
Jack Murphy, Sean Naylor, and Zach Dorfman break down the hidden world of JSOC non-official cover operatives — the military’s version of deep-cover spies — and reveal how elite units conducted clandestine missions in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria,...
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Jack Murphy
Interesting shenanigans was fake retirement ceremonies that you'll have a guy who has, you know, maybe he already has his 20 years in, maybe not in the military. And they decide, hey, we're going to take this sergeant major or this lieutenant colonel or whoever it is and we're going to put them under a non official cover and send them to some part of the world to gather intelligence. We'll actually hold a fake retirement ceremony and everyone in that guy's unit thinks it's real, thinks that guy is really retiring except for him. And then he will be given fake military paperwork, like fake discharge paperwork so that if something someone does look, it's like he's not in the military anymore, that's done with and then sent out and do his mission for a year or two and then when he comes back he will have a second real retirement ceremony that puts him out of the military.
Host/Interviewer
Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I got a special one today. I have Sean Naylor, Jack Murphy and Zach Dorfman on. They are the authors of an incredible new article on the high side. Go check that out. That link is in the description. That's Jack and Sean's news outlet. They do, they do stuff that, you know, most investigative reporters or journalists don't do at all. They dig deep. They probably have some of the best sourcing too in like special operations and the national security world. This specific article was incredible. It was about J Sock Knox, non official cover. And everybody thinks when you Hear Knock. You think CIA guys, CIA, Knox and stuff like that. But J Socks had a pretty, a relatively robust program for going on 40 years probably.
Jack Murphy
Right.
Host/Interviewer
Like since the 80s. Yeah. So guys, welcome. I don't even know where to start.
Jack Murphy
Well, I mean, go ahead. Well, I think maybe like the genesis of the article was actually Zach approaching me and you know, Zach, do you want to plug your book a little bit and explain like, how this article is an outgrowth of the larger research that you've been working on?
Zach Dorfman
Sure. Although it's funny because I remember. It's interesting because the nature of memory being what it is, I remember both of us having a conversation and then I don't remember who actually like initiated the idea that we should, we should do this, but we were talking about the book that I'm working on, which is a history of CIA's KNOCK program, where it's a history of the CIA essentially throughout the. Its NOC program. And then you and I were talking, I mean, I want to say almost like the like December of last year, it was like holiday, it was like around the holidays, about how, you know, I mentioned it to you and then you started talking about the JSOC NOC program and how the special operations world had been also engaged in the deep cover, commercial cover space for many, many years and how there had never really been a, you know, an exhaustive look at that or there was certainly not been reporting on that anytime recently. And from that we decided to kind of, you know, start digging and through conversations with a bunch of folks in the, in the space, we, I think, I think we, you know, I wouldn't say exhaustively, but I think we, we have uncovered a good, at least first pass, you know, history of where things have gone, where things began and where they've gone over time and the challenges that are currently being faced by special operations folks trying to do deep cover work.
Host/Interviewer
When did this, when did the program really get going?
Sean Naylor
Probably in the, in the early 1980s. It couldn't be before the 1980s because JSOC wasn't established until December 1980. But as we, as we lay out in the article, JSOC had a number of operations going on in the 1980s that they used operatives under non official cover or commercial cover, as it's sometimes called for. And these stretched from Suriname to Haiti, but especially Lebanon. And Jack did a lot of reporting on the, the sort of missions that they, that they were engaged in, the sort of people that they were in contact with in Lebanon.
Jack Murphy
Yeah. And so this is kind of like, the fun part of being a reporter is that you meet with some spooky character at a bar in Manhattan with a notepad and ask him 150 questions over the course of an hour. And so this person that I spoke to worked under non official cover. He was a member of jsoc. He spoke fluent Greek and also learned Arabic. So he was, you know, at least trilingual. And he was, you know, based out of Cyprus. And, you know, JSOC was establishing sort of a front company, a logistics company that moved air freight back and forth from Cyprus to Lebanon. And that was kind of a way for JSOC to get into the country, to get people into the country, to get equipment into the country. And then a lot of it had to do with working through surrogates. There are different Arab groups and Christian groups that we were working with in Lebanon at that time. And the main effort really was about trying to recover American hostages that were being held in Beirut. And this was just one of those intractable foreign policy problems at the time. And JSOC at the time was, was nascent. It did just come into existence right on the, you know, tail end. It was created because of the failed hostage rescue in Iran, Operation Eagle Claw. So there are a few other interesting tidbits that I think we, we pulled out of this stuff in Lebanon that some Delta guys came in and working with surrogates on the ground, wiped out some of the guys that had killed the CIA station chief, Bill Buckley. So there's, there's definitely some stuff that was going on in Beirut at that time. But unfortunately, as my source told me himself, he's like, we were not particularly successful in getting the American hostages out. You know, there, there were some, like, close calls where they're like, we think we located them. We think they're being moved from here to there. Maybe we can interdict them. But those operations just, they never reached enough. The intelligence never reached the fidelity or the threshold that would need to be met for those operations to be greenlit.
Host/Interviewer
One of the things that I found pretty, like wild was like, how they're working with a Lebanese, like, drug smuggler, essentially. Like, and it's just like. And me and Jock were talking about yesterday. He's like, you know, this guy was just hyper capitalist. Like whoever had the green, this drug smuggler was playing ball with. You know what I mean? Like, if you could pay me, I'm down to do almost anything.
Jack Murphy
Yeah. And I mean, that goes back to this classic question that I know Sean and I have Written about, and I'm sure Zach has probably written about or at least encountered. Is, is it moral, ethical and legal for our intelligence community to interface with known terrorists, with drug smugglers, with like, really bad people? If you want to catch, you know, you know, a Pablo Escobar or a Osama bin Laden, you know, you probably have to talk to some really bad people that are in his inner circle. Same thing with people like Soleimani, Saddam Hussein and so on. And you know, on one, the, the, the like pragmatic side of it is like, yeah, of course you go and do it. You know, you do what you have to do to get the job done. But when that comes out in the press, it doesn't look very good. Like you've been rubbing shoulders and maybe even making. I'm not saying this happened, but for instance, if you were making cash payments to an intelligence asset that had American blood on their hands, that does not look good, to put it mildly. So I don't know, what do you guys think of that conundrum?
Zach Dorfman
So I think a couple of things that are interesting that you raise. I mean, one is traditionally, you know, my, you know, my knowledge of this is much deeper on the CIA side just having spent a long time done reporting in this space. But one of the issues historically for the NOC program inside the agency was the, the legal concerns and the strictures regarding the actions of a staff officer versus an asset or a source, right? So it's like, it's one thing to have a source inside Al Qaeda or inside a transnational criminal organization like drug, you know, drug trafficking organization. It's a different thing to infiltrate a staff officer and have that person actually be engaged in the space. Right. CIA folks will say that post 9 11, they actually set up a very stringent regime from the general counsel's office. And I imagine this was probably the case in JSOC as well. Although there's always, there's always exceptions. On these exceptions, you can sometimes drive, you know, you could drive a truck through these exceptions, right, about what you can and cannot do. But, you know, the idea was that you didn't want the actual shooters, right? You didn't want to, you didn't want to recruit a shooter. You wanted to recruit a logistics guy. And logistics guys were much more, less likely to actually be the people that were, you know, that were engaged in stuff where they had American blood on their hands. CIA General Counsel post 911 actually told people in the field, Knox in the field and assets, they told case officers to tell their Assets. By the way, if you are ever in a situation where you think you might be, you might be engaged in a firefight, you know, with, you know, you know, US Citizens, US Troops, US Personnel, you got to shoot over people's heads. The people the US Troops firing at. You don't know that you're a knock or that you're a, you're a CIA asset, but you, you can't try to kill them. They could try to kill you legitimately and you can't try to kill them. So it literally put people in an impossible, it put people in an impossible situation. And the CIA lawyers knew they were putting their assets and their deep cover officers in impossible situations. I mean, in general, one last thing. You know, having your source get close to people that were engaged in the drug trafficking business, like part of me says, okay, yeah, that's why you have people under non official cover. Right. Like you want to get them close to people that folks under official cover cannot get to. The defense attache in Beirut is not going to get close to that guy. Right. The second political secretary in the State Department who's a CIA officer is not going to get close to that guy. So the reason why you choose those covers is to infiltrate those worlds that will provide you that access. But then the paradox is by doing that, you're putting yourself close to people who are doing very, very bad things and you get that blowback and you get that Washington Post, you know, smell test stuff.
Jack Murphy
Yeah, you're muted.
Sean Naylor
Oh, beg your pardon. I think it's worth pointing out that in, in the high side, we, we explored this issue some months ago with an article about sort of an elite CIA proxy force in Afghanistan, a sort of. As a CIA elite human intelligence unit that was basically directed by, by the CIA. Even though it was all Afghans and they wanted to recruit, they had the apparent opportunity to recruit one of the men who was in the room when Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, was murdered in, in, in 2002, in the months after, after 9, 11. And that, that, that raised a lot of issues at, at, at CIA. So I think, you know, like, I mean, I'm just really trying to plug, plug the high side here, but we, you know, we've looked into this in, you know, in, in one of our other, in one of. All the more reason to get a paid subscription.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah, the link is in the description. I got you, Sean. Don't worry.
Sean Naylor
Okay, thanks, Steve.
Jack Murphy
So maybe we start talking a little bit about like how the military creates NOx and sort of the system in which that works, because I think that's sort of like part of the mystery of it for a lot of people. And you know, I think in the article we talk about both trying to take operators, you know, you know, people who are trained Special forces guys to become NOCs, but also it seems like it's really more common and more effective to use support personnel.
Sean Naylor
Yeah, I mean, I think the, the military historically has, for missions like this where your ability to pass as a local or as a member of whatever community you're supposed to be, you're penetrating has to be basically perfect. The military is going to prioritize native language skills, native cultural skills and, and ethnicity beyond, you know, how quickly you can get the long walk finished to get into, you know, to get into Delta.
Host/Interviewer
So they don't want them to look like Jack, basically, like 6 foot, 1 inch, white guy, 200 pounds, like salt
Jack Murphy
and pepper hair, blue eyes.
Host/Interviewer
Unless they're going into, into Ireland or something, you know.
Jack Murphy
Zach, do you want to tell some of the stories that you reported on about, you know, these attempts to train guys who are operators into NOx? Because, I mean, I think one of the things we talk about in the article is that it's very hard to take somebody who grew up in a Ranger platoon or a SEAL platoon or something like that, and it's like team environment, and then turn them into this sort of like lone wolf intelligence operative.
Zach Dorfman
This has been a consistent, persistent problem for the JSOC NOC program for many decades. And I don't know if they've ever been able to solve it. And it may actually be the, like, the great unsolvable problem problem doesn't mean that there haven't been brilliant operators. It just means that doing this at scale has been very, very difficult. I mean, it's been very difficult for CIA too. But, but I think that the, the, the, the history of folks, I mean a lot of it is overt, right? And it's very hard to scrub, if not impossible to scrub. And then there's the cultural stuff, right? I mean the, the, the joke always is, is like you can recognize these guys because they all have the operator beard. They all like, they're wearing the Merrell watch. They got the boots they like, they're all super fit. Like they look, there's a certain type and anybody who is trying to spot them, when you, when you marry that up with the open source data about their past, it's not hard to be like, what's going on here? This isn't legit. Right. You got like three guys open up a dive shop in the Maldives and it's like, what are these guys doing here? We know something, something is amiss, right? It doesn't take, you don't have to be the world's greatest counterintelligence service to figure out that something seems wrong about a certain place. And the folks that are working there. You know, when we were reporting this out, I had a source of a former contractor who described exercises that he and others would put on for, for operators who were looking to get into this commercial cover space. And one aspect of it was they would, these guys would fly in to, as part of the exercise, they would fly into airports in the US and they were, the airports were supposed to be, quote, unquote, foreign airports. And it was supposed to be like, this is a, you know, this is a denied area. This is a, you know, walk through the airport. And we want to see if you could walk through the airport. And the, the trainers didn't, hadn't necessarily seen the guys faces beforehand. And the trainers were saying, I'm gonna be able to spot every single one of you. And more often than not, they would do it. You know, they would literally, they would watch, they would do surveillance on these folks getting off different airplanes from all over the country and all over the world flying into these US airports. And the trainers would say, that guy's an operator. That guy's an operator. That guy's clearly an operator. And so you're already, you're blown from the moment you get in. This is, we're not even talking about biometrics, we're not even talking about facial recognition. We're not even talking about gait analysis or whatever. I mean, this is just good old fashioned CI work. And these guys would not necessarily know how to comport themselves either. They would get dragged into secondary as part of the exercise. They thought they would, you know, they were super slick. They'd get dragged into secondary. The folks in secondary who knew who they were, right, would try to, you know, you know, ruffle their feathers a little bit. You know, one story that I was told which is quite humorous actually is as part of the exercise, these guys were told to surveil a location.
Host/Interviewer
This is the best.
Zach Dorfman
I don't know, it's story, the story's amazing, right?
Host/Interviewer
Yeah.
Zach Dorfman
Surveil this location and do it in a way that is not going to draw attention to themselves. So they got what, you know, like a windowless van. You know, what my source said was basically like, you know, your classic like, pedophile van, right? And they didn't realize that where they were supposed to be surveilling was right next to, like, an elementary school or nursery school, and they just posted up there. And of course, all of these. All these local moms were like, yo, who the fuck is that? You know, and they call the cops. They call the cops on these guys, and the cops knock, knock, knock on the van, and there's like three buff dudes or whatever, you know, with beards, just sitting in the van. And of course, they get taken in, right? Of course they could take it into the local cops. And then there's this whole ordeal because if they call the FBI, they get a little get out of jail free card, right? Where if they're in real trouble, they can say, hey, I'm sorry, sir. You know, Mr. Officer. Like, I'm actually doing elite military training.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm one of you guys.
Zach Dorfman
Yeah. Here, you know, here's a number of a local FBI agent who can, you know, who can attest to the fact that I am, in fact, a employee of the US Government. But you don't want to do that, because then you can fail out of the exercise. So eventually, after spending some time, you know, in the local jail or being interrogated by these police officers, they say, okay, fine, we give up. And they, you know, they admit to who they are and what they're doing, and everything gets worked out, and it's fine, but, like, it's just an example of, I don't want to say the hubris, but just the difficulty in getting these guys in the mindset of doing something so radically different than what they've done before.
Jack Murphy
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Host/Interviewer
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Jack Murphy
There's a. You know I didn't mention this, it's not in the article but I remember there were a couple Americans that appeared to be operating under some sort of official cover. Diplomatic passports. They got hemmed up in Libya. This was quite a while ago, this was like 10 years ago or more by this point. And so this made the news. You know these Americans got arrested trying to cross the border from Tunisia to Libya. What the hell's going on? The Libyans had taken pictures of these guys passports when they detained them. And I went and looked up one of the guys names and oh look, he had run in a marathon in Fayetteville, North Carolina right next to Fort Bragg.
Host/Interviewer
Oh my God.
Jack Murphy
So it's just, it's very hard to erase the past of someone who is a career soldier. Just their footprint is so strong and their associations with the military are so strong and even those cultural things, you know, the way soldiers walk and stand and things like this, their mannerisms just separate Them from the average person. I think one of the other interesting things that came out of it was the difference between how the CIA uses Knox and how JSOC uses them, which
Host/Interviewer
is because isn't JSOC usually? It's like a short term kind of thing. CIA is usually more of a long term kind of thing.
Jack Murphy
Yeah.
Host/Interviewer
Why? Maybe they run into those issues because they're not like really home growing these knocks.
Jack Murphy
Well, from like young. The short term versus long term thing is like a product of what they're trying to accomplish, really. JSOC uses Knox for targeting and for logistics too, but they're more interested of like, go in, find the bad guy, locate him, you know, that kind of thing. Um, or maybe drive this van around this country with some surveillance equipment in it or whatever the case may be. Um, or. Zach, do you want to go into like, kind of the difference of how the CIA utilizes them?
Zach Dorfman
Yeah, I mean, as far as I know, I mean, the J Stock folks also, it's. It's kind of like somebody gets into country, you get arms caches, you get, you recruit a, you know, a local vet who can serve as a, you know, as a doctor if things go like really, really south. It's like that kind of stuff. It's like prep intelligence, preparation for the battlefield, I guess, is a lot of it. CIA has a much different history. Traditionally, things are changing because of the difficulties surrounding what they call ubiquitous technical surveillance and just the way in which it's much harder to stay hidden than it used to be in the past. But CIA would try to nat. Would try to grab people very young, put them on the deep cover, knock, commercial cover track, and keep them there for their whole careers. Like no connection with the US Government ever. And it was pretty successful in doing that for a long time. I mean, there were people who never went to the farm, they never set foot in Northern Virginia necessarily. They lived abroad for 30 years. They never went to Langley, they never went there after they retired. They retired undercover. Some of them never touched US soil or very, very rarely. And if so they did it. They did it in a way that, you know, if they had a connection to South Florida, they would like go to South Florida for reasons that comported with their cover. They sometimes successfully ran businesses, sometimes not. I mean, that's, that's another. That's a whole other issue. Right. That I think JSOC and CIA is both had, which is like.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah, when I found this out, what you're about to say, it blew my mind. Like somebody's Working as a high powered lawyer, let's say, and is also a knock for 30 years and supposedly making half a million dollars a year. They can't keep the money.
Zach Dorfman
No.
Host/Interviewer
They're getting paid as like a CIA officer.
Zach Dorfman
Yes, yes, yes.
Host/Interviewer
Absolute nonsense.
Zach Dorfman
So there was, I mean, not to. So in the book, I get into this because in the early days, in the early days of the NOC program, I mean, I mean early days, like 1950s, like right after the CIA was founded, there were debates about this and there were folks within the CIA that were like, if we're going to make this work here, we need to actually let these guys make a buck doing their jobs. Because you can't have a guy be, you know, be a CEO at GE abroad and working two jobs and, and just making a civil servant salary. It doesn't, it doesn't make sense. It also doesn't make sense as a coffer mechanism, right? Because if you're supposed to be a high roller, you gotta, you gotta have that Mercedes, you gotta have that apartment, you know, you gotta be able to go on vacations where people in your kind of class group go, right? Like everything has to become part of your cover. And that has historically been an issue too. And there's a lot of resentment in CIA because there used to be this sense that CIA people under non official cover were just kind of like gaming the system, you know, like, oh, I gotta be, you know, I'm a big shot, I gotta drive the bends, right? Like I gotta go to the south of France for three weeks. Because everybody else in my firm does, you know, in the summertime. But yeah, I mean, over time CIA would use Knox for intelligence gathering. They would use them to handle ultra sensitive sources. Like if somebody was recruited by a case officer under diplomatic cover, the moment that person was recruiter, let's say it was a high level government official, right? They would not want that case officer to ever have any, any interaction with that senior government official again, right? So what they would do is they would turn that person over to a NOC who had no USG connections and that knock would generally fly in from another country just to have meetings with that person. There's a whole bunch of other stuff that CIA has done over time. It's not, that's not really the, like the core of this article. So I don't want to get too far afield, but the agency had a, had developed a much deeper, a broader theory of the case, right? A theory of the case for why you would have folks like this doesn't mean it didn't have a lot of problems. It just means that they had deck, they had decades of lead time on JSOC to figure this stuff out and they had a broader set of uses for their knocks. And JSOC came at it from, I think, self consciously not needing it for quite as many things. And it had many decades. It had to play catch up. And I think it's still playing catch up. But to be honest, I think for CIA there's also been huge issues over the last, well, arguably since its founding, but particularly in the last 10, 15, 20 years in making the program work. So it's not, you know, not to skip to the end of the article, but like there's, there's a lot of questions about the future of the practice in general, not just for CIA, but, you know, for JSOC too.
Jack Murphy
I think one of the other big differences that came out during our research was that these sort of non official cover businesses that the CIA stands up can generate profit, whereas the military cannot generate profit. One guy even told me, he's like, if your cover is a carpet salesman and you buy a bunch of Persian rugs in the Middle east, when you bring those back to the United States, they all have to go into the burn pit and be destroyed.
Host/Interviewer
Can't even take one for the house,
Jack Murphy
for the crib, Nothing even even. One of the guys told me, he's like, we had there was a mechanism to return our frequent flyer miles.
Host/Interviewer
Crazy.
Jack Murphy
Yeah.
Zach Dorfman
I want to just say one quick thing which is that that is a really important difference. And there's a phrase that I heard a couple times called non appropriated income, not appropriated budget. And that refers to the ability to take those profits and plow them back into operational funds. But it is a black hole and there is no, there is very little oversight over non appropriated funds or income. So if there's anybody listening to this podcast who has any experience or insight into that world, because it's a very important world and it's one that gets very little attention because it tends to escape not only congressional oversight, but also oversight within the buildings themselves, because you can just take the money that you have earned and use it to, I don't know, purchase more real estate or go on operational missions. Like there's, we are talking, we are talking tens, hundreds of millions of dollars over time that can be, that can be earned in some of these, in some of these proprietary schemes. And so it's a, it's a topic that generally does not get any on
Host/Interviewer
the contras yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.
Zach Dorfman
Yes. That is, I think that is a great example now that we got Iran back in the news, right, this idea that you are, yeah, you're taking covert action funds that you should not that are arguably in Iran contrast, legal from the jump, but like. And then you are plowing it into something else and it is, it is a kind of dark side of the moon aspect to US Intelligence activities.
Host/Interviewer
I want to know about the East European.
Jack Murphy
Tell me about that freak Sean, about that one.
Host/Interviewer
Sean, give us a scoop. You're on mute.
Sean Naylor
The East European was the sort of. The name, if you like, or that I, I gave to an individual whose, whose true identity is known by Jack and me. But I first encountered when I was reporting Relentless Strike, my book about jsoc.
Host/Interviewer
And
Sean Naylor
some of the material in, in fact most of the material in the article about the East European comes, comes from the book. Because he was sort of the quintessential successful noc. I mean, even though we had sources that were claiming, oh, JSox, NOCs only do short term missions and so forth, this guy sort of was the antithesis of that. He had joined Delta Force early in its existence and he spoke, he was, you know, born in an East European country and had the, you know, had all the cultural and linguistic skills, therefore, to pass as a native of that country. And in addition, as with others from the JSOC and particularly the Special Mission Unit community, he had a convenient missing part of his career because in the army those folks go into something called the dasa, the Department of the Army. What's the S stand for, Jack, do you remember?
Host/Interviewer
System?
Jack Murphy
Maybe. I, I can't remember either, but it's
Sean Naylor
basically the, it's basically a restricted list of names that isn't made public that doesn't appear on, in other army databases.
Host/Interviewer
So
Sean Naylor
this guy was sort of converted into a noc and he had a sort of a commercial cover alias. I believe that his original country of birth helped out with this. And he, he traveled the world basically under alias doing, doing. Doing the, the j. Socks bidding. And in, in, you know, one of the cases that, that we describe in, in the article, he, he drove a, he drove an suv, I believe, or certainly a car from Jordan into Baghdad completely kitted out with hidden antenna so that it could pick up all sorts of communications from Iraqi government types in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. And then he sort of parked this vehicle there and then, you know, and then basically stayed in Baghdad for a while, again undercover. And then. And Then left. You know, there's another episode of again, a guy with a, I presume a fairly long term cover who is leaving a country near Lebanon, but not Lebanon itself, but was passing through Lebanon
Zach Dorfman
as
Sean Naylor
part of his cover and was basically jumped by some guys. Now, whether this was a sort of just a street crime and he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or whether this was Hezbollah or somebody like that trying to kidnap him, it's unclear. But he, you know, they had guns, he fought them off, he wrestled one of the guns out of their hands. But in the sort of process of all of this, he got shot in the gut and he had to basically go back to his hotel. And then he called a US government doctor whose contact information he had and said, here's my problem, I've been shot. What do I do? The doctor talked him through how to sew himself up, and then he continued with his mission. So, you know, there were all these steps he had to take to keep himself, as they say, clean. And he did all of that before leaving the theater. So he went through all the steps that he would have had to have gone through had he not been shot, despite the fact that he had a gunshot wound. And then he had to fly out commercial. And finally he flew into a friendly country that's not in the Middle east and got some real medical care. But that became a sort of a legendary episode. He was part of the sort of intelligence, Special ops intelligence unit often referred to as Task Force Orange. Had a lot of different cover names over the years, and he received a Silver Star for his actions. But the citation for that silver star is classified. I found out about it many, many years ago and sort of looked into it. But, you know, I was told that that's a legendary, legendary case of a, of a commercial cover operative, you know, getting in the shit, if you like, and then having to get himself out.
Host/Interviewer
Jack, I remember we had George Hand on. He worked. I don't know if he was a knock supposed like, you know, J Sock knock, but he was in Delta Force and he was, he would go with like a female operative to. Was it Bosnia?
Jack Murphy
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was not non official cover. I don't believe. I think they were under official cover for the most part when they did that.
Host/Interviewer
But it's just to say, like, there's women that are doing this job too.
Jack Murphy
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think one of the more interesting aspects of this is that, you know, they recruit people from across the army and across the Navy. Not Just special ops guys, because they're looking for people who have those language abilities and that ethnicity that. That they. The mission requires, and then they put them through a training course, actually a series of training courses, depending on what they need. But it's interesting that, you know, a lot of them are one and dones or two and dones. So they'll go and do one or two missions, and then they're going, you know, presumably they'll get a Bronze Star and sent back to their. Their parent unit. So I. I mean, it's. It's interesting the way it works. You know, as one person told me, you know, the CIA plays the long game with these programs, but JSOC just doesn't have a long game. There's no such. There's no such thing.
Host/Interviewer
It's got to be weird. You do a couple missions like super squirrely secret shit, and then you go back to your parent unit.
Jack Murphy
There's. There's an even crazier story, I mean, that Sean and I will try to write about in the future, about a guy who's a conventional army dude, had those language skills, that ethnicity, and the army him up and put him undercover with some really bad people. And when that mission was done, he was awarded a Silver Star and sent back to his unit, the motor pool or whatever it was.
Host/Interviewer
Jesus Christ.
Jack Murphy
It was a year undercover.
Host/Interviewer
Oh, my God.
Jack Murphy
Yeah.
Host/Interviewer
Talking about, like, the male, female, like the TFO couple that went into Iran in 2014. And they. It's. They've been doing it several times since 9, 11. Tell us a little bit about that, because that sounds like, insane. Even before, like, we had all these crazy tensions and the sanctions and everything with Iran. Oh, Sean, you're on mute again.
Sean Naylor
Beg your pardon. I'm trying to protect everybody from my dog Veto's barking.
Ryan Seacrest (alternate)
No problem.
Sean Naylor
Yeah. That was a case in which Orange and JSOC writ large had been sort of pondering how to get people into Iran. And it turned out, you know, actually to be a little easier than. Than some of them thought. They. They had imagined that the easier way would be to drive overland and. And cross at a land border rather than go through where you can pick up a visa as you're going through the sort of the border checkpoint. But it turned out that they were able to come up with COVID identities that withstood the visa application process at an Iranian embassy and were able to fly in commercially into an airport. It's usually considered. That's usually considered a higher bar to get through the higher bar of security. Than just crossing at a desert checkpoint somewhere. But it worked. And they were able to, it was a male female couple, which as we've discussed, usually is thought to attract less scrutiny than a singleton military age male or, you know, multiple military age males hanging out together. And they were able to stay in a hotel in a large, in a large Iranian city, you know, drive around. They, they could have sort of undertaken a sort of a mission there and then to sort of collect on the Iranian nuclear program. But since that wasn't originally part of their mission, they chose not to. And they returned basically, I think the same way they, they came in via commercial, commercial air. And when they got back to the States, they, they briefed the President on their, which was President George W. Bush at the time on, on their accomplishments. It was considered a, you know, a terrific success and a, and a template, you know, to, to base future missions on.
Host/Interviewer
So it's safe to say we've been doing it since, ever since we saw that it's relatively easy to get in there.
Sean Naylor
Yeah, I would say that's probably true. I mean, with anything like this. And I'm just sort of, I think, stating the obvious, you don't want to do missions like this just because you can. There has to be a real need to do it. Because just because it worked the previous time doesn't mean that somebody somewhere in the Iranian government hasn't retroactively or retrospectively figured out what you did and taken steps to prevent it in the future. So, you know, I mean, there's some good fictional TV series, both Israeli and French, about people conducting non official cover missions against the Iranians, some in Iran, some elsewhere.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah, the bureau. Right, that's the French one.
Sean Naylor
It's the French one, and I think the Israeli one is called Tehran, but I'm not sure. And I mean, they give you a pretty good sense of just the sort of the white knuckle ride that can be.
Jack Murphy
The other difference. Sorry, Zach, I'll let you go. The other difference to point out to listeners between official cover and non official cover cover is that if you get busted under official cover, that you're posing as a State Department person, even if you're in Moscow or somewhere, like maybe you get your shoulder pulled out of the socket when they arrest you and then they dub you Persona non grata and you're deported out of the country, you're going back home. But if you're under non official cover, you're getting taken down into a basement somewhere and shot like the US Government is not going to claim you at all. So the pucker factor in a place like Tehran has got to be incredibly high.
Zach Dorfman
Yeah, that's 100% true. I mean, the best case scenario is that there's an implicit understanding that. That, you know, you're actually, like. You never actually admit to it, but. But Iranian or Chinese or Russian counterintelligence knows that you're actually CIA or jsoc, and then there's somebody that they're willing to trade you for. But, I mean, there have been cases where there was one case of a. Of a CA knock in the 1950s in China who. Who spent a decade in a Chinese dungeon and died. I mean, the US Government, they disavowed him, and they just said, he's not one of ours. And the Chinese government said, we know he is. And the US Government said, no, he's not, and he rotted away in the dungeon and died. I mean, it doesn't get much more serious than that. Since we're talking about Iran, I think it's pretty interesting, actually, because, you know, Iran, this is the case for the Israelis, too, but we don't have diplomatic relations with the Iranian government. Right. So you cannot operate under a US Passport. And frankly, you wouldn't necessarily want to operate under a passport of a friendly Western country either. Although more or less some have been useful. Right. I mean, there have been times where we've had allies from Eastern Europe who have provided cover for people going into Iran, and you've had people that have been able to speak those languages, and so it's been, like, pretty effective. But again, these are sophisticated counterintelligence services. They know what they're looking for. And so then you need to really think about, who do we have that can operate under a third country passport who is not going to attract any attention of Iranian counterintelligence? And that's really, really hard. And I don't want to take anything away from the folks that Sean spoke about, but I think it's very illustrative that as a mere proof of concept of getting a tan, what they call a tandem couple, which is like when you have two operatives, two deep cover officers working together, pretending to be almost always like a romantic couple married, something like that, going into a country like Iran, checking into a hotel and walking around and leaving unscathed was considered notable enough for those people to then brief the President of the United States. I mean, that tells you about how difficult this stuff is considered to be, how dangerous it is, and how rare it is. I mean, it's the Truth is, is that we don't do a lot of this in denied areas because it's so dangerous, because the stakes are so high, because there is no recompense for people if they get caught. And there have always. There has also been periods of more or less willingness to undertake missions of this kind of dangerousness. Like you have folks at the operator level who are willing to go in and then you get people in the bureaucracy who pull people back. And that's been a source of tension too, over the years.
Host/Interviewer
Talking a little bit about the bureaucracy just reminded me when, you know, the. If J. Sock sets up a shell company or a fake business to a cover business to like and starts making money or they want to make a business decision, they have to, to make that decision, they have to like shoot it up the flag, back to the flag officer to see like if it's a yes or no. And it's like what the is a one star or two star general or whatever. Colonel, how are they making the business decision that's like happening on the ground? Like, why would that even be in
Jack Murphy
like, the floats described to me as, you know, you're undercover as a businessman that can't make any business decisions.
Host/Interviewer
Right.
Jack Murphy
So it makes the COVID just very difficult to work under.
Host/Interviewer
That's the great. And isn't like the key thing keeping your cover as clean as possible? It's like, hold on, I have to call my wife or whoever he's trying to, you know, act like he's going to make it. You know, it just makes no sense.
Jack Murphy
Yeah, there's all kinds of like, shenanigans that go into trying to like, maintain those covers. As we found out that they'll go in and electronically delete all of your records. They'll go to like, credit card companies and they have relationships with a lot of these companies that they'll like, okay, we're working with the US Government. They'll delete your credit history. And it's like you're born again. And it creates a lot of difficulties because when you come back to the United States and you're trying to integrate back into life as a civilian, it's like on paper you don't exist. Even just guys who are official cover guys that go on the Dasser and they've been on that Dasser for like 10, 15 years. It takes several years to just come off that damn list. And that's just official cover guys we're talking about there.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah, it's, it's pretty unbelievable.
Jack Murphy
There was one, the other interesting Shenanigan was fake retirement ceremonies that you'll have a guy who has, you know, maybe he already has his 20 years and maybe not in the military. And they decide, hey, we're going to take this sergeant major or this lieutenant colonel or whoever it is and we're going to put them under a non official cover and send them to some part of the world to gather intelligence, will actually hold a fake retirement ceremony. And everyone in that guy's unit thinks it's real, thinks that guy's really retiring except for him. And then he will be given fake military paperwork, like fake discharge paperwork so that if something, someone does look, it's like he's not in the military anymore, that's done with and then sent out and do his mission for a year or two and then when he comes back he will have a second real retirement ceremony that puts him out of the military. But again, I mean that just is again one of these problems with finding someone who's very late in career. You know, you imagine finding a special forces command sergeant major that's been doing the job for 20 years and then trying to put them under that cover versus trying to find a kid in basic training and then putting them in that cover.
Host/Interviewer
You Jack, you mentioned about like us hitting up like credit reporting companies and whatever to like delete information. Where did you, did you say it where they do this? If, even if the company says no, we'll just go in and do it ourselves anyway.
Jack Murphy
Yeah, I had a, I had a guy tell me that that like, yeah, if they don't cooperate, there are like
Host/Interviewer
ways we'll just hack into it and do it anyway.
Jack Murphy
There's something that, that the nerds at the Pentagon do to delete all that stuff. And we talked about this is another facet of Knox that we haven't really talked about is that when they're under a commercial cover, that cover company that they're ostensibly working for is maintained. Sometimes up to 20 people are maintaining that cover. So it's super expensive to create and maintain non official cover. It's a really big undertaking. And that's why as Zach was saying, we don't do a lot of it. You know, it's not, it's not super prevalent.
Zach Dorfman
Yeah, just to like put an exclamation point on what Jack just said. Every noc, whether JSOC or at CIA, requires an immense amount of support. All the support people have salaries. All the support people may or may not want to be doing something with their careers that involve supporting a NOC full Time, and then you got the actual costs of the knock. Right. If you. If you're going traditional and you have somebody that's a business person, there might be those associated costs that I mentioned before, Right. Kind of keeping up. Keeping up the. The illusion of the lifestyle. So, like, one knock can be an extraordinarily expensive proposition. And if you have somebody and you have eight people supporting them and that knock, all they do is meet with some sensitive sources in a couple countries, and people start looking at budgets. There's the kind of. The value proposition can be very controversial. It doesn't mean that they don't have really important uses. But historically, there has been a stream of thought, a very powerful stream of thought within the US Intelligence community that the juice is just not worth the squeeze for Knox in general. And so, you know, for various reasons, there. There has been a lot of skepticism over the years about whether they are worth it. You have other folks who are totally, you know, evangelized about it and say, well, you know, you're not read into it. Right? So there's. You get. You get into that game where it's kind of like, if you understood the compartments that I was read into, you would know why NOx are so valuable. But since 99% of the people don't actually know, they don't know what they don't know. And it's. It's impossible to, To. To make a, Like a, an honest assessment, you know, when people just kind of. They just say, well, you don't, you know, you're not written. Right. So. But overall, I would say that. That the attitude has been pretty skeptical over time, and I don't think it's getting any less skeptical.
Host/Interviewer
Is that because, like, we're, like, more and more reliant on, like, technical surveillance rather than actual human intelligence? Because there's no way we have a huge network in Iran. Like.
Zach Dorfman
Yes, there's no way. I mean, I mean, yes, that's. I mean, you could. We could write, you know, we could write an entire encyclopedia worth of books, you know, on, you know, like, Like,
Jack Murphy
I mean, yeah, if you're a bureaucrat, are you more comfortable with, like, signals intelligence and technical surveillance, or do you want to rely on human beings which have a track record sometimes of being unreliable and, as Zach points out, costing a ton of money and a ton of grief if they get caught?
Sean Naylor
Yeah. Although, of course, to play devil's advocate, I mean, oftentimes what the United States is relying on is human intelligence from partner nations, and it's not as if those satellites that are collecting all the imagery for the National Reconnaissance Office and all the audio and other signals intelligence for the National Security Agency are cheap either. So there's, you know, there's, you know, swings and roundabouts. There's a number of angles to this. I suppose the intelligence communities, polite, politically correct responses. They want all sources of intelligence to feed into one big picture.
Zach Dorfman
But without question though we have, we have grown accustomed in US Intelligence to relying predominantly on sigint. That has not changed. That has only become more prevalent over time. We do get important humint from liaison from intelligence partners. But like what they call unilateral human sources that are like recruited and handled by US Intelligence community officers from various three letter agencies has declined significantly over time. And what that means for the future of intelligence is like, man, that's a whole nother podcast that we could talk about for many, many hours.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah. What's the case officers union saying about this? Like they can't be fucking happy.
Zach Dorfman
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know actually. But I don't know if there's a lot of questions about whether those folks are going to be able to operate the way that they did. Right. Because again, part of the. So if you look at one level up on this whole debate, it's about if we can't get human the way we used to do, we knew, do we need to change the COVID mechanisms that we have been using predominantly in order to get closer to sources that we need, need. Right. And so if we can't rely on being military attaches and diplomats of various sorts, do we need to move out of those embassies to then do our jobs? Non official cover has always been the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for folks who think that official cover is just not getting as close to the people that we need to. But it has so many problems and structural issues of its own that it has created other issues along the way. And neither has been able to come close to pacing with the, the technical collection capabilities that the US government now has.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah, it's going to be an interesting next couple decades, boys. Excellent episode, excellent article. The High side. The link is in the description. Zach, when is the book coming out about the CIA Knox? Are we working on that?
Zach Dorfman
Next summer? Yeah, next summer. Penguin Random House. The provisional title is Deep Cover, but it's, it's. I mean I got a long way before publication, but the book is written, it's in revisions, it's a hit, it's, it's A. It's a. It's a new history of the CIA through this very problem that we've been. We've been discussing going back to the founding of it to. To today, so. Should be interesting.
Sean Naylor
I haven't seen a word of it, and I can already tell you it's going to be well worth buying.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah. And. And for Team House listeners and eyes on listeners. I want to put Zach's links in the description. He's written a couple times. A few times with. With Jack before. You guys did the. The Soleimani strike article, right? Credible one. Another one, too. Which other one have you guys worked on? This one blanket.
Sean Naylor
Yeah.
Host/Interviewer
This is the second one. Haven't you guys done something else, too?
Jack Murphy
I don't think so.
Host/Interviewer
Okay. Solomoni article is incredible too. Really good.
Zach Dorfman
Worked with Sean a bunch. Worked with Sean on a big article on the first Trump administration's plans to potentially kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and some discussions they were having about even targeted. Targeted assassinations.
Host/Interviewer
So obviously on Julian Assange or just in general?
Zach Dorfman
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Host/Interviewer
It's a smart.
Zach Dorfman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, always have a high profile at all.
Host/Interviewer
Not high profile at all. It's smoke. The guy from WikiLeaks.
Zach Dorfman
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it got stopped, but, I mean, that's a whole nother discussion, you know, but it was. It was a. It was. It was a. It was a wild ordeal, man. They were thinking about doing gun battles just, you know, in the streets of London with, you know, the Russians, that they thought they were gonna put them on a plane, send them to Moscow, but. Yeah.
Host/Interviewer
Was somebody smoking meth before they came up with that idea?
Zach Dorfman
No comment.
Host/Interviewer
Like what kind of. I mean, how are these people, like, even working? Like in the. In the government? Wow.
Zach Dorfman
To ask that question is to answer it.
Host/Interviewer
Yeah. Everybody check them out. Check out Sean, check out Jack, check out Zach. Those links will be in the description, of course. The high side. Check that out. Check out their sub stack. And anything else? Oh, yeah. Patreon.com the teamhouse. You get both eyes on and team ass episodes. Add full free and early and you help support the show. Guys, a pleasure.
Jack Murphy
Yeah. Thank you, everyone.
Zach Dorfman
Thanks, guys.
Sean Naylor
Thank you.
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Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House Podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free and what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the Team House on our Geopolitics podcast, eyes on things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on books. We recommend upcoming guests that we have coming on the show and also you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you go and check it out. We send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis. You can find our newsletter@teamhousepodcast.kit.com join again. The website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com join so so we hope to see you there. The link will be down in the description.
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Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times the points.
Ryan Seacrest
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Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
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Ryan Seacrest
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Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for
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Lady Luck
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Spinquest Announcer
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Jack Murphy
Sold.
LegalShield Announcer (alternate)
Here are the keys to your new home. New beginnings Sound exciting? From a new marriage to a new home, having access to legal help comes in handy with LegalShield. You can connect with a designated law firm that knows your state laws, helping with prenups, real estate contracts and even wills and estate planning starting around a dollar a day. LegalShield Real lawyers really affordable for 10% off your annual subscription. Sign up@legalshield.com today. That's LegalShield.com Legal Shield does not provide legal representation or advice. See a plan for complete terms.
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times a point.
Ryan Seacrest
Look for in store tags to earn
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
on eligible items from Tostitos, Cascade Tide,
Red Bull, Sparkling Ice and Ferrero.
Ryan Seacrest
Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for
easy pickup or delivery restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.
Bretzky
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Spinquest Announcer
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Bradley W. Harp
It's World War II and American spies are on a secret mission to stop Nazi Germany from building an atomic bomb. I'm Bradley W. Harp, host of the National World War II Museum's podcast series Secret World War II Spies and Special Ops. The largest conflict in human history wasn't just one on the battlefield. It was also one in the shadows. A new season is available now. Find and follow Secret World War II wherever you get your podcasts.
Host/Interviewer
Foreign
Ryan Seacrest
hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times a point.
Ryan Seacrest
Look for in store tags to earn
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
on eligible items from Tostitos, Cascade Tide,
Red Bull, Sparkling Ice and Ferrero.
Ryan Seacrest
Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for
easy pickup or delivery. Restrict supply. See the website for full terms and conditions.
Ryan Seacrest (alternate)
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Spinquest Announcer
U S T.com SpinQuest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.
Bradley W. Harp
It's World War II and American spies are on a secret mission to stop Nazi Germany from building an atomic bomb. I'm Bradley W. Hart, host of the National World War II Museum's podcast series Secret World War II Spies and Special Ops. The largest conflict in human history was wasn't just one on the battlefield, it was also one in the shadows. A new season is available now. Find and follow Secret World War II wherever you get your podcasts.
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Save Days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times the points.
Ryan Seacrest
Look for in store tags to earn
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
on eligible items from Tostitos, Cascade Tide,
Red Bull, Sparkling Ice and Ferrero.
Ryan Seacrest
Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for
easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.
Ryan Seacrest (alternate)
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Spinquest Announcer
play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.
Bradley W. Harp
It's World War II and American spies are on a secret mission to stop Nazi Germany from building an atomic bomb. I'm Bradley W. Harp, host of the National World War II Museum's podcast series Secret World War II Spies and Special Ops. The largest conflict in human history wasn't just one on the battlefield, it was also one in the shadows. A new season is available now. Find and follow Secret World War II wherever you get your podcasts.
Host/Interviewer
Foreign
Ryan Seacrest
hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times a point.
Ryan Seacrest
Look for In Store tags to earn
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
on eligible items from Tostitos, Cascade Tide,
Red Bull, Sparkling Ice and Ferrero.
Ryan Seacrest
Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for
easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the site for full terms and conditions.
Ryan Seacrest (alternate)
Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas style games on my phone at the same time. Drink in one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at spinquest. Over a thousand games including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get 30 coin packs for
Spinquest Announcer
10@Spinquest.com SpinQuest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.
Bradley W. Harp
It's World War II and American spies are on a secret mission to stop Nazi Germany from building an atomic bomb. I'm Bradley W. Harp, host of the National World War II Museum's podcast series Secret World War II, Spies and Special Ops. The largest conflict in human history wasn't just one on the battlefield, it was also one in the shadows. A new season is available now. Find and follow Secret World War II wherever you get your podcasts.
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times the points.
Ryan Seacrest
Look for In Store tags to earn
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
on eligible items from Tostitos, Cascade Tide,
Red Bull, Sparkling Ice and Ferrero.
Ryan Seacrest
Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for
easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.
Bluff
What's going on everyone? It's bluff here. And you know what's more American than America's 250th birthday? Supporting American owned companies like Spinquest, America's number one social casino with over a thousand games like Live Dealer, Blackjack and craps. They're offering new users a $30 coin package for just $10. Go to spinquest.com and sign up today.
Spinquest Announcer
Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.
Bradley W. Harp
It's World War II and American spies are on a secret mission to stop Nazi Germany from building an atomic I'm Bradley W. Hart, host of the National World War II Museum's podcast series Secret World War II Spies and Special Ops. The largest conflict in human history wasn't just one on the battlefield, it was also one in the shadows. A new season is available now. Find and follow Secret World War II wherever you get your podcasts.
Host/Interviewer
Foreign
Ryan Seacrest
hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Save Days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times a point.
Ryan Seacrest
Look for In Store tags to earn
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
on eligible items from Tostitos, Cascade Tide, Red Bull, Sparkling Ice and Ferrero.
Ryan Seacrest
Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for
easy pickup or delivery. Restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.
Ryan Seacrest (alternate)
Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on Spin Quest and there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get 30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash Prizes. That's at spinquest.com S-P-I-N Q U-S-T.com Spin
Spinquest Announcer
Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited visitors spinquest.com for more details.
Bradley W. Harp
It's World War II and American spies are on a secret mission to stop Nazi Germany from building an atomic bomb. I'm Bradley W. Hart, host of the National World War II Museum's podcast series Secret World War II Spies and Special Ops. The largest conflict in human history wasn't just one on the battlefield, it was also one in the shadow.
Sean Naylor
Shadows.
Bradley W. Harp
A new season is available now. Find and follow Secret World War II wherever you get your podcasts.
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
Save Days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times a point.
Ryan Seacrest
Look for in store tags to earn
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
on eligible items from Tostitos, Cascade Tide,
Red Bull, Sparkling Ice and Ferrero.
Ryan Seacrest
Then clip the offer in the app for Automatic event. Long savings stack up those rewards.
Albertsons/Safeway Announcer
To save even more, enjoy savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online
for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.
Bluff
What's going on everyone? It's bluff here. And you know what's more American than America's 250th birthday? Supporting American owned companies like Spinoza, America's number one social casino with over a thousand games like Live Dealer, blackjack and craps. They're offering new users a $30 coin package for just $10. Go to spinquest.com and sign up today.
Spinquest Announcer
Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.
Bradley W. Harp
It's World War II and American spies are on a secret mission to stop Nazi Germany from building an atomic bomb. I'm Bradley W. Hart, host of the National World War II Museum's podcast series Secret World War II Spies and Special Ops. The largest conflict in human history wasn't just one on the battlefield, it was also one in the shadows. A new season is available now. Find and follow Secret World War II wherever you get your podcasts.
The Team House – Eyes On Geopolitics
Host: Dee Takos
Guests: Jack Murphy, Sean Naylor, Zach Dorfman
Date: May 28, 2026
This episode dives into the clandestine world of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operatives working under non-official cover (NOC)—a topic often associated only with the CIA. Hosts and veteran investigative journalists discuss the history, inner workings, and risks of JSOC’s secretive deep cover missions, drawing on their recent deep-dive article on "The High Side" and Zach Dorfman’s forthcoming book about CIA NOC operations. The conversation juxtaposes JSOC’s approach to deep cover against the CIA’s, examines real-world missions and tradecraft, and unpacks the ethical, practical, and bureaucratic hurdles faced by America’s most secretive operatives.
The episode offers an unvarnished look into the rarely-discussed world of JSOC deep cover missions—detailing the origins, tradecraft, and ongoing challenges of running non-official cover programs outside the CIA. The conversation paints a picture of constant moral compromise, immense personal risk, and a bureaucratic machine struggling to adapt human intelligence operations to a new age of technical surveillance. It’s a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of intelligence, special operations, and global geopolitics.
Further Reading:
Keep up with the guests: