In The East Wing

Abdullah Najjar 0:00
Welcome back to the east wing. This is my conversation with Jim Lawler. Mr. Lawler served for 25 years as a CIA operations officer in various international posts and as chief of the counter proliferation division special activities unit. He had five overseas assignments from 1982 to 1994 he was also a specialist in the recruitment of foreign spies. Currently, Mr. Lawler serves as a national security consultant and is the senior partner at MDO group, which provides human intelligence training to the intelligence community and commercial sector, with a primary focus on weapons of mass destruction, counter intelligence, technical and cyber issues. Mr. Lawler has written three espionage novels, living lies and a twinkling of an eye and a traitor's tale. A Traitor's tale will be released this month. I hope you'd enjoy our conversation together, as this is my second time hosting Mr. Law on the show. I previously had him two years ago back in Libya, and it is certainly an honor to have him back again in the East Wing. All right, all right. So welcome everybody to another episode of In the East Wing today. I'm joined by Mr. Jim Lawler, he had a long career with the CIA, and our first conversation together was recorded approximately two years ago, and today we're having our second conversation on the podcast. And so I'm really happy to have you here. Mr. Lawler, thank you for joining me.

Jim Lawler 1:42
It's always a pleasure. Abdullah, thank you very much for having me on your program.

Abdullah Najjar 1:46
Absolutely. So there's, there's a lot to discuss. And you know, I'm sure things since, since the last conversation we had together, things have changed dramatically. But before we get into a lot of the developments that the Middle East has experienced, and some of your, I guess, opinions on the current affairs, I would love to highlight, or maybe explore with you a fair bit about your background in the agency. And in particular, I do want to maybe explore with you the theme of human nature. Since you spent approximately 2025, years in the agency, right? 25 years, you've had a, I guess, a very deep exposure to human beings, and particularly because of your work, I guess, as a as a case officer, a recruiter of foreign intelligence, or foreign spies, human intelligence. That is throughout the entirety of your career, I'm sure your understanding or your opinion about human nature might have either been changed, or you might have experienced or learn new things about our behavior as human beings, and what it takes for us to maybe do certain things or not do other things. So can you maybe tell me a little bit more about what you thought about, if you thought about it, that is, we thought about human nature prior to joining the agency, and whether or not that changed throughout the years of your tenure at the CIA,

Jim Lawler 3:30
I think that I've always been a pretty good listener to people. I mean, I I'm very empathetic or empathic. I feel what other people feel? I'm a naturally curious person, and even if I had not been a case officer, I'm always curious about how people live their lives, what their stresses are. And I believe I said in one of your the earlier program that I never recruited a happy person in my life. You recruit unhappy people, people who are under stress, and I was a pretty careful observer of people under stress, and I was patient and persistent, and I never forced myself on anybody. I always just wanted to be a friend to somebody, or, if not a friend, at least a sympathetic listener. And a lot of people really just want somebody to talk to. Maybe they can't say things to their lover or to their spouse or their best friend, but they found that I was safe, that they trusted me, and that they could talk about their lives, their stresses, their problems and things like that. And my voice is fairly soothing, and I know at least one of my sources said that when I was talking, it was as if their brain was in a warm water bed. And I want them to relax, and I want them to just share with me everything that they can, and I wasn't pushy. In fact, one of my. Cardinal rules is what we call the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And so I tried to always couch my approach or my my understanding is, if this were me, what would I want this person? What would I want me to do to make me feel comfortable? And so I was always trying to make people feel comfortable and relaxed, and ultimately, that worked most of the time. I'd say over 95% of the time, I was able to recruit somebody because they found me to be a trusted interlocutor, somebody who would listen and who wouldn't make judgments. I didn't, I didn't judge people. If they wanted my advice or my opinion, I might give it to them, but I wasn't trying to assert my opinion on anybody, and people found that relaxing and rewarding, and so I was able to relieve people's stress. I don't know that I was I think I probably, in fact, I certainly got better at this as I went along. It's like anything else in life. If you are really paying attention and you're really focused, you get better at what you're doing. It could be better in a sport. It could be better at art. It could be better in athletics. It could be could be like you as a podcaster. I'm sure you're better now than you were two years ago. And you you you know, you're focused, you're learning about things. You know how not to push somebody's hot button, but also how to ask a stimulating question and to enlist the person that you're talking to to get them on your side, be on your team. That's what I was always trying to do. You know? I know it sounds blunt too, because I was convincing people frequently to betray their government or to betray a trust, but essentially, I was asking them to quit that old team and come on to my team. And they found that to be rewarding.

Abdullah Najjar 6:57
Yeah, in your description, Mr. Lawler, about the the idea of not wanting to force yourself and allowing others to be comfortable. In a sense, I didn't notice an element of manufacturing a relationship or friendship, because I think, generally speaking, if and this is where you you're gonna have to weigh in when you're recruiting someone to commit espionage or treason. You have to ensure that you are manufacturing maybe a relationship that is sustainable, but not necessarily sincere or rather real,

Jim Lawler 7:38
right? It is, yes. I mean, to a certain extent, you're right, it's artificial to a certain extent. I mean, I recruited people that I really enjoyed being around, but I also recruited people who I'd never in my wildest dreams, would I want to be their friend, but I was able to find some redeeming quality about everybody. I mean, even the most atrocious person, a terrorist, or somebody who's a nuclear weapons proliferator, somebody you would never want to be their close friend, but it was my job to recruit these people, and so I would try and find at least one or two things that I thought was a redeeming quality about someone, and I would focus on that and not be condemning. You can't, you can't recruit somebody if you are basically, if you hate the person, if you just, just or despise the person, it's just, you know, or if you make fun of them, if you use racial slurs or things like that. I mean, you know, people see through that. They know you're not sincere. And so I was able to find at least one or two redeeming qualities and even some of the most detestable people in the world, and then make them basically trust me. I would have them trust me. And everybody needs that. Everybody needs that human contact, that trust the something we you know, no man is an island. You know, with that, that in that poem, but people, people, even people that you would think, Gosh, I really don't like that person. But you know, even they need a friend, they need somebody who they can speak to, who they can trust, and who that they know is not a phony. And so, yeah, it is a bit artificial. I had to force myself a lot of times to to do things, to talk to people that I wouldn't normally talk to. But in the end, I found out that everybody, everybody has something that's interesting. Why they are people that you and I might consider to be terrible people. There's a reason why they're like that, probably, and it's not just pure narcissism, although they're that does exist sometimes, but there's a reason why they they do what they do, and so my ability was to figure out why they're doing this, and to not be condemning, but to understand and then try and convince them that. Join my team. Yeah,

Abdullah Najjar 10:01
can you maybe highlight to us an example of a person who was just, I guess, from the outside outset we would characterize as terrible or horrific they could even be, you know, at worst, a terrorist, but that you found a quality about them that we might consider to be endearing, or something that we might like, but that doesn't show because of you know, one characteristic sort of overwhelms that person, and that characteristic or maybe overwhelms our understanding of that person, and that characteristic is just not something that we approve of.

Jim Lawler 10:48
Well, one example that comes to mind, and it really was not one of my targets that I was out to recruit, but I was at a French Language School, and there was a senior officer. He was a CIA officer who was in the French language school with me, and there must have been about a dozen people in this this course, and this one senior officer, he was really what we would call he was a jerk, he was a jackass, he was arrogant, he was unpleasant to be around. And he pretty much alienated everybody in the course. And yet I would try and, you know, I would laugh at his jokes. I would try and not be, you know, condemning. And I remember then he we had, we were very near a small lake with a boat, and so he kind of came over to me one day, and he says, Jim, would you like to go out fishing with me on this boat? And I knew that he was lonely. He was just a very lonely person. And so I went out with him on this boat, because I was kind of dreading it too, because I was thinking, This guy's such a jerk, but I went with him, and it turned out he's just a very, you know, lonely person. He needed some human contact. And I was thinking the whole time. I don't know how he ever recruited anybody, because he could be such a jerk, but he was a very, you know, lonely person. And then later I his he invited me to dinner at his house. And, you know, I mean, he really liked me because I wasn't condemning, and I became friends with him, and I met his wife, met his children. In fact, one of his children, one of his daughters, later became one of our deep cover officers. Many years later, I ran into her. It was kind of kind of strange that I'd known her dad, and I thought her dad was a, you know, totally terrible person, but he really wasn't. And I think that was a good lesson for me, that most people, most people, I think you can find something redeeming about them and and that they're they may be acting atrocious, atrociously, but if you show a little human compassion and empathy, it's amazing how quickly that that brings them around, where they realize you're a friend. You're trying to be somebody that they can talk to.

Abdullah Najjar 13:17
You know, I have a story that kind of maybe sheds light on a similar concept of loneliness and people's desire for company. It's a story that has occurred here, actually, during my my time here, there's this, this particular character, person that think a lot of people in my university would recognize, and this person is very think this person is seeking human attention, and this person tries as much as possible to talk to people or approach people. And I think the majority of the times that this person tried, they received, I guess, a cold shoulder. But I tried as much as I can to talk to this person, and every now and again, when I find this person around, we'd have conversations. And I remember at one point they gifted me something, and this particular object was actually something I mentioned in passing during our conversation together, before I received that gift, and I didn't know that bringing up that subject about this object would actually result in this person gifting it to me after, I guess, two or three weeks of my mentioning it. And so I. And I didn't just receive that gift. I also received the hug. And I just didn't realize how much of an impact I might have, you know, how much of an impact is my presence or my conversations with that person had on, you know, their day to day lives, or their day to day life. And so it just, it just taught me a lot of lessons about how so many people out there just just desire contact and attention, and I guess they would do anything for a conversation. And I just, I wasn't really, I wasn't even trying to. I was just pretty natural about it. I just wanted to, I was curious. And the person that just had conversations,

Jim Lawler 15:47
curiosity, curiosity and listening to people, so many people would just like to be listened to and have somebody with a sympathetic ear. And there's a, there's a lot of deep loneliness out there. And so, you know, approaching somebody and extending a hand or trying to listen to them, that goes miles, you know, and building a relationship, and and suddenly, you know, it's, I mean, this is a terrible image, but it's like a dog that'll follow you home, and they become so grateful, You can almost see the tail wagging,

Abdullah Najjar 16:21
right, right? I'm wondering, Mr. Lawler, if there's ever a time when you were seeking a particular target to recruit, and you were quite intentional about it, like you knew that this was the target, and then you realized that there was somebody else who you never thought would be the ideal candidate, but then you realize that you were so focused on that target that you sort of were oblivious to what was going on outside.

Jim Lawler 16:53
I've got a precise story I can tell you. It was on my first overseas tour, and I had, I was looking at two different gentlemen, two different people from a foreign embassy. And one of the people was maybe 15 years older than me, maybe even 20 years older than me, and the other one was more about my age. Well, normally, you know, you think that you can communicate better with somebody your own age? And we have kind of a, not a rule, but a guidance that if you're going after two targets in the same embassy, that's not a good idea, because they're going to start comparing notes. And, you know, why is Jim doing this or saying this? So you you know, basically you should select one or the other to go after, and not that you're going to forget the other one, but you're just going to basically focus your attention on one particular target. So I did that. I of course, went with the younger man who was my age, and we got along okay. We got along fine. Our families got together. We were friendly. I got him to do a few little minor things for me, intelligence wise. I mean, it was coming along, but very slowly. And, you know, I just, I would never, I could not claim that I recruited the guy. Yeah, he was, he was starting to tell me some things. He was providing me some confidential information. But I would be exaggerating if I told you that this was a recruitment. I never claimed it to be a recruitment. He was just being trying to be friendly and helpful, but not it was not a clandestine relationship where I'd recruited a spy. So then, about a week before I was going to leave that post and go to another foreign capital, I decided we had a party, and we invited the older gentleman that I had ignored for the past two and a half years to this party. For some reason I invited him, you know, and he was a nice guy, and so I invited him, and he came, and here, I hadn't seen him for many, many months, maybe even more than a year or so, and he was very friendly. And he said, Jim, let me tell you a story. He said, after World War Two, he said My brother was out swimming in a lake, and he got into trouble, swimming, and he started drowning. And an American GI, an American soldier, was walking by the lake where my brother was drowning, and that American GI, he jumped in the water, and he saved my brother. And then he said to me, this older gentleman said, Jim, I would do anything for America. And here I had totally ignored this guy the whole time that I was there, oh my god, the station, and I was focused on the wrong target. And you know it, it just means that you don't know sometimes you. Like you really, I should have put my money on the other guy. I did,

Abdullah Najjar 20:04
good lord. And that started a, would you say, a sustainable relationship that was quite friendly and, you know, transparent, and, wow, right, exactly.

Jim Lawler 20:15
Gosh, sometimes you just don't know what you know. I say you can't judge a book by its cover. Sometimes that's true. You really don't know, and they'll open up to you. And when he said that, he said, I'd do anything for America.

Abdullah Najjar 20:32
This is, this is just incredible. The amount of people that we sort of maybe misjudge or overlook, and those are perhaps the most exceptional are the ones that we ultimately desire,

Jim Lawler 20:44
or you or you ignore somebody I was running a source who was involved in a country's nuclear weapons program, and he was a, he was pretty good source. His access was okay. And then after I'd been with this guy for about a year or so, he said, You know, Jim, you've never asked me what my wife does. I said, Okay, what does your wife do? He said, She designs nuclear weapons. I had never asked. Gosh, wow, she had incredible access. Of course, that was, you know, the typical male, sexist image that is only the male that's important. Well, no, the female is actually much more important.

Abdullah Najjar 21:26
Yeah. Well, that's, that's actually very good point, because I know that I was, I was talking to recently, my my friend Holly McKay, who's a war journalist, and she talked about, or maybe I mentioned this idea that there's a particular segment of the society in certain cultures that might be overlooked, and that that segment is women, because they might prefer not to talk to a male, but they would prefer To talk to a female. And so if, say, someone like you, Mr. Lawler, would want to go to the particular culture where that is the case. We sort of find ourselves in a situation where almost half of the population you do not have access to, and maybe within that half, you might find targets or important people that can provide the intelligence that you desire.

Jim Lawler 22:25
Well, we also, of course, I have female colleagues, and at times, it's better for a female colleague to pursue a female target. You know, for one thing, the female target a female I've pursued female targets who mistook my attention and my everything for something romantic, which is not what I was intending to do, but they, you know, I, you know, when I was younger and better looking than I am now. I mean, I could, you know, and take, take somebody out for a nice dinner or nice, nice lunch or something. They're starting to think this is a date, and there's no, it's not a date. And so sometimes I would transfer those relationships to a female colleague so that I didn't get into an area that I didn't want to get into,

Abdullah Najjar 23:07
right? But it could also be, I reckon, a particular mission can be, or can involve these types of interactions that are manufactured or artificial, right? An artificial date, you make sure that the person thinks that it's a day but it's not

Jim Lawler 23:23
well, yeah. I mean, I don't know if I ever told you a story about at one point we one of my covers was a cover position was as a consular officer. And a consular officer is the person who issues visas and passports, but especially visas. So if a foreigner wants to go to the United States, they have to get a visa. Most, most, most countries, you know, we require visas, and this was towards the end of the Cold War, and we knew that this one person from this eastern European country, very, very attractive woman. She was what we call a code clerk, or a cipher clerk, or an IT specialist. You know, she was the person who ran all of the sensitive encrypted communications for this country's embassy, probably one of the most vulnerable or valuable targets you could go after. But this country, you know, usually would require its code clerks, these people, to only go out if they were with another code clerk, so that, you know, we're not going to approach, you know, a group of people. We would only approach one person. Well, on this particular occasion, the consulate downstairs. I was, you know, obviously an agency officer, but I had that consular cover, and they told me that this particular Eastern European female code clerk had applied for a visa to the United States for a two week trip to. And so we were going to, or we did, invite her to come in for the visa interview. And of course, I was going to do the interview as the consular officer. So they loaned me the consular the console downstairs, loaned me his office, and I removed all of his pictures and put my pictures, made it look like it was my office, and so I invited this young lady to come in, and she's very nervous, because this is her one chance to go to America for a two week vacation. This is her dream vacation. She saved up all her money, and I was wondering now, how could I get this person to do something for me. And I had a skiing magazine that I'd seen which had a picture of a man skiing, and this man looked just like me. I think the old saying is that everybody's got at least six people in the world who look very much like they do. You know, doppelgangers, people that are that your friends would think it was you, and it's not well in this picture, it looked just like me. How, you know, man out cross country scheme. So I took that picture and into the office, and when the woman came in, I was looking at the visa application and at her, and I said, Oh, you're going to New York. She said, Yes, I want to go to New York and leaving in a few days, leaving in like, two days. And I said, Well, would you do me a big favor? And I showed her the picture. And I said, you see this picture that was taken of me a few months ago, and my agent in New York would like to have a copy of that they don't have this particular magazine in New York, and this was before the age of accurate fax machines and things like that. I said, Could you take this photo and hand it to this my agent, who was a female officer in New York City, that I'd already arranged this with? Well, there's one thing that they always tell you to do or not do, and that's, don't ever accept something from somebody like me and take it on an aircraft and to a foreign country, especially one that was considered to be hostile to your country because her country was a communist country in Eastern Europe. And you can see her hesitating as to she's recalling, I shouldn't be doing this, but I also had not signed the visa, and I could reject her visa for any reason. A consular officer is like, God, they can do whatever they want, and nobody can overrule them. So I'm there with my pin, posed to sign her visa, and she finally, she nods her head, and she takes the envelope with the picture in it to give to my colleague in New York. So I signed the visa. She takes off. She does meet my colleague. My colleague takes her around. They have a really good time, and then sends me a report back about, you know, this eastern European code clerk, and how much you know they enjoyed each other and things like that. I didn't ask the officer to pitch her or anything. That was going to be my job. Yeah, so she comes back from her two week vacation, and I thought, Okay, I'm going to ask her out for a drink and just to hear all about her, her time in New York. And so I called her up and said, I heard from my friend, our friend, that you had a really great time in New York. Said, Oh yeah, it was wonderful. And I said, Why don't we meet for a drink at this bar? And I named a location that was within easy walking distance for both of us, and you can tell me all about it. And she said, Sure. So then I made a big, big, big mistake. I thought, Okay, I'm going to do something that I will ensure that this is a good meeting. But what I did was I sent her a dozen red roses. Stupid, stupid, stupid, because I get to this meeting with her, and for one thing, she's dressed in an evening gown that probably cost God knows how much. And I thought, well, that's kind of odd. You know why we're just meeting for a drink? Or at least that's what I thought. And so I sit down, we start talking about her trip to her vacation in New York and all this stuff. And after about 45 minutes, I looked at my watch, and I said, Oh, well, I've got to go home. And she said, What do you mean home? She thought this was a date, and those red roses were my token of affection for her. And oh, man, I felt terrible. I had to leave, and it was, you know, this was a date, and I didn't know it was a date, stupid. I had trouble writing that message to headquarters explaining how I botched that.

Abdullah Najjar 29:58
And you said, this is one of your early. Missions abroad, yeah, oh my gosh.

Jim Lawler 30:02
I mean, I overdid it. I mean, you know, there's, there is a point where you do, you do it too much. And that was clearly one of them where I overdid it,

Abdullah Najjar 30:12
gosh. And that would be like, completely, that would be in complete contrast to that one story you told me about the woman at the restaurant when you didn't even force yourself, she just, you know,

Jim Lawler 30:27
so there is a point where being too personable, too charismatic, too whatever. And she thought this was a romantic date, and it was. She was a very, very attractive woman, very beautiful woman, young woman, probably three or four years younger than me and but you know, no, I'm not doing that.

Abdullah Najjar 30:50
Did you ever keep in touch and see what happened to her after obviously, no.

Jim Lawler 30:54
In fact, that's a good question. Basically, Eastern Europe fell apart within a few weeks of that, you know, and her country basically went down the draw, you know, they basically became free. The Communist Party was kicked out, and, you know, so it became kind of a moot point. Now it is kind of, no, you're right. I, I don't know what happened to her. That's that was when I really fumbled the ball on that one. I mean, I was, I was, I didn't want the score.

Abdullah Najjar 31:30
No, that's and it goes back to what you were saying earlier, about with years, you accumulate much more, I guess, insights into how to do things, or many more insights, I would probably say, and you get more experience that doing it. Yeah, let me maybe we can transition to something, I guess, about the current affairs in the Middle East, and particularly the recently. Know how long ago it was, but there was the the pagers attack, right? And there have been many sophisticated operations conducted by Israel to take out important targets within his Mala and Hamas. And that got me thinking about just how how sophisticated such operations, um, are in the effort and the energy that one has to have to actually conduct something like that, and also patience, which is important, right?

Jim Lawler 32:43
This was a very, very sophisticated supply chain operation. I've done some myself supply chain operations. And by that, I mean you get into the enemy, the adversary's supply chain, and you alter things, either for sabotage, or in this case, for, well, actually, it had two purposes. And again, this is brilliant. It took probably several years in preparation, and they had to have impeccable intelligence on who the suppliers were, the types of models of these pagers and walkie talkies, and then to get into the supply chain to basically become the manufacturer, and then alter the the devices to where they initially would collect intelligence. In other words, if it's a walkie talkie or a pager, it would literally listen in and transmit to Israel, to Mossad the conversations that were going on. So that was one major, major accomplishment, just what we call foreign intelligence collection. To be able to eavesdrop on these conversations was, was critical. Second major success is being able to geo locate where these people were, because they were moving all around. This is, you know, the Hizballah thing. You're moving all around and and so. But to be able to pinpoint where these people are, well, after a year or two of that kind of collection, they might, I think they did start to become suspicious of these pagers and walkie talkies, and so then they had built into this a small amount of explosive so that they could use what we call a kinetic option, or lethal option, and basically take out the targets. And they did so simultaneously, you know, all over, and they basically killed a number of targets, injured a lot of targets. They had one thing going for them, that I had a restriction when I was running these type of operations. Rarely, very rarely, would I be authorized to have a lethal option. We did not want to kill people. We were. Just trying to sabotage things or to collect intelligence. But in Israel's case, they're, they're faced with an existential challenge. I mean, this is something that threatens the security and existence of Israel. So they had a kinetic option, the explosive option built in, and that was absolutely a stunning success for them, killed a number of the of the couriers and leaders, and the other mean, two other benefits to this is it probably scared the organization so much to where they could would not trust another walkie talkie or another communication device. And once you take communications out of the network, you basically cause them to fall apart, because they would have to then meet in person to communicate. So it had, you know, major dividends for from Assad being able to, you know, eliminate the lead, collect on the leaders, eliminate the leaders, scare the rest of the network to where they wouldn't trust these devices again, and that totally breaks down their communications. So to me, I thought this, this took patience. It took persistence. It took some human recruitments, I'm sure, to get in and and, you know, make sure that the enemy buys the devices from your supply chain, you know, and so that requires a lot of very, very careful planning, probably more than a little bit of luck. But you make your own luck by I'm sure they had backup plans. I used to have always a backup plan sometimes, in fact, in something like that, if they're doing it right, not only do you control a supplier of this, of these walkie talkies and pagers. But you probably would set up what looks like a competing company, a competition company, and control it as well, so that if they got irritated with this company, then they went to the competitor, you're still in the driver's seat. So I use, I had that too. I had sometimes backup things where, okay, if you don't like this stuff, or if you suspect something, then you know, you go to plan B. But Plan B is under my control as well. You don't know it, but I control that one too. So these operations, actually, I love these type of operations, because they're they're not straightforward, they're complex. There's like a musical symphony of things that you're trying to bring this all together at one time. And to me, this was literally like being on a tight rope and juggling plates going across. But that's what makes it fun, the challenge. And in their case, it was a absolutely stunning success, stunning success for them. Now I'm sorry, I know it did injure or maybe killed some children, which is not something I would be proud of. But Israel Mossad does not have the types of constraints that we would have the United States. Would never do lethal options like that. We might do lethal option, but we would have to be doubly sure that it was against just the leadership or against the actual Hamas or Hezbollah people, when they went after, well, who was his name? Soleimani, yeah, in the Baghdad airport, they had precise location of where he was. I mean, there was no collateral damage. It was only the people in that car. And I'm sure they had an observer on the ground who said he's now getting in the car, and they might have, you know, flashed a laser on the thing, and then a drone or something, or a predator or something, then put the hellfire missile on the target, so that they didn't, they didn't hurt anybody that didn't kill anybody else. It was just the inhabitants of that car. The same thing when they got so what was the lottery? It was just took him out by himself. It was very, very surgical, very precise. Again, sure they had impeccable intelligence, which is what's required.

Abdullah Najjar 38:55
Yeah, and you mentioned, Mr. Lawler, that you have participated in similar operations without the lethal option, but suppose that there was a a lethal option in that scenario, would that the person on the receiving end who is being targeted or the the the entity or the organizations being targeted. Would they have suspected that this was coming from the US, or it came from, say, an intelligence community that's associated with the US, or would they have not known at all? I

Jim Lawler 39:36
think they would. I think they would suspect either us or one of our allies, you know, in the Middle East, they're automatically going to suspect either Mossad or US or the British. But in that case, I think they would conclude pretty rapidly that this was Israeli, that this was this was mob. Now, there are times when we try and conceal. Know exactly who the purpose that we're the perpetrator, but we want to conceal that. So we wouldn't have American parts and American you know, we want deniability, as we call it. But you know, it gets down to that old thing about the usual suspects, and we're going to be among the usual suspects, if you know, but his Ballas case, or Hamas case. I mean, who's their number one enemy? It's Israel. So they're going to suspect Israel. We're we, we don't have near the fight or the grudge map match against them that that the Israelis do.

Abdullah Najjar 40:39
Yeah, that's a it was just a fascinating development. I was thinking about just the level of just patience. I mean, with your line of work, that is one of the, I guess one of the most important things is to be to observe, to be patient about it, to to think of the long term instead of like maybe short term gains,

Jim Lawler 41:01
yeah, and that's that's difficult to do a lot of times. My own organization, the operation I ran against the AQ con nuclear network, that took almost 10 years. That's very unusual, though, to have a dedicated team that is focused on on a target for that long. Typically, in my organization, every two or three years, people rotate to a new job, a new team, something like that. And I contend that if you really want to go after the the not the low hanging fruit, but the fruit at the top, the really hard targets, you need to focus on that for years at a time and have the same people so that there's no learning curve. You've got that institutional memory you know what works and what doesn't work. And of course, it's great to have new blood you know, come in and show you something that maybe you overlooked. But rarely does the CIA you know have the patience to spend years on one particular target. In my case, they I was fortunate. They allowed me to run this thing for almost 10 years, and we had great, great results. So, I mean, people sometimes wondered if we were good or just lucky. And I said, Well, you know, the harder I work, the luckier I get.

Abdullah Najjar 42:16
So, gosh, I didn't know it was a 10 year long operation, not

Jim Lawler 42:21
10 years. It started in. Yeah, it was nine or 10 years, it really was. And it was after about two years, we started seeing results. So I mean that in a set, in a sense, was we were lucky. We had actually collected a lot of valuable intelligence through human penetrations, through computer penetrations and things like that. And, you know, they wanted to some short sighted people knew that we were spending a lot of money we were and that we had not shown, you know, shown any concrete results, except that we'd collected a lot of intelligence, and yet, like 65 or 70 intelligence reports we'd already collected, and so I was able to use that to postpone a premature closure of the entire project. I mean, they were willing to close it down in the first six or seven months because we had not done what we thought we should have been doing. And then within a week or two of that, then things started to come together really quickly. Wow.

Abdullah Najjar 43:26
You know, we talked about patience and the necessity of that in long term operations or even in a short term operation, but was there something else that you would lean on to as well for such a long time where things might not even look as positive as you expected them to be, but you have maybe faith me, faith in yourself, or any operation, or, god,

Jim Lawler 43:54
yeah. And usually I had multiple targets going on, knowing that I couldn't get all of them. But in fact, we started off with one primary target, and turned out we came across the AQ CON network while we were preparing for the first target. And so we first took contact with the CON network. And then about six months after we did that, our initial our primary target came back across our screen and came knocking on our door. So we then had two, two nuclear weapons programs we were going after. And now that was tricky, because you didn't want to cross wires and have one expose the other. And so again, that was like juggling plates and walking on a tight rope, but we had two primary targets, and it's always good if you have backup targets as well. I know some of my deep cover officers. They go to trade fairs and conferences to meet a particular target, but if they were smart, they would have backup targets. Because what if your primary. Target doesn't show up, or things don't work out to where you can get get them alone and chat with them, then you need to have something that you can go after and say, well, at least I met this guy, right? And and, you know, have backup plans. Always having backup plans. I used to be a rock climber, and I don't know if you've ever done any climbing Abdullah. But you don't want to have just one point of protection on the mountain, because if that, that piton pops out of the mountain and your rope starts going down, you know, you want to have that backup plan. So it's always, it's always good to have, you know, multiple targets to go after, so at least you get one or two of them.

Abdullah Najjar 45:40
Yeah, there's, um, I remember coming across video of a retired CIA officer who talked about the similar thing to, like, targeting a particular individual, but with the with the caveat that you look for someone who would not have a very important, I guess, position, but has access. And what he means by that is, he gave an example. He said that you, um, if you're trying to go for the CEO, look for the chauffeur or his chauffeur. Yeah, you're not

Jim Lawler 46:23
going to recruit the CEO. You might recruit the CEO's deputy. I've done that before, because the being the deputy, being the number two in any organization, is always difficult. You do most of the work, and you get very little of the credit, and you resent the boss. But even better than that, sometimes recruiting a maintenance person. I think I can talk about this now, but many years ago, Mossad showed us the inside of a Iranian nuclear facility, and it was absolutely stunning, the video and everything. And it turned out they had recruited a maintenance man who wore a body concealed camera. And this maintenance man not only took videos of everything, but he was collecting what we call me, or radioactive particles to see what their degree of enrichment was. And nobody pays attention to the maintenance man. It's, you know, he's underpaid, he's treated like dirt and but he, you know, he got recruited, and he walks around the facility, sweeping up and doing things, and he's got that little body concealed camera on him, and he's taking pictures of everything. And amazing, incredible access. No, he couldn't tell you how a nuclear weapon was built, but he doesn't need to, but he could get you samples of things and close up pictures of things, and he did. In fact, in my new novel, in the trader's tale, I won't spoil it for anybody, but I have a similar theme about somebody who's overlooked, who's considered part of the furniture, like and, and it turns out that that furniture has eyes and ears.

Abdullah Najjar 48:04
Yeah, you know that's and that reminds me also, and I'm glad you brought this up. Reminds me when I was reading your novel in a twinkling of an eye. And the the the Android, that toy, that small toy, forgot what it's called, but it plays a major role in the novel,

Jim Lawler 48:22
right? It was a baby doll, a baby doll that has artificial intelligence, right, and talk, and it was used as a communications device, but it looked just like the one of the characters, daughters dolls, and so the doll has got this AI and ability to communicate with the CIA and the FBI. And, I mean, the AI made this doll almost sentient. I mean, the doll basically is super intelligent. I wrote this, by the way, before aI had really taken off. You know, it's really taken off in the last couple of years, where it's come to people's attention. But I wrote this about four years ago, and just imagined that, what if we had aI like this? Well, my friends who work in the AI field at the time said, Jim, we're getting pretty close to where, where they you know, we can do that. And now I think they can do it. They could that doll. It was science fiction when I wrote it. Now it's no longer science

Abdullah Najjar 49:25
prophecy. That's the definition of a prophecy. I really enjoyed that novel, and I remember even when I was reading into twinkling of an eye, I came across a that scene of the this spy that's being recruited by the FBI agent, and she praises his language skills. And, you know, she thinks that he has a musical ear. I remember sending you a picture of that.

Jim Lawler 49:53
That was because you have a musical ear. You're, I mean, you, you sound like you grew up somewhere on the east coast of the. United States, and

Abdullah Najjar 50:02
some people, you didn't come, you didn't

Jim Lawler 50:03
come from the southern United States like I do, but maybe somewhere in the east coast.

Abdullah Najjar 50:11
A lot of people, lot of people think that when some people even wouldn't believe it when I tell them that I never really, I didn't grow up here, you know, I lived most of my life was, you know, lived in Libya for 17 years.

Jim Lawler 50:24
I remember that funny story you told me about you were teaching English to some of the Libyan students in Tripoli, and they thought you were an American, and they started joking about you in Arabic. Of course, you understood everything

Abdullah Najjar 50:38
exactly. And my back was to them. I was riding on the board, and they were questioning, who my who my mom is, or was it that foreign teacher who's married to olivian? It's just Yeah. But so you have, we're almost hit. We're gonna hit the one an hour mark very, very soon. But I love to devote some of our the rest of our conversation to your novels. And particularly, here's a recent one, which is got, which is, which just, which just got clear by the CIA, if I'm not mistaken, yeah,

Jim Lawler 51:15
traders, the traders tale that will be published in early February. And I think it's probably my most personal novel yet. It's it's based on two interconnected true stories. One was a story of a Russian that we supposedly a KGB officer that we were supposedly recruited in Moscow. His code name was GT prolog, and he was a senior KGB officer who volunteered to the chief of station. And there was considerable controversy inside of the CIA as to whether he was really legitimately recruited, or was he a double agent? Was he being controlled by the KGB the whole time? And it turned out he was being controlled by the KGB at the whole time. We just thought, at the time we headquarters, thought that the KGB would never run a senior officer at us, for several reasons, as a double agent, because they the KGB would fear that the double agent might actually work for us, or that there were other reasons why we didn't. They would never dangle a Senior Staff Officer at us. But in fact, they did dangle a senior staff officer, and it turned out it was a ruse the whole time. It completely fractured Moscow State CIA's Moscow station. A lot of younger officers resigned. They were so disgusted. It revealed our most delicate and sensitive exfiltration plan, because, of course, the double agent never showed up to be exfiltrated. And it also diverted attention away from the real spies such as Aldridge, James and Robert Hans back in the United States and the CIA and the FBI, because we were running around paying attention to this guy, and he was never, never did he really work for us. And then the other story that's intertwined with this is about a senior CIA officer who was suspected of being a Russian mole, and he his life was in purgatory for a number of months, and ultimately he was exonerated, because the real mole was Robert Hansen. It was not this poor CIA officer, Brian Kelly and but it. But you can imagine, if your friends think that you are a Russian spy and you're rejected, you're tarred and feathered, in a sense, emotionally and psychologically, the friends you thought were your friends turn their backs on you. They don't want to talk to you because they think you're a traitor. And I mean, this poor guy, Brian Kelly, he was exonerated, but his health was broken, and within a few years, he died prematurely. So I took that and I created a character. He's an African American Case Officer, extremely good at what he does, but he's suspected of being a Russian mole, and he's exonerated, or he thinks he's exonerated, and then he thinks, Okay, his boss says, Now I want you to volunteer to the Russians. And he says, what? He said, Yeah, I want you to volunteer to the Russians, because we then ran a double agent operation in this book, in my book against the Russians. And the whole time, though, he's having to endure the scorn from a lot of colleagues, who thinks that he's still, you know, like a Russian mole or something. And anyhow, I'm going to have a big book launch. If any of your listeners are in the Washington, DC area, on the 18th of February, the former deputy at the CIA, Michael Morell, is hosting me at a book launch. It will be on the 18th of February at 6pm in Middleburg, Virginia, at the American Legion hall, and we're going to have. Hopefully a couple of 100 people there, and I'm going to sign books and give a book talk on the traders tale.

Abdullah Najjar 55:05
Wow, no, that's something i i will try not to miss, and I hope that some of my viewers would not miss as well. Everybody.

Jim Lawler 55:14
It's open to the public. You don't have to RSVP. I'd love it. If anybody who's listening to this broadcast would like to come. A number of my CIA colleagues are going to be there, and my best friend Rolf mo at Larson, he's going to be there signing copies of his memoirs, which is a very special book. It was about not only about his CIA career as a very senior officer, but also about his spiritual awakening and how he combined his faith with being a CIA officer. Yeah,

Abdullah Najjar 55:45
that's that would be very interesting to also explore. I know we're probably going to be wrapping things up really soon, but I did want to ask you, Mr. Lawler, about when I was reading your novel, and twinkling of an eye, which I will try to attach here after we're done, to the final final cut, I noticed that a lot of the characters, or some of the characters you indicated, were modeled, perhaps after real life people that you've had connections with or encounters with, maybe in the agency or otherwise. And that made me think about, made me think about whether or not you would have to, if it's a fictional character, would you really have to actually consult with these people, and do they have to approve of every detail you No,

Jim Lawler 56:46
no, they don't. But if you notice, I think most of the characters that are the ones you're referring to based on real people. They're they're the good guys. So everybody that I consulted, Paula, Doyle, Scott Stewart these, you know, Paula Doyle is Paula Davenport in the novel. Scott Stewart is Brian Bannock, my friend who plays the Korean ethnic Korean Ariel Choi and she's based on dalry polas daray Beach, who is a real FBI Korean, ethnic Korean female Special Agent. But I consulted with them. I allowed them to give me their character's name and but I noted little characteristics about them. And in my new novel, I do the same thing. I base this, a lot of several of the characters, on real people. It makes it easier for me, because it's like a portrait artist, I have a model to to design the character after. And it may not be 100% the same, but it's probably about 90% the same. And they're they're very tickled and flattered that I wanted to base characters on them. You know, again, only good guys, the bad guys may be modeled on somebody I know, but that's going to be top secret.

Abdullah Najjar 58:07
Well, thank you so much for joining me today. Mr. Lawler, I really enjoyed our conversation and the topics we discussed, and I enjoyed reading in a twinkling of an eye you publish another novel living lies. I hope to read that as well, and I look forward to the launch of your third novel, The traders tale.

Jim Lawler 58:29
Thank you very much. Abdullah, it's a pleasure always to be on your program. Absolutely you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai