COLD WAR PREVIEW: 3/4: Damascus Station: A Novel, by David McCloskey.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Damascus-Station-Novel-David-McCloskey/dp/0393881040/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2T10VHP3CVOPA&keywords=Damascus+Station&qid=1642295489&s=books&sprefix=damascus+station%2Cstripbooks%2C101&sr=1-1
The CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit a Syrian Palace official, Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad’s recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy.
But the cat-and-mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet
1931 SOMALIA
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS I In The World. I'm John Batsch with David McCloskey. His novel, Damascus Station, |
| 0:11.2 | a work of fiction, a work of fiction about Syria in the early part of the second decade |
| 0:17.7 | of the 21st century. A state that is completely collapsed now, a failed state. And yet David |
| 0:26.9 | Texas Inside Syria, Inside Damascus, and shows us what the CIA comes up against dealing |
| 0:34.4 | with state security, Mokhabarad. And the FSB shows up. That's right. The reawaken KGB shows |
| 0:41.7 | up. Other players include the Muslim brothers who have their own operation over the years, |
| 0:47.0 | and then eventually the Tihadas will show up. There's a great deal of tradecraft in David's |
| 0:51.5 | book. And I recommend especially talking about it because David has passed his book to General |
| 0:58.7 | David Patres, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, along with his other titles. |
| 1:04.0 | And Leon Panetta, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, along with his other |
| 1:08.9 | titles, they have read and approved. And David also makes note in a post-note that the CIA |
| 1:16.7 | read his book very carefully several times, many more times, the publication review board. |
| 1:22.3 | And it's approved what David has identified as tradecraft. So David, I want to have some |
| 1:27.5 | fun because we're not going to give a story away. We've indicated there's a hero and a hero |
| 1:32.1 | and a good bad guy. And we know who the villains are. What is an SDR, David? What do we learn |
| 1:39.9 | from that right away at the opening scenes in Paris? Sure. And SDR is the acronym for a surveillance |
| 1:49.0 | detection route. It is one of the primary tools in the toolbox of the DCI case officer. It's |
| 1:56.3 | also in most spy novels something that makes, you know, it doesn't make very many appearances |
| 2:01.7 | in most modern spy thrillers. It is essentially the act of clotting very carefully a route stops |
| 2:13.1 | a series of moves on the street of a city as you are going to meet with an asset whereby |
| 2:21.1 | the combination of all of those different moves allow you to understand if you are being watched |
| 2:27.1 | by the security services, typically of the of the states in which you find yourself. And so in my book |
... |
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