This podcast, it's a Costerton Touchstone production.

One of the things that the CIA taught us in training early on in the training program is that

your success or failure as a case officer would be based on your ability to make and

maintain relationships. That sounds a little bit dry, but it's true and it's not just true in

espionage. It's true in life. It's true in business, for example. You have to be an extrovert

to be a successful spy. You have to enjoy being around people all the time, even unsavory

people. You have to be able to connect with

them. You have to have something in common, something that you can talk to them about. Whether you're

meeting with a president and talking about politics or meeting with a mob boss and talking about

the pizza parlor business as an example, or meeting with a gang member and talking about the pizza parlor business as an example or meeting with a gang

member talking about the low quality of meth that happens to be out on the street at any

given time.

You have to be able to talk about everything.

I'll give you another example.

I recruited at one point in my career a particularly agent, so sensitive that I could not meet with him

in the country in which I recruited him. He had never been to the United States before. Headquarters

reached out and said, why don't you fly him back to the U.S.? You fly him through one city. You fly

home through a different city, so it doesn't look like the two of you know each other or are coordinating a trip.

And then we'll put a team together from headquarters to meet with him, welcome him, debrief him.

So I did that.

He flew back to D.C. through Milan.

I flew back to D.C. through Frankfurt or Munich, one or the other.

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