[inaudible conversations] afternoon. Thank you for joining us here. And the museums historic curator and we have an extra special treat today on an event that even existed a week ago. We were able to put together quickly and we appreciate you coming out. We couldnt miss the opportunity to have this man, jack barsky in front of you today on. If you dont know his background, well talk about it today. This is as probable as it comes. We talk at the museum about how pop culture is not necessarily true in many ways about how it over exaggerate what it actually is. Here we are going to see a true story that really got its beginning in the helpful east germany. Returning to it downright fascinating story about a man recruited by the kgb to infiltrate the United States. 10 years actively spying for the soviets. He resigned in a choke earlier im not sure that you can actually do that, from the kgb. But there is a very successful second career and Information Management. I was finally discovered by the fbi in the 1990s, get a wealth of information to give them. In return they let him become a real u. S. Citizen. Now hes a future arctic as u. S. Nine living as an american. Taken image above the things he couldnt have behind the iron curtain, one interesting thing he is the longest surviving nomad her at the kgb Illegals Program operating during the cold war. So you see in shows like the american permit those were soviet illegals. Jacket is the longest surviving member for many come in many years here inside the United States. He is also the author of the book deep undercover, which will have in the back if you will stay a little bit to have him sign them, he will do that. Can i Say Something . Absolutely. I am still very competitive. The person who had the record was also known as colonel abel. His real name was eddie fisher and his feet shared and he managed to stay here and detect it for eight years. Time and another nine until the fbi kind of found me. For 10 years i did that. Longest surviving is the keyword. I want to start by talking about love. Luck plays such a key role in your story, both good and bad cover starting with where you were born. I lot of people have conversations about how we are so lucky to be born in the United States or third world. You were born in east germany during the beginning of the cold war when there really wasnt just that east germany was behind. During the second world war, right after essentially most of what matter was the world you were born into. Thats right. As far east as you could go in germany without being in poland, as a result of world war ii because my parents met because there was towards the end of the war people would flee the oncoming russian army in the west didnt get very far but they wound up in the same space and thats how i got created in 1949. Without the worry wouldnt be here. I wound up in the soviet occupied part of germany which then became the republic of the communist satellite soviet union. Without communism and witness stand up at the kgb and without that i wouldnt be here and without that i wouldnt be an american citizen today. This is a bit bizarre, but theres a whole lot more to my story. Deep undercover what was interesting is that the words and more so, many people here may not understand in east germany during that time, the war was still very fresh and hitler was still very fresh and stalin in the soviets leading the fight and doing all the heavy lifting against the germans during the war. How did that shape your youth . While, the soviet union by some of you may know bore the heaviest front in the fight begins. So we come east germany came under soviet influence. We were very glad. We were an antifascist hyphenation. I tell people this is one of the biggest mistakes the United States made for the cia or whoever made the decision to call off not seeing military intelligence. Right now q. And was that of the organization that we know was coopted by the cia and eventually the west german intelligence agencies. So they were not season we were on the other side he has the only other Political Force but actively fought the nazis the street before they took power with the communists. So i believe that juxtaposition allowed for years and years of propaganda in addition to some becoming the chancellor of west germany who had been a member of the nazi party. I was ideologically fully convinced we were on the right side of history and that was the major reason i jumped in and said yes and the kgb knocked on the door. Its one thing to learn basic tradecraft. Its another thing to have a psychological makeup. What if youre up bringing in your intelligence and everything you learn to tell you recruited by the kgb may be the right person for this kind of job . Well, it was a pretty tough life. We were poor. We didnt know it, though. There was a lot of delayed gratification involved. A lot of discipline. My parents were typical german and i have to be following their rules to a t. I learned early on that nobody really cared about me so i could take care of myself. A bunch of examples in the book about that. There is a mental toughness. My mother kicked me out of the house early. She meant well. She sent me to a boarding school in a sport teams i learned to say goodbye and i went to the university that was so far away but i never had a chance during the summer recess. There were a lot of things that were in combination, made me good from a psychology aspect a good candidate to say goodbye to everything i knew and everybody i knew and start over someplace else. I can still do today. Just move my family from new york to atlanta. That didnt bother me one bit. My wife and my daughter are homesick and im not. Today if you wanted to join the cia you go online and apply their. The kgb had a different way of doing things. They didnt just come work for us. You really lay this on the boat while if anyones interested in this process is done here. They really slow played your recruitment. They didnt come out and say jack, we want you to join the kgb. They took their time to make sure you are the right fit. Talk about your recruitment process. Is a mutual feeling. Initially the question was asked which youd be interested in Something Like this . At that point it was quite clear to me i could have said no. And i said well, lets take a look. They needed to find out for themselves whether they thought i was the right material because, you know, from early on it was clear that if i were to sign with them, so to speak, as vince pointed out, it requires a certain personality to be able to do that. So they learned about me. I met once a week and we talked about everything, life issues and we became pretty good friends. He got to know me pretty well. On top of that, he gave me little tasks, try to do an investigation of repair. Find out about this particular object and on and on and i bet you he worked to report back to the center every time weve met. At my end, he gradually introduced me to the idea of what it would be like to do this kind of work. It took a year and a half before they pop the question. When the question was popped, it was done by a very senior president in berlin. At 24 hours to say yes or no. I couldve said no at that point still because for this kind of work you dont work with somebody who you are encouraged or forced into the service. It is to be a volunteer. I will ask you about your First Impression during a Training Mission to west berlin. That was your first chance to see what you give in to you through propaganda, throughout their ideas. What did you see when you would to west berlin . Did it change your ideology or did we enforce . First of all, i gave folks a dude. In those days, we didnt have color tv and i lived in an area where you couldnt get west german tv at all. We called it the valley of the clueless. So i had no idea what i would find on the other side of the wall. The First Impression i had was theres a lot of color in the world. The buildings had color. The people were dressed nicely. Everything was grey and brown. So that was interesting, but it certainly didnt make the ideology. The other thing that i was scared out of my mind i thought i was running around the same kgb. I survived. The psychologically stressful because this was enemy territory. These were the folks that were going to fight. Were joking when we talked earlier with a german accent to mess with the audience. Clearly you dont have anything. Youve got jersey or new york accent. He didnt grow up speaking english. Lets talk about your english training because youve taken a language in school. I took spanish for the better part of a decade and i only know the bad words but i can pronounce them really, really well. Learning a second language to be as deep undercover as you were. Its loading a inflamed. How do that training work for you . You are doing that again. Youre asking me three questions. We had compulsory schools and six grade and i studied for six years and i remember next to nothing. We also had voluntary english. We could either take french or english and that can very easily for me but i didnt retain much. When i wasnt training in berlin, i was supposed to be headed to west germany. That was the normal way to the other side of germany on the cover thats really easy. But i also was told they need to learn one other language and i started third in english and as i told you before, im pretty competitive. I work hard. And i learned. So about a year and a half into my training, some visitor from moscow came over and said how is your english . I pulled out a book is that im reading this novel, by the way. I said okay, why did she make a tape and see which you sound like. The immediately flew me in to moscow and had the interview with two ladies. One was a professor of english at Moscow University and the other one was an american who had emigrated she married a russian most likely end to determine as to whether i have the ability to learn well enough to claim to have been born in the United States. It was a tie. The americans say they can. Thinking comes then the congress had made the decision and said lets give it a shot. It is too tempting. I spent two years in moscow reading english when my tutor was this american lady and a couple who was well known encircles and i threw myself at that task and i really wanted to succeed. And so it worked out. I speak english much better than i speak german. Do you still identify with your german name, with your german background . Have you completely left that behind or is there still something that looks back at you . Those folks all still call me by my german name for my german nickname, which i hate. It is okay over there, but i am certainly more the american. I have proof of that. I was driving with a history professor the other day and i was talking about germany and the United States and i used us and them and we invade. They say i caught you. Youre constantly referring to germany as then. The immigration process was a little odd. But american. Ive long since stopped thinking in german. One thing is interesting and thats still true account in german. This is a weird question. Do you still german german . Not anymore. After year in the u. S. A. Reported back to the center but am now dreaming in english because i remember that very well. Let me ask you, who is jack persky . Where does your name come from . It was stolen. This is how the soviet manufactured false ids. They would look for record of individuals who passed away at a young age. In my case theres a cemetery not too far someplace in maryland to visit gravestones that says jack persky born in 1844, passed away in 1954 i believe. 10 years old and one of the resident agents who worked at the agency found that and got the birth certificate pretending to be the father of the jon voight and it was sent to moscow. Except that with me when i came to the United States and used it to build an ide, and identity. It wasnt just about building name. The cover and ideas is one scene. The kgb helped to create an entire person behind jack persky. Sure. According to that birth certificate, i was born in 44 so it made me already in my early 30s and i came here, maybe five years older than i really am. I was born in 49. So the construct today covers tory this started out with a birth certificate and then there was an agent in new york who went throughout the city and to pictures of places where i could have lived and where i went to school, middleschool, im a miniature school, high school. He then sought information about a jury that it could have worked out the save factory in Downtown Manhattan that manufactured chemicals that it burned down so there is no more record of the factory. We covered that. Having worked in a factory and then we came up with the idea that i dropped out of high school since i didnt have a high school diploma. My mother passed away during that time and then woke up to new york i dropped out of society and came back to new york to give it another try. That is when my real life started kicking in. I never used any of the legend. It gave you the certainty that people are asking questions that you have answers. The kgb tv extensive training as we talked about, but there are certain things they can know. Some nuances, cultural differences that you have to learn the hard way. Two stories i want you to bring out. One is a bottle in canada and one is in chicago. Give the stories very quickly so you can understand how the kgb could possibly prepare you for mother circumstances. No matter what you think about that happen, there are things you are not prepared for. Heres some weird issues where i didnt have the cultural training to be an american right away. It took a while to assimilate. I took a test trip to canada to speak the language and be as close to the united dates as possible without being in it. I got a bottle of and then looking around and theres no bottle opener. So i asked the waiter, i was proud of the fact that my site can have a bottle opener. I said i need to open this thing with a smirk on his face. We didnt have off cats in east germany or russia for that matter. I traveled with a west german passport. They did have twist off, so that is one. Its only funny in hindsight. So when it entered the United States to Ohare Airport in chicago, i was using a canadian passport and i had settled into a piece of luggage i had the birth certificate of jack persky. I went to a hotel and that is very killed off the canadian and brought to life, became jack persky. The killing was much harder than expected. Had you destroy passport . Not that easy. They are flame retardant. He couldnt even bring the paper. Never mind the plastic outside the picture. It started snowing. You start sweating. Youre making a stink in the hotel room. Hopefully nobody will stop by and ask that going on. The fire alarm didnt go off so eventually i took a pair of scissors and cut it into a million pieces and flushed it down the toilet. That part of the curriculum of the curriculum had to destroy passport. There is hilarious moments in the book i put myself in your shoes than i imagined i have a bit undergrad in the long time. You will be a chemistry professor before your body into the kgb. Even a high school degree, you had to go be a freshman at city college in new york and take freshman classes that you used to teach is a professor of chemistry 101 and calculus one. Obviously you did pretty well. Almost too well. I taught at a much higher level of anything that its exposed to a novelistic mickey mouse stuff. But calculus one, two, three. Ive got to tell you i did not cut corners. I did not take german. I did not take spinach on trent spanish during my first couple years here. I took french. But anyway, there was an outcome that was unplanned and had to do with being ignorant about certain aspects of society. Sonoma valedictorian. You need to give a speech. Field the best gpa. I dont really deserve it. But some younger kids do this. By the way, if you feel uncomfortable, you can write it and let somebody else read it. That i couldnt accept. Here is the undercover kgb given the valedictory at the United States college in new york city and no one ever noticed this is a little bit odd. In terms of my age, the fact that i went through the program, nobody there is something unusual about that type. He befriended a young man from hong kong who you taught english to, which is fantastic. He has to come your english, you are a native speaker. He was in a Political Science class sitting next to me and pete underlined a lot of this book. I told him, he listened, you are underlining almost the entire book. He said these are all the words i dont understand. The kid had just come from china and he was learned english while he was in college. So i took them under my wings and i applied what i learned in moscow. Ive got a fanatic spoke invaded phonetics exercises together and i helped him learn english and he actually had to write an essay, a couple essays for his application to law school at columbia. One he wrote about me. He is now a very wealthy, very successful attorney. Multiple degrees from different continents and you go to working in Information Management for the big bad nasty capitalists Insurance Company did not exactly what you expected when you got there. This is not an exaggeration. The Insurance Companies for some reason were singled out as the epitome of evil and capitalism. When i started working at metlife, parimutuel. Sometimes directly at oak and contact you will retire with us. Youre going to work here until retirement to make it a watch and a pension. Wow, felt like i am back home. Also a signal, a secret signal on the street saying drop everything and go. Right. No, thats real. And that was one of the more poignant moments in my life. I had to tell the kgb in detail how i went from my apartment to work or at least to the subway. And actually, also what trains i took. But they knew the footpath that i used to get to the subway station. And there was a spot that i described to them where they could put signals. And the emergency signal was a red dot, and the size was about fist size. And one day i walked to subway, and i see that dot, and now were being filmed. I cant say the fword, but thats what came into my head, because that meant it was an order. Get out of here. Go questions asked. I had some emergency documents that were hidden in a park in man