Mission: To preempt threats and further US national security objectives by collecting intelligence that matters, producing objective all-source analysis, conducting effective covert action as directed by the President, and safeguarding the secrets that help keep our Nation safe.
—Central Intelligence Agency’s Mission Statement
It has been forty years since I first saw the wall of stars in the lobby at HQS. Since that first time in the building, I lived a life of adventure and meaning without regret in the service of our country. There is nothing more important to me than the sanctity of our union and the security of our people. As I grew up in the Agency, I took part in operations around the globe in dark alleys and deepest jungles. Along the way, I kept my eyes and ears open, learning all I could while applying those lessons to every aspect of my life on the path ahead.
I had no intention of ever writing about my experiences. The memories are more than enough for me. Fame is not something I’ve ever sought. A platform to espouse my views also held no appeal. I’d prefer to save those things for those more articulate than I. Since my days at the Agency and at Blackwater, I’ve kept my hand in the game, training the next generation’s warriors with our company, Camp X Training. I continue to give back to my community by working at Fort Bragg, where our special operations forces train. I am also co-owner of Camp X Training with my legendary partner, Henk Iverson of Lone Operator fame. For the past seven years, I have been an instructor at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I do several exercises during the year supporting our special operations forces: Green Berets, SEALs, Marine Raiders, and AFSOC operators. All studs.
If I won the lottery, I’d drive a faster car and wear a better suit, but I’d still do what I do with Henk Iverson and my coaching of U.S. Special Operations Forces. On the latter, I come in three weeks into the three-and-a-half-month program to show the young guys how to beat the other instructors in the war games they play. I am their mentor, the good cop.
I make no fewer than 170 new “special” friends every year. It’s so rewarding. They approach me and say, “Sir, how do we get into Ground Branch? That’s got to be sexy!”
I tell them, “Oh, it’s not that special, not compared to what you do. I come here because I am in awe of you.” One guy I had this conversation with had done eight tours in Afghanistan. I could tell he had bullet holes in him by the way he walked.
Even at sixty-nine, I relish the range time. Moving and shooting, defensive driving, the scenarios we create born from a lifetime of operations in the field—this is the way I contribute—and stay in touch with who I am and always will be, no matter how hard time pushes back. There on those training sites, I can impart the lessons of a career that spanned almost half a century and prepare young men and women in ways I never was.
A book was the last thing on my mind in my postretirement, non-retirement years. Carmen and I settled in a beautiful town. We had our painful moments, saying last goodbyes to my father and hers, then my mother a few years later. My boys grew up and became proud members of the U.S. military, one serving in combat overseas as the global war on terror dragged on in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. My daughter was a school principal for more than five years and today runs a company providing oversight, best practices, and guidance to magnet and specialty charter schools.
At night, we’d settle down on the couch, Carmen and I together, like countless other American families, searching for a bit of entertainment on the television. The Jason Bourne movies, Robert Redford in Spy Game decades after he headlined Three Days of the Condor, Tom Cruise’s American Made—the list is endless. As I watched these films about my beloved CIA and its people, I realized a truth about American culture: no other aspect of our government receives the amount of attention from Hollywood, the publishing business, and the media than the Agency does. Not the FBI, not the White House or Congress or even the U.S. military. The CIA is uniquely portrayed and almost always negatively.
And they never get it right. Not a single movie I’ve watched in the forty years I’ve been in the game has even come close to a proper portrayal of what I’d seen in the Agency. Robert Ludlum, Vince Flynn—they wrote brilliant novels, but the worlds they created bore little resemblance to one I lived through from the Cold War to the global war on terror.
The point was driven home to me on a personal level when a book was written in 2012 that purported to be about me and my life and career. It was part fantasy, contained many factual errors, including that some of the photos the author said were of me were not even me. I have no idea who they were.
The CIA’s vow of silence mirrored my own belief in the persona of the quiet professional. Through the years, I avoided the spotlight. I avoided reporters. So did the vast majority of my peers.
But in the years since I left the CIA, I’ve come to realize that our institutionalized silence left a void. Into that vacuum came the movies, the novels, the salacious newspaper articles and melodramatic cable documentaries. We surrendered the helm, and others seized it. For decades now, we have let others drive the narrative of our own Agency. The result has been anything but an accurate depiction.
The FBI never faced this issue. J. Edgar Hoover realized very early on that to control the narrative of his agency, he needed to forge contacts within the American pop culture scene. For decades, the FBI carefully polished and crafted its image with the American people through radio shows, television series, movies, and books. The CIA has never done anything like that, and it has had real-world consequences.
The threat of bad press since the Church Committee hearings of the 1970s has created generations of senior leaders who are often more fearful of the media than they are devoted to the protection of our people. All too often, we are cautious when our adversaries are daring. We are risk-averse when we should be proactive.
How do you attract the next generation to our calling if the next generation only sees us as burned-out, amnesiac killers and drug-smuggling mercenaries? Mothers do not let their sons or daughters grow up to be CIA officers. Young men and women who would thrive in our ranks don’t give the CIA a second thought. We’ve been tainted by our own country’s pop culture image of who we are and what we do.
I wish that were not the case. Our people need to know we’re out there in a world few understand and fewer have ever experienced. We’re in the shadows there, listening, watching, whispering—for one purpose only: to protect our people and our nation from those bent on doing us harm.
I sat down to write this book as a modest attempt to help change the narrative. The CIA I knew included some of the finest, most dedicated, and most value-driven human beings I’ve ever met. They were principled, loyal to each other and to our flag. They recognized the threats we face on a daily basis and worked tirelessly to expose them before our fellow Americans were hurt.
The truth is, we foil far more plans than the Agency will ever admit. The vow of silence that has characterized the CIA since its inception ensures those successes go unmentioned for years, sometimes decades.
It would also be good for our adversaries and enemies to know that we are out there. They need to be looking over their shoulder—or, even better, discouraged to even attempt anything against us.
In the years ahead, as the world becomes increasingly dangerous, destabilized by non-state actors and rising superpowers, the United States will need the Agency’s capabilities more than ever. The CIA falls between diplomacy and total war on the spectrum of action available to our presidents. We are the third option, and as we approach quarter-century, many of the threats we face exist in the realm of the shadow world, beyond the reach of diplomats and soldiers alike.
In the aftermath of World War II, the CIA was established to keep the pulse on foreign governments and nations who posed a threat to us. That Cold War paradigm defined the Agency for its first forty years. We battled Soviet-backed Marxist revolutions around the world bent on toppling regimes and spreading the toxic authoritarianism that embodied such ideology. But in the 1980s, a new threat began to emerge. Non-state actors—terrorists, drug cartels, and weapons dealers—found safe havens in corners of the world to operate against American power. We could not be directly confronted by such types, but with the support of the Soviets, Iran, and other states, they could strike from the shadows against us.
And they did. We learned on 9/11 that such organizations, even when not backed by a foreign government, could deliver body blows to our homeland and change the tide of history forever.
The attacks caught the Agency struggling to make the transition from the Cold War paradigm. We’d begun to flex to meet the challenges of these non-state actors, but we had yet to develop the kind of black ops capabilities needed to proactively interdict and disrupt their attacks against us. In some cases, our own rules were used against us. We discovered that the enemy practices excellent fieldcraft. They are capable of complex missions all over the world. Their operational security is nearly airtight. Their rank and file are true believers, willing to die for their cause. This makes planning and execution of major attacks considerably easier, as they do not need an exit strategy, just an adherent eager for the martyrdom of a suicide mission.
We learned quickly that our traditional methods of recruitment don’t work at all with these people. We can’t go to a diplomatic function and find a terrorist willing to work for us, as we’d been doing against the Soviets and other nations since the CIA’s inception. That is the wrong paradigm for the new threats we face.
The answer to stopping these non-state actors lies in the shadow world. The only way to gain visibility into these organizations is to penetrate them by any means necessary. I learned long ago in the streets of Latin America that this is no gentleman’s game, but it is a vital one that must be played. It is almost impossible to turn a terrorist. They are loyal ideologues or religious fanatics who cannot be bribed, bought off, or otherwise enticed into selling out their networks. More often than not, they must be compromised, and that requires resolute, strong-arm tactics that are not for the faint of heart.
Satellite imagery and SIGINT are useful tools but will never replace eyes on the street or assets inside an organization. Because of all these factors, the shadow world went from an ancillary battleground of the Cold War to the primary theater against terrorism.
That shift underscores the need for the Agency to have robust covert operation capabilities. Now more than ever, we need those skill sets to penetrate their world and expose their capabilities, plans, and networks. There is no other way to keep the pulse on our terrorist enemies.
Yet that is not enough. In the aftermath of 9/11, it became clear we needed the ability to interdict and disrupt enemies like al-Qaeda wherever their operatives lurked. That was the only way we could preempt their attacks and save American lives. In the combat theaters, this was not an issue, but terrorist cells flourish all over the world, including in our own country. It was up to us to figure out how we could discover them in these parts of the globe, then find ways to thwart them in places where we could not strike with military special operations teams or drones.
We lacked that capability. The enemy knew it and ruthlessly exploited it. They continue to do so today. The result? Our nation still has a major weakness in its war effort on terrorists, and it is one they continue to exploit.
The drone program, which the Obama administration expanded, is an effective tool in the war on terror. Yet it has its limitations and many pitfalls. All too often, there are innocents killed in these attacks, and that collateral damage always serves to create more terrorists. The drone campaign has become a recruiting tool for ISIS and other terror groups, ultimately breeding more terrorists than we can kill. While we have been able to take out key leaders with the Predators operating in Afghanistan, XXXXXX, and the Horn of Africa, those leaders are swiftly replaced by others from the ranks. And drone strikes do not exploit available intelligence from computers and cell phones, nor do they capture terrorists to be interrogated.
The limitations of the program reveal weaknesses XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Drones cannot be used in cities. They cannot be used in certain nations for political reasons. For example, we cannot send Hellfire missiles into a car on a Norwegian highway—even if the person in the backseat is a senior ISIS official living clandestinely inside that nation’s refugee community.
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Think of what the history of the last twenty-five years would have looked like if we’d wrapped up Bin Laden in the 1990s when Billy Waugh used to jog right by him in the streets of Khartoum. Think of the lives saved had we been able to operate against the al-Qaeda network that bombed the London subway system or blew up the trains in Spain in 2004.
In the years ahead, the shadow world will continue to be the front line for this new type of warfare thrust upon us by terrorist enemies. Terrorism is not going away anytime soon, and the chance of another catastrophic attack on our homeland remains real. In fact, it is probably only a matter of time. The only way to stop such a plan before it reaches fruition is to play in the terrorists’ own murky world. It is a dangerous and amoral place. Historically, we’ve tried to uphold the Hollywood image of the white-hatted cowboy, rolling into Wild West towns to establish law and order. Call it the Lone Ranger syndrome. We want so badly to be the good guys that we often have crippled our ability to protect our people by our own strict rules of engagement. Think of a noble boxer adhering to Queensberry rules. That’s the Agency. But our enemies ignore such niceties. They’re the street-brawling MMA fighters to our boxer, willing to eye-gouge, nut-kick, and head-butt. They have no rules. Yet we insist on confronting them on our terms.
Time and again, we are outmaneuvered and defeated because our officers face an unfair fight. In the 1990s, our sense of morality extended to the relationships we developed overseas with people who could provide us insight and information. If their moral character was questioned by cubicle dwellers half a world away at HQS, we could not continue those relationships no matter how important or useful they were. White knights do not taint themselves with such associations, you see.
It isn’t how local police departments stop crime. They work with moles and informants of poor moral character and sketchy backgrounds all the time. Same with the FBI. For whatever reason, the CIA is held to a higher standard in its actions overseas.
That may have made the people in Washington feel good. It may have helped with the relationship with the media. But it did not make Americans safer. Drawing those moral boundaries in the 1990s ended up being a great way to reduce our ability to detect the next attack against our people.
In forty years, I’ve learned another hard, unescapable truth: if we want to gain access into the inner workings of terrorist organizations, we have to do business with unsavory people. There are no terrorist white knights, only scum and associated scum who support their operations. If we want to gain visibility on what these groups are doing, what they are plotting, we have to use those people. There is no other way.
In the field, I learned to approach the dark realm and its actors as if we actually were cowboys, but the real ones like Wyatt Earp, who were skull-splitting bad-guy stompers. Justice and order do not come from playing nice. Guys like Earp knew that. It came from being the toughest, most dangerous badasses in town. Nobody fucks with people like that. When I worked the streets and jungles around the world, I made a point of letting every asset know that I would be their biggest friend as long as they played straight with me. But if they messed with me or my people, I would be their worst nightmare. In a place where there are no moral absolutes, that posture kept me and my people alive while laying the groundwork for success.
In the years to come, the United States will face a host of emerging threats. China is flexing its muscle on the international stage. They’re not using the Soviet-era model of fomenting revolutions around the globe, but they are no less dangerous than our old Cold War adversary. They are more nuanced and subtler with the influence they’ve gained on every continent by using their financial resources to gain access to raw and strategic materials. Confronting the challenge of a rising China will be one of the Agency’s primary missions in the decades to come. It will take courageous and daring leadership to succeed. Yet there will always be the competing tensions within the Agency between the meat eaters willing to confront those threats and the careerists mindful of the fallout any operation may cause. In truth, both are probably needed to keep the Agency balanced, but in wartime, as we have found ourselves in for the past twenty years, the CIA needs to be led by vigorous, aggressive, and fearless leaders willing to take the fight to the enemy on their turf, wherever that turf may be.
The torch Dewey passed to me on that warm California day will someday be handed off again. It is part of our cycle and tradition. The next generation coming of age will need to pick up this vocation with the same élan as every previous one. We need our best and brightest out there to be the nation’s eyes and ears. Recruiting those incredible Americans will be as vital as the way we engage with our enemies and adversaries in the shadow world. This is the other main reason I chose to break my own vow of silence and put to page the lessons I’ve learned, the people I’ve met, and the successes I saw during my time with the Central Intelligence Agency.
To those reading my words and considering such a future: you will live a life few can imagine. The Agency is not a career, it is a calling, akin to devoting yourself to a monastic order. It becomes your entire identity. In its ranks, you’ll be a very different kind of protector from our law enforcement agencies and military. We are the wraiths who operate where no one else dares to go. We find meaning in defending our people, even though those we guard will never know of our work. We are anonymous, invisible as shadows in the night.
If it is fame and fortune you seek, this is not the life for you. But if you want to work with some of the finest human beings you will ever meet, if you relish a challenge, seek a higher purpose, and want to live within a code of honor defined by loyalty and service, come join us. A world of adventures awaits.