LOL I dunno. I'll let you know when I find one. No, the truth is at the time I was there, there were only about four of us out on the street doing the operational acts and we had all bee scholarship athletes -- one gymnast and two football players. I think the competitiveness and physicality was a thing. But also the training -- you knew exactly what to expect in terms of what they were doing to track us and how to defeat it and then -- worst case -- you get busted one night, you know what to expect then and you have confidence you won't rot forever in a Soviet prison. The stress came more from knowing that the agent you were meeting woudl get executed if you screwed up. I would liken it more to the ind of stress a surgeon must feel. Don't screw up or somebody dies -- that ind of thing. Re Ames, I was watcing CNN when he got arrested and at first thought ..no....he coudn't have gone all the way back to 1985. But ten two days later I heard them say he had started in 1985 and my arrest was March of 1986, so I was pretty sure then. And then I got a call from one of my former bosses telling me that yes for sure Ames had given up my case. I was very relieved to finally know for sure that it wasn't some tradecraft scewup on my part that caused it.
Actually, Musk didn’t find $150 billion in fraud, unless you include his own government contracts, which apparently grew from $3 billion to over $36 billion after Trump was reelected.
And this doesn’t even include the fact that Musk (Tesla) was essentially insolvent in 2010, when Obama gave EV vehicles a $7,500 tax credit to spur growth in the industry; saving Musk from certain bankruptcy. Talk about receiving tens of billions in government subsidies???
Additionally, as The New York Times reported, five of DOGE's biggest contracts that they say have resulted in savings ended up being deleted from that wall of receipts after outlets pointed out that there were errors. And some of the biggest errors in savings are, as CBS first reported, a USAID contract for $650 million that was listed three times, as The Intercept first reported, a Social Security contract listed as $232 million, instead of $560,000, and an ICE contract that DOGE listed as $8 billion, when, in reality, it was $8 million.
Furthermore, the answer is NO; Social Security wasn’t paying benefits to dead people. It’s a completely mad-up scam by Musk, to get you to believe the actual grifter like Musk and Trump!
So in the end, it appears after all the chaos caused by Musk and his team, DOGE could account for maybe $8 billion in canceled contracts, none of them for fraud, just wasteful spending; according to Musk. You know like firing air traffic controllers, or probationary employees at the FBI and CIA; you know the future of these agencies. Or fire fighters who are trained by FEMA to fight wild fires in CA and other states. Or even epidemiologists, who work for the CDC, who track and find cures for H1N1 bird flu; the virus that has culled over 150 million chickens, and increased eggs prices to over $7 a dozen (was $4.40 a dozen when Biden left office)—You know: REAL WASTE! /S.
That said, if only these clowns from DOGE actually knew what they were doing, except they didn’t and still don’t. Yet, low information voters like yourself (or gullible people) seem to fall for their SCAM: hook, line and sinker!
So congratulations, it’s people like yourself who are responsible for the dumbing down of America! Outstanding!!!! So if you truly want to stop waste, I suggest you start wirh Trump’s weekend golf outings which cost more than $1.5 million per weekend, or his stops at the Super Bowl and Indy 500, both exceeding $3.5 million.
Or go after all the fraudulent PPE grants during COVID, or the trillions in waste and fraud by military contractors during the War on Terror—Iraq and Afghanistan. You know places you can find REAL FRAUD AND WASTE! IMHO!…:)
You know who was also a genius? Trd Kaczynski (Unabomber), and Edmund Kemper (Serial Killer). How’d that work out for America?
And Trump and Musk are far from geniuses. Musk was fired from many of his companies when CEO, including what is now PayPal. Thiel took over and made Musk billions. And as I’ve stated, your genius was saved because of government subsidies, not his business acumen. Musk isn’t an engineer, and he’s proven time again, he’s a lousy businessman, who got very lucky.
And as for Trump, he never made an honest buck. He inherited $400 million, and he graduated in the bottom of his class at UPENN. He doesn’t have a 145 IQ. He barely passed a cognitive test, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
Additionally, In NY, he was known as the king of debt. He has four bankruptcies, and made his money because of Russian investors, or selling RE property to Russian’s, at inflated prices. See a Florida property Trump bought for $46 billion in 2006 (highest price ever paid for a residential property in Florida at the time), and then selling it at the height of the housing bubble in 2008, for $96 million, when all residential RE were down over 50% nationally, with Florida being one of the states hit hardest.
Yup, your reality TV billionaire, is a fraud. End of Story!
Come on Chris, this post had absolutely zero to do with any of that. Why are you hijacking the thread? There are plenty of other posts where you can go tell everyone how great Trump and Musk are. Give it a rest here, please.
Excellent thread. On an unrelated note, this episode reminds me of the movie Argot, with the CIA case officer using disguises to get 44 people out of Tehran in 1979-80, during the US embassy takeover—during the fall of the Shah.
Did you train with that department (whatever it’s called), before heading to Moscow, since you were said to be a master of disguise?
Ironically, I believe we had some help from our life long enemies; Canada, during that mission! Just saying!…:)
Yes, Tony Mendez had a lot to do with Moscow disguise training, and hs wife Jonna is a friend until today. Tony died 3-4 years ago. The disguise technique I used a lot in Moscow, known as 'identity transfer', was something that Tony played a large role in developing.
Incredible. Sorry to hear about Tony Mendez’s death, he was a true American hero.
Seriously though, the 1980’s; in Moscow, must have been some scary times. At least these agencies had some sort of moral code back then. Now dissidents and spies seem to be committing suicide by either jumping from balconies, or killing their families, and then killing themselves.
Just out of curiosity, I thought Moscow was always the hardest country to spy on back then (supposedly China now). Wouldn’t it have been easier to recruit from the Soviet satellite states, given the complexities of doing it at the brain center, where everyone was always being watched?
You couldn't recruit anyone in Moscow. The stable of soviet agents consiste of some who were recruited while they were abroad, and some who volunteered. The one I was handling when i got busted, Sergey Vorontsov (GTCOWL), had volunteered in Moscow just before I got there in the summer of 84. He was considered unique in that he came from the Second Chief Directorate -- counterintelligence -- and there had been no previous agents from there. All the others were from First Chief Directorate, the ones who go overseas. YOu also couldn't do much recruiting in the Satellite countries as well -- very good security services there too. Africa, Asia, Latin America was where the recruiting action was.
Human behavior is endlessly fascinating. Amazingly, V's greed blinded him to the reality that the KGB was bound to notice his lavish lifestyle. He even left the curtains of his home open - as if showing off his personal "success."
yup. he did other things too--bought his wife a fur coat, took a lavish vacation to the black sea...he was a very adoring husband trying hard to impress his wife who came from an elite family. he was an underachiever by her family's standards and when he got demoted he came up with spying as a way to build himself back up with her family .....sadstory overall and i was struck in the documentary by Sergei Terekhov's genuine sadness when recounting the scene in which the wife and daughter were made aware that their husband/father had been arrested. Very human on many levels.
Yup, I was traine in surveillance detection. I had to make sure they were not on me anytime I did anything. I had done so on the night i was arrested and it ws clear when the arrest happened that t was an ambush -- more than a 100 people flooding the area, lights and cameras, etc. So we know I had not 'dragged surveillance to the meet' -- but we did not know how they knew to be set up there, waiting. It was later that we would learn that the case had been part of Aldrich Ames' 'big dump' of into on June 13, 1985, when he gave up about a dozen of our soviet agents inclung the one I was meeting.
How does a CIA Russia specialist in Moscow acquire nerves of steel?
When did you learn of Ames' betrayal?
LOL I dunno. I'll let you know when I find one. No, the truth is at the time I was there, there were only about four of us out on the street doing the operational acts and we had all bee scholarship athletes -- one gymnast and two football players. I think the competitiveness and physicality was a thing. But also the training -- you knew exactly what to expect in terms of what they were doing to track us and how to defeat it and then -- worst case -- you get busted one night, you know what to expect then and you have confidence you won't rot forever in a Soviet prison. The stress came more from knowing that the agent you were meeting woudl get executed if you screwed up. I would liken it more to the ind of stress a surgeon must feel. Don't screw up or somebody dies -- that ind of thing. Re Ames, I was watcing CNN when he got arrested and at first thought ..no....he coudn't have gone all the way back to 1985. But ten two days later I heard them say he had started in 1985 and my arrest was March of 1986, so I was pretty sure then. And then I got a call from one of my former bosses telling me that yes for sure Ames had given up my case. I was very relieved to finally know for sure that it wasn't some tradecraft scewup on my part that caused it.
As you stated in your article,
“I am absolutely convinced that the overwhelming motive for people who are on the pulse of betrayal is profit."
I think we're witnessing this on a grand scale in the Trump Administration right now!!!
Your a Democrat arent you. Musk has found 150 billion worth of waste and fraud.
Actually, Musk didn’t find $150 billion in fraud, unless you include his own government contracts, which apparently grew from $3 billion to over $36 billion after Trump was reelected.
And this doesn’t even include the fact that Musk (Tesla) was essentially insolvent in 2010, when Obama gave EV vehicles a $7,500 tax credit to spur growth in the industry; saving Musk from certain bankruptcy. Talk about receiving tens of billions in government subsidies???
Additionally, as The New York Times reported, five of DOGE's biggest contracts that they say have resulted in savings ended up being deleted from that wall of receipts after outlets pointed out that there were errors. And some of the biggest errors in savings are, as CBS first reported, a USAID contract for $650 million that was listed three times, as The Intercept first reported, a Social Security contract listed as $232 million, instead of $560,000, and an ICE contract that DOGE listed as $8 billion, when, in reality, it was $8 million.
Furthermore, the answer is NO; Social Security wasn’t paying benefits to dead people. It’s a completely mad-up scam by Musk, to get you to believe the actual grifter like Musk and Trump!
So in the end, it appears after all the chaos caused by Musk and his team, DOGE could account for maybe $8 billion in canceled contracts, none of them for fraud, just wasteful spending; according to Musk. You know like firing air traffic controllers, or probationary employees at the FBI and CIA; you know the future of these agencies. Or fire fighters who are trained by FEMA to fight wild fires in CA and other states. Or even epidemiologists, who work for the CDC, who track and find cures for H1N1 bird flu; the virus that has culled over 150 million chickens, and increased eggs prices to over $7 a dozen (was $4.40 a dozen when Biden left office)—You know: REAL WASTE! /S.
That said, if only these clowns from DOGE actually knew what they were doing, except they didn’t and still don’t. Yet, low information voters like yourself (or gullible people) seem to fall for their SCAM: hook, line and sinker!
So congratulations, it’s people like yourself who are responsible for the dumbing down of America! Outstanding!!!! So if you truly want to stop waste, I suggest you start wirh Trump’s weekend golf outings which cost more than $1.5 million per weekend, or his stops at the Super Bowl and Indy 500, both exceeding $3.5 million.
Or go after all the fraudulent PPE grants during COVID, or the trillions in waste and fraud by military contractors during the War on Terror—Iraq and Afghanistan. You know places you can find REAL FRAUD AND WASTE! IMHO!…:)
You are lucky to have 2 geniuses working for America. Trumps IQ 140 And Musk's 155 +
You know who was also a genius? Trd Kaczynski (Unabomber), and Edmund Kemper (Serial Killer). How’d that work out for America?
And Trump and Musk are far from geniuses. Musk was fired from many of his companies when CEO, including what is now PayPal. Thiel took over and made Musk billions. And as I’ve stated, your genius was saved because of government subsidies, not his business acumen. Musk isn’t an engineer, and he’s proven time again, he’s a lousy businessman, who got very lucky.
And as for Trump, he never made an honest buck. He inherited $400 million, and he graduated in the bottom of his class at UPENN. He doesn’t have a 145 IQ. He barely passed a cognitive test, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
Additionally, In NY, he was known as the king of debt. He has four bankruptcies, and made his money because of Russian investors, or selling RE property to Russian’s, at inflated prices. See a Florida property Trump bought for $46 billion in 2006 (highest price ever paid for a residential property in Florida at the time), and then selling it at the height of the housing bubble in 2008, for $96 million, when all residential RE were down over 50% nationally, with Florida being one of the states hit hardest.
Yup, your reality TV billionaire, is a fraud. End of Story!
So much for Democrats winning elections for the next 50 years
Come on Chris, this post had absolutely zero to do with any of that. Why are you hijacking the thread? There are plenty of other posts where you can go tell everyone how great Trump and Musk are. Give it a rest here, please.
If you believe that, then you obviously don't have a working brain...like most MAGA MORONS.
Thanks Michael,
Excellent thread. On an unrelated note, this episode reminds me of the movie Argot, with the CIA case officer using disguises to get 44 people out of Tehran in 1979-80, during the US embassy takeover—during the fall of the Shah.
Did you train with that department (whatever it’s called), before heading to Moscow, since you were said to be a master of disguise?
Ironically, I believe we had some help from our life long enemies; Canada, during that mission! Just saying!…:)
Yes, Tony Mendez had a lot to do with Moscow disguise training, and hs wife Jonna is a friend until today. Tony died 3-4 years ago. The disguise technique I used a lot in Moscow, known as 'identity transfer', was something that Tony played a large role in developing.
Incredible. Sorry to hear about Tony Mendez’s death, he was a true American hero.
Seriously though, the 1980’s; in Moscow, must have been some scary times. At least these agencies had some sort of moral code back then. Now dissidents and spies seem to be committing suicide by either jumping from balconies, or killing their families, and then killing themselves.
Just out of curiosity, I thought Moscow was always the hardest country to spy on back then (supposedly China now). Wouldn’t it have been easier to recruit from the Soviet satellite states, given the complexities of doing it at the brain center, where everyone was always being watched?
You couldn't recruit anyone in Moscow. The stable of soviet agents consiste of some who were recruited while they were abroad, and some who volunteered. The one I was handling when i got busted, Sergey Vorontsov (GTCOWL), had volunteered in Moscow just before I got there in the summer of 84. He was considered unique in that he came from the Second Chief Directorate -- counterintelligence -- and there had been no previous agents from there. All the others were from First Chief Directorate, the ones who go overseas. YOu also couldn't do much recruiting in the Satellite countries as well -- very good security services there too. Africa, Asia, Latin America was where the recruiting action was.
Thank you, good to know….:)
Thanks for your reply, Michael.
Human behavior is endlessly fascinating. Amazingly, V's greed blinded him to the reality that the KGB was bound to notice his lavish lifestyle. He even left the curtains of his home open - as if showing off his personal "success."
yup. he did other things too--bought his wife a fur coat, took a lavish vacation to the black sea...he was a very adoring husband trying hard to impress his wife who came from an elite family. he was an underachiever by her family's standards and when he got demoted he came up with spying as a way to build himself back up with her family .....sadstory overall and i was struck in the documentary by Sergei Terekhov's genuine sadness when recounting the scene in which the wife and daughter were made aware that their husband/father had been arrested. Very human on many levels.
Agent Krasnov, take note. It will all come out in the goodness of time.
Very interesting!!
You must have been trained to know when they were onto you surely. Were you traded for a spy in USA???
Yup, I was traine in surveillance detection. I had to make sure they were not on me anytime I did anything. I had done so on the night i was arrested and it ws clear when the arrest happened that t was an ambush -- more than a 100 people flooding the area, lights and cameras, etc. So we know I had not 'dragged surveillance to the meet' -- but we did not know how they knew to be set up there, waiting. It was later that we would learn that the case had been part of Aldrich Ames' 'big dump' of into on June 13, 1985, when he gave up about a dozen of our soviet agents inclung the one I was meeting.
So what interesting. Thank you.
*So interesting. Not So what interesting. Darn autocorrect.