You know they could have kept me in jail for a while and then I would have been exchanged and I have no idea what the Russians would have done with me but certainly I was off the market for an undercover career.

Welcome to the art of charm. I'm Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with producer Jason to fill up on this episode will be talking with my friend jack bar ski now his author of deep undercover my secret life.

And tangled allegiances as a KGB spy in America but really let's just dispense with all that he's a freaking KGB spy who moved to America to spy on us ended up staying here the story is bananas of course he consults for that show the Americans which is one of my favorite shows on TV.

This story is just absolutely insane he was from East Germany trained in Moscow stole essentially an identity of a kid to come to the United States.

This is one of my favorite interviews recently jackets deep into KGB recruiting process the espionage game from the inside out will learn how spies were recruited and trained which skills jack used to assimilate to the United States and pose as an American fooling his friends his employer his colleagues and even his wife.

He had a freaking face got a family here they thought he was American and then one day oh god it's just crazy even as a family I just can't believe it there's so much more to this story I don't want to spoil it for you just have a listen here to part one of the story with jack bar ski here on a.o.c. Let's do this.

I'm going to try not to be funny because I have a tendency to be quirky but upfront the only advice I can give young people is the following it always takes longer and it always costs more.

So much for trying not to be funny that's great though I love that you apply that to whatever you do in life it's true so far that has been definitely been my experience and I'll tell you what as a former undercover agent for the KGB you've got.

Plenty of ideas on using your feelings to your advantage and also probably ignoring emotions when they are going to take you down a path that you should not go down and trying to stay calm under fire and I know that you consult for the Americans which is one of my favorite shows producer Jason just caught up as well yeah I was even on the I was an extra episode 5 10 I'm standing there next to an entrance of a dry cleaner and outcomes this gorgeous Russian.

Ladies and she walks down the street and you know I put on my best spy look and I'm looking down the road and I follow her and then she stops and talks to some lady who comes out of the car and I have to.

Unfortunately work past.

Oh nice well keep an eye out for that I love that show and I'm always been obsessed with you know the Soviet Union and that started because I used to live in the former East Germany which is where I know you're from and I went to high school there.

Oh wow yeah in hallazala no way yeah that's about like 60 70 miles from where I studied chemistry I know so when I speak German you and I probably have the exact same accent or you're from the same area where I learned German ambition to

English wall yeah also Zaksin on hugged or a Zolvas.

Yugging all that look this is super interesting I've been waiting for this for a long time I'm very excited about this I know that just to give people

a little context while the allies rebuilt West Germany the Soviet Union effectively looted East Germany setting it back about 30 years so when you grew up there was a struggle for survival you know you had to clear your plate there was not enough food I guess we now know where that habit comes from for the United States for all of our Eastern European ancestry and things like that.

I know that when you are young you mentioned that your mother and your parents were pretty cold can you tell us about your childhood because I think it doesn't form some of the things that happened later in your life yeah I reflected a lot about it because the bottom line is when you think about people and what bothers people or what is get sort of in the way of them becoming fully developing is usually the baggage they take with them from childhood.

And my baggage was not necessarily all bad it was discipline it was sort of a set a system in that extremely long period of your delayed gratification and where the harm was was a lack of emotional love there was just none I can't remember any.

And that was somewhat typical of Germans in post world war two but not necessarily to the extreme that my parents took it my parents just like didn't manage to even hug in case or say I love you that just was completely not part of my childhood in not having had that you don't know you don't know what you're missing you don't know what you should have had.

And it took me a long time to get to this and partially because of having to reflect on my past partially when I was writing the book I was thinking about all this and you know the light bulb went on and now I'm sort of making up for this I have a late come or six year old child and she gets mother would love in kisses and I love you because I know it's very important.

I think that's extremely important I think a lot of people would agree that as well and there's story in the book where your stomach hurt and your mom made you take the bus to the hospital which turned out to be an emergency appendectomy so it seems like early on you learn to ignore your emotions you learn to ignore pain.

Yeah, this is just like totally bizarre when you think about it what normal parent in this day and age would make their 15 year old teenager walk to the bus I couldn't walk straight anymore the pain was that bad as is where you go to the hospital and again that wasn't anything that I thought was the wrong thing to do this was just the way things were and it wasn't in fact an emergency appendectomy that had to be performed.

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