You're listening to the CyberWire Network, powered by N2K. Hello and welcome to Spycast from the Secret Files of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

I'm Peter Ernest, the Executive Director of the Museum. I served for some

36 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, largely as what is called an operations officer

or a case officer.

Every month will be bringing you interesting talks with visitors,

with authors, with others who have something to do

with the world of intelligence and Espionage.

My guest today is Bob Wallace.

Bob Wallace was a senior CIA officer at the time of his retirement, who had a varied background.

He had been involved in both operations, as an operations officer.

He had run at a variety of senior management jobs, but perhaps his most intriguing job, and that will be the subject today, was

the period of time that he served as the Director of the Office of Technical Services

in CIA.

He was in effect, as James Bond Fans would say, Q. He didn't personally

do that stuff in the lab, though he may have done some of it, but he oversaw the staff that did do it, directed them, and

perhaps one of his outstanding features as the manager was his insistence on the technical people working side by side along with the operations officers.

He and Keith Melton, a renowned historian on intelligence matters, have just published a book called

Spycraft. It's put out by Dutton and it's Spycraft the secret history of the

CIA's spy text from communism to al-Qaeda. It is a remarkable

book for the detail it gives on agency, the people in the agency, and a number of

sensational, I'll use that word, operations that OTS was involved in throughout the years.

Bob welcome.

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