2/4: Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars Hardcover – May 23, 2023 by Brett Forrest (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 10 June 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
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2/4: Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars Hardcover – May 23, 2023 by Brett Forrest (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Son-American-Family-Trapped/dp/0316591610/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
When Billy Reilly vanished, his parents embarked on a desperate search for answers. Was their son’s disappearance connected to his mysterious work for the FBI, or was it a personal quest gone wrong? Only when Wall Street Journal reporter Brett Forrest embarks on his own investigation does a picture emerge: of the FBI's exploitation of US citizens through a secretive intelligence program, a young man's lust for adventure within the world's conflicts, and the costs of a rising clash between Moscow and Washington.
Sept. 11th roused Billy Reilly's curiosity for religions, war, and the world and its people beyond his small town near Detroit. Online, Billy taught himself Arabic and Russian. His passions led him into jihadi Internet forums, attracting the interest of the FBI.
An amateur drawn into professional intelligence, Billy became a Confidential Human Source, one of thousands of civilians who assist FBI agents with investigative work, often at great hazard and with little recourse. When Russia stirred rebellion in Ukraine, Billy set out to make his mark.
In Russia, Billy's communications dropped. His parents, frantic, asked the FBI for help but struggled to find answers. Grasping for clues, the Reilly family turned to Brett Forrest. Commencing a quest of his own, Forrest applied years' worth of research, along with decades of extensive experience in Russia, illuminating the inner workings of the national-security machine that enmeshed Billy and his family, picking up the lost son's trail.
A masterwork of reporting, composed like a thriller, blending political maneuvering and international espionage, Lost Son illustrates one man's coming of age amid new global dangers.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS I in the World, I'm John Batsu with the Distinguished Correspondent for the |
| 0:07.7 | Wall Street Journal, Brett Forest, who has a new book that tells the story of many years, |
| 0:13.2 | Lost Sun, an American family trapped inside the FBI's Secret Wars. |
| 0:18.8 | In May of 2015, Billy gets on the aircraft, continues on his way to Moscow. |
| 0:25.0 | In December of 17, Brett has at the Washington offices of the Wall Street Journal and he |
| 0:31.0 | gets a call from Bob Forzman. |
| 0:33.6 | What is the nature of the call and what do you do about it, Brett? |
| 0:36.8 | Thank you. |
| 0:37.8 | Certainly, John. |
| 0:38.8 | Bob, I've known for a little while, he is an American guy who had been living and working |
| 0:44.8 | in Russia and Ukraine since the 90s and working in the financial sector. |
| 0:50.5 | He had developed a lot of very interesting and valuable relationships in business, obviously, |
| 0:56.3 | but also in power structure in both countries and in the Russian Orthodox Church, Bob's |
| 1:03.3 | very religious guy. |
| 1:07.4 | I had been meeting talking about various events in Eastern Europe, often on for a while. |
| 1:15.6 | Until one day he told me we were sitting at a cafe outside the Ice Gating Market Rockefeller |
| 1:21.2 | Center and he told me that he had something that he wanted to give me, but it wasn't quite |
| 1:26.8 | the right time. |
| 1:27.8 | As you can imagine, as a journalist, as a reporter every time you hear something like that, |
| 1:31.4 | he said, well, I need to know what is it. |
| 1:35.1 | Anyhow, eventually, some weeks later, I was sitting at the, that might desk in Washington |
| 1:41.3 | Bureau of the Journal and Bob called and he said, now is the time I'm ready to tell |
... |
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