Welcome to Spycast, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum.

I'm your host, Sasha Inber, and each week I take you into the shadows of espionage, intelligence, and covert operations across the globe.

To some people, Bob Wallace is the original cue.

He was appointed deputy director of the CIA's Office of Technical Service in 1995, then

became its director three years later.

The storied office dealt in micro dots and secret writing, its ingenuity,

spanning concealments, forged documents, surveillance equipment, covert communications, and special

weapons. We sat down to talk about tactics and innovations that he's never shared before,

from below tech to the internet age, to the devices

and techniques used in the global war on terrorism. And Bob, thank you so much for coming in

and sitting down with us. Well, this is a rare opportunity and a great pleasure to participate in one of the spy museums, very special

programs. Thank you. Bob, you had a background in agency operations for about 25 years, and then suddenly

you were asked to be the deputy of the Office of Technical Service and then eventually became its director. How did that come about?

The Office of Technical Service was responsible for providing all of the spy gadgets and the special equipment that our officers and agents used around the world.

I knew a little bit about OTS, but in terms of being familiar with the culture and the organization,

I walked in almost blind.

And fortunately, the folks at the office were very kind to me, and they treated me like they

should as a kindergartner, and we learned the language and learned something about what they

were trying to accomplish.

You said that this was essentially like being asked to apply to a job in NASA's astronaut program. It was so foreign to you.

Why did they choose you to have such an influential role? Talk about the importance in bringing

together not just the gadgetry, but the operations side. There is a bit of a story here.

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