Ex-KGB Spy Jack Barsky

DEVIANT

Cold Open Media

True Crime

4.8 • 610 Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Russia's spies" has been a major news story for almost a decade now. They are here, in our computers, and on the ground. So what's it like to be one? Jack Barsky (not his original name) was a spy for the KGB at the height of the Cold War. He was a member of the elite Directorate S...the illegals. While training in Moscow, he learned how to act like an American, or so he thought. He figured it out though, and lived in the US, pretending to be American, for 15 years until the FBI put it all together. In this DEVIANT Off Script, host Dan Szematowicz sits down with Jack, now a US citizen, to get his incredible story. Get Jack's book: https://a.co/d/jeUx6lW Get Jack's podcast "The Agent" here: https://cumuluspodcastnetwork.com/pods/the-agent/ JOIN OUR PATREON: http://www.deviantpodcast.com Visit DEVIANT's socials: http://www.instagram.com/deviant.podcast http://www.tiktok.com/@deviant.podcast Copyright 2025 Cold Open Media LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.7	Illegal undercover spies are real. They live among us and pretend that they're American citizens.
0:38.2	Today on Deviant and Offscript, we're going to talk to a former KGB spy who lived here illegally pretending to be
0:43.7	American. His name's Jack Barski, and he's lived a hell of a life.
0:58.3	Thank you so much for joining us here on Deviant Offscript.
0:59.2	It's so great to have you.
1:00.6	We were all very excited to have you.
1:04.9	I guess to start off, it's strange, because the name of this show is Deviant.
1:06.5	I was thinking about it.
1:18.6	You tell everyone we have on this version of the show that you being on, this doesn't mean you were a deviant, but your world, the spy world, can straddle the line, right?
1:24.8	Have you ever considered yourself before we get into your story and the things you did on the deviant side of things? Yeah.
1:25.5	As a matter of fact, my daughter, Chelsea, and I participated in a documentary that she did with
1:31.7	A&E, and we had a conversation back to back and forth, and we both agreed that, and this
1:38.1	is a quote, we are not normal.
1:41.4	That's the definition of deviant.
1:43.3	We deviated from the norm my entire life i was not
1:47.2	in the center of the bell curve and i'm still not that's not an achievement it's just a fact
1:53.4	yeah yeah i mean the act of espionage itself your former kgb it takes a special type of person to do that. And I think different people have different
2:03.7	reasons for getting into your line of work, especially the kind of spy that you were. You were what
2:08.4	was considered an illegal. You were here in the United States for 10 years, back for the Soviet Union.
2:13.7	I guess just to start out, you were born in East Germany.
	...

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