Jack Devine Talks About the FBI and CIA

where all the bodies are buried. If you are at all interested in spycraft, relationships with Russians and other foreign agencies, counter narcotics, intelligence, and just the role of intelligence agencies on the global stage, this is the conversation for you. So, with no further ado, my conversation with Jack Divine. I'm Barry rid Holts. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. This week on the show, we have an

extra special guest. His name is Jack Divine. He is a thirty two year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served as both Acting Director and chief of the Latin American Division, as well as running the CIA's Counternarcotics Center. He has received numerous awards from the agency, including the Meritorious Officer Award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, and

other recognitions. From the Central Intelligence Agency. He is also a founding partner and president of the ark And Group, which specializes in strategic intelligence, and he is the author of Good Hunting, an American Spymaster's Story. Jack Divine, Welcome to Bloomberg. Great to be here. Your your timing could not be better. Uh, we'll get to some of the current events that are taking place, but but let's start at the beginning. How did you find your way to

the CIA? After graduate school, I taught American history in suburban Philadelphia, and for my birthday or anniversary, I don't recall, my wife Pat gave me a copy of David Wise's book The Invisible Government, which is at the time was sort of a scandalous book about CIA and the military complex and how it was controlling the world. And uh, I found a fascinating and actually had a different different

reaction than the author probably intended. And that as I thought, what an amazing place to be, setting aside the fact that there isn't such a conspiracy. But I wrote a letter with you know, when we used to have big pens and pre computers and cell phones, etcetera. And the letter went off to c I A and within a few weeks, Um, I got a letter telling me to go to the the twelfth and Chestnut and thus began the process. So you actually reached out to them, they didn't you.

That's correct. The British system, you know, had a tradition of professors tapping people on the shoulder, and the early, very early days of the OSS and in the early days of the CIA, that was not an uncommon way to be brought into the C. I a very clubby. Um. What are they looking for when they reach out and tap somebody? What is it a certain moral flexibility or is it witty? No? Uh, well again I didn't They didn't reach out to me, so I lacked whatever it was.

I had to go through the process. And today let me just do a reverse engineering. Today instead of writing a letter, you have to go online. Is much more impersonal, which I think we lose some really good people because of that, But the numbers require it. Um. I think historically what the CIA is looking for p who are Almost everybody that joined CIA has sort of within a range of i Q education. They work hard to get the extremes out people that have, you know, fantasies of

being James Bond. So they the psychiatrists, you know, have tests, the interview. There's all types of souped up s, a T test, personality test, there's interviews. Physical that they need you need to be physically fit, mentally uh sound that they do polygraphs to make sure that your integrity level, that you're not involved in any type of theft that would you know, since there's no controls many times when you're delivering money. So it's across that that broad spectrum.

But I would say fundamentally, at the core setting all these um what I would consider fairly standard requirements, they're looking for people that have a sense of mission, that they feel they want to serve their government, and they went to serve it in a in a particular way. It's not a place we apply just to get a job because you have a degree in political science or speak Japanese. So I think that's one of the key indicators. They didn't recruit you and you approach them. What sort

of training did they put you through? No, we all went to the same training, and everybody, I mean they stopped doing the tapping on the shoulder probably in their fifties, so everybody in my class, the what they called the career Training class, which is sort of the premier class where they developed the future leaders of the agency UM

and the training is about nine months. Half of it is in learning how to be a spy, you know, surveilling, how to develop people, how to assess people, how to right reports, um, how to take pictures at at night,

and so on. And the second part is what they called paramilitary training, which is it's a bit like boot camp where you learn how to use every weapon under the sun, not because you're going to use them as much as you're going to be dealing with people that are jump training, demolitions training, so it has a heavy military overtone to it. And at the end of that nine months, then you're assigned to an area of the CIA,

and it's operational region. The analyst go through a much shorter training because this is not necessary to be an analyst's good scholar. Coming out of major universities. With orientation and some basic um basic training about the analytical process, they're they're good to go. The operational training is much more intensive, including jungle training. Back in those days, did friends and family have any idea what you were doing

or was this completely sequestered from personal life. Well, you're instructed early on in the process, do not share this with with outside people other than your spouse, if you're married, and your parents. And so I did, and I told my father and he was very thrilled to have a son in the CIA. And I explained them, whatever you do, do not discuss it. So not too long after I did that, I went to a wedding, family wedding and dancing with my aunt and she's grabbing me around the

hip snuff here. Now my aunt's getting a little off the reservation, and I said, what are you doing? She said, well, I'm looking for your gun. So Dad couldn't keep a seeing. Now there is a rumor in the family, which I never bothered to validate. The rumor was that an article appeared in the Delaware Counting Times newspaper announcing my assignment. Um So, when I was polygraphed, I could say in a straight face, they said, did you tell anybody about

your employment with CIA? And I could say without batten and I absolutely not. They didn't ask me did your father tell anybody? And that would have been the probably the end of my budding career. Amazing, you wrote a memoir about your time at the CIA, Good Hunting an American spymaster story. I assume you can't just publish that without the agency putting you through some sort of a

vetting process. Did you get the manuscript back with these long black markers through it or were they pretty reasonable? When you join the agency, you have to sign an agreement that Bassie says, anything that you're writing, anything you're right, has to be presented to the CIA too. Is UH a publication review board whereas reviewed by a analyst and supervised by a lawyer, so that they're they're cognizant of any legal implications. So when I went through the process,

I felt comfortable. Most people in CIA cannot write about their experiences because they're not in the public domain. My career is interesting, and that half of it was in the James Bond excuse me, the George Smiley lick or AE fandestine meetings, betrayal, espionage, and that's the part you really can't talk about very much. Although I happened to know Rick Ames and quite well worked with them, and I can talk about Rick Games, the KGB mole inside of c i A. So there are some espionage things,

but where I became publicly identified. It was in the action part, the James Bond, part of running the Afghan task for the drive the Russians out of the Afghanistan. I was in Chile when i NDI was overthrown. It was in the middle of the around Contra affairs. There's a whole series of things that eventually became public. I didn't realize at the time when I was doing that

they become public. I as a result of that, once it's in the public domain in an official capacity that there was a government has to have information out there. It's not enough that it's just out in some newspaper. It has to be officially out there. But all of this materials out there so I can address and I do address in the book. This is a book about largely about the action part of of c I A. They did do a vigorous and painful scrub now, and I would tell you it wasn't about a sourcer method,

which is the key question. No, you can't mention any sources or any methods. But we seem to be hung up in the process about you can't say you were in this country permanently. It would shock your audience if I told you which countries. We can't say that because since you were in the fifth grade, you probably assumed it. We had people there, but it was about geography, and it was a bit more obstinate. And I'm working on

a second book now and I'm not as obstinate. I'm not gonna waste my time on the issue of can I say was there permanently or I just say that I bopped into town. And when you say that, I'm assuming Russia, China. I ran places like not necessarily those places, but places like that. No, not really, because that I got it right out of the starting gate that I wouldn't touch any of those. Now these are these are

places where where I don't give any any clues. But let's say you'd be comfortable going there tomorrow and be happy to go there for a weekend. Really that that's that's very interesting. Let's jump right into some of the more interesting places where you headed up some missions. You were ahead of the CIA's Afghan Task Force in the mid eighties. What was the goals of the task force

and and how much of these were accomplished? When I looked back over my career, it's probably the point where I felt I had the most direct role part in a major historical event, world changing one, and that was driving the Russians out of Afghanistan. When the Russians invaded in the late seven seventy seventy nine. The administration was a Carter administration at the time, and the world in general reacted that very negatively and understandably so to the

Russians invading. And at that point we actually began to help, but it was a modest effort, using antiquated weapons to support the Mujadine. But each year more and more support was given and the Russians increased their presence there stubtly as well, and it became a battleground, the key battle around in the Cold War, and the Russians departure in nine I think was one of the three major factors in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I can

elaborate on it. You know, the Russians did leave, and theyre one of the major parts of factors in that. First I would say, had people on the ground who wanted to fight and that was the Mujadine. You had support um the Pakistani government and the huge us UM material support in terms of weapons machinery, transportation and eventually, during the time I was um involved in the operation the introduction to the Stinger missile, which I believe it's one of the few times in history we can see

an individual specific weapon changed the course of history. I have a very vivid recollection of I want to say it was sixty minutes doing a story on the Afghan War and showing the Stingers bringing down Russian helicopters. It was a real significant game changer for that conflict. Absolutely,

uh we. When I say we, I mean the Western world and particularly that the CIA in the US really ran into a brick wall in and that was we were able, to a man a large amount of weapons, but we couldn't get them across the border and in Afghanistan because the Russians were using the Hind helicopter, very sophisticated one, not unlike our black Hawks, and they just pinned down all transportation. So this is night vision and heavily on. Oh, it's speed, it's it's it's the back

in its day. You know, the black Hawk was the you know, the the super super jet of of helicopter world, and it was easy to suppress forces on the ground. Great fire. It had great firepower both that's what I'm saying. But at the time we were we the c IA was looking for we were only putting in Soviet block weapons. When you run an insurgency, one of the theories, and it's a good one, is that on the ground you

want to have interchangeable weapons. By that, I mean, if you're fighting the Russians, you want to be able to give your troops a K forty seven so that they can with the capture and exactly so whether you capture weapons and you can use them and you're used to using those weapons. So we had to find enough weaponry to support a hundred and twenty thousand USDINE fighters. You can do the math on how much ammunition and a K forty seven are needed. But none of it could

move because it just couldn't move across the border. So we're looking for anti air weapons. They could be fired in the field and bring down these helicopters. And everything we tried in the foreign setting didn't work, but it so happens. In eight six, the US government was just manufacturing the sting or missile, which is heat seeking that means you know, you fire it far to the left of a of a helicopter and the heat from the

helicopter steers that missile right into it. So the effectiveness at the time General Dynamics thought, um the Stinger might have success rate It exceeded seventy and one point that I'd make Barry. That's a lot of people don't understand. It's not just shooting down helicopters. What happened on September is when the first shot was fired and the helicopter

came down. I shouldn't say first shot because the first one bounced across the ground and the people on the ground said, Jack Divine, sent us another piece, and I'll leave the blank out of equipment. But the next three took out three consecutive helicopters single shots. But what happened that day is the helicopters thereafter flew above the trajectory of the Stinger missile, so it meant that they were neutralized.

They just weren't able to suppress anything on the ground, and that consequently we were able to just pour weapons across the border. So it wasn't just I'm shooting down the first few helicopters and several number of them. Quite a few after that was the fact that the strategy moved the helicopters above effective range. And what it also did, which is terribly important, is back in Moscow, it was like the last straw. You know, They've been slugging it out,

thought they could neutralize in it. What do we do now? We have to up the ante. Are we going how long we're going to stay there? And frankly, it became a policy decision to start the withdrawal and that was as early as EIGHTI six that day. Once had Stinger missile was fired, the process of getting out began. And I think the leaving of of Afghanistan was a great

blow to the to the morale of the Kremlin. And I think it eventually along with the being so overpowered by the economic strength of the United States and to some degree President Reagan Star Wars initiative, which the Russians believed, I was agnostic about. They believe that thought, well, we really have to change our game plan, and they did so they came down. So they made a movie about this,

Charlie Wilson's War. How accurate were the broad strokes? And when you watch these fictionalizations of actual events, are they remotely close to the idea or is it just you know, a goofy uh, these are It's a really good question, actually a serious of questions. Barry. So, I was here in New York and I was having a late lunch in Saint Regis Hotel, which has sentimental reasons for me from my CIA training. Will leave that aside for now. And and Seymour Hoffman was there, and I really leave

actors alone. I never approached them. And in fact, my wife was furious once in London because I came down the elevator with Anthony Hopkins and she said, well, what did you talk about is I didn't say a thing. Don't pretended I didn't know she was living. So I don't make a habit of, you know, going over the celebrities. But I couldn't resist, so I went over to Hoffman, who was a real gentleman. I said, Mr Hoffman, my

wife loves you. Was an actor, uh, and thought he did a great job in the movie Charlie Wilson's War. But you know, Mr Hoffan, I'll tell you that that justice and the way it came down. So I think he looked out thought, oh, here's another one, and he's new York crazy people, and he said, listen, thank you for your service. But I'm sure he felt um that I was. He was being put upon. But even before that, Charlie Wilson and I had dinner in uh Sparks here

in New York. And your audience may not be aware of Sparks is where where Paul Costillano was assassinated doorstep, which appealed to Charlie. Charlie had a sense of romance and uh he was with his wife at the time, and I was with mine and we sat down and he said, Jack, I know you didn't like the book. You're really going to hate the movie. And here's the reason. Let maybe Charlie was a great character or someone that we all should be have to have known. He was

a patriot. I mean it's been He was much more substantive than people have recorded. But it wasn't Charlie Wilson's war. But in order to make a movie, you have to have a central person, you know. So you have Tom Hanks and you have Julia Roberts, and you know, you have this drama. And the truth of the matter is these programs no congressman with a somewhat wild it's portrayed by the movie CIA operator and and a socialite from Texas are going to change, change and run a war.

It's not how it's done. It's a it's a major logistical um effort done by the way governments do things, with Chaine at command, and it's all within house. I think it would surprise people to know that, you know, and Charlie's Wilson more and I was responsible from eight five onward to the well into eight seven, and I never sold their version of Julie roberts Uh. Charlie Wilson

had a stinger hanging over his office. One of my colleagues gave him an expended too, But Charlie and Fairness in his book said, you know, I had nothing to do with the stinger, which he didn't, but most people don't focus on on that. Charlie and I traveled a couple of times to south to Pakistan and to the border area of Afghanistan, and it was almost like a

diplomatic trip. But I would say over my tenure with Charlie, we probably had five at most substantive discussions about there had no no impact on how the world was being run. He called me once and said, well, Jack, understand you shifted the supplies from Egyptian made and Chinese to sixty Chinese and Pakistani. What's up. He had the closest relationships excuse me, Egyptians. He had a close relationship with the Egyptians.

And I said, listen, Charlie, it's very simple. The the weapons are get there faster, cheaper than their better maybe he said, okay, got it. So Charlie's influenced in the details of the war and the running of the war is just not very realistic. He was important because he brought attention to it early in the in the early eighties, and I think that's important. And he kept pressure on. I once asked him, how did you get involved in it?

And Charlie's west Point at Annapolis Graduate and uh, he said, well, I'll tell you. The Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, came to me and said, Charlie, I want you to stay on this. I want to stay on Afghanistan. That's

your job. So that's how he actually got involved. And I noticed on one of these TV shows that you mentioned, they have him in a hot tub with a couple of beautiful women, which was when he was a bachelor, sort of his uh style, and he's watching a video of or a TV show with Dan rather talking about Afghanistan, and in the movie he suddenly becomes enamored with the battle the real bat. The real truth was that Congressman

Wright told him to get on it. Uh. The other thing about but the hot tub is I got a number of calls the next day, and it's quite interesting. They wanted to know, not about the stinger, not about this. They wanted to know, was I in the hot tub with Charlie. Now I was annoyed because you know, professional isn't going to be caught in that sort of situation. So I could tell when I answered the caller and said, look, I wasn't in the hot tub with him, they were disappointed.

It was well, Jack is kind of planned. He really doesn't belong in Hollywood. But by the third call, I finally wise stopped and I said, I don't want to talk about it. So I wasn't going to mislead them, but I I left the impression that maybe maybe I was a little more flamboyant than then the legend would

have it plausible deniability after the fact. Looks back at Afghanistan, that have said, well, the subsequent blowback from once the Russians left UH and the United States says okay, we have no more need to be here, is that it created a power vacuum into which rises the Taliban. How accurate is that depiction of of that part of the world. Well, Charlie Wilson I did have a discussion at the time, and both of us were the view that we should

have kept pushing funds into the Afghan fray. The experts and people that have studied it for years and the policy makers or other view, look, we wanted to drive them out. We completed our and you have to know when to end. And with hindsight, when I looked back on it, and I would say, you know, twenty years later or whatever, when I sat and I was able to see the longer arc of history, I really believe I was wrong and Charlie was wrong. And that is

we could have thrown as much money. You can throw as much money as you want into Afghanistan is not going to make a material difference over Well, I'm not a big fan of a nation building. I've come over the years to believe nations must decide when they must have the the grit and will and desire to create their nation. We can't force feed them. We can maintain things as a we can keep things at bay if

that's desirable from a foreign policy point of view. But the thing we can go into a at that time, a civilization that would have been more familiar in the sixteenth century, and think that you can fast forward into a democratic country and with all the wherewithal is a fool's mission. So I'm I'm opposed to it. I think I might have been more charged up at the time about the battle, and but with candor and hindsight, I

think this is a bad, bad argument, you know. And the second part of that argument is, oh, and you created the Taliban. I mean we created a vacuum into it. Now. I think your yours is better state at the vacuum part, which I accept. But you know, what people don't focus on is even after UM, after the Russians pulled out the communist Ppe state, Najibula state in power for three years and there was it wasn't an immediate vacuum because we pulled out UM and the Taliban didn't exist then.

So and the Taliban is not a remake of the mujadine that that we support it. So you know, it's convenient sometimes for people to draw lines, and I just think that an honest look will will lead to better conclusions than those. Let's talk a little bit about your most recent venture, the ark In Group, and how you came to co found them from the CIA. You were at the agency for thirty years. What motivated the exit. Well,

I think there's a certain point. It's usually in your late fifties that um people exit the agency and you wanted They wanted to have a flow through, so the leadership was still relatively young in the early days. They wanted people out at fifty, which was unrealistic frankly, because most people are just hitting their stride as senior executives,

so it's sort of pushed back to sixty. Most federal employees can't retire to the sixty five, but in CIA, at fifty five, with five years of experience abroad, you can leave leave early. In my particular case, I had the job as the chief of worldwide Operations. That is about as far as you can go in the system, So staying around unless they decided to make me the director, which I would gladly have accepted. I would that's a

political appointment. That's a political appointment. Yea. So it was it was time and there is a time to move on. I did what I wanted to do. I got as far as my aspirations, uh wished. So I felt it was a good time to leave. And if you go into the private sector market, you're better going in at your late fifties, in your early sixties. So I love the agency and I would have stayed there forever if there was still uh still opportunities. But you can't go

back and do the same top job. It's just it's not any question of not being fair, but I think it, uh, you get too ingrained in the system. So what was the transition like from government work to the private sector. I didn't have a I'd like to say I had a career plan, a mission, and I when I left, I thought, well, you know, maybe I'll go back to

teaching or whatever. But there was a form acting director of the FBI, find fellow named Larry Potts, and he called me and said, look, you know, there's an investigative company up in New York, and how we'd like to come up and run our office for a year, which I did. And the reason I was interested in the move is I always found New York to be an exciting city and I wanted to the idea of coming here there. Well, this is a foreign assignment coming to

New York. You know, two years would be great. You can enjoy New York and and see the big lights. So two years it takes two years to find an apartment. Well I didn't know that at the time. That was as I said, Well, right, and when I was abroad, you had the infrastructure of an embassy to help you find the place. But in New York, how long have you been here for? I've been here seventeen years, so you know, another seventeen I'll be in New York. I'm

working on it. But you know, I spent a lot of time in living in suburb of Washington, and it never quite clicked for me. And then I've began to think about I was born to Philade area, and I lived in capitals around the world. Was a city person, so the thought of going back and living in the suburbs just didn't have the appeal. So this is an opportunity. And after I got here and spent several months or almost a year doing this. UM I ran into my partner,

current partner, Stanley Arkin, who's a very prominent lawyer. Uh no, Nashally actually, and it's actually tried the first case before the Supreme Corridor on insider trading in the defense UM and one the case and they changed the law accordingly. But and he what people didn't realize was in he was asked by the director of c I A if he would come down and defend one of the senior

CIA people caught up in the Iran contra affair. So I remember I didn't meet him, but I remember him coming down and that the the officer Stanley was able to cut a deal for him, and I thought, how smart, What a smart operator here he was. Now other c I people weren't too happy because Stanley his only mission that the press of the director, was to cut a deal for this felon. He did so. When we ran

into each other, we had fairly limited contact. And then one day Stanley said, well, look, the company with you too cheap to buy buy lunch. And Stanley doesn't need a free lunch, I'll assure you. But I said, look, Stanley, I'll buy you lunch. So we went to Maloneium for Celi over on Shiftier Street. Stanley doesn't even sit down. He's still standing and says, Jack, I think we should go into business together. So I said, like, when you

sit down, we'll talk about it. So the basic concept was, you know, he had a very rich roll, decks of contacts and um and had been in the business of using information in support of his big cases. And he felt that I had to know how on how to produce that information. And it appealed to me because I am an information junkie. I mean, I'm an intelligence junkie.

When I first left, I went out and interviewed and I won't name the company, but it was a furniture company out in Grand Rapids, and I thought, oh my god, how am I going to do this? You know, I'm not I'm not sure I'm going to be convincing the salesman and uh and uh. Fortunately uh. I ended up, as I said, in something I like you now, and

that's collecting information and collecting information internationally. Now we do about a third of the work here in the States, but much of the distinguishing work, because it's so much harder for companies, is in this space collect internationally, and I think over the past seventeen years, UM, standing are proud of the network we've we've built up, and I think it's uh, it's very very robust, but it's information collection and no one's Justice Department is not going to

authorize me to help overthrow governments or counter invasions anywhere. So it's were strictly in the information business and helping clients to navigate abroad. Let's talk a little bit about what's going on in the headlines. Uh, the infamous House Intelligence Committee memo was authorized to be released. It raises the question how independent are intelligence and law enforcement agencies like the CIA or the n s A or the FBI.

So I think professionals in both law enforcement and we'll talk about the FBI or in the intelligence world CIA, although there are other law enforcement agencies, and there's also other agencies involved in intelligence collection like n s A and military intelligence and so on. The professionals in this field really don't want to see an interest section between

politics and intelligence. It's really Uh. I don't know if you've ever had an opportunity to go into the CIA headquarters, but no, but I'll take you up on that offer. For sure. Well, you're gonna have to get on the payroll first. So when you it's a from my view, from an a steady point of view, what I like, and we're in the past and now was the there's aesthetic dimension to it you walk in. There's a certain

amount of simplicity to it. On the left is a quote from the Bible, and it says you shall know the truth and then it will set you free. Now, someone gave that thought when they were thinking of what would go on the the wall of the CIA. That is the mantor of the words. Your job is to get the facts, the truth, and as Jack Webb used to say, nothing but the facts, and it should be

deep politicized. I wouldn't note on the other side of the wall the symmetry of the stars where the falling officers of C. I A Are recognized, and there's over a hundred and twenty stars. When I joined was probably fifty. So there's the ultimate price that officers have paid over

the years for standing by that. I can't tell you the political orientation, and most of the people that I worked with, I mean, there are a few that I suspected, but it was unprofessional to bring into the workplace, you know, domestic politics. It just wasn't professional. And the CIA is blessed and compared with State Department in a minute, which for whom I have great respect and an important role they play. But in c I A. When the directors come in, they come in with only a couple of people.

Usually it's the general council and maybe an assistant or two, but none of them hold command positions. And it was it's free of the political point. He's other than the director and deputy direct actor State Department. There are so many jobs that are open to the political arena. Assistant secretary of this ambassador. All ambassadors resigned at the end of an administration, so it can be politicized more than

the law enforcement agency. The FBI director is a tenure tenure and there's been designed to make sure it carries over and before any single lord two term presidency. That's correct. So I'm a strong advocate of keeping both of those institutions. And again I'll leave State aside and other government agencies, but two that are very much in the headlines out of politics. And I think the leaders of agencies that dabble in politics to a great disservice to the Core

Mission and to the institution. So it takes discipline and not to become part of when you're in the administration, not to become part of the politicy sex and um. You know, if anyone were listening on this issue is going to be the director, I would encourage them to d politicize. So so what are we to make of this recent attempt at painting agencies like the CIA but these days the FBI as corrupt, biased, one sided institutions that are working to thwart a candidate or a president.

Is this just part of the angling? Or let me start with the CIA, the one I know best, And uh, I don't think that's a good description of what's taking place. I think people sort of missed the fact that the very first official visit that President Trump made was out to the CIA headquarters. And my own sense is day in and day out, the relationship with d c I, the Director, Pompeo, and the administration is probably very, very solid, and the workforce itself tries to be supportive of the

executive branch. But I my guest today that if you walk through c I A and not much different than when I would walk through and half the population would be Democrats and the other half Republicans, maybe shifting within two percents, you know, in a given year. And I don't think they're politicized, and I don't think that's what's

at challenge here. I do think when the directors go out and they should revisit this and feel like they are spokesman for policy and political policy, that it paints a picture that, uh, and the institution is so people underestimate the power of bureaucracies, and bureaucracy is a bad word,

but over time, bureaucracies really mold the governments themselves. And I'm optimistic that and I believe this is happening that the longer the Trump administration goes on, the more the bureaucracy begins to create policies and and things that are more recognizable in a more traditional sense. The FBI, by contrast, right now is in a firestorm. And you know, the FBI is most conforten is doing the investigations into crimes

and kidnapping and so when and and counter intelligence. They do a great job in you know, weeding out spies, and they are terribly important agency for our government. But when you get involved, and sometimes you're necessarily involved in the political part, then the institution is at some some jeopardy.

So these are really difficult times for the FBI. And uh, you know, I think the sooner these the investigation is concluded and and people can get back to doing the other things that they do so well, I think it would be healthier for the institution. So I do feel that the FBI is in a really difficult period. CIA has been in difficult periods in the past. I don't think today is one of them. How do you think

this plays out with the FBI? Is is this the sort of thing that could lead to a Saturday night massacre where a bunch of people get fired, or because you've you've had a finger on the pulse of politics and d C, you know what sort of what's going on there. What's your best guess as to how the capital deals with all these crazy cross cards. I bet onto bureaucracies over in the long term that they because they're so needed, and the congressman down on the hill

know that, I mean they really do. I mean, you'll have speeches, but at the end of the day, I don't think there's any sensible congressman that's thinking that somehow we don't need the FBI or they're not doing a very good job. So when this is done, I mean, this is the problem. This has been elongated, um boody match. But it's a major overhaul and is probably not what I would think would come down the road. Now it depends on how this plays out, but certainly some people

will self elect to leave. Probably good for everybody, um, but I would expect the FBI to very quickly stabilize and returned to its rightful place in our national security arena. But it's going to be hard sledding until this, until the investigations are completed and we move away from the politics of of of the Russian meddling in the election and get on with the more strategic issues in the

international arena. So it appears that just about every intelligence organization in d C has come out and said with a fairly heart degree of certitude, yes, the Russians have meddled in our elections. They've meddled in elections around the world. They have a very effect active online presence. Um there seems to be some reluctance to accept that as true amongst both parts of this administration and certain Congressmen. Devin Noon has probably most specifically, how does other agencies looking

at this from afar? So we don't obviously know what people in the FBI are thinking, But when the n s A or the CIA or other agencies are watching this, what's the internal discussion like saying, is it, hey, thank goodness, is not us? Or are they looking at it as if they could go after the FBI? They go after us? What does this mean going forward? I'm not sure I would be surprised if people and the other agencies are

internalizing it. I think they see it pretty accurately for what it is, um and I just don't see other agencies going through anywhere near the pain that the FBI is going through. When we talk about seventeen agencies, I mean you have to go back and look at the list. I mean they're not all you know, it might be the Indian Affairs has a branch of collection or whatever, So I mean you really only have a handful, and the premier collectors are would be the you know, the

n s A and the CIA and the FBI. When I think of collections and the military collects a great deal of information and also the satellite agency that collects satellite data. So when you get around to the word baddling, it's really a good word. It's you know, and trying to understand this. I think there's really very few people today that don't realize and accept that the Russians are meddling. Meddled in the twenties sixteen presidential election. But what's does

meddling mean? And and from my view, you know, I know what big covert action operations look like, and if they if Putin really wanted to have a field day in our election, you don't spend two hundred thousand, and

you don't dabble. There's a dabbling dimension to this that I think should give people pause that if I were too and I want to be clear, this is not inside information since years of looking at it, um if I were the to analyze it, I think they wanted to be a nuisance, or they didn't anticipate that Donald Trump would become president and they didn't foresee the unintended consequences that they were trying to destabilize the West. It

would mean that they never read Western history. And what happens when you heard is destabilized, you know that you get end up with the Hitlers of this world in World War one or World War two, so destabilizing the West if they wanted to do that. This this is very small potatoes, but that they meddled, and that there has to be a resetting of it. Um is uh is beyond a question of doubt. And I take some hope. As you know, the three top Russian intelligence officers visited

the United States recently. My hope not based I'm not asking. I hope is that it's to sit down and say, wait a minute, and now we've got to we have to go back and re examine where are we here? Is this the way we're going to play the new world we live in, or we're gonna stick by the old Moscow rules in which we didn't interfere in each

other's election. So I'm hopeful it's the only way this gets resolved, because if it continues, then we will have to respond, and very few people are giving there's nothing in the public discourse about what we do. But we're not going to sit here and let the Russians medal and then we'll meddle there and we'll be back to

the old Cold War program. So I think it's a good time to capt this off and have frank discussions and put some markers don't know what we will and will not do, so if there's any silver lining, maybe that's it. So you raise a really interesting point. If we decide that, hey, you want to play that way, Ivan, we could do something similar. What can we do to respond to the Russian participation and Facebook and Twitter? And you know, it's not so much that they are coming

onto our physical lands and wreaking havoc. They're just creating some confusion in the online space, which really causes a lot of people some discomfort. We live in a new age of intelligence. I mean, if if you ask me what's the biggest change over my lifetime, it isn't how you go about getting human sources. That's as old as a prehistoric times. So the h it isn't It isn't that. It's the technology, the speed with which which you can

move information across boundaries. I mean, you just can't imagine the type of struggles I had to go to the collect information that today one your click, one click away from getting fifty times that and what I would work for days to collect. And the second thing is my ability to mobilize people. I mean, you have to go on higher group and paint signs. And today you know, with a good Twitter account you can really stir up

a lot of trouble. So and there's a there's a leveling to it because you don't have to be a powerful nation to metal. So I I still believe, strongly believe, based on again the arc of history, that America still is your most sophisticated intelligence operation and in the technical area, and we certainly can respond anywhere in the world with things that are not seen by the naked eye today. So we can make life very difficult in the cyber world. They crash gin is to what end? I mean, what

we really don't want that to happen. It doesn't there's no win win in that. So but it's unchecked that you're you're led there, you will be led down that path. So I think it's in the interest and I'm you know, having been an adversary of the Russians, I have a lot of respect for uh them in a different category that they're not unmindful of what's about what's taking place here, and they need to recorrect because they were dabbling and

didn't realize it would have the impact. They never dreamed that it was going to turn around, lead to sanctions, isolate them in the West, and I think they're probably trying to find a way out, pull a rabbit out of the hat. On their end. We have been speaking with Jack Divine, former acting director of Operations for the Central Intelligence Agency. If you enjoy the sort of conversation,

stick around for the podcast actors. Will we keep the tape rolling and continue to discuss all all things intelligence. I'll be sure and check out my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com. You can follow me on Twitter at rid Halts. I'm Barry RIDH Halts. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast, Jack, Thank you so much for doing this. Didn't really get to talk about Edward Snowdon and and the n s A and mass surveillance. What are your thoughts on that?

Well in Snowden. Actually, when green Wall's book came out about Snowdon, I was called by Politico and asked for a few comments about it because they wanted to be balanced between Greenwald's version of St. Snowdon and line and um as I said, earlier in the program. I knew Rick Ames. He was m the American CIA officer who volunteered to the KGB. Isn't that sort of a bizarre thing?

I mean right, it's well one of the problems in finding Rick Games and I think the same problem recently with Jerry Lee and the Chinese following that in the newspaper, But is that the CIA had a really hard time accepting the fact that one of their own was working for her for the Russian so it looked for all

other explanations of why we were losing agents. And I have made it a habit of when I've talked to a number of the directors over the past several years, to make the point that there is a mall inside the institution. So you need to make sure that you get briefed by the counter intelligence people and the attractive because it's part of the business, is what I'm saying. Just assume that, and we've had spies inside the Russian system,

they've come out their public faith no surprise. Why we would think we would be immune from it as as a tad naive or a group of people that are so hard nosed, But it is true. We think of ourselves as the the light on the hill, and that you know, as I said earlier, you joined because of a sense of mission. Who could possibly betray it? And I can talk about some of the behavioral things. I wanna talk about Aims for one secual, just to overlay

it on. Yeah, No, it's fascinating. So when you find when you look at Rick Aims, he was very well read person. He was enthusiastic about the CIA and the counter intelligence and hunting down spies. But he had a self importance. He thought why he was not very materialistic at this point in his life. He thought he was smarter than he was, you know. But he had a hambit, uh And it's a very dangerous one for anybody in business and in the bureaucracy, and that is it was lazy.

So he would do things well, he didn't like to do it. He wouldn't do it at all. So it's very safe to project over a career trajectory that people that are lazy eventually fall behind. So when you get in the middle of your career, you think you're smarter than everybody, but now you're you find that you're a major and your people that went through your training with you are now colonels and one star general. So the bitterness of the gap between your narcissism and that's where

the anger is. It's very rarely that people betray their country on some big philosophical issue. It's about that personal thing. You look at Snowdon. Now, Snowdon, I think it's a fairly bright fellow. But he wasn't good student in school. And why if you start to look at snow and you see he was sort of a lazy guy, did what he wanted to do. It was a very junior officer, and I think the same tendency was that he thought he was should be somewhere else in life and smarter,

and the revenge sets in. I don't believe he was a spy. If so, the Russians had up their game, that you could find a Snowden where in his position, find him and recruit him is better than my understanding of our success rate. So I think he was a disgruntled Yeah, But the minute he ended up in Russia, I just there's no you know, it doesn't take much imagination to realize that Snowdon everything that he does is

controlled by the state. In this case, the KGB and the FSB, and and that is his meals, his job. Who he meets, who he sees, what he can say public and not say publicly, are all controlled by the system. So after a while you become wittingly or unwittingly in a in of the system. So while that may not have been his design, that may not have been his motivation. He is a pawn in the system. And over time, almost old defectors leave very very unhappy lives. And I would,

and that would be my forecast for him. He will be as he ages, and he's got a long way the age, he will become a terribly depressed person. Ever coming back to the United States, So if he wants to go to jail, he will be prosecuted and convicted. And that's that. Let's talk a little bit about counter narcotics, because you headed that division, you worked on the Pablo Escobar case, helping to bring him down. Tell us a little bit about that. What was that like and what

were the goals of the counter Narcotics division. Number of your listeners may not recall that in the early eighties, counter in our potics was the number three concern. Narcotics was number three concern of the American public. They wanted their government to do something about it because drugs had moved into suburb we had moved into the country side. It was pervasive, and it was business, big business. So there was a huge push and all the government agencies

too um enter into counter narcotics. CIA and the FBI was not enthused about it. And one of the reasons was they were reluctant to get into business that concerned that they might get too close to the business themselves and the temptation and corruption would be an issue. So there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm. And the FBI wanted to do crime busting and and uh, and we wanted

to do um catching spies, running spies. So they actually created had a great d e A and had another name at the time, but it had to be made up and people drawn from other agencies because no one

wanted to do it. But then as it got more and more money, next to you know, the Navy was using ships to go run down a little tobacco boat running from the Caribbean, so money draws, so little by little became a big business in the in the CIA as well, and we created a center which brought in people from other agencies and and from other disciplines in c I a what I got out of the center, which which is it's the way you do business normally

in the agency. It's stovepipe analyst, operators, scientists. In fact, we have elevators that were color coded when I walked into the building, and you would never dream of going up the green a scientist elevator, and nobody would ever rub the spy elevator. They didn't weren't as spy. So creatures of it. The beauty of the counter and arcotage program, the counter Terrorism wanted had changed the discipline and that

all of these groups had to work together. We brought them together and we started to develop new capabilities linkage analysis, which we take for granted now, and that is how you use software to tie different conversations. And technology became a huge part of it. And on the ground, uh,

we invested a lot of time in integrating capabilities. And I know this will get boring for your readers, but I'm just saying the counter narcotics targeting became a model for the future of how the agency was going to do business in the drug business. Ugly ugly business. Pablo Escobar, for sure, it was a high figure in Colombia. Uh had his own zoo, blew up an aircraft. I mean, he was a really vicious and dangerous guy in Meta.

But the more dangerous group was the Colleague cartel, which had a lower profile, but they had more They were really moving more drugs and more money. But because of Scoobars fighting with the government, he had a higher profile, more easily identified. So from an agency point of view and working with other agencies, the mission was to identify where he was and then to have a well trained

unit to be able to take action the Colombians. And we felt that if you took a policeman and put him on the street after your training, within a day or two he's met by a drug traffickers saying, look, I'm either going to give you a hundred dollars and you don't have to do a thing. Just don't do a thing. There's nothing and if you don't, if you try to be active, you know we're going to shoot you. And so it was a question between you know, the expression in Spanish was you know the wall and between

lead and money, and you can either. So it's very tempting for April, so you couldn't put police in around, so we had to develop special units. And then if you watch as the Scobar movies or whatever, you will see that at the end he was located on his cell phone talking to his side, and so that the technology the world we live in made it easier to identify him and to uh to he met his demise

as a result of that. What do you think of the war on drugs that took place domestically and how does that contrast today where I believe it's a not just a majority, but a substantial majority of Americans favor either the criminalization or legalization of things like marijuana. Well, it's a it's a it's a tricky subject. One of the things I was on what I would call the supply side or how do you how do you stop the supply and stopping this why is an important thing.

If you don't do it, if you're getting let's say five hundred kiloads a day going into the United States, um, you'll end up with a thousand if you don't have it. But that isn't the real the way. In college, I was on the demand side, So I heard that filed. Your file indicates that. But the the the problem is, as long as there's a demand, no matter what you're doing on the supply side, the price will go up. But people are going to find those drugs and deliver them.

So if I had ten dollars, I'd put three dollars into If I were the decider, I would put three dollars into supply and seven into demand. The problem with the demand side is, you know, we talk health, and certainly we should do everything can, but the rate of success in dealing with from a health point of view, it was really dismal. So how do you prevent the

consumer consumer from taking drugs? So law enforcement is going to go in and do what it can, but it doesn't impact on the consumer and to some degree, and why people giggle at it, I don't uh. Nancy Reagan said say, no, well, it's not as simple as that. But you have to do something that makes people feel that it isn't good to do this, that they decide that it becomes uh, not fashionable. What would be my point? Why do why did everyone on TV three or four

years ago where purple shirts and purple ties. I have no idea. I don't know who started the trend didn't happen, But there are trends in history. There's trends in foreign policy. And if I look at isis today we're seeing a downward trend, right, But when you looked at narcotics, where was there in history that the drug, the cocaine heroin dropped? Now it's back, But why did it drop? It became uncool. Hollywood did so much in terms of playing at that. You know why it might have been cool for not

not in any circle life care to be in. But here in New York, you know, to put a cocaine on the table and have a party. There was a point where you didn't look too good if you were doing that. So they're the point is you have to spend time and what I would call social and engineering, but we careful how we do it, but that you have to get the consumer, the American people, to stop

thinking that taking drugs is a good thing. I kind of like the idea of making the price so cheap that there's no profit margin for the bad guys, which is what seems to be happening with marijuana wherever they legalize it. And now they're talking about Canada, becoming the first G seven country to make it completely legal. Well, I remember not too many years ago, four or five years ago, sitting down with the head of the police

in Mexico City and we're talking about narcotics. City said, look, you're legalizing its state by state, and you know he was ahead of his time in identifying the use of marijuana. Uh. I do think your point is right on target as it relates to the huge downside of it being a criminal offense is that you fluster criminal organizations. They're taking the money. It's not only out of the system, but you have people that influence the political rename can do

horrible things. If you legitimize it, that would go I hell. Ever, on the other hand, UM dubious that we actually would be effective and managing it is too often you start with we're going to control it and the control turns out not to be there. So and I want to be careful that we don't have a doped up society. So there is some balance in this. And now, I think in the criminal system, and I'm not an expert on the statistics, but I think most of the people

that are in jail are you are not users. They are sellers so and the question so the little bit of the legitimatization of marijuana. I mean, I don't want to get in trouble with all of my former colleagues who worked so hard on but there is something here to try and get organized crime out of it. But I have yet to see a program that would make me comfortable that we would have the self discipline and to manage a program where we wouldn't end up being

a very weak populace. And and I have some libertarian friends who think everything should be legalized. I think beer and wine and weed are one thing, and the opioids and heroin and all that stuff an entirely different set of issues and problems and risks for a society at large, right, And I think, you know, no matter how we look at it, we have to deal with it. The drug problem is back, and back big time. The heroine is really quite amazing because it is so addictive and yet

it's worked its way into our everywhere. But in the school system is where it caused the flashback in the eighties, and people her we're news now down in the low teens is quite large, and the number of overdoses are stunning stunning, So I have to get to my favorite questions. I'm just gonna do a lightning round on a couple of quick things because I I can't miss them before our standard standard questions. UM, so really quickly, U S drone program effective and effective? What do you think of it?

You didn't ask me, but I'm I'm stunchly opposed enhanced interrogations. Okay, that's the next question on my list. I want to take them side by side so that somehow you don't think I've become whimpish over the years. So torture, does it work? And should we do it? Let me let me answer your drone So I want to say I'm opposed to the enhanced interrogation on the drone. I feel

quite differently. To me, it's like the new Stinger. I actually had my hands on what I believe is the first drone that was going to be used in combat in six We were going to use it in uh in Afghanistan, and I was looking at it looked like a souped up toy plane, but it was about six foot wine and I gotta call the lawyers. Called said, oh Jackie, you can't use that. That's assassination. Okay, so I said, right, we're not. I guess we won't use that.

So instead we got these big mortars and fired mortars with GPS. Now this is where your business clients we'll want to take me with the grain is salt, because we'll realize that they don't have a keen business interest in this area. I actually had the first we had. The GPS was introduced to me. We put it with the mortar, first time ever used in combat in Afghanistan, and to me it was a weapon system. If I had a business sense, I should the facts. A wait

a minute, this is GPS. We can we can make this thing really hum well, as you can see, I'm not here in Armani suit because I just didn't remember remember to do that. So so I'm an advocate of I think it's a powerful thing. It was used originally for surveillance, and then someone said we need to put help fire missiles on and frankly, I've got no no time for the terrorists. And and but it has to be handled you know, smartly. I mean you have to.

And I believe we have the capacity and have been using smartly so pro drone anti torture let's talk about w m d S in Iraq. What the heck happened there? And who do you blame for that? Was that the CIA? Was that the shadow agency that the Vice President's office created. Well, I think there's several aspects of the the weapons of mass destruction issue um And again this is where there's

a hilarity with me. I was for going into Afghanistan immediately after nine eleven, finding Ben Ladden and taken down to tell them unequivocal, no compunctions about it. We did as a CIA special forces went in took down the Taliban, using some of the folks that we worked with back in the old days. I had no compunctions about that. I wouldn't I would have. My view is not to

hang around. I wrote an article some years later in the Wall Street Journal saying, you know, you want to keep using the CIA and special forces in low prob. You don't want to go in and build through the nation building. But leave that aside. A rock. I never understood in the sense that well, the weapons is you know, we talked weapons of mass destruction. He definitely had weapons

of mass destruction. Inspectors went and this is before the crisis, and we know, they destroyed only half of them at the time, so whatever happened to the other half, So it was not an unnuh unreasonable position to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction. I mean Sun was saying fooled his own cabinet. Now there was everyone else thought, well, he's had it, he has it hidden somewhere or else, okay,

and you know he never denied it publicly. But my problem is there was nothing that I saw, and have yet to see to this day, anything that indicated that, even if he had them, that he was going to use them. He used to be against us, and that there was an eminent threat and we needed to deal with it immediately. So I think it's going to prove to be one of the great UM blunders. Is that a good way? It's more than military because I think it's really a geopolitical mistake. Allowed I Ran to lose

a counterbalance. They really expanded dramatically. We've opened up, you know, you've opened up a huge instability vacuum, and and today that we're living with so um you know, conventional wisdom and you know, we're not talking about North Korea and Iran today, but I was reading today in the newspaper about giving somebody, you know, giving them a bloody nose, you know, uh so, and having options on going in and preemptive strike. And I'm thinking, gosh, that we ever learned?

I mean, what are the unintended consequences? Play back your tapes from when we went into Iraq? The oil? The oil was going to pay for the war. I mean our ability, very smart people to deceive ourselves when we're when we're spun up. So I think these the Iraq is the most unfortunate development in our modern history. And getting out then this is the problem. When you do preemptive anything. It's easy to get in. And we are the most powerful force in the world bar none, so

we don't have troubly getting in. It's how do you get out? And what are the consequences? Have you foreseen all the consequences clearly in issue? And for the record, I will add nobody who actually could do basic math imagine that the oil would pay for the Iraq war, that that line might have affected the enumerate, but the rest of us knew that was nonsense. I only have you for another eight minutes. Let me jump to my favorite questions. Um tell us about some of your early mentors.

I think as I think back over my career, and that's where good hunting. Uh. It was helpful writing it because you had to go back and say, oh, my goodness, I really did I thank that person enough. And I started making calls because of an interview of people, and it was, it was, it was fascinating. I remember calling one feather that was my deputy on the Iran program and how we tried to avert getting into the Iran

contry affair. And he was out and I was somewhere on a tractor and I called and and I could hear his wife getting him, and he got on the phone and I said, this Jack divine, and I heard big sigh and I thought, I know, I know, I know that side that sigh is Oh what did he get me into? And I said, look, Claude, I thought I wanted. All I wanted to do was tell you how grateful I am on you know, which I didn't

appreciate enough at the time. I did because of the book get to talk to some of my mentors, and a few of them have died in the last few years, and it's a great thing to go back and and to talk to him. So I talked to a fellow who was my chief and my first assignment abroad. And when you look back, must it was a pain to deal with me, you know, too much Huberts and all this. But I learned so much from him, and he was helpful to me. As his career advanced, he was helpful

to me. Tom Polger was the last chief off of the roof in Vietnam uh and was the chief out there wrote that famous message about uh you know, you know, you need to learn from history. But so I called Tom on the phone and he said, I said, Tom, I wrote this article. He said, yeah, that's good, but I got a couple I want you to read, you know. So he hadn't changed one bit. So I had a whole series and we couldn't go through them. But I

felt I was helped. You know. They called the business a trade trade craft, and you know, I'm I'm the son of a plumber, and you know, and I worked. I was terrible. That's why I had to become a spy. But you know, it's you learn that you're an apprentice at the elbow of a master. And I think the best of the best. Thing that can happen to an officer, and ce I has to work for someone who's a real craftsman and has an interest in development. So I

think I've been extraordinarily lucky in that regard. Let's talk about books. This is everybody's favorite question. Tell us about some of your favorite books, whether they're related to intelligence or not, fiction or nonfiction. Well, I think, uh, well, first of all, and the um I would mention a

book that I read a little bit every day. And whether you're secular in your beliefs or not, but I read two verses of the Bible every day because I find it leaving the religious connotation inside about life and frankly, even the language from which we speak. It's interesting in Abraham Lincoln. You know, most people back in those days, the fundamental book that they worked for was the Bible. They didn't have other books. So Lincoln when he talks

about you know, no House Divided, I can't stand. I mean, where was he drawing this? So I I find some inspiration in it. But right now I'm reading a book about grant by around turn Off. Everybody has told me they loved that book. The book it can be read on several outs Look, I'm just leaving the Battle of Vicksburg. I'm not a military expert. I mean I've been involved. But the reason I was involved because I was surrounded with people that really knew what they were doing. But

it's the person Grant. It's so interesting that he would absolutely have been a failure at all, and and it was a failure in just about everything else. He was unassuming character. But there is a great deal to read and to reflect on and thinks about the Civil War that I had missed the role of ex slaves in the army, I mean, real roles for them. So it's a it's a fascinating reading them and enjoying it. Um.

I I'd like history. So you know Doris Kern's uh rainals, you know, how does the government function and the dynamic around that. I read one on the CIA last year. It was called The Brothers and was Alan Douglas ahead of c I A and uh, what do you think of it? I learned a lot because even though I was in the business, the dynamic of the two of them, Uh and uh. I'm a student not only of the bigger history but the c I A history, So it was it was interested me the broader readership. Probably not, um,

not not so much. And I don't know what you think. Well, I did read John Lacy's latest book. Like, I don't read spy books. I've never read one of Ian Flemings, but I did read his first three books, which I thought were superb and understanding the psychology of people in the business. And I just read his last book, Legacy of Spies, and I wish he hadn't written it, just sort of diminishings. I mean, I just read it. It's like the first three of the ones to read. The

first three were really pieces of art. And uh, my last two questions. If somebody recent graduate or a millennial came up to you and said, I'm interested in the intelligence field, what sort of advice, uh, what sort of career advice might you give them? Well, I think there's a couple of things that they need to realize. They have to go online, so and then you're going to get an interview. You need to know the business enough to talk articularly about about it. So I would recommend

you read books good hunting. Certainly it's a good stuck, but there's a number of really good books. When I was looking for books, to read. There was hardly anything Alan Dull's Craft of Intelligence David Wise. Today there's a lot of really good books. But and then you have to decide what do you want to be where do you want to be in And you have to think about the life that you're gonna do you want to be in Washington as a an analyst or you're going

to travel around the world. What's that going to mean with you? So there's a lot of life issues that go into it. Almost any degree, as long as you do well in it, and almost any respectable school is going to get you there assuming you have you know, and I could que that somewhere between forty you don't have one seventy because then you're dysfunctional inside the bureaucracy, right,

we can't have too many geniuses. You really need the question of integrity, and it may be counterintuitive to the movies, but you know, you have to have a sense of mission. You want to be there, and they're going to be looking to make sure that you're a person they can trust. And as I said earlier, you know that you are not a person who's engaging in petty theft. Because we're worried that petty theft will lead the big time theft inside. So these are the types of things that people need

to think about. And our final question, what is it that you know about spycraft and intelligence gathering today that you wish you knew thirty five years or so ago when you started. There's uh a great quote by by former Secretary of States Schultz, and the quote is no

bad idea dice and washing. And the point is that early in my career, I thought, this is such a dumb idea that it will not go anywhere, So you don't have to stand up and be counted, right, And that held me well because virtually all the bad ideas didn't did die. But the one that didn't die was the irand Country affair. And I do think I stood up, but I think I should have gotten top of the building and screamed at the top of my voice that

it was a bad idea. So uh, I would say that people in key positions and bureaucracies, you know, when you see a bad idea, stand up. And I would say to young people and and people that are seasoned, ah, it is important. It's critical. It's a responsibility at a certain level in in all institutions to uh speak truth to power. And for those people that are worried about their career, you know, I would tell you it helps

your career. Now you have to be careful how you phrase it so you don't annoy the unduly the recipient of it. But it is so important in the public sphere, and I believe in corporations as well to speak truth to power. And I think there's some of the lessons that did you reflect back on. It's it's key the things that you learned. It's not just how to put down a dead drop in the middle of the parks

to No. One season. We have been speaking to Jack Divine, former director of Operations at the Central Intelligence Agency and author of the c I a memoir Good Hunting. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and look up an inch or down an inch at any of the other or so such conversations that we've had. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss if I did not thank my crack staff who helps put together

this show each week. Michael Batnick is our head of research. Taylor Riggs is our producer slash Booker. Medina Parwana is our audio engineer and producer. I'm Barry Ritults. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.