The CIA's Head Spy Hunter | Jim Olson (throwback episode)
The Team House
dee takos
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2025
⏱️ 140 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Professor James Olson received his law degree from the University of Iowa. He is a professor of the practice at the Bush School, where he teaches courses on intelligence and counterintelligence. He served for over thirty years in the Directorate of Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency, mostly overseas in clandestine operations. In addition to several foreign assignments, he was Chief of Counterintelligence at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Professor Olson has been awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit, the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, the Donovan Award, and several Distinguished Service Citations. He is the recipient of awards from the Bush School and the Association of Former Students for excellence in teaching. Professor Olson is the author of Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying and To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence. Prior to his career in the CIA, he served in the US Navy, where he attained the rank of lieutenant commander.
Jim's books:
To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence
https://a.co/d/huymTyN
Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying
https://a.co/d/ctwB7bG
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Team House with your host, Jack Murphy and David Park. |
| 0:11.4 | Hello, everybody, and welcome to The Team House. |
| 0:14.2 | I am David Park. |
| 0:15.3 | This is Jack Murphy. |
| 0:17.3 | We are here for episode 150 with a very special guest of the former director of counterintelligence at the CIA, Jim Olson. |
| 0:27.1 | Jim has written a couple of phenomenal books. |
| 0:30.1 | The one that we'll kind of talk about tonight in addition, well, we'll talk about both of them tonight. |
| 0:34.2 | But one is to catch a spy. |
| 0:35.5 | And the other one is fair play, right? |
| 0:47.0 | Yes, that's right. Fair play about the like the ethical issues in an espionage um we uh we really appreciate you being here with us night jim well you're most welcome it's a pleasure to be here |
| 0:52.1 | there's nothing like better than talking about spying. |
| 0:55.2 | Yeah, that's, and, I mean, you honestly have a spy versus spy career. |
| 1:03.4 | Yes, I spent a lot of time on counterintelligence, so I would call myself a spy catcher, and I found nothing more rewarding of my career than tracking down American traders and bringing them to justice. |
| 1:17.9 | I had the opportunity to be involved in several such operations. |
| 1:22.2 | Yeah, we'll talk about those. |
| 1:23.7 | We'll talk about some of the bigger operations you've been in and also just |
| 1:29.1 | some of the threats that America has faced and is currently facing because I'll tell you |
| 1:35.8 | Stephen King has nothing on you this book is terrifying. It's terrifying. |
| 1:47.2 | Yeah, I reacted the same way when I was writing it. This is scary stuff. |
| 1:51.8 | Yeah. |
| 1:52.2 | Because our country is really in peril. We face multiple threats from foreign intelligence services. |
| 2:00.9 | And I believe that we are not taking that threat seriously enough. |
... |
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