WE CHAT WITH FORMER CIA CASE OFFICER ON HIS TIME IN CAMBODIA AS A RECRUITER

0:04 Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that tells gripping life and death spy stories and the amazing devices and operations that made them possible. Now let's get started.

0:24 Welcome back everybody. Today, we have a great guest, Barry Broman B ro O M A N. He's the author of a book called risk Taker, Spy Maker Tales of a CIA Case Officer. That's right, we have ourselves a spy. So he's going to be telling us this story about his book again, a great book called risk Taker, Spy Maker Tales of a CIA Case Officer. So let's learn a little bit more about Bear because he's got a lot of it. He's got a pretty intriguing background. Was a teenage photographer I lost it, I had it and I lost it, folks, teenage photographer for the Associated Press and Southeast Asia, and a Marine Corps infantry officer in combat and v not before spending a quarter century as a headhunter with dozens of recruits for the clandestine Service

1:05 and operations around the world. Mister Browman received a BA in political science in nineteen sixty seven, followed by an m in Southeast Asian study. So there's no one really better to tell us what was going on in Southeast Asia in those days. Maybe can even give us some insight on what's going on today. But before we get started, make sure to share a subscribe hit that like button.

1:23 You know, we like it and it's not wasting any more time.

1:25 Opening with the show, Berry Browman, Welcome, sir, good to be here at Carlos.

1:29 Thank you very much for doing this. And I forgot to mention before the show, thank you very much for your service as well. All right, so let's do this first. I always get curious what motivated individuals to join the Three Letter Agency. I always remember, I don't know how young you were at that time, but I remember the show I Spy and Mission Impossible with Peter Graves. Those were those any influences.

1:55 At all on you? R? None at all, not at all. Those are Those are pure fiction and a little bit funny in times, but nothing connected to the real world. Now. In my case, I was in graduate school studying for my MA at the University of Washington in sixty seven. I'd already been commissioned in the Marine Corps, but the Marine Corps and their wisdom, decided to let me go for a masters. I speak Thai, and while I was in grad school, an elderly professor of mine, old old China Hand, asked if I was interested in the CIA, and I had frankly, I wasn't. I was actually planning to stay with the Associated Press and go to Tokyo.

2:45 But this guy said I should talk to the CIA. There's a recruiter in the Northwest at that time, so he set it up and I met the guy and he said, look, you're the guy we're looking for. You've got Asian experience any more. You got to you get your master's degree, You've got language, and you've got people's skills.

3:07 And I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm a lieutenant in the Marine Corps. I'm going to War Okay next year. And the guy said, take my card. Handing me his card, he said, if you live, call this number six months before you get out of the Marine Corps. So I survived Vietnam, even though I extended my tour there, and I came out. I was a made captain in the Corps. I was a company commander at Camp Pendleton in seventy one, and I remembered this guy and as a whim, I had six months to go.

3:47 I called the number. Didn't expect it, didn't expect to talk to anybody that knew me. And the guy came on. He said, wait, let me get your file. So he comes back. He said, okay, tell me what's happening. I said, I'm getting out of the corps in six months and you said to call. He said, are you still interested?

4:08 I said, I am, but only to be an OPS officer. I don't want to be an analyst in Washington. He said, okay, meet me at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego Thursday at six o'clock. We'll have a drink. I met him and he signed me up. And so fifteen days after I got out of the Marine Corps, I was in the CIA for the next twenty five years.

4:33 Wow, well you enjoyed it, obviously I did.

4:37 I enjoyed every minute. Now.

4:41 I don't know what you can tell us on this. I know most of the stuff I usually don't get very much and a former officers, But what was it like? What can you share about What was it like the first six months to a year being in the CIA. I mean, it was it difficult training, It was a lot of physicality, was it a lot of intellectual what was going on?

5:00 Anything you can share, Okay, Now, it's kind of like joining a fraternity. I was in a fraternity in college. And when you join the Clandestine Service of the CIA, and I think it's pretty much the same now, although there have been a number of changes. You belong to an area division, So in my case, I went to East Asia Division, and that is your home base for pretty much your career. When you get into senior ranks, then you can pretty much go anywhere, but for a long time you're home based in your division. And they give you a couple of temporary assignments ninety days each one in the DdO, the Directorate of Operations at that time, and these are your spies. And then you get thirty six now ninety days with the DDI, the Director of

5:59 intelligen and these are the analysts. And in my case, I was lucky enough to be on the Cambodia desk of both, and so I saw the raw reporting coming in from the field, and then I saw how that reporting was massaged and turned into fixed, final finished intelligence by the DDI. And then when you're through with these two interim assignments, and this is part of the career training program of CIA, the CT program, and this is kind of the a track for career people. Then you decide you want to go d d O. DDI in my case was always DdO. I had very good people.

6:40 I was working with them, in touch with some of them today, including my main mentor it'll be ninety seven in July. Dan Arnold was his name. Dan was wounded in the Marine Corps and forty four in the Pacific, worn strong. And so I went DdO. And when you do that, the next thing is the Basic Ops course. This is training, intense training to learn to be an intelligence recruiter and handler of agents and producing intelligence, running agents, recruiting agents. And this takes place at our training facility, which we call the Farm. And it was the best training I ever had. And that includes basic officer training in the Marine Corps, which I thought was the best.

7:32 It was more interesting, more fun, and less hazardous. At CIA.

7:38 Yeah, let me, I guess I got blittney of questions before we move on to your book in a second here, But who did you report to? I guess out there you can you even mention that.

7:48 Well in the field. In the field, we have stations. Okay, stations are run by the chief of station as a deputy chief of station, and depending on the size, we have one man's stations in some little countries that most people never heard of, and we have huge stations and places where we're having wars like Vietnam and Iraq and you name it. But in my career, I was twice chief of station, once deputy chief of station, and twice a branch chief, and then once I ran a clandestine covert action paramilitary program with my own staff.

8:29 A curiosity. Again, I don't know how much you can share. But when you were doing the intelligence training and the office tream recruitment training, do they teach you folks body language things, to be able to read people at all, anything like that. Yeah.

8:41 Yeah, there's a lot of hands on. To be a successful case officer, you need to be a bit of a salesman. You've got to be able to get the person's trust when you're recruiting them because very often their life is in your hands. And there's an old MI six office or I worked with on a successful hard target operation. I traveled with this guy for a couple of weeks tracking a target that the Brits had been after for twenty years, and I learned more. I learned a lot at the farm, but I learned more practical stuff sitting at at the feet of this superior British case officer. And the theme that I've taken up many times with my own junior officers was to convince them that we are in the business of making dreams come true.

9:38 Everybody has a dream, whether you're a KGB officer, or you're a past over professor, or you know you've got an your dreams for yourself, your family, your future. You need to find that dream and very often the CIA can make that dream come true, whether it means coming to the States with your family after serving in place, maybe in Moscow or other places. And we have a lot of opportunities available to these people, and it's a matter of learning what they want and being able to convince them to make the big step.

10:23 Fascinating stuff, fascinating Did you work? Did you working with the I six?

10:29 I enjoyed it immensely. Now I had been a schoolboy in England for four years when my father, an Air Force officer, was the Engineer Office Engineering officer for RAF menstin on the English channel. So I had four years at a boys prep school in England which trained me and learned it met me playing cricket. I got into the Seattle Cricket Club in the Bangkok Royal Bangkok Sports Club ticket team years later. So I think that is one of the reasons I was tapped to go out on this joint operation with I six because I had this British background and the operation went well. It's in my book. I won't tell you what happened. It's kind of a weird situation. Make a good movie someday, but I really enjoyed working with I six in particularly with

11:25 that officer.

11:26 That's always the tough part about when we bring authors on is we don't want to give everything away, right And the book again folks called risk Taker, Spy Maker Tales of a CA Case Officer written by Barry Michael Broman. Bro m Am, I guess my last question before we start hitting into the book and what motivated you to write it and tell us about the story a little bit, is I'm curiosity. Today's where we get direct deposit? I always wondered I never asked for some reason, I always forget to ask case officers. But how did you guys get your money? Did you get like a check mail to you or do they have direct deposit? Fifty years ago, we didn't know about her.

12:03 Okay. Most of our case officers in the field are undercover. In my case, I was under State Department cover, so I got to check every month from the State Department.

12:15 But it went somewhere like your primary residence or.

12:18 Went to my bank, went directly to my bank. And then when when we're that's just sort of you know, housekeeping, that's how it's done. But when we're running operations, of course, I have another bank account that belongs to the agency, and all of the money that goes to paying agents salaries and travel and entertainment that comes out of your ops fund.

12:45 Okay, So you have a certain balance you get to play with or do you have to actually mark on everything you've been spending? So if you take somebody.

12:51 Account for every penny, okay. And having said that, it's quite generous. In the agency, we had free, free accommodations, sometimes vehicles. Staff covered lots of entertaining travel. So it can be a very useful career.

13:12 I can see why. Twenty five years.

13:15 All right, So tell us about what motivated you write this book in this particular story. Well, this book is a memoir, Okay, this basically covers my life a number of people. I'm a storyteller, Okay, I've got a lot of stories. I've got hundreds of jokes. I even mentioned a Russian joke. A gru Russian military intelligence colonel told me a great story, and that's in my book. So it's a collection of stories. In fact, I'm working on a sequel to the memoir. It should be out next year after my novel comes out later this fall, and it basically tells the Barry Broman story, starting as a kid in school in England and then ap photographer at eighteen in Bangkok, and then a Marine Infantry officer in Vietnam in sixty nine, and then quarter of a century

14:10 with the agency running, mostly running and recruiting agents recruited over forty and then the last twenty five years, I've had a career in still dealing with Asia, but consulting doing this and that. I've done a dozen books, mostly photo books. Nine documentary films I did in Burma and Thailand. And so that's about all of those things. The people I met along the way. That's basically that story.

14:42 So what was going on in Cambodia when they decided to send you over there?

14:47 Well, my first posting in the agency, well, i'll go back to ap Ape sixty two sixty three. I was based as a Bangkok stringer. I wasn't staff, I was locally hired and I was paid when employed, and so that was Bangkok. But I had an assignment to Cambodia in sixty three and the correspondent who was supposed to do the writing for the story didn't make it out of Saigon in time. So I got my first byline writing the story out of Cambodia when the President of China liushout Si came down to Cambodia and I covered that for AP So that was my baptism. That Ten years later to the day, on one May seventy three, I was back in Cambodia with the CIA under State Department covered and I was there until Cambodia fell in

15:39 seventy five, which time I made it out barely. Actually, I was on the last fixed wing plane before the choppers came in. I took out some people, took out some documents, and so then I followed Cambodia from Bangkok for about five years, and then ultimately in the eighties, I was in Paris and I worked at Cambodia Target.

16:05 This is at a time when we were working with the resistance against the Vietnamese who had occupied Cambodia in seventy nine, and so we were with there were actually two different groups, the Royalists and the Nationalists were allied against the Vietnamese, and I was tapped to run that program in nineteen ninety one with three of our Asian allies, and we had about thirty thousand men under arms that we supported, and we won. In ninety one, the Vietnamese agreed to ceasefire and the UN came in and supervised free and fair elections in Cambodia, which resulted in a win for our Royalist faction, and ultimately I felt justified spending all those years on the Cambodia Target.

17:04 Anything in Cambodia that stood out for you, any kind of recruitment, anything at all that you were like, this is a this is all worth it, or this.

17:11 Is well, it's scary. But I've been in the Marines in Vietnam and been shot at and missed, and the physical danger didn't wear me too much, although we were taken up to two hundred rockets a day and at the end and we've been surrounded for a year, and we had the Marine Corps had a plan to come and get us, and ultimately they did and we got out.

17:36 We didn't lose anybody, but it was it was an intense time because of the fighting and death and destruction all around. I handled some of the senior reporting assets a Bank of Penn station, and that was interesting. I had a chief of station who was a patrician from South Carolina and a marvelous fellows spoke fluent French, educated in France, and his motto was give them their intelligence with their coffee. And Panom Penn was twelve hours ahead of Washington, d C. So nine in the morning in Washington was nine at night in Panom Penn, and a lot of my meetings were safe house meetings in the evening, and in a normal environment I would have written the stuff up and sent it out the next morning, but

18:42 the boss said to get their coffee, with their intelligence, with their coffee, so I would dash into the station, write it up and then go to the chief of stations home, which was nearby, and he would read it invariably chop on it, very few changes made. Then I'd take it back to the embassy and send it out so that they would get it fresh with their coffee.

19:11 Now, if I remember correctly, you were also a chief of station twice or something.

19:16 I was chief twice, once at one of our domestic stations in the US, and later my final posting, I was chief of station in Rangoon, Burma, which was another interesting place because there the target was opium heroin and we ran some very successful operations in this case with the Burmese. But earlier I was back in Thailand running operations with the Thaie against heroin traffickers. My first operation with one of my Thai sources yielded five hundred and fifty one kilos of heroin and the second olf was three hundred kilos and a good a good bust for DEA in Bangkok would be twenty kilos. So that was a that was a go go time for Asian operations in counter narcotics.

20:12 That's huge. How long was that operation?

20:15 Well, that was just one bust. Okay, we in this case we're working with the royal type police and in cooperation in liaison, as we say. And so I had a very good old personal friend, senior police officer who outdid himself and his cooperation with the US.

20:38 I was it working with time police. Did you notice some differences between them and the US or how they handled things anything?

20:46 Well, yeah, it's a lot different. But one thing, most of the type police, I'm just going to say this for the record, a corrupt. Okay. They don't get much pay. They have to augment their pay some times it can be serious. In the case of my friend, he had independent wealth. He was always he's always been known as the most honest cop in Thai police history.

21:14 Oh wow.

21:16 Of course, no money changed hands. This is a government to government thing. But he risked his life for us several times. Now I have to say that's working with the Tay police, and I enjoyed every minute of that. I spent more time on the Cambodia project as we called it, working with the Thai army. And in that case, here we've got I'm dealing with four major generals. One of them went to vm I, Virginia Military Institute. One of them went to Sandhurst. The British Military Academy. One of them was a finance major from the US, and the worth guy went to the time military Academy. But he was very, very unusual in that his father was a member of the Central Committee of the Thai Communist Party.

22:16 In fact, he was fighting against his dad then he was. And all four of those generals I worked with retired as four star generals. And the guy I mentioned he retired, see he'd been He retired as chief of the Army, but later became Prime Minister and really a fantastic guy. So I was really lucky in working with some of the best people at that time.

22:41 Absolutely, how was the How was the Cambodian military or police ever engage with them at all?

22:47 Well, you know, the Cambodians were smaller, they had less training. It was. It was very tough. And so again I was lucky to to work with some good guys in the resistance. One of them had been a fighter pilot and suddenly he finds himself as chief of staff of the army. He had about ten twelve thousand people under his command. Was an excellent guy. I dealt with him in French. I spoke French with the Khmer and tie with the tie. But he went into the attack one day and had a heart attack and I was in Bangkok when it happened, and I was notified by one of his cardinals up on the border, and they evacuated him to Thailand and he woke up in a Thai hospital and three days later discharged himself and went back

23:40 to the front. Okay, and he lived. He survived the war, became a governor in Cambodi. After the war. He helped me on a couple of my civilian projects as a consultant for the Orient Express. Another great guy. So I built with.

23:55 Some good people, really tough people. Man. I know there's a mention about your favorite agents. It's something about that he demanded a silence that would be life threatening.

24:09 Yeah. In my book, I have a story about the guy I call my favorite agent. Everybody's got Every case officer has a favorite agent. This is a guy who's a European and I met him through a State Department officer who bumped into him at luncheon. He said, I met the strangest guy last night at this cocktail party.

24:37 You got to meet him because he's too good to be true. I mean if he's telling the truth about what he's been doing. You got to meet him and he's and the guy had an Asia connection. So through the State guy, I meet this fellow and right away this is bullshit. This guy cannot be telling the truth. But he was a pleasant guy and an older guy, and I respected him even though I didn't believe it.

25:03 So we had lunch and he brought photos and Jesus Christ, it was unbelievable. The people he knew, I won't say, I can't say who they were, but they were really of interest to the CIA. So now I considered him a this is a target, This is a guy we really need to work with. So after a number of meetings and this and that, I had approval to pitch him to try to recruit him. And he smiled. When I pitched him, he smiled and he said okay. He said, I was hoping you were CIA, okay, because you know, you say your state and I'm not really interested in helping the State Department. And I said, well, you know this is You've got these interesting connections around the world, and I can see you know where it would be

26:01 very useful for you to be working for us secretly and of course you know we we pay well. And he said, okay, well I can work for you. Don't worry about the money. You you pay me what it's worth. Okay. You give me an assignment and then you decide what it's worth. Now that's I've never seen that before. Money said, but I do have one condition. And I said to myself, I knew it. I knew it too good to be true.

26:33 I said, Okay, what's the condition? He said, I I will only accept assignments that are life threatening. Okay. If if my life isn't, send somebody else, okay. And so I said, well, maybe maybe we can do that. So my my very first I would call it a trial mission. Uh. Mission took place in Asia where we could use a guy with his particular skill set in a life threatening situation which he almost got caught. He almost got would have been shot on the spot, but he didn't. He survived.

27:19 And then I sent him on another mission, and in another part of the world. And he went in with a fairly narrow set of instructions which he accomplished and more, much much more. And he came back. And first of all, he was late coming back. We thought he had been killed. It was in a war situation that he survived, and I said, well, why were you so he said, I loved it. I loved him minute those little guys, I love him. And so that was the second mission, and then another mission. He came to me and he said, look, I know a guy who can get me in with this group and it's a group of terrorists. And I said, okay, well let me check with headquarters because this is outside my area of knowledge. So I went back to the

28:13 headquarters and they came back and said, well, you know, we'd love we'd love to have a guy go where he says he could go, but we cannot support this because we've never had a guy come back alive. So I went, I went to my agent. I said, you know, they'd like you to go, but they won't because it's too dangerous. And he said, okay, I'm going. Okay, i'll take I'll pay my way and if I live, and you pay me what you think is worth. And he lived and ultimately I turned him over. You know, my tour was up, and I turned him over to another officer and I never gave it a thought. You know, his life goes on, years go by. I'm in Washington.

29:03 It's a ninety three. Maybe I'm chief of the Tiberma branch at East Asia phone rings And a guy says, are you mister so and so? And he uses my work name and I said, it's me. He's on a secure line, but it's me. He said, well you must you must know so and so, and he uses this guy's pseudonym. And I said, yes, you recruited him, right, I said, I did. Is he still alive. Not only is he still alive, we're giving him a medal and he want and he's in Washington and he wants you to be at the presentation. And then we took him out to a big dinner. They brought him into the building black and I went up in the director's private elevator.

29:51 That medal ceremony, A medal I never heard of.

29:54 Oh my god.

29:55 It took him back because he can't keep it. I kept in touch with him until he passed away. He was the best.

30:04 Oh my gosh, that's that's saying something. We have a CIA case officer who doesn't even know about the medal either.

30:10 It's not in the list of awards that you know. I can get her other off. It's a special award.

30:18 That's intense. You know, I've only heard that type of a personality in a couple situations. Obviously, I'm a forensic psych so I've heard psychopaths, but I don't want to give him that label. But I've heard special forces tend to do that a lot. They tend to wish the Delta Force guys, I really love getting in the middle of things. They're a little different than some of the other special Forces guys against for the thrill.

30:38 He lived for the three and he was married. After he retired. He had a girlfriend for years and when I sent him on his first mission, I knew about this girl and I said, look, if you if you get killed, you want me to tell her? No, bury me where I fall. That's what he said. And then when when he got his medal, he was married and I said, toward the end, I know he knew he was dying, and we were talking and I said, now do you want me to when you pass, you want me to tell her? He said, no, no, she has no need to know.

31:15 And he died.

31:16 And to this day this woman doesn't know what she had.

31:20 Oh man, would you consider him because there are difference between brave and fearless. Somebody just doesn't have any fear, but somebody was brave at the same way. Would you think about him, Well, I mean he lived on the edge.

31:35 You know, he had a very successful career apart from being oh yeah, internationally known. There is a guy that wants to do a film about it. Wanted to not now, but I wanted to do a film about him, not knowing he worked for the CIA. Wow, he liked living on the edge, and he talked himself. You know, he was He'd been arrested in various places and he always got out. He always got out. He escaped from this group that I was initially dubious about him, evering had kind of he escaped from them, the only person ever ever escaped.

32:15 That's crazy. That's fun again, folks. The book Tales of a CIA Case Officer, risk Taker, Spymaker by Barry Michael Broman b R. O. M A. D. Let me ask you this, Barry, as we get ready starting to wrap it up a little bit, I want to ask you some stuff. I guess a bunch of questions I want to tie up in my head that I have in regards to we talked way ago about body language, but did you notice a lot. Was it a big problem culturally initially going into Cambodia and trying to recruit because you have to understand the culture of the individuals. You have to understand possibly the role religion plays, the role of their in the family that they play, it was patriarchal society and so forth. Was that initially a challenge

32:57 at all? Oh?

32:59 Absolutely, absolutely. One of the strengths of the agency, as I said, is you're an area specialist. You know, you spend your career in my day in that area. So then in my case, I had a master's, I knew a lot about Thai culture history, et cetera, et cetera. Same with Cambodia. They have some shared history. But you definitely a language helps a lot. Most of my Cambodian recruitments were in French, which was actually the official language of the government at that time. But you definitely have to appreciate their culture history and you have to know their individual situation, aspiration, the dreams and all that. And then you have to I don't say you have to like the people, but you have to make them like you,

33:54 or at least trust you with their life. And so now that's why I after two weeks in Bangkok in nineteen sixty two, I said I'm going to be at Asia hand in college. My freshman year of college, I was going to be a South America especially forget that I'm an Indo China guy. And after I retired from government, I spent years making films, doing books, doing work in Southeast Asia. And that's that's my area. That's what I like.

34:26 I've talked to other case officers before, and we've sometimes they've share this. Sometimes I've asked them myself after I learned really about this, was there any money you recruited that you thought, oh crap, this isn't going to work out, or oh man, this guy's in really danger or girl was in real danger. Any moments like that at all for you that you could share.

34:50 Well, you know, recruiting agents for the CIA is not like batting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. You know, I have three one hundred percentage doesn't cut it, Okay, you don't. You don't want to be turned down because if you're caught, or let's say the person you pitch turns you into the local intelligence service, you're gone. You know, you're out of country in twenty four hours persona non grada. So you've got to be fairly confident that that they're not going to turn you down. The worst case would be getting thrown out. But so I'm forty one for forty one. Okay, Oh wow, I look at it, and probably probably the best agent that I will have ever recruited. I've recruited after I retired, and I sort of gave them to

35:43 the agency and that case is still running.

35:46 Oh Jesus, we won't ask much about that one. Was there any I didn't.

35:50 Lose any I didn't lose any agents, No, nobody. Nobody was arrested, and so I'm happy.

35:56 Okay, that kills them. My next question, I thought I was going to get through. Then a couple of other case officers I think they had one time with one of their agents was in a really hairy situation and they were really getting work. Is you developed relationships with some of them, You actually do care about them, you want to protect them as well? Right?

36:13 Well? Absolutely. Now. One of my one of my cases was in Cambodia and at the end, you know, things were falling apart. We knew the war was over. Congress had cut off financial support. So Cambodia was screwed. And the people in it that did support us, they were screwed. And a lot of these people died. And one of my agents was a senior military officer. In our last meeting, he pulled out a gun and I thought, this is this is not going to end well.

36:45 And he said.

36:48 I got on on aircraft about three days later and he said, this is my side arm. I want you to have it. I don't want the kamer rouge to have it. I want you to take this gun and remember me from this weapon. And he didn't leave. He didn't surrender, but he was killed.

37:08 Oh wow.

37:09 We offered him a ride out and he didn't take it.

37:12 Yeah, this next question, you have to be careful. I guess make sure your wife's not around in case depending on your answer. But did you ever get into any honeypot situations?

37:24 No? This is that's a term coined by John Lecare. Okay, in fact, a man who I defeated at darts in panom Pen in nineteen seventy four when he was researching the Honorable Schoolboy, and I found him a charming fellow and not much of a dart player. But when you're when you're an Eaton graduate, you don't play darts. Okay, oh honeypot no, we don't do that, okay, agency, that's not one of.

37:54 Our If you were a target, oh.

37:58 No, no, no, no, no, no, I was, but we don't know. We don't do that to others. They do it to us, and the Russians have been successful over the years in dangling uh women. But no, it was never there.

38:13 Now.

38:13 I knew a marine general who had been the naval in Moscow years ago, and he was a bachelor, and he told me that every week they say is they threw women at me? And I caught everyone. There was no threat, There's no there was. He wasn't breaking any laws, he wasn't being unfaithful to his wife. He was a bachelor, and finally the Russians gave up.

38:47 I guess it's safe to say you were in a Romeo spy either, as they call him.

38:53 The real story is a lot different than Hollywood story.

38:57 That's my last question, at least the last direction to go a little bit is I was curious with CIA officers watch if they watch anything at all, because I know there's movies like Taking Born Identity, which kind of insinuates the three letter agents.

39:11 So I don't speak for the guys. You know, we appreciate good stories. I mean the Hunt for Red October, not espionage, but it's a great story. And in fact, I was reading the book when I was a young officer and I got on an aircraft four US Navy captains in uniform and there were all sub mariners, and I held the book up to one of my I said, Skipper, you read this book. He said, Son, that's so goddamn true it scares me.

39:39 Oh wow.

39:40 We appreciate good books, you know, The Born Identity nothing, no bearing on reality, but it's a good tale. And then we appreciate that. And then there's just Joe, you know, the whole James Bond stuff that was kind of written as a spoof, initially by a good intelligence off in Fleming, Royal Navy World War two intelligence officer. But there's no bearing on reality. We don't Those guys don't exist.

40:08 I've been blessed enough to interview Nigel West. You probably heard of super nice guy. But I guess it's the first question, first time I've ever asked anybody is the first TME I ever thought about it, So I guess you'll be the first AI case officer, I asked, But I have talked about BOND to everybody else. You know. No, No, it's nothing, nothing in roll real the interesting thing. I actually two comments I want to ask you. One, do you think it actually helps the spots? Because he was so.

40:33 Outrageous, so exaggerated of a figure that people would look at somebody else who's just average and think he's never going to be a spy. Do you think it actually affected how people perceive spies in other countries especially.

40:46 I don't know. I think it's entertaining. Of course, then these shows are good. They got good looking girls I would have chosen. I would have chosen Kissy Suzuki one of the girls. If they were going to throw any better at me, that would have been somebody I would would have caught. Maybe maybe, but no, it's just kind of good fun. But there is danger, and there's more danger now than there was in my day. You know, if you're an embassy officer at many places around the world, you're a target, either a target for recruitment or a target for assassination. So this isn't something anybody should get into.

41:26 Lately, it's changed a lot, so what I've heard, a lot of case officers are much more easily compromised than they used to be, from what I've been hearing. And that's a tough business out there, and technology has made it even harder for you folks as well. Yeah for ci con easy in one way and harder than another.

41:46 I guess my last question maybe my last one, but I spy. I'll bring it back to that for a second, because I did get case officers who thought that was probably the closest one to being realistic, just because of the way they interacted with people all the time. A tennis player and all that.

42:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no way. Now. This guy, Robert Coult played the star and then he was what we would call a knock n oc non official cover. And we don't do that, Okay, we don't have tennis stars. We don't have celebrities going up doing doing the dangerous work. That was an entertaining show. I watched it as a kid.

42:32 It had no bearing on my going into the CIA. I enjoyed it. It was well written, It had no hope of ever being close to anything true. A real knock, and I've handled knocks in the field are good. They're good agent handlers. They're not recruiters. But because they're not in the embassy, they're not known or suspected of being c I A. And therefore it's it's safer to let a sensitive agent be handled by a knock than an inside officer. That's what knox are really for. And I've I've had some very good ones worked for me, and they're they're little gray people. They look that way that you don't know. They could be a businessman, they could be we've new guy under hippie cover, okay and uh, And they're good people, but you don't hear much about him,

43:32 and that's good.

43:34 That's interesting, I know, speaking to other guys and drug cartels and DEA guys, it's always interesting sometimes people picture drug cardtail members all being the same, rough guys with guns, and a lot of times I got the account that comes in you couldn't tell anything, but he's making millions of dollars with a cartel. Did you have any preconceived ideas going into the CIA? Did you think, now I'll know who shot JFK. Now I'll know who.

43:56 Did this or anything like that when you when you get it of the know. My main ambition was to serve in Asia and if I if I hadn't gone with agency, I would have gone back to Associated Press and been a a newsman. And in some ways they're the same, you know, we're both looking for information. The CIA we get to pay for it. The newsmen have to get it for free. But same with the State Department.

44:25 They don't pay for information, but we pay for secrets. And that's the difference. But no, I think that Asia was the motivation once I got into the business and started working with these men and women of the CIA, outstanding people, you know, they're really interesting people. And one guy I was having a martini lunch in Bangkok with this guy. We called him the Bear, great guy, great linguist.

44:57 He was in Cambodia, Vietnamese was Khmer linguist, tie linguist. Great Guy. The Bear lifted his glass and he said, you know, Broman, they baid us to live here. That tells it all.

45:14 I guess we'll wrap up with this again, folks. The book is called risk Taker Spymaker Tales of a CIA Case Officer by Barry Broman. The last question, Barry, what is the book coming up in the fall? He got something cooking.

45:23 Yeah, this is my first novel, Carlos. It's based it's loosely based on a true story. Takes place in Paris in the eighties when I was in Paris, so I have kind of area familiarization. It's got a backstory that deals with Cambodia, and so that's more more or less, you know, true. But the actual case itself is serendipitous, and these things happen this way. This thing is the way I like to look at it. I view it as a love story that has an espionage association, and it's chasing a Soviet diplomat. And hopefully it'll be the first of a series.

46:09 Excellent. I can't wait. Whatan to bring it back for that one too.

46:12 It's called The Spy from Place Sansul Peace in Paris.

46:17 I'm not eve gonna bother with my friends. Fascinating stuff again, folks. One more time. The book called risk Taker Spy Maker Tales of a CIA Case Officer Barry Broman. I highly recommend it. Fascinating reed. Thank you so much Berry for being here.

46:31 Carlos, thank you very much for having me I hope to talk to you again someday.

46:35 Absolutely, thank you everyone for listening. Make sure to share, subscribe, hit that like button. Stay safe,