So delighted to be with a retreat for artists on a 400acre estate in new york by providing an opportunity for artists in a supportive environment and its a huge part of the local Cultural Community and worldwide through Cultural Community. For those of you who dont know this the fall benefit is coming up next week so theres a link in the chat box so you can find out more about that. Tonight our guest author is going to be interviewed by Garrett Graff a distinguished magazine journalist and bestselling historian covering politics and is a contributor to wired and the author of multiple books including the Number One National bestseller the only plane in the sky and oral history of 9 11 as well as inside Robert Muellers fbi about the governments cold war escape plan. Hes at memorably did a great interview in february in the manchester when we could do things like that are hopefully will do that again. Im so pleased to welcome tim weiner into the virtual setting. He has got events in vermont for his last four books and we were lucky enough to post them in our store in 2016 with this wonderful Richard Nixon either fade. That was five years ago. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book award for his writing a National Security and intelligence. He covers his cia the worn and stan the conflict in 14 nations for their times. Hes here to talk about his brandnew book gil cisneros. Please join me in welcoming tim weiner an era graph. Thank you everybody. Its the history of the last 75 years of warfare between america and russia and Political Warfare. Clinical warfare is all the means at our nations disposal. Its the full spectrum from diplomacy to Covid Operations from friendly persuasion to sabotage and the story of the book is we won the 20th century and the 21st in a nutshell and you can see the Political Warfare against the american political system and american democracy the american body politic. We are going to see whether they win the next battle on election day. Over to you. Tim its great to have tim talk with you about this and thank you northshire for hosting us tonight. I know that i speak for tim and i say we are sorry we cant be there in person at the Manchester Store or at the saratoga store. It would be a lot more fun to be there in person but im excited to have the chance to talk to tim from the comfort of his home and my home here in burlington vermont and in brooklyn. Tim what are the things i want to start by asking you about and im obligated to start the participants with a course on what it good book this is to have the opportunity to read my endorsement of it is on the back cover so i come into this a fully biased observer that the next one but that part of what surprised me in reading this was how much of the story i didnt actually know. Im someone who would have told you well i have covered these topics for years. That would told you i was wellversed and there were entire chapters of this book that i just knew nothing about. So tim you have written the definitive history of the cia and one of the great histories of the fbi. Youve done tons of National Security reporting on all manner of topics. What made you think there was something more to say about the cold war and russia in the u. S. . Where does this book come from and how did this concept come together in your mind . Garret i came to cia headquarters in 1987 and i called them up and i said hey im going to afghanistan where you guys are running a secret operation shipping hundreds of millions of dollars to the afghan mujahideen warriors who are fighting the red armys come the soviets. I said you guys need country briefings dont you and the Public Information officer at the cia said three months of jihad and i came back with my new beard and i hadnt been back in washington only a day when they phone rang. Tim how are you . Guess who the guy from the cia. How would you like to come in for a briefing now . The said that would be great so off i go to the cia. He was seven miles outside of washington. Through the checkpoint into the beautiful lobby marble soaring atrium. As you walk in and big gold letters is the inscription from the gospel of john that says ye shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. So im focused. Go up talk to the four afghan analysts at the cia and they wanted to know one thing for me which was whats it like . They are analyzing the progress of jihads so i look over my right shoulder and the inscription said im going to cover displays and others cover the courts and this is what im going to do. Five years later at the end of the cold war the director said when are you going to declassify or cold war history words and all . The Clandestine Service didnt like that because there were a lot of words. Tim that was on the record. Twelve years have passed since then. And slowly, the classified history of the cia is revealed. Like a glacier. And revealing the rock underneath. And theres a chapter in the book about poland. About ten disastrous operation operations. A Successful Operation three years apart. The Successful Operation, was solidarity support. Crazy movement in poland. This was in the 80s, the solidarity wound up being the domino that overturns the soviet empire. When a nightmare the soviet system was revealed. The 20th century stories in this book that nobody has ever heard of. Not dispute care and trick garrett. Theres a story of the cia support and justice. There is a story of how the United States tried to fight back against the soviet disinformation in the 80s. But this information with the soviets was really the brainchild the head of the k gp. And into the 70s and 80s and then became the leader of the soviet union. This disinformation from the soviets and the russian disinformation. Kgb disinformation the known, undermined americans faith in their National Security institutions. The fbi and the cia and that was number one. Every year that they talk to john kennedy or they killed Martin Luther king, that was kgb disinformation. And the german warfare laboratories, in maryland, millions of people still believe that to this day. And that was kgb disinformation. Both is ahead of russia intelligence and is a strong leader of russia. And theres a Straight Line that runs through the stories at the end of world war ii to today. And the cold war in 20th century in the number was author now. With russia attacking our democracy. That is a whole different story. Garrett . [inaudible]. What struck me was that youve written so much about things that raised a lot of successes and myriad failures. I am not spoiling the thesis of the book called legacy of ashes but your sort of general belief is that there are more failures in the cias book than successes. And i am curious how this project in looking at this 12 years later, would change your perception of the cia and change your belief and how in the role that it played in the cold war in sort of what should we make of the legacy of the cia in this particular time. Tim covert action is a drug for president s and secretaries of defense, secretaries and state. Theyve a problem that they cant solve through diplomacy or through the military, they send in the cia. The cia just got formed in 1947 and they didnt know the first thing about covert action. In the russians, have been at it for centuries. So our lack of knowledge of how to do the sorts of things, and a distaste because of the secrecy of the cia for coordinating things with policymakers and secretaries of state, and secretaries of defense. It led to a series of cascading failures. With the cia had in the 20th century and the cold war the kgb did not was money. Lots and lots and lots of money if i wanted to sway an election, as it did in this very first covert operation ever, still the election in 1948. Suitcases full of cash. It wanted to reverse the results of an election as it did in chile, in 1970, it could create conditions for a coat. In the entire political army, created the rule partly in japan. The 1950s. The liberal critic party which is really more democratic or republican but still is there to the day. And when the cold war ended, the successes through the cia were not only its ability to outspend the cia, there were and we learned that cia learned in the United States is lord through experiences of failure that if he did things on a small scale the butterfly effect is more effective than spending or sending billions of dollars of weapons out. We did that because of that shortterm success. The afghan rebels drove out the soviet army. But they watched weapons without any followthrough the United States. And we have this through al qaeda. And we had a consequence to the afghans. The race problem today garrett, is that Political Warfare. The full spectrum, not just covert operations. Economic support, and intelligence operations, we dont do it anymore. Where after the game. The war on terrorism consumes everything. Counterterrorism is a first and last goal of the cia and the fbi. We took it out of traditional espionage which is really just gathering information need and created the conditions for the russians to launch. Is the political equivalent of 911. The attacks our democracy. Nobody died. American democracy had an unexpected attack from an expected direction. This will be stand today. Garrett so my experience in covering intelligence, sort of one of the other things, while there are two things that stood out to me in your book the sort of ring true to me in covering the intelligence and writing about this National Security. In one is that and maybe this has to do with the money reason that you just mentioned that the u. S. Is generally better and technical collection and Technical Intelligence wizardry. In the soviet union russia is generally better at human operations. The sort of human intelligence. The second thing that really stands out in this book which is something that is always stood up to maine covering russia and the u. S. Is russia has a strategic patients that the u. S. Just sort of number as. Just sort of washed russia ability to carry out operations over decades. The clearest example of that being the Legal Program with the fbi calls operation ghost story. Where you have these deep cover operatives living inside of the United States for decades. That the u. S. Actually watched for decades. And part of what is fastening the purchasing and learning this fall, peter with the fbi agent in the midst of the more thing talk but is more marked this fall about how on 911, he is actually already assigned to one of the surveillance teams tracking the illegals couple in boston when he and operation of these illegals, the they were arrested until 2010. My question i guess for you tim though is, how does the u. S. Learn this like in Political Warfare. It was a democracy just such a different system that sort of we never be able to possess the patients necessary to find out the necessary deceptions. Tim we are an open society not necessarily her strong suit. It is easier for Hostile Intelligence Service like kgb and its successors to penetrate an open society and is been cia penetrated the proposed authoritarian society. The penetration by russia and the soviet intelligence over the american has been deep and longstanding. Going back to the 1930s. They had a United States congressman on the payroll in the 1930s. His name is samuel. He lived in the Lower East Side of manhattan. And you can send the plaza today. This guy was selling the soviet spies of the day fake passports. And Holding Public hearings. Agents of influence. Very specific definition. Someone in a position of power or authority could sway public opinion. Public policy and russias favor. Anything of any others throughout the years. State department, was a soviet spy. Had a spike inside of the Justice Department or an agency, and the registration division. And spies of the treasury and were spies at the state department. And spies of the oss, the wartime intelligence brain they had spies in the 70s and 80s and 90s running soviet counterintelligence at the fbi in the cia. They cleaned our clock. And they distorted americans perceptions of what was going on in russia. You can count the number of successful cia and fbi penetrations right on the soviet russia and presentday russia on two hands. Without the kind of intelligence gathering, we will be surprised. As we were surprised by the russia attack on the 2016 election. And as we will be surprised by what they are going to do to us in the next five weeks. And i want people to read this book to be aware of what Political Warfare is and how it operates to understand a threat to our democracy. Garrett the most stunning chapter in this book which you know i had discussed on multiple occasions is the congo. But you mentioned a few minutes ago. Give us sort of the book talk version of the craziness that unfolded in congo in the middle of the 20th century. Tim in the late 1950s, and early 1960s, nations all of the world, had been captive under colonialism. It shook off their colonial sins. In the largest of these nations, the congo which had control recently by belgium. For 85 years. And selected congo leaders were invited to brussels in the elected prime minister. A priest. In either the americans on huge interest, uranium, the build the atomic arsenal. Gold and diamonds. Strategic metals. And the americans liked them. And with the help of the cia, he was overturned. And later assassinated while in chains by a belgium paratrooper. In his place, was about to pay for cia agent named joseph. Soon proclaimed himself general. An integral. The ruler of the congo rated support for him, cia directs Cash Payments to help them run the government, payoff the leaders who supported him. And was approved personally by president kennedy. And amounted to millions of dollars a year. And approved by president johnston after that and approved by president next nixon after that. Support. It was unpermitted. American support this dictator who became left and brought this country blind, and golden diamonds and natural resources. All extracted industries in the country. A murderous person against communism in africa. Why did americans support this man until he was finally toppled from power. Thirtythree years. Those after the cia helped that power. The cold war was over. The conflict that emerged from the collapse the congo almost went unnoticed in america. Consumed 5 million lives. These are the consequences of pragmatic decisions made by president s in the cold war. When the war in the countries. Suet lets go back to the present day a little bit. Because one of the things that you layout and chapter after chapter and you mentioned a couple of them already. Is the way the u. S. And the cia met hold in other nations elections successfully and unsuccessfully across decades. In the cold war. Yet the number in the book. I think its Something Like hundred and 17 or hundred and 37 electorates. Tim between washington and moscow, there were direct coverts. Election interference in 117 elections in other countries. During second half of the 20th century. Garrett you hear President Trump and secretary of state mike sampaio, sort of writeoff what russia did it to the United States in 2016 as is more of the same. The door to us all the time. We do it to them all of the time. What you think of that is an argument. Does 2016 sent out to you is something that is fundamentally different than the long legacy that you layout here with the intellectiointerference. Tim im doing a podcast based on the book. I talked to a number former cia directors among others. Nan talked with general hayden, cia under president george w. Bush. Former director of National Security before that. He spent his entire department in the National Security world. In general hayden said that for what russia did to us in 2016 and with their continuing to do to us today is the most successful covert operation in the history of modernday intelligence. Panic succeeded in part because Vladimir Putin has donald trump an agent of influence. Trump amplifies russian propaganda. The much everyday read trump distorts american born policy in his favor. He how pals with Vladimir Putin. And there is no secret but the question is why. I mentioned before the american congress, an agent of influence for moscow in the 30s. Donald trump is an agent of influence for the Russian Federation in the white house. In his no secret 90 kisses prudence rang and he echoes his propaganda. The question is why. Not question which is the great question of the 31st century has never been addressed. And never been investigated. The api started an investigation and then it vanished into thin air. It is possible that is going on in the greatest secrecy as we speak but i really doubt it. I think the trump Justice Department strangled in its crib. Put it in the u. S. Postal service sack and threw it in the potomac. Garrett we see the reporting from your old employer about the president s tax returns. Timin the question of these 41,201,000,000 and that the president has coming due over the next four years and without any sense of who owns that. When the people who on that. Tim do