Abdullah Najjar 0:00
My conversation with Lindsay Moran. Lindsay is a former Case Officer for the CIA she was in the Clandestine Service where she specialized in the recruitment of foreign spies, otherwise known as human intelligence. She served from 1998 to 2003 in 2005 more, and published her memoir, blowing my cover my life as a spy, where she detailed her time and the agency. Currently, she is a freelance writer, and some of her articles have appeared at the New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, it is certainly an honor to have Lindsay on the show, and I hope you would enjoy our conversation together. I'm glad you got to do this with me and accept my invitation, because I think we have a mutual connection. Elana very think we brought her up earlier before the recording, and it's interesting that her story maybe has some similarities to yours in terms of perhaps, maybe opinions about the agency. And I know that I've had many guests on my show where they may have perhaps taken a different path or spent more more years in the agency. I think, I think he spent five years in the CIA, if I'm not mistaken, that's right, yeah. And so I figured maybe we can, before we highlight your post agency life, maybe you can perhaps take us back to what the inspiration that drove you to join? I think for many, many, many people had different, different drives, and I'd love to hear what drove you to join.
Lindsay Moran 1:52
Yeah, well, I often get the question, you know, how did the CIA recruit you? And I think there's a common misperception that the CIA goes out and, you know, plucks promising young operatives off the street and whisks them away and and certainly the agency does have an active program of targeting individuals that they think would be good for the agency and approaching them. But in my case, I actually approached the CIA myself. And this was many years ago. When I say I approached the CIA, I mean I wrote a cover letter, typed it up, printed it out, folded it in thirds and put it in an envelope and snail mail. CIA Langley, Virginia, so that was the early 1990s you know, before now, everything's done online, um, but I to be honest, it had always been a childhood dream of mine to be, uh, to be a CIA officer. I grew up in the DC area. And although my father was not in the CIA, he did do top secret work for the US government, designing ships for the Navy. And so I kind of grew up in this very DC centric environment, or the DMV, in the world of top secret work. As I said, my father did not work for the CIA, but definitely had contacts that worked there. And I would travel a lot with my father on business and go overseas, and he was always very counter intelligence, savvy. You know, he taught me how to pack a suitcase in a particular her sneaky way, so that you would be able to tell if somebody had tampered with your suitcase. You know, I remember like jumping on and off trains with him. And also, you know, I grew up in the specter of the Cold War. It was the the height of the Cold War, or the, I guess you could call it the tail end of the Cold War. But definitely the Cold War with the Soviet Union very much shaped my upbringing and and that was an era of kind of spy versus spy, a little bit different than, you know, then, when we segued into the war on terrorism. And so there was this, I think, romanticism attached to spy work and glamor. And I was also extremely patriotic as a kid, and I wanted to serve my country, and so the CIA seemed to me like a perfect way to marry my love of travel and intrigue and adventure with doing something for my country. I'll backtrack a little bit to say that even as a very young little girl, you. When I was, like, eight or nine, I read the Harriet the Spy books, and was kind of obsessed with this character, Harriet, the spy, fashioned my life after her and spied on however there was to spy on, which was really no one you know, my brother and the neighbors, the elderly neighbors, like I spy on them in their bedroom. Was ever going on. But anyway, yeah, or different from a lot of people who end up in intelligence, whether they come from the military or the CIA, approaches them. For me, it was really the realization of of a lifelong childhood dream that led me to approach the CIA.
Abdullah Najjar 5:36
I think a lot of I hear many people talk about their experience in the agency to say that we may have had a romanticized image of what it's like to be on the inside, but then as you enter into the agency, you start to see maybe a different sort of, I guess, life than what is generally depicted In movies or in Hollywood. It's just very, very different, which I'm sure, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 6:04
when you're when you're inside, the curtain gets pulled back pretty quickly. And, you know, this organization that I think I hit from the outside looking in, I had always imagined to be this, you know, mythical, omnipotent organization and, and the reality is, it's, it's a bureaucracy. It's a big government bureaucracy. You know, you're gonna find a range of folks working there, you know, a range of intellect and talent. And it's also worth noting that the Clandestine Service, the part of the CIA that I was involved with is a very small component of the CIA. So the CIA is secretive about numbers. They net, they they don't disclose how many employees are at the CIA, and they don't disclose how many are in the Clandestine Service. But it is a, it is actually a very small group. And, you know, my, my brother joked at my wedding years ago, yeah, he said Lindsay is the only person who could have the most exciting job in the world and leave it because it was, like, too boring. And that sort of captures a little bit of, like my, my ultimate disillusionment with the CIA, because that is true. You know, sometimes I look back and I'm like, wow, I really did, you know I had the most exciting job in the world, but the most exciting job in the world isn't even that exciting.
Abdullah Najjar 7:35
Oh my gosh. I think that's a very interesting point to bring up, because I think a lot of times people, even outside of CIA, they might have a particular image of a certain professional position, and then once they enter into the company or the corporation, or whatever it is that, you know, this job that they've always dreamed of having, they start to realize that, man, it's just, you know, reality hits you, and then it just becomes more, becomes more of a routine. Maybe things start to become more mundane. But, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 8:10
I mean, if you think about the, you know, any number of jobs, you know, folks who go to law school because they grew up watching, you know, law and order, or law crime, procedurals. And, you know, the same thing with with the world of espionage. I mean, I graduated from Harry at the spy to being having a period where I was really obsessed with the James Bond franchise. And, you know, we'd go watch bond triple features on at the theater. And so, like everyone else, I had this very romanticized, glamorized idea of what being the common vernacular is a spy, but in the CIA would, we would say an Operations Officer. I mean, I wasn't a dummy, you know, but I did. There was a part of me that pictured myself, you know, in a black cat suit, scaling walls and blowing up safes. And the reality, I mean, the reality of being an operations officer is much different. It's, it's interesting. It's still a fascinating career. But it's, it's, it's not about, you know, techie gadgets, and it's not about weapons or high speed car chases or boat chases or jumping off trains. It's, you know, it's more the slow, mundane process of developing relationships with people and trying to elicit information out of people and and with every meeting that you have with a source where you're gathering intelligence, or every operational thing that you do, every mission, mini mission that you go on, there's a lot of paperwork, a lot of paperwork that goes into the planning of that mission for security reasons, or the I say, mission, but really, even just a meeting, and then a lot of paperwork. Work afterwards to record exactly what happened at that meeting and in a myriad of formats. There's also a lot of driving. You know, before you do anything operational, you have to conduct what's called a surveillance detection route to make sure you're not being followed. So you know, the simplest task that you're doing, you're going to recon a spot that you might have a meeting later. You're before you even go to do that recon, you want to do a surveillance detection route, which can be, you know, anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours or even more, where you're ensuring that you're not being followed. And so, like, it kind of, it sounds kind of sexy, like, oh, you know, like I might be followed, and I'm looking to see if I'm being followed. In reality, it's like, you know, hours of driving around,
Abdullah Najjar 10:52
good lord, I think that's the sign that most people perhaps, are not necessarily exposed to, because they might think it's, it's more of like the, you know, the guns and bullets and, you know, I think that's if that's the case, then maybe that's when you're blown and your cover is blown. If it's like, you know, yeah, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 11:09
if you're, if you're running down a dark alley, like, you know, and being pursued, something has gone wrong. Well, it's
Abdullah Najjar 11:19
interesting. You brought up the human connection element, because I think I've had conversations with Jim Lawler about this, and he mentioned how some some of the connections that he made were genuine, and other connections may have been artificial. They were manufactured. What's I'm sorry,
Lindsay Moran 11:43
no, yeah. I was just, I'm wondering that, yeah, yeah.
Abdullah Najjar 11:45
So I was, I was interested to ask you about this from from your own experience. How, how would you describe that human connection that you formed, and what would you learn about, maybe humans in general, through that type of work that you were doing, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 12:05
yeah, it's really sort of, you know, the crux of human human intelligence is, is forming connections and relationships with other human beings. And, you know, the the interesting thing, and it's a challenge when you're working as a CIA officer, is that these are really, at the end of the day, these are transactional relationships. That is, the people that you are developing and forming relationships with. You're doing it for a reason. You know, the the loftier causes you're you're trying to get information that the US government wants or needs to keep America and Americans safe. The reality, oftentimes, is that you're doing it because your career depends on it. You know, your progression, your professional progression as a CIA operations officer depends on the number of, we used to say the number of scalps you get, and the number of scalps you get. You know, it's kind of a like, Yeah, this is sort of a brutal metaphor, but that means the the number of sources that you're able to recruit and and the the stark reality is that the number, the quantity of recruitments you get, is more important to your career progression than, say, the quality, just because the number translates better on a, you know, on a performance review. But anyway, on the one hand, these relationships are strictly transactional, and they're meant to be strictly transactional. So, you know, you you should not develop, uh, feelings, certainly not romantic feelings. But even, you know, even kind of friendships for the the people who are your sources, and yet that uh, mandate flies against your basic humanity. I mean, one of the reasons that I think I was successfully, you know, that I was able to be hired by the CIA for the client desk and service, and that I was for the time that I was there, was successful at recruiting foreign agents, is that, you know, I'm a people person. I like people. I like people to like me. I like developing relationships. And so it's a challenge to develop these relationships and to manage the relationships and control the relationships. Have the relationships not feel like they're transactional to the to the person, to the source. Have that source really feel like they're valued by you, and at the same time, when it's time to terminate those relationships. And by terminate, I don't mean to kill the person, but you know the relationship is over. You know you got to walk away and and those are and that relationship is, for all intents and purposes, over. Sure, and so you have to go into this career, I think, with a knowledge and acceptance that your job is to use people. That's it. You know like you're that that is your job. You are. You don't have to like them, but you do have to take care of them and ensure their safety, and you have to ensure that they're going to keep giving you information. And you have to one of the things that I always argue is that, you know, spies are just humans. And one of the things that I don't like about now, you know, I've sort of turned on the Bond franchise. Like, I don't like the character of James Bond, you know, I think he's sexist, you know, I hope he drops dead of a venereal disease in the next iteration. But one of the reasons I never liked that is because it doesn't show the real human side of an intelligence officer, which I think is very real, but in a way, to be the quintessential, you know, most successful operative. Maybe you do have to have that coldness and callousness that a bond character has, and really be able to rise above any kind of genuine human emotion and connection.
Abdullah Najjar 16:20
You know, it's interesting how the when I think of about relationships and connections with people, if I think about it too deeply, I might arrive at the conclusion that almost every person in our life sort of serves a purpose in a way, but maybe Sometimes we don't really think about that consciously. And there's, there's something about, you know, the human connection when it's genuine, you wouldn't really think about what sort of purpose this person is serving, yeah, you know, like, Is that something you've thought about before? Because I
Lindsay Moran 16:59
Yeah, you know, it's, it's, I think, even though, you know, I left the CIA many years ago, more than 20 years ago now, but in many ways, I still do think like a spy, and in some ways also conduct my life like a spy. And I'll tell you how, you know, part of it is like compartmentalization. Like I was trained to compartmentalize different parts of my life at the CIA, and I've kind of found a comfort in that. And so, you know, to this day, I lead a sort of very compartmentalized like, you know, it's like, I have my identity as a mom, and then, you know, I have my identity as a writer, you know, my identity as a public speaker. And I don't really, you know, I keep those parts of my life very kind of compartmentalized, but I think you're absolutely right. Like, if you look at spy relationships, you know that that handler, CIA, handler and source, okay, yeah, it's transactional to a certain extent, but no relationship is without like, affection or or understanding and, and if you look at your relationships in your own life, many the each person in your life you know serves a purpose. And there's this saying, and I'm sure I'm going to mess it up, about relationships, you know, it's, it's like, oh, shoot, I'm gonna mess it up. It's fine. It's a reason, a reason or a season, like my mom would always say to me about, like, failed love relationships, you know, there's a reason for that relationship, or there's a season for that relationship, and and so that's, that's very much kind of mirrors, like the optic of a CIA officer, like, when you have these sources, there's a reason and a season. And I think the same holds true for many relationships in our lives. Some not so much. You know you have kids, and it's like, you know my kids are my greatest source of joy in my life, but it but nothing about that feels transactional to me. You know, it all feels very generic and natural.
Abdullah Najjar 19:26
Yeah, no, that's right. I think they there should be, I think, category of people that we're surrounded by, where, where the connection or the relationship is very, very genuine. And I think, I think one of the things that really fascinate me about your work, or perhaps case officers in general, is that they're, they're able to not just compartmentalize, but also do. Do their work and at the same time still operate, maybe as just regular human beings. You know, like you would never suspect that this person is capable, like from the outside, like you as an observer, like you wouldn't think that this person is capable of just operating regularly and then do all these sorts of things at the same time. It's just, it's fascinating. I Yeah, yeah.
Lindsay Moran 20:26
And I, you know, I know you had Alana Berry is Barry, the author of the peacock and the sparrow, on your show, and she's a dear friend of mine. We were at the agency at the same time, and it's funny, I met her for coffee the other day in DC, and, you know, we're just sitting there having girl talk and stuff and and we're very much kindred spirits. And it dawned on me, like I doubt anyone would look over and think, Wow. I think those two women are like CIA operatives, like you wouldn't suspect. And I think that is, that is one of I've spoken in the past a lot about both the advantages and the challenges of being a woman in the world of intelligence. It very you know, to this day, you know, I know we've come a long way, or maybe we haven't. I was gonna say we've come a long way in terms of sexism in this country, but I'm not entirely convinced of that, but, but I would say, like people really rarely suspect women of being operatives, you know, of and so I do think women, in many ways, are natural at the in their ability to elicit information without raising eyebrows or without raising suspicions.
Abdullah Najjar 21:56
Well, this, this, I guess our perceptions sometimes can be of sexist perceptions can be, and it's funny for me to say it, but can be of benefit in a certain sort of scenario. Maybe in this my world, that can be beneficial, but, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 22:17
beneficial in a lot of ways, like just, you know, as a woman. I mean, just the reality is, most of our targets around the world are men, that just not always. I mean, I definitely recruited women or handled women, but you know, the sexism pervades globally, and so most of the people you know with access to information or or placement to power that we're targeting are men, and as a woman, particularly, like, when I was at the CI, I was a young woman too. So like, men are very rarely going to tell you, yeah, I don't want to meet you for coffee. Or, you know, I had like, it was easier. It was much easier to secure that first meeting. It becomes challenging down the road, because men, in their, you know, infinite, either like self delusion or whatever, will always assume that you're romantically interested. So even, you know, even after I got to that point where I would break cover and be like, alright, this is business relationship. Business relationship. You know, I'm working for US intelligence. You had to, you had to really walk that fine line between flattering a man playing upon his ego, and the different tactics we use to recruit a human source, making him feel good, making him want to meet with you, but at the same time, like making it clear, okay, we're never going to sleep together. So being, yeah, being a being a female ops officer, it's like you've got a lot of things working in your favor, but you also have a lot more challenges than men do in that world.
Abdullah Najjar 24:01
It's interesting that I think the qualities that we might think the CIA is looking for in a person might be different than the reality of what they're looking for. And maybe here I would like to highlight one, one thing that I had a former guest of mine share, Jim Lawler about his his recruitment process, and in one instance of that, of the story that he was sharing with me, he said that this person, as he was approaching him on campus, you know, they had, like a recruitment, sort of, like one of those ceremonies, like career fairs or whatever, like this person had a conversation with Jim, and he said that he told Jim that, you know, you would be, you would be great in the sort of Clandestine Service, or, you know, he told him that you'd be good at that. And Jim didn't even know what that was, but it's, it's just there are certain things that maybe recruiters see or look for in the person. And you indicated earlier that you were a people person, so that kind of was one thing that gave you maybe an edge over other candidates. But in addition to the fact that you might be able to elicit information more, perhaps better than maybe a male counterpart all else equal. What do you think were other traits about you that made them believe that you would be an ideal candidate for a position in the contestant service? Yeah?
Lindsay Moran 25:43
You know, the agency, when it's recruiting case officers, is looking for some different qualities. They generally want extroverts. And I want to talk about that for a second, because it's interesting. You think, okay, that makes sense. You want an extrovert. Want an extrovert. You want someone who can go talk to anyone or everyone. And that's true. That's who I am. You know, I can talk to anyone, and I will talk to anyone, but interestingly, sometimes the most successful gatherers of information are actually introverts, and the reason being that you know someone like me, I'm a talker and so and I don't like silence. If there's silence, I'm like, Oh, this is awkward. I better fill the silence. And one thing I had to train myself to do as a ops officer was to sit back and let that silence sit for a minute, because someone's going to fill the silence. And if it's not going to be me, it's got to be the other person. And so even though I'm very much an extrovert, and I think most CIA operations officers are, some of us really had to, like we did, have to be trained onto how to listen and how to sit back and not, you know, not be the storyteller, not jump in and propel the conversation forward. Because, if you're quiet, and it's a trick of journalists, you know, to give it a beat before you jump in with the next question, because that that might compel someone to talk more. So the introversion, extroversion thing the CIA tends to for its operations officers, tends to hire extroverts. But there is that I think introversion can be a tool that you can use. But I would say the thing that is most important is, and it's very simple. It's kind of like street smarts. It's like the ability to think quickly on your feet. Um, you can put hours, days, months into planning and operation, and something is going to go wrong, you know, because there's, there's all kinds of factors, there's other human beings, there's weather, there's internal security services, you know, there's missed trains. And as I think one thing that the CIA is looking for, and definitely, I think a quality that I have is that kind of, like street smarts that, like, all right, when this happens, I'm going to do something, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to be a deer in the headlights. So that ability to think very quickly on your feet, and part and parcel of that ability, I think, is an adaptability, being able to hang out with people of all different backgrounds, you know, from the Prime Minister to the plumber, and being the kind of person that is not off putting to, you know, not coming across as too much of an intellect If you're with working class folks, and, you know, not coming across as crass or something, if you know you're with highly educated or folks, and so that adaptability, you have to be a chameleon. And you know, it's like, oh, okay, well, then who is your Who are you really and so I think one of the things that the agency looks for people who are adaptable that way, and who have those kind of people skills, but one of the tolls I would say that the work takes on you, is that you do get to a point where you're like, huh, who am I? You know, like, what do I really stand for? What kind of person am I really at my core, and when you're when you're living a lie, as you necessarily are when you're undercover and in the Clandestine Service, like, it's hard to just switch gears and go back to like, Oh, I'm just regular Lindsey, and I'll never forget, like, when I. First started with agency, and I had a and I hadn't even been through training or out in the field yet or anything, and I had a female mentor and and she who was a veteran case officer, and she said to me, you know, you have to be careful, because in this job, you start lying for your job, and you end up lying about everything, things that you don't have to lie about. And I just thought, well, that's weird. I wouldn't do that. Like, you know, I've got my job. I lie about what I do to other people who don't know what I do. But other than that, like, I can be an honest person. And then, you know, less than, less than a year, I realized, Oh, wow. Like, I've become a kind of person who lies about everything, because it's the default. It's like that is, I had become so programmed to have a cover story, to have a reason for being where I am or doing something, that even something completely innocuous was almost unable to just be honest about it. Wow.
Abdullah Najjar 30:58
And that that sort of make it difficult post transition, to have to, you know, to have to go back to your, maybe old you prior to the CIA. Because I think these two like, I'm sure, these stages of life, I mean, you were completely like, you're experiencing rapid changes. You know you're changing at a very rapid pace. Compare, if we were, say, compare it to your counterparts who maybe did not go through a similar journey, years go by, and perhaps they don't experience a level of change that you have. And, yeah, that doesn't even take into account the fact that you get to travel or go to this place or go to that place, and you know, you're experiencing things at a very accelerated pace, and your aperture starts to open up. And then you're, you're just in environments that make you grow. You know, you're changing, and you're changing things, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 31:54
and it's, you know, again, I, I'll never have, you know, I did get disillusioned with the agency, and ultimately feel like this is not where I want to spend my career. That was largely for, I would say, ideological reasons, but I certainly have, you know, no regrets about having that experience, having served my country in that way, and also like gaining as much personally as I did from doing that kind of work. And I think a big thing, a big way in which I've evolved is I joined the CIA because I was very patriotic and wanted to serve my country. And you know, was very much like American Girl, you know. And part of that was, I think, growing up in the specter of the Cold War, where there were very clear delineations between good and bad. But I would say, having had the experience of living overseas, of recruiting foreign sources, of manipulating people in the way that I did to get information from my government, of seeing some abuse within our own government, and unethical or immoral policies or practices turned me from someone who really was motivated to serve my country to more of like a global citizen with a much greater understanding of, like, how intelligence works, and how, like America is just another country. You know, we have our we have our own motivations. We have our our own sort of American ethos, although that's, you know, very much in flux these days. But, you know, I started to look at life more from the optic of someone who wasn't an American. And, you know, seeing like living and operating in parts of the world where there wasn't freedom, where there was much more corruption than we had here in the United States and and just kind of leaving the CIA with much more of an optic of like a global citizen than just an American.
Abdullah Najjar 34:18
That's very interesting. I just, I was just, it's interesting how you mentioned the some of the things that made you disillusioned with the agency, and that got me thinking about how I think in the recruitment process, they, I don't think they may have expected that you would leave in such a, you know, in a maybe a relatively short period of time, right? Maybe they expected you to have this sort of your career, 1020, years inside the agency. But I think a lot of times when I listen to some of the or when I talk to people. That have been in the inside for a while, they say that there's something called Moral flexibility that the recruiters look for in a potential candidate. And I might ask you here to maybe tell us a few things about how you viewed yourself. Then, if that's okay, right? You know, if you thought that I was moral, morally flexible. But then after you were in the inside, it started to dawn on you that, you know, the clear, maybe, delineations of what's right and wrong. Yeah, that, yeah. I
Lindsay Moran 35:37
think one of the things that I discovered about myself is that I'm not so comfortable operating in the gray, you know. And I during the recruitment process, I know that was discussed, that this is a job where you you have to be comfortable operating in the gray, because what you're doing is, you know, it's, it's kind of dirty work. And for me, I could always justify it to myself if I believed in the higher good, which was that, like, Okay, I'm really serving my country, and I'm and I'm, I'm helping keep America and Americans safe. And then the reality on the inside is like a little more of a cog in a wheel than anything else, and which direction is this wheel going in. And then am I comfortable with that? And, you know, I left the agency in 2003 and I had been, I had been in Russian language lessons full time in preparation for a follow on tour where I was going to be targeting Russians. And I was taken out of Russian language relation, Russian language lessons, and surged into Iraqi operations, not in Baghdad, but in at headquarters, providing support to our our folks who were, you know, get preparing for the invasion of Iraq. And this was not an area that I wasn't an expert on WMD, and I wasn't an expert on the Middle East or Iraq, but, you know, it was an all hands on deck type environment at that point. And I quickly did speak to experts who were very candid with me. Expert within the CIA that, you know, we don't have any evidence of WMD, and that there isn't a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. So all of this stuff that I was seeing, you know, say, in the Washington Post in the morning, before I left for work, that was, you know, we had evidence of WMD. That's why we were going into Iraq. There was this link between Iraq and al Qaeda, and then I'd get to the CIA, where the folks who really knew the answers, and they told me, yeah, that's not true. And that kind of began, sort of like the accelerated disillusionment with the organization. And I wrote about that in my book, blowing my cover, I was actually surprised that the agency did not redact that portion of my book, what I didn't write about in my book, because I knew the agency never would have, never would have cleared it is that the real reason that I left the CIA, or the straw that broke the camel's back for me, was the torture program at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. And this goes back, I think, to your your point about kind of moral flexibility. Yes, I was aware at the agency that I had to have more flexibility of thought be able to operate on the gray. But I remember, during the recruitment process, a woman who was a part of a team that had was interviewing me, and she said, You know what, when you join, when you're inside the agency, if you ever see something that's wrong, you need to be vocal about it and and she really comforted me. Those words really comforted me, because it made me feel like, okay, I'm going into an organization that, no matter all the secrecy, and you know, everything's shrouded in secrecy, that that really like there is a moral compass within the organization, and I think the torture program and and other things I saw at the agency made me realize that, oh, wow, yeah, that that moral compass is actually a skewed or it's broken, and that is not something I'm comfortable, certainly not something I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing, You know, and grappling with. So I think you're very right in that, like, I went into this with this idea that, like, I've got moral flexibility. I can lie to people who love me, I can lie to anyone for bigger cause, and then realizing that, yeah, but I can't actually work for an organization that I feel like is. Uh, violating international law or, you know, doing things that are just fundamentally wrong.
Abdullah Najjar 40:06
Yeah, and how, how would you describe those early years, post your post the end of your career at the CIA, how difficult was it to go back to just normal life, after these big realizations, you know, these uh, epiphanies about where you stand on life, and where you stand when it comes to the agency, and I guess you know the going back to, maybe the, if I could probably put it in quotation marks, the mundane, right? Going back, yeah, like, how, how was that like for you? And then obviously, publishing your memo, I
Lindsay Moran 40:46
would say that's still a struggle. You know, I'm 20 years out now, and I'm still, in many ways, still conduct my life a little bit like a CIA officer, still, you know, still am attracted to the intrigue and subterfuge. I routinely use disguises, like my kids and my friends are just like, What is wrong with you? Because many, many times I've, like, showed up at something in disguise. You know, one time, like, flew to London to surprise two close friends of mine and sat with them for a good like 30 minutes in a red wig pretending to be a woman who was like being chased by Russians in a bar. Oh, my God. And it took them a while to realize it was me. So, you know, I would be lying to say that there isn't an aspect of that life that I do really miss. I miss I miss being in the know. So much is happening in the United States right now that is really, there's a lot of upheaval, and there's a, you know, from the outside, looking in, or trying to look in. I'm really, really sort of curious what the vibe is at the CIA right now and vibe at the FBI, because I can't really imagine it. So I do miss that. I do miss that feeling of kind of, you know, at least having my my thumb on the pulse of the world in a way that just really isn't possible if you're just an ordinary citizen, yeah,
Abdullah Najjar 42:23
and it's like, it's like, I think the closest, I guess, the closest experience that I could conjure up in my mind where I have to, like, process things I think, or like, have to really contemplate the end of a big journey. I think it was for me after I graduated from Lebanon, or spending like, four years and then going back to my country, Libya. It's just, it's like four years that were quite pivotal in my life, because I left when I was 17 and came back when I was 22 and so those were, you know, those were very years that were filled with so many different experiences, and, you know, so much growth and so much that's that needed to be processed. And then, you know, I spend a year back home, and then I go, go to the US and start a different journey. So it's like these, these, these moments are, are, are very real, but at the same time, sometimes, even though you might want to give him closure, remnants of these experiences linger still, and they manifest differently at different points of time, I guess.
Lindsay Moran 43:39
And you know, what's interesting, I think, in your experience, is that, you know, people think that the CIA has has a real impact on the live lives of Americans, or, you know, people will always say, like, is the CIA listening to my calls or whatever? And you know, the truth of the matter is, like, the CIA doesn't muck around with Americans like that's not our mandate. You know, we're not law enforcement. You know, we're our focus is on foreign intelligence and for recruiting foreigners and but Lebanon and Libya, you know, those are countries that really the populations have the past, the present and the future have been manipulated by Western intelligence, and so, you know your I think curiosity about the way that intelligence and human intelligence works like it makes sense, because that has had like direct impact on the political aspirations and the political reality of where you're from, you know,
Abdullah Najjar 44:49
right? No, you're right. And that, that I think, is what triggered it these experiences and like traveling and being being open to. To, I guess, being open to the to being uncomfortable, wanting to experience the world, wanting to talk to people. Curiosity. You know, it's one of those things where I it goes back to something you were saying earlier. I I'm curious in all types of people, even outside of the podcast, the I might have a category of people that I'm talking to on the podcast. But outside of that, my connections with people vary. You know, I I talk to people from different sides of the aisle. You know that people in different backgrounds. I'm just genuinely interested, I guess, in humanity. Maybe I wouldn't think that I'm an extrovert, but I think when it comes to socializing with people, I think I might be maybe better than the average person from my home country in doing that, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 45:49
well, there, there's very much a need for the kind of journalism that you're doing, I think, which is elevated above The political and and, you know, talking to all different kinds of people and hearing their perspectives. Because, you know, you know, as well as I, we're, we're in this country and globally, you know, like there is so much rancor and division, and I think, a frustration that I know I feel and that I hear other people voicing, is that, like, nobody's really curious about or listening to other people's optics. It's like, and I'm guilty of this myself, you know that I sort of have my political stance and and I don't really want to hear the other opinions, you know, and it's become like that divided. And I would say another thing that I maybe miss about my my role with the agency in that time in my life, is that, you know, I was living overseas. I was meeting people from all nationalities and backgrounds and and that's the best education you can ever get, and I think that helps you evolve. And I think when we become entrenched in our own optics and our own experience, and we're not exposed to the experiences of others like I do think it erodes our basic humanity. I see you know some of the most intelligent people that I know, people that I went to college with, who were highly educated and intelligent, and in some of the political discussions and arguments that are du jour, like their their rhetoric sounds. So I don't know that. The only word I can think of is like it just it sounds stupid and ugly, you know, and and these are really smart people, so I don't know what the answer is, but I do think the kind of journalism that you're doing, like seeking understanding from people of different backgrounds, like is all to the good. Yeah,
Abdullah Najjar 48:02
yeah. Well, thank you so much Miss Moran for this wonderful conversation. We're approaching 130 and I'm glad we got to do this. And, you know, talk briefly about your background in life. And I'm sure there's a lot more to cover, you know, and perhaps future recordings together.
Lindsay Moran 48:18
Absolutely, I'll come on anytime I love to I am an extrovert, so I love to talk.
Abdullah Najjar 48:25
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
My conversation with Lindsay Moran. Lindsay is a former Case Officer for the CIA she was in the Clandestine Service where she specialized in the recruitment of foreign spies, otherwise known as human intelligence. She served from 1998 to 2003 in 2005 more, and published her memoir, blowing my cover my life as a spy, where she detailed her time and the agency. Currently, she is a freelance writer, and some of her articles have appeared at the New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, it is certainly an honor to have Lindsay on the show, and I hope you would enjoy our conversation together. I'm glad you got to do this with me and accept my invitation, because I think we have a mutual connection. Elana very think we brought her up earlier before the recording, and it's interesting that her story maybe has some similarities to yours in terms of perhaps, maybe opinions about the agency. And I know that I've had many guests on my show where they may have perhaps taken a different path or spent more more years in the agency. I think, I think he spent five years in the CIA, if I'm not mistaken, that's right, yeah. And so I figured maybe we can, before we highlight your post agency life, maybe you can perhaps take us back to what the inspiration that drove you to join? I think for many, many, many people had different, different drives, and I'd love to hear what drove you to join.
Lindsay Moran 1:52
Yeah, well, I often get the question, you know, how did the CIA recruit you? And I think there's a common misperception that the CIA goes out and, you know, plucks promising young operatives off the street and whisks them away and and certainly the agency does have an active program of targeting individuals that they think would be good for the agency and approaching them. But in my case, I actually approached the CIA myself. And this was many years ago. When I say I approached the CIA, I mean I wrote a cover letter, typed it up, printed it out, folded it in thirds and put it in an envelope and snail mail. CIA Langley, Virginia, so that was the early 1990s you know, before now, everything's done online, um, but I to be honest, it had always been a childhood dream of mine to be, uh, to be a CIA officer. I grew up in the DC area. And although my father was not in the CIA, he did do top secret work for the US government, designing ships for the Navy. And so I kind of grew up in this very DC centric environment, or the DMV, in the world of top secret work. As I said, my father did not work for the CIA, but definitely had contacts that worked there. And I would travel a lot with my father on business and go overseas, and he was always very counter intelligence, savvy. You know, he taught me how to pack a suitcase in a particular her sneaky way, so that you would be able to tell if somebody had tampered with your suitcase. You know, I remember like jumping on and off trains with him. And also, you know, I grew up in the specter of the Cold War. It was the the height of the Cold War, or the, I guess you could call it the tail end of the Cold War. But definitely the Cold War with the Soviet Union very much shaped my upbringing and and that was an era of kind of spy versus spy, a little bit different than, you know, then, when we segued into the war on terrorism. And so there was this, I think, romanticism attached to spy work and glamor. And I was also extremely patriotic as a kid, and I wanted to serve my country, and so the CIA seemed to me like a perfect way to marry my love of travel and intrigue and adventure with doing something for my country. I'll backtrack a little bit to say that even as a very young little girl, you. When I was, like, eight or nine, I read the Harriet the Spy books, and was kind of obsessed with this character, Harriet, the spy, fashioned my life after her and spied on however there was to spy on, which was really no one you know, my brother and the neighbors, the elderly neighbors, like I spy on them in their bedroom. Was ever going on. But anyway, yeah, or different from a lot of people who end up in intelligence, whether they come from the military or the CIA, approaches them. For me, it was really the realization of of a lifelong childhood dream that led me to approach the CIA.
Abdullah Najjar 5:36
I think a lot of I hear many people talk about their experience in the agency to say that we may have had a romanticized image of what it's like to be on the inside, but then as you enter into the agency, you start to see maybe a different sort of, I guess, life than what is generally depicted In movies or in Hollywood. It's just very, very different, which I'm sure, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 6:04
when you're when you're inside, the curtain gets pulled back pretty quickly. And, you know, this organization that I think I hit from the outside looking in, I had always imagined to be this, you know, mythical, omnipotent organization and, and the reality is, it's, it's a bureaucracy. It's a big government bureaucracy. You know, you're gonna find a range of folks working there, you know, a range of intellect and talent. And it's also worth noting that the Clandestine Service, the part of the CIA that I was involved with is a very small component of the CIA. So the CIA is secretive about numbers. They net, they they don't disclose how many employees are at the CIA, and they don't disclose how many are in the Clandestine Service. But it is a, it is actually a very small group. And, you know, my, my brother joked at my wedding years ago, yeah, he said Lindsay is the only person who could have the most exciting job in the world and leave it because it was, like, too boring. And that sort of captures a little bit of, like my, my ultimate disillusionment with the CIA, because that is true. You know, sometimes I look back and I'm like, wow, I really did, you know I had the most exciting job in the world, but the most exciting job in the world isn't even that exciting.
Abdullah Najjar 7:35
Oh my gosh. I think that's a very interesting point to bring up, because I think a lot of times people, even outside of CIA, they might have a particular image of a certain professional position, and then once they enter into the company or the corporation, or whatever it is that, you know, this job that they've always dreamed of having, they start to realize that, man, it's just, you know, reality hits you, and then it just becomes more, becomes more of a routine. Maybe things start to become more mundane. But, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 8:10
I mean, if you think about the, you know, any number of jobs, you know, folks who go to law school because they grew up watching, you know, law and order, or law crime, procedurals. And, you know, the same thing with with the world of espionage. I mean, I graduated from Harry at the spy to being having a period where I was really obsessed with the James Bond franchise. And, you know, we'd go watch bond triple features on at the theater. And so, like everyone else, I had this very romanticized, glamorized idea of what being the common vernacular is a spy, but in the CIA would, we would say an Operations Officer. I mean, I wasn't a dummy, you know, but I did. There was a part of me that pictured myself, you know, in a black cat suit, scaling walls and blowing up safes. And the reality, I mean, the reality of being an operations officer is much different. It's, it's interesting. It's still a fascinating career. But it's, it's, it's not about, you know, techie gadgets, and it's not about weapons or high speed car chases or boat chases or jumping off trains. It's, you know, it's more the slow, mundane process of developing relationships with people and trying to elicit information out of people and and with every meeting that you have with a source where you're gathering intelligence, or every operational thing that you do, every mission, mini mission that you go on, there's a lot of paperwork, a lot of paperwork that goes into the planning of that mission for security reasons, or the I say, mission, but really, even just a meeting, and then a lot of paperwork. Work afterwards to record exactly what happened at that meeting and in a myriad of formats. There's also a lot of driving. You know, before you do anything operational, you have to conduct what's called a surveillance detection route to make sure you're not being followed. So you know, the simplest task that you're doing, you're going to recon a spot that you might have a meeting later. You're before you even go to do that recon, you want to do a surveillance detection route, which can be, you know, anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours or even more, where you're ensuring that you're not being followed. And so, like, it kind of, it sounds kind of sexy, like, oh, you know, like I might be followed, and I'm looking to see if I'm being followed. In reality, it's like, you know, hours of driving around,
Abdullah Najjar 10:52
good lord, I think that's the sign that most people perhaps, are not necessarily exposed to, because they might think it's, it's more of like the, you know, the guns and bullets and, you know, I think that's if that's the case, then maybe that's when you're blown and your cover is blown. If it's like, you know, yeah, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 11:09
if you're, if you're running down a dark alley, like, you know, and being pursued, something has gone wrong. Well, it's
Abdullah Najjar 11:19
interesting. You brought up the human connection element, because I think I've had conversations with Jim Lawler about this, and he mentioned how some some of the connections that he made were genuine, and other connections may have been artificial. They were manufactured. What's I'm sorry,
Lindsay Moran 11:43
no, yeah. I was just, I'm wondering that, yeah, yeah.
Abdullah Najjar 11:45
So I was, I was interested to ask you about this from from your own experience. How, how would you describe that human connection that you formed, and what would you learn about, maybe humans in general, through that type of work that you were doing, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 12:05
yeah, it's really sort of, you know, the crux of human human intelligence is, is forming connections and relationships with other human beings. And, you know, the the interesting thing, and it's a challenge when you're working as a CIA officer, is that these are really, at the end of the day, these are transactional relationships. That is, the people that you are developing and forming relationships with. You're doing it for a reason. You know, the the loftier causes you're you're trying to get information that the US government wants or needs to keep America and Americans safe. The reality, oftentimes, is that you're doing it because your career depends on it. You know, your progression, your professional progression as a CIA operations officer depends on the number of, we used to say the number of scalps you get, and the number of scalps you get. You know, it's kind of a like, Yeah, this is sort of a brutal metaphor, but that means the the number of sources that you're able to recruit and and the the stark reality is that the number, the quantity of recruitments you get, is more important to your career progression than, say, the quality, just because the number translates better on a, you know, on a performance review. But anyway, on the one hand, these relationships are strictly transactional, and they're meant to be strictly transactional. So, you know, you you should not develop, uh, feelings, certainly not romantic feelings. But even, you know, even kind of friendships for the the people who are your sources, and yet that uh, mandate flies against your basic humanity. I mean, one of the reasons that I think I was successfully, you know, that I was able to be hired by the CIA for the client desk and service, and that I was for the time that I was there, was successful at recruiting foreign agents, is that, you know, I'm a people person. I like people. I like people to like me. I like developing relationships. And so it's a challenge to develop these relationships and to manage the relationships and control the relationships. Have the relationships not feel like they're transactional to the to the person, to the source. Have that source really feel like they're valued by you, and at the same time, when it's time to terminate those relationships. And by terminate, I don't mean to kill the person, but you know the relationship is over. You know you got to walk away and and those are and that relationship is, for all intents and purposes, over. Sure, and so you have to go into this career, I think, with a knowledge and acceptance that your job is to use people. That's it. You know like you're that that is your job. You are. You don't have to like them, but you do have to take care of them and ensure their safety, and you have to ensure that they're going to keep giving you information. And you have to one of the things that I always argue is that, you know, spies are just humans. And one of the things that I don't like about now, you know, I've sort of turned on the Bond franchise. Like, I don't like the character of James Bond, you know, I think he's sexist, you know, I hope he drops dead of a venereal disease in the next iteration. But one of the reasons I never liked that is because it doesn't show the real human side of an intelligence officer, which I think is very real, but in a way, to be the quintessential, you know, most successful operative. Maybe you do have to have that coldness and callousness that a bond character has, and really be able to rise above any kind of genuine human emotion and connection.
Abdullah Najjar 16:20
You know, it's interesting how the when I think of about relationships and connections with people, if I think about it too deeply, I might arrive at the conclusion that almost every person in our life sort of serves a purpose in a way, but maybe Sometimes we don't really think about that consciously. And there's, there's something about, you know, the human connection when it's genuine, you wouldn't really think about what sort of purpose this person is serving, yeah, you know, like, Is that something you've thought about before? Because I
Lindsay Moran 16:59
Yeah, you know, it's, it's, I think, even though, you know, I left the CIA many years ago, more than 20 years ago now, but in many ways, I still do think like a spy, and in some ways also conduct my life like a spy. And I'll tell you how, you know, part of it is like compartmentalization. Like I was trained to compartmentalize different parts of my life at the CIA, and I've kind of found a comfort in that. And so, you know, to this day, I lead a sort of very compartmentalized like, you know, it's like, I have my identity as a mom, and then, you know, I have my identity as a writer, you know, my identity as a public speaker. And I don't really, you know, I keep those parts of my life very kind of compartmentalized, but I think you're absolutely right. Like, if you look at spy relationships, you know that that handler, CIA, handler and source, okay, yeah, it's transactional to a certain extent, but no relationship is without like, affection or or understanding and, and if you look at your relationships in your own life, many the each person in your life you know serves a purpose. And there's this saying, and I'm sure I'm going to mess it up, about relationships, you know, it's, it's like, oh, shoot, I'm gonna mess it up. It's fine. It's a reason, a reason or a season, like my mom would always say to me about, like, failed love relationships, you know, there's a reason for that relationship, or there's a season for that relationship, and and so that's, that's very much kind of mirrors, like the optic of a CIA officer, like, when you have these sources, there's a reason and a season. And I think the same holds true for many relationships in our lives. Some not so much. You know you have kids, and it's like, you know my kids are my greatest source of joy in my life, but it but nothing about that feels transactional to me. You know, it all feels very generic and natural.
Abdullah Najjar 19:26
Yeah, no, that's right. I think they there should be, I think, category of people that we're surrounded by, where, where the connection or the relationship is very, very genuine. And I think, I think one of the things that really fascinate me about your work, or perhaps case officers in general, is that they're, they're able to not just compartmentalize, but also do. Do their work and at the same time still operate, maybe as just regular human beings. You know, like you would never suspect that this person is capable, like from the outside, like you as an observer, like you wouldn't think that this person is capable of just operating regularly and then do all these sorts of things at the same time. It's just, it's fascinating. I Yeah, yeah.
Lindsay Moran 20:26
And I, you know, I know you had Alana Berry is Barry, the author of the peacock and the sparrow, on your show, and she's a dear friend of mine. We were at the agency at the same time, and it's funny, I met her for coffee the other day in DC, and, you know, we're just sitting there having girl talk and stuff and and we're very much kindred spirits. And it dawned on me, like I doubt anyone would look over and think, Wow. I think those two women are like CIA operatives, like you wouldn't suspect. And I think that is, that is one of I've spoken in the past a lot about both the advantages and the challenges of being a woman in the world of intelligence. It very you know, to this day, you know, I know we've come a long way, or maybe we haven't. I was gonna say we've come a long way in terms of sexism in this country, but I'm not entirely convinced of that, but, but I would say, like people really rarely suspect women of being operatives, you know, of and so I do think women, in many ways, are natural at the in their ability to elicit information without raising eyebrows or without raising suspicions.
Abdullah Najjar 21:56
Well, this, this, I guess our perceptions sometimes can be of sexist perceptions can be, and it's funny for me to say it, but can be of benefit in a certain sort of scenario. Maybe in this my world, that can be beneficial, but, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 22:17
beneficial in a lot of ways, like just, you know, as a woman. I mean, just the reality is, most of our targets around the world are men, that just not always. I mean, I definitely recruited women or handled women, but you know, the sexism pervades globally, and so most of the people you know with access to information or or placement to power that we're targeting are men, and as a woman, particularly, like, when I was at the CI, I was a young woman too. So like, men are very rarely going to tell you, yeah, I don't want to meet you for coffee. Or, you know, I had like, it was easier. It was much easier to secure that first meeting. It becomes challenging down the road, because men, in their, you know, infinite, either like self delusion or whatever, will always assume that you're romantically interested. So even, you know, even after I got to that point where I would break cover and be like, alright, this is business relationship. Business relationship. You know, I'm working for US intelligence. You had to, you had to really walk that fine line between flattering a man playing upon his ego, and the different tactics we use to recruit a human source, making him feel good, making him want to meet with you, but at the same time, like making it clear, okay, we're never going to sleep together. So being, yeah, being a being a female ops officer, it's like you've got a lot of things working in your favor, but you also have a lot more challenges than men do in that world.
Abdullah Najjar 24:01
It's interesting that I think the qualities that we might think the CIA is looking for in a person might be different than the reality of what they're looking for. And maybe here I would like to highlight one, one thing that I had a former guest of mine share, Jim Lawler about his his recruitment process, and in one instance of that, of the story that he was sharing with me, he said that this person, as he was approaching him on campus, you know, they had, like a recruitment, sort of, like one of those ceremonies, like career fairs or whatever, like this person had a conversation with Jim, and he said that he told Jim that, you know, you would be, you would be great in the sort of Clandestine Service, or, you know, he told him that you'd be good at that. And Jim didn't even know what that was, but it's, it's just there are certain things that maybe recruiters see or look for in the person. And you indicated earlier that you were a people person, so that kind of was one thing that gave you maybe an edge over other candidates. But in addition to the fact that you might be able to elicit information more, perhaps better than maybe a male counterpart all else equal. What do you think were other traits about you that made them believe that you would be an ideal candidate for a position in the contestant service? Yeah?
Lindsay Moran 25:43
You know, the agency, when it's recruiting case officers, is looking for some different qualities. They generally want extroverts. And I want to talk about that for a second, because it's interesting. You think, okay, that makes sense. You want an extrovert. Want an extrovert. You want someone who can go talk to anyone or everyone. And that's true. That's who I am. You know, I can talk to anyone, and I will talk to anyone, but interestingly, sometimes the most successful gatherers of information are actually introverts, and the reason being that you know someone like me, I'm a talker and so and I don't like silence. If there's silence, I'm like, Oh, this is awkward. I better fill the silence. And one thing I had to train myself to do as a ops officer was to sit back and let that silence sit for a minute, because someone's going to fill the silence. And if it's not going to be me, it's got to be the other person. And so even though I'm very much an extrovert, and I think most CIA operations officers are, some of us really had to, like we did, have to be trained onto how to listen and how to sit back and not, you know, not be the storyteller, not jump in and propel the conversation forward. Because, if you're quiet, and it's a trick of journalists, you know, to give it a beat before you jump in with the next question, because that that might compel someone to talk more. So the introversion, extroversion thing the CIA tends to for its operations officers, tends to hire extroverts. But there is that I think introversion can be a tool that you can use. But I would say the thing that is most important is, and it's very simple. It's kind of like street smarts. It's like the ability to think quickly on your feet. Um, you can put hours, days, months into planning and operation, and something is going to go wrong, you know, because there's, there's all kinds of factors, there's other human beings, there's weather, there's internal security services, you know, there's missed trains. And as I think one thing that the CIA is looking for, and definitely, I think a quality that I have is that kind of, like street smarts that, like, all right, when this happens, I'm going to do something, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to be a deer in the headlights. So that ability to think very quickly on your feet, and part and parcel of that ability, I think, is an adaptability, being able to hang out with people of all different backgrounds, you know, from the Prime Minister to the plumber, and being the kind of person that is not off putting to, you know, not coming across as too much of an intellect If you're with working class folks, and, you know, not coming across as crass or something, if you know you're with highly educated or folks, and so that adaptability, you have to be a chameleon. And you know, it's like, oh, okay, well, then who is your Who are you really and so I think one of the things that the agency looks for people who are adaptable that way, and who have those kind of people skills, but one of the tolls I would say that the work takes on you, is that you do get to a point where you're like, huh, who am I? You know, like, what do I really stand for? What kind of person am I really at my core, and when you're when you're living a lie, as you necessarily are when you're undercover and in the Clandestine Service, like, it's hard to just switch gears and go back to like, Oh, I'm just regular Lindsey, and I'll never forget, like, when I. First started with agency, and I had a and I hadn't even been through training or out in the field yet or anything, and I had a female mentor and and she who was a veteran case officer, and she said to me, you know, you have to be careful, because in this job, you start lying for your job, and you end up lying about everything, things that you don't have to lie about. And I just thought, well, that's weird. I wouldn't do that. Like, you know, I've got my job. I lie about what I do to other people who don't know what I do. But other than that, like, I can be an honest person. And then, you know, less than, less than a year, I realized, Oh, wow. Like, I've become a kind of person who lies about everything, because it's the default. It's like that is, I had become so programmed to have a cover story, to have a reason for being where I am or doing something, that even something completely innocuous was almost unable to just be honest about it. Wow.
Abdullah Najjar 30:58
And that that sort of make it difficult post transition, to have to, you know, to have to go back to your, maybe old you prior to the CIA. Because I think these two like, I'm sure, these stages of life, I mean, you were completely like, you're experiencing rapid changes. You know you're changing at a very rapid pace. Compare, if we were, say, compare it to your counterparts who maybe did not go through a similar journey, years go by, and perhaps they don't experience a level of change that you have. And, yeah, that doesn't even take into account the fact that you get to travel or go to this place or go to that place, and you know, you're experiencing things at a very accelerated pace, and your aperture starts to open up. And then you're, you're just in environments that make you grow. You know, you're changing, and you're changing things, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 31:54
and it's, you know, again, I, I'll never have, you know, I did get disillusioned with the agency, and ultimately feel like this is not where I want to spend my career. That was largely for, I would say, ideological reasons, but I certainly have, you know, no regrets about having that experience, having served my country in that way, and also like gaining as much personally as I did from doing that kind of work. And I think a big thing, a big way in which I've evolved is I joined the CIA because I was very patriotic and wanted to serve my country. And you know, was very much like American Girl, you know. And part of that was, I think, growing up in the specter of the Cold War, where there were very clear delineations between good and bad. But I would say, having had the experience of living overseas, of recruiting foreign sources, of manipulating people in the way that I did to get information from my government, of seeing some abuse within our own government, and unethical or immoral policies or practices turned me from someone who really was motivated to serve my country to more of like a global citizen with a much greater understanding of, like, how intelligence works, and how, like America is just another country. You know, we have our we have our own motivations. We have our our own sort of American ethos, although that's, you know, very much in flux these days. But, you know, I started to look at life more from the optic of someone who wasn't an American. And, you know, seeing like living and operating in parts of the world where there wasn't freedom, where there was much more corruption than we had here in the United States and and just kind of leaving the CIA with much more of an optic of like a global citizen than just an American.
Abdullah Najjar 34:18
That's very interesting. I just, I was just, it's interesting how you mentioned the some of the things that made you disillusioned with the agency, and that got me thinking about how I think in the recruitment process, they, I don't think they may have expected that you would leave in such a, you know, in a maybe a relatively short period of time, right? Maybe they expected you to have this sort of your career, 1020, years inside the agency. But I think a lot of times when I listen to some of the or when I talk to people. That have been in the inside for a while, they say that there's something called Moral flexibility that the recruiters look for in a potential candidate. And I might ask you here to maybe tell us a few things about how you viewed yourself. Then, if that's okay, right? You know, if you thought that I was moral, morally flexible. But then after you were in the inside, it started to dawn on you that, you know, the clear, maybe, delineations of what's right and wrong. Yeah, that, yeah. I
Lindsay Moran 35:37
think one of the things that I discovered about myself is that I'm not so comfortable operating in the gray, you know. And I during the recruitment process, I know that was discussed, that this is a job where you you have to be comfortable operating in the gray, because what you're doing is, you know, it's, it's kind of dirty work. And for me, I could always justify it to myself if I believed in the higher good, which was that, like, Okay, I'm really serving my country, and I'm and I'm, I'm helping keep America and Americans safe. And then the reality on the inside is like a little more of a cog in a wheel than anything else, and which direction is this wheel going in. And then am I comfortable with that? And, you know, I left the agency in 2003 and I had been, I had been in Russian language lessons full time in preparation for a follow on tour where I was going to be targeting Russians. And I was taken out of Russian language relation, Russian language lessons, and surged into Iraqi operations, not in Baghdad, but in at headquarters, providing support to our our folks who were, you know, get preparing for the invasion of Iraq. And this was not an area that I wasn't an expert on WMD, and I wasn't an expert on the Middle East or Iraq, but, you know, it was an all hands on deck type environment at that point. And I quickly did speak to experts who were very candid with me. Expert within the CIA that, you know, we don't have any evidence of WMD, and that there isn't a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. So all of this stuff that I was seeing, you know, say, in the Washington Post in the morning, before I left for work, that was, you know, we had evidence of WMD. That's why we were going into Iraq. There was this link between Iraq and al Qaeda, and then I'd get to the CIA, where the folks who really knew the answers, and they told me, yeah, that's not true. And that kind of began, sort of like the accelerated disillusionment with the organization. And I wrote about that in my book, blowing my cover, I was actually surprised that the agency did not redact that portion of my book, what I didn't write about in my book, because I knew the agency never would have, never would have cleared it is that the real reason that I left the CIA, or the straw that broke the camel's back for me, was the torture program at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. And this goes back, I think, to your your point about kind of moral flexibility. Yes, I was aware at the agency that I had to have more flexibility of thought be able to operate on the gray. But I remember, during the recruitment process, a woman who was a part of a team that had was interviewing me, and she said, You know what, when you join, when you're inside the agency, if you ever see something that's wrong, you need to be vocal about it and and she really comforted me. Those words really comforted me, because it made me feel like, okay, I'm going into an organization that, no matter all the secrecy, and you know, everything's shrouded in secrecy, that that really like there is a moral compass within the organization, and I think the torture program and and other things I saw at the agency made me realize that, oh, wow, yeah, that that moral compass is actually a skewed or it's broken, and that is not something I'm comfortable, certainly not something I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing, You know, and grappling with. So I think you're very right in that, like, I went into this with this idea that, like, I've got moral flexibility. I can lie to people who love me, I can lie to anyone for bigger cause, and then realizing that, yeah, but I can't actually work for an organization that I feel like is. Uh, violating international law or, you know, doing things that are just fundamentally wrong.
Abdullah Najjar 40:06
Yeah, and how, how would you describe those early years, post your post the end of your career at the CIA, how difficult was it to go back to just normal life, after these big realizations, you know, these uh, epiphanies about where you stand on life, and where you stand when it comes to the agency, and I guess you know the going back to, maybe the, if I could probably put it in quotation marks, the mundane, right? Going back, yeah, like, how, how was that like for you? And then obviously, publishing your memo, I
Lindsay Moran 40:46
would say that's still a struggle. You know, I'm 20 years out now, and I'm still, in many ways, still conduct my life a little bit like a CIA officer, still, you know, still am attracted to the intrigue and subterfuge. I routinely use disguises, like my kids and my friends are just like, What is wrong with you? Because many, many times I've, like, showed up at something in disguise. You know, one time, like, flew to London to surprise two close friends of mine and sat with them for a good like 30 minutes in a red wig pretending to be a woman who was like being chased by Russians in a bar. Oh, my God. And it took them a while to realize it was me. So, you know, I would be lying to say that there isn't an aspect of that life that I do really miss. I miss I miss being in the know. So much is happening in the United States right now that is really, there's a lot of upheaval, and there's a, you know, from the outside, looking in, or trying to look in. I'm really, really sort of curious what the vibe is at the CIA right now and vibe at the FBI, because I can't really imagine it. So I do miss that. I do miss that feeling of kind of, you know, at least having my my thumb on the pulse of the world in a way that just really isn't possible if you're just an ordinary citizen, yeah,
Abdullah Najjar 42:23
and it's like, it's like, I think the closest, I guess, the closest experience that I could conjure up in my mind where I have to, like, process things I think, or like, have to really contemplate the end of a big journey. I think it was for me after I graduated from Lebanon, or spending like, four years and then going back to my country, Libya. It's just, it's like four years that were quite pivotal in my life, because I left when I was 17 and came back when I was 22 and so those were, you know, those were very years that were filled with so many different experiences, and, you know, so much growth and so much that's that needed to be processed. And then, you know, I spend a year back home, and then I go, go to the US and start a different journey. So it's like these, these, these moments are, are, are very real, but at the same time, sometimes, even though you might want to give him closure, remnants of these experiences linger still, and they manifest differently at different points of time, I guess.
Lindsay Moran 43:39
And you know, what's interesting, I think, in your experience, is that, you know, people think that the CIA has has a real impact on the live lives of Americans, or, you know, people will always say, like, is the CIA listening to my calls or whatever? And you know, the truth of the matter is, like, the CIA doesn't muck around with Americans like that's not our mandate. You know, we're not law enforcement. You know, we're our focus is on foreign intelligence and for recruiting foreigners and but Lebanon and Libya, you know, those are countries that really the populations have the past, the present and the future have been manipulated by Western intelligence, and so, you know your I think curiosity about the way that intelligence and human intelligence works like it makes sense, because that has had like direct impact on the political aspirations and the political reality of where you're from, you know,
Abdullah Najjar 44:49
right? No, you're right. And that, that I think, is what triggered it these experiences and like traveling and being being open to. To, I guess, being open to the to being uncomfortable, wanting to experience the world, wanting to talk to people. Curiosity. You know, it's one of those things where I it goes back to something you were saying earlier. I I'm curious in all types of people, even outside of the podcast, the I might have a category of people that I'm talking to on the podcast. But outside of that, my connections with people vary. You know, I I talk to people from different sides of the aisle. You know that people in different backgrounds. I'm just genuinely interested, I guess, in humanity. Maybe I wouldn't think that I'm an extrovert, but I think when it comes to socializing with people, I think I might be maybe better than the average person from my home country in doing that, yeah,
Lindsay Moran 45:49
well, there, there's very much a need for the kind of journalism that you're doing, I think, which is elevated above The political and and, you know, talking to all different kinds of people and hearing their perspectives. Because, you know, you know, as well as I, we're, we're in this country and globally, you know, like there is so much rancor and division, and I think, a frustration that I know I feel and that I hear other people voicing, is that, like, nobody's really curious about or listening to other people's optics. It's like, and I'm guilty of this myself, you know that I sort of have my political stance and and I don't really want to hear the other opinions, you know, and it's become like that divided. And I would say another thing that I maybe miss about my my role with the agency in that time in my life, is that, you know, I was living overseas. I was meeting people from all nationalities and backgrounds and and that's the best education you can ever get, and I think that helps you evolve. And I think when we become entrenched in our own optics and our own experience, and we're not exposed to the experiences of others like I do think it erodes our basic humanity. I see you know some of the most intelligent people that I know, people that I went to college with, who were highly educated and intelligent, and in some of the political discussions and arguments that are du jour, like their their rhetoric sounds. So I don't know that. The only word I can think of is like it just it sounds stupid and ugly, you know, and and these are really smart people, so I don't know what the answer is, but I do think the kind of journalism that you're doing, like seeking understanding from people of different backgrounds, like is all to the good. Yeah,
Abdullah Najjar 48:02
yeah. Well, thank you so much Miss Moran for this wonderful conversation. We're approaching 130 and I'm glad we got to do this. And, you know, talk briefly about your background in life. And I'm sure there's a lot more to cover, you know, and perhaps future recordings together.
Lindsay Moran 48:18
Absolutely, I'll come on anytime I love to I am an extrovert, so I love to talk.
Abdullah Najjar 48:25
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
