Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to take you into the spying game. We're
Speaker 1: going to be talking to someone who knows and understands
Speaker 1: this world better than most. We're going to be talking
Speaker 1: to a former CIA operative who's spent over twenty five
Speaker 1: years with this secretive organization, gathering intelligence and conducting covert operations.
Speaker 1: Most of what we know about the workings of the
Speaker 1: CIA comes from spy novels or Hollywood movies. Well, today
Speaker 1: We're going to find out exactly what goes on in
Speaker 1: that shadowy world. Who are these faceless men and women
Speaker 1: who put their lives at risk in the hope of
Speaker 1: making the world a better place. Rick Prado, a former
Speaker 1: CIA operative, is going to tell us all about it
Speaker 1: because he was one of those faceless men. Rick, have
Speaker 1: you ever had an operation where communications break down right
Speaker 1: at the critical time?
Speaker 2: Several times? Trust me, we have a scene who was
Speaker 2: one and one has known so yeah, when it comes
Speaker 2: to communications.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's for me from my time in policing. Got
Speaker 1: to say, we've had some very interesting guests on I
Speaker 1: Catch Killers, but we haven't had someone that's lived the
Speaker 1: life like you've lived. It's quite extraordinary what you've been
Speaker 1: through in your world that you operated in the CIA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to say that I've been a blessed individual.
Speaker 2: You know. I came to this country as an orphan immigrant,
Speaker 2: and this country adapted, adopted us, adopted me and subsequently
Speaker 2: my parents when they were able to come out. So
Speaker 2: I developed that data honor very early on in my life,
Speaker 2: and shortly after hastchool I went into the military and
Speaker 2: from then on eventually to the Agency.
Speaker 1: Well, that certainly comes across in your book that the
Speaker 1: fact that you really believe in what you do, the
Speaker 1: type of work you did in the CIA, and we've
Speaker 1: had like undercover cops, have had FBI cops on and
Speaker 1: all the police I've worked with, whether it be tactical
Speaker 1: and different things, the type of work that you do,
Speaker 1: it's almost like the pressure on steroids, like the stakes
Speaker 1: are very high in the world that you are operating.
Speaker 1: Moral compass. I always found that in law enforcement, different
Speaker 1: different people, it's important to hang on to a moral compass.
Speaker 1: When you worked in the CIA, I'm sure there was
Speaker 1: ethical dilemmas that you faced. How did you manage to
Speaker 1: navigate your wife through that world?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, to address the first part of
Speaker 2: what you were talking about, I think one of the
Speaker 2: biggest differences and I work with law enforcement. I'm a
Speaker 2: full member of our Fraternal Order of Police here, but
Speaker 2: remember that even when you guys are under cover, you're
Speaker 2: in your turf, you have nine to one one. We don't.
Speaker 2: We only operate outside of the United States. To answer
Speaker 2: your second question, the moral compass was easy because I
Speaker 2: was blessed with really good leaders, individuals that groooned me
Speaker 2: that appreciated what I was willing to do. So for me,
Speaker 2: navigating that was OJT. Most of the work that we
Speaker 2: have is on the job training. We have the farm
Speaker 2: that we go through that's formal. After that, it's literally
Speaker 2: your your senior operators guiding you through each step of
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 1: So I think it's crucial in situations you found yourself
Speaker 1: in to have that good leadership. You can't underestimate a
Speaker 1: good leader. And also mentors are very important in that world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something that I learned from my mentors and
Speaker 2: I've tried to pay it forward by doing the same
Speaker 2: for a lot of our other guys.
Speaker 1: Okay, writing the book about the CIA, what motivated that?
Speaker 1: Because you know, I'm sure you know the perception that's
Speaker 1: very secretive world. And I understand having read the book
Speaker 1: and cover the cover, and I've got to say it
Speaker 1: is a great read. It took me right into that world.
Speaker 1: What was the motivation behind writing the book?
Speaker 2: That's one thing that I never wanted a moniker that
Speaker 2: I ever dreamed of being in my name, best selling author.
Speaker 2: That was never in my pocket. I always wanted to
Speaker 2: do something special military. I always loved the CIA concept
Speaker 2: of doing things little that I knew about it, but
Speaker 2: I had several people, like one of my bosses, called
Speaker 2: for Black, was various tru mental in getting me to
Speaker 2: write the book because he felt, being a lot smarter
Speaker 2: than me, that I had a story, a life story
Speaker 2: that would help carry several messages at the same time.
Speaker 2: And the biggest message, or the first message, is that
Speaker 2: the agency is made up of honorable people, hard work
Speaker 2: and individuals dedicated to the job. And it's nothing like
Speaker 2: it is portrayed in the movies and in the novels.
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong. We have our bad guys, just
Speaker 2: like you've had. I'm sure somebody here amiss that you
Speaker 2: disagreed with or that betrayed you. But the main, the
Speaker 2: primary reason was to honor my colleagues, which are all
Speaker 2: people that are dedicated to the mission, individuals that have
Speaker 2: the smarts and the backbone to go out and make
Speaker 2: big money, you know, a private sector other jobs, and
Speaker 2: they choose this kind of service.
Speaker 1: And it's a service to the public, isn't it. Because
Speaker 1: a skill set that the operators have that it's certainly
Speaker 1: transferable to the private sector and they probably make a
Speaker 1: lot of lot more money. So there has to be
Speaker 1: something that's driving people to work work in that field.
Speaker 1: You also, and I picked up I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: it was in the book or one of the one
Speaker 1: of the interviews that you've done, the fact that the
Speaker 1: CIA have been like as a closed organization and in
Speaker 1: some parts does a disservice to itself because people speculate
Speaker 1: on what goes on, and I think a book like that,
Speaker 1: like I'm reading through the book and go, okay, well,
Speaker 1: how dark are we going to dive here? But you
Speaker 1: really explain that then the decisions that are made and
Speaker 1: the type of situations that you find yourself in.
Speaker 2: Without a doubt. I mean, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: you mentioned the moral compass from the very beginning. I
Speaker 2: don't think that anybody volunteers to do law enforcement work,
Speaker 2: or military work, or in my case, agency work without
Speaker 2: having a higher cost and a higher belief. So for us,
Speaker 2: that's that was the reason that I wanted to clarify.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned how bad my agency is about permeating
Speaker 2: good news, and that's something that I have actually tackled
Speaker 2: as many times as I could that when there are
Speaker 2: things that we can say that we succeeded and no
Speaker 2: longer compromise sources and methods that we owe it to
Speaker 2: the public to be able to get it out there.
Speaker 2: Contrasts the FBI. They could have Ruby Ridge today and
Speaker 2: tomorrow they shoot billing it. Well, we have a flap
Speaker 2: and it comes out and everybody knows about it. But
Speaker 2: I could you know, somebody could recruit Putin's secretary and
Speaker 2: we can't go out and say, hey, we just recruited
Speaker 2: Putin secretary. So it is a very ungrateful mistress when
Speaker 2: it comes to.
Speaker 1: That well described. I think the fact that the type
Speaker 1: of work that's done, and even in the book, you've
Speaker 1: taken us into the world without releasing too much of
Speaker 1: the methodology an understanding of it. But it hasn't given
Speaker 1: an advantage to the bad guys that people are chasing now.
Speaker 2: Absolutely that, and as a matter of fact, my book
Speaker 2: was fully clear by CIA for that very purpose. I wrote,
Speaker 2: as you saw in the book, there are some many
Speaker 2: blacked out areas, things that they did not let me
Speaker 2: talk about. And I understand, I understand sources and methods,
Speaker 2: but that was part of the process, a very lengthy process.
Speaker 2: It took me six months to get it past the agency.
Speaker 2: All approves, so I could actually then show it to
Speaker 2: my publisher.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you came back very good with all
Speaker 1: the redacted parts it. It wasn't too overwhelming. I thought
Speaker 1: you might have just had the heading and the rest
Speaker 1: of it redacted in the end, but yeah, they left
Speaker 1: a lot lot in the book. And it's been selling
Speaker 1: very well too.
Speaker 2: I thought, Yes, was a New York Times number eight
Speaker 2: bestseller list and as of last count, sold over ninety
Speaker 2: thousand copies, so it's doing okay.
Speaker 1: So look at you now we can call you the
Speaker 1: critically acclaimed author, not any of the CIA operative. Before
Speaker 1: we get into your life and your career, I just
Speaker 1: want to get a sense what the role of the
Speaker 1: CIA is and if you could just break it down,
Speaker 1: because we say it and basically the public's perception of
Speaker 1: it is seen in the movies or the spy novels.
Speaker 1: I get a sense of the type of work that
Speaker 1: you do being involved in law enforcement. Could you just
Speaker 1: explain to the public so that I get a sense
Speaker 1: of what the role of the CIA is.
Speaker 2: Well. First of all, and most importantly, we do not
Speaker 2: operate in the United States. We're forbidden to operate in
Speaker 2: the United States, So all our work is done overseas,
Speaker 2: which means that not only do we have to recruit
Speaker 2: people that are willing to go overseas, but they have
Speaker 2: to learn a language. We can never send somebody to
Speaker 2: a country that they cannot communicate, because that is part
Speaker 2: of that's so much a big part of our work.
Speaker 2: But the essence of the agency is to collect intelligence
Speaker 2: the benefits our country, to protect our people. Obviously, there
Speaker 2: is a second part of it, which is black ops.
Speaker 2: That's the title of the book, which is covert operations
Speaker 2: where the American hand has to be hidden, and that
Speaker 2: comes under title fifty authorities that only the President gives
Speaker 2: the CIA. UH. And I give you an example when
Speaker 2: I when I was in Honduras at the very beginning
Speaker 2: of my career, living in the jungle there with the countries,
Speaker 2: that was a black op program. I was there as
Speaker 2: a Honduran major, and UH, there was no advertisement of
Speaker 2: the American hand. But at least for the first two
Speaker 2: or three years, that was pretty sacro saint. Later on,
Speaker 2: the same thing, you know, operating overseas and UH having
Speaker 2: that view of how we do things.
Speaker 1: UH.
Speaker 2: And and protect.
Speaker 1: Yep okay, your your childhood, which is fascinating in itself,
Speaker 1: and I think it was the perhaps the driving force
Speaker 1: of the path that your life took in the type
Speaker 1: of work that you did. Could you tell our listeners
Speaker 1: about your upbringing and what happened there and how that
Speaker 1: shaped you as a person.
Speaker 2: You know, Gary, I believe that God prepares us for
Speaker 2: our path and if we have the fortitude of the
Speaker 2: backbone to follow that path, we will do well. I
Speaker 2: believe that, even though it was very painful at the beginning,
Speaker 2: all the trials and tribulations that I did go through
Speaker 2: forged my medal to end up being what I was
Speaker 2: able to do. You know, I was a very happy
Speaker 2: kid in Cuba. My dad was a middle class businessman
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty ninety owned a fifty seven Pontiac. We had
Speaker 2: a TV and a telephone, which was even by American standards.
Speaker 2: I was solid in middle class and going from that
Speaker 2: and within six months seeing my parents destroyed their business
Speaker 2: taken over, you know, me wearing a uniform at the
Speaker 2: age of seven or eight or nine, that was that
Speaker 2: was quite a shock. Subsequent to that, my dad decided
Speaker 2: that we're going to leave the country for freedom. But
Speaker 2: my mom and dad couldn't get out at the same time.
Speaker 2: So a program that came from the Catholic Church called
Speaker 2: Pavel Pound Peter Penn program took out four thousand somehadd
Speaker 2: kids out of Cuba under the similar need, and I
Speaker 2: ended up in an orphanage in Pueblo, Colorado. Pueblo, Colorado
Speaker 2: back today is still a blue collar town. Imagine back
Speaker 2: in sixty two, it was a pretty rough learning experience.
Speaker 2: You get into an organization that has three or four
Speaker 2: different nationalities, two or three different languages, you know, and
Speaker 2: a lot of pissed off kids because nobody likes to
Speaker 2: be an orphan. So I had to grow up pretty
Speaker 2: quick from the nice life in Cuba where everybody was
Speaker 2: my friend, to making friends that would stick with you
Speaker 2: and vice versa.
Speaker 1: So and with the leaving Cuba, what was happening at
Speaker 1: that time that made your parents think it's better the
Speaker 1: ship you overseas to a country they've never been to,
Speaker 1: You haven't been to, you don't speak the native language.
Speaker 1: What was it there that was occurring in Cuba?
Speaker 2: Well, would you have the cast for revolution had just
Speaker 2: taken place? Took place in January of fifty nine, and
Speaker 2: though he was welcomed by the masses, including my parents.
Speaker 2: It became very obvious very shortly that he was a communist,
Speaker 2: and that he started confiscating not only foreign businesses, which
Speaker 2: was bad enough, but local business. You know, my dad's
Speaker 2: coffee business was confiscated and he had I think he
Speaker 2: hired ten people. He had ten employees. So it's it's
Speaker 2: not like we were, you know, an imperialist company of
Speaker 2: some sort. But it was communism. It was it was
Speaker 2: they taken away of freedoms, the indoctrinations and the schools,
Speaker 2: you know, telling us that if our parents spoke bad
Speaker 2: of the revolution, we had to turn them in. It
Speaker 2: we just that that I'm Beyonce of fear that permeated.
Speaker 2: And my dad was a pretty tough guy. He was
Speaker 2: a cowboy before he was a businessman. Literally he used
Speaker 2: to run my grandfather's for a ranch and he was
Speaker 2: very good at making quick decisions that he did. He says,
Speaker 2: we got to get out of here. And I think
Speaker 2: the most important point is that we left Cuba for freedom.
Speaker 2: We had a middle classicsistence and we came to the
Speaker 2: United States and I will tell you that we were
Speaker 2: sub poverty for at least the first four or five years.
Speaker 2: So it was quite a fraastic change to my mom
Speaker 2: working on a sweatshop sewing, my dad working two jobs.
Speaker 2: It was quite quite a change for us. But freedom
Speaker 2: drove it. And I think the point that you made
Speaker 2: is most excellent and very important to me. My parents
Speaker 2: are the ones that sacrifice. A lot of people go, oh,
Speaker 2: poor Rick, you had to go through. No imagine taking
Speaker 2: your only child and put him in an airplane to
Speaker 2: a country that you may never even be able to
Speaker 2: visit for freedom.
Speaker 1: I can't even comprehend it, Rick, like it's really but
Speaker 1: I think that typifies the character of your parents to
Speaker 1: start with. But what was going on in your country
Speaker 1: and with the communists that you've seen that throughout your
Speaker 1: career and will break your career down. But you've seen
Speaker 1: that type of thing where it all looks fine when
Speaker 1: the new regimes coming in the communist regime, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't always play out the way it's designed or sold
Speaker 1: in the first place.
Speaker 2: Without a doubt. I mean, if you can name me
Speaker 2: one country that has thrived with communism, I will give
Speaker 2: you a praise. I mean, look at Venezuela, look at Cuba.
Speaker 2: The standard of living in Cuba was third, with all
Speaker 2: of the hemisphere in behind the United States, and I
Speaker 2: don't know what else it was. So without a doubt
Speaker 2: it is socialism is nothing more than a mask that
Speaker 2: communism wears to get into your skin. And the only
Speaker 2: people that benefit from communism are the leaders. And you
Speaker 2: could see that in Soviet Russia, some of the leaders
Speaker 2: had car collections that were worth millions of dollars. The
Speaker 2: castros have millions and hundreds of millions of dollars that
Speaker 2: they've stashed away. So the people are barely eating. Cuba
Speaker 2: right now is going through a tremendous, tremendous hard times
Speaker 2: and the weather isn't helping there. They're on their third
Speaker 2: hurricane in the last few months. But the people are suffering.
Speaker 2: But you know, the the nomenclature that runs it or not.
Speaker 2: And there's a joke in Cuba that if you see
Speaker 2: a house that has been painted in the last ten years,
Speaker 2: you know that it's a party member.
Speaker 1: That's it's obvious. But well, that's what the world has
Speaker 1: shined in the history recent history is sh shine just
Speaker 1: what you've you've said, and it's interesting you say shining
Speaker 1: an example, because there's not examples where it's gone. Well.
Speaker 1: Getting back to you, Okay, you've got a bit of
Speaker 1: the cowboy in you. Growing up, you were reunited with
Speaker 1: your parents, but you know you were struggling. Or when
Speaker 1: say struggling, they had to work hard to make their
Speaker 1: life in the new country. Where did your your path
Speaker 1: take you. I know you found martial arts which kept
Speaker 1: you out of trouble for a bit and stead you
Speaker 1: gave you some commitment. But tell us about those early years,
Speaker 1: the adolescent years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was lucky that my parents came out less
Speaker 2: than a year after I left, so other kids had
Speaker 2: it a lot worse than I did. But you know,
Speaker 2: the one thing that I always have was parental love
Speaker 2: and parental guidance and a great example from a mom
Speaker 2: and a dad. But I did start the martial arts
Speaker 2: when I was fifteen years old. I was fascinated by it.
Speaker 2: I I embraced it, and to this day I still
Speaker 2: train in different arts. But I did have a falling
Speaker 2: out of hanging out with a role in culture. And
Speaker 2: what happened was, you know, the experiences and the in
Speaker 2: the in the orphanage ingrained in me the fact that
Speaker 2: if I take crap from people, they're just going to
Speaker 2: keep giving me crap. So my tolerance for people getting
Speaker 2: in my face was very very short. So in school,
Speaker 2: I would hang out with mostly the tough kids, and
Speaker 2: I used to get good grades. I was always at
Speaker 2: least a B student, but I used to get in
Speaker 2: trouble for fighting all the time because there were again
Speaker 2: different cultural things going on, the Cubans coming into Miami,
Speaker 2: the blacks trying to come out, you know, the white
Speaker 2: population that that conflict was very, very alive and well
Speaker 2: when I was growing up, But that was a very
Speaker 2: short period. That was just a few years of hanging
Speaker 2: out with the wrong crowd. Most of those guys, as
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, the majority of those guys are
Speaker 2: either dead in jail or became police officers, so and
Speaker 2: I in spy. So it was that kind of a
Speaker 2: growing up thing. That said, I realized very early on
Speaker 2: that I did have a debt of honor to the
Speaker 2: United States. And there's there's a small piece in the
Speaker 2: book where I was in my first semester of college
Speaker 2: and these were the hippie years. This is nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: seventy one, and they were gonna they put it. They
Speaker 2: posted that tomorrow they were going to take down the
Speaker 2: American flag and burn it. And I said to myself, now,
Speaker 2: that's not going to happen. But I didn't have any
Speaker 2: friends in college. I was fresh news, so I had
Speaker 2: to go back to my high school homies. And it
Speaker 2: was I think five of us and about twenty of them.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't much of a fair fight.
Speaker 1: They didn't get to tight the flag.
Speaker 2: Then, no, they did not. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: they lost all their beads and T shirts. But the
Speaker 2: thing is, though, and this was critical, critical in my life.
Speaker 2: It may sound a little melo dramatic, but I looked
Speaker 2: up and it was a beautiful blue sky and there's
Speaker 2: that American flag, and I realized that for the first
Speaker 2: time in my life, I had done violence for the
Speaker 2: right reasons. Six months later, getting a special operations team
Speaker 2: called Pair of Rescue, which is the part of the
Speaker 2: Air Force Special Operations guys, and my goal was to
Speaker 2: go to Vietnam and keep fighting.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think there's a pathway people often take, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people when you talk about
Speaker 1: your friends, they ever end up in jail, dead, or police,
Speaker 1: military or whatever. Sometimes if you like the excitement and
Speaker 1: you find okay, you can actually fight for the right reason,
Speaker 1: and I dare say what you what you felt there was, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is all right. You can have the excitement of
Speaker 1: the fight, but you're doing it for the right reason.
Speaker 2: Of course, and that I think that's what drives most
Speaker 2: of us, I mean, your profession included. You know, police
Speaker 2: officers don't go out to become popular. They do not
Speaker 2: go out to become millionaires. They go out because they
Speaker 2: want to serve. But you know, the action is the juice,
Speaker 2: the fact that you can come in and make a
Speaker 2: difference and save a live or wrong, you know, right
Speaker 2: or wrong. That's a hell of a rush. And doing
Speaker 2: it especially in the dangerous and circumstances that we both
Speaker 2: both our worlds operate in. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know about you, but you talk the juice,
Speaker 1: and I understand that you're chasing the excitement. That's what
Speaker 1: drove me at the start. But as you become a
Speaker 1: little bit more wiser and you see actually how it
Speaker 1: all plays out, and you see the impact of the
Speaker 1: things that you're doing and what you're looking at, who
Speaker 1: you're trying to protect, it's sort of the changes like
Speaker 1: the juice is the excitement at the start, but then
Speaker 1: you start to go on the path that you're doing
Speaker 1: it because you know it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 2: Absolutely rate. You're one hundred percent rate.
Speaker 1: So you joined the military. That wasn't you weren't too
Speaker 1: popular with your mum because the Vietnam War was still
Speaker 1: going on at that stage. You had dreams of ending
Speaker 1: up in there. But you got a bit Your mum
Speaker 1: was a little bit pissed off to to say the least,
Speaker 1: when you're signed up. But they let you go. But
Speaker 1: the war came to a conclusion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we still had the draft at a time, but
Speaker 2: my draft number was so high that my parents were
Speaker 2: happy because they knew that I was going to get drafted,
Speaker 2: and you know, at the time, but I didn't realize it. Uh,
Speaker 2: And I you know, I was kind of angry at
Speaker 2: my parents that they didn't understand that I wanted to
Speaker 2: do this. But then I realized they already had lost
Speaker 2: their son once and now here he is an idiot
Speaker 2: going out and trying to get himself killed again. So
Speaker 2: now I understand a lot better being a parent than
Speaker 2: everything else, what what their angle was. But without a doubt,
Speaker 2: I mean, my my whole thing was to go into
Speaker 2: into uh para rescue, which I was lucky enough to
Speaker 2: make through hard work and and and uh and determination.
Speaker 2: But you know that that's what led me eventually to
Speaker 2: to the agency.
Speaker 1: I sorry described the power rescue because that's people I
Speaker 1: don't think fully understand what that is, but that's that's
Speaker 1: high level para military stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. This part of the special operations community.
Speaker 2: You know have a you Navy seals that are more
Speaker 2: known green berets, and Para Rescue is one of two
Speaker 2: special operations forces that are the Air Force. The other
Speaker 2: it was our sister Calmbat controllers and the main job
Speaker 2: of Para Rescue is to go retrieve either down pilots
Speaker 2: or special operations guys who get caught in the Netherlands.
Speaker 2: So our training is brutal.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, we go through the same
Speaker 2: scuba school that the Navy. When I went through through
Speaker 2: underwater receiving school, all my all my instructors for seals
Speaker 2: and at the time only pair of rescue and seals
Speaker 2: had to go through scuba school in order to get
Speaker 2: your beret or your trident or whatever it was. At
Speaker 2: the end. So it was uh, you know, mountain climbing, parachuting, survival, obviously,
Speaker 2: the scuba, scuba, scuba and and but all as meat.
Speaker 2: And of course the medical. We are combat medics because
Speaker 2: you go get a team that is under duress and
Speaker 2: one guy's got a broken leg, you got to fix
Speaker 2: them before you can transport on. So we got pretty
Speaker 2: good at that. And I'm very very very proud that
Speaker 2: I that I joined Para Rescue because I think he
Speaker 2: made me a better man. And it was literally my
Speaker 2: venue into the agency.
Speaker 1: Well, it certainly gave you a skill set that allowed
Speaker 1: you to do the do the work in the agency.
Speaker 1: You people would ask, aka, how do you get in
Speaker 1: the CIA? I think you've made one application and it
Speaker 1: was sort of I'm good for this, I speak Spanish,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, I've done this, but you're rejected. Tell
Speaker 1: us the story how and also why you decided to
Speaker 1: go into that area.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the thing was I was having a
Speaker 2: blast and pair of rescue. You know, I was jumping
Speaker 2: every other day, I was scuba diving one so big
Speaker 2: I was doing but there was no purpose. It was
Speaker 2: training for training sake, and we knew Vietnam was over
Speaker 2: a few months after I, you know, got my bereat
Speaker 2: Vietnam was pretty much done with. So I had this
Speaker 2: itch that I have all this training, but all I'm
Speaker 2: doing is getting more training and getting better out of
Speaker 2: training that I don't see, you know, the light at
Speaker 2: the end of the tunnel before I died to be
Speaker 2: able to actually do something. And we have a lot
Speaker 2: of people that post Vietnam, you know, they made a
Speaker 2: career and they never went to war. You know, it
Speaker 2: just it just it is what happens. So I applied,
Speaker 2: Like you said, I applied to the CIA in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four, that's right after the Vietnam and there was
Speaker 2: huge attritions Vietnam War of both our military and our
Speaker 2: intelligence services that were decimated. So the note that I
Speaker 2: got back basically said thanks, but we're firing, not hiring
Speaker 2: kind of thing. So I stayed in the reserves and
Speaker 2: I became a paramedic with the Miami Metro Fire Department.
Speaker 2: And that was great because I that further honed my
Speaker 2: paramedic skills as a p pj's what the cold pair
Speaker 2: of rescue guys, as a parent jumper, and it was
Speaker 2: that very thing that allowed me to get into the CIA.
Speaker 2: I applied again in nineteen eighty. I had changed reserves.
Speaker 2: I was now with a National Guard Green Beret unit.
Speaker 2: I was never a green beret. I was on my
Speaker 2: process to get that qualification. Also when the agency this
Speaker 2: time they accepted me because Ronald Reagan had just taken
Speaker 2: over and the first thing that he did was declare
Speaker 2: war on communism worldwide, including the Soviet Union, but definitely
Speaker 2: in our backyard. And when he made the band aid
Speaker 2: that the agency was supposed to support the Nicaraguan countries
Speaker 2: that were fighting the communists and Denistas that were being
Speaker 2: buoyed by Cuba or by the Soviet Union via Cuba.
Speaker 2: The attrition of the agency you had been such that
Speaker 2: they have a native Spanish speaking paramilitary officers. Okay, they
Speaker 2: had great paramilitary officers. We have incredible special forces. I
Speaker 2: did eleven My first eleven years was with Special Activities Division,
Speaker 2: but they did not have the native Spanish and they
Speaker 2: had native Spanish speakers, but they do have the paramilitary training.
Speaker 2: So that's that's how well that was my toil.
Speaker 1: You had the perfect, perfect combination. Now for people say,
Speaker 1: because the next three years and I'll let you describe
Speaker 1: the next three years of the work that you did
Speaker 1: working at working over there. I got to say, i'm
Speaker 1: reading it, I was cringing at the thought of what
Speaker 1: confronted you going in there on your own, And yeah,
Speaker 1: you had to use every skill set available for a person,
Speaker 1: negotiating skills, being able to befriend people, to lead people,
Speaker 1: to train people, and also you're fighting skills that you
Speaker 1: you had. So tell us about that, because that is,
Speaker 1: honestly just an absolute adventure. This is a type of
Speaker 1: thing that they do see movies about that. People. I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: who are these dudes going there? Tell us about it?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm very proud of that that period.
Speaker 2: And actually they often asked me, what is the best
Speaker 2: job I ever had in the agency? And it's hard
Speaker 2: because I had a lot of great jobs, but that
Speaker 2: one was very close to home. Gary, because you have
Speaker 2: to understand that now, as a thirty year old man,
Speaker 2: I am helping freedom fighters fight the same monster that
Speaker 2: destroyed my first country. So I did. I did three years,
Speaker 2: a little over three years, living literally Monday through Friday
Speaker 2: in the jungles between Nicaragua and Honduras for the first
Speaker 2: fourteen months of that program. I was the only CIA
Speaker 2: officer allowed to go to the camps because it was
Speaker 2: built a black op. It needed the hand American hand
Speaker 2: needed that I was there as at hon Durham Major.
Speaker 2: So it was the most rewarding time of my life.
Speaker 2: And people look at me and go, you spent three
Speaker 2: years sleeping in a jungle hammock. How'd you put up?
Speaker 2: I said. I was always thrilled. I was newly married.
Speaker 2: I'm married to the best woman in the world that
Speaker 2: had no problems with me leaving Monday morning at four
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning and coming back Friday at midnight
Speaker 2: and spending the weekend and doing it again because she
Speaker 2: also is Cuban. She also lived actually she lived under
Speaker 2: Communism a lot longer than I did. So that period
Speaker 2: was very rewarding in that sense. The other part of it, too,
Speaker 2: is that the quality of the people that I was
Speaker 2: dealing with. We're talking primarily peasants, and you know, every
Speaker 2: night after because I'd be training them all day whatever
Speaker 2: it was, and the night I would grab a cup
Speaker 2: of coffee and circulate with the different fire fires that
Speaker 2: were there that people were warming up or whatever, and
Speaker 2: I would ask them why are you here, and there
Speaker 2: wasn't a single one to say, well, you know, I
Speaker 2: read Lenon and let you know, I don't I don't
Speaker 2: believe in communism. It was like they raped my daughter,
Speaker 2: They forced my son to conscript it to the military
Speaker 2: at the age of fifteen. They beat up my priests
Speaker 2: and burnt my church. It was all personal. It was pure.
Speaker 2: These individuals had given up everything and were living in squalor.
Speaker 2: Because even with our help, you're still living in you know,
Speaker 2: in the woods. So it was very rewarding to know
Speaker 2: that what I was imparting on them the one thing
Speaker 2: they did not lack. They lacked training, and they lacked logistics,
Speaker 2: but they did not lack conviction and courage.
Speaker 1: When you're actually a sign that that operation mission, can
Speaker 1: you just talk us through? Like you're basically getting dropped
Speaker 1: into meet with a group of people. They're fighting people,
Speaker 1: and they're fighting a just cause they're passionate about it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of mistrust in that environment. Who's you know,
Speaker 1: whose side are you really on? Who is this this person?
Speaker 1: I think they had some Argentine operatives helping out that
Speaker 1: they didn't get on with too well or didn't quite trust.
Speaker 1: Then Rick rolls up on his own and Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm here talk us through that. How did how did
Speaker 1: you build relationships? How did you work your way into
Speaker 1: that organization?
Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, first of all, I think that my street savvy,
Speaker 2: my street skills that you understand better than the average person,
Speaker 2: came in very handy because I knew when to be
Speaker 2: nice and when not to look like food. So I
Speaker 2: had to my ground in many cases. There were two
Speaker 2: senior agency officers, and of course we had a station
Speaker 2: in Tegucigapa, Honduras, and they were in charge of the program.
Speaker 2: But I had no training by the agency. I signed
Speaker 2: up on a Thursday, showed up on a Monday, and
Speaker 2: two weeks later I was not Rick Prado anymore. I
Speaker 2: was Alex Bendez. Giving me a blue pad sport and
Speaker 2: sent to Honduras and Mike marching. Orders were you have
Speaker 2: two kernels over there that are ours. Do what they
Speaker 2: tell you. And when I got to the ground, they
Speaker 2: looked at me and they said, you're going to go
Speaker 2: to the camps. You've got to make yourself indispendable. You
Speaker 2: go to get gain their trust, do whatever it takes
Speaker 2: to win them over and get us to help them.
Speaker 2: So that was one of the reasons that we ran
Speaker 2: a foul of the Argentines because the Argentines were there,
Speaker 2: and I give them credit that they they supported the
Speaker 2: country program earlier on minuscule because I believe what I
Speaker 2: saw the first six months that I was there was
Speaker 2: living in mud and squalor and in malaria and leshmaniases
Speaker 2: and everything else. But they for them it became a
Speaker 2: motus evening they were getting per diem from the United States.
Speaker 2: I never saw an Argentina in a camp all the
Speaker 2: time that I was there. So but for me, when
Speaker 2: I got to the camps and I could speak the language,
Speaker 2: and I could have shoot any of the guys they had,
Speaker 2: and I could rucksack them, and I can teach them
Speaker 2: communications and patrolling and hand to hand and all these things.
Speaker 2: You know, you you've been through training, you you admire instructors.
Speaker 2: There's a certain royalty that a good instructor UH earns
Speaker 2: when when they're teaching their supporter. That's and uh I
Speaker 2: I I still have friends from from that era. I
Speaker 2: still have commanders that we stay in touch with because
Speaker 2: you know, they knew that I was there for them.
Speaker 2: You know that they they figured out that I was
Speaker 2: not Honduran, but they didn't care.
Speaker 1: It's clear you gain gained their respect. And there was
Speaker 1: a lot of different little groups too, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: just went over one lot that you were moving from
Speaker 1: camp to camp. But I just found that extraordinary that
Speaker 1: and we haven't even touched on like the conditions of
Speaker 1: physical conditions like living in living in the jungle, like
Speaker 1: tough time. So I can understand why you look back
Speaker 1: at that and with with pride, because it's something that
Speaker 1: not many people could do, but you you seem to
Speaker 1: flourish with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's funny. I look back now at
Speaker 2: seventy three and I go, what were you thinking? But
Speaker 2: immediately I know what I was feeling, and I think
Speaker 2: that that was what it was all about. I was
Speaker 2: finally making a difference. I was there helping people, which
Speaker 2: was what was driving my boat, and it was extremely
Speaker 2: rewarding and it did launch my career because again part
Speaker 2: of the blessing was I was the only guy in
Speaker 2: the camps for the first year and a half of
Speaker 2: that time, so my name was known to just about
Speaker 2: every division chief and back at CIA, who is this
Speaker 2: guy kind of stuff, and so that secured my career.
Speaker 2: I didn't have my college. I only had two years
Speaker 2: of college when I went into the agency. And to
Speaker 2: become an operations officer, paramilitary and case officer, you have
Speaker 2: to have a four year degree. So they actually sponsored
Speaker 2: me to finish my education at George Mason University of
Speaker 2: Mason University, India in the Virginia. And from there I
Speaker 2: went to our farm which is our Masters and espionage.
Speaker 2: That's where you look did the craft of very esoteric
Speaker 2: color of grass.
Speaker 1: I find it interesting. I look at that the three
Speaker 1: years that you spent there. It's almost like, well, if
Speaker 1: he survives, he's got his credibility, and now we'll invest
Speaker 1: some invest some time in just before we move out
Speaker 1: of that that deployment, because you had three years, I
Speaker 1: found it interesting. You also the people that you were supporting,
Speaker 1: you had to they lost their leader or one of
Speaker 1: the groups lost their leader too took over and their
Speaker 1: moral compass had slipped. The power went to their head
Speaker 1: and you had to rain them in. Can you just
Speaker 1: tell us that story in the circumstances there, because I
Speaker 1: thought it was again that typifies the type of pressure
Speaker 1: you're under not only you helping those people fought an enemy,
Speaker 1: you've also got to keep them in control.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, one of my favorite commanders, come on there,
Speaker 2: SWU see that which means suicidal. That should give you
Speaker 2: a hit. Why why I liked him? He was killed
Speaker 2: and the guy that took over became cattle rustlers. I
Speaker 2: mean they were They had more guns than the local
Speaker 2: Hondurance by that time, they had more guns than the
Speaker 2: local Hondurance did and and they started abusing. And as
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, the the biggest and most egregious
Speaker 2: act that they committed was there was one sub commander
Speaker 2: who opposed them, and they tied him to a tree,
Speaker 2: raped his wife in front of him, and then shot him.
Speaker 2: Uh that's the exception, not the rule. The majority of
Speaker 2: these people were good. So, you know, being the only
Speaker 2: CIA guy at the camps, the local Hondurance that my
Speaker 2: boss and said fix it, and I was said to
Speaker 2: fix it. So I literally renditioned both these guys, uh separately.
Speaker 2: Both tried resist. It didn't work very well for them,
Speaker 2: and I brought them back to Tutagusigapa where they were
Speaker 2: put under a military trial and convicted accordingly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now it's a fascinating, fascinating time to be CIA
Speaker 1: of a fully fledged member. I understand that you need
Speaker 1: tertiary qualifications like degrees, so they sponsored you to go
Speaker 1: to the Union. I'm probably describing this a bit roughly,
Speaker 1: but to polish you up a little bit, to give
Speaker 1: you the say you could work in any environment that
Speaker 1: we know you can do the military stuff in the
Speaker 1: tough environments. But this is to polish you up so
Speaker 1: we can present you anywhere. Talks through that process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it was a great challenge. Obviously, you
Speaker 2: know I did have a good upringing, so you know,
Speaker 2: I knew how to dress rate, I knew how to
Speaker 2: do things. But for those first three years of the Agency,
Speaker 2: I was a blunt object. And now I asked to
Speaker 2: be a surgical, very finesse individual that can you fit
Speaker 2: in as a diplomat or a foreign businessman. And so
Speaker 2: you have to be polished. And part of it is
Speaker 2: that your education. My degree was intercultural conflicts, in other words,
Speaker 2: what pisses people off with each other, from religion to
Speaker 2: politics to everything in between. And I did very well
Speaker 2: at the farm. I was in the top three of
Speaker 2: my class. But again I had that motivation. And again
Speaker 2: this is where my Streak experience has really helped. There
Speaker 2: was one particular vignette where this Asia expert was testing
Speaker 2: us on doing what we call dead drops. You do
Speaker 2: a surveillance detection route. I mean, you sure know you're
Speaker 2: not being followed and you lay down covert communications that
Speaker 2: are hidden in a branch or whatever the hell it
Speaker 2: was back then. It's sol electronic now. And when I
Speaker 2: did my stint, the guy came over and said to me.
Speaker 2: Luckily he was kidding, but he says, I'm reporting you
Speaker 2: to the FBI. And I said why. He goes, you've
Speaker 2: had prior training, and then he started laughing. He says,
Speaker 2: good job. But that's what it was. I was a
Speaker 2: street kid. I knew how to blend in. I knew
Speaker 2: I had that feeling and that confidence, and that that
Speaker 2: really helped me tremendously. So it was a learning experience,
Speaker 2: a lot of writing. That's where one of the things
Speaker 2: you never see in James Bond books or movies is
Speaker 2: James Bond coming back from a mission, sitting it down
Speaker 2: at his desk and spending six hours writing it up.
Speaker 2: So and by the way, I'm still waiting for my
Speaker 2: Austin Martin, I haven't got it yet, So it's it's
Speaker 2: very different than what people understand our careers to be.
Speaker 1: And that that accountability too. But the tride craft that
Speaker 1: you learn at the farm, are they the type of
Speaker 1: skills they put the put you through, like anti surviolence
Speaker 1: and how to make a drop as you said, is
Speaker 1: that the type of thing that they run you through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they run you through the gamut. I
Speaker 2: mean again, our main job is to recruit foreign spy,
Speaker 2: so there's a very methological, you know, a system for
Speaker 2: doing that, you know, the spotting the right individuals, developing them,
Speaker 2: recruiting them, running them, vetting them. That's all finesse stuff.
Speaker 2: And you're you're working undercover because you can't go into
Speaker 2: a foreign country. Go Hi, I'm from the CIA, which
Speaker 2: they can't. So we have to live whatever cover we
Speaker 2: have worked. You know, I worked eight hours of the
Speaker 2: embassy and then I went out and did my stuff
Speaker 2: on the side. So from recruiting to handling agents. That
Speaker 2: that's all part of the training obviously, covert communications, photography,
Speaker 2: and like you said, trade craft. Tradecraft is something that
Speaker 2: is so kind intuitive. We have to take pleasures that
Speaker 2: assure us that we're not being followed and thus compromise
Speaker 2: ourselves and the agent or the person that we're trying
Speaker 2: to recruit. So there's there's a lot of that finesse
Speaker 2: in there. Our guys and gals are also trained in
Speaker 2: the paramilitary side of the house. I didn't have to
Speaker 2: go through that because I already had all that training.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, it was guys like me
Speaker 2: who would impart that on the students. But you know,
Speaker 2: these college kids, they had to jump out of airplanes,
Speaker 2: they had to repel out of helicopters, not because they
Speaker 2: were going to necessarily do that, and some have, but
Speaker 2: you know, it was mainly, you know, to test your
Speaker 2: metal and to build your metal, as you call when
Speaker 2: when you're going through that kind of training, it really
Speaker 2: forges your sword.
Speaker 1: So to prepare them for what they what they might
Speaker 1: go into with the trade craft. In the book, you've
Speaker 1: talked about the situational awareness and the importance of that,
Speaker 1: and you had a system set up with the white, yellow, orange,
Speaker 1: red system talk us through that because that I think
Speaker 1: gives people an insight. The fact that the system has
Speaker 1: been set in place gives you an insight that you
Speaker 1: are living life on the edge, when you're operating under
Speaker 1: covertly and the consequences a high Can you break down
Speaker 1: that the structure of it, because I thought it was
Speaker 1: a simple and you need simple things in these complex situations,
Speaker 1: with a simple way of making sure you're aware of
Speaker 1: what's going on.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. The color system was created by a colonel, a
Speaker 2: retiring Marine Colonel Cooper. Colonel Cooper, and he started the
Speaker 2: first real viable gun fighting school for law enforcement and
Speaker 2: military guys. He was a big nineteen eleven forty five
Speaker 2: caliber guy and he's the one that made these colors.
Speaker 2: And the colors are white, yellow, orange, and red. You
Speaker 2: should never be in way unless you're in bed with
Speaker 2: your wife. Period. Yellow. It is what you live in.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that you're paranoid. It means that you
Speaker 2: are aware. You get to a stop sign, you look
Speaker 2: in your mirror, you look at what access you may have.
Speaker 2: You know, you see what's going on. You're not surprised.
Speaker 2: When you go into orange is when you see something
Speaker 2: that you say, hmm. I'll give you any example. I'm
Speaker 2: driving down in the streets of the Philippines and I
Speaker 2: see a car that is parked over there. The trunk
Speaker 2: is open and the guy is fiddling around in the trunk. Well,
Speaker 2: most people go home. He got a flat tire, Well,
Speaker 2: I looked eating. I have a flat tire. So immediately
Speaker 2: I go to Orange where now I plan what I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do if indeed it is a threat. And then
Speaker 2: red means implement. So if that guy brings out a
Speaker 2: tire iron and a tire, I go there's nothing. But
Speaker 2: if he brings out an AK forty seven, I can
Speaker 2: run him over with my car. Or I can do
Speaker 2: reverse one eighty. I could do all kinds of things.
Speaker 2: But if you are caught in the X by surprise,
Speaker 2: chances are you're not going to make it. So those
Speaker 2: colors are are essential. But I will tell you that
Speaker 2: awareness beats fast drawer every time. And and there's a
Speaker 2: story that that that you alluded to in the Philippines
Speaker 2: where we were there training the Philippines Special Forces guys
Speaker 2: uh in fighting the nationally No People's Army and who
Speaker 2: was a Communist back insurgency that had killed Colonel Nick
Speaker 2: Roe just a few months before I got there, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And so we we had had long day's
Speaker 2: work and two our army captains Special Forces of the Filipinos,
Speaker 2: two of my texts and me and another case officer
Speaker 2: went to have dinner and and and a beer at
Speaker 2: a at a place. And when we walked out, the
Speaker 2: two military guys walked out, the two technical guys walked out,
Speaker 2: my friend walked out, and I walked out. And as
Speaker 2: soon as I walked out, I see these three guys
Speaker 2: standing there. They were talking. When we came out, they
Speaker 2: got three abreast. They had their left hand in their pocket.
Speaker 2: And there's a there's a modus of perandi of a
Speaker 2: team called the Sparrows, and you could google that. It's dramatic.
Speaker 2: It's a guy that we captured and he he showed
Speaker 2: what they did, and that's they pushed the gun. The
Speaker 2: gun was the grip, safety was taped down. They did
Speaker 2: not carry a holster. All they did was with a
Speaker 2: left hand, push the gun up, shoot you put it
Speaker 2: back in, and walk off. And everybody's looking at the
Speaker 2: dead person when they start looking around. They were ghosts.
Speaker 2: So as soon as those guys, I saw those guys,
Speaker 2: the two outside with the left hands of their pocket,
Speaker 2: I went on operational mode. I drew my weapon and
Speaker 2: taking that safety off was the loudest click, the loudest
Speaker 2: noise I think I've ever heard. Because you get tunnel vision,
Speaker 2: you get auto tour exclusion. And it was funny. You know, Gary,
Speaker 2: if you're if you're a civilian, or you're just somebody
Speaker 2: walking down the street and somebody points a gun at
Speaker 2: you this way, what's your reaction. You're at least gonna go,
Speaker 2: hey man, whoa, WHOA, what's going on? These guys didn't
Speaker 2: even They just looked at me and went like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we'll get you next time. What I did not know,
Speaker 2: because you know it from your profession, tunnel vision auditory
Speaker 2: exclusion is a big deal when you're understressed. My buddy
Speaker 2: had also seen them and he had drawn his weapon.
Speaker 2: He was a Vietnam R by the way, he was
Speaker 2: a tour of William Bet. These guys just walked out.
Speaker 2: And I've used that in training with the police and
Speaker 2: in training with by guys that I don't care if
Speaker 2: you're anti Oakley or whitet Arp if they are draw.
Speaker 2: If you're responding to a gun that's drawn on you,
Speaker 2: chances are you're going to get hurt. And uh, these
Speaker 2: guys saw two guns before their hands could push that
Speaker 2: forty five out. And I guarantee you if they were
Speaker 2: to pulled those forty five, they would have been shot
Speaker 2: before they got the guns in their hands. So fasttraw
Speaker 2: is always sucond to.
Speaker 1: Work and the way that you described that, and I
Speaker 1: can see if you're walking through with the blinkers on
Speaker 1: and you're not looking at those type of things, you
Speaker 1: can become become a victim to it. I think I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if it's years of being a law enforcement officer,
Speaker 1: but I can walk into an environment and I can
Speaker 1: sense if there's there's a problem there and it comes instinctial.
Speaker 1: I think you've you've probably worked in that looking for
Speaker 1: those type of situations and sometimes you're just out and
Speaker 1: you're looking. You think there's going to be trouble here
Speaker 1: in a moment, or you can see something that's going
Speaker 1: not quite right. But living that life that you do,
Speaker 1: and we've got so much to talk about, we'll have
Speaker 1: a break in a sect, but I just want to
Speaker 1: ask you, do you does your paranoia kicking like you've
Speaker 1: got your head on swivel the whole time, or did
Speaker 1: you have the ability to switch off and relax in
Speaker 1: the right situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a need in
Speaker 2: us that we remain in yellow. A perfect example is
Speaker 2: what I would go out to dinner and my kids
Speaker 2: were small. Both my kids are formal military now, but
Speaker 2: you know they're there when there was ball. They knew
Speaker 2: exactly where Dad was going to sit in the restaurant,
Speaker 2: and the older one would tell the little one, no,
Speaker 2: that's where Dad's gonna sit because I was going to
Speaker 2: have my back to the door, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: my back to the wall. I would know what chicks,
Speaker 2: where was the bathroom, all this kind of stuff, and
Speaker 2: I am watching what's going on. But I paranoia. I'm
Speaker 2: sure there's some people fall into paranoia, and I've had
Speaker 2: people that reported things that never really happened and there
Speaker 2: was all their imagination, especially with agents. But I think
Speaker 2: it's just going back to those colors. It's just a
Speaker 2: way of life. I drive every day and when I
Speaker 2: get to this day and I'm a civilian now high profile,
Speaker 2: but I'm still civilian. I get the traffic light and firstly,
Speaker 2: I don't pick up my phone start texting when I'm
Speaker 2: on that light. First thing I do is I look
Speaker 2: in my mirrors. And this is natural. I say, I've
Speaker 2: almost subconscious and I look at it, well, there's a
Speaker 2: path there if I have to get off the X.
Speaker 2: And that's not paranoia, that's just the survival instinct that
Speaker 2: we have lost by civilization.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating. Well, Rick, let's let's take a break and
Speaker 1: when we come back to the part two. We've we've
Speaker 1: just touched, we've just scratched the surface of some of
Speaker 1: the stuff you've done. When we come back, we're going
Speaker 1: to delve deeper into the life of the CIA operative
Speaker 1: and I'm really enjoying the conversation.
Speaker 2: I am too.
Speaker 1: We'll back shortly. Cheers.