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The John Batchelor Show

HEADLINE: Bill Casey's Secret Intelligence Network and the Safari Club's Off-the-Books Operations AUTHOR: Craig Unger SUMMARY: Craig Unger characterizes Bill Casey as a "dazzlingly brilliant" spy and Reagan campaign manager who built a secret intelligence

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Books, Society & Culture, Arts, News

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

HEADLINE: Bill Casey's Secret Intelligence Network and the Safari Club's Off-the-Books Operations AUTHOR:Craig Unger SUMMARY: Craig Unger characterizes Bill Casey as a "dazzlingly brilliant" spy and Reagan campaign manager who built a secret intelligence network, meeting with Israeli agents and South African arms dealers. Casey utilized associates like John Shaheen and relied on the Safari Club, an off-the-books intelligence group formed after CIA crackdowns, to run covert operations outside of government oversight.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:02.0

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0:18.0

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0:31.3

This is CBS. I on the world. I'm John Batchelor. Den of Spies is the new book from Craig Unger,

0:36.1

Reagan, Carter, and the secret history of the treason that stole the White House. The events of 79 and 80 are now part of American history.

0:40.2

Ronald Reagan is elected, and Jimmy Carter is castigated as a weak president.

0:47.1

Iran is in a revolutionary state, pretty much the state you see today, although not as rich

0:52.7

then as it is now. And at the same time,

0:56.0

there are stories circulating that something untoward happened in the summer and fall of

1:02.7

1980 that made it possible for the Reagan inauguration to celebrate the release of the hostages on that day, strangely.

1:16.5

We're at the kitchen table of Craig Unger on the upper west side of Manhattan,

1:20.3

and Craig is reading an op-ed, I believe in the New York Times, by Gary Sick.

1:23.8

Who is Gary Sick, Craig?

1:25.6

Gary Thick was on Jimmy Carter's National Security Council. He was the

1:31.2

point man on Iran during the hostage crisis. He had a background in naval intelligence. He'd been

1:38.8

at Columbia University for the last 30 years or so. And he is very much a man who believes in empirical reality.

...

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