack Mitchell, it's Jim Lawler.
(25:54):
Look at this.
So in today's social media area, it's really difficult in our
digital world to carry this off.
So the solution such as it is,in my opinion, the best
counterintelligence solution, isone that the Israeli Mossad
uses and that's called swiftness.
You get in, you do it and youget out, and you don't linger
(26:17):
and let people think, hmm, letme look up Joe South and see who
he really is and who hisfriends are, and things like
that.
You use it, maybe briefly, andthen you get out of it.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, for something like thatthere's no other way of doing
it.
You know you don't want totempt fate at that point, right,
like you're already doingenough, right?
Speaker 2 (26:38):
right.
You know every time you dosomething operational, there's
another thing you're having tothink about, and so you want to
keep it as simple and as quickas possible and get them to
focus on the subject you'retalking about and not on you.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, that's a good transition into the conflict
that we're experiencing rightnow, with Iran and Israel and
America bombing Iran over theweekend here.
Give me your take on it, right,because I was so I was watching
some videos earlier, right,where the defense secretary was
(27:15):
talking to reporters and I meanhe got very visibly frustrated.
That, you know, all the mediaoutlets are talking about is how
they missed, how there wasn'tnuclear material there in those
compounds.
You know they're talking aboutit from a perspective of like if
they knew, you know if theywere like on the ground, or
something you know just based onlike a very preliminary
(27:38):
intelligence report that cameout.
That's what it sounds like tome.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Well, I told somebody who wanted to interview me.
I said they wanted to show mesatellite photography of Fordow
and Natanz and Isfahan, and Imade it very plain that I am not
a photo interpreter.
We have imagery analysts thatare skilled at doing that.
I mean, my reaction would be ohgosh, that is a big hole in the
ground.
That doesn't mean anything.
(28:02):
What I you know where myexpertise is is.
I know what goes into acentrifuge enrichment program
and it's very complex.
And centrifuges, theseultra-centrifuges themselves are
very delicate instruments.
And so those bombs at Fordowand Natanz and Isfahan, I mean,
if they damaged thosecentrifuges, which I think they
(28:22):
did, I think that's probably agood thing.
I really I'm not trying to saythat I am a supporter one way or
another of what folks did, butI'll state it quite frankly Iran
cannot have a nuclear weapon.
It's just stop, full stop.
That's the end of the gameright there.
And so if we can prevent that,if we can delay it you know that
was my specialty was detectinga program, penetrating the
(28:45):
program, denigrating the program, disrupting it and trying to
stop it.
You know, my team had that luckin Libya and we've had some
marginal previous experiencevis-a-vis Iran, and so we need
to do.
We as Americans, we asWesterners, we as people with
the same minds, need to stopIran from having a nuclear
(29:07):
weapon.
And I think that the bombingwas necessary.
And you know most in Tehran.
I don't like these people, butthey're not stupid and they know
(29:31):
that Israel has an estimatedmaybe 150 weapons, maybe nuclear
weapons.
Why would the Iranians launch anuclear attack on Tehran
knowing that their country wasgoing to be basically
obliterated, the entire country?
No, what really concerns meabout an Iranian nuclear weapon
is what I call a nuclearinfection or a nuclear pandemic
(29:52):
in the Middle East.
Suddenly, the Saudis, theEmiratis, the Turks, the
Egyptians, everybody in thatregion would decide well, if the
Iranians have a nuclear weapon,we've got to have one too.
And that means the chances of anuclear exchange, either
intentional or accidental, goesup logarithmically.
(30:13):
It becomes almost a certaintythat someone or ones is going to
have a nuclear exchange andthat is going to be absolutely
catastrophic for the entireworld.
Catastrophic, you know, indeath, astrophic, in radiation
exposure, catastrophiceconomically, no telling what
that would set off as a chainreaction.
Is somebody else thinking mygosh, who is that?
You know?
(30:33):
And they set off more nuclearweapons.
I am not in favor of totalnuclear disarmament because I
don't think we could ever trustthe Russians or the Chinese or
other adversaries to completelydisarm.
But I abhor nuclear weapons andI have devoted most of my
career, two-thirds of my CIAcareer, to stopping their
(30:54):
proliferation.
It's an uphill battle, I'll behonest, but it's also a
righteous battle.
It's very righteous that westop countries such as Iran from
having a nuclear weapon.
And you say, well then, what'sthe end of it?
I say I don't know what the endof it is, but I do know some
other countries that had anuclear weapons program and they
disarmed, and that includesLibya, that includes South
(31:16):
Africa.
They had six nuclear weaponsand they declared them to the
International Atomic EnergyAgency and had them dismantled.
And Argentina had a nascentprogram.
Those three countries regimechanges and so suddenly you know
, we don't worry about themanymore.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, I, you know, I completely agree with you that
Iran can never have a nuclearweapon.
Right?
I mean, like it's for me thediscussion stops when they say
death to America.
Right, Like, right there.
It's.
Like okay, man, like you'retaking it so far, right there,
because now I'm a hundredpercent confident that if you
ever were to get your hands onone, that you would find a way
(31:54):
to use it against us and triggera situation that we don't need.
Like, who benefits from anuclear war?
Really Nobody.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Nobody.
It's that concept that HermanKahn had in the 50s and 60s MAD,
m-a-d.
Mutually Assured Destruction.
Only an insane person, alunatic, would launch a nuclear
war.
There could be misread signals.
The Russians, at one time theSoviets, had something called
the Dead Hand System a greatbook by David Hoffman called the
(32:27):
Dead Hand where it was asemi-automated system where if
it detected incoming US ICBMs,it would, without a human
intervention, wouldautomatically launch a
counter-strike of Sovietmissiles at the US.
Now just think about thehair-trigger danger that would
present.
It could be a flock ofsomething and they would think
(32:49):
it might be incoming US ICBMsand without a human intervention
, they would automaticallylaunch weapons.
Well, we found out about it andthere was a strongly worded
exchange between the White Houseand the Kremlin, and the
Kremlin dismantled that system.
And I have the same fear thatif we start using AI to
automatically launch nuclearweapons without human
(33:10):
intervention, we're running avery, very dangerous tightrope
there.
It would be terrible.
You need somebody to finallysay no, wait a moment.
I don't think that's.
We're not reading this right.
Why would they launch a singlemissile or even a dozen missiles
at us?
No, you need humans in theequation.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
I had someone on yesterdayactually and it wasn't live.
I'm kind of frustrated withmyself that it wasn't live
because I forgot to click thebutton, but I started talking
about the genie being out of thebottle with AI, right, and how
(33:48):
we're accelerating at such aspeed, just in the public eye,
right in the public eye, whenyou start thinking about what
the government may have, whatDARPA may have, that you know no
one's talking about yet, right,it's astronomical the
difference that it could be.
It's astronomical thedifference that it could be.
And the reason why I'm sayingthat is because when you start
mixing AI with quantum computing, right, it really unlocks the
(34:14):
world, it unlocks everything.
There's actually no limit towhat it could do.
And we're in this weird spacewhere, you know, we're not just
in like a quantum AI race, but Iwould venture to say that
there's probably something likethe Manhattan Project.
You know we're not just in likea quantum AI race, but I would
venture to say that there'sprobably something like the
Manhattan Project, you know,like it was for the nuclear bomb
, there's probably ManhattanProjects and the world's
(34:36):
superpowers, you know,developing this technology to
develop the strongest AI, todevelop the best quantum
computer right and to make itall usable and tie it all
together.
Because if you have that,there's no encryption that you
can't break, there's nointercept that you can't, you
know, have right Like they'redoing it all.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
And I've got that theme in my novel as well, the.
You know, if somebody were ableto achieve cryptographically
relevant quantum computing,that's what they call it
Cryptographically relevant,meaning you could break within a
matter of hours or minutes.
You could break whateverencryption that the adversary
has, which means that basicallyeverything you own, you know,
you're totally naked, everythingno more sensitive, all your
(35:19):
sensitive communications arerevealed and things.
And even Vladimir Putin must'vebeen about seven, eight years
ago.
He said he who controls AI willcontrol the world.
Well, he's right.
Yeah, I wouldn't agree withPutin on much, but that one I
would agree.
And it's scary coming from theKremlin.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if anyone couldactually control AI.
You know, if we're talkingabout AI at its, you know most
mature, you know state, I don'tknow if anyone could really
control it.
You know this is a part of youknow, what I was discussing with
(35:57):
the other person was we alwayshear, oh, it's five years, 10
years away, right, I mean, I'vebeen hearing about it since I
was a kid, right In the 90s.
You know, oh, over 10 yearsaway from you know AI and this
augmented reality world andwhatnot.
Well, you know, when you reallyfigure out quantum computing
and you combine that with an AI,what are we minutes away if
(36:21):
we're not already there?
I mean, who's to say that we'renot already there?
Because if you look atdifferent sources, right, you
start seeing, oh well, ai couldgenerate that video, ai could
fly a plane like that.
You know, like these are notthings that are completely out
of the realm of possibilityanymore.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Actually, they're totally feasible.
In fact, I probably am nottalking to the real Joe South,
but to a computer image, and thereal Joe South is sitting back
sipping a margarita somewhere.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah Right, it's a weird world that we're going
into.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I think what was it?
Kurzweil who called it asingularity that we were going
to go through and that the worldwill be totally different on
the other side of thatsingularity, and I think there's
a lot of truth to that.
Yeah, I am not a specialist inAI, but this generative AI,
meaning something that's almostsentient, that could think like
a human being, that's okay.
There's going to be pluses tothis too AI in the field of
(37:19):
developing new life-savingpharmaceuticals, ai in a lot of
things making life easierAbsolutely.
But the downside is there's alot of dangers in this.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, yeah, and it's hard to even try to say the pros
outweigh the cons of it or viceversa.
It's really hard because we'regoing into a place that we've
never been before, you know.
I mean, like that's like tryingto weigh the pros and cons of
developing a nuclear weapon.
And during World War Two, youknow, I mean they were in a
(37:50):
situation where it's like, hey,the Nazis probably have this
program too, they're probablyworking towards something like
this.
If we don't develop it and useit before they do, they will
absolutely use it, and that'sgoing to cause a whole other
cascading effect of things.
And so you're kind of in asituation where you have to
(38:10):
regardless of if you want to,you have to develop it.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Well, you know, in the matter of the two atomic
bombs that were dropped on Japan, it was horrible.
It killed 140,000 people inHiroshima and I think 70,000 or
80,000 in Nagasaki and Isympathize with that loss of
life.
But it was also calculated thatprobably close to a million
Japanese would have died if wehad invaded the mainland main
(38:34):
islands and maybe severalhundred thousand American GIs
and Marines would have beenkilled.
My father had just finished uphis tour as a B-24 co-pilot in
Europe and after the victory inEurope in May he was being
trained in B-29s to be a bomberpilot over Japan.
There's a good chance had wenot dropped those bombs, that my
(38:55):
dad would have been killed andI wouldn't exist.
So I've got a very personalviewpoint on the fact that we
use those A-bombs.
As terrible as they were, Ithink it was the right decision
to do that.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, it's just a, you know, I bring
it up right Because ithighlights the complexity of the
situation.
I feel like people that aren'tnecessarily in the world that
you came from or in my worldthat's dealing with this stuff
and actually researching theseadvanced technologies.
We're playing with fire.
(39:28):
A lot of people don't realizethat, don't realize that they're
just thinking, oh, I canaccomplish this and I don't have
to, you know work at nine tofive anymore, right, or whatever
it might be.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, you know, there will be some really big
benefits to using AI properly.
Again, if AI develops cures forcertain types of cancers and
things, there are going to be alot of happy people with that,
and some of my physician friendshave said that.
On treatment things, that AIcould look through all the
medical literature and come outwith maybe some really excellent
treatments for people or, likeI said, formulation of
(40:03):
pharmaceuticals and things, andthere's other ways that AI could
be developing more efficientcars, more efficient airplanes
it's absolutely.
But it is a double-edged sword.
It could also be pretty bad,especially in the hands of
either a hostile country or AIitself.
It could decide, you know, wedon't need humans.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
So to circle back to you knowwhat happened over the weekend,
right?
How does an operation like thateven begin in such a hostile
country?
And I'm not asking you,obviously, you know this right,
I don't want any tradecraft oranything like that, but just you
, using your knowledge, sayingyou know how would you even
(40:42):
begin to approach that?
Because I'm thinking about itfrom an outsider, where that's a
completely hostile country.
I don't fit in.
They would like rule me outright away.
Right?
How do you even get theknowledge to say these three
sites are where this nuclearmaterial might be, maybe at
different phases?
It seems like an impossibletask.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Israel's intelligence service, mossad, and I've
worked with Mossad before oncertain joint operations and
shared things with them andthey've shared with us.
They have an incredible focusas well they should have on Iran
.
It's an existential focus,meaning this could absolutely
threaten the state of Israel'sexistence.
So they have an extensivenetwork of covert assets inside
(41:27):
Iran.
It's obvious the way they wereable to pinpoint what all of
these nuclear sites have, theway they were able to pinpoint
what all of these nuclear siteshave, the way they were able to
pinpoint the military leadership, the leadership of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps wherethese people live.
They were able to pinpoint thehomes of some of the top Iranian
nuclear scientists and forkilling, for assassination, and
(41:50):
actually of all the things thathave happened in the last week
or two the bombing andeverything.
Sure, that's something, butfrankly, my own opinion is,
taking out some of those topnuclear scientists has got to be
one of the most effective chokepoints on the Iranian program.
Easy, people like you or me,joe, we couldn't go.
(42:11):
I mean, we could have all theequipment there, and do you
think we could do it?
No, I don't think so.
Uh, you need skilledtechnicians and skilled
scientists.
Somebody had said well, youknow, if you don't have eggs,
you know the, the material, youdon't have the omelet.
And I said the most importantthing is not having the chef
that knows how to do it, and sothey you know.
But with the, with the uhisraelis taking, taking out
(42:33):
these nuclear scientists, thatputs a big choke point on the
program, chokehold on theprogram.
I mean, how many PhD nuclearscientists would want to go into
that program knowing thatyou're a target and can be
reached inside your home in Iran?
So this is going to discouragepeople from either joining the
program or it might encouragepeople who give us knowledge
(42:56):
Because, as I've said in some ofyour earlier programs, joe, you
don't recruit happy people.
You recruit people under stressand their stress has to be sky
high at the moment.
I think I'd rather talk toMossad or CIA than risk my life
doing this, but they have anextensive ground network there.
(43:17):
Now there probably were someMossad operatives on the ground
as well, but it's more likelythat they had networks of assets
, their agents on the ground,iranians working in place,
probably working at Fordow,working at Natanz and working,
working at Isfahan.
That could say here's theprecise location you need to hit
and this is what's going on inthere, and it's the same way
(43:39):
that they could then measure thedamage afterwards.
Now I know there's a lot ofcontroversy at the moment.
The DIA report came out a dayor two ago about they think it
was minimal damage, I think, andI just read a statement by a
very, very renowned expert,david Albright.
He's one of the foremostAmerican experts on
nonproliferation and he said inhis opinion they have destroyed
(44:02):
the centrifuge enrichmentprogram because these
instruments are so delicate.
They're so you know the way youbalance them, the way you do
everything else to them.
And then one of the key factorswas they totally obliterated the
uranium conversion facility.
Now what that is is that'swhere you take the yellow cake
uranium.
You convert it into uraniumtetrafluoride UF4, and then
(44:26):
uranium hexafluoride UF6, whichis a gas, and it's that gas
feedstock that you feed into thecentrifuges.
Well, if you don't have thefeedstock, you don't have any
enrichment, you don't have anymaterial to enrich.
So you know, the one concern Ido have is there is about 900
pounds of 60% highly enricheduranium that they had produced.
(44:48):
I don't know where that is.
That's probably enough forabout 10 to 12 weapons.
It's not really at weaponsgrade but at 60, it doesn't take
much to get up to the mid 80sor whatever, to what we would
consider weapons grade.
In fact, most of the work Ithink 98 to 99% of the
separative work separating theuranium 235 isotope from the
(45:12):
heavier non-fissile isotopes ofU-238, most of that work has
already been done.
So going from 60 to, say,mid-80s, to high 80s to 90%, it
wouldn't take much in the way ofplumbing and re-sending that
gas through the centrifugecascades.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
So if we know where that is, then I'm sure that you
know Mossad is, I'm sure, tryingto find out where it is so they
can destroy that.
But I share David Albright'sassessment that the Iranian
centrifuge use their brain.
I guess, right, just thinkingabout it, even just from the
blast, let's say, somehow thebunker buster doesn't get all
the way down into there for someunforeseen reason, right, I
(46:05):
mean, there was two of them, soyou'd have to get lucky twice to
miss that kind of precision.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
I think they dropped 14 bombs, so seven B-2s each
dropped two bunker busters.
So essentially, I mean I assumewhat they did and again, I'm
not a munitions expert, but youprobably would drop one, let it
go down below, and then thesecond one would go even deeper.
You know, because you'vecreated a hole, a big hole, and
if you do that enough, you'regoing to work a lot of damage on
(46:32):
those things.
I mean collapsing those tunnels, collapsing the adits, shaking
up everything.
I mean, yeah, they could dig itout, but how would you?
Let me ask you this how wouldyou like to be the Iranian
running the bulldozer andlooking over your shoulder
wondering when something Israelijet is going to kill you?
You know, trying to dig outthat stuff, because I guarantee
you the Israelis are looking atthat just like frogs look at
(46:55):
June bugs.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great point where I was
really trying to say like, evenif it didn't reach, you know,
that underground facility, thesensitivity of the enrichment
process would still, no matterwhat, be damaged, you know, to
an unrepairable state.
Like you have to start over atcertain key critical points in
(47:17):
the enrichment process, and so,at a minimum, it delayed their
nuclear enrichment programoverall, you know, I mean like
there's a reason why, you know,24 hours later, Iran immediately
agreed to a ceasefire.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Well, my preliminary assessment and this is again
rough, rough estimate I'm not anuclear scientist but looking at
the reports of everything thatwas damaged, I would say this
has set them back two to threeyears, and that's assuming that
nothing else is done.
But if they try andreconstitute the program, I
(47:50):
guarantee you that the CIA andMossad will be on top of them
and we will continue to takekinetic action, as we call it.
Kinetic action, in addition tosubtle sabotage things that I
was a specialist in andsabotaging A lot of the
equipment that they use.
They have to import from abroad.
It's not domestically made, soif it was destroyed you've
(48:12):
really damaged that.
The centrifuges themselves arevery delicate instruments.
They have to spin at 60,000 RPMor more.
They have to be perfectlybalanced or they crash.
They have to be in avibration-free environment,
again, because it's spinning atsuch a high speed.
That's why they call it anultra centrifuge.
It's literally 60, sometimes60,000 RPM, separating the
(48:37):
heavier isotopes, which are notin the bomb, from the lighter
isotope and then pumping thatgas, enriching it gradually
through the cascade.
But it's you know, the otherthings that are hard to get
certain flow meters and certainpumps and certain converters,
frequency converters.
Frequency converters, all ofthis stuff.
They don't produce a lot ofthat stuff in Iran itself, and
(48:58):
so they're going to be having togo back out on the black market
and look for this stuff andthey're going to try, you know,
if they have another hiddenlocation which is like my book
Living Lies.
Suppose that they had anotherhidden location.
It wouldn't surprise me if theydo, but it's going to be a very
difficult road to reconstructall that.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah, so one final question.
We're unfortunately at the topof our time here, but you know
there was a report out that, oh,there's a whole bunch of trucks
out there and I know you're notan image specialist or anything
like that, right but what isthe process like to stop an
enrichment process at some phase?
I mean, I don't know what phasethey would have been in.
(49:39):
Obviously there's probably ahandful of people that would
have known the rough phase thatthey were in.
What would be the process toeven move that material?
Because now the argument youknow that other news outlets are
putting out are oh, there was awhole bunch of trucks lined up
outside of this facility for twodays beforehand.
You know they probably moved it.
There was probably nothing inthose facilities at that time.
(50:00):
What I'm saying to myself, Idon't know, because that sounds
like a very complex, riskymaneuver to move it in the
middle of enrichment, right,like you probably risk losing a
good amount of that material ifyou were to move it.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Well, they probably were moving it inside of what we
call a US six cylinder I mean,it was a, you know and so these
are very heavy cylinders thatthey, if they, in fact moved and
put them on those trucks.
But again, my solution to a lotof these challenges is always
the human equation.
Think of all those truckdrivers who aren't paid very
(50:35):
much.
And now you know, maybe you'vegot 20 truck drivers and each
one of them knows where that UF6went, and they decide you know,
I bet you, the Israelis or theAmericans, would love to know
that, and maybe we already doknow it, maybe we're just
waiting to hit that.
So, and even if, even if that'sall true, even if they got all
of the highly enriched, so, andeven if that's all true, even if
they got all of the highlyenriched the 60% highly enriched
(50:55):
uranium out, still by working atotal collapse on the
centrifuge facilities itself, itmeans you know they're frozen
at that amount and then we justneed to look for that amount and
destroy that.
So I don't think this was afailure at all.
I think it was pretty much of asuccess.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree as well.
Well, you know, jim, I reallyappreciate you coming on.
You know, it's always.
It's always a joy.
You know, having you on it's afascinating conversation.
I mean, I feel like I couldtalk to you for another three,
four hours.
You know it's, it's been agreat time.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Well, joe, I always enjoy coming on your program.
You're always a most gracioushost with excellent questions
and understanding of mysometimes less than brilliant
response.
So you know it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
You're performing a very valuable service for the
American people goal, right, Ijust want to put out valuable
content to people that can useit and hopefully benefit
themselves.
Well, you know, jim, you know.
Before we end, right, how aboutyou tell my audience where they
(52:01):
could find you if they wantedto connect with you and reach
out, and where they could findyour books?
I'll leave all the links in thedescription of this episode.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
It's easy.
My books all three books are onAmazon or from my publisher.
Book Baby that's Living Lies isthe first one, in the Twinkling
of an Eye is the second one andmy third one, the Traitor's
Tale and my author's website.
I believe I've got that onAmazon.
If not, I'll have Joe post myauthor's website, which tells a
little bit more about me andeach of my books has links to my
(52:30):
books and to a lot of mypodcasts, including several with
Joe.
I'll have Joe make sure that heposts those links to the
author's website.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Awesome.
Well, thanks, Jim, I reallyappreciate you coming on and I
hope everyone watching orlistening to this episode.
I hope you guys really enjoyedit.
Thanks everyone, Thank you.
How's it going, jim?
It's been probably a year atthis point.
I mean, I think at this pointyou come on once a year, you
know, and it's been too longsince we last talked.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I was trying to remember Joe.
I think this is my third time,although it may have been fourth
.
Time flies so quickly.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, maybe, honestly , it might be your fourth.
I mean I think I had you onwhere we talked about your
background and everything, andthen the next time we were
talking about your books, right,and you know you just had your
third book published.
Congrats on that.
I mean, again, you know I'm nota big physical book reader and
I'm not a big you know fictionreader, right, and I mean it
(00:37):
reads so easy.
I'm very impressed with how youwrite it, with how you
construct it, especially with itbeing such complex topics of
espionage, right.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, you're very kind, joe.
Thank you, I enjoy writing it.
I can't run CIA operationsanymore, but I can fictionalize
and live through my characters,and that's what I enjoy a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, I could definitely tell that and I
feel like, just from talkingwith you and hearing other
interviews and whatnot, I feellike, you know, just from
talking with you and hearingother interviews and whatnot, I
feel like there's severaldifferent characters in the
world that you've created, right, that kind of resemble
different aspects of what asuccessful, you know, case
(01:17):
officer might be, that you'veexperienced firsthand in your
own career.
Right, and you know it's aninteresting way to talk about
those topics, right, Because youcan't talk about all the stuff
that you did, right, you canonly really talk about like one
you know event, one monumentalevent in the world that took
place.
But it's interesting to likehear it.
(01:38):
Like hear the book, you know,read the book, right, and
envision it like oh, you know,we talked about how he would go
on runs, right, we talked aboutyour runs.
And then in your book, you know,one of the main characters is
going on daily runs, right,which you know it provides a
whole lot of different facets.
Maybe I'm reverse engineeringit too much, you know, just from
(01:58):
my technical mindset, right,but just thinking of the
counterintelligence division ofthe FBI views this run
completely differently from howthis.
You know this completely, youknow American, you know fully,
fully loyal to their country, istaking their runs Right.
They're taking their runs aslike almost a mental check in
(02:20):
Right.
Less about actually, you know,doing anything harmful to the
country, or even developing anasset, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Right, yeah, well, I mean they say, write what you
know.
And I've been a runner forabout over 49 years and so a lot
of my characters, notsurprisingly, are runners, and I
think each one of thecharacters.
In my three books there's atleast one character who's a
runner.
And I'm not running at themoment, I'm just power walking
and I miss the running terribly,except in the ungodly heat
(02:50):
we're having here in NorthernVirginia.
I don't miss that.
But it's true, being a runner,a long-distance runner, which I
started way back in 1975, it hascertainly been a big part of my
life.
I used to consider my variousCIA operations when I was
running.
I occasionally would attractwhat I would call a't really put
(03:12):
much time into running lately,you know and my excuse is having
two little kids and getting myPhD right.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So I don't really make excuses, but that's my
light attempt at an excuse,right, so I can't really find
the time right now.
But you know, I ran crosscountry, I ran track and then I
ran all the way through collegeand beyond, not for a college
team, but just in college, right.
And whenever I go on reallylong runs I find it so mentally
(03:51):
beneficial, you know, far beyondthe physical benefits, right,
of your health and whatnot, butI feel like I always refer to it
as working out the demons,right, because for me, for my
brain, for me, to go on a reallylong run we're talking 15, 18
miles, something like that right, I have to keep my brain
(04:11):
completely occupied the entiretime.
100% of the time has to beoccupied, otherwise I start
talking myself out of running.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, no, because I hate it.
You're right.
No, it's a great time forreflection, for meditation.
In my case, the last few yearsI've used it to construct
dialogue for my characters in mynovels, and whenever I come
back home, I always quicklyscribble down my thoughts lest I
forget them.
They slip through that all tooporous sieve of my brain, and so
(04:43):
I use it for all kinds ofthings.
Nowadays, as I said, I'm moreinto power walking.
By that I mean trying to dolike a 16 or 17 or an 18 minute
mile, which requires a lot offocus to walk that quickly.
And so and especially if you'rein a hilly area like I am in
McLean Virginia it can bechallenging, but I get out, I do
it.
It's really healthy for you,both physically and
(05:04):
psychologically, and I still getnot quite the runner's high
that I did, those mentalendorphins.
I do still feel good aboutmyself and I come back and I
want to write down what I'vebeen thinking about.
So I know exactly what you'retalking about, joe.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, it's the endorphins part, that running
that runner's high is addictive.
I remember when I was trainingfor the marathon.
There are specific days of theweek that you take off and on
those off days I would be sorebut I would be so frustrated
that I couldn't go out runningor shouldn't go out running, and
(05:40):
I was thinking to myself like II actually hate this thing, but
I'm sad that I can't do it.
So how much do I actually hateit?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I have that feeling and on the days when I couldn't
run I'd be in a depressed mood,snappish, and you know that kind
of.
Usually I would do my runningearly in the morning when I
don't obstruct anybody, don'ttake up anybody else's time,
besides the fact that it wouldbe cool and dark and felt good
just to go out and do that.
But yeah, a lot of mycharacters are that same
(06:10):
philosophy, not surprisingly.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, so you know, I got to ask you, okay.
So in your book, right, thiscounterintelligence team, you
know, identifies your maincharacter as being a potential
mole right in the agency, and Idon't want to give away too much
, but it's also very like hinted, you know, in your first
paragraph of your first chapterand whatnot in your experience,
(06:34):
can you talk to how that isreally, you know, managed or
mitigated?
Because I'm thinking about itfrom an operational perspective.
Right, where you're somewhere,you're in another country, right
, you have an operation thatyou're running, you're trying to
, you know, gain targets orassets for a certain goal that
(06:58):
you're trying to fit, all whilebeing investigated by this
counterintelligence team.
You know, great professionals,very well skilled and everything
.
And I'm trying to think through, because the actions that you
would take to gain that asset,to gain that resource, would
probably look very suspicious toa counterintelligence team.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Exactly.
And so how do you?
It's just what James JesusAngleton, the CIA chief of
counterintelligence, called thewilderness of mirrors.
It was, you know, I mean, whatthey're looking for.
What the counterintelligenceteam is looking for, especially
the counter espionage CI team islooking for is a spy, just like
(07:41):
the type of people I recruited,and looking for what would be
the motivations for somebody tobe a mole?
And, as I've told you onprevious programs, there's all
kinds of reasons for espionage.
The most salient one typicallyis revenge or ego.
And so they're looking for whywould this person commit
espionage?
And it's the same thing that Iwould look for in my targets,
(08:03):
because I'm trying to convincethem to become moles in their
government.
So it really is like thatendless wilderness of mirrors
where you're looking to try andcause something and other people
are looking at you trying todecide are you the person who's
leaking?
Are you the person who isrevealing who our assets on the
(08:24):
other side are?
And I was in my book, in my newbook, the Traitor's Tale At the
acknowledgments, I talk aboutthe fact that I was betrayed by
a friend of mine named Ed Howard, who defected to the Soviet
Union in 1985.
Ed and I had been friends, wehad dined in each other's homes
(08:45):
several times I was jealous ofthe fact that he was selected by
our then called Soviet Europeandivision so that he could have
a tour in Moscow.
One of the most difficultplaces to operate in the world
is right in Moscow, under thenose of the then KGB.
And I was jealous of the factthat they selected Ed out of our
(09:06):
training facility at the farmto go to this elite first tour
of Moscow and they gave himRussian language training at
Georgetown University.
At the same time.
I was getting consular trainingfrom the Foreign Service
Institute and I was I was morethan a little jealous of Ed
getting this plum assignment.
And then I was shocked.
About two years later I camehome from a trip.
(09:30):
I was in Bern, switzerland.
I came home from a trip and mywife Ellen said you know, ed
Howard called today and he askedfor you and you weren't here.
So we chatted for a while andshe said that he quit the agency
and is now working for the NewMexico State Legislature.
And I thought, why would he dothat?
Well, what I didn't know wasthat Ed had all kinds of
(09:51):
suitability issues.
He had drinking problems,substance abuse problems and he
also had anger managementproblems, including one
egregious incident on anaircraft on a commercial
aircraft where a woman who wasseated next to him, who had a
small baby, and that baby wasbeing very, you know, baby-like,
(10:12):
crying and stuff, I know youknow that with two small
children Well, she gets up fromher seat and goes to the
bathroom with the infant, leavesher purse there and Ed is so
angered he rifles her purse andsteals $20.
I mean, we're talking about aguy who's got some real issues.
So the agency fired him.
Basically they fired him.
(10:32):
They found him a job with theNew Mexico State Legislature,
but that wasn't obviouslysuitable for Ed.
He was so upset he ended upvolunteering to the Russians and
in doing so he betrayed one ofour most valuable assets, the
one that David Hoffman in theBillion Dollar Spy wrote about,
(10:52):
alfred Tolkachev.
Tolkachev had revealed all ofthe Soviet avionics designs,
things like that.
It was calculated that it wouldhave cost the Department of
Defense, our Pentagon, over abillion dollars to develop these
same things that Tolkachev gaveus.
Well, ed betrayed him.
Tolkachev was shot and also hebetrayed everybody he knew,
(11:19):
including myself.
I was going to go to anotherpost in Scandinavia and we
always do a counterintelligencewrite-up where headquarters does
a description of what yourcover exposures have been.
You know who knows that you infact are CIA.
Well, so I got a copy of thecable, the write-up that they
were sending to my new post, andthey send a courtesy copy to
(11:40):
you at the old post.
And my copy read simplybetrayed by the traitor Ed
Howard.
I went whoa, and sure enough,ed had told the KGB who I was,
because I could never get any ofthe KGB officers out one-on-one
with me because theircounterintelligence chief said
stay away from Jim Lawler, he'snothing but trouble.
(12:01):
And he was right.
I wouldn't be nothing, I wouldbe nothing but trouble.
But it's a terrible feeling tohave, you know, a guy who I
thought was my pal, my buddy,and he basically stabbed me in
the back and said yeah, jimLawler, he's a CIA officer you
better stay away from him.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, I couldn't even imagine the betrayal that goes
into that.
I mean, you know you're puttingyour life on the line every
time you go out of the country.
You know, I mean probably eventechnically, if you're in the
country, right, like you couldbe a target of something right,
a foreign, foreign adversary,and you're risking everything
(12:37):
going over there Maybe it's evena benign trip, right, and a
colleague is going to betray youlike that, knowing full well
that your life is on the line.
I mean that's really hard tocompute for me.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I know, but the feeling was it really was like a
cold knife in the back.
And then years later in fact itwas only about, I guess, about
eight or nine years ago well,after my retirement, I decided
with my wife that we would takea Baltic cruise.
We would visit Sweden, we'dvisit Finland and we'd call in
the former Baltic republics andin St Petersburg, russia.
(13:14):
Well, I still have a clearance.
And my headquarters said no,you're not going to Russia.
So we docked in St Petersburgand I stayed on the ship for
three days while my wife wentashore.
You know, it was a Vikingcruise or something like that.
But I stayed on the ship andthen, more recently, about, oh,
and I guess it was in January orFebruary, I had a visit from
(13:37):
three not three, but two femaleFBI agents who came to my house
and they said Mr Mr Lawler, wewant to give you an advisory
that you should not travel toRussia, china, cuba or North
Korea because of the operationsyou were involved in.
And I thought, well, okay, noneof those are on my bucket list,
fortunately, so I don't haveany plan to go there, but you've
(14:00):
got to watch where you travel,because I'm well known to some
very hostile services.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, that is.
You know it's interesting,right.
So I've never done anything,you know, as awesome as you have
, obviously, I mean I just havea podcast, right.
But you know I was talking to avice admiral of the Navy one
time and my traffic in China andRussia and you know all of
those allies, right, our enemiesover there all just black holed
(14:27):
my traffic after Russia invadedUkraine, you know, in 2021 or
two at this point, and thetraffic completely dropped off.
I love to travel, I love to seethe history, I love to, you know
, get my feet on the ground andsee the culture and experience
it.
You know I liked it puts me outof my comfort zone.
(14:48):
I really love that, you know,because it kind of adds like a
it's like a nervous energyperspective of it.
Where you're in a foreign land,you don't know the language
that they speak there,necessarily you have to work
your way through it, right, andyou know you're learning all the
way along the way.
So it really like intrigues meto do things like that.
(15:08):
And you know I was talking tothis vice admiral and I
mentioned, you know I'd reallylove to go to China someday and
see the Great Wall of China andjust see everything.
And he told me you know, maybeyou should hold off on going.
And if you do go, you know,just expect you're going to be
monitored the entire time, fromthe time you get off that plane
(15:29):
until the time you leave.
There's going to be someonewatching you very physically,
like they will be there theentire time.
And I thought to myself likeman, I just have a podcast.
You know, all I talked aboutwas, you know, I was calling
Russia out in the in thebeginning, when they amassed a
whole bunch of tanks and, youknow soldiers on the border of
Ukraine.
And then, when they finallyinvaded, the only thing that I
(15:51):
said was one I called it threemonths ago and two, you know
they're not going to stop untilthey get all of Ukraine right.
And that it was wrong.
And you know, immediately,blackholed by traffic,
immediately saw a decrease in auseful idiot.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That would you know basically parrot the Beijing
(16:28):
line or the Moscow line orwhatever.
These people do it again,either wittingly or unwittingly,
and maybe they get paidsometimes to praise Xi Jinping
or praise Vladimir Putin, and soyou know a podcaster absolutely
just the same as being ajournalist.
They have journalists on theirpayroll.
I'm sure they have certainpodcasters on their payroll.
(16:49):
So you would be maybe not forharassment although possibly but
more as a target for possibletarget for recruitment.
I mean, it would be a nicerecruitment target for them.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, I guess I never really thought about it like
that from a disinformationperspective, right.
And I'm sure it becomes moretempting for them the bigger the
platform gets you know andsomething.
So I've actually watched, youknow, the UFC, right, since
since it came out, I mean late90s, right.
And so Joe Rogan I don't knowthe guy, obviously, but I know
(17:27):
of him and whatnot, and he wastalking at one point in time on
his podcast about how he doesn'tgo overseas for the UFC.
He's the most famous UFCcommentator, his voice is
synonymous with the UFC.
He's commentating his knowledge.
Really everything about the UFCgoes hand in hand with Joe
(17:49):
Rogan and vice versa.
And he was talking about how heabsolutely refuses to go
overseas because not only doesit mess up his schedule but he
has to bring enhanced protectionwith him.
That isn't cheap.
He's not flying commercial,he's flying private, you know,
and he has to do all these otherthings and you know the
security doesn't want him to goanywhere outside of the hotel or
(18:12):
the stadium.
That he's announcing it, right.
And to him he said that takes,you know, the fun out of it
going to a new place, seeing newcultures and everything but the
security risk around him, Iguess, of becoming that
disinformation.
You know, podcast right is toogreat for his security team to
allow it right.
And it's a frustratingsituation because, again, I
(18:36):
watch all of the pay-per-viewsand so I want to see, I want to
hear.
You know Joe Rogan out thereevery time and you know he can't
do it because he doesn't gooverseas like that.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well, I also wondered if you know my three novels are
very well.
I mean, I'll be quite honest,they're very pro CIA, very pro
FBI and very pro America and Itake no.
You know, I criticize Russia,china, cuba, north Korea in
these novels and so I've notmade some friends, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah, I mean.
It's interesting, I guess, howthe team that came over that you
just mentioned, they said don'tgo to North Korea.
My immediate thought is well,who vacations in North Korea?
Very few.
Like, how do you even book aflight to North Korea, you know?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Well, that's a good question.
I think you go through China.
Is there one way to get there?
Maybe through Moscow, I don'tknow, but you can't do it
through South Korea.
I know I have no desire.
I mean, really the only one Iwould kind of like to go to and
I've been only once is to Chinato see the Great Wall, like you
said, or see the various things.
China's a big country.
(19:45):
I actually did go on a liaisonvisit there back in the year
2007, so 18 years ago, and thatwas an official liaison visit,
and so we were received, ofcourse, quite graciously, but
going as a single person, theywere saying you better not do
that.
So I thought, okay, fine, I'vegot a lot of other places I'd
like to see in the world.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So there's really two more main questions that I have
from reading your third bookhere, and I don't want to rush
the conversation or anythinglike that.
Right, we got some really greattopics that we're going to dive
into right after this, thatwe're going to dive into right
after this.
But when you're labeled atraitor and maybe you've
(20:30):
witnessed it from colleagues orsomething like that, but it
hasn't been proven out, rightYou're kind of labeled as that
because this counterintelligenceteam goes and meets with you
and they interview you andwhatever else they might do, it
leaves a stink on you, rightwith your colleagues.
What is that like, from yourthird-party knowledge, of course
, and is there even apossibility of erasing that at
(20:53):
some point in time?
I mean, what is that even like?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Well, one of our CIA officers in fact I loosely
patterned my character after him.
His name was Brian Kelly, andBrian Kelly, for at least a year
and a half, maybe two years,was in fact suspected of being a
mole, a Russian mole, and itturned out he wasn't.
He was ultimately exoneratedand the real mole was the FBI
(21:17):
agent, robert Hanson, and theyhappened to live fairly close
together.
They happened to have virtuallythe same access.
There were other things thatcaused the FBI to suspect that
it was the CIA officer, brianKelly, and not one of their own,
robert Hansen.
In fact, it was a bit ofarrogance on the FBI's part to
(21:39):
think that it couldn't be an FBIguy, it had to be a CIA guy.
I mean, this was after AldrichAmes, and so it was proven that
CIA had some problem children.
Jim Nicholson was another one,and so they did not think that
it was.
They thought it was reallyBrian Kelly.
Well, it was proven beyond ashadow of a doubt that it was
(22:00):
Robert Hanson, and but poorBrian Kelly he had been, as you
said, got the stink on him likethe scarlet T.
Instead of the scarlet letterof A for adultery, he had the
scarlet T for traitor on him andso people were avoiding him.
He went into kind of apurgatory.
The agency tried to, you know,exonerate him, to rehabilitate
(22:22):
him.
They gave him a medal andeverything else, but the poor
guy was so crushed thatultimately he died prematurely.
He was just how would you likeyour friends thinking that
you're a spy?
And so I patterned my characterafter him a little bit.
After poor Brian Kelly, and thefeelings that would go through
your head is good, friends ofyours would start looking the
(22:43):
other way.
They wouldn't want to talk toyou, they wouldn't want to have
lunch with you in case thattaint of espionage was to rub
off on them.
And you start thinking, well,who are my real friends and who
aren't?
And in my novel, my character,the people that are close to him
.
They stick with him, they knowthat he's not the spy.
And so you find out who yourreal friends are.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, and for and for the counterintel team.
You know they have tounderstand that there's a great
risk that if they're wrong andthey go down that path, you
could push someone that had nointention of ever becoming a
mole to become a mole.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And that's exactly what happens in my book.
We won't go into it.
Yeah.
He ultimately decides OK, tohell with them.
Well actually he's talked intoit.
I don't want to ruin thepremise, but he actually becomes
right, probably from like areverse engineering perspective
right.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
How do they?
I mean, I guess if I word thequestion like that, you won't be
able to tell me.
But how in the world do youmanage multiple covers like that
?
The reason why I ask is becauseI'm thinking from a cover
officer perspective overall.
Just you doing your job duties,right, whatever that entails.
I envision it as that's takingup 100% of my brain power, right
(24:13):
?
And now I have to add onanother layer of another cover
for an intelligence service,right?
How does that balance out?
How does that work out?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Well, it's a bit like method acting you put yourself
in the mind of if I'm supposedto be an international attorney
I mean, I actually do have alegal background then that's
what I today I'm aninternational attorney.
Or if I'm an oil and gas traderanother cover I used at one
point vis-a-vis a certain targetthen I happen to know a lot
about oil and gas trading andcome from the state of Texas and
(24:46):
I'd taken courses in oil andgas law, so I put my mind in
okay, today this is what mycover is.
But the interesting thing is isI rarely, if ever, had anybody
probe my cover, becausetypically people aren't
interested in you.
They're interested in talkingabout themselves, and so in that
respect, I shared that interest.
(25:07):
I wanted them to talk aboutthemselves and we didn't have to
talk about me and I, you know Iwould be able to steer the
conversation back around totheir favorite subject, which
was themselves.
So you know the cover it had tobe good, but it didn't have to
be so airtight.
Now, what makes it difficulttoday is all of the internet
profiles and LinkedIn andFacebook and things like that,
(25:31):
and if you're not on LinkedIn orFacebook, people look at you
and think well, why not?
Why would an internationalattorney not be on one of these
social media outlets?
And so, if you are, you've gotto have maybe you have to have a
phony account.
If they've got facialrecognition software, which is
quite common with AI these days,they're going to find out.
You know, this guy's name isn'tJack Mitchell, it's Jim Lawler.
(25:54):
Look at this.
So in today's social media area, it's really difficult in our
digital world to carry this off.
So the solution such as it is,in my opinion, the best
counterintelligence solution, isone that the Israeli Mossad
uses and that's called swiftness.
You get in, you do it and youget out, and you don't linger
(26:17):
and let people think, hmm, letme look up Joe South and see who
he really is and who hisfriends are, and things like
that.
You use it, maybe briefly, andthen you get out of it.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, for something like thatthere's no other way of doing
it.
You know you don't want totempt fate at that point, right,
like you're already doingenough, right?
Speaker 2 (26:38):
right.
You know every time you dosomething operational, there's
another thing you're having tothink about, and so you want to
keep it as simple and as quickas possible and get them to
focus on the subject you'retalking about and not on you.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, that's a good transition into the conflict
that we're experiencing rightnow, with Iran and Israel and
America bombing Iran over theweekend here.
Give me your take on it, right,because I was so I was watching
some videos earlier, right,where the defense secretary was
(27:15):
talking to reporters and I meanhe got very visibly frustrated.
That, you know, all the mediaoutlets are talking about is how
they missed, how there wasn'tnuclear material there in those
compounds.
You know they're talking aboutit from a perspective of like if
they knew, you know if theywere like on the ground, or
something you know just based onlike a very preliminary
(27:38):
intelligence report that cameout.
That's what it sounds like tome.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Well, I told somebody who wanted to interview me.
I said they wanted to show mesatellite photography of Fordow
and Natanz and Isfahan, and Imade it very plain that I am not
a photo interpreter.
We have imagery analysts thatare skilled at doing that.
I mean, my reaction would be ohgosh, that is a big hole in the
ground.
That doesn't mean anything.
(28:02):
What I you know where myexpertise is is.
I know what goes into acentrifuge enrichment program
and it's very complex.
And centrifuges, theseultra-centrifuges themselves are
very delicate instruments.
And so those bombs at Fordowand Natanz and Isfahan, I mean,
if they damaged thosecentrifuges, which I think they
(28:22):
did, I think that's probably agood thing.
I really I'm not trying to saythat I am a supporter one way or
another of what folks did, butI'll state it quite frankly Iran
cannot have a nuclear weapon.
It's just stop, full stop.
That's the end of the gameright there.
And so if we can prevent that,if we can delay it you know that
was my specialty was detectinga program, penetrating the
(28:45):
program, denigrating the program, disrupting it and trying to
stop it.
You know, my team had that luckin Libya and we've had some
marginal previous experiencevis-a-vis Iran, and so we need
to do.
We as Americans, we asWesterners, we as people with
the same minds, need to stopIran from having a nuclear
(29:07):
weapon.
And I think that the bombingwas necessary.
And you know most in Tehran.
I don't like these people, butthey're not stupid and they know
(29:31):
that Israel has an estimatedmaybe 150 weapons, maybe nuclear
weapons.
Why would the Iranians launch anuclear attack on Tehran
knowing that their country wasgoing to be basically
obliterated, the entire country?
No, what really concerns meabout an Iranian nuclear weapon
is what I call a nuclearinfection or a nuclear pandemic
(29:52):
in the Middle East.
Suddenly, the Saudis, theEmiratis, the Turks, the
Egyptians, everybody in thatregion would decide well, if the
Iranians have a nuclear weapon,we've got to have one too.
And that means the chances of anuclear exchange, either
intentional or accidental, goesup logarithmically.
(30:13):
It becomes almost a certaintythat someone or ones is going to
have a nuclear exchange andthat is going to be absolutely
catastrophic for the entireworld.
Catastrophic, you know, indeath, astrophic, in radiation
exposure, catastrophiceconomically, no telling what
that would set off as a chainreaction.
Is somebody else thinking mygosh, who is that?
You know?
(30:33):
And they set off more nuclearweapons.
I am not in favor of totalnuclear disarmament because I
don't think we could ever trustthe Russians or the Chinese or
other adversaries to completelydisarm.
But I abhor nuclear weapons andI have devoted most of my
career, two-thirds of my CIAcareer, to stopping their
(30:54):
proliferation.
It's an uphill battle, I'll behonest, but it's also a
righteous battle.
It's very righteous that westop countries such as Iran from
having a nuclear weapon.
And you say, well then, what'sthe end of it?
I say I don't know what the endof it is, but I do know some
other countries that had anuclear weapons program and they
disarmed, and that includesLibya, that includes South
(31:16):
Africa.
They had six nuclear weaponsand they declared them to the
International Atomic EnergyAgency and had them dismantled.
And Argentina had a nascentprogram.
Those three countries regimechanges and so suddenly you know
, we don't worry about themanymore.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, I, you know, I completely agree with you that
Iran can never have a nuclearweapon.
Right?
I mean, like it's for me thediscussion stops when they say
death to America.
Right, Like, right there.
It's.
Like okay, man, like you'retaking it so far, right there,
because now I'm a hundredpercent confident that if you
ever were to get your hands onone, that you would find a way
(31:54):
to use it against us and triggera situation that we don't need.
Like, who benefits from anuclear war?
Really Nobody.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Nobody.
It's that concept that HermanKahn had in the 50s and 60s MAD,
m-a-d.
Mutually Assured Destruction.
Only an insane person, alunatic, would launch a nuclear
war.
There could be misread signals.
The Russians, at one time theSoviets, had something called
the Dead Hand System a greatbook by David Hoffman called the
(32:27):
Dead Hand where it was asemi-automated system where if
it detected incoming US ICBMs,it would, without a human
intervention, wouldautomatically launch a
counter-strike of Sovietmissiles at the US.
Now just think about thehair-trigger danger that would
present.
It could be a flock ofsomething and they would think
(32:49):
it might be incoming US ICBMsand without a human intervention
, they would automaticallylaunch weapons.
Well, we found out about it andthere was a strongly worded
exchange between the White Houseand the Kremlin, and the
Kremlin dismantled that system.
And I have the same fear thatif we start using AI to
automatically launch nuclearweapons without human
(33:10):
intervention, we're running avery, very dangerous tightrope
there.
It would be terrible.
You need somebody to finallysay no, wait a moment.
I don't think that's.
We're not reading this right.
Why would they launch a singlemissile or even a dozen missiles
at us?
No, you need humans in theequation.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
I had someone on yesterdayactually and it wasn't live.
I'm kind of frustrated withmyself that it wasn't live
because I forgot to click thebutton, but I started talking
about the genie being out of thebottle with AI, right, and how
(33:48):
we're accelerating at such aspeed, just in the public eye,
right in the public eye, whenyou start thinking about what
the government may have, whatDARPA may have, that you know no
one's talking about yet, right,it's astronomical the
difference that it could be.
It's astronomical thedifference that it could be.
And the reason why I'm sayingthat is because when you start
mixing AI with quantum computing, right, it really unlocks the
(34:14):
world, it unlocks everything.
There's actually no limit towhat it could do.
And we're in this weird spacewhere, you know, we're not just
in like a quantum AI race, but Iwould venture to say that
there's probably something likethe Manhattan Project.
You know we're not just in likea quantum AI race, but I would
venture to say that there'sprobably something like the
Manhattan Project, you know,like it was for the nuclear bomb
, there's probably ManhattanProjects and the world's
(34:36):
superpowers, you know,developing this technology to
develop the strongest AI, todevelop the best quantum
computer right and to make itall usable and tie it all
together.
Because if you have that,there's no encryption that you
can't break, there's nointercept that you can't, you
know, have right Like they'redoing it all.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
And I've got that theme in my novel as well, the.
You know, if somebody were ableto achieve cryptographically
relevant quantum computing,that's what they call it
Cryptographically relevant,meaning you could break within a
matter of hours or minutes.
You could break whateverencryption that the adversary
has, which means that basicallyeverything you own, you know,
you're totally naked, everythingno more sensitive, all your
(35:19):
sensitive communications arerevealed and things.
And even Vladimir Putin must'vebeen about seven, eight years
ago.
He said he who controls AI willcontrol the world.
Well, he's right.
Yeah, I wouldn't agree withPutin on much, but that one I
would agree.
And it's scary coming from theKremlin.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if anyone couldactually control AI.
You know, if we're talkingabout AI at its, you know most
mature, you know state, I don'tknow if anyone could really
control it.
You know this is a part of youknow, what I was discussing with
(35:57):
the other person was we alwayshear, oh, it's five years, 10
years away, right, I mean, I'vebeen hearing about it since I
was a kid, right In the 90s.
You know, oh, over 10 yearsaway from you know AI and this
augmented reality world andwhatnot.
Well, you know, when you reallyfigure out quantum computing
and you combine that with an AI,what are we minutes away if
(36:21):
we're not already there?
I mean, who's to say that we'renot already there?
Because if you look atdifferent sources, right, you
start seeing, oh well, ai couldgenerate that video, ai could
fly a plane like that.
You know, like these are notthings that are completely out
of the realm of possibilityanymore.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Actually, they're totally feasible.
In fact, I probably am nottalking to the real Joe South,
but to a computer image, and thereal Joe South is sitting back
sipping a margarita somewhere.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah Right, it's a weird world that we're going
into.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I think what was it?
Kurzweil who called it asingularity that we were going
to go through and that the worldwill be totally different on
the other side of thatsingularity, and I think there's
a lot of truth to that.
Yeah, I am not a specialist inAI, but this generative AI,
meaning something that's almostsentient, that could think like
a human being, that's okay.
There's going to be pluses tothis too AI in the field of
(37:19):
developing new life-savingpharmaceuticals, ai in a lot of
things making life easierAbsolutely.
But the downside is there's alot of dangers in this.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, yeah, and it's hard to even try to say the pros
outweigh the cons of it or viceversa.
It's really hard because we'regoing into a place that we've
never been before, you know.
I mean, like that's like tryingto weigh the pros and cons of
developing a nuclear weapon.
And during World War Two, youknow, I mean they were in a
(37:50):
situation where it's like, hey,the Nazis probably have this
program too, they're probablyworking towards something like
this.
If we don't develop it and useit before they do, they will
absolutely use it, and that'sgoing to cause a whole other
cascading effect of things.
And so you're kind of in asituation where you have to
(38:10):
regardless of if you want to,you have to develop it.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Well, you know, in the matter of the two atomic
bombs that were dropped on Japan, it was horrible.
It killed 140,000 people inHiroshima and I think 70,000 or
80,000 in Nagasaki and Isympathize with that loss of
life.
But it was also calculated thatprobably close to a million
Japanese would have died if wehad invaded the mainland main
(38:34):
islands and maybe severalhundred thousand American GIs
and Marines would have beenkilled.
My father had just finished uphis tour as a B-24 co-pilot in
Europe and after the victory inEurope in May he was being
trained in B-29s to be a bomberpilot over Japan.
There's a good chance had wenot dropped those bombs, that my
(38:55):
dad would have been killed andI wouldn't exist.
So I've got a very personalviewpoint on the fact that we
use those A-bombs.
As terrible as they were, Ithink it was the right decision
to do that.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, it's just a, you know, I bring
it up right Because ithighlights the complexity of the
situation.
I feel like people that aren'tnecessarily in the world that
you came from or in my worldthat's dealing with this stuff
and actually researching theseadvanced technologies.
We're playing with fire.
(39:28):
A lot of people don't realizethat, don't realize that they're
just thinking, oh, I canaccomplish this and I don't have
to, you know work at nine tofive anymore, right, or whatever
it might be.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, you know, there will be some really big
benefits to using AI properly.
Again, if AI develops cures forcertain types of cancers and
things, there are going to be alot of happy people with that,
and some of my physician friendshave said that.
On treatment things, that AIcould look through all the
medical literature and come outwith maybe some really excellent
treatments for people or, likeI said, formulation of
(40:03):
pharmaceuticals and things, andthere's other ways that AI could
be developing more efficientcars, more efficient airplanes
it's absolutely.
But it is a double-edged sword.
It could also be pretty bad,especially in the hands of
either a hostile country or AIitself.
It could decide, you know, wedon't need humans.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
So to circle back to you knowwhat happened over the weekend,
right?
How does an operation like thateven begin in such a hostile
country?
And I'm not asking you,obviously, you know this right,
I don't want any tradecraft oranything like that, but just you
, using your knowledge, sayingyou know how would you even
(40:42):
begin to approach that?
Because I'm thinking about itfrom an outsider, where that's a
completely hostile country.
I don't fit in.
They would like rule me outright away.
Right?
How do you even get theknowledge to say these three
sites are where this nuclearmaterial might be, maybe at
different phases?
It seems like an impossibletask.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Israel's intelligence service, mossad, and I've
worked with Mossad before oncertain joint operations and
shared things with them andthey've shared with us.
They have an incredible focusas well they should have on Iran
.
It's an existential focus,meaning this could absolutely
threaten the state of Israel'sexistence.
So they have an extensivenetwork of covert assets inside
(41:27):
Iran.
It's obvious the way they wereable to pinpoint what all of
these nuclear sites have, theway they were able to pinpoint
what all of these nuclear siteshave, the way they were able to
pinpoint the military leadership, the leadership of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps wherethese people live.
They were able to pinpoint thehomes of some of the top Iranian
nuclear scientists and forkilling, for assassination, and
(41:50):
actually of all the things thathave happened in the last week
or two the bombing andeverything.
Sure, that's something, butfrankly, my own opinion is,
taking out some of those topnuclear scientists has got to be
one of the most effective chokepoints on the Iranian program.
Easy, people like you or me,joe, we couldn't go.
(42:11):
I mean, we could have all theequipment there, and do you
think we could do it?
No, I don't think so.
Uh, you need skilledtechnicians and skilled
scientists.
Somebody had said well, youknow, if you don't have eggs,
you know the, the material, youdon't have the omelet.
And I said the most importantthing is not having the chef
that knows how to do it, and sothey you know.
But with the, with the uhisraelis taking, taking out
(42:33):
these nuclear scientists, thatputs a big choke point on the
program, chokehold on theprogram.
I mean, how many PhD nuclearscientists would want to go into
that program knowing thatyou're a target and can be
reached inside your home in Iran?
So this is going to discouragepeople from either joining the
program or it might encouragepeople who give us knowledge
(42:56):
Because, as I've said in some ofyour earlier programs, joe, you
don't recruit happy people.
You recruit people under stressand their stress has to be sky
high at the moment.
I think I'd rather talk toMossad or CIA than risk my life
doing this, but they have anextensive ground network there.
(43:17):
Now there probably were someMossad operatives on the ground
as well, but it's more likelythat they had networks of assets
, their agents on the ground,iranians working in place,
probably working at Fordow,working at Natanz and working,
working at Isfahan.
That could say here's theprecise location you need to hit
and this is what's going on inthere, and it's the same way
(43:39):
that they could then measure thedamage afterwards.
Now I know there's a lot ofcontroversy at the moment.
The DIA report came out a dayor two ago about they think it
was minimal damage, I think, andI just read a statement by a
very, very renowned expert,david Albright.
He's one of the foremostAmerican experts on
nonproliferation and he said inhis opinion they have destroyed
(44:02):
the centrifuge enrichmentprogram because these
instruments are so delicate.
They're so you know the way youbalance them, the way you do
everything else to them.
And then one of the key factorswas they totally obliterated the
uranium conversion facility.
Now what that is is that'swhere you take the yellow cake
uranium.
You convert it into uraniumtetrafluoride UF4, and then
(44:26):
uranium hexafluoride UF6, whichis a gas, and it's that gas
feedstock that you feed into thecentrifuges.
Well, if you don't have thefeedstock, you don't have any
enrichment, you don't have anymaterial to enrich.
So you know, the one concern Ido have is there is about 900
pounds of 60% highly enricheduranium that they had produced.
(44:48):
I don't know where that is.
That's probably enough forabout 10 to 12 weapons.
It's not really at weaponsgrade but at 60, it doesn't take
much to get up to the mid 80sor whatever, to what we would
consider weapons grade.
In fact, most of the work Ithink 98 to 99% of the
separative work separating theuranium 235 isotope from the
(45:12):
heavier non-fissile isotopes ofU-238, most of that work has
already been done.
So going from 60 to, say,mid-80s, to high 80s to 90%, it
wouldn't take much in the way ofplumbing and re-sending that
gas through the centrifugecascades.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
So if we know where that is, then I'm sure that you
know Mossad is, I'm sure, tryingto find out where it is so they
can destroy that.
But I share David Albright'sassessment that the Iranian
centrifuge use their brain.
I guess, right, just thinkingabout it, even just from the
blast, let's say, somehow thebunker buster doesn't get all
the way down into there for someunforeseen reason, right, I
(46:05):
mean, there was two of them, soyou'd have to get lucky twice to
miss that kind of precision.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
I think they dropped 14 bombs, so seven B-2s each
dropped two bunker busters.
So essentially, I mean I assumewhat they did and again, I'm
not a munitions expert, but youprobably would drop one, let it
go down below, and then thesecond one would go even deeper.
You know, because you'vecreated a hole, a big hole, and
if you do that enough, you'regoing to work a lot of damage on
(46:32):
those things.
I mean collapsing those tunnels, collapsing the adits, shaking
up everything.
I mean, yeah, they could dig itout, but how would you?
Let me ask you this how wouldyou like to be the Iranian
running the bulldozer andlooking over your shoulder
wondering when something Israelijet is going to kill you?
You know, trying to dig outthat stuff, because I guarantee
you the Israelis are looking atthat just like frogs look at
(46:55):
June bugs.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great point where I was
really trying to say like, evenif it didn't reach, you know,
that underground facility, thesensitivity of the enrichment
process would still, no matterwhat, be damaged, you know, to
an unrepairable state.
Like you have to start over atcertain key critical points in
(47:17):
the enrichment process, and so,at a minimum, it delayed their
nuclear enrichment programoverall, you know, I mean like
there's a reason why, you know,24 hours later, Iran immediately
agreed to a ceasefire.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Well, my preliminary assessment and this is again
rough, rough estimate I'm not anuclear scientist but looking at
the reports of everything thatwas damaged, I would say this
has set them back two to threeyears, and that's assuming that
nothing else is done.
But if they try andreconstitute the program, I
(47:50):
guarantee you that the CIA andMossad will be on top of them
and we will continue to takekinetic action, as we call it.
Kinetic action, in addition tosubtle sabotage things that I
was a specialist in andsabotaging A lot of the
equipment that they use.
They have to import from abroad.
It's not domestically made, soif it was destroyed you've
(48:12):
really damaged that.
The centrifuges themselves arevery delicate instruments.
They have to spin at 60,000 RPMor more.
They have to be perfectlybalanced or they crash.
They have to be in avibration-free environment,
again, because it's spinning atsuch a high speed.
That's why they call it anultra centrifuge.
It's literally 60, sometimes60,000 RPM, separating the
(48:37):
heavier isotopes, which are notin the bomb, from the lighter
isotope and then pumping thatgas, enriching it gradually
through the cascade.
But it's you know, the otherthings that are hard to get
certain flow meters and certainpumps and certain converters,
frequency converters.
Frequency converters, all ofthis stuff.
They don't produce a lot ofthat stuff in Iran itself, and
(48:58):
so they're going to be having togo back out on the black market
and look for this stuff andthey're going to try, you know,
if they have another hiddenlocation which is like my book
Living Lies.
Suppose that they had anotherhidden location.
It wouldn't surprise me if theydo, but it's going to be a very
difficult road to reconstructall that.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah, so one final question.
We're unfortunately at the topof our time here, but you know
there was a report out that, oh,there's a whole bunch of trucks
out there and I know you're notan image specialist or anything
like that, right but what isthe process like to stop an
enrichment process at some phase?
I mean, I don't know what phasethey would have been in.
(49:39):
Obviously there's probably ahandful of people that would
have known the rough phase thatthey were in.
What would be the process toeven move that material?
Because now the argument youknow that other news outlets are
putting out are oh, there was awhole bunch of trucks lined up
outside of this facility for twodays beforehand.
You know they probably moved it.
There was probably nothing inthose facilities at that time.
(50:00):
What I'm saying to myself, Idon't know, because that sounds
like a very complex, riskymaneuver to move it in the
middle of enrichment, right,like you probably risk losing a
good amount of that material ifyou were to move it.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Well, they probably were moving it inside of what we
call a US six cylinder I mean,it was a, you know and so these
are very heavy cylinders thatthey, if they, in fact moved and
put them on those trucks.
But again, my solution to a lotof these challenges is always
the human equation.
Think of all those truckdrivers who aren't paid very
(50:35):
much.
And now you know, maybe you'vegot 20 truck drivers and each
one of them knows where that UF6went, and they decide you know,
I bet you, the Israelis or theAmericans, would love to know
that, and maybe we already doknow it, maybe we're just
waiting to hit that.
So, and even if, even if that'sall true, even if they got all
of the highly enriched, so, andeven if that's all true, even if
they got all of the highlyenriched the 60% highly enriched
(50:55):
uranium out, still by working atotal collapse on the
centrifuge facilities itself, itmeans you know they're frozen
at that amount and then we justneed to look for that amount and
destroy that.
So I don't think this was afailure at all.
I think it was pretty much of asuccess.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree as well.
Well, you know, jim, I reallyappreciate you coming on.
You know, it's always.
It's always a joy.
You know, having you on it's afascinating conversation.
I mean, I feel like I couldtalk to you for another three,
four hours.
You know it's, it's been agreat time.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Well, joe, I always enjoy coming on your program.
You're always a most gracioushost with excellent questions
and understanding of mysometimes less than brilliant
response.
So you know it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
You're performing a very valuable service for the
American people goal, right, Ijust want to put out valuable
content to people that can useit and hopefully benefit
themselves.
Well, you know, jim, you know.
Before we end, right, how aboutyou tell my audience where they
(52:01):
could find you if they wantedto connect with you and reach
out, and where they could findyour books?
I'll leave all the links in thedescription of this episode.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
It's easy.
My books all three books are onAmazon or from my publisher.
Book Baby that's Living Lies isthe first one, in the Twinkling
of an Eye is the second one andmy third one, the Traitor's
Tale and my author's website.
I believe I've got that onAmazon.
If not, I'll have Joe post myauthor's website, which tells a
little bit more about me andeach of my books has links to my
(52:30):
books and to a lot of mypodcasts, including several with
Joe.
I'll have Joe make sure that heposts those links to the
author's website.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Awesome.
Well, thanks, Jim, I reallyappreciate you coming on and I
hope everyone watching orlistening to this episode.
I hope you guys really enjoyedit.
Thanks everyone, Thank you.
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