Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories and now the host of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, jack Hopkins.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Hello, this is Jack Hopkins. Today, my guest is Jack Barsky. Now, jack Barsky's life has been equal parts improbable, impossible and inspiring. Cbs's 60 Minutes found it so interesting they aired his story twice. This true spy story had a very humble beginning in a backward corner of old East German. Smarts and hard work earned Jack a career teaching chemistry and math at a prestigious university. Then his life took somewhat of a fantastic detour. Jack was recruited by the KGB and infiltrated into the United States where he spent 10 years spying for the Soviet Union. He later resigned from the KGB and, after years of living under an assumed identity, was discovered by the FBI. Today, jack is a law-abiding, patriotic American citizen enjoying this most improbable of chances to live a normal life. He is now taking his eye-opening story of life on both sides of the Iron Curtain to live audiences. Jack is an interesting man with an interesting story and a guy who's packed years of living into a single month with the experiences he had working for the KGB.

Speaker 2: 2:08

I think you're going to find this podcast, this interview, extremely enlightening, and you're also going to find some things that Jack says that don't necessarily align with my position on these topics, or yours for that matter, but I think I've made clear from the beginning of my first podcast episode. I didn't start this podcast to be one of those gotcha hosts where I'm arguing with my guests and if they don't agree with me I am really drilling down and putting pressure on them uh, almost as if to to you justify your story for me or justify your position. I didn't want to be that guy Not that I don't think those kinds of hosts are important, but that just wasn't my style. When I bring a guest on, I want them to tell their story and I want their positions and their thoughts on things to be able to come out without the fear of being attacked. And then it's up for my viewers and listeners to decide whether they agree with those positions or not. I can say this if you watch this from beginning to end, you are definitely going to come away with some golden nuggets of insight and kind of these epiphanies, if you will, about life and how to incorporate some of these concepts into it to make you a better you.

Speaker 2: 3:54

And with that, let's get right into this episode with former KGB operative Jack Barsky. Former KGB operative, jack Barsky. Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. I'm your host, jack Hopkins, and my guest today is a man who really probably doesn't need an introduction. I know the people who follow and subscribe to my podcast and I'm certain many of you are at least somewhat familiar with Jack, but let me tell you this if you are not, boy, are you in for an eye-opening experience today. Jack, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 4:42

Yeah, well, thank you for the invitation. The timing was pretty good. I got a little bit of time this afternoon.

Speaker 2: 4:50

Fantastic For those who might not know who Jack Barsky is. Tell us what you are best known for, and then we can backtrack and start at an earlier time known for, and then we can backtrack and start at an earlier time.

Speaker 3: 5:09

Well, in a nutshell, and I am the only kgb undercover illegal agent who is out in the public realm there. I don't know of any other who's out in public. I know one other who, who also served in the same capacity, but he's staying private, so I'm a unicorn.

Speaker 2: 5:27

Right, right. At what period were you most active here in the United States? When?

Speaker 3: 5:35

you were. I arrived in 1978, and at the moment I set foot on American soil. I morphed from my German identity and I became Jack Barsky. That was the stolen identity of a young man who passed away at the age of 11. And I resigned from the KGB 10 years later. I was not captured by the FBI at that time. I just resigned. I told them I'm done.

Speaker 2: 6:04

And that's interesting because that's something I just resigned. I told them I'm done, and that's interesting because that's something I was not aware of. So it was not the FBI that brought an end to your KGB experience. That came later, I'm assuming.

Speaker 3: 6:14

No, the FBI, when they showed up, actually laid the foundation of me becoming a public figure, because I was just going to go fade away into the sunset as an American, because I had a great job, I had a family. I was not ever thinking of going back to Germany and I was concerned, if I tell the FBI about my past, that I still might wind up in jail. And there was a possibility. There were some folks at the high levels of the FBI who wanted me in the slammer.

Speaker 2: 6:53

And was there ever a period of time, or was it too far down the road for them to say, hey, how would you like to work for us? You can be useful to us. Or was the period of time that you had been gone from the KGB did that affect that?

Speaker 3: 7:11

Well, they couldn't possibly turn me, because when I resigned, I resigned with a big lie to protect myself from retaliation. I told the KGB that when there was supposedly an emergency, they were spooked. They thought I was about to be arrested. So they activated the emergency procedure, which meant like, get out of the country as quickly as possible, go to Canada and we'll take you home. Home. And, uh, because of, uh, my 18 year old princess, uh that, uh, uh, an 18 months old at the time, uh, that I had witnessed growing up and fell in love with, I just couldn't leave. But it was like unexpected and a massive, uh, massive attack of unconditional love. So I took the risk of defying them and I told them you know I have HIV, aids, and so I would love to come back home. But you know, the only place where I might get some treatment is the United States, and the last thing they wanted to have back behind the Iron Curtain is somebody with an infectious disease.

Speaker 3: 8:25

So, they bought the lie. They had no reason for me to make that up and even today the German I was born in Eilbrich-Dittrich, the German is listed in the register, where they keep records of births and marriages and deaths, as having passed away in 1988. Oh really, yeah, there's a school classmate of mine who used to work there and she looked it up and yeah, I'm still dead.

Speaker 2: 9:00

Wow, Now, regarding the HIV AIDS story, I'm guessing over your career, thinking on your feet quickly and being able to generate stories that not only serve the short-term role but that would hold up fairly well over time. Is that something that was just instinctual to you, or is that something you were trained to do?

Speaker 3: 9:31

First, let me just answer the other question real quick. I did cooperate with the FBI. I became a trusted source, so to speak, and that is sort of an official relationship for quite some time. Speak, that is sort of an official relationship for quite some time, and I told them everything that they. I answered every single question they had. I couldn't betray anybody because I didn't know any names.

Speaker 3: 9:55

So, with regard to storytelling, I didn't have a clue that I am a natural born storyteller, because in high school and college in East Germany the focus was on math and science. There was just not an opportunity to try this other thing out. Now. When the first time I realized that I can tell stories, when my at the time five year, that I can tell stories, when my at the time five-year-old, I used to read her bedtime stories and one day we didn't have a book left, so I made one up. I made a story up of like toys escaping from Toys R Us, and the next evening I had books and I said Do you want me to read a book or do you want me to continue with the story? She said your story, your story.

Speaker 3: 10:48

And then, when I sat down and wrote my book this is not ghostwritten. I had a consultant to help me with the structure and occasionally with some wording, but it's mostly mine and people tell me that it reached like a movie. I've had people tell me that I couldn't put this down. It's a page turner. So, yeah, so that storytelling also. It's very instinctive and helped me to pull off the big lie. You know, sure, in the United.

Speaker 3: 11:23

States there were a lot of things where I had to respond real quickly, but some of these, some of the answers, I had designed ahead of time. For instance, jack Barsky's mother, her maiden name is Schwartz. That is most likely Jewish, but it could also be German. So we had my dad die very early. So I grew up with mom and became bilingual and in New York if you have a little bit of an accent, they say well, my mother was German, no more questions. But again, when you socialize with, at one point I started it took a while for me to have the. I had the good sense not to socialize very intimately early on. It took about six, seven years when I started socializing. I had to make things up on the fly.

Speaker 2: 12:23

Were there times where, in doing so, you had a oh, where there was a little slip up that maybe didn't didn't get picked up by the person that you were talking to, but that in your mind you thought ah here we go.

Speaker 3: 12:40

Well, I had two situations where two good friends said something I didn't like. The first guy came into my office. He's a little older than me, he did very well, he was in information technology like I, and he, without prompting, he said, and he, without prompting, he said Jack, I don't know, I got this gut feeling that something doesn't add up in your story. And then he added and I'm not going to ask any more questions, I don't really want to know, but this guy had a sixth sense that something just didn't jibe. And he was the first non-family member that, when I became a public figure whom I shared with that, his six cents was right on the money. The other one helped me and that was, of all people, a Cuban immigrant who is one of the smartest people I've ever met. He became sort of my mentor when it came to IT, you know, having a career in IT. But one day he took me into a small office. He says, jack, I need to talk to you. He says what's going on? And we had worked together. We worked together very well.

Speaker 3: 14:03

He was the IT guy and I was very good at implementing the ideas. So he said hey, jack, I gotta, I gotta tell you this uh, I, you know I like you, I like working with you. You're you're honest guy, you can be trusted, you're reliable, but everybody in this department and now I'm to have to use a bad word thinks you're an asshole. Friendly feedback yeah, I said what. And then he explained to me it was my communication style and I didn't quite understand that I was still speaking like a German and like a nasty German. I figured this out when I had a chance to go back to Germany and these people were telling me what's wrong with me and pointing fingers and I said wait a minute and they also get.

Speaker 3: 15:04

They don't know what the private space in front of your head faces. They get, they invade that space and I, not knowing the ultimate cause, I managed. I just softened my style quite a bit so it wasn't so nasty. I'm still very intense and that will never leave me. But you will not ever hear me make a criticism and make it strongly, and especially if my opinion is not asked. That's just attacking, and attacking makes no sense because all you get in response to it you get a counterattack, and so you know, typically it's very difficult to convince somebody else that they're wrong.

Speaker 2: 16:00

And I was going to ask you and you pretty much answered that question if that was a German culture thing, because in my very limited experience in dealing with someone from Germany, there's a directness there that you don't find in the United States. Is that pretty typical?

Speaker 3: 16:19

That is typical, but it's more pronounced in the part of Germany where I grew up. It's the south, the southeast, the most eastern part of Germany. It's not very cultured. There's a lot of poor soil, there's forest and there's some lignite, but there's really nothing going on there in terms of minerals and natural resources as well as sophisticated manufacturing capabilities. The further you go, west and southwest, people get softer.

Speaker 2: 17:05

I may be wrong, but just a guess. I would guess that you probably were in a fist fight or two. As a young man that tends to. I find in those environments those things tend to happen more quickly than in the softer environments.

Speaker 3: 17:23

Well, when the time came to defend myself, I beat them up. Well, I had five fights and I won every one of them, and at least one of them was much bigger and stronger than me, but I beat them up anyway.

Speaker 2: 17:40

And is that something that when the KGB was looking to recruit you are those things that they are sophisticated enough that they see, or they at least suspect, and then they kind of run you through some things to see, if they are correct, that you have those qualities.

Speaker 3: 18:00

They were not looking for fighters in a physical sense. They were looking for mental fitness, perseverance, resilience, quick decision-making, no problem, not super emotional, not very sensitive. Emotional, not very sensitive, because they were looking at me to see if I fit the mold of a lone wolf, undercover illegal. That's a really tough job because I had to leave everything I had to leave. If I had had a girlfriend or were married, I would have probably said no because I could have said no to the offer. You don't force somebody into doing something like that because the first thing they do they'll defect. So anyway, I had to leave my family. I had to leave my basketball team. Basketball was my passion. I had to leave a very certain career because I was valedictorian in college. I would have been a tenured professor.

Speaker 3: 19:08

That was the elite in East Germany in those days. So there was this sense of adventure that they also were looking for and they found that in me. I once hitchhiked with a friend of mine all the way from East Germany Hitchhiking was not very popular in communist countries All the way to Bulgaria, where you didn't know where you would be sleeping the next night and you had to go to each of the countries at a certain amount of time and you had only limited funds available. So when I told the guy who was studying me for 18 months that thing, he said, man, that guy's got what it takes. So, yeah, they were looking for and I have confirmation that what I'm telling you now is actually what they did look for. There were two ex-heads of the directorate S that was the illegals directorate who, in interviews after the KGB was dissolved, shared that with us. And there's this list. There's a list of about 12 character traits, some of which I don't quite remember, but that list is just that fits me to a T, yeah, and it included language ability.

Speaker 2: 20:24

It fits me to a T. Yeah, and it included language ability. Now, clearly you are an intelligent man. Nobody would need to know your background to discover that Just through conversation they could figure that out. Am I correct in assuming that you can't be unintelligent and work for the KGB? If they recruit you, you're going to be above the average.

Speaker 3: 20:53

You can't be unintelligent and be deployed in the field. That applies to not just people like me. We had to be highly intelligent, people like me. We had to be highly intelligent. I mean, I had to. They hired me because they knew I would be able to get out of situations that they couldn't possibly foresee, like just acquiring the documentation that I needed. I had a birth certificate that said Jack Barsky, but then I needed a driver's license and a social security card, and what they told me how to go about it didn't work. It took me a year of trying to figure out how to do it anyway. So they hired the right guy, and so the diplomats don't have to operate at that level. Because here's the thing If I fail, I go to jail, and if I go to jail I might actually be turned and turn against the Soviets. And if I'm staying in jail, they need to get me out, because if they don't get me out, they can't hire another one like me.

Speaker 3: 22:03

You see, so they had to be certain that I, if they don't get me out, they can't hire another one like me, you see. So they had to be certain that I would be able to maneuver in that minefield and not get caught, and I didn't. The only reason I got caught was a betrayal. Now, having said that, the folks that I interacted with that had operated in the US under diplomatic cover were all pretty smart, but they envied people like me because they were saying I wish I could speak English like you. We were the crown jewels of Soviet espionage, even though a lot of this was more romantic than anything else, because the most damage during the height of the Cold War that was done to the US by Soviet intelligence was done by American moles, not by illegals. Ah, interesting.

Speaker 2: 23:02

I've got a question about the mindset while you were doing this. Obviously you took your work very seriously and it was very serious work, but was there also a constant sense of adventure, like I'm? I'm getting to live this life that some people only see in the movies.

Speaker 3: 23:27

Yes, but that wasn't really a constant companion. You see, I'm wired that way, but I also was taught by my parents and by school that when you do a job, you know you do the best you can, and I was very ambitious, so I always wanted to do a good job. I was doing a job and I was doing a job where I lied and you know, I left my family and left them guessing what the heck happened to me. I justified this because I was serving a great cause. Up until the wall came down, I was still a Marxist-Leninist, maybe not a 100% communist, because what they told us back there in the communist world how bad capitalism was. Well, when I had my first job, it felt like, you know, being hired by the East German government. I worked for an insurance company. They were very paternalistic in those days.

Speaker 3: 24:35

It was fun you know, it was like I liked the job, so everything that I stopped believing in, everything that we were taught, that's bad about capitalism. But I still hated Ronald Reagan and I thought he was stupid, and now I think he's one of the best, if not the best president in modern US history and have your views changed over a period of time about Reagan?

Speaker 3: 25:03

Oh, absolutely, I just said it. He was single-handedly responsible for breaking the Soviet Union's back. Okay now, what helped also was the situation that the Soviet army was mired in Afghanistan. But Ronald Reagan I know this for a fact because we talked about him Andropov, the head of the KGB at the time, was scared out of his mind that Ronald Reagan would accelerate the end of the world because he occasionally quoted from the Bible so that he would launch a nuclear war. So, yeah, he was considered very, very evil and he was quoted out of context. And if you don't know anything about the Bible, then you can misread it, because it says in the Bible that Jesus says only the Father knows when the end of the world comes right. Right, I'm wandering off the reservation, but that was very, very typical in the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Neither country had good knowledge of how the other country operates and had good knowledge of the ideology that drives both countries. That drives both countries.

Speaker 2: 26:48

So Russia definitely took Reagan seriously then in terms of they respected him from the standpoint of they didn't know exactly what was going on, but felt he was strong enough that he might do something.

Speaker 3: 26:59

Yeah, and that brought Gorbachev to the table. I guarantee you, he was advised by Andropov and Gorbachev. He was a reformer and clearly he was not a warmonger, he was not an extremist, but he was still a socialist at least. So he was still representing the Soviet Union and he wanted to remain president, and that didn't work out very well. But he came to the table and you know the one thing that also had a big impact, it's what we nowadays call Star Wars, the anti-missile defense system that the Soviets could not match. They didn't have the technology.

Speaker 2: 27:41

So that makes you vulnerable to a first strike by the one that has that defense, because, screw you, when you shoot at us, we shoot you down, like Israel does all the time that because oftentimes you will hear somebody say oh, I don't know why they waste billions and billions of dollars trying to go to the moon or trying to go to Mars and the general perception is that they're going just to see if they can go. But would it be correct to say that the real drive behind most space adventure is technology and national security? That that's what drives it a hundred percent.

Speaker 3: 28:32

Now there is some futuristic idea that one day we might be able to colonize mars, but you know that's far in the future. What what the media concern is that there's a lot of very, very bad actors in this world, and one of them already having nuclear weapons and the other one, iran, getting pretty close to getting their hands on a nuke. So they're bad. They publicly vowed that they want to destroy the Western world, and the first foremost enemy number one is the United States still is. Yeah, we need to be prepared. Let me volunteer something.

Speaker 3: 29:18

Sure, I don't think we're prepared well enough, particularly not in the way we think and the understanding that there is a threat out there, because there is this naivete in what I call the national DNA of the United States, which has something to do with the fact that the continental US has never been invaded. So we're good, no problem. And're also sloppy when we're using the Internet. Oh, no, no problem. And every time I have a chance to talk in public, particularly when it's an IT group, I tell them that you know, it hygiene is not something that is discretionary. It should be taught at least in high school and in college, mandatory.

Speaker 2: 30:10

Is the average citizen at risk of being, in some form or fashion, a national security risk just because of poor Internet hygiene?

Speaker 3: 30:21

Absolutely. You know, and I don't know the exact percentage, but a large percentage of break-ins into the government and organizations companies is due to the insider threat, and that's not necessarily an enemy agent. It's an insider who fell victim to some sophisticated fishing and then gets a virus on his machine.

Speaker 3: 30:50

Or nowadays there's also this you know the fake people, fake voice. It sounds like you know your CFO is calling you and you're a bookkeeper, an accountant, and the CFO tells you to send some money to some account and instead of asking, calling the CFO and asking him, did you just call me because it's an odd request. So we're not watchful enough, we're not suspicious enough.

Speaker 2: 31:20

I fell victim to that. Two days ago, jack. I got a message on X from what looked like X. Everything looked exactly like the messages that would come from X going to be suspended for copyright violation if I did not provide the needed feedback within the the next 30 days, I believe. Well, in somewhat of a panic, I clicked the link. I wanted to provide the feedback, yeah, uh. Only after having done so, and it took me straight to a legitimate X site where there was nothing for me to do, but they'd already gotten what they needed from me, which was me to click on the link. So I immediately changed my passwords and whatnot, but we'll see. I guess the most dangerous aspect of it is what might be going on currently that is invisible, that I'll never know is happening on my computer.

Speaker 3: 32:35

I got a communication from Microsoft and it looked very legitimate and there was a history of getting communication from Google and saying by the way, somebody tried to hack into your laptop from Houston, for instance, and that was real. So I was sort of accustomed to getting these kind of messages and I clicked on a no, I called customer service and that was Microsoft and they connected me with the IT department and I got scammed. I got scammed out of $25,000.

Speaker 2: 33:20

Wow, wow. I hate to hear that.

Speaker 3: 33:23

Perfect storm. You know, I was tired that day and when I did some checking as to whether the email and the customer number were legit and the Google screen that I saw, there was a lot of noise on it and I see one entry that says, yeah, this is legit. After I lost the money, I looked at it again and there was an entry in Reddit. Anybody can post an entry into Reddit, sure.

Speaker 2: 33:53

Wow.

Speaker 3: 33:56

So they really covered their ass very well and the person that I interacted with was incredibly deep, incredibly smart and a guy that I would have invited to become my friend, very, very sophisticated. Uh, impersonated somebody who I am today an authentic individual.

Speaker 2: 34:17

That's very difficult it is, even though it it had a really negative consequence for you as a former HGV guy. Is there something about that you respect when you see, wow, this guy's good. Do you look at that in that?

Speaker 3: 34:34

way is this idea that Donald Trump loves Putin because he gave him some compliment with regard to what a politician he is and he is. He's the most successful politician of the 20th century, and I say this without blinking. He's also evil, but his skill set is phenomenal because he managed to survive in the top level in a country where there has been no progress in terms of standard of living through his entire reign, so his manipulative skills are outstanding. Okay, so you've got to. Here's the thing. There are tools that people work with, and then there are the things that they do with those tools, and you can clearly state like a particular weapon is a phenomenal tool. Just don't shoot Bambi or whatever. That's the world as it is. So, yeah, I have to to keep my peace. My last message to him was congratulations, you beat me big time, so I hope one day somebody beats you and you just focus Right.

Speaker 2: 35:59

What have you carried over into your post-KGB life from those years? Is it the stuff that was already part of you before the KGB years, or is it something else?

Speaker 3: 36:14

No, I brought something with me and that is a—it's not a talent, that's an acquired skill. It's not a talent, that's an acquired skill. I'm very good at reading people with very little time. For instance, when we started talking, I didn't know who you are. Okay, right, I just looked you up on LinkedIn when we started talking. Just by the tone of your voice, I knew that I can get pretty loud and say things that I may not say if I'm interviewed by a software interviewer. And it took me less than a minute.

Speaker 3: 36:58

In my final years as an executive, I just dropped the typical HR interview. When I hired people, I just talked about anything with them and all I was trying to figure out whether they're smart, whether they're a good fit for the corporate culture, whether they're trustworthy and it wasn't something else corporate culture, whether trustworthy and it wasn't something else. And I told him right up front if you can't do what's on your resume, you're out. And I made just one mistake in that process, and that mistake was when I allowed my logical mind to overwrite my gut instinct. I'm not perfect, so my gut instinct failed me with that guy who breathed me right. So I got to, you know, I got to be more. You know, I got to at least double check when I think I love somebody. Okay, because there are some interesting actors out there. There are people who can actually defeat the lie detector test. I can't. But psychopaths. Sociopaths are able to do that Right.

Speaker 2: 38:12

When we go back to the beginning and you've talked about this a great deal on other podcasts, so I don't want to spend a lot of time there, but in a nutshell, how did the KGB go about recruiting you?

Speaker 3: 38:28

yeah, unlike the case with the CIA, you couldn't volunteer. He wouldn't even know where to go. Okay, they were seeking you out and were recruiting, just like the CIA. They were recruiting folks who were in their early to mid-twenties and so very often they went to college and looked at the senior classes, where you already know who they are. The legend that the KGB recruited children and raised them to be spies is just stupid. Never happened. You need to understand who the near mature adult is, and they can't be too old, because then they already may have a family or they have stuff or career. That makes them decline in offer.

Speaker 3: 39:30

So they were looking particularly for my job.

Speaker 3: 39:35

They were just like looking through lots and lots and again I had this from the interviews lots of candidates and what made me stand out, in addition to having nothing but A's and a member in the Communist Party. So two really good indications that I might be the material that they're looking for. But I also received in my junior year the second no, the highest scholarship that was given out in the country of East Germany, and there were only two other students at my university who had it at the same time, out of 20,000. So they really came after me, and so they had access to the files that the East German secret police Stasi kept, and so they zeroed in on me, and then it took them 18 months to figure out whether I truly had what it takes, whether I had all the other things, that I was fearless and I had no problem being alone and I was good with foreign languages, and on and on and on. It took 18 months before I got the offer with foreign languages, and on and on and on.

Speaker 2: 40:46

It took 18 months before I got the offer, and how soon into this process were you aware that it was the KGB who was trying to recruit you?

Speaker 3: 40:53

The second meeting. The first meeting was a collaborator, an East German, who came to me on a Saturday at my dorm room and came under an idiotic pretext he wanted to talk with me about my career plans after college.

Speaker 3: 41:18

In those days you didn't have career plans. You know, you tried really hard to get good grades so maybe you'll get a doctorate, but it wasn't that. You know, this guy pretended to maybe recruit me for like a top-notch local factory. That was idiotic. And then he changed his mind and he said you know, I lied. You know I'm really working for the government. Do you can you imagine to one day work for the government? And I played the game with him because I knew from the moment he introduced himself as the phony guy he was. I knew he was Stasi. I didn't know he was KGB. So I played the game with him and I said, yeah, but not as a chemist, I just wanted. I was curious what comes next. And next came a luncheon at the number one restaurant in town. I still know what I had. I picked the most expensive meal and he introduced me to a fellow he named I want to introduce.

Speaker 3: 42:19

He was sitting at the same table, which was not I didn't know what to make of it, because he could have been a stranger. In those days Strangers would share tables and there was not enough table space in restaurants, so I approached the table slowly, but my recruiter there, this guy, got up. And then the other guy got up and the German said I would like to introduce you to Herman. He said Herman. And then he said we're working with our Soviet comrades. And then he said I got to go.

Speaker 3: 42:57

So that's when I knew I was being recruited by the KGB and that was very flattering because to us the KGB was mighty. We didn't know the bad things that they did, but we did know that they participated in the destruction of the Hitler regime were very effective there.

Speaker 3: 43:20

And we also had, you know, occasionally there were some stories in the news how one KGB agent used to be a big, big old hero. The biggest hero that we knew was Richard Sorge. Richard Sorge, the guy who was working for the KGB in Japan and he told let Stalin know when Hitler was going to attack. And Stalin ignored it. And then he let Stalin know that the Japanese would not attack from the east.

Speaker 3: 43:55

So that allowed Stalin to fortify the troops on his western front. So this guy, sorgo, was eventually executed. So we knew the KGB was like really, really good, and they won me. I still had not even thought about what that really means because I was playing around. You know, let's see what happens. You know, curiosity it's also a very important character trait for a spy, right, you must want to find out about people and about stuff.

Speaker 2: 44:33

Right. And so when you say you were fairly fearless, were there times throughout your career where maybe you weren't scared but where you were deeply concerned?

Speaker 3: 44:53

about. I crossed a border and I traveled four times. I went back to Moscow and came back to the United States, and always with forged passports. So that was a risk. When I had a meeting in third countries with another KGB agent to exchange passports, because certain passports were too valuable to have a stamp in them that they had crossed the border into Russia. Then the operations, the dead drop operations. You know what that is right, yes, okay, so that's when you put something like money or or a passport in some kind of a container, like an old oil can or something. You throw it someplace and somebody else will pick it up. That's risky.

Speaker 3: 45:56

If the other person was being followed and was not aware of it, okay, then I would get busted and a couple of interviews. Uh, I was concerned about when I crossed into the united states for the first time and I was traveling with a canadian passport, and just as I'm standing there in line finally occurred to me oh my god, I, I have a canadian passport, I'm a resident of Toronto and I don't speak like a Canadian. I spoke like maybe not as well as I do today, but I spoke like an American, not like a Canadian, and I got really tense. I managed to mumble my answers and kept them really short and thank God the border agent wasn't too sharp. So yeah.

Speaker 3: 46:55

But I was not running around with fear in my bones. There were the situations when fear was allowed, but it didn't interfere with me acting okay.

Speaker 2: 47:09

Got you.

Speaker 3: 47:09

Like this, or like shaking the hands, or just like being not fully in command intellectually. It was just not a feeling that I like to have.

Speaker 2: 47:24

Just something that you acknowledged was there, but you didn't let it. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 47:30

Yeah, and, by the way, they were checking on this one as well when they checked me out. This was one of the character traits that I forgot to mention. They were looking for an adventurous, fundamentally fearless individual. I had taken a lot of risks as a child and had been playing outside and doing things I shouldn't have done, and I also was given some tasks. One of them I hated and I was really afraid of doing when I had to ring the doorbell someplace and start a conversation under a pretext and find something out about a relative of theirs. And I told my handler, herman. I said I hate that, but I did it anyway.

Speaker 3: 48:23

And here was a test that I know an ex-classmate of mine failed phenomenally. So he was recruited by the Stasi, also to be an illegal, but in Germany, and so the test was to take a trip into West Berlin, just show up there and walk around and take a train, eat some food, have a beer. You know, take a train, eat some food, have a beer. This guy came back from that test and told his antlers he said I can't do it Because he knew that he was, he knew that he wasn't, he was vulnerable, so to speak. He was just instinctively totally afraid.

Speaker 3: 49:18

You know, looking around and I noticed that the cars had nicer dresses, the clothing, the uniforms were nicer and buildings were all painted and it looked really nice and that was it. So when I met my ex-classmate.

Speaker 3: 49:38

he shared that with me and he got fired by the Stasi and he never got a job in his profession. He was an engineer. He had to make a living, you know, doing model trains, making them and selling them, stuff like that Interesting. So if them and selling them stuff like that Interesting. So if I fail their test, I'm out and most likely I won't be a tenured professor either.

Speaker 2: 50:07

That's a big deal.

Speaker 3: 50:09

Yeah, that was the when I was in the most danger in my entire career as a spy.

Speaker 2: 50:19

I'm guessing the KGB was highly compartmentalized. For example, I guess it's safe to say you didn't know a whole bunch of other KGB operatives. You only interacted with the ones that you had to interact with and even then, safe to say, you didn't know who they were.

Speaker 3: 50:43

Yes, we all used a cover name and I have reason to believe that the person in Moscow headquarters who made decisions with regard to my existence in the US didn't know my name. Again, we were us illegals, were extremely valuable assets. It took a lot of time to find us, train us and took a lot of money and money, and it took a lot of money and time to maintain us. So we were. The moment I said yes to the KGB, I became a state secret and the compartmentalization was so extreme that it did damage. Okay, for instance, that didn't do damage.

Speaker 3: 51:31

But one time they always told me you must follow the travel plan as we lay it out for you. And one time I was stuck in Italy, in Rome, and there was a strike and I had to use Aeroflot, always and only Aeroflot. And, okay, I didn't have the background. So after a week I was running out of time because I was on vacation. I had only four months and I wanted to see my German family. So I took Alitalia and I got yelled at. Why did you do that? I said oh, what I said?

Speaker 3: 52:13

this. I said this passport is so valuable that now it's useless. So from now on, you follow the instructions. Well, next time I followed the instructions. I wound up when I asked for a particular flight in Paris.

Speaker 3: 52:36

I wound up picking a flight on the Concorde that was a little humorous, but the bottom line is they kept stuff from me, the biggest thing they kept from me. And people ask me so what was your major task? And I may anticipate a question here and I was told, yeah, you need to. You're being trained to do espionage in the foreign policy realm and so make sure you make friends with people who make foreign policy or influence foreign policy. And, you know, point out some people that are the kinds of people that we like to recruit. Okay, you know, point out some people that are the kinds of people that we like to recruit. Okay, I did the second one.

Speaker 3: 53:20

The first one I couldn't do because I was never high enough in society to befriend those folks. But what they didn't tell me and again this was came to us out of these interviews. I already mentioned that for Andropov, the most important value that us being in the US was us being in the US. And then, when I read this, I put two and two together because I already told you that the most damaging spies in those days to the United States were Aldrich Ames and Robert Anson, and they interacted with the diplomats and in those days there was a war going on between the CIA and the FBI, and Andropov was afraid that diplomatic relations would be broken off altogether. And then their two number one agents didn't have anybody to interact with.

Speaker 3: 54:15

So they never told me that. There was never even a thought that you know, one day, you might be the only agents left, and this is what you have to be prepared to do. There may be weapons stashed someplace, I'm sure I would have gotten the instructions through a shortwave radio.

Speaker 1: 54:33

I'm sure I would have gotten the instructions through a shortwave radio.

Speaker 2: 54:37

Jack, was there any situation in which another KGB agent would have been ordered to take your life?

Speaker 3: 54:51

Is there anything you could have done that they would have said, okay, this guy's got to go. Well, if they had interpreted my resignation as a defection, I would have become an endangered species. However, um, they probably had a list of people they want to do harm to, and this is also like something that Putin is engaged in. When you kill a defector, you're sending a message to everybody else. That is the primary reason, because the damage was already done. You might prevent more damage, but you want to send a message. We can get you Even in the other thing that needs to be considered to implement an assassination behind enemy lines requires an ace team, and they have only so many really really good teams. So same thing with the FSB or the GRU. The GRU actually has the assassination teams.

Speaker 3: 56:12

They have maybe at the most a handful, and they're not that good either, so it wasn't 100% certain. If they had thought that I had defected it wasn't 100% certain, but there would have been and one of the reasons that I thought I might not be the most inviting target is I didn't betray the homeland. That was considered the biggest crime. I wasn't even an employee. I worked as an independent contractor. I was a German. I may have betrayed communism and I may have done damage to the Soviet Union, but I didn't betray the homeland.

Speaker 2: 57:00

Interesting. You brought up Putin, jack. How dangerous is Vladimir Putin, not only to the United States but to the world at large?

Speaker 3: 57:16

Let me answer this, not exactly answering the question. Putin is not suicidal, he wants to live, so for him to start a nuclear war to just destroy the West is not likely. That doesn't mean we can exclude him launching nuclear weapons, but his primary goal is survival. He wants to live out his term and die a natural death. So he gets a monument with his name. Vladimir the Great is put next to Peter the Great. That's his ego. Now, with that said, what I'm mostly concerned with is the sloppiness of the Russian industry and the most nightly sloppy maintenance of the nuclear arsenal.

Speaker 3: 58:29

I'm afraid of a nuclear accident and that could easily escalate, and Vladimir has no control over that.

Speaker 3: 58:40

He's also possible danger, and I don't know to what extent he has has given the suicidal nations access to nuclear secrets, because if they do damage to the US, the US may not strike back. I'm truly concerned with what's going on right now in the world and I'm also concerned with American politicians, with this saber rattling and the whole idea of getting really close, getting NATO, or the idea of NATO getting close to the border of Russia, is playing into Putin's hands. The idiots who make these decisions and make these statements and they're not necessarily all democrats, they're also republicans they don't understand that what I was talking about the national DNA, part of the Russian national DNA, is the knowledge that they are surrounded by enemies. They have been invaded all throughout their history, so they know that there's going to be another invasion and that because of that, they always have been looking for a strongman.

Speaker 3: 1:00:04

We're talking about the Tsars, we're talking about Lenin, stalin and now Putin. So now we got NATO being allied with Ukraine and people having stated already before that war, that Ukraine should become part of NATO. That is bad policy. That is just bad policy, and I think it has something to do with the fact that there are warmongers in our government and there's something that Eisen are in charge of policy, then policy invariably will be wrong quite often, but in your opinion it's safe to say that Dick Cheney, having Halliburton, played a role in the Iraq War.

Speaker 2: 1:01:23

That again comes back to the industrial military complex. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3: 1:01:30

I'd rather not point fingers and say something negative about a person unless I know it, but I can say the following. Let me give you some background. One of my best friends. You may want to reach out to him and interview him. His name is Robin Drake, d-r-e-e-k-e. He runs a podcast himself. He was counterintelligence for the FBI and was one of the few people who was able to, because of his people skills, was able to turn some GRU agents okay, so he convinced them to work with the FBI and then, because of those skills, he wound up in the behavioral section of the FBI and eventually led that section.

Speaker 3: 1:02:25

He wrote a book sizing people off. And this is when he's asked what motivates people, he says ultimately everybody, without fail, makes decisions in life that are good for themselves and people he cares about. And that may not be because of evil motives and that may not be because of evil motives, but you know, who knows? There may be people who have betrayed the United States because they needed money for treatment of a loved one and they couldn't get that treatment in the US because it was only available in another country. It cost a lot of money in the US, that was only available in another country.

Speaker 3: 1:03:16

It costs a lot of money, so I cannot call what's his name again.

Speaker 2: 1:03:21

Cheney, Dick Cheney.

Speaker 3: 1:03:22

Dick Cheney evil, because I don't know that, but he may have made decisions instinctively that were favorable for his family. Maybe not even himself who knows.

Speaker 2: 1:03:34

And I agree with you that philosophy, that concept, aligns very much with how I look at why people make the decisions that they do. I'm very much self-aware that when I do something kind for someone, there's something in it for me, even if it's just the good feeling of doing that.

Speaker 3: 1:03:59

Oh, we could be best friends on this. It's the same thing. This is something I just taped a master class and it's something I stayed in the master class. You know, I want to be a mentor to as many people who can benefit from my mentoring, and I'm not doing this because you know it's selfish and I do this sacrificially. No, I get something out of it. It makes me feel good, right, it's my love language to serve others. It makes me feel good, yes, so for me to take credit for service.

Speaker 3: 1:04:36

it would be a phony kind of behavior because it's not true. I like doing this and, mother Teresa, I guarantee you she did that because she had to.

Speaker 2: 1:04:52

She was wired that way. Yes, I couldn't agree more. For example, my newsletter people will write me and say, oh, thank you so much for thinking of us and doing this and I like that and there is benefit for them in it. But if I hated doing it, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't be doing it, no matter how good it was for other people. So I'm glad to hear you talk about that.

Speaker 3: 1:05:21

No, there are exceptions to that rule. There are true martyrs. Besides Jesus, there have been in history a lot of Christians who died for their faith and did not betray the faith even though they were given a chance. So these are exceptional individuals. I cannot predict how I might act in a situation like that. Act in a situation like that, I think I think I would. I most likely would have the instinct of saving my child from a traffic accident while putting myself in danger. I think I would.

Speaker 3: 1:06:08

But if I have time to think about it, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 1:06:15

One as we kind of wind this down, jack, because I kind of promised you we'd keep this as close to an hour as possible. If Donald Trump loses this election, that's a big deal for Vladimir Putin yeah, because, because donald trump is unpredictable.

Speaker 3: 1:06:42

Okay, then I I don't necessarily agree that. You know, uh, that there's collusion now between the democrats and the russians. I don't think there's any hard evidence, but but yeah, trump is unpredictable and and he started the section of the army that is out there in space, right.

Speaker 2: 1:07:00

Right Space Force.

Speaker 3: 1:07:02

Right from the wars that we are sort of from a distance involved in, where we are sending people weapons, and that would point to him wanting to lessen tension. I mean, as loud as he talks, okay, but what he's talking about indicates that the threat disappears, which will maybe wake up the Russian people that live like 20 miles outside of Moscow. They still don't have electricity.

Speaker 2: 1:07:53

Right? How does that pan out Withdrawing? How does that pan out for Ukraine?

Speaker 3: 1:08:05

Well, I'm not a great fan of Ukraine and Zelensky. To begin with, I cry for the Ukrainian people. I also cry for the Russian people because I love they're very similar and I love Russian individuals for sure, because they're sweet, wonderful people. But Ukraine was once known as the most corrupt country in the world. Do you think that has changed much? And I said this early on when I was talking to Lex Friedman, who is Ukrainian by nationality but grew up in Russia or the Soviet Union. I forgot, but anyway I asked him the question that I would ask Zelensky how much is that piece of land that you are defending so vigorously? How many lives is that worth to you? You've got to go to the table. But if you really care about your people, they're being murdered every day and occasionally.

Speaker 3: 1:09:30

You know Putin has sent signals that he might want to talk. He has to declare victory, so that means you've got to give him that parting. I forgot where most of the Russians live there. I forgot what it's called, but you know what I'm talking about. Yes, and that is one of those things where you're not pacifying the dictator the same way England and France pacified Hitler when he took over the Sudetenland. That was to say here, take it, this would be negotiated, because you're saving lives.

Speaker 2: 1:10:20

So, if I hear you correctly, even someone like Putin can be influenced if you play to his ego, if you let his ego be nourished.

Speaker 3: 1:10:33

I am a bloc now Estonia and in those states, not the Balkans, for crying out loud. They're the Baltic states, and that gives him still enough ammunition because they are NATO right, and so I think he can let go of Ukraine. Still enough ammunition because they are NATO right, and so I think he can let go of Ukraine and most likely he will ask for one concession that Ukraine will not be part of NATO, and then he can go back home and say see man, I got you a victory.

Speaker 2: 1:11:33

Got you, I understand. One last question how close or not is Putin to being in a position where he can be toppled?

Speaker 3: 1:11:45

I doubt that very much, because the way he manages to keep reporting to him he keeps. You know, it's Machiavelli methodology. He tells everybody that he's very special and don't talk to the others, and if you do you're going to get in trouble. So there's a lot of fear and they all know that they're all being treated the same way. For this to happen, you can't have just one guy killing him because that guy's dead the moment he does it. So there has to be some kind of a conspiracy. And for a conspiracy to fail it takes only one to snitch and all the others die. So I don't think. I don't think. They see, they don't have a messianic zeal like some of the people that assassinated people in the United States. They just want to survive and have a good life and be on top. So without that zeal they would not even dare to start a conspiracy, even whisper something.

Speaker 3: 1:13:01

You know, there was no conspiracy that actually was successful against Stalin, other than when Stalin was sick the doctors withdrew treatment from him and then it was sort of almost safe. Once the general, the top-notch general that put Berea, the head of the KGB, in jail and then all of a sudden the handcuffs were off. But a real conspiracy never happened during Stalin's reign and Hitler's conspiracy the one against Hitler that came pretty close.

Speaker 3: 1:13:48

And there were people who actually were worried about the German people and they were real patriots and they saw the error of the ways that they had played along with Hitler. But I don't think the reports to Vladimir Putin can think that way. They think that way.

Speaker 2: 1:14:09

So he manages in a KGB style.

Speaker 3: 1:14:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he is very KGB style. Yeah, yeah, he's very cagey, very, very clever. You know, did you see that interview that somehow got in the hands of BBC, where he like read the riot act in front of all this guy's colleagues to the head of the SVR, the intelligence service? The guy was peeing in his pants you saw his body language because Putin told him you're wrong. What's the?

Speaker 2: 1:14:45

matter with you.

Speaker 3: 1:14:47

No, I did not see that. I think it's on YouTube.

Speaker 2: 1:14:50

Yeah, I will watch that.

Speaker 3: 1:15:08

What's next for Jack Barsky and educating people. But I get a kick out of it, but when I'm done I want to disappear. But the other thing, when I talked about my master class, that will be part of this project that I'm getting to a point where we most likely launch before the end of the year very likely, and it has the title and listen to the words Spikology. So I'm going to be starting rather soon. I will be collecting a community of like-minded people who I would like to guide, facilitate, not lecture to, to figure out ways how we can all, in our collective wisdom, live our best lives. And obviously I have a lot of life experience.

Speaker 2: 1:16:06

You know people say.

Speaker 3: 1:16:07

You know, I may have lived three lives, so I have some valuable contributions that I can make, but I also am benefiting from the people that I've been interacting with, such as Robin, my friend, and others. Now I'm benefiting from their life experience, so I got a lot of stuff in here. My masterclass is loaded. It's two and a half hours long, and it's going to take me quite a while to edit this and make this into something that is of high quality, but you know, watch out. We will announce this on local media, and pretty much all of them, except for X the folks that I'm working with have a reason for not doing this. They're managing the technology and they're also doing the marketing. So, yeah, that's coming, and I'm working with a couple of really good guys. Very interesting to work with Gen Z, by the way. I'll bet. I'll bet.

Speaker 2: 1:17:09

How can people find Jack Barsky? Where can they go? Where can they find you? Oh, just Google my name.

Speaker 3: 1:17:16

Nope, just Google my name or you go into YouTube and type in Jack Barsky and there are probably I haven't counted them two dozen videos and interviews. The most, the one with the best shortcut to get an idea of what my life was all about is the 60 Minutes interview. When you search in YouTube, bosque and 60 Minutes, it's right there. Cbs published that about a year ago.

Speaker 2: 1:17:48

Wonderful. Jack, I can't thank you enough for coming on. I look forward to this. I look forward to the projects that you are currently working on. I think you have a lot to offer and, like you said, if you can take those tools and show people how to live a better life, what a wonderful application of those skills and your experience through many years of some interesting work, to say the least.

Speaker 3: 1:18:20

Well, thank you. If I could advise myself who I was two years ago about how to treat my now ex-wife, I would still be married ex-wife, I would still be married. I guarantee, because she, I ran this by her and she said, yeah, you're right, that was missing.

Speaker 2: 1:18:42

Right, right. Well, having been married before, I think I can include myself in that. I'm not always as sensitive for one thing as a wife would want one to be. I've made a concerted effort to be better at that, and I think I have, but I I respect any man who will admit that openly yeah, and and the other thing is defensiveness that that killed me.

Speaker 3: 1:19:15

Sean, I don't know his name. She considered this argumentative and I did not, and I wasn't aware of that, and eventually, she got sick and tired of our speaking.

Speaker 2: 1:19:30

Well, jack, I hope maybe we can get together again sometime in the future, and I will certainly be watching for your projects, and if there's anything that I can do for you, just let me know.

Speaker 3: 1:19:39

Thank you, I'll reach out to you when we're launching the Spikeology thing. We'll see you next time.