History of the Confederate Flag and much more. For a complete Television Schedule visit booktv. Org. Booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors. Television for serious readers. And now from the spy museum here in washington d. C. , bryan denson talks about Jim Nicholson, the highest ranking cia officer ever convicted of espionage. [inaudible conversations] and a hush fell over the audience. [laughter] its terrific. You guys are a great audience. I am peter earnest, the executive director and absolutely delighted to have you here this evening. Its always were always not sure what an author will draw, and clearly you have driven drawn a very good crowd. And i think youre in for the telling of a really very strange story, but a very well told story. I would ask you, please as a courtesy to the speaker if youd be kind enough to turn off your cell phones and other electronic data. Weve got both were both taping and cspan is as well. So that would they can occasionally interfere. So these cases of Intelligence Officers gone bad, fortunately there are not so many of them, but there are enough that its very hard for people who were in the profession to react when they happen. I was certainly i knew the ames case very well having been a colleague for some time. And we always say when something happens and one of these cases is rolled up and theres an arrest made, well that insures there wont be any more for a long time. In the case of Nicholson Ames was arrested and tried within the early period of 94 nicholson walked in, as we say, or volunteered precisely at that time. So so much for that adage, that nothing is going to happen. The the spys son, the true story of the highest ranking cia officer ever convicted of espionage and the son he trained for russia. The author is bryan denson who has been here in the past in 2011, i believe it was, bryan to talk about the case. At that point you did not have a book underway. It then took you five years to get the book down, five years of tough work. Bryan was a journalist in oregon working for the oregonian in portland, and when the trial was held, my understanding is you were in the front row for the entire trial. I notice from your acknowledgments you have talked of many, many good folks in the Intelligence Community in doing the story. Its the in fact, you covered the federal courthouse, didnt you . That was your beat. So it was a natural. Yeah. You have not done anything previously on espionage and spies, this was your first cut. And at the time you were here you were going to appear with brian kelly who was a very distinguished Intelligence Officer who passed away shortly before bryan appeared and so someone substituted for brian so were delighted to have you back. The accounts in here that ive read of what youve gleaned both from the fbi from other accounts of the case are excellent. Theyre right on the mark. Youve got all your trade craft down. So if this journalism thing and authorship doesnt work out, you know cia is still out there okay . [laughter] bryan has won the george polk award and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, so please help me in welcoming bryan denson. [applause] i always laugh when i hear that a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize thing because the truth is that means you finished second, and in this country thats no good can. [laughter] i want to thank peter for having me in. I love this place and i have to tell you, this is like the greatest Home Court Advantage in the world. I grew up 35 miles from here. I have High School Friends i have college friends, i have people i ran with and against some of them still running some of them looking extremely fit. It pisses me off. [laughter] i was here in 2011. I didnt know the first thing about spies in 2009 when this case came to the courthouse. I know quite a lot about it now. Ive traveled to far corners as far as cyprus. Im going to run a slide show here that begins right there and im going to just let et if i get can really boring, just watch the slide show, and youll get the gist it. In the annals of american espionage, Jim Nicholson is the highest ranking cia officer ever convicted of espionage as the rather long subtitle of the book suggests. Hes the only twotime turncoat in u. S. History. Some focus call him the double hitter. Hes the only spy ever convicted of doing it again from behind the bars of a prison, in this case the federal prison in oregon, and hes the only american spy taken down, i have to say this very carefully the only american spy taking down in a spy v. Spy operation under the roof at cia headquarters at langley. Another cia officer who ill introduce in just a moment, did that. So we have two crimes that took place over long periods of time. 1997 was when he was rolled up in the first case, as peter mentioned. He sold 300,000 worth of secrets to the russian ill get into that, and later from behind bars he recruited his young son to do this. And it was, for me, more than an espionage story although it is an interesting one, really its a story about fathers and sons which is probably why my publisher insisted we get this thing out just before fathers day. [laughter] although i dont think anybody is going to nominate Jim Nicholson for father of the year, at least not soon. Let me tell you just a few things about Jim Nicholson just to start off. He came from a military family steeped in patriotism, charming cunning, good looking smart. Fouryear rotc scholarship at oregon state university. Army captain, married at 22, father at 28, joins the cia in the early years of the Reagan Administration when the agencys booming and the principal u. S. Mission is very, very clear; win the cold war. He earns the nickname batman early in his career. And to this day at the supermax where hes serving his long prison term in florence, colorado, he still signs some of his artwork as batman. By 40 jim is a cia station chest in bucharest romania. As communist nations crumble across europe. On christmas day, 1991, the soviet union crumbles, and cause it happens so does his very turbulent marriage. His serial infidelities, his wife says he got the maid pregnant in manila and had an affair with his intercepter in thailand while interpret in thailand while she was bangkok. To hear lori say it he did it all across southeast asia. Things were so bad that lori too had an affair with the veterinarian in bucharest. Apparently, the vets are happy to make house calls. [laughter] so there was a major showdown in the nicholson home. Jim and lori split. She moves the kids to the u. S. Jim is reassigned, gets a little bit of a pay not a pay drop, but a role drop as a deputy chief running spy operations though. There he begins to fight a very, very messy divorce and custody battle. Hes angry at his wife. Hes having a nervous breakdown. Hes angry at his country. He feels let down by the cia and hes mildly angry, i think, at himself. During so jim could have gone for help, but he didnt. He was running out of money to arrange this custody of his kids. He felt he had really betrayed his children, his three children, and wanted desperately to have them around. So during a routine meeting in kuala lumpur with the top official in russias newlycreated Foreign Spy Service and a former kgb general is here, and hes going to absolutely kill me for bastardizing my pronunciation but its the [speaking russian] is it even close . All right. The sbr, which is the group that took over the Foreign Spy Service that had once been a wing of the kgb. So jim is in a meeting, an authorized meeting by the cia there in kuala lumpur of the russian spy service, and he says hes in trouble and he needs 25,000. The gentleman there says, this can be arranged. And sure enough, jim has opened the door that wont be shut, cant be shut. Hes a walkin, as peter was mentioning. Hes a volunteer spy to sell out his countrys secrets. And he does this just a few months after ames was arrested which is asson isishing to people astonishing to people in the intelligence field and astonishing, should be astonishing to everyone because ames was easily the worst traitor in the cias history a deadly one caused a number of deaths. Jim takes the 25 grand buys lori out, moves the kids to malaysia and moonlights on governmentpaid Vacation Time as a government can spy. For the next two years he accepts tasks to obtain and hand over some of the nations most closelyguarded secrets. He will earn 300,000, as i mentioned before. Meanwhile, u. S. Intelligence folks get a tip from a number of places but particularly one, a russian spy who is now working for the cia that steers them toward jim. And an investigation ultimately is opened. By 1995 jim is back in the u. S. Hes working and teaching trade craft, the art of spying, spy craft, at the farm which is the covert Training Center in virginia. Jim will eventually give the russians the identities of at least 300 of the cias career trainees. These are the folks who are in training at the farm and a bunch of them jim taught himself. Some of these betrayed are nonofficial cover folks the folks who go in posing as someone they are entirely not. They dont have any diplomatic cover, and jim put their lyes at terrible their lives at terrible risk because if theyre caught, they can be killed. The Clinton Administration forces the cia and the fbi who are rarely good friends to pull together in south in counterspy operations. They want to keep an eye on jim, essentially, is what theyre doing. And im just going to start off with a small reading from chapter five which is actually kind of my favorite chapter. Langley, virginia, summer 1996, and im going to introduce you to the man who got that job. John mcguire sat in a cubicle village on the second floor of cia headquarters, a clean wellcarpeted place full of file cabinets and misery. After 14 years of exciting spy work he now labored in utter obscurity in a pool of Human Resources mopes. Mcguire had spent most of his years in the agency on the front lines of the cold war, although more recently as a counterterrorism operative in the middle east. He had served in el salvador honduras lebanon and iraq, but now it was abundantly clear that at 42 his oncepromising career in espionage was over. Mcguire had gotten crossways with his boss for refusing to take an overseas posting in karachi, pakistan. His penance was a position in hr. In the bowels of the cias original headquarters building, a part of the agencys sprawling, highlysecured compound in the Langley Community of mcclain virginia. There he drank sweetened coffee and pushed pencils, pouring through the files of other cia officers to determine those wore hawaii of promotions, unlike him worthy of promotions. Mcguire was broken from time to time by the prank calls of colleagues still performing actual spywork. Some disguised their voices before busting a gut, others phoned to make such helpful declarations as youre so fuc thed. One day he heard the voice of anna the secretary of the near east division. Anna was something of an aging miss moneypenny, and she enjoyed to bleak horsepower of her division chief. When anna called you paid attention. When you needed help, she was your oracle. Need to proof check an official memo . She pored over it, caught your errors. Need to reach someone at white house . She had the number. Screw up badly she dressed you down leaving you standing with your shoes smoking as if youd been struck by lightning. Anna was a striken statuesque woman with raven hair. If they liked you, they could make your life easier. Anna seemed to like mcguire. How are you doing k she asked. Im trying not to kill myself in my seat, he said. Come upstairs, he heard her say. Come up to me right now. Okay. Like so many times in his career mcguire could only imagine the fresh patch of hell in front of him. He had served seven years as a cop in his native baltimore then 14 more as a spy. He understood the swift decisive nature of bureaucrats whose sudden decrees often fell into sub board nates subordinates laps. He hauled his frame out of his chair and slipped away quietly. He caught an elevator to the sixth floor one level before where the director of Central Intelligence runs the show. There outside his boss door he found anna at her desk. She steered him into the office and the door closed. He stood in front of a familiar wooden desk behind which sat steve richter, a key part of the cias clandestine wing who oversaw spy operations across the middle east. Mcguire thought his boss was one of the smartest and most talented of the senior Intelligence Officers and also one of most vindictive. Mcguires boss not known for warm and fuzzy moments didnt invite him to take a seat. It would be a short meeting. I have an assignment for you, richter said, i cant tell you anything about it. He told mcguire he needed an answer then and there and that yes would be a good answer for his career. If he said no, all he had to do was go back downstairs and never utter a word about the conversation. You have to give me an answer now, richter said. Mcguire glanced to his right. A stranger sat on the couch. The man wore a nice suit and a blue badge denoting him as a cia staffer. Mcguire figured he was a Senior Agency man. He planted his eyes on richters face to read the reactions to his next words. Can i ask a question or two . You can ask, he said. Mcguire turned to the man on the couch. Whos this guy . Im ed kern, the stranger said standing im the highest ranking fbi agent assigned inside the cia. Fuck me, mcguire thought. His mind flew back to iraq and the troubles there. Mcguire had gotten, you know, he was operating in he took part in an operation, he took part in an operation called db achilles which was the attempted overthrow of saddam hussein. It had not worked out well for him. In fact, 80 men were killed as a result. And im just going to sort of skip ahead on that part. So he decides mcguire figured that the new assignment richter was offering might be a hamhappenedded set up for questioning hamhanded set up for questioning by the fbi. He could turn down a potentially choice assignment and retreat to the cubicle dungeon and the slow immolation of his soul or he could do as the paratroopers say in that instant before leaping out of airplanes pull the cord, trust the lord. Whatever it is, ill do it. Wise choice richter said. Mcguire could sense that the meeting was over. Curran, no doubt amused by the exchange, gave mcguire orders. Go downstairs to the lobby do not talk to anybody and tell no one where youve been. Youll meet a couple of fbi agents at the door who will give you instructions. Mcguire nodded along. He shot a glance at anna. She winked. Mcguire gets the job as Jim Nicholsons assistant, the Deputy Branch chief in this counterterrorism wing that was actually doing some of the early work to understand the wahhabi and salafi sects of the Sunni Islamist extremists who were ultimately becoming, who would ultimately become the folks who attacked this country of ours. Anyway it began a very cool investigation. In 1996 jim announced plans to take vacation in singapore. The cia and fbi took a bold and daring move, they allowed the local spy service to conduct surveillance of jim in his likely meeting. So they didnt go with the cia or the fbi and theres this great funny story about the argument that took place between curran the fbi guy, and paul redmond who was the number two guy in the counterintelligence wing at cia headquarters. The two men worked very well together but reluctantly so. At langley they got real updates, realtime updates on the operation that was running in singapore. Jim had been observed stepping into a car with russian diplomatic plates on it which was the money shot. They were very excited about that to the point where curran told me later they jumped out of their chairs at cia headquarters. Throughout the year the fbi secretly went all the way through jims underwear drawer cans on numerous occasions. Agents and their National Security lawyers had to build a legallydefensible case, legallydefensible espionage case against the cias newest judas. With permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court which has been wildly controversial as a result of the Edward Snowden revelations, the fbi put jim under physical and electronic surveillance. They rigged a video camera above his desk, they put a tiny little camera in one of the holes in those multiholed acoustic tiles and then they glued down the panel so that if he got curious and thought he might be under investigation and he pushed up, he couldnt do anything. The guys who cleared out that night dusted down a couple of little white specks of ceiling tile on his desk, and they also took pictures before and after that particular operation. They conducted sneak and peeks late at night entering his office there at langley which was behind multiple cipher lock doors and security areas. At one point theres a great scene in the book where one of the guys whos running those operations hears someone coming and has to hide in a closet there and has to wait until theyre gone, because they couldnt be seen. Even though they had clearance to be in there they would have looked out of place and if nicholson had found out about it, it would have scotched the entire operation, and he would have likely bolted. Two agents actually went undercover to buy the townhouse next the door to where jim lived, and they eavesdropped on jim and the kids. Now, at this point only two of jims kids are at home. Nathan the youngest who becomes the spys son in the story and his older daughter who went by star, goes by star, nathan was 12 at the time and star was 15. Teams secretly tailed jim all over Northern Virginia and washington a d. C. For instance, a huge team of agents tailed jim to a post office not too far from here late one evening in 1996 as he dropped a letter in the m