The 3 Golden Rules of Lying and Deception

The 3 Golden Rules of Lying and Deception

You’ve been granted a tour of the original Central Intelligence Agency headquarters building outside Washington, DC. Pass the statue of Nathan Hale as you walk through the big glass doors of the front entrance. Try not to gawk. Once inside, the Great Seal stretches...

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Spying on Elon Musk?

Spying on Elon Musk?

Elon Musk hardly needs an introduction these days, but here goes. He’s the richest man in the world, has a droll sense of humor, is a naturalized US citizen (born in South Africa) and has 7 children. Founder of blazing-into-the-future companies Tesla and SpaceX, on 30...

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A pivotal bone-chopping moment of awareness

A pivotal bone-chopping moment of awareness

On his radio show National Security This Week, thriller author and former US military intel officer Jon Olson asked me why I'd specialized in Western Hemisphere issues as an intelligence officer. Related: National Security this Week broadcast Build things and Fix...

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Inside my CIA Career: Parting Words

Inside my CIA Career: Parting Words

I had a retirement photo opportunity with then-CIA Director John Brennan. He greeted me with a CIA keepsake coin and a firm handshake. We posed for the photographer and chatted for a minute about favorite assignments over my 30 year career.   He asked me what I...

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Inside my CIA Career: The Point of It All

Inside my CIA Career: The Point of It All

Before retiring, I took a seminar about transitioning to the private sector. All the students were fellow CIA intelligence officers. At one point, somebody raised a hand and said what everybody was thinking: “I’ve been an intelligence officer my entire professional...

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Inside my CIA Career: Variety and the Spice of Life

Inside my CIA Career: Variety and the Spice of Life

What did I do? Whenever I’m asked, “What did you do in the CIA?” I’m a bit stuck. There’s no good snappy answer. I did a variety of things, many of which can't be defined in layman's terms. One of the reasons for such a varied career was that I was balancing work and...

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Inside my CIA Career: Encounter with a Spyplane

Inside my CIA Career: Encounter with a Spyplane

FLYING Several years ago, my husband got his private pilot’s license and we owned a small Piper aircraft. Our son was in kindergarten and promptly fell in love with all things aviation. This rubbed off on me. Our family was soon immersed in flying stories, books about...

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Inside my CIA Career: Media Matters

Inside my CIA Career: Media Matters

What the heck is OSINT My resume includes this line:  OSINT Analyst/Editor, Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Wrote, edited, and briefed analytical conclusions and OSINT reporting content to all levels of inter-and intra-agency audiences. OSINT is shorthand for...

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Inside my CIA Career: Secrets of Great Dialogue

Inside my CIA Career: Secrets of Great Dialogue

Competing Motivations As happened so many times over the course of a 30-year CIA career, I was either a participant or an observer in a dialogue. Not the conversation that happens when you are both talking about the same thing or want the same thing, but a...

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Inside my CIA Career: Make it “Actionable”

Inside my CIA Career: Make it “Actionable”

CIA career During my 30-year CIA career, it was always impressed upon me that we were stewards of the taxpayer’s money. With that in mind, there was effort to make sure the CIA and sister agencies got value for the money when it came to intelligence collection....

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Inside my CIA Career: The Moving Picture Show

Inside my CIA Career: The Moving Picture Show

Thanks to my CIA Career If you’ve read the last few books in the Detective Emilia Cruz police series set in Acapulco, you may have noticed that video plays an important role in providing clues and solving the mystery. In 43 MISSING, the footage from police interviews...

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Inside my CIA Career: the Coup Kit

Inside my CIA Career: the Coup Kit

Coups My official resume says this about the 5 years during my CIA career when I was an all-source analyst: Performed all source analysis of geographic topics of intelligence interest in support of US national security, including National Intelligence Estimates Action...

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