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The Lawfare Podcast

The Lawfare Podcast: Christopher Moran on "Company Confessions: Secrets, Memoirs, and the CIA"

The Lawfare Podcast

The Lawfare Institute

History, Military, International Relations, Government, Constitutional Law, News, International Law, Current Events, Politics, Rule Of Law, Law, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, National Security, Intelligence, Terrorism

4.76.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2016

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Lawfare Podcast has made it to our 200th episode! Thank you to all our listeners, old and new.

This week at the Hoover Book Soiree, Jack Goldsmith interviewed Christopher Moran, a professor at the University of Warwick, on his book Company Confessions: Secrets, Memoirs, and the CIA. Moran's work is a history of CIA memoirs, but it's also a history of the Agency itself and its efforts to shape its image in the public eye. How does an organization whose work depends on keeping secrets justify its efforts within a democratic society?

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Transcript

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0:00.0

The following podcast contains advertising.

0:04.0

To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast,

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become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair.

0:14.0

That's patreon.com slash law fair.

0:18.0

Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings,

0:22.0

rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath.

0:29.0

The CIA would argue over time and not without resistance,

0:37.0

and not without some considerable backsliding has come to realise that

0:43.0

a little bit of public relations is actually important and beneficial.

0:47.0

For several reasons, if the CIA is constantly getting a bloody eye

0:53.0

in the public domain, in the press, in Hollywood,

0:56.0

there is this danger that staff at CIA become demotivated, demoralised,

1:00.0

and efficiency suffers as a result. That's sort of reason number one.

1:04.0

Reason number two is, I mean, what do agencies like the CIA fundamentally do overseas?

1:08.0

They recruit assets. They recruit individuals overseas who are happy to

1:12.0

betray their country and work for the CIA.

1:16.0

So if you're overseas and you want to recruit an asset and the asset says to you,

1:20.0

but you guys are killers. You guys are stone cold killers that trample on

1:24.0

civil liberties that don't give a damn about privacy, actually suddenly then it becomes quite a hard sell.

1:30.0

I'm Quinta Gerussick and this is the LawFair podcast, December 10th, 2016.

1:36.0

At this week's Hoover Book Swarray, Jack Goldsmith sat down with Christopher Moran

1:41.0

of the University of Warwick to talk about Moran's new book,

...

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