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The CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to beyond infographics. Today, we're peeling back the layers
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: on how the world of intelligence actually works. We're going
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: from the upclose clandestine tradecraft of a field agent all
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the way up to the huge global strategies of entire organizations.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And we have a really substantial stack of sources in
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: front of us today that get into the very nature
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: of deception. We're not just looking at spies. We're talking
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: about psychological operations that constant struggle for clarity and information warfare,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: and maybe most importantly, how these big intelligence organizations are
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: forced to adapt or.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: In some cases, how they spectacularly fail to adapt to
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: major threats.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Our mission today is really to give you a shortcut
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to understanding the entire spies toolbox. We mean both the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: physical tools and the whole theoretical framework behind them. And
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: we're going to start with the truth that is well,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: it's one of the most surprising and frankly bizarre stories
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: in the history of espionage.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: It really is the fact that some of the most
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: advanced deception techniques, the ones used by major intelligence agencies,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: were literally developed by hiring stage magicians.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It sounds like the plot of a movie, but it's
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: completely real.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, it sounds like a Cold War thriller, but
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: this transition from illusion and sleight of hand to core
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: military and intelligence tradecraft is a defining part of that
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: whole era. We're going to explore how those psychological principles
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: still define both these incredible operational successes and also some
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: of the biggest intelligence failures we've seen.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: So the big question we're really tackling across all these
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: sources is twofold. First on a tactical level, how do
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you effectively deceive the world's most sophisticated adversaries?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And then, second, on an organizational level, what happens when
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: the weakest link in your entire intelligence operation isn't the
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: enemy but the complicated bureaucratic structure of your own agency.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Let's really get into the details. Let's do it, And
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: just before we jump in a quick reminder to you,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: our listener, if you find this exploration valuable, please take
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a moment to rate beyond in for graphics five stars.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: That feedback really helps us reach more people who are
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: curious about how this hidden world works.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, so, m Cultra, the spy and the Sorcerer.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Right to really understand why the CIA, an organization built
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: on data on traditional spycraft, would suddenly feel the need
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to put a professional stage magician on staff. You have
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to go back, You have to feel the existential fear
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: of the early Cold War.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: The entire US intelligence establishment was just thrown into absolute
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: disarray in nineteen forty nine.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And that was when the Soviet unions successfully tested its
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: first nuclear weapons.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly that moment, seeing nuclear parity arrive so much faster
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: than anyone predicted, and that you combine that with the
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: brutal stalemate in the Korean War just a few years later,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: it just catalyzed this massive, powerful internal review across all
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: of US intelligence.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And the consensus was what that the old ways.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Weren't working dangerously inadequate. The feeling was that the traditional
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: methods were not going to cut it in this new
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: world of instantaneous global threats.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: This was all sort of crystallized in the Doolittle Report,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't it back in nineteen fifty four.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: It was, and that report concluded, and this is almost
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a direct quote, that the US needed to abandon its
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: old constraints and develop more sophisticated and more effective methods
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: than those used against US.
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  Speaker 1: So basically it was a declaration that we need to
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: fight fire.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: With fire, and probably a bigger fire. It was this
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: permission structure to get very, very creative.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And all that anxiety quickly fixated on one deeply unsettling.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Threat, the fear of mind control. You had reports to
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: circulating everywhere within the intelligence community suggesting that the Communist alliance,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: so the USSR, China, North Korea, was mastering the art
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: of controlling human behavior through.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: What drugs, hypnosis, all.
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  Speaker 2: Of it drugs, hypnosis, psychological manipulation. The fear was about
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: operational and strategic They believe this capability could render US soldiers,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: high value political targets, maybe even entire civilian populations completely
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: vulnerable to Communist influence to the.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Point of turning them into unwitting agents.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: That was the ultimate fear, and that specific fear drove
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the CIA's highly secretive Project M culture, which really got
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: going in the early nineteen fifties.
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  Speaker 1: And the main person here was a doctor Sidney Gottlieb.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Right, doctor Gottlieb. He was the chief of the CIA's
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Technical Services division. By nineteen fifty three, he and his
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: team of chemists were just massively expanding their research into
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  Speaker 2: chemical and biological methods for controlling or at least severely
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: altering human behavior.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so this is exactly where the sorcerer steps onto
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  Speaker 1: the stage. Because the big operational problem wasn't just finding
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  Speaker 1: these chemical substances, you know, the truth serums or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: It was figuring out how to secretly administer them.
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  Speaker 2: Right, how do you do that with an unwitting target
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  Speaker 2: in a completely uncontrolled environment.
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  Speaker 1: A bar, a restaurant, anywhere.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Gottlieb realized his chemists and his toxicologists weren't enough.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, they had the substances, but they lacked the
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  Speaker 2: actual trade craft for covert delivery. You can't just walk
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: up to a Soviet diplomat, ask him to drink a
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: weird looking cocktail and expect it to go well.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: So the CIA made this truly unconventional higher. They brought
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: in a celebrated American stage magician named John Mulholland, and.
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  Speaker 2: His contract was focused entirely on tradecraft. His job was
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  Speaker 2: to develop a detailed spy manual describing how to use
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  Speaker 2: and I quote the various aspects of the magician's art
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  Speaker 2: for covert operations.
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  Speaker 1: Specifically, to train field officers in how to surreptitiously place
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  Speaker 1: a pill or some other substance into a person's food
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  Speaker 1: or drink.
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  Speaker 2: It just highlights the desperation at the time. The organizational
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  Speaker 2: impulse to explore really unorthodox capabilities was just off the charts.
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  Speaker 2: Mul Holland ended up producing two specific training manuals, and
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  Speaker 2: one of them became notorious operational applications of the art
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  Speaker 2: of deception.
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  Speaker 1: And the fact that we can even read these manuals
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: today is a fascinating bit of historical luck. It's rooted
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: in a kind of intelligence failure.
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  Speaker 2: Really. It is teteen seventy three, the Director of Central
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  Speaker 2: Intelligence at the time, Richard Helms, He issued this famous
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: sweeping order to destroy all and culture documents. Why revelations
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: about the program were starting to leak. Congressional investigations, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the famous Church and Pike committees were just starting to
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  Speaker 2: ramp up.
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  Speaker 1: So it was an act of self preservation for the agency,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a huge one.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: That order was meant to legally insulate the agency from
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: future scrutiny potential criminal liability. So these two manuals, which
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: detailed specific capabilities under this decades long program, were thought
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: to be lost forever, but they weren't.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: No.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Years later, a former technical Services director who had kept
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: a copy came forward. Their rediscovery just provided this rare,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: chilling window into the depth and the scope of the
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: CIA's efforts in the fifties to find these control capabilities.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: And while a lot of this research was eventually deemed impractical,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: we have to talk about the most tragic human cost,
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  Speaker 1: the death of the Army biological warfare scientist doctor Frank Olsen.
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  Speaker 2: Right, this is the dark side of all that experiment.
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Olson was working on very sensitive research at the
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  Speaker 2: Army's Special Operations Division. He was invited to a retreat
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  Speaker 2: that got leeb organized at this remote place, Deep Creek
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  Speaker 2: Lodge in western Maryland. This was November nineteen fifty three.
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  Speaker 1: And he wasn't told what was happening, not at all.
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  Speaker 2: He, along with about a half dozen other scientists and
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  Speaker 2: CIA people, was unknowingly given seventy micrograms of LSD. It
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: was spiked into a quatra luqueur. And this wasn't some
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: controlled clinical setting. This was a deliberate covert administration to
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: one of their own colleagues.
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  Speaker 1: The effects were unpredictable.
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  Speaker 2: To say the least. Most of the attendees reported having
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  Speaker 2: strange experiences, but Olsen had a severe psychological reaction, I
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  Speaker 2: mean what we would now call a profound tachotic break
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: or a bad trip. It just got worse and worse
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  Speaker 2: over the following days. He reportedly became extremely paranoid, deeply depressed.
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  Speaker 1: So what did the CIA do?
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  Speaker 2: A few days later, Gottlieb's deputy at doctor Robert Lashbrook,
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  Speaker 2: escorted Olson to New York City for psychiatric counseling. Tragically,
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  Speaker 2: his psychological state just didn't improve. On November twenty eighth,
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  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty three, he either fell or jumped to his
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  Speaker 2: death from a tenth floor window of the Statler Hotel
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  Speaker 2: in Manhattan.
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  Speaker 1: And the agency covered it up completely.
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  Speaker 2: In the immediate aftermath, high level CIA executives just concealed everything.
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  Speaker 2: All the circumstances surrounding his death were hidden to protect
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  Speaker 2: the existence of enculture, and.
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  Speaker 1: It stayed hidden for decades twenty years.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't until the internal document started surfacing that the
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: story was partially revealed. It led to President Gerald Ford
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  Speaker 2: issuing a formal apology, and the US government gave financial
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  Speaker 2: settlement to Olson's family.
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  Speaker 1: But even that wasn't the end of the story, was it.
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  Speaker 2: No, not at all. The controversy didn't end there. The
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  Speaker 2: investigation was actually reopened by the New York City District
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  Speaker 2: Attorney in nineteen ninety eight. There were just these persistent
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  Speaker 2: questions about whether the fall was really a suicide or
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: if there was foul play involved, especially given the agency's
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  Speaker 2: initial cover up.
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  Speaker 1: It was clearly a chaotic, panicked era of highly unethical experimentation,
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  Speaker 1: all driven by this genuine existential fear. But you raised
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  Speaker 1: a point earlier. Did the chemical side of it? Did
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  Speaker 1: it ever actually work? Did it deliver on its promise? No?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. The sources are really clear on this. Even
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: doctor Gottlieb, the guy driving the whole project, was forced
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  Speaker 2: to acknowledge by nineteen sixty four that the chemical and
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  Speaker 2: biological methods were, in his words, too unpredictable in their
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  Speaker 2: effect on individual human beings to be operationally useful.
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  Speaker 1: So the magic bullet just didn't exist.
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  Speaker 2: It didn't. The organizational impulse to try and find it
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  Speaker 2: persisted for years, but the effectiveness in a real world
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  Speaker 2: operational context was basically non existent.
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  Speaker 1: Which is the essential connection here. If the chemicals themselves
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  Speaker 1: were a bust, then the real lasting lesson learned wasn't
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  Speaker 1: about pharmacology at all. It was about the absolute necessity
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  Speaker 1: of deception, the magic, the psychology, the trade craft itself.
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  Speaker 1: That's what survived exactly.
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  Speaker 2: And when you look closely at maul Holland's instruction manuals
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  Speaker 2: or principle, shifts completely away from science and into psychology.
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  Speaker 2: He emphasized over and over again that successful trickery depends
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  Speaker 2: on simple elementary psychology.
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  Speaker 1: The goal isn't to be faster than the eye.
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  Speaker 2: No, the objective is to deceive the mind rather than
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  Speaker 2: the eye. He makes this fascinating point that the average
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: person's site is about one hundred times faster than the
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: most highly trained pianist can move a single finger, So
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  Speaker 2: if you try to rely on sheer speed, you will
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  Speaker 2: get caught.
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  Speaker 1: So speed has to be an illusion created by misdirection.
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  Speaker 2: The deception has to rely entirely on a carefully thought
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  Speaker 2: out sequence of actions, naturalness, and performance, and critically avoiding
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  Speaker 2: anything unusual in action or speech that would attract attention.
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  Speaker 1: He saw as a lie, but acted out a lie.
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  Speaker 2: Acted out, which he said required far more thought and
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  Speaker 2: care than just telling a verbal lie because false actions
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  Speaker 2: are often much more obvious and easier to spot.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's break down how this philosophy translates into
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  Speaker 1: actual tools and techniques. This is a play directly to concealment. Right.
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  Speaker 1: The trick is making something valuable disappear into what he
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: called the spies everyday pocket.
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  Speaker 2: Right, making it disappear in plain sight. And the manuals
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  Speaker 2: offered these incredibly specific, practical, almost mundane tips. For instance,
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  Speaker 2: the simple act of folding a document four times reduces
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: its physical size to one sixteenth of the original.
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  Speaker 1: Making it small enough to palm to palm.
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  Speaker 2: To conceal, to pass over surreptitiously during a handshake, or
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: you know, in the shadow of a newspaper. Yeah, it's
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: basic physics, but applied to.
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  Speaker 1: S Bycraft and the objects used for hiding secrets were
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: genuinely ingenious. They really capitalized on our psychological expectation of
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: what an object should be completely.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: They suggest things like tailoring hidden trouser pockets, which are
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: great for documents or small weapons. They even detail using
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: common household items like hollowed out coins or even a
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: toothpaste tube to hide a small point two two bullet.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Or a cigarette package.
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  Speaker 2: Cigarette packages were great for concealing film or intelligence, specifically
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: because those are idos people see hundreds of times a day.
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  Speaker 2: They're just part of the background noise. They get an
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: autract suspicion.
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  Speaker 1: The most famous concealment tool from this era has to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: be the hollow coin. Mulholland himself probably had a hand
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: in developing it.
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  Speaker 2: He almost certainly did. These concealment coins were designed to
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: hide micro dots, tiny notes, or importantly from cultra bills.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: You see different examples like the screw top coin, which well,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: you have to unscrew the interface of the coin. It's
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: a deliberate, relatively slow process.
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  Speaker 1: And there was a bang ring coin what is that.
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  Speaker 2: That required a specifically machined ring. The agent would have
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  Speaker 2: to hit the coin with the ring against a hard
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: surface to separate the two halves. Again, not something you
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: do in a hurry.
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  Speaker 1: But Mulholland's own design the dope coin was different. It
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: was all about speed, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: It was typically machine from a nineteen twenty one silver dollar,
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  Speaker 2: and it was designed specifically for rapid covert delivery of
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: powders or small pills. It opens when you gently push
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: on the word etched on the edge just between your
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: thumb and forefingers.
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  Speaker 1: It's a quick release, a very quick.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Release design, and that contrasts sharply with the other CIA
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: concealments that required a planned slower effort to open them.
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  Speaker 2: It strongly suggests quick access was the priority for its
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: intended aggressive use.
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  Speaker 1: So let's move to those more aggressive methods clandestinely delivering
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: pills or liquids. This relied entirely on sleight of hand,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: not high tech gadgets.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: It did Mulholland designed these specific scenarios, but it is
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: important to stress and the sources do that we don't
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: have definitive proof these highly aggressive methods were ever used operationally.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: The goal was to train the capability.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so walk us through some of them. The psychology
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  Speaker 1: of misdirection must be absolutely critical here.
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  Speaker 2: It's all about creating a natural moment of distraction. One
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  Speaker 2: of the simplest props was just a paper matchbook. A
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: small pill could be stuck to the back of the
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: paper matches with a tiny bit of wax.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And the agent would offer the target a.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Light exactly while engaging the targeting conversation. You offer to
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: light their cigarette. While you're doing that, you can quickly
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: and subtly rub your finger over a hidden pin head
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: on the back of the matchbook that releases the pill
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: directly into the target's waiting coffee or whiskey glass. It's
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: all masked by the totally normal action.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Of lighting a flame that relies so heavily on the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: target just focusing on the flame or the conversation. What
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: about liquids, They're much harder to conceal, much.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Harder For liquids which required larger quantities, maybe up to
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: five c c. There were specialized container designs hidden inside
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: everyday items. One involved a small polyethylene container hidden in
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: a wallet pocket right near the center fold.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: How did that work.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: The tip of the container was pushed through a tiny
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: slit at the bottom of the wallet. When the agent
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: closed and squeezed the wallet along the edge of the fold,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: the liquid would eject in a stream through that little hole.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: But there was a drawback to that way.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, that method often required squeezing and releasing it several
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: times to get all the liquid out, which made it's
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: slower and potentially a lot riskier if the target was observant, So.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: There had to be a faster option.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: For liquids, there was a quicker method used a rigid
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: plastic vial. They said drug store vials were excellent for
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: this for slightly larger amounts three to ten CC. A
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: small hole was drilled in the bottom of the vial
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: and another hole was drilled in the cap, which was
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: fitted with a removable stopper.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: So you just pull the stopper and it all dreams
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: out instantly.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: When the stopper is removed, the liquid just releases rapidly
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: through the bottom hole. One design even connected the stopper
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: to a thread, so the agent could just pull the
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: thread quickly to release the liquid, and you'd hide the
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: whole device inside say a cigarette package, which gave you
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the cover and concealment you needed.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: It really is about making the completely abnormal seem totally normal,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and this philosophy of deception it doesn't just apply to
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: objects and chemicals, but to the spy's own appearance and behavior.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's about blending into the background. The manuals gave
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: all these tips for avoiding surveillance based entirely on l
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: elementary behavioral psychology. The number one piece of advice was
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: to cultivate an air of relaxed inattention.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: When ANDed out look a bit dopey into.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Shuffling exactly, it invites less suspicion. A relaxed person simply
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: does not attract attention from observers who are looking for
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: nervousness or purpose.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And they warned against specific movements, right.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, avoid fidgeting at all costs. Constantly shifting your position,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: playing with keys or coins, tapping your fingers, those tiny
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: repetitive actions attract notice. They signal anxiety or preoccupation.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Where As someone who's just absorbed in reading a newspaper
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: or talking.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: With their friends, they attract far less attention than someone
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: who was constantly looking around, checking their watch expecting someone.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: The calm, quiet, relaxed person is visually defined as normal
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: in any urban environment.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we've covered avoiding detection. What about signals? How
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: do agents communicate or identify one another with these subtle
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: nonverbal cues.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: They rely on minor non standard elements of what they're
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: wearing or carrying. These clothing signals could be incredibly subtle.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: A shoelace tied in a specific, non standard way that
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: only a trained operative would recognize a tie clip adjusted
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: to a certain height, even a missing vest button.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: The source material really highlights the genius of using non
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: standard shoelacing pattern it does.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: It's explicitly mentioned as a really useful identification method because
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: while it won't attract any attention from a casual observer,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: it is instantly recognizable and totally unambiguous to an operative
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: who's specifically looking for that signal. It turns a boring
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: everyday item into an instant identifier.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: And finally, you could customize small personal items right.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: You could alter the tip of a pen or a
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: pencil clip. You could file it to change its shape,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: drill tiny holes in it, or color it subtly with
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: a bit of paint or sealing wax. You create a unique,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: yet entirely subtle identifier that an adversary would just completely overlook.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: The brilliance of this whole area of tradecraft is that
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: it transforms the insignificant every day world into a detailed
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: secret language for spies.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: It really shows that the most successful and enduring tricks
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: are the simplest ones, all rooted in managing expectation, and
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: that mastery of managing the performance is what we have
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: to look at next when we scale a deception from
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: a single agent to entire operation.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And if you are finding this exploration into the tradecraft
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of deception and espionage valuable, please remember to rate beyond
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: infographics five stars. Your support lets us keep digging into
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: these fascinating details.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: So this idea from the magician, managing the stage and
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: the site lines is absolutely crucial for operational success, especially
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: when the stakes involve escaping hostile surveillance. A stage magician
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: has the advantage right they control the theater, the lighting,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: the props, the audience's focus.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: But a spy stage is completely uncontrolled. It could be
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a crowded street, a busy airport, a government reception in
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a hostile capital city. This requires special precautions against unseen
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: as well as unanticipated spectators.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: The spy's goal is to make the audience, in this
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: case the hostiles surveillance team look exactly where you want
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: them to look, or more accurately, convince them that nothing
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: important is happening at all.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And a textbook example of this a successful large scale
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: deception based entirely on brilliant stage management is the CIA's
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: famous identity transfer operation in Moscow during the Cold War.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: The whole objective was for an intelligence officer to make
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: sure he was free of KGB surveillance before he went
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: to meet a top agent.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Walk us through this performance. Because it was more than
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: just a quick switch, this required some serious choreography.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, this was a deliberate little theater presentation. It was
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: choreographed to unfold over several hours at a diplomatic reception.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: You have the intelligence officer who's the target of the
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: KGB surveillance, and a similarly sized but non suspect fellow worker.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: They both attend this official social function.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you have the target and the double right.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: The target officer arrives in a standard, unremarkable suit, but
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: his partner, the non suspect guy, arrives making a statement.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: He's wearing garish nineteen seventies mod style clothing, and critically,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: a third official arrives separately, fanning an injury. He's got crutches,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: a leg cast the whole nine yards.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So the stage is set for chaos and distraction.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Once they're all inside, the intelligence officer quickly swaps
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: clothes and identity with the garrishly dressed man. They exchange everything,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: including their identification.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And then the newly disguised officer leaves.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: He leaves with the third official, the one on crutches
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: whose wife is driving. The entire exit is masked by
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the drama of helping this injured man into a waiting car.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And the brilliance is that the KGB surveillance team, who
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: are posted outside diligently noting everyone who comes and goes,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: they assume the intelligence officer is still inside.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly they saw two men go in, they saw one
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: come out, and they assumed one stayed. They never realized
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: their target had transformed himself into the mod dressed distraction
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: and left with the.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Injured guy, an absolutely perfect substitution illusion perfect.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: The swap itself only took a few minutes inside a
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: blind spot. Once they were safely away, the officer changed
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: again into completely nondescript clothing, went and had his clandestine meeting,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: and later returned to the reception, changing back into his
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: normal soon tie. He just apologized to his colleagues for
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: being called away by his self important bureaucrat.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: He made an officer disappear and reappear as a different
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: person right in front of the adversary's eyes.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And It seems like this lineage of deception technology goes
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: back even further than the Cold War. It traces straight
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: to the legendary escape artists of the early twentieth century.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: To Houdini.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, the operational legacy of Houdini, the Master of Illusion
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: and Escape, is all over spy equipment design. Houdini's famous maconashue,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: which had a hollowed out heel for concealing small escape
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: tools and lockpicks, became a favorite concealment cavity for spies.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: We know that East German and Czechoslovakian agents used these routinely.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: They used concealment heels to transport valuable items like minnox
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: film cassettes and even tiny micro eavesdropping transmitters.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And even the toolkits themselves echoed Houdini.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: The CIA specifically improved on an earlier design from the OSS,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: the Office of Strategic Services. It was a pocket knife
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: that had six small tools perfect for lock picking, exactly
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: the kind of specialized tools Whodini relied on in his
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: own concealed escape kits seventy years before.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Even making a small camera disappear quickly. Was adapted from
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the magician's playbook right.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: They used a device called a holdout, where a retractable
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: tape measure fitted with a thin black cord was used
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: instead of elastic. He could rapidly pulled the camera up
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and out of sight into the agent's sleeve.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So, moving from that Cold War mechanical era to a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: more contemporary crisis, we have the legendary success of the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Argo X filtration. This was led by the CIA operative
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Tony Mendez during the nineteen seventy nine Iran hostage crisis.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: This operation, rescuing six US diplomats who were stranded outside
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the besieged US embassy in Tehran, relied entirely on creating
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: this grand, believable strategic illusion using Hollywood magic.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Mendez was the chief of the Disguise section of the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: CIA's Office of Technical Services.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: He was and he partnered with a Hollywood makeup artist,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: John Chambers, to create the cover story a fictional sci
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: fi film called Argo, supposedly being produced by the equally
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: fictional Studio six Productions.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: The commitment to this illusion was just staggering.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: It really was Mende's open production offices on the actual
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Columbia Studio lot in California. He got real scripts and storyboards.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: He even ran a full page business ad in Variety magazine.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: This was deception on a global stage. It wasn't just
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: designed to fool Iranian militants, but to stand up to
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: the scrutiny of international media and governments.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And when Mendes finally met the six terrified diplomats who
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: were hiding in Tehran, he faced this huge challenge. He
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: had to convince them that his completely outrageous plan was
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: believable and that.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: They ordinary diplomatic workers could convincingly transform themselves into a
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Hollywood film crew.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: And he didn't do it with the geopolitical lecture. He
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: used magic.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: That's right. Mendez used a simple sleight of hand trick
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: called the impassable corks, where he would seemingly pass two
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: quarks right through one another. And this immediate visual demonstration
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: of illusion and stage management was critical for instilling confidence.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: It convinced the skeptical diplomats that sophisticated deception could overcome
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: seemingly insurmountable obstacles like armed guards and international borders.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: The performance then culminated in the transformation of the diplomats
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: themselves using these highly specialized disguise materials.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, the makeovers were designed to fundamentally alter their appearance
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: to match the cover story. Mends described transforming one very
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: conservative diplomat into a mod figure. He had snow white
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: hair that was aggressively blow dried. He was wearing tight trousers,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: a blue silk shirt unbuttoned down the front, with a
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: gold chain.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: The goal wasn't just physical disguise, but psychological transformation exactly.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: It was about instilling the comp efidence they needed to
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: embody the cover. It ensured that when they sauntered effortlessly
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: through the Tehran airport, it was because the stage had
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: been beautifully set and the scene masterfully presented.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: This thinking outside the box mentality seems to be a
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: consistent element of intelligence history, going all the way back
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: to the beginnings of American intelligence in World War Two.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: We see that same spirit in Operation Greerap, which was
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: run by the OSS. It just showcased extraordinary ingenuity and
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: required setting aside all these conventional military prejudices.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: The operation successfully recruited Jewish refugees who had fled the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Nazi regime.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Right leveraging their language skills there into knowledge to the
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: target environment. But the truly radical part was pairing these
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: refugees with German deserter volunteers former prisoners of war who
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: had been thoroughly vetted and had strong anti Nazi sentiments,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: and then setting them behind German lines in the Alps.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: That unusual composition led to some significant successes in Austria.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: The mission also has these crucial cautionary tales about paying
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: attention to the smallest detail.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: It does. One spy, Hermano Mattil, who was a German
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: deserter and kind of a con man, He was betrayed
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: and captured because he made one tiny oversight. He carelessly
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: used American cigarettes and matches in Germany, something a local
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: would never have, and.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: The smallest incongruity can unravel the entire performance exactly.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Another agent, Paul Krock, was betrayed when a keen eyed
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: German NCO noticed that the stamp on his forged German
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: documents was round, when the stamp used in that specific
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: military area were supposed to be square.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: It all comes back to Mulholland's rule of naturalness. Even
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the most elaborate preparation can be undone by the tiniest
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: overlooked detail.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: That's a perfect encapsulation of tactical failure. But now we
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: have to make the leap. We've discussed the success of
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: tactical deception, the magic, the props, the personal performance, but
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: what happens when that personal success is rendered totally irrelevant
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: by a failure of grand strategy or organizational structure. The
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: stage management has to scale up from a cork trick
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: to a geopolitical narrative.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Right, and that's the critical pivot that transition from the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: micro level tradecraft of the individual spy to the operational
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: framework of entire organizations. That's where you find the real
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: modern vulnerabilities and intelligence.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: After the nineteen seventy two Munich Olympics attack, almost every
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: country in the world created specialized counter terrorism or CT
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: units to protect their citizens, but nine to eleven demonstrated
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: this continuous uphill battle. Terrorists are always trying new ideas
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: to thwart CT training and preparation.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: This cat and mouse game extends way beyond just kinetic actions.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: It's a war fought primarily on the ideological and informational battlefield,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and we need to get into the powerful argument raised
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: in our sources about this ideological warfare, specifically Nance's thesis
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: on al Qaeda right.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Nance argues pretty compellingly that groups like al Qaia held
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: a consistent advantage in the idea logical battle space. They
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: did this by successfully exploiting the decline of American stature
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: in the arena of world politics, which just provided endless
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: fodder for their information operations and their recruitment campaigns.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: So the essential strategic task for US counter terrorism strategists
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: then must be to reshape and reconstruct America's narrative on
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the global stage.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: And the proposed solution isn't just counter propaganda. Nance contends
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: that preceding Islam itself as the enemy, which was a
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: common mistake in Western rhetoric, only serves to fuel al
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Qaeda's psychological warfare campaign.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So what's the alternative?
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: He proposes a strategy of delineation. He argues compellingly that
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: al Qaeda should be officially and very publicly framed as
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: being unqualified to offer religious guidance.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: You try to strip them of their religious legitimacy exactly.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: It makes their ideological message ring hollow to the majority
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: of Muslim populations. It's a strategic effort to deny them
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: the very terrain the religious authority that they claim to command.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: However, critics cited in our sources argue that these kinds
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: of ideological campaigns can't succeed in a vacuum. You can't
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: just use language and framing to win back hearts and
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: minds if these fundamental foreign policy issues remain unaddressed.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: And that's where the tactical war of ideas just crashes
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: into the reality of geopolitical history. The critique basically says
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: that the perception of the US has been severely damaged
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: and requires addressing the underlying kinetic and policy issues first.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: They argue, a large part of the target audience is
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: just too damaged in its perception of the US to
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: be ready or open to receive a reformed American narrative,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: no matter how clever the messaging is.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: So what are the necessary geopolitical prerequisites for any kind
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of ideological victory? According to this analysis, the list is
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: pretty extensive.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It focuses on systemic policy adjustments in the Middle East
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: and South Asia. Critics argue that real ideological victory demands
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: structural change that includes promoting good governance and economic opportunity
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: to remove the underlying drivers of extremism. What else ensuring
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: e cool and fair political participation for opposition parties, especially
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: in the air world, and non Arab Iran human rights
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: improvements in key US allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: and critically the creation of an independent, sovereign and contiguous
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Palestinian state.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: That list really underscores the difficulty if the diplomatic landscape
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: stays hostile and this perceived US hypocrisy continues. Any information operation,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: no matter how well managed, risks being seen as just
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: verbally bantered about rather than a serious policy shift.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate failure of stage management. If the backdrop
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: you've created your foreign policy fundamentally contradicts the script you're
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: trying to deliver your ideological message, the audience will see
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: right through the deception. Success in this ideological battle requires
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: understanding the larger ties that bind both Muslims and non
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Muslims alike, things like a shared desire for good governance
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: and free and fair elections, and that.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Leads us directly to the structural battlefield the intelligence community.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: After nine to eleven and the WMD Commission report on
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq War, there
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: was this massive structural critique.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: The WMD Commission called the community's performance on Iraq one
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: of the most public and most damaging intelligence failures in
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: recent American history.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: And crucially, that commission also cited the community's history of
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: quote an almost perfect record of resisting external recommendations.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Right this institutional inertia, this organizational reluctance to change that
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: became the central focus of reform efforts in the years
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: leading up to two thousand and nine. The core structural
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: issue really boiled down to who exactly is in charge.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: The structural solution that was proposed centered on the role
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: of the Director of National Intelligence the DNI, a position
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: created after nine to eleven, but one whose authorities were
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: constantly undermined by the independence of the big component agencies.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: The central proposed remedy to eliminate these needless and debilitating
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: squabbles over authorities who were basically just jurisdictional turf wars
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: over budget's collection, priorities and access was to move the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: big all intelligence elements.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: So the CIA to DA NSA.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: CIADASAGA, and NRO, move them directly under the DNI's authority.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: And why was that structural shift so necessary?
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Because it would finally clarify command and control. Under the proposal,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: the DNI would become the primary leader. The Secretary of
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Defense would hold a concurring authority on the defense agency leaders,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: but the DNI would be in the driver's seat, and.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: This would address the historic confusion caused by the Director
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: of the CIA the DCIA remaining a presidentially appointed role
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: with direct access to the president.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Right which the heads of most of the other major
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: community elements didn't have. The goal was to give the
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: DNI genuine budgetary and personnel leverage to actually enforce integration.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: The structural solution also had to address the deep seated
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: agency culture. There was this powerful call for jointness in
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the community, mirroring the military's successful joint commands.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, the intelligence community needed to establish permanent cross organizational
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: mission centers. These would act as integrators of enterprise operations.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: The belief was that if an agency based approach could
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: have solved these fundamental questions of personnel coordination and cultural inertia,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: there would have been no need for a D and
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I or intelligence reform in the first place.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: So these mission centers would force analysts and collectors from
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: different organizations to actually mix and work together.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Seamlessly across organizational lines every single day.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: And finally, the structural discussion included a lot of concern
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: about ethical and oversight failures, especially around covert activities like
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, which had created these
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: political and ethical firestorms.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: The proposal there was the creation of an independent presidentially
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: appointed and congressionally confirmed ethics monitors, specifically for covert.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Activities, and the rationale for that.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: The rationale was that this independent monitor could potentially re
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: move some of the heat from the ongoing firestorm over
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: congressional oversight. It would provide greater accountability to the President
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: and Congress, assuring them that these sensitive, high risk activities
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: were being conducted within a clear ethical and legal framework.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: It's such an important point. The tactical success of deception
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: in the field, you know, the brilliance of a Tony
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Mendez or a John mulholland is ultimately useless if the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: overarching system that's supposed to employ that deception is structurally
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: broken at the top.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And while the media often focuses on those spies
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: operating in the clandestine world, the vast majority of useful
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: intelligence maybe up to eighty percent by some estimates, often
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: comes from material that is publicly available. This is open
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: source intelligence or OSENT, and its strategic importance is well.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: It's difficult to overstate the.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Foundational infrastructure from modern ocent was actually laid well before
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the US even formally entered World War Two. In nineteen
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: forty one, President Roosevelt established the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: or FBMS.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Its initial order was very pragmatic and immediate monitor foreign
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: shortwave radio broadcasts from belligerent occupied in neutral countries that
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: were directed at the United States. They used the rapid
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: transcriptions and translations not just for facts, but to perform
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: trend analysis to discover shifts in tenor ore.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Content, things that might imply changes in strategic intentions.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly, for example, analyzing Japanese rhetoric right before Pearl Harbor.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: The sheer scale of this organizational effort is incredible, especially
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: when you consider it was a pre digital era. By
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: late nineteen forty two, FBMS, which later evolved into the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: form Broadcast Information Service FBIS, and then the Open Source Center,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: was translating five hundred thousand words a day.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: From twenty five broadcasting stations in fifteen different languages, and
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: this capacity just expanded dramatically over time. By nineteen ninety two,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: FBIS was monitoring over thirty five hundred publications in fifty
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: five languages and seven hundred and ninety hours of television
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: per week from fifty countries around the globe.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: The strategic value speaks for its The former Deputy Director
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: of Central Intelligence, William Studman, estimated in nineteen ninety two
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: that over eighty percent of many intelligence needs could be
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: met just through open sources.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Which means a sophisticated, expensive human intelligence and signals intelligence
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: is often just confirming what a dedicated analyst team already
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: found in a foreign newspaper.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: And if we look at the data from the early
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: digital archive that period between nineteen ninety three and two
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: thousand and four, we get a really clear picture of
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: where US strategic attention and resources were focused during a
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: critical transitional decade.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: The data provides immediate strategic insights. You can see three
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: key findings. First, the language focus English reports dominated at
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: forty six percent, which reflects the large volume of English
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: language media globally, But the two foreign languages with the
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: highest report counts were Russian at eight point four to
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: five percent and Arabic at six point one eight percent.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: That's significant. That ratio confirms the pivot and strategic focus.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: During that period. You see intelligence resources shifting from the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: primary Cold War target Russia to the emerging global threats
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: primarily in the Middle East and South Asia, which is
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: reflected in that high Arabic report count exactly.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Second, you look at the topics, domestic political and international
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: political dominated the coverage, reflecting this strategic need to understand
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: the internal dynamics and foreign policy debates of target countries.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: That's what directly informs diplomatic and operational decisions.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: And Third, the top source countries confirmed the strategic priorities.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Russia and China. They were the top two source countries monitored,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: accounting for over ten percent each of the total reports.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: This confirms that even after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: the primary strategic focus and resource allocation remained fixed on
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: great power competition and geopolitical stability in those two key regions.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: So FBIS and the similar British BBC service were these
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: essential strategic resources.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: They were they maintained consistent monitoring volume across the globe,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: especially in regions where broadcasts were the main form of
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: news distribution.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: And this commitment to comprehensive structural collection is so vital
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: because when intelligen organizations fail, it's often due to structural
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and cultural issues that are just repeated throughout history. It's
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: not usually a lack of raw data.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: And we can draw powerful lessons by comparing the structures
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: of successful and unsuccessful foreign intelligence services.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Let's start with MI five, the UK's domestic security service.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Their authorized history shows an extremely successful organization that largely
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: maintained professionalism and trust with politicians, and they did it
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: with remarkably limited resources.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Famously efficient and compact five had fewer than fifteen hundred
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: staff at the peak of World War Two, they still
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: had fewer than twenty five hundred and nineteen eighty nine,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: and their successes are legendary.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: The double Cross system during the.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: War, the double Cross system against German espionage, and then
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: persistent counter subversion efforts during the Cold War. They did
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: this by maintaining a highly professional and politically neutral.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Stance, but they weren't immune to organizational failure, not at all.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: MI five was criticized for being slow to adapt to
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: critical new threats, particularly the sudden emergence of the conflict
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: in Northern Ireland at the start of the troubles in
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine. They were also slow to recognize the
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: growth of international terrorism in the seventies and eighties.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: So their history shows that even highly professional services can
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: be caught flat footed by the emergence of entirely new
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: operational theaters that challenge their existing structure and focus.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Now, contrast that organizational efficiency in its occasional stumbles with
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: the catastrophic failures of Imperial Japanese intelligence during World War II.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: They had capable sigant and human officers. The failure is
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: purely organizational and cultural.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: The sources indicate a critical structural flaw. Intelligence officers were
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: relegated to an inferior position relative to operations officers.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Right the operations officers cared little for intelligence and barred
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: them from strategic decisions. The intelligence was simply gathered, packaged up,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: and then completely ignored by the decision makers.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: That is just a staggering waste of capability. Give us
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: the prime example of this failure.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: The prime example is the nineteen forty invasion of French Indochina.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Major General Suchi Hashi Yuichi, who was the head of
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: the Army General Staff's second bureau, the Intelligence Division. He
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: opposed the invasion based on his analysis of the inevitable
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: diplomatic and economic.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Fallout, but his advice was ignored.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Entirely ignored by the operational staff. The invasion went ahead,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: and the subsequent US oil cutoff set Japan on the
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: irreversible path toward war and ultimately defeat.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: That might be the most powerful lesson in this entire conversation.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Having the intelligence is completely useless if your operational culture
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: ignores it.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: And we see a similar organizational flaw in the early
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: days of the CIA, right after it was created under
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: President Truman.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: The sources, specifically citing historian doctor Sarah Jane Krk, indicate
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: that early CIA covert operations were largely failures, and the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: primary cause was structural, but it was rooted in strategy
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the Truman administration's failure to develop a coherent foreign policy
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and an integrated strategy for waging the Cold War.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: So without that clear strategic context, the CIA's covert action
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: arm the Office of Policy Coordination, was essentially left to
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: its own devices. They were attempting these complex operations without
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: clear top down guidance or foreign policy.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Purpose, which led to what was described as a bureaucratic fiasco.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Right unsuccessful operations, and a poor early record that arguably
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: just repeated itself over the following decade in similar operations
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: against various countries. The consensus among critics is really clear.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: For covert action to be successful, it desperately needs a
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: workable foreign policy context that defines its goals. Otherwise it
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: just becomes organizational chaos.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: And that connects our entire discussion from the chaotic, fearful
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: experimentation of m Cultra, which was driven by a lack
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: of clarity, to the broader structural chaos of the early CIA.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: If the organization doesn't know what its strategic objective is,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: then even the most sophisticated tricks of the magician failed
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: to serve any productive purpose.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: That is the ultimate conclusion, isn't it Deception is only
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: useful when you know what you are deceiving the enemy
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: into doing or not doing.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: So we started this exploration in a hidden CIA lab
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: where stage magic was being weaponized, looking at techniques for
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: covert delivery and deception, and we ended by reviewing the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: global intelligence bureaucracy and its chronic inability to learn from history,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: which undermines all that excellent trade.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Graft, but stands out across all these sources, whether we're
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: talking about Tony Mendez rescuing diplomats, a Cold War agent
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: avoiding surveillance, or a commission dissecting the failure of strategic intelligence,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: is that success in espionage, both micro and macro, relies
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: fundamentally on understanding human psychology, distraction, and above all, having
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: a simple, clear, and institutionally agreed upon objective.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: For you, our listener, what we've seen today demonstrates that
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the most elaborate tricks, whether it's an identity transfer or
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: delivering ideological warfare, rely on the simplest psychological principles distraction, expectation, management,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: and confidence in the performance. But all of that requires
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: a functioning, focused organization behind it. We hope you found
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: this incredibly valuable. If you have, please do you remember
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: to rate Beyond Infographics five stars.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: And here is our final provocative thought for you to consider.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: We have seen as the greatest threat to a nation's
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: intelligence apparatus may not be the ingenuity of its enemies,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: but the structural inability of its own organizations to coordinate, adapt,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: and learn. The lessons of history is do Some critics
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: strongly argue an agency's problem is fundamentally people related, a
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: culture of risk averse managers and trench agency silos and
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: leadership deficiencies. Can any amount of purely structural reform, like
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: simply moving agencies under a DNI, truly fix the deep
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: seated cultural barriers to integration and success