is designed to give you. you can pretend to be someone you are not the will not have a lot of friends because the whole point of facebook is to connect with people you really know and they will not know it is you if you don't use your real name. . .

i wanted to start in the beginning is the easiest way to go. can you tell me why you decided to join the cia? >> guest: it was 1975 i had been in law school for about three years. i had an entry-level job in the treasury department as a lawyer and the customs service which is a part of treasury at that point. as i said it was a good job, but i found the atmosphere, the bureaucracy of the treasury. and rich respect i was young and ambitious about at the same time the church committee hearings were being televised and as you

know these were the congressional hearings that exposed a ci the cia activitiesd misadventures in the followings from the 50s and 60s and was chaired by senator frank church from idaho, and i believe on c-span if i'm not mistaken. and i was watching this and i know nothing about the cia and no one in the cia and they had no visibility was so law but it just occurred to me as i was watching all the tales of the cia adventures that if they did have lawyers it occurred to me they might need some now so i just applied with a shot in the dark. >> host: they might need some new ones because there was wrongdoing in the committee.

>> guest: that is a phenomena. i found this pattern repeated throughout my career when the cia would get itself into some sort of pickle, i would go out and say the cia needs more lawyers and so i actually didn't know at the time i was hired in the first wave of new lawyers. >> host: believe it or not, people are still confused about why the cia is different than any other agency in the u.s. government. so, just if you could summarize why do we need it the cia and whose control is the cia under? >> it is a secret intelligence organization in existence since 1947. as i said it's very presence was shrouded in the sort of mystery for its first 20, 25 years. so of course it requires this

mystique over the years with the novels and all that, but it is in a sense it is unique among the federal department and one that operates almost totally in secret. and number two, it is really an instrument of the president, and that has always been the case. the president is always the master. i mentioned in the book i served under seven. they get direct you to do things in secret. they don't have to do it anything at all appropriations process. it's a convenient and attractive event over seductive tool in the

foreign-policy so it's always been and will continue to be. there've been times over the year certain scandals or debacles that o the cia is going to be abolished. it will never happen because regardless of party or political persuasion who is going to want that at his disposal. >> host: and it can do things other agencies are not allowed to do. it can break the laws of the countries overseas to do what it needs to do. >> guest: and the cia we can't break u.s. law but espionage and spying stuff when you get onto it is a violation of the international law and all nations have intelligence services and are aware of that so everybody sort of does it and implicitly understood as a yes of the cia can do things that

normal federal agencies can't do and the key thing is not to get caught. >> host: what i found surprising about your book was your role and how much responsibility you were given and how many times people just really depended on you to do something to make a decision that they couldn't make or didn't want to make. going back to the cold war you tell a story about him and if you can put the story in context and your visit with him and -- >> guest: i will try to truncate this. he was a defector from the soviet union. he was a kgb, and he defected to the station in moscow in early

february of 1964 which was only four months after the kennedy assassination and during the cold war of course the cia, defectors were considered gold. the cia had a defector program to try to detect them. it is a huge important account and always has been. so here it was he literally walked in. like a lot he had the baggage, he was a heavy drinker, possibly an end as aware of the funds. but he came and he not only fell into the agency's lap, he had

access to the kgb file of lee harvey oz old and of course at the time that was huge and basically what he said was a kgb never had any connection with oswald. >> host: which is not exactly what they were hoping to hear. >> guest: yeah. keep in mind this is 1964. i am old. [inaudible] yes, i think there were some obviously different schools of thought because some of them took him at his word and others were a notable character named james angleton who was the head of the intelligence at the time and was convinced that he was a devilish soviet union dispatched

to the agency and the u.s. to basically draw the attention away from what was in fact a kgb connection, so he was all powerful at the time and decided not only that he was to be disbelieved but that he had to be broken. so he was transported to the states and basically imprisoned, the secret prisons or to speak in the u.s., and for three years he was kept in a small room and had endless interrogations. while some of the story turns out it fell apart, he never very different his claims on oswald. finally in 67 after three years of this, the leadership director decided enough is enough.

and basically he let him go to be in the custody of the cia to reset all and try to put together the sm but once. fast forward from 67 to 1978, which is where i found him. i had been in the agency less than two years and was still trying to figure out what was going on. they also not only should their countries but shed their families in the old country. anyway, so to actually go down and see him in this little town

something on mayberry with a nice bungalow near the water to fish and i was sent down one day on a mission he was filing some papers with the local probate judge using his new identity so a lot of the stuff in the papers about the biography was simply false. so i went into the judge chambers and at least would give him some sense of who he really was. so that was the kind of job that you would give to a cia kid. >> host: you said whatever you do don't talk about the detention. >> guest: something up reverberating in my head, don't talk about it because the agency was still worried that he might sue them or something.

okay, i got that. my orders were to fly into this little southern airport, get to my bowtie along the edge of to town, quietly see the judge and maybe do a courtesy call on the way out. as soon as i got to the airport, the little commuter plane standing on the tarmac there was no one other than the sango was an imposing guy. he had this rush in and draw kind of like the old actor, anyway. he said the hotel can wait. i wish i could do the voice imitations but it was more like

a command. you are coming to my house for dinner. i said what am i going to do. so i get into this car he drives about a million miles per hour coming get to his house and no sooner than i get there he breaks out these homemade vodka is and i proceed to get as drunk as i've ever been. >> host: i have to read this part. more than three decades later i can still taste the stuff. i enjoy an occasional vodka martini that this was like nothing i've ever consumed since. after one shot my hands were tingling him after to my feet were numb and after three i couldn't feel my face. meanwhile, van sanko kept talking even more am immensely coming and he then really wants to talk to you about the thing you're not supposed to talk about, his detention. >> guest: he starts off on this, so at this point, i've

already violated my orders. you know, he drives me to his house, start pouring this vodka and then start with no warning starts going on about his detention, none of which i was supposed to be doing. but i was trapped and i was getting increasingly inebriated. not by choice, by the way. he kept pouring them so i thought i'm going to have to go with it, and especially given what happened to the 25 years later he started talking about what it was like to be imprisoned to the subject to the brutal depredations all of which the bottom line he understood.

i understood we are professionals and this is what you do to someone like me that comes over to get it. so he said told them i'm not going to do them and i don't tht have any hard feelings for anybody including angleton. but the kicker was he said go back and told them i will never forget what they did. so that was my van sanko story. >> host: dot introduces you into the characters and the other agencies that you worked for. >> host: let me ask about the iran contra because that was another incident. this was the scandal in which he was sort of running his own shop

and it helped some cia folks in the exchanging arms from iran and in central america and you had a particularly important role all of a sudden in the hearings that were taking place on capitol hill in which the legislature is trying to figure out what happened here and how did this happen. >> guest: this is 1987 so we have ten years since the adventure. so i have acquired some experience in the interim. i was put in charge of dealing with the kennedy which as you recall at the time is a huge scandal, televised hearings, gavel to gavel and i was the one the agency have to be the sort of focal point on the committee to deal with them in terms of

documents provided to them to deal with them in terms of questions they had were with mrs.. they wanted to have them testified. so i was the choke point. basically it consumed all of 1980s have been for me. >> host: and at one point, you are sitting in your office next to the telephone while the hearing is on and as the members want to ask a question, they need to figure out whether they are going to divulge by mistake the classified information so they are running behind the scenes picking up the phone and calling you as it is all being televised and you have to make very quick decisions. >> guest: i have the chapter on -- reality tv because it was before the lexicon. they are at the kennedy i could

be more productive and more important and literally sit in my office, closed the door and watch the live proceedings as they transpire. and it was at that post i would look at the television and the hearings went on for 40 days. i could literally look at the television, ca member at the -- about to ask a question, turn to the aid in the back with a piece of paper or something and they would go scurrying off the screen and i knew instinctively what was going to happen. i put my hand on the phone because i knew they were going to call me and say we are on live tv. he wants to be able to talk about this activity or he wants to use the name of a cia officer. >> host: so you have to keep classified information on the spur of a moment. >> guest: a lot of these questions i was being asked not

only were beyond my expertise that were beyond my pay grade but there was no time to talk to anyone about it. so i was literally on this high wire. and as i say it seemed to have been constantly. >> host: talk for a minute about the prt 250. >> guest: the prt 250, sounds exotic, doesn't it? it was in 1987 a fairly sophisticated telephone communication between the cia headquarters, the command center and the stations around the world. >> host: so it would be something we would understand why you would want to keep it secure and probably secret in order to keep it secure. >> guest: it was certainly secret. i mean it wasn't -- a number of people used it obviously, so it

wasn't -- it was fairly well known in the cia and they have never been acknowledged as access and outside bodies and at the white house as a matter of fact this little tempest arose because a witness at the time on the committee was john poindexter to be the national security adviser to president ronald reagan on told the iran contra broke and he was -- he didn't know this machine existed. so what happened we told the committees about it and when given transcripts of the relevant conversations, the conversation was about william casey and john poindexter in the late 1986 as the iran contra was unraveling. they were in one of the overseas stations and calling poindexter at the white house and kc was at court, so during the testimony,

poindexter was compounded by ideally that was the chief investigator for the committee and he was basically reading him a transcript and poindexter was taken aback and he said i have no idehad noidea that i was beid and of course this sends off a tempest that the hearing and in the media at the time because it was thought that he had a reputation of being devious and somehow maybe had a tape system that no one knew about. so it was huge. >> host: and you were being asked to told a staffer if it was okay that they could continue asking questions and this is what you write because i think this kind of boy goes down a lot of things you were asked to do at the time. you said holding the phone i

would hold my breath, close my eyes and take a judgment call and agree to the disclosure of the secret details and i risk having the agency accused of obstructing the investigation into the public right to know. in the first time in my career i was alone on a high wire without a net. there seems to be a pattern. >> guest: to me that isn't what i was attempting to say. long story short, the committee and it was declassified so they could publicly explained that no this is what the system was for. >> host: the public didn't fall apart once you did. the reality tv there is reading the text for the approval and

television and the hearing ended shortly thereafter and i get a phone call director from at the time bob gates acting rector. so i'm going down the hall thinking this is it. the system had been in place. and if they had some other question that had nothing to do with this. if anything happened at the hearing today and i hesitated and i said as quietly as possible nothing much except in the system he shrugged.

>> host: that secrecy and what happens when things are revealed is something i've heard you talk about before. you said secrets don't stay secret for very long. so i guess that is a good segue talking about 9/11 some of them i sure our. i wanted to talk about 9/11 and if you can tell me briefly you were in the building an and couldn't get away from the building there was a crowd of people trying to flee so you started thinking like a lawyer what are we going to need after that and you started writing what? what?guest co. this was an hour

or two after the pentagon had been hit and headquarters some walking in some running with a view of the sky by the way. i figured the hell with it so i closed my door and i started to think and let my imagination run wild. anything we been doing in the counterterrorist field at that point i knew was obsolete. they were sketching out the kind of things we could do and that includes capturing and detaining the high-level terrorist and the

lethal operations against the terrorist and the whole massive financial activities to get at and things we sometimes thought about in the years before but they were so risky and aggressive no person that we knew would ever authorize it but this time to renew. >> host: and it turns out you were very much on the mark. the cia was the lead agency before the defense department to try to pick up individual high-value targets and they captured one of the biggest plan in 9/11 and within a couple of weeks. they don't feel like they are

getting anywhere and they are asking for a host of things we come to know as enhanced interrogation. >> guest: at the time in the interim between 9/11 and late march we constructed the first what came to be known because we knew that we were going to hopefully grab some higher-level so we had constructed the secret prisons overseas -- >> guest: it is knowing the precise location. anyway, so the first, he was

first interrogated when he was captured so he flew from johns hopkins to patch them up. but the interrogation at that point i didn't precisely notice at the time for the fbi interrogation. they were convinced that he was holding back. he knew what they wanted to hear about the next attack but he wasn't going to tell us. so it wasn't the fbi convinced of stonewalling and that new departure. >> host: tell me exactly what it is you want to do.

you have to make the decision if inattention grasp and at the confinement is a big box that you can stand in or a small box for a few can't stand in stress positions meant to stream your muscles and sleep deprivation and probably the most controversial waterboarding and what i found interesting here is how you felt after you explained -- they explained this to you and left you largely speechless and some of the techniques described like something out of the three stooges and things you never thought about before and

potentially transgress the anti-torture statute and then there is a scene in which you go outside of the agency walking on the ground smoking a cigar to take this in knowing that you're going to be responsible for making that decision not only whether it is legal but then if you decide otherwise that you would be the person whose shoulders this would rest. so what were you waiting in on at the time? >> i didn't succeed and hired away in trying to describe what it was like back then and what i felt like back then being basically god stacked with all of these proposed techniques. i had no idea what waterboarding

was before i was briefed by our counterterrorism. time was of the essence. the thought and fear around the country. it wasn't time for a deliberation and i never had to deal with the anti-torture statute so i had no idea what the legal line was with waterboarding and another when i wasn't able to describe in the book which i would never implement those. if anything it was more terrifying than waterboarding. i have to process all of this and i didn't have a lot of time and i could have, you know, right there and then this

program out of the cia from the white house or anywhere else was inside the building. there was credibility and influence. it would have some more aggressive techniques. they are risky. they were going to get the agency in trouble, so i could. i thought to myself here the experts are saying they have custody and if anyone knows about and attack its head and makes no bones about it he knew

what we wanted to know and couldn't make him tell it. the analysts and psychology operators then sure albeit unprecedented before the only way to get that information out of him and playing with the scenario further. in the aftermath i would have known we didn't take the measures the professionals thought were a sensual and this is what happened as a result and keep in mind. medical we were accused after 9/11 by everybody of having to do the risk averse that they

were not aggressive enough and too timid and here is what it would have been. >> host: and responsible to the next attack. >> guest: i would have known that and in the investigation if would have uncovered that. in the final analysis i simply couldn't count on having to live with that kind of scenario. >> host: have you looked at waterboarding you would have found that the debate did hang some japanese soldiers because we considered waterboarding and the spanish inquisition used it and considered torture back then and there is a history of waterboarding used overseas although we used it in the philippines and some of those

people were court-martialed. did you have a legal staff that you asked to look at the history of waterboarding? >> guest:. i remember them coming back and saying look it has a history that you described and i mean, that was one of the reasons why i decided that i wasn't going to make this the final bill. it was too close. i just certainly wasn't going to prove waterboarding so that is what led us to go to the department of justice to get a definitive legal review of the

entire program that especially waterboarding and the way that our people proposed to carry it out. >> host: and they go to the office of the legal counsel which is the legal team and they ended up approving it in the memos to you and to the dod and looking back now with me ask one other question. if you thought that there was a history in which this was considered torture i could also see how you might be worried that your people even if the white house says okay that they might be vulnerable at some point where again the potential

people are starting to rethink was that also a calculation in your mind? >> guest: yes i thought the agency during my time there was a precedent for the sickness and legal question for us to go to the office of the legal counsel in that department and to offer the final legal arbiter in the executive branch. so the interrogation program. they had been such that i wanted something definitive and very detailed. my belief was maximum legal protection.

to carry out the prisons in then the middle of nowhere and i thought that that would be -- experience had taught me that the opinions are binding. they are as good as gold and they would basically make our people secure. >> host: we talk about waterboarding a lot, but actually is sleep deprivation that seems to be in your book you say that is one of the methods one of your interrogators be leaved broke one of the detainees and they were most concerned about and that rumsfeld used to walk out of the room, didn't even want to hear about any of this, those must also run on those to you.

in the course of the interrogation program it wasn't just to the cia doing this on their own, it was all of the policymakers briefed regularly on with the techniques work and how they were being implemented. it was a certain sense of foreboding. waterboarding was laid out in detail how we were using at the time and love concern or hand wringing objections to the waterboarding just the general

body language and demeanor with every possible vibe of not wanting to be in that room but a distinguished background they would know this. they were to try to avoid all of these and the ones they couldn't avoid he just simply didn't want to know about any of this and a savvy politician he just didn't want to especially after abu ghraib. >> host: even though you're asking the higher authorities for approval you are still representing the agency.

>> host: you have been out for four years and you heard about the date about whether this constitutes torture. i have to say that after understanding what your role as a lawyer to represent your clients and protect them i just definitely give the impression bget the impression bythe way t that, and this is my question in these intervening years that you consider this torture, that it is not something less especially in combination. if your people are protected which they are which nobody is going to go back and say we believe that this was okay to use these techniques we are going to go and cause them trouble now.

is there a reason that you think it's necessary to speak in the most honest way about these now and do you think that these techniques did amount to tortu torture. i don't think they crossed the line into torture. i certainly once i got them from the department of justice and addressing the problem. but, you know, i -- one of the

things i wanted to do in the book is to not be a cheerleader for this. no one that is deeply involved in the program and went on for six years like enthusiastic boosters if we thought if we thought that the program wasn't working and that it wasn't yielding results we would end have done it. i certainly wouldn't have continued it because it was growing politically toxic by the month. so i didn't think it was torture. but it yielded the benefits and listening to feedback from all of the analysts at the cia.

i was convinced because they were convinced that it was providing worthwhile hugely important intelligence. >> host: so there is a body of work that suggested many people throughout the world to be leaved that this amounts to torture and that it has damaged our standing in the world in some important way that people in involved in a study like this to address the world on this. do you see any value to that even though you might not think it's torture and didn't break the law but so many people do believe it is and maybe it is a question of judgment should we somehow address this chapter in

our history? >> guest: absolutely. not just pickering but there are a lot of scholars and politicians and experts around the world but hopefully here in the u.s. who belief that being a moral stain. i certainly don't reject that contention. >> host: one of the ways that could happen is if the senate intelligence committee, which has a very large voluminous report that is still classified you think that should be

released to air this out in its entirety? >> guest: i do. >> host: you probably know because you know what went on. >> guest: they would read in the media with accompanying and it's going to largely concluded that the program was worthless and largely worthless and that the information that drives from it the stuff that was valuable to have been acquired so that is the storyline and as you say 6,000 pages, 50,000 footnote. a couple things about it though. first of all, $6 million over four years.

for whatever reason they never interviewed anyone at the cia about the program. i don't know about other cia but i don't see how one can do a comprehensive review of something just based on reviewing that i can record. second, it's not a bipartisan report. it's done strictly by the democratic members. so i think you have to take that into account. >> host: and you can see the dissent if they -- -- >> guest: and i'm told if a cia has drafted a lengthy rebuttal to the conclusions comes ashore i think $6 million compared to the taxpayers

doesn't make the appropriate redaction but at the same time it relieves the cia rebuttal for people so inclined to read the whole thing but short i think if it's not released until a new it's going to get leaked so let's release of this. >> host: one of the reasons i can see it not being released is that someone in the government that has the power to say so is it will damage the relationships overseas because for one thing iit relied on the relationships with other countries who house these prisons and promises that it should remain secret. however, as you know, the european council, the council of europe ancouncil ofeurope and ot overseas have been investigating this and there are several countries whose names are repeated about the fact that they have these were they probably did have these. you have been inside and watched

these revelations about other countries come out and isn't it true over time they prepare themselves quickly because they have a national interest in working with them? >> guest: i think that's right. i mean we can see it now in the context of the leaks and revelations that the foreign government is up in arms. my experience is that they get repaired over time. the intelligence services need each other and also keep in mind with my experience of what programs have been leaked, foreign governments and leaders, behind the scenes the intelligence services or

reaching out to the cia to basically say look we have to say these things publicly. it's a huge political issue but we are going to keep working together. don't take this too hard just something we have to do. >> host: and why do they do that? >> guest: they know they have to work with the cia and we are the source of much of the intelligence that the countries have about the terrorism threats to their country. it's not because they loved the cia that they need it so it's inevitable and i think the culture i won't say that it's a cynical but it's realistic. this will pass.

>> host: you know where they are and you look at those relationships, were any of them permanently fractured? on the contrary? >> guest: is embarrassing but i don't think any damage is permanent. >> host: can you talk for a minute -- it's not in your book that you refer to this for all the reasons that you stated, but the snowden documents and what that has revealed some people say he should get some kind of a deal for telling the government what he released. talk about first with your feeling about the revelations and were you surprised to learn what they were doing? >> guest: they cover such a wide swath of activity.

i wasn't surprised about what they were doing at the time it was on the electronic surveillance -- >> host: the metadata collected. >> guest: desk so that wasn't a surprise and it wasn't a surprise about the electronic activities overseas against the foreign government. what was a surprise was the amount of data and information that snowden have access to. some of the revelations coming up every few days that i did read the latest revelation and think to myself i never even knew that was going on. so i didn't -- this 29-year-old a contract is a sitting out and somehow get this stuff that i do

legal officer of the cia i couldn't have gotten to that while i was there. >> host: do you think it has created a debate as we wrap up here? >> guest: i wish they had come about in a different way and i don't think that was honest we going to happen without the snowden disclosures with the constitution i think that is hugely damaging and reprehensible. >> host: do you think it is damaging because the technology cannot adapt quite enough to learn how to do things differently or what is so damaging about it.

>> guest: it will have a chilling effect for a while with a reluctance to share what they have and while it is not going to be permanent, what happens if there is some sort of information out there about a terrorist attack and for whatever reason because of the political climate and what snowden created, that information is not passed. >> host: this has to be my last question where our government and certainly the cia needs to assume things are going to get out and in other words secrets will not remain secret in this environment where we depend on the internet or it to keep the secrets and they have to calibrate out and act differently? >> guest: when they join 35 years ago there will be 35 years

from now in the likes and the intelligence business into the community as you know. so, we have to just live with that and reconcile with it. they have gotten better and mx trouble seemingly, but we do have to factor that in. i mean come our national leaders and intelligence leadership has to factor that in the inevitability to what they let us stay. >> host: thank you so much and in joy to your book. >> guest: thank you. >> that was "after words," but tv signature program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books were interviewed by journalists, public policy makers, legislators and others familiar with their material. material.