You're listening to the CyberWireriefing from the International Spy Museum.

I'm Mark Stout, the Museum's historian.

Here at the museum we get the most interesting authors including journalists, scholars, former

spies, and intelligence officers coming in to speak with our visitors

and answer questions about their latest works dealing with espionage, intelligence, and other national

security issues.

Please join me in listening to another of our selected hour-long author debriefings.

So a little bit of background on Hank, whom I've known for some time, a very down-to-earth person.

He applied, and this is not generally known.

He sent a letter of application to the CIA at the age of 11. He was rejected. Or should I say not accepted? He was accepted later.

He holds a VA in political science from the University of Mexico, New Mexico, and I think this is significant,

spending a brief period of time as a professional rugby player in Australia.

That's got to qualify you for a number of things.

Perhaps leading the effort in Afghanistan,

being one of them.

He holds a master's degree in international public policy

from Johns Hopkins, and he joined the agency in

1981 and he served a variety of positions as a case officer in operations, the Planned

Distant Service, including as Chief of Station.

He also served in the FBI as Deputy Chief of their International Terrorism Operations

section and then went back to the agency as Deputy Chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center.

He was, and I think this is very significant given his later involvement.

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