And he was. With albert spier and others in paris six weeks almost to the day in june of 1940. This gentleman here is one of americas first spies. Before the Second World War there was no foreign intelligence service, the americans you guys didnt have a foreign intelligence service. That was the job of people who worked for the state department donald costar was a princeton graduate in 1929, a volunteer ambulanceman working in normandy during the blitzkrieg and he wrote a detailed story about the blitzkrieg for Readers Digest and he wrote about a terrifying. He was working for the americans and recording the impact and the ferocity of the blitzkrieg and he found his way to paris in early july of 1940, was dropped off at the Hotel Bristol by none other than george canon who became a Great American statesman and then found his way to the American Hospital of paris where he went to the office of dr. Summer in jackson and said to dr. Sumner jackson i need to hide for a while. And the theor
But when the cold war ended and particularly when the war in terror began, it moved so drastically away from focus on russia that i think it lost its ability to conduct operations even in conducting basic analytical work about it. There is still very good people there who deal with russian and who are experts in russia. But its drastically shrunk from what it was. And i think now that russia is seen as much more of a threat over the last couple of years, particularly because of its activity military activities in ukraine, is that there will be some respectificati firectif thereby more effort and more personnel devoted to trying to understand russia. Did you have something . Just really quickly, you know it takes time and as mark said, if you focus on it now, it takes years to develop expertise and if you are talking about human intelligence penetrating russia and putins inner circle so it will take a while. Even if theyre doing it now. Thank you very much, thank you for coming. Please
Single qualified arabic speaking officer of a middle eastern background who can believe a believable muslim sharing his life, for christs sake, most case officers lived in the suburbs of virginia. We dont do that kind of thing. Right . Thats a great quote. Another quote this time from an active cia case officer, operations that include diarrhea as a way of life dont happen. While were on the subject i would add to this operations that include lack of toilet paper as a way of life dont happen either. Another thing that he says, im not sure i so much agree with that but interesting comment, we can discuss it that humint is characterized by risk adverse bureaucratic nature which mirrors the growing physical risk of american society. Interesting comment even though im skeptical about that one. And i would add to this, this is not gerechts point, this is my point, often because of that, because it is difficult for the older case officers to venture outside of safe western areas. Its difficu
Arthur alex kershaw discusses his book avenue of spies. The National World War Ii Museum hosted this event. It is about an hour. I actually am for many reasons. First of all, i would like to really thank without being too selected. I would like to thank jeremy colins and larry, where are you lar larry . Is he here . These two gentlemen were my cocon spc cocon sp coconspirators. We talked here late at night. I thought to myself would it bae great idea if i can persuade a new yorker to pay me certain amount of money to go back and get drunk at least two or three times every year and it worked. So, i wanted to read you a quick quote, i dont want it to be too much today of the slide show but i was fortunate in finding some remarkable images that was given to me by the last living hero of my book, third jackson, hes 89 years old and you will see images of him later. I want to read you a quick section. It is a very short section. I hate reading from books because people always fall asleep. T
I thought, wouldnt it be a great idea if i could persuade a new york publisher to pay me a certain amount of money to go back and get drunk 23 times every year . And it worked. Unfortunately, i had to ask a write a book at the end of it. I want to read you a quick quote. I dont want this to be too much of a slideshow. I was fortunate in finding some remarkable images given to me by the last living hero of my book, Phillip Jackson, who is 89 years old today. You will see some images of him later. A quicko just read you section, a short section. I hate reading from books because people always fall asleep. This is really the theme of the book. It is by a very distinguished and brave french man. There were many. We lived in shadows as soldiers of the night, but our lives were not dark. There were arrests, torture, and death for so many of our friends and comrades, and tragedy awaited all of us just around the corner. We did not live in or with tragedy. We were exhilarated by the challenge