CIA Chief Disguise Officer Opens Up

CIA agent for 27 years cheap disguise officer with her husband Tony Mendez if you've seen the movie Argo he is the main character played by Ben Affleck so I've heard of CEOs the what is it chief disguise officer we would lie for a living trying to keep our foreign agents safe we use disguise everywhere in the world one of the first mass that came out of production turn me into a younger better costed woman judge Webster likes it he said well let's take it to the White House so I peeled off my face what really like he almost fell off his chair you're a spy how can you tell somebody else is a spy we trained them not to look for surveillance but to always assume they were there because they always were there and they arrested a lot of them and they executed and Hatta CIA control me not saying anything to anybody so today we have a special guest with us who was a CIA agent for 27 years in and afterwards she became the cheap disguise officer which we're gonna find out what that is today and she wrote a book called the Moscow rules with her husband Tony Mendez who if you've seen the movie Argo he is the main character played by Ben Affleck and by the way just so you know that the this back view here is not a backdrop this is not a green screen okay this is the real view that's the White House behind us if you're watching close you'll see the flag movement so with that being said our yesterday Jonah Mendez Jonah could see have you on the show with us so what does it take to be a CIA agent I mean how do I become a CIA agent if I if I'm growing up I'm saying one day I want to be a CIA agent how do I do it you know most of the CIA people I met didn't grow up wanting to be one they all kind of it they came into it through all kinds of different doors the main motivation is desire to serve your country and they find very unique possibilities and working for the CIA you're not working at GSA you're not in the military but you are supporting the country you're making a difference you're doing a job that hopefully matters and if you get the right job you probably could even enjoy doing it the motivation varies person to person but everybody that I've ever known that worked for the CIA treated it almost like it was a calling almost I could call it they don't pop around to other jobs they don't work there for three years and then go off to the next to the next job daughter they stay they might move around within CIA but they stay within CIA is the CIA recruit me or do I go pliancy I'd like to work for you because you know there's this for those who are not in the world they wonder is somebody coming out to recruit yours it's you apply it goes both ways okay my husband Tony was he was an artist working in Denver he saw an ad in the paper now this is years ago it said artists to work overseas for the US government he's an artist he's working at Mary Martin Marietta he's doing wiring diagrams he's drawing them for harnesses for titan-2 missiles this is not art he's an artist he wants so he replied to the to the ad it was the CIA they wanted an artist gotta be she's thinking what what would they do with an artist they need someone with exquisite hand-eye coordination to do some documents for them to copy some things for them you could call it counterfeiting you can call it forgery but that's what he was really really good at and that's what they hired him for and that's how he got into it that's how he got it so let me ask you so when he went to the interview at what point did he find out it's the CIA the way he tells it he's on the outskirts of Denver in a kind of seedy motel room with the guy who's actually wearing a hat the guy pulls up a bottle of bourbon it sets it on the table pulls out up a book full of classified ads from the CIA goes you read it I'm not I'm not sure but this is what they're looking for they kind of knew then so he knew kinda then that that's the case he knew it wasn't just the US government so at what point was so after that is it kind of like either you accept or you don't is there a follow-up process to it there's an enormous background investigation that is so slow and so mm thorough that a lot of people just fall by the wayside they can't wait they can't wait that long a year what's one year at least yeah so so I sit down I do an interview after that there's about a year plus process of them accepting me very likely it's it's a year what what are some things they want to know about me they want to know if you're if you're being sent by a foreign government they want to know if you're really a patriotic American they want to know if you have any criminal background they want to know if you've ever been arrested for drugs they want they'll go visit your neighbors your teachers your your friend's parents they'll check you out thoroughly thoroughly call them references that talking to them in the most indirectly without bringing up the fact that it's going to be one of my best friends told me years later she said you know when you when you were in Europe and I you've been gone a while this man came and knocked on the door he said he was investigating you she said for the for the government and I told him she said what I knew it but she said I thought maybe maybe you had married some guy who was a janitor or something he wouldn't say where you were working he wouldn't say what he was what you were doing and what the work was just checking you out Wow yeah and I know you had a friend of yours that didn't know you were CIA agent for 20 years and she was hurt apparently that she found out later on I couldn't tell her we talked we talked all the time and you still couldn't tell her I couldn't tell her some people asked me what you did what'd you tell him independent independent what independent contractor it depended on where I was living it depended on where I'm living and what environment I was in and then I could carve out a piece of it and that's where I worked so here in Washington DC you could say the Pentagon you could say State Department sometimes it depended on who you were talking to because if you already told me that you worked at State Department I'm not gonna tell you that I do got it if you're a heart surgeon I'm not gonna tell you I'm a heart surgeon to God so you had to kind of feel your way got it got it but you had to do that how were you recruited mine is uh - boring I'm married my first husband who worked for the agency I didn't know that he worked for the agency until right before the wedding we got married in Switzerland then we went to the Far East and I needed a job so I got a job with the CIA at the station we came back home and I got another job I just kind of Segway into it work your way up yeah so the first reaction when he told you I'm a CIA agent what was that like I was from Wichita Kansas I don't think I even know what the CIA was back there god yeah got it it didn't register so you and your husband you were 27 years CIA he was 52 years that's he was 25 years of combined 27 years how was it being married to CIA agent were both of your CIA agents perfect is it really it wasn't it wasn't because we understood yeah what the other one was doing but we still couldn't necessarily talk about everything we were doing so I know I was I never say where I worked I can't say where I worked I was in the subcontinent I came home he had a conference he said tell me you have that thing you're doing this is my boss he's my boss back then I said well I can't tell you who your husband was your boss back down he wasn't my husband he was just my boss he was two tears up my boss he said tell me about that I said I can't tell you about it you're not on the list you know I told him later if I had known I was gonna marry you years and years and years later I would have maybe told you you told him that except do you trust him do you trust being married to a CIA agent like because they know they're a pro like you is what how do you handle that that's really one of the key questions when you're working yeah it's one of the real compliments you can give a colleague you can say I would work with you I would work with you you know we go off to far-flung places and and where there's there's really no support and where everything you need you have to have with you you have to pack that bag you have to trust that person to to have your back it's a very symbiotic kind of relationship to say I trust you I would work with you it's a big deal we would lie for a living so there was this thing called a moral compass you used to talk about it because we lied for living but when we weren't working you couldn't do any more lying the difference that you had to make sure that you kept those two things separate it's important that you kept them separate yeah that's what I wonder some of these you know Aldrich Ames some of these these these no-goodniks that we had working for us they just lost their way they really lost if there was ever a line for them they lost it so when you're saying I would work with you there are some people obviously wouldn't work with and I were saying that because you don't trust them I would I would I would not trust them with my operation or with my agents life so then why would the CIA keep them so isn't that kind of a credibility for you to be able to say if CIA trust John so will I or that's not the case see I you could have John but you may not still trust John and want to do an operation with them I might not think John was as accomplished as other other people did there would be a difference of opinion there I would maybe not want to work with him maybe I had worked with him and I knew that when when when push came to shove he wasn't there I had a boss like that that I couldn't say I wouldn't work with him I had to work with him but when I did it was I had to cover all the bases and make sure that everything was right because the thing I think about is okay you said somebody who gets into the CI it's not like I worked three years and I'm gonna go be a cop then I'm gonna go work sales at Sears then I'm gonna go sell shoes and I'm gonna go do this they stay in it for a while most of the people have one time I had a region I was in California was part of Vistage Vistage is where they have entrepreneurs come to get us like a board one of the speakers we brought was the regional CIA director for a West Coast and we had him come speak and he spoke to us for an hour questions we were asking he couldn't tell us why for 25 years and he kind of told her he worked for the government but wouldn't tell her all this stuff but question I asked that I'm curious on of what you're gonna say about this is so I work for the CIA hypothetically and all of a sudden things are not working out I leave the CIA how does CIA control me not saying anything to anybody what is the accountability there they can't so I can say anything to anybody if I want to not exactly for instance this book that I've just written I can write down anything I want I can put it I could be like a dictionary they have the right every everyone who works for the CIA signs away their right to the written word you can you the CIA can review my written words and if you find something classified in there you have the right to remove it you cannot remove something that you don't like it's just because you don't like it but if it's classified if it reveals sources and methods you can take it out and I agree to that in event when I sign up for the sea I've agreed to that 27 years ago got it and I know you were talking about when you roll today they can control me that way or any CIA employee that way when you're when you're speaking publicly yeah I think most of us stay within the lines now if I went out of the lines and started talking to you about things that are still considered to be classified there probably is some sort of a resolution that could take me to court I don't know I know that they have taken authors to court who have refused to remove the material and had it published anyway and and they've they've confiscated any money that was made from that book they will they will do that I know is repercussions if you do something if you write it if you okay if you write it but okay so I guess what I'm trying to find out is rogue agents you know you see it in movies you read about it in fiction novels but I'm sure there's some also in real life that you deal with how to see I hold them accountable Edward Howard was the first CIA officer who defected to the Soviet Union and he was he did it because he was so ticked off because CIA fired him and we fired him because he was stealing money coming from the coffee fund he had done a lot of drug use he had lied on his forms he wasn't really he should never have been hired we were getting him ready for Moscow and then we fired him when we got him ready for Moscow he learned the true names of some of the most important agents we ever ran and when he was fired he went to Santa Fe New Mexico contacted the Russians told them all the names all the people that he had that he had learned about the case that he was to have run was a man named tolkachev there's a book about him recently called the billion dollar spy it's one of the best spies ever that the CIA ever had CIA ever had ever had in our history we that man provided us with billions of dollars in savings he gave us he gave us the schematics the blueprints the all of the information about their next-generation radar on airborne and on the ground he gave us everything the Pentagon said oh my god we don't have to do all this R&D we'll start building the countermeasures now and they did so we're able to build the defenses for what they have not even yet built this was just it was remarkable it was solid gold and one of our guys actually two of our guys betrayed him and they arrested him and they executed him because that's what they do betrayed him and they executed the agent that saved billions or they executed the two oh yes great they executed the Russian and our American CIA employee who betrayed everyone went to Moscow it's he executed or he was defected he went to Moscow he's still active he's still working he died he died we're not sure he wasn't killed you're not sure he wasn't killed I'm not sure do you know how long he lasts them working or you don't have any idea ah well I'm assuming this is like in the 70s this happened how long did he work for the CIA nope so post CIA you want to Russia how long was he he was there about 10 years he was there for about I mean that's plenty of time to oh he gave them he gave him everything he everything he had how much are you following with what's taking place with Huawei with the the China you know the China cellular company with 5g5 do you think what do you think about the fact that the boss of UK's CIA their intelligence goes and works for a while way and he gets approval from David Cameron to be hired by them I find it amazing you're okay with that I don't know that uh I was just in the CIA talking to our director of DD SMT science and technology and she was saying she's a woman CIA by the way is run by a woman for five top people at CIA they are women too not that I'm a FEMINIST she was expressing concern about that that's what kind of what she wanted to talk about we need to keep the edge there and we are losing the edge and what are we gonna do about it that's kind of like call me going and working for Samsung yeah you could put it that way wouldn't that be kind of weird if that happens am I the only one that thinks that's weird for the former intelligence boss of UK to work for Huawei in 2010 and accept a job think it's it's uh I don't know enough about it yeah I guess it but it and broad generalities it seems very it seemed absolutely wrong the only thing I think about I think more like I bring that to us because to us we're not UK we're not China so that's their deal what they're doing it's not our business but in you care in u.s. if something like that were to happen new companies typically go and hire CIA agent former CIA agent that you've seen yourself we're not really I know that our some members of CIA I know go out into into commercial when they retired they go out into the commercial landscape and they do this and they do that the ones I know I don't know if problems with them I don't know really have that's control that's not something that I that I have personally followed got it they eat from your experience of being in it for 27 years and now you know with husband you know first husband second husband what made an ideal CIA agent if there were certain things to say these were the qualities of somebody that was very good at it I know you said we were professional liars we will you know pay to know how to lie but what made it what made somebody a prolific CIA agent if my husband was here this is this is the question that he would he would love to answer one of the qualities that you need to have as a CIA officer well there's that there's a dichotomy because the people that we search for we're talking operational now we're talking sake case officers we want big personalities we want gregarious people we want people with really strong interpersonal skills it's a big part of their job that they be able to approach people all over the world and convince them that they want to be our friend and they want to work for us we can't even teach this stuff to them we have to find those people or they have to find us and they are usually larger than life personalities that's why we hire them we know them when we see them and then we have to say to those guys it's almost always guys by the way you could almost save the world tomorrow and you can't ever tell anybody what you did you can recruit one of these soviet agents that's going to give us billions of dollars worth of intelligence but you can never acknowledge the fact that you were involved you can never expect to get any pat on the back any anything your ego has to be big enough know just swallow this and you have to have this this approval that comes from within and you have to be able to think that that is enough that's a very hard thing and a lot of people that start out wanting to work for us they say no thank you now I can't do that I can't do that home I just thought about a bunch of personalities let me bring in a Thai personality that's good to talk to people and it's driven and competitive ghost gets the job done but there's no celebration that's right baby you won't believe what I did today I was dealing with this Russian guy but I can't hop that's the pinnacle that's the high quality yeah Tony thought that that was a sort of a romantic quality that that your approval comes from within he felt that way it was he liked that himself because he was an artist he was creative I'm assuming he had a big personality he did although the Parkinson's took away that big personality so when when ben affleck played Tony Mendez in the movie Argo Tony and Ben Affleck went went on George Stephanopoulos Show Good Morning America Stephanopoulos said Ben a lot of people think you really under plain that character and Ben said have you met him he's very quiet guy and Tony just said over there very quietly because Parkinson's just I watch that in him sucks that stuff out of you my husband was not a quiet man was thoughtful man but he wasn't a quiet man well I wonder how Ben played the role because he's been playing how he is today or how he was before then played the man he met then played the man he met but he wasn't like but the man he met had Parkinson's but Ben didn't know that he had Parkinson's we hadn't told anybody so Ben just thought oh it's quiet like that Ben interview with you to kind of get an idea from your end on how he was know he spent more time with Tony than he did with me he spent some time with Tony and Tony didn't say Ben by the way I have Parkinsons you know this is not me so Ben just played the guy he met and he made a fabulous movie oh it was an incredible movie I mean listen I couldn't my dad watch the movie and he got emotional ah watching the movie because his sister my aunt was stuck in the embassy when that took place so while we were watching this he he was he couldn't even watch the movie says I sat in the theater after was over what I can't even leave because my body was a shock watching it reminded me of what I had to my sister I can't imagine how that must have felt it was very realistic what they did that that airport scenes in particular were just even if you didn't know somebody there they were still emotional I can't imagine his reaction yeah no doubt yes it's a very very well made movie and the way the whole story you read about it so the part about aargh one thing I read is the fact that there's this 30-year old is that true or is that just something we are citizens here about like you can't tell a story of what happened for 30 years and then we can talk about it is there such thing as a 30-year rule no designer was 78 and the movie came out right after 2008 and that's 30 plus years not that you know what I still I still we've got other books we talked about other operations we couldn't say where they took place we still can't say where they take place I don't think there's a 30 year so how about this I know one of the things I was watching you talk about was how to tell a spy like you're a spy how can you tell somebody else is a spy you know you know what I mean so you're you know with somebody else how can you tell how do you read that I mean on the street or one to one or one to one is what I'm talking oh I think you I think it takes time and and meticulous attention to detail and asking them about their past and assessing them and and watching how they respond to various things they're almost signals that you give off on the street it's easier than sitting in a bar with the beer sitting in a bar with a beer everybody just gets comfortable and you have this conversation it's hard to tell but if you're if you're worried about surveillance if you're out on the street you can see somebody who's worried about surveillance so they they have all kinds of body language that they give off all little ticks little plants is little tiny shoes and looking in Windows and you know you kind of see it so our officers in Moscow we trained them not to do any of those things we trained them not look for surveillance but to always assume they were there because they always were there so don't go looking over your shoulder don't go trying to you know J walk across the street or dive into a metro thinking you'll lose them you won't lose them they'll just know that you're a spy you'll you will solidify their suspicion that you are a spy and they'll come in tighter they will and if you're in a car they'll do this thing called bumper locking you they'll get you they'll get so tight on your car that you you can't do anything you have to go home so I remember one of the stories you talked about that there was these two spies talking to one another and they were counting and they said 1 2 3 and that's not how they Campbell was that story about that was a movie that was that was a scene in a movie what was it called some of the Basterds glorious glorious bastards it was a great movie I loved that movie I was a scene in a bar there was a Englishman a German man a German and they were ordering more beers mm-hmm and the Englishman who was pretending to be a German held up the wrong fingers he ordered he ordered three beers to the bar he just put his fingers up and the German just set up looked at him because all of a sudden he knew but that man was in the German a German wouldn't do that a German would do that that was just a small thing and I mean it ended up being one of the goriest scenes I've ever seen of shooting everyone in that bar including the bartender because because of the fingers but I made a point the point was you have to be really careful about all the small things very who is that though how true is that is there are those types of tales you pay attention to sure yeah around the world I mean if you're working in a foreign country you want to know are there are there what are the basics here what what do I not do some places you don't touch someone's bed everyone has these these these areas you shouldn't go into but in general it if you flip it on its head a lot of Americans want to know how do they know I'm American when I haven't opened my mouth out how do they see me when I'm just you know part of a crowd and and it's fun to go down that list and the tell-tale signs that we all give off you know when I lived in the middle I had to go to the airport maybe once a week and greet a CIA officer coming in on a plane coming in temporary duty TDY I he what I never would know them I wouldn't know what they look like I'd only know that the 747 is gonna land usually at 3 in the morning because that's a good time to bring those planes in and you're looking for your CIA guy and I could stand there and watch this crowd disembark disembark disembark and I could walk up to a guy and say excuse me is your name Jim I take him take him to the driver we take him into town I can find CIA people that way it was like a profile that I could see he wasn't a tourist he wasn't a foreigner how could you tell though because there was a there was like a dress code like almost a haircut we it's like you can tell a military guy from it from a group of civilians you could see if there's a marine in there you could tell marine from the other military guys there are all these subcategories I could find my CIA guy by the way he dressed by the way hit by his the bags he was carrying by everything like it's him well they can see us like that what was the best kind of Intel by the way was it pictures was that audio was a video what's the best Intel you got the best Intel I ever got that we ever got I'm having a conversation with up with a major bibliophile in the intelligence community because it has to do with cameras versus satellites and I said in this book that my cameras I called him my cameras but this it's my account we had cameras that we could put in a pen and we did put him in a pen and it was a film camera but you could still write with it for you to flip it over and you could take pictures with it and your boss came in and you can flip it over and make a note take him to lunch or you could put it in a woman's lipstick you can have your lipstick at your desk you'd be taking pictures your boss walks in you can screw it up freshen your lipstick drop it in your purse head off those cameras we can put them in big liars we could put them in key fobs we can put them in any no one knew they were there and you were out of the camera you would get a piece of film like this it had a hundred tiny dots on it and every dot about the size of a period at the end of a sentence was a full eight and a half by 11 page of text come on hopefully of the minutes of the meeting or the agenda for the meeting or because we were looking for plans and intentions and you you want those documents that's what we were collecting now my bibley a graphic friend says well the satellites they they were holding their own and they were fabulous right but the satellites were collecting what was already there they were telling you the status quo you could count the missiles think of Cuba you could you could see what was on the ground and that was valuable information the plans and intentions was more valued this is my this is my case so I'm thinking today what if you had someone in North Korea who had the today's equivalent of that and what if he's in those meetings wouldn't you like to know what he's thinking what what the leader of North Korea what he's talking to his top wouldn't you or Putin wouldn't you love to have that camera in the room I would that's the kind of information we are we had an agent in Moscow who gave us the the salt one in salt two positions of a Soviet Union before they went into the negotiations we knew the cards they were holding we knew how low how hot we knew what their lowest bids would be their highest bids would be we had the guy with the radar we had pink offski one of the first agents that we ever really really worked with in Moscow he gave to John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis he had all of the information about the missiles in Cuba he knew how many he knew their state of readiness he know their range their throw weight Kennedy had all this information on his desk when he was having that standoff with Nikita Khrushchev he had the information that that gave him the ability to call his bluff put up that blockade stop that thing in its tracks that's what good intelligence produces and it's not always visible at the time later on these stories come out when the equities when the intelligence equities are no longer gonna be threatened but good intelligence is fabulous based on what you're saying that's if you know my intentions like you can find out someone's intentions versus how many missiles you have I mean you're pretty much getting that country's next 5 move strategies on what they're gonna be doing when we were chasing that bin Laden tony was you know in the media was always saying gee it's too bad we don't have somebody in his camp and I was I was always thinking and how do you know we don't have somebody in his camp I mean how do you know that you don't know that tony said not just someone he said you want his cook he want to recruit whoever's cooking for bin Laden that's the person you want they're gonna hear every conversation that goes on but that was a that was a tough nut you had to be a member of the family you had to you know you couldn't get in the circle without without belonging to his family practically that was tough yeah that's that it sounds like it would be tough so how much based on what you saw that was taking place versus what the media was reporting how accurate was that my friends in the military and he served 20 years and he went from Army to Special Forces to highest level similar to Navy SEAL Team six and he had a presidential clearance and he worked under you know Iraq Saddam was all this stuff and he would say I said which media eat rice I don't trust anybody he says half the time we'd be watching stuff that's not true yes I'm actually I'm in it and what you're saying is not true how did you feel when you're looking at the news watching news saying no clear what they're talking about way I never really felt that they didn't know what they were talking about but I sometimes felt that I knew some things that they didn't know that would come out someday and probably change their minds you know that's having and when I left the CIA my friend said that's what you're gonna miss you miss that inside knowledge because it's kind of a it's sort of a powerful thing it's powerful but you can't use it it's interesting to pick up the paper and say give it two days and there'll be another story there that's that's interesting I think I think the attitude toward the media has changed today we weren't questioning the media like we are now we we weren't relying on the media at the same way that we are now yeah questioned and reliance so you're saying we didn't question neither they will rely on it the media had nothing to do with what we were doing we weren't working for them we weren't providing them information we were we were a conduit to the policymakers in Washington DC politics also didn't really play a part when I was working I didn't really know the politics of the people I was working with it wasn't part of the conversation it didn't come up and I think people weren't as as polarized into their positions then so it wasn't an issue it was everybody went out and voted but we never asked anybody with able to vote with you what you do wasn't a conversation thing so I've heard of CEOs chief executive officer chief marketing officer chief operating officer what is it chief disguise officer ah it was a great job Shiva disguise that the CIA was I had a worldwide staff I had people positioned around the world forward-deployed like the military does so they could respond for it very quickly had a big budget a robust budget we use disguise everywhere in the world but we used it in Moscow in different ways because it was such a difficult place to work it drove a lot of our technology Moscow did how did defeat Moscow my husband Tony had started some R&D on on masks early on ten years before me when he was in disguise I when I came into disguise that was starting to produce some fruit and one of the first mass that came out of production was was for me it was an african-american man it looked good it looked fabulous and gloves so I showed it to my office director we took it to the head of CIA bill Webster he said oh my god let's take it to the White House I said I can't it looks good but I can't you know I can't really walk it and talk it this is not realistic it's just to show you the capability he said one thing go make one that you can wear so we did we made a second one that turned me into a younger prettier better coughs woman I loved this mask I wanted to take it home when I bet they wouldn't let me so uh judge Webster likes it and he said well let's take it to the White House I said I don't have any I have nothing he said don't worry just you know come with me and so we did I went to his house I was met at the door by the judge and his dog the dog didn't like me barked at me incessantly I went in the powder room I put on the mask I got everything right came out dog loved me they say dogs don't like hats but evidently dogs like masks so we went to the White House we got stuck outside of the OL office because they were going long and there was like a 10-minute hmm period that was I was a little paranoid I'd never worn one of these masks before in public and you get nervous nobody paid any attention of course so I relaxed we went in the went in the Oval Office there was a circle of us Brent Scowcroft Bob gates John Sununu judge Webster me and another briefer and I went first I was the first one so I showed him some photographs of disguised as we had done for him when he was chief of disguise we said you you might remember these he did I said so I'm here to show you the next level he said so show me I said well I'm I'm wearing it and I'll take it off and show it to you and he said no no no don't take it off and he got up he came out walk and he looked he went behind he's checking it out he went back sat down he said take it off so I just peeled off my face John Sununu wasn't paying any attention to me because he's making notes he was gonna go next he had some things he wanted to say to the president he glanced up he almost fell off his chair was it bad big man and he was startled Bush really liked it looks but she was smiling so we talked a few minutes it was a it was a successful deployment I was the first one to leave I went out to play with the dog Millie and her puppies and the White House photographer came out she had been in the meeting going around pitching ching taking pictures she came out and said what did you do what was that what was that I said I can't tell you it was classified so it was a successful briefing ten years later I got a copy of a photograph her photograph that they had airbrushed the mask out this is the only photograph I ever got so I'm sitting in front of the president's guest with my hand in the air and holding the mask showing it to him and they airbrushed it out so the picture in my library I don't know what you would think I'm doing but people say that they airbrush the mask out yeah it was classified I gave me the picture and I'm not seeing the picture but I know you're seeing the recent pictures because now we can talk about masks a year ago I could not tell you this story they were so good so what did you say about because they have allowed it now which to me you know what does that mean sources and methods are classified this evidently is no longer classified perhaps they're not using these anymore or maybe they've got oh so good that what I'm saying has nothing to do with the new ones I think that's more like it let me ask you how many times you guys made masks for presidents to distract the audience like they're duplicates out there as well that we don't know about oh we can't know the answer to that question for the president yes no never no no not that you know I would never I would guess never what I know is never you know what I'm asking right so there's you know I don't know Saddam had all these yes that what you're talking about that we have a picture of Saddam you know in a boat on the Bosphorus or something with his 26 Devils they're all paddling it's like 26 exactly alike it's bro yeah so we've been we've never done that they're you know about no I there's a long great history of presidents doing that okay but I don't know that we've ever done that I got it okay very cool I mean whence the Churchill did that lots of people haven't done that George MacArthur is supposed to have done that am i I used to have caught when I was chief of disguise I'd get calls from the seventh floor they were gonna have a party that was gonna be FS a presentation there'd be something on could we do some disguise scenario for them what's the seventh floor when he say seventh floor that's the suits that's the upper level got it we always said no we said this is not an entertainment it was I was a hard-ass when I was there how much how much different is how much tougher see Isaac CIA's job today would social media or is it easier today because all these cameras are you know you have so much footage because your camera guys are pretty much seven billion camera people going around with their phones recording is it much easier to do their work today or when you were it probably cuts both ways I would imagine it's it's you know there's a phone in every pocket on the one hand on the other hand if you're trying to use a cover identity if you're trying to use the disguise and if you don't have a telephone in your pocket that that mirrors that face and that background and I mean you know your shopping history your everything your driver's license you have to have your whole lifetime in that phone in your pocket when you approach an immigration or a desk clerk at a hotel in a foreign land you have to it all has to match that's hard on the other hand we were the technical arm of CIA we were the cue we were the ones that did the bugs we did the phone taps we did that fake identities we did the disguises with the audio all the technical stuff that our case officers needed we did we can take those same tools that are making it so hard today and use them in a positive way to make it easier for us it's an offensive and defensive shot oh so they can do it too it's it's it's this kind of ridiculous battle everyone though has an audio bug in their pocket everybody has an encrypted communication device and everybody that's everybody has a miniature camera in their pocket and are you your substance you were in that world are you paranoid about pcs computers iPhones smartphones the camera on the phone are you are you paranoid about it because you were in the world because you know more than we do if that stuff is used I pay attention to what I put online I don't Bank online for instance you know I'm not sure you can save yourself anymore because no me your bank is online if you're not they aren't and they could still get hacked the thing that the thing that makes me paranoid is Alexa I got to tell you I have Alexis all over my house she's stealing my window blinds she's doing my lampshade she's telling me the weather she's so I'm like I wonder what else Alexis doing and that's a silly form of paranoia but but it's normal it's a lot of people I have a 32 year old employee on my home office his name is Mario he started off getting everybody on Alexa and the other day he's like I'm not using my Lex anymore because he's you know she's listening to what I'm doing I'm paranoid so he threw away his Alexa and this is a 32 year old guy that's paranoid about Alexis I don't think you're alone every once in a while my Alexa kind of spurts out come in it has nothing to do with anything I didn't say anything I'm walking by and she just says something I'm like you know so it's it's kind of a joke but yeah it's a sign of what's coming how often were in a worse yeah like for instance you work at a company I work at Google I work at amis I work at Morgan Stanley Merrill are there employees who could potentially be CIA employees CIA agents or no CIA agents strictly works for the agency not necessarily we have CIA agents undercover we have them working with private industry overseas you always have to remember that our our mission our assignment is foreign intelligence fi it's called we're collecting a flying our people typically overseas if the work is being done here in the States or the targets in the States it's probably the FBI is doing the work so take the overseas piece of it we've had people undercover in in various large American organizations that the cover job was that they would work for a large American corporation in fact they worked for the CIA it's called non-official cover knock knock officers they're out there they do that job they go to work and report to work and and actually do the work of the organization that they're situated in and then they do our work for us but they don't accept payment from the company that they're working for we pay them much less what does that mean they don't accept payments so when that company pays them and goes into a direct deposit CI agency takes that money out and you get your salary CIA takes CIA turns the big money back to the corporation this is the understanding with the corporation and they get the much smaller CIA payment so to see this so the corporation knows that that employees working for the corporation some person in the corporation's some person knows someone is great usually it's some very senior person in the corporation so is the senior person also an agent no they're just allowing their governments to occupy a position for cover purposes so they're okay with it on a case by case basis this is not widespread but it has been done got it it's a NOC program got it that the joke is that on occasion our officers have found themselves in these non official positions non-official cover positions they've worked with these big corporations they've seen that money and they've seen us turn it around and send it back and they say hold on a minute I like this work I like this money and we've lost them are they going to work for the county by my and what guess yeah you do know know if that's what the person wants to do all the good luck is it though as the culture let him go gently is that sea is culture if you if you lose a knock that way yeah yeah they can do that got it let's transition the movie I watched a movie read Sparrow I think it's called red Sparrow Jason Matthews yeah Jason Matthews what did you think about that I know Jason Matthews okay I worked with Jason Matthews he was one hell of a case officer Tony and I trained him and surveillance detection he showed us his overseas situation which was awful I I did not imagine that he could write like that I mean the book did you read the book Oh fabulous phenomenal movie the movie was not so good I didn't think I met Jennifer Lawrence that I was on a stage with her New York's Times reporter and we talked about the story and they did what they often do with the movies they watered down the story to make it fit the arc that they that whatever star I didn't like the movie I thought the book was phenomenal his when he writes about surveillance on the streets of Moscow I am with him but it's just me well that how much truth was there behind what he wrote about I think there was a lot of truth the one thing that nobody really knows and I I haven't really asked him is about the sparrow school I don't know that there is a spool but there are sparrows our our people and a lot of innocent Americans go over there and bump into them these women who are schooled in seduction and here they come they have gone after our United States Marines at the Embassy Clayton lonetree was the only the only United States Marine ever convicted of treason and what happened to him he was an American Indian he met this beautiful young woman who was working at the American Embassy her name was Violetta Shana he seduced her they had an affair then it appeared that he allowed some KGB people into our embassy more than once then he got transferred to Vienna and her uncle showed up in Vienna and you know I want you to give us the plans to the Embassy in Vienna we want to come in here to so he went to our chief of station and confessed and he went to prison he was there for eight years in jail that's what a swallow the kind of pandemonium they couldn't come out of one of us can breath breath sparrows the book names name of the book but it was called spa life and based on what I yeah so a swallow and sparrow are are almost interchangeable God how much of that practice is used in US intelligence you know it's not we don't use that as a tool that doesn't mean that there hasn't been a seduction here or there but just happens sometimes but it is not a tool of espionage that we use I mean it's a very effective method very fair because men you know if you want to seduce men you know they're typically they like good food and they like it sex oh yes they do and there are old stories and and maybe there are some new stories but as a concerted tool tradecraft it's it's not that doesn't mean there haven't been seductions got it there are some good old stories maybe some newer stories maybe a history of it with the East Germans for instance with the Stasi it was a tool of their of their tradecraft especially when they went into West Germany they had a group of men we called them Romeo's they went they went into Berlin they went into Bond and and they they were assigned particular women that were working in the West German government they married them their children it was the whole thing was a mock situation and when the wall went down the men went home and these women are like really really I mean it was their life and it was it was a fake and that it kind of comes out of that Soviet style of using sex as a as a bargaining tool you know something that I hear a lot John McAfee comes out and he's founder of McAfee Antivirus and he comes out saying I want to run for president and it's pretty entertaining no one takes him serious about him running for office but he does make a good point he says a lot of people are worried about nuclear wars where instead of being worried about nuclear world wars what we have to really be worried about is a cyber war because cyber war can really mess up a lot of things how much even your time or even today based on what you know how much is the CIA trying to work on preventing a possible cyber war or that's not something that the CIA deals with I think they must be dealing with it they have to be dealing with it it's out of its out of my my field of vision at the moment now I know what you know maybe maybe you know more in that what I'm seeing in the papers it's the new battlefield if the Cold War was a matter of settling the hostility without taking the field of battle which it was then the cyber war that's following it is just going to be the new version I think of the Cold War theoretically without taking in the field of battle although I understand there were some planes in the air today I mean this is starting to mean they'd have planes up we have planes up and starting to look a little dicey but but cooler heads seem to have prevailed I think just keeping it in the cyber borders it's gonna be enough so they theoretically have bugs in our system and now they're saying they'll well of course we have bugs in their system and this is just where it's at it may it may supplant nuclear as the ultimate threat it probably can do more damage than nuclear if it's if it's carefully done I mean if they shut down the electrical grids if they shut down banking system or transportation and it looks like this could all be done I mean everybody's over here worried about climate change but hold on my agent that's right but if they just turn everything off the other day last week our building was hit by lightning and we had no internet or power for three days we worked out of a hotel for for two days what nothing yeah so that's just the company I can only imagine if that happens as a country what kind of an impact that could have well you know there's there's this it's a generational thing we have a we have a family graveyard in Nevada up north of Las Vegas it's about 90 miles north it is in the middle of nothing and nowhere it's just there's nothing there there's no internet there's none so when we go when someone dies we'll take Tony there next year we'll all go Vic probably 100 cars will go up and all the young people in the cars will drive with their hands out of the window holding their cell phones up trying to find some connectivity and they cannot believe that there is a place that there isn't an internet I mean they really don't know what to do if there isn't an internet it's scary that is that's everything yeah it's how we're connected today I mean that's that's so if we lose our internet we'll lose a generation the next generation will have to learn again how to speak how to talk out of interact with people at it you know mayonnaise are you saying it may not be a bad idea I know what yourself no I don't want to I felt something okay so let's talk about the book so the Moscow rules what tell us a little bit about the book the Moscow rules is talking about our our office that we worked in OTS it was the the the the q2 CIA it was the Mission Impossible kind of real-life it really was we we had engineers we had electrical mechanical we had chemists we have physicists and then we had all kinds of very esoteric specialties people that just did batteries for their life not people that did ink for their career ink hot air balloons forensics we could make anything we could make any kind of paper we can make any kind of document could actually make any kind of money but we didn't because did you know that making in other countries the money is an act of war it's an act of war it's an act of war and you cannot do it so we didn't do it we could do anything and as we were working we were involved in in these sub miniature cameras in creating documents that could pass through international controls and coming up with encrypted communications a lot of what we were doing was trying to keep our foreign agents safe trying to keep them from being arrested because if they were arrested in Russia they would execute them and they arrested a lot of them and they executed a number of them back in the 80s and 85 was called the year of the spy we lost we lost a whole stable of agents some of them were lost because of American traders so it was I was compelling work it was it was really very interesting the book is talking about some of the links to which we would go to invent the technology that didn't exist yet it wasn't commercially available most of what we were working towards is now contained in a cell phone encrypted communications the camera is that all of it it's in your phone but the piece in here that we've never really talked about before was deception and illusion in Moscow the hardest place in the world for us to operate we had so much surveillance that we couldn't work you couldn't you couldn't walk down the street you couldn't drive couldn't go to your apartment they had bugs in the walls even the American Embassy was penetrated both with technology and with people that worked there KGB was all over it really they were foreign nationals working for us we had some ambassadors that thought that was a good idea so as chief in disguise Tony initially went out to Hollywood and he was working on disguised things but he was very interested in the magic community out there and he got involved in it and he wasn't as interested in the performances as he was in the engineering behind the performances so like how do you make an elephant disappear on a stage they've done that London for years and years and years classical trick elephant walks on the stage it's a big box people go in the box they say yeah there's nothing in the box the outfit goes in the box they close the door magician talks for a moment opens the door Elton's gone where is the elephant it's the classic idea of where's your audience what's going on here what how are they playing with you so we told them our problems in Moscow is it okay you call it an operation we call it a performance and magic the first thing you have to do is figure out where your stages what is your stage is your stage a side walk down the street of Moscow or is it the parking garage in the American Embassy where's your where's your stage then figure out who's your audience who are you plane - is it the milli man that who's guarding the the shack at the Embassy that you have to drive by is he your audience or is it the guys in the car trailing you down the street or is it the video camera in the parking garage there were a lot of them so you start dissecting your your situation and then you start designing the illusion in magic a lot of the illusions are based on twins they don't actually have to really be twins they can just sort of look alike so when we started making masks really good animated masks good enough that you can brief somebody wearing them we could start replicating people we could make a second you we'd have to find some tall guy with kind of your bill but you didn't have to look like you and we could give him your head how close do you get to it real close real close we make it so that now there are two of you then you can start playing games with your surveillance wherever they are you can do it in a car you can do it on the street you can you can switch people in and out and they think they're with you but they're not you are over here doing the work that you want to do so there was the twin thing we started working with something called a jib a jack-in-the-box this was just proprietary from Moscow nowhere else it was a briefcase that the passenger would put on the floor this would all be choreographed - within seconds but you would be driving down the street with your surveillance behind you you take a right-hand turn they'd be coming along and then you take another right-hand turn with that second turn you're in what we call a gap and maybe it's five seconds maybe it's seconds and in that gap it's enough time for the man in the passenger seat to get out and for the driver to hit the button on the briefcase and the dummy pops up wearing the jacket the shirt your air and your face and so surveillance comes around the corner and there's still two people in the car there's an old Russian man walking down the street that's our case officer and off you go those kinds of deceptions and illusions we did a lot of that but my favorite my favorite one was called disguise on the run and what we learned in magic is there's nothing like a crowd to shield what you're doing you can do anything in a crowd you can walk down the street at lunchtime in New York City and no one's looking so if someone's walking toward you and they see you walking down the street and maybe you just grab your shirt and tie and just pull it down because there's no arms and it split at the back at you and just roll it up and stick it in the bag you can take off your coat and I do the same thing or maybe you take it off and peel it off put it back on backwards and it's totally different you take a backpack you put it in a shopping bag you pull up a beanie out of your pocket put it on some ear plugs in you have your Walkman out now you're wearing a tank top and you've got a sleeve of tattoos going up it and my son did this for up a wired.com video he's kind of bopping down the street he starts out a little businessman with a bag he turns into this dude it's all tatted and all and it's just you can do a lot of that Tony sold that to our office director with a 45 second demo he started as a businessman with a briefcase and he turned my by the time he got to our office director who was 45 45 steps 45 seconds away he had turned into an old lady in a pink coat with a shopping cart full of groceries what else where an old lady would have pink my husband yeah it was what and and that was what convinced our office director that we could use this technique so we used that in Moscow with one of the best operations we ever ran one of the most important operations we ever met took an American diplomat and turned him into a Russian who even smelled like vodka I mean he was this old Russian pensioner who walked up to a manhole lifted it and went into the manhole because it was something in that manhole it was so important it was the beginning of a huge successful operation collecting against a nuclear target in Russia so the book goes in goes behind the magic community and talks about how we how we got into some of that deception illusion stuff that sounds not frivolous but it really made a huge difference and what we like that what we were doing that was Tony Mendez who was an artist who's always an artist started as an artist into this an artist he said to one of the one of the writers that was doing a piece on him he said you know I've always been an artist I said but for 25 years I was pretty good spy for 25 years I was a pretty good spot but the art I think in the end one out tony tony was was something of a legend that's yeah I bet I'm yeah of course when you read about him it's it's endless stories that come up yeah well I appreciate you coming out and being again some value tainment if you'd like to order the book we're gonna put the link below in the description side go pick up the book and whatever you got from the interview today I'd love to hear from you message below if you haven't subscribed to our channel do so as well again thank you for being a guess somebody Taylor thank you so much appreciate you I loved it yes

Channel: Valuetainment

Views: 390,331

Rating: 4.8376985 out of 5

Keywords: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, valuetainment, patrick bet david, jonna mendez, former cia agent, cia spy opens up, cia spy talks double life

Id: C7h0M-imFb8

Length: 62min 15sec (3735 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 12 2019