June 20, 2025 • 19 mins
Barry Eisler is a former CIA operations officer (meaning an active spy) who I was connected with by my friend Dan Hoffman, former 3-time CIA station chief, including in Moscow. He's a multi-time best-selling author and his newest is a political thriller (not a spy novel) entitled "The System".
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A friend of mine who's a very interesting person.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
And he is a former three time CIA station chief,
including Moscow, and a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
And when a former.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Moscow CIA station chief texts me to say, you need
to have my friend on the show, well, then I
need to have his friend on the show. Nobody says
no to Dan Hoffman. And so Barry Eisler sent me
his new book. And Barry is already a best selling
author before this book, and Barry and and Dan work together,
and maybe we'll talk about that a little bit. And
(00:34):
I've read the whole book. It's called The System, and
it's a it's not a spy thriller. It's a political thriller,
and it's it's really interesting and it's it's a different
sort of book for me a little bit. And I'll
tell you why in a moment. But Barry Eisler, welcome
to Kowa. It's really good to talk to you for
the first time.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
It's great to be here, Ross, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I want to ask you a few questions about you
and and your previous career before we get to the book.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
If you don't mind, of course.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And I realized that some of this is going to
be if I told you, I'd have to kill you.
So feel free to feel free to decline to answer anything.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
So, first of all, if Dan Hoffman.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Tell's text you and says would you please do this thing?
What percentage of the time will you go do that thing?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Almost one hundred percent? Yeah, in fact, and the exception
will prove the rule. Here I was living in about
fifteen years ago. I was living in Tokyo with my
wife and our young daughter. Dan at the time was
chief of Station Moscow and he said, Barry, you got
to come out here. I'll give you a tour of Moscow.
This is a good friend know each other for a
(01:42):
long time. How often do you get an invitation from
the chief of Station Moscow to come and he's going
to show you around Moscow? For various reasons, because we
were in Tokyo, I couldn't make it. And I don't
have many regrets in life, but that's one. I thought.
You just don't get opportunities like that, and I just couldn't.
I wish I had. So that's a long way of
saying yes when Dan asks or suggest something.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Definitely perfect And even on that one, you didn't just
say No, it sounds like you just couldn't make it work.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
But you would have.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I wanted to. Yeah, I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So you were an operations officer, right, yes, Okay, So
if you were an operations officer who worked for or
with or around Dan, then that means probably a bunch
of secret, secret squirrel stuff that there's no point in
actually asking you about. But tell me just a little
bit what you can about the life of a CIA
(02:33):
operations guy, or what we might colloquially.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Call a spy.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Sure, I want you to know. Ross a lot of
people who tell you that I would if I told you,
I'd have to kill you. And I had top secret
queue clearance, you know that kind of thing they're shining
you on. I don't. I don't do that. I was
in for three years. This is over thirty years ago.
Dan and I were in the same entering class called
(03:00):
I don't know what the nomenclature is these days. We
were called career trainees ets. So we were total green
recruits in the same class, and we just hit it off.
We became good friends. Dan went on to the Heights,
as you know, of the organization had a long, illustrious career.
Let's CIA I didn't I had. For me, mostly it
was training. I certainly got to enjoy an inside view
(03:24):
of the culture I got trained and all the things
that wind up in all the novels I've written, which
at this point is nineteen wow, nineteen oh, it's crazy.
I've been doing this for a while. So everything I
portrayed in the books, all the trade craft, the surveillance,
counter surveillance, all the sort of spy, the way operators
look at the world, how they operate, that is all
(03:45):
as I was trained by the US government, and it's
as authentic and accurate as I can make it. But
I just I've never had any interest in parlaying my Oh,
you know, the assassinations of nehos I worked in, but
I can't talk about that. It wasn't like that for me.
It was mostly training. Whatever else you might want to
say about the CIA, it is a giant bureaucracy. And
(04:06):
when I look back at my career, I didn't really
realize this at the time. It's like that Carekreguard expression.
Life has to be lived forward, but it can only
be understood backward. When I look back, my first job
coming out of law school is with the US government,
big organization. Next job was with a six hundred attorney
New York based international law firm, so getting smaller but
(04:29):
still pretty big. Left that law firm to join the
Silicon Valley startup in two thousand and one. I was
the fourth employee, So now we're getting pretty small. Then
I sold the manuscript for my first book, Clean Kill
in Tokyo, and finally I was working for myself, and
that seems to be what's the most comfortable fit for me.
I really like being in charge of my own stuff.
(04:51):
So when I look back, I think, like, what made
you think you were going to be happy and fulfilled
working in a giant bureaucracy. Not that the organization is
capable of big things, that obviously is, but if you
like flexibility, if you like to manage your own affairs,
it can be hard to suppress all that in service
of the larger organization. So I could tell you about
(05:13):
the culture, and I learned a lot of interesting things
from that. I could tell you about the training, all
that kind of stuff, But when it comes to the
really secret stuff and high level operator stuff, that's Dan,
not me.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
We're talking with Barry Eisler best selling author, and I
didn't realize it was that many books, and it was nine.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I mean, that's nineteen books. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And Barry's new book is called The System, A really
fun summer read. Just one quick personal comment then we'll
get to the book. So I did sort of the opposite.
I like your trajectory better. So I worked when I
got out of college. I worked for my uncle and
his business partner for a little while. Then I worked
for myself for many years, including starting a company. So
(05:56):
it was a bigger group, but I was the boss
and the owner with a couple of partners. And now
I work for iHeartRadio. I work for the Man. This
is my this is I mean, I'm older than you,
I think, but this is my first W two salary
job of my life. And there's some upside and some
I mean the upside is what the job actually is.
(06:18):
Getting to do this right, because you can't do this
working for yourself, really, but yeah, but being being a
sole proprietor and being an entrepreneur and being able to
take two months off or three months off every year
if you feel like it, it's hard to do better
than that.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
When it comes to lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
So I'm I'm a little envious, even though I absolutely
love my job.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, there's it's always a trade offs. I think it's
a Thomas Soul quote. There are no solutions, only trade offs,
and you just have to find what works best for you.
But yeah, this is a this is a good fit
for me. I just really like to be in charge
of my own It's just everything that I do.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
All right, let's talk about the book, Barry. I there's
a new book is called The System. Now, I think
that with at least a couple of these main characters,
the parallels who you're supposed to think of, seems pretty clear,
like to me. To me, the main character is is AOC,
(07:19):
or maybe a slightly smarter version of AOC, or maybe
the love child of AOC and Andrew Yang or.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Something like that. Right, that's good.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And it's interesting because because I didn't know and and
the way you write about this character who is who
is very liberal idealistic, I wouldn't quite say revolutionary, more
more ideal, more on the idealistic side. You you write
about her with what almost feels like fondness.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
From the author.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And I'm a little I'm a little curious about that,
or am I reading too much into it?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
No, No, you're ross. This is such a great initial question.
We're gonna this is so interesting. We might wind up
talking about this the whole time, but we'll see. Yeah,
I should start by saying I'm not an AOC fan,
and I don't. I'm not partisan. I think like you
would be fair to say my politics are pretty heterodots,
so I don't. I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican. Maybe,
(08:23):
just if I had to absolutely identify my politics with
a label, I would say I tend to swing libertarian,
but I don't think of myself as a libertarian. For
anybody who's interested in this, I would recommend a short
essay by a guy whose essays I really like. His
name is Paul Graham. He writes the best essays I've
(08:43):
ever come across, and one of the best of the
best is called Keep your Identity Small. Just some really
good advice for what happens when you start thinking of
your so I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, that you
start to get motivated to analyze and understand and present
events in ways that flatter your identity, and that can
lead to inaccuracy, so I try to avoid that. Whatever
(09:04):
else I might be, I'm certainly not one of the
two wings of America's political parties. So but there are
some politicians I think are better and or ID say,
some that are worse, and some that are even worse AOC.
I will just say initially, I found her really promising
in a breath of fresh air. I first heard her
interviewed by Glenn Greenwald when no one had heard of her,
(09:27):
when she was just running for her office against Joe
Crowley in this long shot bid for Congress, and I
thought I liked what she had to say. I liked
her professed values. She was articulate, charismatic. I thought she
was smart. I don't think she's dumb, actually, which makes
which makes her tragedy more tragic. I could be wrong,
of course I don't, and I don't have access to
(09:48):
her IQ test, But I don't think her failings have
to do with a lack of intelligence.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I think what's disappointing you. What's disappointed you about her?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Something that I've tried to present in the book The
System Itself, which is fundamentally the way power corrupts. It
corrupts everything. And so I think a lot of good
people want to acquire power, typically, let's say, in the
political arena, with good intentions, because in any society, and
(10:21):
certainly one is big and complex as American society, there
are going to be a lot of problems, a lot
of injustices, a lot of things that could be dramatically better,
and things that don't have to be as bad as
they are. And there are people who are genuinely motivated
to acquire political power to improve those things. But once
they get a taste of power, they start to want
(10:42):
more power, and then rationalizations kicking. There's not a coincidence.
The first I have an epigraph that introduces each of
the sixty three chapters of the book, and the chapter
one epigraph is the object of power is power. That's
George Orwell, and that notion is foundational to my whole
(11:02):
system of belief. So what I saw with AOC is
that she started as an outsider, as a rabble rouser,
as someone who really was intent on shaking up the system,
taking on Nancy Pelosi, the entrenched democrat hierarchy, and very
quickly through a system of carrots and sticks. I think
(11:22):
she was suborned to the point where she was saying
things that to me, they're not supportable. I disagree with
a lot of people and a lot of things, but
we can have great conversations. Dan would be a great example.
Dan and I disagree on all sorts of national security stuff,
I mean, very different views, but we love each other.
We're close friends, we can have great conversations. We respect
(11:43):
each other. I wouldn't say either one of us is
taking a position that I've never heard Dan take a
position where I feel like, what are you like? That's crazy,
that's unconstitutional, that's whatever. And AOC in some of her
more out there moments, has talked about using the force
of law against Fox News. Certain Fox personalities should be
(12:06):
investigated and arrested, that sort of thing. I'm not a
Fox News fan. I'm not an MSNBC fan either, But
anybody who says that any journalists, anybody even TV personalities
because are costplaying his journalists should be investigated for their
opinions in the way they present the news, anything short
about right fraud or defamation or something like that, like
(12:26):
this is crazy talk. Yeah, and I just I can't
support it, no matter who's saying it. So that's the
way I say AOC.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So let's keep going because we got about six minutes.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So the main character is sort of AOC like I think,
inspired by her, inspired by her, and again I see
a little Andrew Yang there with the universal basic income
thing that she supports. And I don't want to give
away much to listeners because I want you to just
go by Barry Eisler's.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
New book called The System.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
But one of the things that this young Latina woman
who won a shocking victory over an entrenched incumbent, and
that part is very much like AOC. But one of
her campaign big campaign platforms is.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Cutting way way.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Back on military spending in the military industrial complex or
the or the military government complex. And then it gets
into all the stuff Barry just talked about about people
making compromises, putting it a polite way, and then rationalizing
it and all that, and and I thought that was
really interesting. Tell me tell me a little bit about
(13:32):
the kernel who ends up. When you first introduced to him,
you sort of think, oh, it's a military colonel. He's
just you know, straight laced, doing his military thing and
just looking at weapons systems. And then it turns out
to be something else, And is that straight out of
your imagination or do you think the kind of thing
that that guy did really happens, even.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
If just to a slightly lesser degree.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Uh, yeah, I'm doing any spoilers, but let's just say,
Colonel Aaron Walls, who's one of the antagonists in the book,
definitely does some fairly out there stuff in what he
considers to be the interests of US national security. And yeah,
all these things, from everything I can see, are true.
(14:17):
I try I don't. I try not to exaggerate the
fictional aspects of my books, and my novels are unusual,
I think because they always have extensive endnotes. I always
want people to know what is this based on what's
really going on in the world as depicted in my novels,
and The System has more endnotes than any of the
previous books I've written. There's certain things like some if
(14:40):
you were to say to me, for example, do you
really think that US, like one of the security organizations,
would would actually try to assassinate a journalist let's say
something like that, like that's out there, then you would
probably not know that Mike Pompeo, CIA actually plotted to
assassinate Juliana. This is documented fact. He might not like
(15:03):
Julian massage. That doesn't really interest me very much whether
you think he's great or whether he's not great. He's
not even an American citizen. People call him a trader.
You can't be a trader to America if you're not
an American citizen. You could be something else, but unless
you're doing something with the Dictionary definition of the word trader,
you can't be a trader. So if the CIA plots
to kill an American, or rather to kill a journalist,
(15:27):
then I don't think it's that out there to consider
that the Pentagon's intelligence unit would do similar things. This
is always how I try to approach the fiction of
my book and in my books, and never want to
come up with a scenario that's entirely fictitious, that's some
sort of fantasy thing that could never happen. I always
wanted to be a version of things that really have happened,
(15:50):
like my reading between the lines of what's actual history
or actual news. And that's how I look at Colonel Walls.
He's got a coherent worldview. It's a pretty cold warrior
type worldview, and he believes life is a zero sum
game and the end justifies the means. That's that's Colonel Walls.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
He's a very interesting character, and you you build him
very well. You can at you know, at the end
of the book or the end of the time, well
Walls goes basically all the way the end of the book.
I really feel like I know him, and I think
that's with all your characters.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I think you. I think you do a great job.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I'm just gonna mention this in passing because we're almost
out a time. But I also really liked the character
of the Congressman that the main character Congresswoman beat the
guy who is the functional equivalent.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Of Joe Crowley.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
He seems like one of the only decent people in
the book.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Actually, Yeah, and even he's got certain he's compromised in
various ways. Yeah, I would. I would just say this, like,
I'm not trying to send a message with my fiction.
The first thing my books have got to do is
they've got to entertain. If they don't entertain, they they've failed.
So they have to entertain you. And part of fictional entertainment,
whether it's a movie or television show, or a novel.
(17:06):
You you got to relate to the characters. You have
to care about the characters, if you love them or
hate them or whatever. But you can't be indifferent. And
if I've done my job with this book, in addition
to people feeling entertained, there aren't any conclusions. I don't
want people to come away thinking, oh, I get it.
Barry wants people, Barry thinks the universal basically come is
a great idea, or he thinks it's a terrible idea,
(17:28):
or this is good or that's bad. That's not the purpose.
And if I've done my job well, you'll see it
from all the different characters' perspectives. There are no solutions,
there are only trade offs, and I want people to
be able to talk about it. Do you think these
were good decisions? Do you think this is a good outcome?
Was it understandable, supportable? Was it a mistake? What does
it mean? I hope the book will provoke those sorts
(17:50):
of conversations within the context of being wildly compelling and entertaining.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
There is one interesting character who I won't quite call
a mean character. He somewhere between background character and a
main character who is friend slash lover slash staffer to
the to the congresswoman, and and who I think he's
kind of the architect archetype of the uh left wing
(18:16):
idealist who isn't actually right. And he he isn't in
the same position as the member of Congress.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Because he doesn't have to take.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
A vote, so it's kind of easier to snipe from
the cheap seats. But that doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean
you're super sympathetic. Then when a politician takes a vote
that appears to be or or is willing to take
a vote that appears to be the opposite of what
they campaigned on. And and Barry Eisler's book The System
is really a wonderful and highly entertaining look into the
(18:49):
minds and the processes of politics and the intersection of
military spending and politics and.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
All these things.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And it is a really interesting, a really interesting book, Barry,
and I enjoyed it very much.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I appreciate your reading it, Ross, as we were talking
at the beginning of the show there they're not all
talk show hosts actually read the book. So thank you
for thank you for taking the time, and I'm so
glad you enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, I read the book. I read the endnotes too,
because I'm I'm that kind of reader.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Barry Eisler's new book is called The System, and I
recommend you buy it and read it. A perfect summer
vacation read. You will thoroughly enjoy yourself. I certainly did.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Barry.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
It's so good to talk to you for the first time.
We'll keep in touch.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Thanks Ross. Great talking to you.
A friend of mine who's a very interesting person.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
And he is a former three time CIA station chief,
including Moscow, and a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
And when a former.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Moscow CIA station chief texts me to say, you need
to have my friend on the show, well, then I
need to have his friend on the show. Nobody says
no to Dan Hoffman. And so Barry Eisler sent me
his new book. And Barry is already a best selling
author before this book, and Barry and and Dan work together,
and maybe we'll talk about that a little bit. And
(00:34):
I've read the whole book. It's called The System, and
it's a it's not a spy thriller. It's a political thriller,
and it's it's really interesting and it's it's a different
sort of book for me a little bit. And I'll
tell you why in a moment. But Barry Eisler, welcome
to Kowa. It's really good to talk to you for
the first time.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
It's great to be here, Ross, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I want to ask you a few questions about you
and and your previous career before we get to the book.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
If you don't mind, of course.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And I realized that some of this is going to
be if I told you, I'd have to kill you.
So feel free to feel free to decline to answer anything.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
So, first of all, if Dan Hoffman.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Tell's text you and says would you please do this thing?
What percentage of the time will you go do that thing?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Almost one hundred percent? Yeah, in fact, and the exception
will prove the rule. Here I was living in about
fifteen years ago. I was living in Tokyo with my
wife and our young daughter. Dan at the time was
chief of Station Moscow and he said, Barry, you got
to come out here. I'll give you a tour of Moscow.
This is a good friend know each other for a
(01:42):
long time. How often do you get an invitation from
the chief of Station Moscow to come and he's going
to show you around Moscow? For various reasons, because we
were in Tokyo, I couldn't make it. And I don't
have many regrets in life, but that's one. I thought.
You just don't get opportunities like that, and I just couldn't.
I wish I had. So that's a long way of
saying yes when Dan asks or suggest something.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Definitely perfect And even on that one, you didn't just
say No, it sounds like you just couldn't make it work.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
But you would have.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I wanted to. Yeah, I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So you were an operations officer, right, yes, Okay, So
if you were an operations officer who worked for or
with or around Dan, then that means probably a bunch
of secret, secret squirrel stuff that there's no point in
actually asking you about. But tell me just a little
bit what you can about the life of a CIA
(02:33):
operations guy, or what we might colloquially.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Call a spy.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Sure, I want you to know. Ross a lot of
people who tell you that I would if I told you,
I'd have to kill you. And I had top secret
queue clearance, you know that kind of thing they're shining
you on. I don't. I don't do that. I was
in for three years. This is over thirty years ago.
Dan and I were in the same entering class called
(03:00):
I don't know what the nomenclature is these days. We
were called career trainees ets. So we were total green
recruits in the same class, and we just hit it off.
We became good friends. Dan went on to the Heights,
as you know, of the organization had a long, illustrious career.
Let's CIA I didn't I had. For me, mostly it
was training. I certainly got to enjoy an inside view
(03:24):
of the culture I got trained and all the things
that wind up in all the novels I've written, which
at this point is nineteen wow, nineteen oh, it's crazy.
I've been doing this for a while. So everything I
portrayed in the books, all the trade craft, the surveillance,
counter surveillance, all the sort of spy, the way operators
look at the world, how they operate, that is all
(03:45):
as I was trained by the US government, and it's
as authentic and accurate as I can make it. But
I just I've never had any interest in parlaying my Oh,
you know, the assassinations of nehos I worked in, but
I can't talk about that. It wasn't like that for me.
It was mostly training. Whatever else you might want to
say about the CIA, it is a giant bureaucracy. And
(04:06):
when I look back at my career, I didn't really
realize this at the time. It's like that Carekreguard expression.
Life has to be lived forward, but it can only
be understood backward. When I look back, my first job
coming out of law school is with the US government,
big organization. Next job was with a six hundred attorney
New York based international law firm, so getting smaller but
(04:29):
still pretty big. Left that law firm to join the
Silicon Valley startup in two thousand and one. I was
the fourth employee, So now we're getting pretty small. Then
I sold the manuscript for my first book, Clean Kill
in Tokyo, and finally I was working for myself, and
that seems to be what's the most comfortable fit for me.
I really like being in charge of my own stuff.
(04:51):
So when I look back, I think, like, what made
you think you were going to be happy and fulfilled
working in a giant bureaucracy. Not that the organization is
capable of big things, that obviously is, but if you
like flexibility, if you like to manage your own affairs,
it can be hard to suppress all that in service
of the larger organization. So I could tell you about
(05:13):
the culture, and I learned a lot of interesting things
from that. I could tell you about the training, all
that kind of stuff, But when it comes to the
really secret stuff and high level operator stuff, that's Dan,
not me.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
We're talking with Barry Eisler best selling author, and I
didn't realize it was that many books, and it was nine.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I mean, that's nineteen books. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And Barry's new book is called The System, A really
fun summer read. Just one quick personal comment then we'll
get to the book. So I did sort of the opposite.
I like your trajectory better. So I worked when I
got out of college. I worked for my uncle and
his business partner for a little while. Then I worked
for myself for many years, including starting a company. So
(05:56):
it was a bigger group, but I was the boss
and the owner with a couple of partners. And now
I work for iHeartRadio. I work for the Man. This
is my this is I mean, I'm older than you,
I think, but this is my first W two salary
job of my life. And there's some upside and some
I mean the upside is what the job actually is.
(06:18):
Getting to do this right, because you can't do this
working for yourself, really, but yeah, but being being a
sole proprietor and being an entrepreneur and being able to
take two months off or three months off every year
if you feel like it, it's hard to do better
than that.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
When it comes to lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
So I'm I'm a little envious, even though I absolutely
love my job.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, there's it's always a trade offs. I think it's
a Thomas Soul quote. There are no solutions, only trade offs,
and you just have to find what works best for you.
But yeah, this is a this is a good fit
for me. I just really like to be in charge
of my own It's just everything that I do.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
All right, let's talk about the book, Barry. I there's
a new book is called The System. Now, I think
that with at least a couple of these main characters,
the parallels who you're supposed to think of, seems pretty clear,
like to me. To me, the main character is is AOC,
(07:19):
or maybe a slightly smarter version of AOC, or maybe
the love child of AOC and Andrew Yang or.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Something like that. Right, that's good.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And it's interesting because because I didn't know and and
the way you write about this character who is who
is very liberal idealistic, I wouldn't quite say revolutionary, more
more ideal, more on the idealistic side. You you write
about her with what almost feels like fondness.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
From the author.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And I'm a little I'm a little curious about that,
or am I reading too much into it?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
No, No, you're ross. This is such a great initial question.
We're gonna this is so interesting. We might wind up
talking about this the whole time, but we'll see. Yeah,
I should start by saying I'm not an AOC fan,
and I don't. I'm not partisan. I think like you
would be fair to say my politics are pretty heterodots,
so I don't. I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican. Maybe,
(08:23):
just if I had to absolutely identify my politics with
a label, I would say I tend to swing libertarian,
but I don't think of myself as a libertarian. For
anybody who's interested in this, I would recommend a short
essay by a guy whose essays I really like. His
name is Paul Graham. He writes the best essays I've
(08:43):
ever come across, and one of the best of the
best is called Keep your Identity Small. Just some really
good advice for what happens when you start thinking of
your so I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, that you
start to get motivated to analyze and understand and present
events in ways that flatter your identity, and that can
lead to inaccuracy, so I try to avoid that. Whatever
(09:04):
else I might be, I'm certainly not one of the
two wings of America's political parties. So but there are
some politicians I think are better and or ID say,
some that are worse, and some that are even worse AOC.
I will just say initially, I found her really promising
in a breath of fresh air. I first heard her
interviewed by Glenn Greenwald when no one had heard of her,
(09:27):
when she was just running for her office against Joe
Crowley in this long shot bid for Congress, and I
thought I liked what she had to say. I liked
her professed values. She was articulate, charismatic. I thought she
was smart. I don't think she's dumb, actually, which makes
which makes her tragedy more tragic. I could be wrong,
of course I don't, and I don't have access to
(09:48):
her IQ test, But I don't think her failings have
to do with a lack of intelligence.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I think what's disappointing you. What's disappointed you about her?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Something that I've tried to present in the book The
System Itself, which is fundamentally the way power corrupts. It
corrupts everything. And so I think a lot of good
people want to acquire power, typically, let's say, in the
political arena, with good intentions, because in any society, and
(10:21):
certainly one is big and complex as American society, there
are going to be a lot of problems, a lot
of injustices, a lot of things that could be dramatically better,
and things that don't have to be as bad as
they are. And there are people who are genuinely motivated
to acquire political power to improve those things. But once
they get a taste of power, they start to want
(10:42):
more power, and then rationalizations kicking. There's not a coincidence.
The first I have an epigraph that introduces each of
the sixty three chapters of the book, and the chapter
one epigraph is the object of power is power. That's
George Orwell, and that notion is foundational to my whole
(11:02):
system of belief. So what I saw with AOC is
that she started as an outsider, as a rabble rouser,
as someone who really was intent on shaking up the system,
taking on Nancy Pelosi, the entrenched democrat hierarchy, and very
quickly through a system of carrots and sticks. I think
(11:22):
she was suborned to the point where she was saying
things that to me, they're not supportable. I disagree with
a lot of people and a lot of things, but
we can have great conversations. Dan would be a great example.
Dan and I disagree on all sorts of national security stuff,
I mean, very different views, but we love each other.
We're close friends, we can have great conversations. We respect
(11:43):
each other. I wouldn't say either one of us is
taking a position that I've never heard Dan take a
position where I feel like, what are you like? That's crazy,
that's unconstitutional, that's whatever. And AOC in some of her
more out there moments, has talked about using the force
of law against Fox News. Certain Fox personalities should be
(12:06):
investigated and arrested, that sort of thing. I'm not a
Fox News fan. I'm not an MSNBC fan either, But
anybody who says that any journalists, anybody even TV personalities
because are costplaying his journalists should be investigated for their
opinions in the way they present the news, anything short
about right fraud or defamation or something like that, like
(12:26):
this is crazy talk. Yeah, and I just I can't
support it, no matter who's saying it. So that's the
way I say AOC.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So let's keep going because we got about six minutes.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So the main character is sort of AOC like I think,
inspired by her, inspired by her, and again I see
a little Andrew Yang there with the universal basic income
thing that she supports. And I don't want to give
away much to listeners because I want you to just
go by Barry Eisler's.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
New book called The System.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
But one of the things that this young Latina woman
who won a shocking victory over an entrenched incumbent, and
that part is very much like AOC. But one of
her campaign big campaign platforms is.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Cutting way way.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Back on military spending in the military industrial complex or
the or the military government complex. And then it gets
into all the stuff Barry just talked about about people
making compromises, putting it a polite way, and then rationalizing
it and all that, and and I thought that was
really interesting. Tell me tell me a little bit about
(13:32):
the kernel who ends up. When you first introduced to him,
you sort of think, oh, it's a military colonel. He's
just you know, straight laced, doing his military thing and
just looking at weapons systems. And then it turns out
to be something else, And is that straight out of
your imagination or do you think the kind of thing
that that guy did really happens, even.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
If just to a slightly lesser degree.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Uh, yeah, I'm doing any spoilers, but let's just say,
Colonel Aaron Walls, who's one of the antagonists in the book,
definitely does some fairly out there stuff in what he
considers to be the interests of US national security. And yeah,
all these things, from everything I can see, are true.
(14:17):
I try I don't. I try not to exaggerate the
fictional aspects of my books, and my novels are unusual,
I think because they always have extensive endnotes. I always
want people to know what is this based on what's
really going on in the world as depicted in my novels,
and The System has more endnotes than any of the
previous books I've written. There's certain things like some if
(14:40):
you were to say to me, for example, do you
really think that US, like one of the security organizations,
would would actually try to assassinate a journalist let's say
something like that, like that's out there, then you would
probably not know that Mike Pompeo, CIA actually plotted to
assassinate Juliana. This is documented fact. He might not like
(15:03):
Julian massage. That doesn't really interest me very much whether
you think he's great or whether he's not great. He's
not even an American citizen. People call him a trader.
You can't be a trader to America if you're not
an American citizen. You could be something else, but unless
you're doing something with the Dictionary definition of the word trader,
you can't be a trader. So if the CIA plots
to kill an American, or rather to kill a journalist,
(15:27):
then I don't think it's that out there to consider
that the Pentagon's intelligence unit would do similar things. This
is always how I try to approach the fiction of
my book and in my books, and never want to
come up with a scenario that's entirely fictitious, that's some
sort of fantasy thing that could never happen. I always
wanted to be a version of things that really have happened,
(15:50):
like my reading between the lines of what's actual history
or actual news. And that's how I look at Colonel Walls.
He's got a coherent worldview. It's a pretty cold warrior
type worldview, and he believes life is a zero sum
game and the end justifies the means. That's that's Colonel Walls.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
He's a very interesting character, and you you build him
very well. You can at you know, at the end
of the book or the end of the time, well
Walls goes basically all the way the end of the book.
I really feel like I know him, and I think
that's with all your characters.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I think you. I think you do a great job.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I'm just gonna mention this in passing because we're almost
out a time. But I also really liked the character
of the Congressman that the main character Congresswoman beat the
guy who is the functional equivalent.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Of Joe Crowley.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
He seems like one of the only decent people in
the book.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Actually, Yeah, and even he's got certain he's compromised in
various ways. Yeah, I would. I would just say this, like,
I'm not trying to send a message with my fiction.
The first thing my books have got to do is
they've got to entertain. If they don't entertain, they they've failed.
So they have to entertain you. And part of fictional entertainment,
whether it's a movie or television show, or a novel.
(17:06):
You you got to relate to the characters. You have
to care about the characters, if you love them or
hate them or whatever. But you can't be indifferent. And
if I've done my job with this book, in addition
to people feeling entertained, there aren't any conclusions. I don't
want people to come away thinking, oh, I get it.
Barry wants people, Barry thinks the universal basically come is
a great idea, or he thinks it's a terrible idea,
(17:28):
or this is good or that's bad. That's not the purpose.
And if I've done my job well, you'll see it
from all the different characters' perspectives. There are no solutions,
there are only trade offs, and I want people to
be able to talk about it. Do you think these
were good decisions? Do you think this is a good outcome?
Was it understandable, supportable? Was it a mistake? What does
it mean? I hope the book will provoke those sorts
(17:50):
of conversations within the context of being wildly compelling and entertaining.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
There is one interesting character who I won't quite call
a mean character. He somewhere between background character and a
main character who is friend slash lover slash staffer to
the to the congresswoman, and and who I think he's
kind of the architect archetype of the uh left wing
(18:16):
idealist who isn't actually right. And he he isn't in
the same position as the member of Congress.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Because he doesn't have to take.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
A vote, so it's kind of easier to snipe from
the cheap seats. But that doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean
you're super sympathetic. Then when a politician takes a vote
that appears to be or or is willing to take
a vote that appears to be the opposite of what
they campaigned on. And and Barry Eisler's book The System
is really a wonderful and highly entertaining look into the
(18:49):
minds and the processes of politics and the intersection of
military spending and politics and.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
All these things.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And it is a really interesting, a really interesting book, Barry,
and I enjoyed it very much.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I appreciate your reading it, Ross, as we were talking
at the beginning of the show there they're not all
talk show hosts actually read the book. So thank you
for thank you for taking the time, and I'm so
glad you enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, I read the book. I read the endnotes too,
because I'm I'm that kind of reader.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Barry Eisler's new book is called The System, and I
recommend you buy it and read it. A perfect summer
vacation read. You will thoroughly enjoy yourself. I certainly did.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Barry.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
It's so good to talk to you for the first time.
We'll keep in touch.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Thanks Ross. Great talking to you.
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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