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Jack Barsky and the Secret Soviet Espionage Operation Inside the United States · Beyond The Horizon

0:00
Speaker 1: Everyone and welcome back to the program when it comes
0:03
Speaker 1: to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell inevitably we talk about
0:08
Speaker 1: intelligence services spy services and people who are living double
0:12
Speaker 1: lives as agents recently we heard about Robert Maxwell's connections
0:18
Speaker 1: to the KGB that just confirmed what we already knew
0:23
Speaker 1: but today what we're going to do is explore that
0:25
Speaker 1: a little bit more but as by looking at the
0:28
Speaker 1: life of a man named Jack Barsky, who was a
0:34
Speaker 1: KGB agent who was also living a double life here
0:38
Speaker 1: in America. So let's check out this article that was
0:42
Speaker 1: originally run by Fox News, but is posted here on Yahoo.
0:46
Speaker 1: And let's see what author Stephanie Pagonis has to say. Headline,
0:52
Speaker 1: Jack Barsky. what a Russian spy job might look like
0:56
Speaker 1: now from one of the KGB's best-trained double agents. And
1:02
Speaker 1: when we talk about Maxwell and Epstein, I say it
1:04
Speaker 1: all the time, I believe they were both assets and
1:06
Speaker 1: that they were both living a double life. Now, of course,
1:10
Speaker 1: you'll have people out there that'll, they're convinced that this
1:14
Speaker 1: is all a big Mossad cover-up and Epstein and Maxwell
1:17
Speaker 1: were working for the Mossad. I don't go down that road.
1:21
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that. Now, they might have had
1:22
Speaker 1: some ties there for sure. But inevitably, the CIA is
1:28
Speaker 1: running the show here in America. Those guys are the
1:32
Speaker 1: big brother of the big brother, right? So those are
1:35
Speaker 1: the people who are running the show. But there is
1:38
Speaker 1: no doubt that Maxwell and Epstein were working as agents.
1:42
Speaker 1: Not as spies, but as assets for these different intelligence agencies.
1:47
Speaker 1: And this gentleman, Jack Barsky, that we're going to talk
1:51
Speaker 1: about today... Well, he was doing the same thing, but
1:54
Speaker 1: on a whole different level. This guy was an actual spy.
1:59
Speaker 1: And he was somebody who was trained in the ways
2:01
Speaker 1: of spycraft. And then he was sent to America to
2:04
Speaker 1: complete this job. Jack Barsky joined a prearranged Friday morning
2:11
Speaker 1: Zoom meeting 18 minutes before it was scheduled to begin.
2:15
Speaker 1: Wearing a navy blue long-sleeved sweater with a white collared
2:18
Speaker 1: shirt underneath, he appeared the everyday gentleman. an All-American father,
2:23
Speaker 1: possibly a grandfather, as he sat with his arms folded
2:26
Speaker 1: in front of a preset background of the Hudson River
2:30
Speaker 1: as the interview began. So just your everyday non-assuming man, right?
2:35
Speaker 1: Guy sitting around in a navy blue long-sleeved sweater, white
2:38
Speaker 1: collared shirt, would never even be able to pick him
2:41
Speaker 1: out of a lineup as a spy. And those are
2:44
Speaker 1: the best kind, aren't they? If you're interested in this
2:48
Speaker 1: kind of thing, I highly suggest watching the show The Americans. Obviously,
2:53
Speaker 1: it's a TV show, needs to be taken with a
2:55
Speaker 1: grain of salt, but the core principle of it, the
2:59
Speaker 1: idea of it, is how these agents work, and especially
3:03
Speaker 1: during the days of the KGB. Barsky, now a 74-year-old
3:08
Speaker 1: author and public speaker, lives a life that appears to
3:11
Speaker 1: be that of a typical American citizen. But his life
3:15
Speaker 1: and his life story are anything but typical. Barsky was
3:20
Speaker 1: born Albrecht Dietrich before he was recruited by the now
3:23
Speaker 1: defunct KGB. Yeah, okay, you mean the FSB now, which
3:27
Speaker 1: later became the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, FSB. Yeah, exactly.
3:33
Speaker 1: The KGB is just packaged in a nicer way now.
3:35
Speaker 1: They're still the same old, same old. He was trained
3:39
Speaker 1: and groomed for years before he spent a decade living
3:43
Speaker 1: a double life as a Russian spy in New York City.
3:46
Speaker 1: So that's what they do, right? They look for people
3:48
Speaker 1: who will make good spies or good assets. Then they
3:51
Speaker 1: bring them in, they train them, they groom them, and
3:54
Speaker 1: then they unleash them. I wound up to be one
3:59
Speaker 1: of the best trained agents they ever sent to the
4:02
Speaker 1: United States, he told Fox News Digital. Albert Dietrich was
4:06
Speaker 1: born in Germany in 1949. He was raised in a
4:09
Speaker 1: part of the country that became the German Democratic Republic,
4:13
Speaker 1: known as East Germany, a vassal state dominated by the
4:17
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. I grew up as a good little communist,
4:20
Speaker 1: Barsky told Fox News Digital. And look, the Stasi that
4:25
Speaker 1: was in control of intelligence for East Germany was brutal
4:31
Speaker 1: as hell. In fact, you can access the Stasi files
4:37
Speaker 1: via the internet these days. There's a place where you
4:40
Speaker 1: can do that. I'll have to find out the exact website,
4:44
Speaker 1: but there certainly is a place where you can go
4:46
Speaker 1: and look at all of the stuff that that they
4:48
Speaker 1: have on file, or that the Stasi had on file,
4:51
Speaker 1: and it's mind-blowing how many files they had opened up
4:54
Speaker 1: on their own citizens. It's crazy to think that the
5:00
Speaker 1: Germany we know today, modern-day Germany, used to be East
5:04
Speaker 1: Germany and West Germany. I remember as a kid with
5:06
Speaker 1: the Berlin Wall coming down and saying to myself, how
5:09
Speaker 1: in the hell could this country be split in half
5:12
Speaker 1: by this wall? How are the people okay with that? But...
5:16
Speaker 1: You know, when you look at how it all happened
5:18
Speaker 1: and stuff, it's just, it's fascinating the way East Germany
5:22
Speaker 1: and West Germany were split right down the middle. But
5:25
Speaker 1: when you lived in East Germany, obviously, and you, you know,
5:27
Speaker 1: you're a child, you were going to be molded and
5:30
Speaker 1: the propaganda was going to come hot and heavy. So
5:33
Speaker 1: the Soviets, they looked at that as a fertile ground
5:36
Speaker 1: for them to recruit agents and spies and have other
5:40
Speaker 1: assets that they could unleash on the Western world. Given
5:45
Speaker 1: the Stasi, the secret police's practice of keeping records on
5:48
Speaker 1: all East Germany's residents, Dietrich's good grades and allegiance to
5:52
Speaker 1: the Communist Party caught the attention of the KGB not
5:55
Speaker 1: long after he entered the workforce. He spent a year
5:59
Speaker 1: and a half communicating informally with recruiters before he flew
6:03
Speaker 1: to the KGB and Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin and
6:07
Speaker 1: met with the head of the security agency. Out of
6:10
Speaker 1: the blue, he asked me, so what? Can we count
6:13
Speaker 1: on you? He recalled of his meeting with the top-ranked
6:16
Speaker 1: KGB official. So, again, you know, these agencies, the Stasi,
6:22
Speaker 1: the KGB, they would have fat files on every single
6:26
Speaker 1: one of their citizens, pretty much. And they would keep
6:29
Speaker 1: a running tally on what you were up to. You
6:32
Speaker 1: had classmates who might rat you out if you're not
6:35
Speaker 1: a staunch enough communist. You would have teachers that would
6:38
Speaker 1: rat you out. Hell, family members. So a lot of people,
6:43
Speaker 1: they got on board, right? And they bought in. Nobody
6:46
Speaker 1: wants to go to a fucking gulag. I know I
6:48
Speaker 1: certainly don't want to get sent to some place in
6:50
Speaker 1: Siberia to crack rocks. So this was what they thought
6:54
Speaker 1: was righteous, right? And Dietrich decided, hey, look, I could
7:00
Speaker 1: do this. I think I'll be good at this. And
7:02
Speaker 1: the recruiters, after seeing his grades and how bought in
7:05
Speaker 1: he was to the communist manifesto, they were all, they
7:08
Speaker 1: were on board. Dietrich was given until noontime the next
7:14
Speaker 1: day to provide a final answer. I thought it through,
7:17
Speaker 1: I said. It is an opportunity to help the world revolution,
7:20
Speaker 1: to free some of the suppressed folks in the Western countries,
7:23
Speaker 1: to have the good life, he said with a chuckle.
7:26
Speaker 1: I said yes. I had no idea what I really
7:29
Speaker 1: signed up for. And it just gives you a little
7:31
Speaker 1: look in the psyche. These Eastern Bloc nations, during the
7:34
Speaker 1: time of the Cold War, they had their people thinking
7:37
Speaker 1: that they were living the good life. Meanwhile, they didn't
7:39
Speaker 1: even have jeans or fucking anything really, right? The people
7:42
Speaker 1: of Eastern Europe have been absolutely hosed by communism. 100%,
7:47
Speaker 1: without a doubt, hosed. So it's no shock that you
7:52
Speaker 1: see places like Poland that refuse to ever be under
7:54
Speaker 1: the yoke of the FSB or the KGB ever again.
8:00
Speaker 1: Five years later, he said, I showed up in the
8:03
Speaker 1: United States. Dietrich underwent two years of basic training before
8:07
Speaker 1: he was sent to Moscow for another two and a
8:09
Speaker 1: half years. There, the emphasis was not only on honing
8:13
Speaker 1: in on his spycraft skills, but on being able to
8:16
Speaker 1: speak English so well that only a glint of an
8:19
Speaker 1: accent was evident. And that was a key, right? Because
8:23
Speaker 1: there was a lot of red scare going on during
8:26
Speaker 1: the Cold War, and people were hesitant to deal with
8:30
Speaker 1: people who might have a Russian accent and stuff like that,
8:32
Speaker 1: as far as any kind of secretive project or anything.
8:38
Speaker 1: So one of the keys was to make sure you
8:41
Speaker 1: got rid of that accent as well as possible so
8:44
Speaker 1: you fit in, right? You could play chameleon. When his
8:49
Speaker 1: handlers determined that he was ready, Dietrich said goodbye to
8:52
Speaker 1: his mother, his wife, and their young child and left
8:54
Speaker 1: behind his life in Germany. From there, he took a
8:57
Speaker 1: long zigzag trip through Europe with multiple forged passports. Who
9:02
Speaker 1: does that sound like? Who else used forged passports? Oh yeah,
9:05
Speaker 1: that's right, Jeffrey Epstein, wasn't it? Nah, he has nothing
9:08
Speaker 1: to do with intelligence. It's a conspiracy theory. And varied
9:14
Speaker 1: which documents he used to prevent traceability. He entered the U.S.
9:18
Speaker 1: in Chicago and made his way to New York City,
9:20
Speaker 1: ditching the bogus passports along the way. In the fall
9:24
Speaker 1: of 1978, I showed up in the United States, he said.
9:27
Speaker 1: The only documentation I had was a certified copy of
9:31
Speaker 1: a birth certificate in the name of Jack Barsky. And
9:35
Speaker 1: the Soviets and the KGB, people don't give them enough
9:38
Speaker 1: credit for how well their domestic program was here in
9:42
Speaker 1: the United States. They had a lot of sources. And
9:46
Speaker 1: they certainly had access to making fake passports, no doubt
9:50
Speaker 1: about that. But the KGB was shrewd. And they were
9:54
Speaker 1: able to really develop a lot of sources here on
9:57
Speaker 1: American soil and have a lot of people. turn coat
10:01
Speaker 1: and start working for them. Dietrich took on the identity
10:07
Speaker 1: of Jack Philip Barsky, a 10-year-old boy who died in
10:10
Speaker 1: Maryland in September 1955. The mother of the original Jack
10:15
Speaker 1: Barsky bore the maiden name Schwartz, which Dietrich's handlers preferred
10:19
Speaker 1: because of the surname's presumed German or Jewish-German roots, Barsky said.
10:25
Speaker 1: He used it as a way to explain away any
10:27
Speaker 1: remnants of a German accent and told anyone who questioned
10:31
Speaker 1: him he was born into a bilingual household into Orange,
10:34
Speaker 1: New Jersey. So they have this whole entire thing set
10:37
Speaker 1: up before he even hits the field. They have a
10:39
Speaker 1: whole entire game plan put into place. They're not making
10:43
Speaker 1: it up on the fly, although they have to sometimes, right?
10:46
Speaker 1: They have to adjust and make things up. But again,
10:49
Speaker 1: think about Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell while we're talking
10:52
Speaker 1: about this and see how it runs parallel. From then on,
10:57
Speaker 1: Albrecht Dietrich was someone from a past life, a life
11:01
Speaker 1: that was revisited only once every two years when Barsky
11:05
Speaker 1: was granted a trip back home. But despite the fact
11:08
Speaker 1: that the actual Jack Barsky was not around to interfere,
11:12
Speaker 1: becoming the new Barsky wasn't easy. I would imagine it
11:16
Speaker 1: can't be easy to assume the identity of somebody who's dead,
11:20
Speaker 1: especially nowadays. Now, back in 55, a little easier probably,
11:25
Speaker 1: but still... had to be a monumental task. I tried
11:29
Speaker 1: once to get one birth certificate that failed, because the
11:32
Speaker 1: office that issued the birth certificate also cross-referenced death certificates,
11:37
Speaker 1: and I wound up asking for a copy of my
11:40
Speaker 1: birth certificate after I died, he recalled. His second attempt
11:44
Speaker 1: was successful, but he wasn't out of the woods, so
11:47
Speaker 1: you see there's all of these little roadblocks that would
11:49
Speaker 1: pop up as well. So that's why they had to
11:51
Speaker 1: choose people that were calm, cool, and collected, and people
11:54
Speaker 1: that they thought would be able to think quick and
11:58
Speaker 1: adjust to any of these situations that popped up. He
12:02
Speaker 1: then covered himself in dirt and played the character of
12:05
Speaker 1: a farm worker, because the farm industry was exempt from
12:08
Speaker 1: social security requirements at the time, when he went to
12:11
Speaker 1: the social security office to get the necessary documentation. I
12:15
Speaker 1: made myself into somebody who had just jumped off the
12:18
Speaker 1: potato truck. I rubbed soap into my eyes to make
12:21
Speaker 1: them red. I had stubble on my face. The hair
12:24
Speaker 1: wasn't really combed well. Dirty t-shirt, he said. Two weeks later,
12:28
Speaker 1: I got the social security card in the mail and
12:31
Speaker 1: I was allowed to actually legally work in the United States.
12:35
Speaker 1: So you see why nowadays there are more, I don't know,
12:40
Speaker 1: loopholes and I mean more hurdles to jump through. When
12:44
Speaker 1: you're trying to do all of this stuff, it's not
12:45
Speaker 1: as easy these days. Back then, when the country was,
12:49
Speaker 1: you know, a bit younger and the technology wasn't there,
12:52
Speaker 1: people relied on the, you know, honor system almost. And
12:56
Speaker 1: of course, when you have assets and you have spies
12:59
Speaker 1: and there's spy games occurring, they're going to exploit all
13:03
Speaker 1: of that. Barsky moved to New York City's Upper East Side,
13:09
Speaker 1: but avoided almost any social interaction for about a year
13:12
Speaker 1: until he had all of his necessary documentation. His first
13:16
Speaker 1: job was working as a bike messenger, which he did
13:19
Speaker 1: for two and a half years. When he was on
13:21
Speaker 1: the road or interacting with customers, and even when he
13:24
Speaker 1: had downtime in the office, he absorbed everything. Barsky then
13:29
Speaker 1: went to college and graduated from Baruch College as class
13:33
Speaker 1: of 1984, valid Victorian. And college would be the perfect
13:39
Speaker 1: place for you to try and recruit some people to
13:41
Speaker 1: work with the cause, right? We all know that college
13:44
Speaker 1: is a revolutionary kind of place. A lot of campuses,
13:48
Speaker 1: Marxism certainly has taken hold. So certainly a great place
13:51
Speaker 1: to look at as a fertile hunting ground, if you will.
13:56
Speaker 1: By that point, he felt rather comfortable in my American skin,
14:00
Speaker 1: Barsky said. He took a job as a computer programmer
14:03
Speaker 1: for MetLife, working in one Madison Avenue high-rise, all the
14:07
Speaker 1: while still secretly working for the KGB and feeding his
14:11
Speaker 1: handlers any and all information. So now he has a
14:15
Speaker 1: job as a computer programmer working for MetLife, has access
14:19
Speaker 1: to all kinds of information, files, all sorts of shit.
14:23
Speaker 1: Pretty scary. That's when I finally was on my way
14:26
Speaker 1: to become middle class. In the end, the upper middle
14:29
Speaker 1: class person, at which point I would have become a
14:32
Speaker 1: much more dangerous agent, he said. But before that happened,
14:36
Speaker 1: I quit. The first and foremost aspect of the mission
14:40
Speaker 1: of folks like us was just there being in the U.S.,
14:44
Speaker 1: being available, Barsky said. We were supposed to be on
14:47
Speaker 1: standby just in case. He added, referring to the possibility
14:51
Speaker 1: that diplomats in the U.S., most of whom were KGB spies,
14:54
Speaker 1: were kicked out of the country. Huh. Familiar? Isn't that
14:59
Speaker 1: what just happened recently? A lot of diplomats were kicked
15:01
Speaker 1: out of the country? So how many FSB spies are
15:05
Speaker 1: still poking around? He added that he was sent to
15:09
Speaker 1: the U.S. with the goal of collecting information about foreign policy,
15:13
Speaker 1: getting close to foreign policy decision makers or influencers. That
15:17
Speaker 1: is exactly the role. Get close to these people, then
15:20
Speaker 1: influence what they're saying in hopes of influencing the American public.
15:25
Speaker 1: His handlers gave him names of people and organizations with
15:28
Speaker 1: whom they wanted him to get cozy, including the Hudson Institute,
15:33
Speaker 1: the conservative think tank, and the Brzezinski, former national security
15:37
Speaker 1: advisor under President Carter. Shocking that he would want him
15:41
Speaker 1: to get close to Brzezinski. Brzezinski is a whole nother
15:44
Speaker 1: type of scumbag. That was a pipe dream, he said.
15:47
Speaker 1: I never got to a point where I was positioned
15:50
Speaker 1: in society to have a realistic explanation why I would
15:53
Speaker 1: want to befriend some of these people. He also wrote
15:56
Speaker 1: periodic reports about how the American public was responding to
16:00
Speaker 1: world events and tried to make as many other connections
16:04
Speaker 1: as possible. So basically, he was here pitching back a
16:07
Speaker 1: narrative to his handlers about how the American public was
16:13
Speaker 1: dealing with things, what the weather was. The other thing
16:17
Speaker 1: that was important to them was for me to get
16:20
Speaker 1: to know as many people as possible. Contacts, contacts, contacts.
16:24
Speaker 1: That's what I heard a lot. And then profile them,
16:27
Speaker 1: analyze them, send profiles to Moscow for them to determine
16:30
Speaker 1: whether they would be good candidates for recruitment. And that
16:34
Speaker 1: was the gig, right? Find Americans that could be recruited
16:37
Speaker 1: and brought into the fold. He said he was never
16:39
Speaker 1: told what happened with any of the people he reported
16:42
Speaker 1: or if how the KGB higher-ups used the information he shared.
16:47
Speaker 1: Barsky also spoke regularly to his handlers in Moscow and
16:51
Speaker 1: communicated with them at least weekly via radio transmissions. in
16:56
Speaker 1: New York and is network communicated via signals in agreed-upon spots,
17:00
Speaker 1: a detail that becomes important later in Barsky's story, and
17:04
Speaker 1: past information using dead drops, a process that entails leaving
17:08
Speaker 1: items or documents in agreed-upon spot for someone else to
17:12
Speaker 1: retrieve later. He was allowed to mail two letters with
17:16
Speaker 1: secret writings to his loved ones per month, he said.
17:20
Speaker 1: So dead drops are something that is still definitely used
17:23
Speaker 1: by spies, be it at a park or a public place.
17:27
Speaker 1: They'll have an area where they can leave a message
17:29
Speaker 1: or receive a message from their assets. Asked if he
17:34
Speaker 1: recalled any moment where he thought, mission accomplished, Barsky told
17:37
Speaker 1: Fox News Digital, even developments that might seem small, getting
17:42
Speaker 1: a social security card, safely returning to Moscow and East
17:45
Speaker 1: Germany every two years, were seen as big steps. Getting
17:49
Speaker 1: a job at MetLife and even his gig as a
17:52
Speaker 1: bike messenger were seen as accomplishments. I had achieved probably
17:56
Speaker 1: the impossible because there were so many situations where it
17:59
Speaker 1: was best 50-50 for me to actually get through and
18:02
Speaker 1: not fail, he said. But again, this was a suicidal mission,
18:06
Speaker 1: quite frankly. And the fact that I actually established myself
18:09
Speaker 1: as an American, that was my, I believe, my biggest achievement.
18:14
Speaker 1: So this dude got disillusioned with all of it, right?
18:16
Speaker 1: He's over here working for the KGB, but at the
18:19
Speaker 1: same time, he's getting a whole face full of what
18:22
Speaker 1: it's like to be an American. And the dude liked it.
18:26
Speaker 1: Barsky realized he had to make a life-altering decision in
18:29
Speaker 1: December of 1988 when the KGB began sending messages urging
18:33
Speaker 1: him to get out. By that point, he was married
18:36
Speaker 1: in his mid-30s and living in Queens with an 18-month-old
18:40
Speaker 1: daughter at home. There was a spot that we had
18:43
Speaker 1: arranged where agents could put some graphic signals. Very basic.
18:47
Speaker 1: But the one that I remember the most is the
18:49
Speaker 1: red dot, he said. The spot was at a supportive
18:52
Speaker 1: pole for the elevated A train. So as I walked
18:55
Speaker 1: up the stairs, I would look at the particular spot.
18:58
Speaker 1: There was never anything there. That was just routine. But
19:02
Speaker 1: that changed early one Monday morning as he was on
19:05
Speaker 1: his way to work. For the first time ever, he
19:08
Speaker 1: spotted a signal. A red dot. A red dot meant
19:12
Speaker 1: I was in danger, he explained. It was like emergency.
19:15
Speaker 1: And I did nothing. I got on a train and
19:17
Speaker 1: went to work and stared at the computer screen for
19:20
Speaker 1: all day without doing anything. Wow. I gotta take some
19:24
Speaker 1: courage knowing who you're dealing with, right? I'd have been
19:26
Speaker 1: shitting bricks. Alright, who's gonna kill me? The Russians or
19:29
Speaker 1: the Americans? The next message came during his regularly scheduled
19:34
Speaker 1: Thursday radio transmission. You gotta get out. This is an emergency.
19:40
Speaker 1: The encrypted message stated, Barsky said, we have reason to
19:44
Speaker 1: believe that you're being investigated by the FBI. But he
19:48
Speaker 1: doubted what he was being told. Having years of experience
19:51
Speaker 1: looking over his shoulder and taking countermeasures to assure that
19:55
Speaker 1: he was never followed, he wasn't convinced. So he's thinking now,
19:59
Speaker 1: all right, these guys are trying to get me to
20:01
Speaker 1: come home. They're trying to pull me for whatever reason,
20:04
Speaker 1: and I'm not a big fan of it. He chose
20:06
Speaker 1: not to respond to the radio transmission, despite Moscow's request
20:10
Speaker 1: that he confirm that he received the message and understood
20:13
Speaker 1: his instructions. They repeated the radio transmission every day, he remembered.
20:19
Speaker 1: But the most dramatic moment in his entire life came
20:22
Speaker 1: roughly three weeks later, as he stood on the platform
20:26
Speaker 1: of a Queens subway station, still dark outside around 6.30 a.m.
20:30
Speaker 1: or 7 a.m. From my right side, this short fellow
20:34
Speaker 1: in a black trench coat, he comes really close, and
20:37
Speaker 1: then he whispers in my ear, you gotta come home,
20:40
Speaker 1: or else you're dead. So again, the KGB flexing its muscle,
20:44
Speaker 1: letting their agent know that you might think you're an
20:47
Speaker 1: American now, but we're still watching, and you still have
20:51
Speaker 1: a job to do. He said he had a choice,
20:54
Speaker 1: to take this as a serious threat against his life,
20:57
Speaker 1: or attribute the message to a lack of understanding of
21:00
Speaker 1: the English language, Or an exaggeration. He had made his decision.
21:05
Speaker 1: He would leave behind his life as a spy and
21:08
Speaker 1: would stay with his wife and his budding American family.
21:12
Speaker 1: Barsky did what he could to ensure that his family
21:15
Speaker 1: in Germany was safe and sent them one final secret writing.
21:19
Speaker 1: in which he told them that the FBI might be
21:21
Speaker 1: after him. He told them, I'm not coming home because
21:24
Speaker 1: I have HIV AIDS and that I may have a
21:28
Speaker 1: chance for treatment. So he did use the excuse that
21:32
Speaker 1: he had AIDS so he didn't have to go back home.
21:35
Speaker 1: This is what he told his family. This is how
21:37
Speaker 1: high the stakes are. He asked friends within the organization
21:40
Speaker 1: in Moscow to send his family the money he had
21:43
Speaker 1: earned through his work. They did so and ultimately told
21:47
Speaker 1: them that Dietrich had died from AIDS. His mother died
21:51
Speaker 1: in 1984 before she was able to learn the truth
21:54
Speaker 1: about her son. I mean, the things that you sacrifice
21:57
Speaker 1: when you go into this world of spies, it's a
22:00
Speaker 1: whole lot. And for me, I don't think the juice
22:02
Speaker 1: is worth the squeeze, honestly. This dude didn't even have
22:05
Speaker 1: a chance to say bye to his mom. She thought
22:07
Speaker 1: she was dead. Barsky's story is no secret anymore. Though
22:12
Speaker 1: it took time and years of investigation, the FBI ultimately
22:15
Speaker 1: caught up to him according to Barsky's own details and
22:17
Speaker 1: interviews conducted in The Agent, a podcast about his life.
22:22
Speaker 1: To put the story simply, agents ultimately overheard via wiretap
22:26
Speaker 1: Barsky admitting to his wife that he had previously worked
22:29
Speaker 1: as a KGB spy. They arrested him and confirmed that
22:33
Speaker 1: he was telling the truth and was no longer working
22:36
Speaker 1: for the KGB. They then began working with him to
22:39
Speaker 1: better understand Russia's secrets. That's what they do. If you're
22:43
Speaker 1: caught as a spy, or if you decide you're not
22:46
Speaker 1: going to work as a spy anymore, you're turned to
22:48
Speaker 1: the other side, and you have to give up the
22:51
Speaker 1: information you have about the service you were working for previously.
22:58
Speaker 1: The Jack Barsky of today, excuse me, the Jack Barsky's
23:01
Speaker 1: of today, spies sent from the Soviet Union, Russia or
23:04
Speaker 1: other situated nations are few and far between, but they're
23:08
Speaker 1: still around. Former FBI special agent Robin Drake told Fox
23:13
Speaker 1: News Digital he estimated that there was only a handful
23:16
Speaker 1: of agents in the U.S. at one time. Jack is
23:19
Speaker 1: a great example of why there's not hundreds of them.
23:22
Speaker 1: Because they don't fulfill a huge function. And they take
23:25
Speaker 1: up a huge amount of resources and money, he continued. Basically,
23:28
Speaker 1: you're paying an employee and a lot of time and
23:31
Speaker 1: resources and money to do a whole lot, to not
23:35
Speaker 1: do a whole lot. Their main role and function is
23:37
Speaker 1: to perform when an event happens that they need to
23:40
Speaker 1: activate them. So there really doesn't make a lot of sense, right?
23:45
Speaker 1: That there would be a ton of these kinds of
23:47
Speaker 1: agents running around. and today's spies rarely have the level
23:53
Speaker 1: of training that he received. Dreek, a former head of
23:56
Speaker 1: the Bureau's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, worked personally with Russian illegals,
24:01
Speaker 1: spies in the U.S. illegally and outside the diplomatic cover,
24:05
Speaker 1: during his time with the FBI's New York Russian Military
24:08
Speaker 1: Intelligence Squad from 1997 to 2005. Dreek's unit tried to
24:13
Speaker 1: recruit Russian spies and then neutralize them to protect American interests,
24:17
Speaker 1: national security, and NATO allies. Look, it's a game of
24:21
Speaker 1: cat and mouse, and every nation in the world is
24:24
Speaker 1: doing it. It's just that the United States and Russia
24:28
Speaker 1: historically have been the best at it. Jack did a
24:35
Speaker 1: lot of one-on-one training. As a matter of fact, all
24:38
Speaker 1: of his training was one-on-one, very in-depth. And typically they
24:41
Speaker 1: go through schools, people, and large classrooms, he said. In
24:44
Speaker 1: addition to his in-depth, thorough training, Barsky's level of communication
24:48
Speaker 1: with Moscow was much higher than normal, Dreeks said. His tasks,
24:52
Speaker 1: while not significantly different from those of other spies, were
24:56
Speaker 1: unusual in comparison. The tasks he was given were really high-tempo,
25:01
Speaker 1: operational-type stuff that, generally, the actual intelligence officers, Russian diplomats
25:06
Speaker 1: in the country legally, will get, like him conducting those
25:09
Speaker 1: dead drops. That's pretty unusual for someone that's not legal,
25:13
Speaker 1: said Dreek, who has since authored several books and founded
25:16
Speaker 1: a company, People Formula. So... This guy was just an asset, right?
25:21
Speaker 1: Not an actual KGB agent agent, and he was given
25:25
Speaker 1: some serious responsibilities. You know, the dead drop and stuff
25:28
Speaker 1: like that. Illegal spies, Dreek explained, are typically placed inside
25:36
Speaker 1: the country for times just like this. Russians put illegals
25:39
Speaker 1: inside our country during the Cold War in case whoever
25:42
Speaker 1: went to war and all the diplomats were expelled, Russia
25:46
Speaker 1: could still collect intelligence and run their operatives inside the
25:49
Speaker 1: country because they have a network of illegals. And when
25:52
Speaker 1: you talk about a place like New York, I mean,
25:54
Speaker 1: Brighton Beach has what, 2 million, 3 million Russian speaking people?
26:03
Speaker 1: He added, so literally, what's going on in the world
26:05
Speaker 1: right now with Ukraine? That's exactly what illegals were created for.
26:09
Speaker 1: They were created not just to do penetrations of government
26:12
Speaker 1: institutions and organizations, but also to be in place in
26:16
Speaker 1: case the diplomatic corps gets expelled. Today, with the spotlight
26:20
Speaker 1: on Russia and the ongoing invasion in Ukraine, spies still
26:23
Speaker 1: lurking in the United States are likely operating on high alert,
26:27
Speaker 1: Barsky said. Not only would they be more aware of
26:30
Speaker 1: what is happening in the country, but they would also
26:33
Speaker 1: be careful not to become too aggressive or potentially make mistakes,
26:37
Speaker 1: especially right now. You know that the CIA, the NIA...
26:42
Speaker 1: and the rest of them are going hard in the paint,
26:44
Speaker 1: trying to make sure that there's no Russian spies or,
26:49
Speaker 1: let's say, bad actors on the stage. One of the
26:56
Speaker 1: tasks I had, and I was told that everybody who
26:59
Speaker 1: was operating in a foreign country was supposed to, look
27:02
Speaker 1: for any signs of the country preparing for war, Barsky explained,
27:06
Speaker 1: guaranteed the Russian agents in this country are on high alert.
27:10
Speaker 1: to the extent you could do more to look for
27:12
Speaker 1: a sign of preparations for war, you would. He added
27:15
Speaker 1: that this would be the time that he would be
27:17
Speaker 1: reaching out to contacts he made over the years, either
27:20
Speaker 1: those who were in the military or in companies that
27:23
Speaker 1: produced weapons. Absolutely. Canvassing the area, gleaning as much information
27:28
Speaker 1: as possible, because we all know that information is really
27:32
Speaker 1: the currency of these major powers. And when you have
27:36
Speaker 1: agents here in America or elsewhere collecting this compromise, it
27:40
Speaker 1: is worth a lot when it comes down to a
27:43
Speaker 1: wartime scenario. Dreek noted that spies who were living undercover
27:49
Speaker 1: in the U.S. would be reporting back about what people
27:51
Speaker 1: are saying, compared to, and in addition to, what the
27:55
Speaker 1: news reports are saying, but will be looking over their
27:58
Speaker 1: shoulders along the way. I suspect they will not be
28:01
Speaker 1: opening new sources of information, but only going to well-established
28:06
Speaker 1: human intelligence sources of information, Dreek continued. They are needing
28:10
Speaker 1: that information critically for policymaking. Policymakers and decision makers on
28:15
Speaker 1: Russia's side. At the same time, though, they are now
28:19
Speaker 1: entirely paranoid about factions on their own side. Look, the
28:24
Speaker 1: infighting is for real. And when you run a security
28:27
Speaker 1: agency the way the FSB is run, there is a
28:30
Speaker 1: lot of people looking over their shoulders. And you're certainly
28:34
Speaker 1: seeing that now. But the main reason I wanted to
28:38
Speaker 1: share this article was when you look at what Epstein
28:41
Speaker 1: and Maxwell were up to as assets and you see
28:44
Speaker 1: how easily this guy was able to just, you know,
28:46
Speaker 1: fall into society. Why is it too much of a
28:49
Speaker 1: stretch to think that Epstein and Maxwell were assets? Some
28:53
Speaker 1: people just are completely oblivious to it. But when you
28:57
Speaker 1: look at all of the evidence and you look at
28:59
Speaker 1: the way these assets conduct themselves and the way their
29:02
Speaker 1: campaigns are run, It's hard for me to not believe
29:06
Speaker 1: Epstein and Maxwell were agents. And furthermore, it's amazing to
29:11
Speaker 1: hear a story like this from this gentleman, Mr. Barsky.
29:15
Speaker 1: What a crazy-ass life you must have lived. Imagine always
29:19
Speaker 1: looking over your shoulder, running a spy operation like it's
29:21
Speaker 1: a movie. Well, folks, there you have it. The story
29:26
Speaker 1: of the KGB spy who came to America, fell in
29:30
Speaker 1: love with America, and then dropped the deuces on the KGB.
29:35
Speaker 1: If you'd like to contact me, you can do that
29:36
Speaker 1: at bobbycappucci at protonmail.com. That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I at protonmail.com. You can
29:45
Speaker 1: also find me on Twitter at B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I. The
29:52
Speaker 1: link that we discussed can be found in the description box.