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Welcome to Spycast. My name is Dr. Andrew Hammond, historian and curator here at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC.

Every week, Spycast explores a world of intelligence and espionage by bringing you in-depth conversations, spies, spymasters, intelligence officers and authors.

We explored the stories, secrets, tradecraft and technology of a world that looms beneath the surface of everyday life.

Firstly, it's a pleasure to speak to Christopher and the second question is, how did you get mixed up in the crazy world of intelligence?

I'm going to blame that on my father. You see, I was a son of a foreign service officer and my father was with USAID and took us abroad when I was tight.

So I did all of my primary and secondary school education abroad. When I came back to the United States, surprise, surprise, I underwent culture shock.

I went to university, I didn't fit in, I wasn't like the normal kids and I grew up in Turkey and Thailand. I didn't grow up in Illinois.

And so university wasn't for me and the university agreed, I agreed, my parents agreed and I left university at their invitation.

And so I was literally, I was working delivering bank checks in northern Virginia.

My three brothers were at Georgetown School Foreign Service, they'd all matriculated out and were in the Foreign Service.

And my father took me to lunch one day because my route took me under his office down in Roslin area.

And he said, don't want you to meet somebody. And what he did is he walked me into the recruiting office of the CIA where his old cribbage buddy from Vietnam days happened to be running the recruiting office.

And he introduced me as, this is my son Christopher, he's number four son, he's different.

And with that introduction, I was about to learn all about the CIA. Now mind you, this gentleman there, he's looking at me and I'm long haired. I am wearing a type as I work for a bank.

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