[00:00] Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Sheer Intelligence, where the, you know, it's funny, I got the name of the show, I said, it's sort of the poor man's central intelligence agency. So I was using Sheer Intelligence to see my own little check. And in fact, I began
[00:33] journalistic life at Grandparts Magazine before I went to work in the establishment LA Times, doing stories criticizing the CIA, criticizing the intelligence agencies. And today, we're going to have a show with two people who spent the better part of their lives, productive lives at the CIA. One is Ray McGovern. And he joined, well, you know, just about when I went to work for Grandparts, you went to work for the CIA. So we were on the opposite side. And you stayed there
[01:09] until 1990, that's 27 years with the CIA. And you were not a whistleblower. You, in fact, worked on the, under the Bush administration, you were the CIA person doing preparing the national intelligence estimates. And you prepared the president's daily brief. And you received the intelligence commendation medal when you retired, which you returned in 206 to protest the CIA's
[01:41] involvement in torture, which brings up our other guests, John Kiriakou, who exposed that torture program, refused to participate in, was actually involved in the capture of the highest, then the highest ranking alleged al-Qaeda suspect, the man who was still in Guantanamo and in prison, but has not had a day in court. And you refuse to be trained in torture. You didn't believe in it.
[02:13] And of course, as we know from the US Senate, torture report, the part that's been released, the basic report has not been released, but in a heavily redacted version of the introduction, we find that torture never produced any actionable intelligence. But nonetheless, here you have Ray McGovern, who gave back his medal, his intelligence commendation medal, in response to, really, to the revelations that came from you. And what I want to do,
[02:44] you are two guys who, you know, try to serve your country, did so, were honored for that. So were you, John, and promoted after the capture of what was supposed to be the highest known captured al-Qaeda member. And what happened was that you have run into a really, I don't know, I think of Lillian Hellman, when she wrote about the McCarthy period she wrote,
[03:15] had a book called The Scoundrel Time. And, you know, really, you're in a period now where you guys are in danger of being considered fake news, making up news, you're, you know, you're going to be made non-person. If I, in fact, just doing this discussion with you, and I've interviewed you both before, you know, the whole program could be dismissed as fake news. And we haven't lived in a time like this, where suddenly people who really know a great
[03:46] deal, and are speaking honestly, and John, in Kariaka's case, he served two years in jail for having revealed aspects of the torture program. But the fact of the matter is, you are being made into non-persons. And in fact, you now can only get a form if you go on something, well, we don't have RT anymore. We've had Sputnik, or you go on some smaller shows, anti-war, libertarian website, some few left on the left and so forth. So let me just
[04:21] bring that up. How did two highly regarded CIA people get to be so disreputable in the eyes of mass media? John, I think you're more disreputable than I. But you've been arrested more times than I have. It'll help if you guys identify, because your voice is, even though I know you don't, I know Ray comes from the Bronx, where I'm from. John, you come from around, I guess,
[04:56] Virginia, right? No, from Pittsburgh. Oh, Pittsburgh, okay. Well, that's close enough. When you speak, and you both know each other, and I forget the name of the organization, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. So anyway, use your first name when you speak, okay? Sure. So I'm John Kiriakou. John, I'll use my first name. Yeah, you know, I think Ray would
[05:27] probably agree with me that this war between Russia and Ukraine has put many of us in an awkward position. Not just many of us, formerly in the intelligence services, but many of us on the political left. Because if you say anything right now that's not directly in the mainstream, you're dismissed. You're dismissed as an apologist for the Russians, as pro-Putin,
[05:58] as someone who hates America, or doesn't know what he's talking about. You really can't have an alternative view. And if you do, if you publish that view, you're easily banned from Facebook, from Twitter, from any number of different platforms. It says, though, that if you have anything to do now with the media, including the progressive media, you have to toe the line on this war or you're silenced. Well, that's a pretty ominous
[06:34] situation to be in. You know, as I say, as someone who spoke out and wrote critically about the Vietnam War and continued to do that sort of thing. I personally have never been in a period as intimidating as this one. And the use of this notion of disinformation or fake news to totally disparage anyone who may disagree with you. We don't even seem to have any visible peace movement cautioning about sending in all these arms into Ukraine, whatever you think
[07:09] about it. I gather from you, John, you condemn the Russian invasion. Well, in fact, despite the fact that I work for the Russians, I have a daily radio show for two hours on Sputnik Radio, which is a Russian government-funded radio network. I said on the very first day of the invasion that I unreservedly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine because I believe that all wars are wrong, they're violations of international law. That's not to say that I don't understand the
[07:45] Russian reasoning for crossing the border. I understand that the Russians objected to the US-sponsored coup in 2014, that the Russians believed that ethnic Russians in Ukraine were being discriminated against, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm still viewed as a Russian apologist, even though I've made clear my personal position. It's funny, somebody said to me the other day,
[08:16] well, if you were really against the war, you would resign. And I said, yeah, that's easy for you to say, but are you going to pay my bills? Are you going to put my kids through college? Well, you should mention, by the way, that this is not a minor matter with you, because you lost your pension speaking honestly about torture. We talk about war crimes in Ukraine. I mean, clearly the US policy of systematic torture in black sites all over the world
[08:46] is one of the great crimes of modern history. And you suffered, you lost your CIA pension. You know, your inability, you can't get on these other shows. And you are, and in fact, your work as Sputnik is kind of a Potemkin radio program, meaning it doesn't really exist, since no one in this country, I mean, hardly anyone in this country can hear Sputnik. That's a good point. That's a good point, Bob, that I actually wouldn't have thought to bring
[09:20] up myself. Before the war, you could listen to my show pretty much anywhere. We were on YouTube every day, we were on Spreaker, Spotify, iTunes, iHeartRadio, tune in, and we had 38, well, 35 to 38,000 downloads a day. So that's a pretty healthy daily audience, 35 to 38,000. We've been stricken from every one of those platforms. And now the only way you can listen
[09:51] to our show is on the Sputnik news website, or on a 1000 watt terrestrial radio station in Washington D.C. that you can barely pick up if you just, you know, cross the street. And so we're down to about 500 listeners a day. So you're right. It's a Potemkin village kind of radio station in that almost nobody listens to it. Yeah. And that's not totally a matter of choice. They can't get the signal. So I want
[10:26] to bring in Ray McGovern, because as opposed to John, at least you kept your pension and you were honored. And you, you know, you actually work with Henry Kissinger when Nixon was president or John did also work with, you work with John Kerry, a senator, and you worked on the Hill and so forth. But Ray McGovern, you became, you know, an advocate for peace. Let's face it. And you now are, you know, I've interviewed people for this show who don't talk to you,
[11:01] who are in the CIA and have written you threatening emails and so forth and whatever happened to Ray McGovern. So tell us, how did you become such a dangerous figure? You seem like a nice old guy. You know, what happened here? You take it a lot of gold, you take it, you take it a lot of gold from from Putin. Is that what's going on? What's happening? I wish. No, you know, mention was made a little earlier to scoundrel time. And when
[11:36] I entered the CIA, there were scoundrels around, but most of them existed in the operations part where they tried to assassinate Castro and did assassinate some other folks, where we kept hermetically sealed away from those guys. But as time went by and Bill Casey came in under Reagan as CIA director, and as he chose Bobby Gates, who said all the right things about the Russians and how the Russians would never give up power in the Communist
[12:10] Party, they recruited people in managerial positions who were scoundrels, who wanted to get promoted. And they were they were in power at the first experience that I had that I lived through. And it wasn't Afghanistan, it wasn't Ukraine, it was Iraq. And that turned me because I saw my former colleagues deliberately falsifying, making up, manufacturing evidence to justify a war. Now it doesn't get any worse than that, okay, not not only from
[12:44] a professional point of view, but from a from an ethical point of view. So that was the first time. Now, were we given any any play in the media? Well, I'll tell you, when veteran intelligence professionals for sanity was founded, and that was January 2003, we wrote a memo to the president, President Bush, we chose to assume that he didn't know what's going on. But we told him the same day as Colin Powell spoke, that there was dribble
[13:17] that was all made up. And that if he didn't widen the circle of his advisors beyond those clearly bent on a war, it would be a catastrophe. Now, we take no pleasure in the fact that we're right on that. But that was the monstrous thing of the first, quote, war of choice. And it was, quote, justified, end quote, by evidence that later, the Senate Committee said was made up was uncorrelated and was what was the last word?
[13:49] And who was it? It was made up. That was the word. So, so that was the first. Now, we were given much play after our initial thing. And our initial thing went out on the AFP wire. And that's why we got some play. Since then, we've been pretty much shunned, not only on that, but on Afghanistan. We wrote a memo to President Obama saying, Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. Obama, you're letting these generals and these sycophants like Bobby Gates
[14:24] run roughshod over you, and you're making some really bad decisions on Afghanistan. We told him that he didn't, he didn't understand. When Hillary Clinton came to George Washington University and I wangled the ticket from my friend, Larry Wilkerson, I simply stood up and turned my back to her, because I couldn't let everyone there think that she was the darling that was going to be president and she was the cat's pajamas, as we used to say on the Bronx. So, you know, it became pretty, pretty corrupt. When you talk about scoundrel time in Washington, it
[14:58] began under Bobby Gates and Bill Casey, but progressively these people projected or promoted into positions of influence and power were worse and worse. And that's why we have now, on Ukraine, a situation where I don't know who's in charge. Biden is certainly not in charge. What kind of, what kind of information he's getting from his CIA director or from the National Intelligence Director? I don't know. They seem a little bit more sane than the rest of them, but that's not saying, that's damning with pain and
[15:28] praise. Time for a break. We'll be back in a few minutes. We're back with your intelligence and our guests. Well, you know, I do want to get to a point here when you guys joined the CIA and, you know, when you were working with Kissinger, you know, Kissinger, you were still in the CIA then, Kissinger and Nixon went to China and they negotiated peace and the end of really the negative
[16:06] relations with China and mission of China back into the UN and diplomatic relations. And China is still a communist country, so is Vietnam. But we get along quite well with them, particularly we like Vietnam even more than China. And no one ever said that Kissinger was a Mao Zedong agent. They were getting along with the most ruthless communist leaders. The same thing was true of negotiation of arms control with
[16:37] Brezhnev, with Khrushchev, with the Soviet communist leadership. The irony in this situation is that we have red baiting now with Russia and Putin without a red. And we've got an image of Putin. I mean, because when we said a red, there were communist parties and they had some ideology and they had some clarity about what they were doing. And there was a lot of argument about whether you could ever negotiate with these folks. And some of our most ruthless Cold Warriors, Richard Nixon, of course, right
[17:11] there, negotiated peace with them. Now we're in a position where to say we shouldn't be negotiating with the Ukrainians, with Putin, and so forth. That's heresy now. There is no peace movement. There was a peace movement saying we could have arms control and get along and negotiate with Mao Zedong, you know, even with Joseph Stalin at one point. But now to suggest that maybe just throwing arms in and
[17:44] risking nuclear war, you advocate that. And my God, you're the worst kind of traitor. How did we get to this point? And it really goes to this word intelligence. We did figure out in the worst days of the CIA that you could actually negotiate with these folks that there might be a common stake in arms control and limiting war and so forth. That's gone out the window now. And the image now of Putin and Russia, and
[18:16] this is they have no validity in any of their demands of any of their concerns. And they just are evil incarnate. And that is, I think I would suggest a very dangerous moment. Well, you know, let me let me comment on that because my proudest moment working in the analysis. This is Ray. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I'm sorry. This is Ray McGovern. I was chief for the Soviet foreign policy branch back in the 70s. My proudest moment was
[18:49] proving with my analysts, of course, that the Soviets and the Chinese where they chose throats, they were likely to come to blows, which they did in 1969. And that you could you could if you were Kissinger and Nixon, if you were smart enough, you could exploit this hostility. That's what they chose to do. One of my nice memorabilia is a nice note I got back from Kissinger saying, you got it right, we're going to do this. They went to China. And there were really impediments to movement toward
[19:23] strategic arms negotiations with with Moscow, they disappeared. And before you know it, we had an agreement in Moscow on May in May, 1972, called the anti ballistic missile treaty, which formed the the form the foundation of strategic stability for the next 30 years count them three decades until the junior Bush get out of there. So our input, you know, our
[19:54] analysis that look, you could take advantage of this was key. And then and this was one of the things we could do. and were able to back in the day. How about now? Well, I find myself in the same position looking at Russian-Chinese relations, and I see that there's been another tectonic shift. Tectonic I use advisedly. China and Russia are together now. I don't think Putin would have done, would have risked doing what he did in Ukraine, were he not to have full
[20:25] backing from Xi Jinping, the president of China. That changes the world, folks. Putin is not going to lose in Ukraine, and NATO is going to keep stoking the fires until we all wear out, until we're all dead. So this is really important, because when we talk about China, and when we talk about Ukraine, all these things are interrelated, and the numbskulls that are heading up the State Department and the National Security Council
[20:55] don't seem to have it in their heads that China and Russia are together, as a matter of fact, and this last thing I'll say on this, on June 16th of last year, when Biden met with Putin and Geneva, the only thing we know about how that went is when Biden's trying to get on the plane, they say, come on, Joe, get on. Joe, no, no, no, I want to say something more than a press. Okay, what do you want to say? Well, I told, I, this is not appropriate to say exactly what I told Putin, but I, you know, he's got a real problem.
[21:26] China is squeezing Russia. China has a long border. They're aspiring not only to be the biggest economic power, but also to be, oh, Putin has a real problem with China. Now, I don't know who told Biden to tell Putin that, but I would have loved a bit of fly on the wall when Putin turned around to his advisors and said, huh? Yeah, and whatever, the tensions between China and Russia, and this is really something the mass media seems to have
[21:57] missed. I don't quite get it, but NATO is now an alliance in a new Cold War that will and could extend certainly to China, but maybe to India. We don't know. I mean, the whole idea that there's a zone of security basically built on Europe with the, you know, U.S. really calling the shots is, you know, it represents the development of a unipolar world again. I mean, you know,
[22:28] which we thought we had after the end of the Cold War. And what are you basically saying? You're saying to these other folks, if you want to have security, you better tighten some other alliances. What I'm saying, Bob, is not a unipolar. That was what we had after World War II and pretty much if the Soviet Union fell apart. Right now it's a bipolar world, okay? A bipolar in the psychiatric sense as well as in the political sense. No, really, we have the the, the, the lily quite West against people of color who happen to represent the majority of
[23:08] people in this world. Okay, we have China, we have India, we have South Africa, we have got Brazil, and we've got, well, we're black in the Russians so much that they're people of color now. And there are more of them than there are of us. And it's a no win situation for us lily white people from the West to think that we can predominate that we think there can be a unipolar world again. It's bipolar and the, the cards are stacked against us as I've just tried to
[23:38] explain. You know, it's interesting you mentioned that, you know, about how we think of Russia and obviously, you know, is a white, basically white population. However, the anti-Slavic current that, you know, after all Hitler played on the anti-Slavic as well. And along, along with anti-Semitism was a lesser people. And, you know, that doesn't sit well, but that keeps coming up. Somehow the Russian troops, you know, whatever you think about,
[24:12] you know, obviously, I personally am very opposed to any military invasion. I don't believe in war, I believe in peace. But nonetheless, you know, Russian conscripts are now presented as savage, whereas Ukrainian troops are enlightened. And there is an echo of that. But what I think should be pointed out here is that we are acting as if all the options are with NATO. And there's something weird about a military alliance,
[24:47] replacing basically the UN as a center of peacekeeping. Is it not the case? John, you haven't talked much. Yeah, I think so. Let me just say something before I introduce you, John. One of the things that we have is sort of this Orwellian phenomena of the love of having an enemy. And you devoted much of your life to this, what was supposed to be the enemy that replaced communism, which was a terrorist, right? Muslim terrorism, right? And you were out there
[25:19] catching these Muslim terrorists and so forth. Now we've gone back to what? We don't have quite the communist, it's just all Russia. And Russia is not that powerful economically that it's going to be able to. So you have to then latch on to China or something, but take it from there. Yeah, I think you're both raising very important points here. It's something that I saw beginning many years ago when I was still at the CIA. And I've been gone now for, wow, 17 years,
[25:52] a little bit more than 17 years. But even back in the early 2000s, when we had an opportunity to establish really a new kind of relationship with Russia, where it would have been actually quite easy to cooperate on a very deep level on issues like counterterrorism, counter narcotics, counter proliferation. We both had a terrible time in Afghanistan. Afghanistan produces 93% of the world's heroin. And most of that heroin goes to Russia
[26:27] and to Iran. We could have really worked together to make the world a better place. Not even mentioning the fact that Russia is a Christian country. It wanted at the time to open to the West for its own economic development. And we were willing, I guess, to discuss these issues on a limited basis, if we could bring the Russians in as a junior partner,
[27:01] as a mentee to be westernized. And they valued their independence. They weren't interested. We know now, as another example, that both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin talked to American presidents about joining NATO. And they got the cold shoulder. We didn't want them in NATO. Well, NATO is really, in my own view, NATO is irrelevant at this point. There was no reason
[27:32] not to bring the Russians in. At the very least, it would have been good for peace and good for economic development. Your other point, Bob, I think, is right on. We always seem to need an ism in this country to rally against, whether it was anarchism or socialism or for a very long time communism. It was fascism for a little while during the Second World War. Then it was Islamism. And, you know, it's like we just can't seem to function unless we have an enemy. Well, I think there's a big issue here. And what remains of our time,
[28:10] we should consider. And that's the whole idea of a new, an American Rome, that taking this notion of American hegemony, NATO seen in that light becomes a very important instrument of power. And the combination of the U.S. and NATO is really saying to the rest of the world, our way or the highway. And it's very clear the talk now is going after China. And what is
[28:41] really at issue, because we have claimed all along, going back to the founders, that we really believed in trade and your economic output and, you know, your ability in a notion of capitalism, even when it was a very primitive capitalism. And the big shock of modern history is that the most effective capitalist turned out to people who also called themselves communists. It's one of the most bizarre twists in human history. And it turns out we don't really welcome the Chinese communists as capitalists,
[29:15] you know, even though they carried us right through the pandemic and everything else. And so you have this weird mixture of a political, militaristic operation like NATO. And all this talk about what ideal life, your freedom and democracy you're bringing to the world. But your real goal is to hobble another economic system that has the same characteristics of a marketplace, China. And the odd thing is you're backing into forming this
[29:50] alliance between an underpopulated Russia, rich in resources, an overpopulated China, poor in those very same resources, you're creating creating a real monster of your, in reality, an economic one. And that really, to my mind, is what NATO is all about now. It's a political, economic, militarist alternative to hold some notion of global power. Yeah.
[30:20] Well, Bob, this is Ray McGovern again. There's a very important strata of society that's profiting by all this, profiteering, I should say. Cui Bono, well, what Eisenhower warned about 60 years ago, the military industrial complex. I mean, Raytheon, if I were to see you or Raytheon or Lockheed, I'm gonna make a money hand over fist yet. You have to have an enemy, and whether it's an Islam or whether it's a country.
[30:53] Now the country of choice happens to be Russia right now. It's gonna be China or strategic documents out of the Pentagon say that expressly, that is, China is enemy number one. Russia doesn't even make it in the top five, you can believe it. But we have done Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia gate for five years. We've conditioned the American people to believe that Putin is Hitler incarnate. And that's what's enabling our current government to play on this fear of Russia.
[31:26] To make sure that there's no agreement to stop slaughtering all those Ukrainians that are being used as cannon fodder. We could stop that war, Biden could stop it next week if he wanted to, but no. The military, industrial, congressional, intelligence, media, academia, think tank complex, which is what the MIC, Eisenhower spoke of, has turned into, will prevent that.
[31:56] And when I say media, right in the middle of all that mickey mat, I mean, the media is controlled by the rest of the mickey mat. It is the cornerstone and that's why they are beating the drums for war. And the naive sophomores that are working for Biden don't seem to realize what nuclear war would amount to. And that's the real danger here. We even see that in the testimony of the top intelligence leaders who say, oh, we don't
[32:28] want a nuclear war. Putin might resort to nuclear weapons if his backup is up against the wall, conclusion. Putin is back up against the wall. That policy conclusion is crazy and it makes me very worried. Well, we're going to wrap this up, but I want to ask you guys, you're both former CIA people. And in reality, even when you got a prison for having criticized the torture program as
[33:01] John did, you're always going to be CIA people in the eyes of the CIA, meaning that you can't write something about anything they've done without getting it cleared at the CIA. Correct. You're always under. So why don't we just talk about that a little bit? Because one of the things that I remember as a journalist, I would always run into intelligent people from the CIA, and they had everything figured out, except they would say, oh, but the president doesn't listen to me or something.
[33:34] And what's interesting now is that we aren't having too many people speak up. Most of the people you see on television who are former CIA or former military people, they're supporting the war, they're supporting things. And you guys, how left is these oddballs? Why are there so few of you? And did you have to get cleared for your remarks on this show today?
[34:05] Can you speak your mind? How does it work? If you don't mind if I start, Ray. Sure, go ahead. I'm proud to say that I just finished my eighth book, and I submitted it to the CIA for clearance. For whatever reason, they sent me an email and said they needed extra time because a sister agency wanted to take a look at it. I knew that was nonsense.
[34:37] So I objected, and I said I didn't sign a secrecy agreement with any sister agency. I did what I was supposed to do by submitting it to the CIA. And then much to my surprise, they called me on the phone, which they never do because they like everything to be in writing, so they can use it against you later. And they called me and they said, I said, listen, I don't care that the FBI thinks they get a chop on my book. The FBI doesn't get a chop on my book.
[35:09] And the CIA officer told me, well, it's not the FBI. It's NSA. I said, well, what's NSA care about what I write about surveillance and surveillance detection? Well, I don't know, he said. We just need two weeks. Well, they took five weeks. And then when I got the book back, of course, I had missed my publisher's deadline. And they had redacted six pages. So I wrote back and I said, you redacted six pages and you say that it's classified.
[35:41] I want you to know that I got the information off of your website. You declassified this information 10 years ago. Well, you can appeal. You have to print the information from our website and send it back to us. And you can appeal it, but we're going to need another 90 days. So the publisher, and I said, look, they're doing this on purpose. I don't know why. I must have angered them somehow. And he said, you know what we're going to do?
[36:13] We're going to publish it with the pages blacked out. And on the cover of the book, we're going to put a starburst. And we're going to say, the book, the CIA doesn't want you to read. And I said, OK, let's play their own game. Now, with that said, I'm pretty good at sending everything that I write for clearance to the CIA. But there are some things that I think the CIA shouldn't have a vote on whether or not I get to publish.
[36:44] And so there are some things that I feel strongly about that I don't bother to send. And once they sent me a nasty letter, and I had my attorney write them a nasty letter back and they dropped it. And otherwise, for something like this or an interview that I gave earlier today to a Middle Eastern television outlet, I do not get cleared because my argument is I don't know what you're going to ask me. I don't know in what direction the conversation is going to flow.
[37:15] And so there's nothing that I can submit for clearance. Well, let me ask a basic question because this is the question that is always raised about any totalitarian country. Certainly, it's a question Orwell was dealing with in 1984 is how many people right now in Russia? We know there have to be people who are afraid of Putin's power and they hold their silence. They don't say what they know and so forth.
[37:46] Obviously, we know that we certainly know that's true in communist China. There's a top down control power and the Communist Party and so forth. But I've always been mystified by the large number of intelligent people in a relatively free society. We can debate about how free we are. Certainly, in wartime, we're not very free and you've gone to jail for your views, John Kiriakou. But still, I always wonder, you know, how many of your colleagues
[38:18] back in the CIA then and now know a different story than the American people are told, you know, for example, when we we spent all those years fighting international communism and yet anybody with half a brain who'd read anything knew that there weren't two communist governments in the world that were really getting along well, you know, that the Sino-Soviet dispute was a reality and what have you. So I would just ask you right now, even though you are the two
[38:51] odd men out now, very few people are saying what you're saying. And, you know, maybe my career here at NPR will be at an end because I dare to have you on, I don't know, I'm wildly exaggerating. But nonetheless, how many folks and what scares me about the current moment is that there seem to be very few people in the CIA, the Pentagon, certainly in the State Department who are questioning.
[39:23] That they all seem to be giddy, drunk, really, on a notion of an American innocence, that we finally are on the right side. This is all about human freedom. There's no other way to do it. Do you get the feeling that we've had some kind of almost religious conversion? Well, Bob, this is Ray McGovern. Let me speak to that. In all seriousness, I have to confess to being profoundly saddened.
[39:56] I would even say scandalized. my friends, these are my colleagues, some of them I trained in analytic techniques. What happened? They must know better. So I don't know how to judge them, but I have to come to grips with the reality. People my age should know better. People trained analytically should know better. There's a lot of self-censorship. There's a lot of mob
[40:29] psychology where our agency couldn't have tortured so many people. What they did for God's sake, and it's public knowledge. So in answer to your question, it's really, really hard for me to deal with the fact that I don't get to talk to too many of my former colleagues because they're afraid that the conversations will be monitored. And this goes way back to when I first retired. I'd like to just say a word about my dealings with classified information
[41:01] and permission, so to speak, from the agency to publish. I served, as you know, as briefer to the President of the United States, and I am very, very careful not to reveal anything of any substance having to do with those briefings. That is sacrosanct, and I would never violate that trust. Now, I don't write books. I write, I'm a journalist, okay? I learned at the feet of Bob Perry after I retired, and I was a current intelligence journalist with access to all kinds of
[41:33] sensitive information when I was working at the CIA. So being a journalist, you don't really have time to check things out. You just have to be careful not to reveal any secrets that really would risk sources and methods. And so that's how I conduct myself. It's okay. They only sent me maybe two warning letters a year, and I just ignore them because they don't have a leg to stand on. That little contract that I signed that said I won't reveal any information that is
[42:03] prejudicial to the national security is just a contract. It's not the Constitution. I took a solemn oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That has a First Amendment in it. That trumps things. When things hit the fan and things are serious like what we have now in Ukraine. Again, you don't need to reveal sensitive information. One last thing here. When Bill Casey came in under Ronald Reagan, he said at
[42:37] his first cabinet meeting, among other things, he said, you know, I can't believe it. I come in here and I find out my Soviet analysts, my analysts of the Soviet Union are using 80% public sources, newspapers, books to analyze what's going on. They should be using spies. Well, give me a break. That's the way it always was. And with the immediate the immediate availability of information now, it's 90%. So can the government figure stuff out
[43:08] without having satellite photography or intercepted messages poured into his inbox? Normally I can and my record speaks for itself. John, you want to get the last word in here? Ray is absolutely correct here. You know, on our first day at the CIA, we put our right hands up in the air and we swore to protect the Constitution from from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And both Ray and I took that very seriously. I want to protect secrets
[43:46] just like anybody else does, but the Constitution is more important. But let me let me comment just for one second, Bob, on your earlier point, or the beginning of this question. Like Ray, you know, these these people were my friends, my colleagues. We went through a lot together. I trusted their intellect. These really are some of the best and brightest in the country. I'm still in touch with many of them. And I'm shocked and saddened that they believe all of the CNN
[44:23] and MSNBC propaganda that people from the Democratic National Committee are spouting. I just don't understand why it's hard to impossible to really analyze these situations. There's a hatred of Russia in government that I just simply don't understand. And I mean, going back 10 years, I remember 10 years ago, my ex-wife, who I was married to at the
[44:53] time, told me that we had not faced an enemy in generations as strong and as evil as Russia. And I said, are you insane? This is your ex-wife who was in the CIA. Who was in the CIA. And I said, what are you talking to the DNC? But they really believe this stuff. And I just don't understand why. Well, that guy take it right. Yeah, I just want to comment on that. John, you're absolutely right. You know,
[45:26] I talk about the Trump derangement syndrome. Now, my wife always warned me, whenever I'm interviewed, always tell the audience what you think of Trump. And I think Trump was the very worst president the United States ever had in that saying something, okay? Agreed. But that doesn't mean he's wrong about everything. And what he was right about is that the security services in our government, including our alma mater, did everything they could to prevent him from becoming president. That was the interference in the 2016 election.
[46:00] And then when he was elected president, they demonstrably did everything they could to eat, to emasculate him and make it impossible for him to succeed specifically in working out a decent relationship with Russia. So when you're subjected, as everyone in this country has been to five years of Russia, Russia, Russia, and when worst of all, you blame Russia for four years of Trump. What worst could you accuse
[46:32] anyone of? So that I think is the cumulative effect where now they're prepared to believe that the Russians eat babies alive, especially in Ukraine. Well, you know, I keep threatening to wrap this up. But I do think we're it's a fascinating moment because obviously, I'm very clear on this, I'm opposed to any kind of preventive war, any kind of war of choice. And the people who get killed are almost always
[47:05] innocent people. That was true of the carpet bombing of Vietnam. It was true of extending the Korean war and getting the Chinese involved. I mean, it's always the case that war takes control of reason. And what is making people giddy now is they, and I remember talking as Big New Brzezinski about all this, you know, we wanted to give the Russians their Vietnam
[47:36] in Afghanistan, you know. And now we think we've actually done it. Only it's different Russians, they're not the communists anymore. But we have this idea that we finally have the good war. But on the other hand, Vietnam started as the good war. We were saving people who were going to be persecuted by North Vietnamese communists and they were going to be prevented from praying to their God. You know, it was assumed most of them were
[48:06] Catholics. It was only 10%, you know. But everybody forgets that when we went into Vietnam, we thought we were on the side of the angels protecting people. And what happens is that war has a way of hurting everyone and making monsters of everyone. And innocent people get killed by both sides. And I keep using this word giddy. And I want to end this by just having a last, might as well go to the 50 minute mark. I want to end it by just a last word of caution
[48:41] about nuclear war, which Ray McGovern brought up. And back when you were briefing Presidents of the United States, Ray McGovern, there was an awareness that nuclear war is different. It's different. It's the end of all humanity on this planet. Now, you almost don't hear that. I'm going to let you end the show. Both of you were just a short response. But really, what happened to our fear of nuclear war? And why is it, I mean, it's real there now,
[49:11] particularly if your whole policy is to humiliate Putin and have regime change. Why do we think this enemy that we're describing is worse than Hitler would not use these weapons? Well, let me let me simply say it this way. Nuclear usage is when it stops being giddy. Okay. The problem is that giddiness is a function of sophomores. Sophomores are the people,
[49:45] well, they're rising juniors now. They're the people advising Biden. They don't know from nothing as we used to say in the Bronx. Now, you and I, Bob, go back to the time when we hit on the desks, right? escape the radiation and all that kind of stuff. And my proudest moment was being in Moscow for the signing of that anti-ballistic missile treaty. That gave us a balance of terror, but it was a balance. Now, we have people mouthing off about limited use of nuclear weapons. We have a
[50:20] situation in Russia where they do not have a good early warning system. We have submarines with these little nukes now. I'm, you know, I'm aghast at the lack of appreciation of the momentousness of this situation. And I think you're absolutely right. When we have the head of national intelligence testifying, as she did just last week, saying, look, we don't want a nuclear war, we think that one of the things that could lead to a nuclear war is if Putin is defeated in
[50:52] Ukraine, and therefore, she didn't say this to her credit because she's not a policymaker, but the policy is, therefore, let's put Putin on his back. Let's defeat him in Ukraine. My God, you do the syllogism. It doesn't make any sense to a mature human being who knows anything about nuclear war. Well, John, you probably, you don't need to add to that, or do you want to? No. No, I concur. I'm afraid of nuclear war, and I'm sickened that
[51:29] that, you know, the people that I, whose intellects I trusted are not. Okay. On that note, let's end this. This is for this edition of Sheer Intelligence. I want to thank the folks at KCRW for posting the show, Christopher Ho. Joshua Sheer, our executive producer, Natasha Akimu, who writes the introduction, the JWK Foundation, which helps with some of the funding and the memory of a very independent journalist, Gene Stein. And thank you guys for hanging in there.
[52:02] And you may be only a couple of them, but I think we've got to listen to you a bit. So let's end it on that and see you next week with another edition of Sheer Intelligence.