an inside look at the agency's evolution from an organization in the shadows to one frequently at the center of political controversy. this program is about one hour. ..

>> i was young a and a vicious -- ambitious. at the same time the church committee hearing was televised a and these were the congressional hearings that exposed cia activities misadventures from the '50s and '60s and senator church in big chunks were televised. weaver on c-span if i am not mistaken bet watching this i do nothing about the cia it had no visibility at all. but it just occurred to me

that if the cia did have lawyers it occurred to be they've made need some so it was a shot in the dark. >> host: or they may need some new ones because there was some wrongdoing. >> guest: whenever they would get themselves into a pickle the cry would go out the cia needs more lawyers. i did not know it but i was hired with the first wave of new lawyers. >> host: people are still confused why the cia is different than any other agency of the u.s. government. summarize why do we need the cia and who is in control? >> guest: of course, it is

a secret intelligence organization since 1847. -- 1947 it was shrouded in mystery the first 25 years. and it required you to speak like a james bond novels but it is unique among federal departments of one that operates totally in secret. a and it is an instrument of the president and that has always been the case the president is always the master i've mentioned presidents that i have served under, a pate view it as its personal pops to and

they don't have to worry about the normal appropriations process. is convenient attractive sometimes overly subjective tool with foreign policy arsenal. i see it will continue. over the years with scandals or debacle's it would be abolished but it will never happen because andy president will want to have the cia at his disposal. >> host: it can do things other agencies are not allowed like to break the laws of countries overseas in order to do what it needs to do. >> guest: yes. in the cia we cannot break u.s. laws but espionage

violates international law and all intelligence services are aware of that so everybody does it is implicitly and understood. so it can do things the normal agency could not do. of course, if we don't get caught. >> host: right. [laughter] what i found surprising about your book was your role and how much responsibility he were given and how much people were dependent on you to do something to make a decision. to go back to the cold war war, you tell a story about him. your visit with him and your

mission? >> guest: he was from the kgb and defected to the station in moscow february 1964 which was only four months after the kennedy assassination. the cia defectors their long had a defective program. sometimes it was important and always has ben. this guy literally walked in. and like a lot of defectors he had baggage.

a heavy drinker, possibly embezzler of kgb funds. st.. but he fell into the agency lap. he had access to the kgb file of lee harvey oswald keep in mind i am old. 8054. -- 1954. [laughter] obviously different schools of thought with the most

legendary cia character that was head of intelligence at the time was convinced he was a devilish employee of the soviet union dispatched through the agency into the u.s. to draw attention away that was not the connection. said they decided not only he was to be believed but had to be broken. basically he is imprisoned. a secret prison in the u.s.. and for three years was kept in a small room, endured endless interrogation.

while some of the back story fell apart, he never buried about his claims about oz wall. finally 1967 after three years cia leadership said enough is enough and let him go to be into the custody of the cia to resettle to put together a semblance and in 1978 i found him. i was dispatched by my bosses to go see him of course, with an entirely new name, identity, a new wife,

they do that when they come here in defected to forces are another story. [laughter] i was dispatched to see him in this sleepy little southern town. something of mayberry where he had a nice bloodier the water. he was firing some state papers with the local probate judge and using the new identity. i was to quietly go to the judge to give him a sense of why a he could not use his

name. >> host: they said no matter what do not talk to him about his detention. the agency was still worried he may sue them. so i was to fly into the airport go to my hotel hotel, spend the night is the the judge may be a courtesy call on the way all but as soon as i got to the airport off the airplane there he was standing on the tarmac who was physically imposing. he looked like ernest board nine and this very gruff

control. he is there and it is a surprise it was like a command. your coming to my house. i get into this big buick and get to his house and no sooner i get there they and he breaks out his homemade vodka and i proceed to get as drunk as i have ever ben. >> host: use a three decades later icahn still tasted this is like nothing i had never consumed before after one shot my hands were tingling after to my feet were numb after the third i could not feel my face.

meanwhile he kept pelting them down and he wants to talk to about what you're not supposed to talk to him about, his detention. >> guest: at this point i have already violated reorders. and to drive me to his house pouring vodka and then with no warning starts to go on about his detention. which i was not to speak of but i was trapped in getting increasingly inebriated i figured i had to go with it when he kept pouring them and it was fascinating especially given 25 years later he talked about what

it was like to be imprisoned and be subject to approval deprivations. all of which the bottom line was he a understood. he said i know the cia thinks i will sue them but i understand we are professionals so just tell them i will not sue them i have no hard feelings against anybody. but you go back to tell them i will never forget what they did. that was my story. >> host: that introduced you to fill holes spiralled

in the character's ever different in the of agencies you worked for. let me ask about iran-contra that was another incident that became a scandal and oliver north running his own shop helping cia and exchanging arms from iran in central america and you had a particularly important role all of a sudden in the hearings taking place that the legislature tried to figure out what happened and how did this happen? >> so with 1987 i acquired some experience in charge of dealing with the iran contra committee that was a huge

scandal televised hearings gavel to gavel and i was the guy that had to be the focal point in terms of documents provided in terms of questions or witnesses they've waited have to have testified. that consumed all of 1987 for me. >> host: at 1.you sit in your office next to the telephone while the hearing is on and as members want to ask a question they need to figure out if they will divulged by the state classified information so that aid is running behind the scene to pick up the phone to call you. right there as it is

televised. you had to break very quick decisions. >> guest: i title this three adults -- reality tv. i decided at the onset i could be more productive to literally sit in my office and watch the live proceedings as they transpired. at that post five good look at the television the hearings went on for 40 days i could literally looked at the television see the member about to ask the question turned to the aid in the back and they would scurry off and i knew instinctively what would happen in 30 seconds. i would put my hand on the phone because they would call.

he wants to use their real name of this officer. >> host: you had to declassified on the spur of the moment. >> literally over the phone i knew of one of these questions were beyond my expertise but were beyond my pay grade but there was no time to talk to anyone so i was on the high wire. and it seemed to have been constantly. >> host: talk about the prt 250. >> guest: it sounds exotic it was a fairly sophisticated telephone communication between c.i.a. headquarters, the command center and stations around

the world. >> host: so we could understand why you would want to keep it secure and secret. >> guest: it was secret obviously a number of people used it so it was fairly will go inside the cia but never had any knowledge of existing outside the cia even at the white house. in fact, a little tempest arose because the witness at the time was john poindexter the national security adviser to reagan and tell and iran-contra broke and he did not know this existed. but we told the committees about it and gave them transcripts of relevant conversations but it was between william casey and

john poindexter late 1986. casey was in the overseas station and poindexter was at the white house. so during his testimony he was confronted by the chief senate investigator. and poindexter says i have no idea where that came from my did not know what was recorded than that set off in the media because it was thought william casey who had a reputation to be devious may be constructed a tape system that no one knew about. it was huge. >> host: and you were asked to tell the staff that

the member could continue in this is what you write. it boils down to things that you were asked to do at the time. you said holding the phone i would just take a breath and close my eyes and make a judgment call head severed agree to do disclosure or tails to risk having the agency accused? for the first of my career i was alone on the high wire without and that. >> host: it seems to be a pattern. >> guest: to me when i was tempting fate on story short the committee staff implored me to declassify so they could publicly explain this is what the system was for.

the committee was fine with it. >> host: in the republic did not fall apart. >> guest: i said go-ahead three damage -- three minutes later he is reading the text that was run by me for approval it was late in the afternoon and a short ended shortly thereafter who at the time was bob gates acting director. i am coming down the hall from my office thinking "this is it" the career is over and then they said by the way to anything happened

at the hearings today? i hesitated nothing much except i did -- to classified the prt 250 system. >> host: that sorts of a secrecy what happens when things are revealed one thing you learned is a secret doesn't say -- state secrets every long at six way two 9/11 but a bunch are not. so i want to talk about 9/11 so tell me briefly you could not get away there was a crowd of people say you started to think like a

lawyer you took your legal pad? >> this is the morning of 9/11 about one hour friday after the pentagon was hit they had a building wide evacuation people are screaming out i looked out my window with the view of the sky i cannot get out of here. and then let my imagination run wild. anything we have been doing up to that point i knew why

is obsolete and inadequate. i literally started to sketch out on the yellow pad the things what we could do including capture, detain political terrorists, lethal operations against terrorists, a massive financial activities to get the al qaeda of money machine things we had thought about but there were so risky and aggressive but this time i knew we might be asked. >> it turns out you were on the mark will be for the defense department go into afghanistan to pick up individual high level targets and then to capture

the was the logistics' head of the 11 and within a couple of weeks the interrogators from the fbi told feel they are getting anywhere and they are asking for permission to do a whole host of things we have come to know as enhanced to irrigation. >> guest: at the time actually in the interim between 9/11 reconstructed what we do would hopefully grab high-level al qaeda guys and we needed a place to put them so reconstructed a secret prison overseas. >> host: can you tell us where? >> guest: that's is one of

the few remaining secrets of the interrogation program. >> he was first interrogated the interrogation at that point island much later those fbi in interrogators were making progress. that basically being pretty brazen but he would not tell us but not the fbi to

convince the stonewalling that a new departure was needed. >> host: that is why they come to you to say this is what we have you say tell me exactly id don't spare be any details whether it is legal and they describe facial hold, cramp confinement a big box or a small box you cannot stand in, position, will standing standing, sleep deprivation and probably the most controversial, water boarding. what i found interesting is your description how you felt after they explained this to you which in the book you say left you larger

the speechless some of the techniques they described like out of the three stooges slapstick routine others sounded terrifying in a sadistic some that were unthinkable before that and potentially against the anti-torture statutes. then there is a scene that you go outside the agency agency, walking on the ground smoking a cigar knowing you will be responsible for making that decision not only if it is legal but if you were to decide otherwise, you would be the person whose shoulders this would rest. so what we weighing at the time?

>> i probably did not succeed entirely to describe what it was like for what i felt back then basically smacked with all these techniques i had no idea what water boarding was before. . .

you know, right then and there the program inside of the building hadn't left the building they were just ideas people had so i was the chief legal officer and i knew i would provide some credibility and influence. i knew i could have right to bear and then stopped it before it started tuesday at least the more aggressive technique. they are risky. i'd been at the age long enough to know when some was going to get the agent he in trouble and i'm confident i could have stopped them. but then as i was walking around the building pondering all of

this i thought to myself we have him in custody and if anybody knows anything about a second attack it is him. we know and couldn't make him talk. i was playing up a scenario in n my head and i could have stopped it right there. our experts thought they were measures that were unprecedented that the only way to get that information out of them playing out the scenario further there was a second attack on the homeland with bodies laying everywhere and in the aftermath i would have known we didn't take the measures are professionals thought were

essential and keep in mind that spirit debacle they have been risk-averse before nine e. 11 that we were not aggressive enough or timid. >> host: and in a way responsible for the next attack. >> guest: at least partly responsible and of the investigation would have uncovered that ended the final analysis i simply couldn't count the thought of having to live with that kind of a scenario. >> host: have you looked up waterboarding you would have found that the u.s. did hang some japanese soldiers because

we considered it up waterboarding and the spanish inquisition used it and they consider to torture back then. there is a history of waterboarding overseas although we used it in the philippine. did you have a staff that you asked to look at the history of what reporting? >> guest: we did and we did as much research as we could. i remember coming back and saying this history that you described, and that was one of the reasons why i decided that i wasn't going to make this final call. it was just too close giving the

president i just was not certainly going to prove waterboarding so that is what led us to go immediately to the department of justice to get a definitive legal review to the entire program but especially waterboarding in the way that people propose to carry out. >> host: an and they end up goig to the office of counsel which is the white house legal team and they end up approving it in for a man doethe memos to you ad and others. looking back now -- let me just ask one other question. if you thought that there was a history in which your people under the history of this was considered torture i could also

see how you might be worried that your people even if the white house says okay, that your people might be vulnerable at some point when, again, you know the pendulum swing is and people are starting to rethink. was that also a calculation in your mind? >> guest: yes, i thought the agency during my time -- it was precedent for us for very significant new legal questions for us to go to the office of legal counsel in the justice department. ultimately the final legal arbiter in the executive branch. of course the interrogation program made everything else failed by comparison. but i thought certainly the presence had been such i wanted something definitive and also very detailed if they were going

to approve these two basically give the agency maximum legal protection now that the people at my level on the seventh floor executive but the 12, 13 and 14 but actually carry out programs and the middle of nowhere and so i thought that would be -- experience had taught me that the opinions are binding as they are good as gold and they would make our people secure. >> host: we talk about waterboarding a lot buwaterboart actually is sleep deprivation that seems to be -- in your book you said that is one of the methods some of your interrogators the league broke the detainees and you also say that is what colin powell who

was the secretary of state at the time was most concerned about and that rumsfeld used to walk out of the room and didn't even want to hear anything about this. those must also run a long nose to you. >> what you are referring to is the national security council meetings that were held regularly during the course of the interrogation program. this was all of the policymakers briefed on what the techniques were and i would go to some of these meetings with the cia director of the tabl at the tabi would observe the reactions. it was fascinating. >> host: did it make you nervous sometimes? >> guest: i will say and i said in the book waterboarding

was laid out in detail i don't remember if of chechens to waterboarding but i was struck by colin powell's genital body language and demeanor. he gave every possible by of not wanting to be in that room but when he did speak out i was struck by the distinguished military background that he would notice he seemed to be use sleep deprivation as the most brutal of the techniques as i thought it was fascinating. rumsfeld asked you said first of all he would try to avoid all of these meetings and the ones he could not avoid weber principals meetings he tried to delegate, but he simply didn't want to know about any of this and i don't think that he had any objections to it but as a savvy

politician he just didn't want to especially after abu ghraib. >> host: so he leaves you in an elevated until you are asking for higher approval you are still representing an agency. so you have been out now for four years. you have heard whether this constitutes torture. i have to say that after understanding what your role as a lawyer to rep resents your clients and to protect them i just get the impression by the way you talk about it is that you actually -- and this is my question and he's intervening years that you consider this torture. but it is not something less especially in combination. and i'm wondering -- there are a lot of -- if you the people were protected, which they are.

nobody is going to go back and say it was okay to use these techniques. we are going to go and cause them trouble now. but 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 torture or? >> guest: no, i don't. maybe it's because i'm a lawyer but torture is defined in the u.s. statute. they were brutal and harsh. some of them were scary but i personally don't think they crossed the line into torture. i think some of them were close. they didn't think that back then. certainly once i got the opinions from the department of justice there were a number of them over the years addressing the program that the techniques

didn't cross the line into torture. and i still don't believe that. but it wasn't -- one of the things i try to do in the book is not php or leader for this program because, you know, it did get a lot of us in the agency and in the kind of trouble i didn't anticipate at the beginning. , and i wasn't alone in this. nobody was deeply involved in this program and it went on for six years. there were into cs tech boosters of this. if we thought that the program was not working, that it wasn't yielding results as some critics charged, we went and have done it. we wouldn't have continued. i certainly wouldn't have continued it because it was

going politically toxic by the month. so, i think -- i don't think it was torture and i also think it yielded benefits listening to the feedback from the analysts at the cia i was convinced that it was providing worthwhile hugely important intelligence. >> host: so there is certainly a body of work suggested many people throughout the world belief that this amounts to torture and that it has damaged our standing in the world in some important way and these aren't just, you know, with some people might call human rights liberals but also people like thomas pickering who was involved in a study on this who said we needed to address the world on this. do you see any value to that even though you might not think

it is torture to break the law but it was something that so many other people do believe is and it's a question of judgment? should we somehow address this chapter in our history? >> guest: absolutely. all those not just the fact of ambassador pickering but there were a lot of eminent scholars, politicians, experts around the world is certainl certainly havo certainly here in the u.s. who belief that they consider it being a moral stand. so i certainly don't reject the 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 did you think that should be released in order to ai hear ths and it's entirely -- in its entirety? >> guest: i do. i have no idea what's in it -- is that you probably know pretty much because you were -- you know what went on. >> but from what i read in the media about what it contains, i gather it's going to largely concluded that the program was worthless, largely worthless and that the information that drives from it the stuff that was valuable could have been acquired without resorting to say that is the storyline and its 6,000 pages, 50,000-foot

notes. a couple things about it though the -- first of all, i think what they said $6 million over four years, for whatever reason they never interviewed anyone at the cia about the program. i don't know about others at the cia but i was happy to be interviewed for it. i don't know how one could give a comprehensive review except just based on reviewing the written record. second, it's not a bipartisan report it was done strictly by the democratic members. so i think you have to take that into account. >> host: and you could see if they declassified -- >> guest: also the final thing is i'm told that the cia has drafted a rather lengthy and strong rebuttal to many of the

conclusions so in answer to the question, sure $6 million. let's have them release it and make the appropriate production. at the same time release the rebuttal so people who are so inclined can read the whole thing. sure. i think if it's not released until a new it's going to get leaked. so let's released this. >> host: one of the reasons i could see it not being released is someone who has the power to say it would damage our relationships overseas because the prisons for one thing relied on relationships with other countries who housed these prisons and promised it should remain secret. however, as you know, the european council -- the council in europe and other governmental

habit and investigating this and there were several countries whose names are repeated about in fact they probably had these were they did have these. you have been inside and watched these revelations about other countries come out and isn't it true that over time these relationships usually prepare themselves to be quickly because the countries still have a national interest in working with them? >> i think that's right. i think -- i mean we can see it now in the context of the week's and revelations that the foreign government is up in arms. my experience was that that whatever tensions, whatever breaks and relations they get repaired over time. i mean intelligence services need each other. and also keep in mind that some of these protests again in my

experience they had been leaked to foreign governments. behind the scenes they are reaching out to basically say look, you know, we have to say these things publicly. it is a huge political issue that we are going to keep working together. basically don't take this to heart. it's just something we have to do. >> host: and why is that? why do you think they do that? >> guest: they have to work with the cia and the intelligence community. we are the source of many -- much of the intelligence these countries have in the terrorism arena threats to their country. they don't want to shut off the cia information. they need us. and so, it's inevitable.

and i think the culture i won't say that it's cynical but it's realistic to look past. >> host: so when you look at those relationships, were any of them permanently ruptured? >> not that i'm aware of. >> host: on the contrary. a >> guest: it's uncomfortable. it's interesting. but, i don't think that any damage is permanent. >> host: so can you talk for a minute -- it's not in your book that you referred to it and again you are in the perfect spot to reflect on it for the reasons you just stated, that the snowden documents and what that has revealed, there are some people saying he should get some kind of deal for telling the government what he released. first, talk about, you know,

what is your feeling about the revelations? were you surprised to learn what they were doing and the extent they were doing it? >> it covers such a wide swath of activity. some of what's come out publicly -- i wasn't surprised about it. i mean, what they were doing at the time was on the electronic surveillance -- >> host: the metadata collected. so that wasn't a surprise and it certainly wasn't a surprise about the electronic surveillance activities overseas against the foreign government. so none of that was a surprise. what was a surprise to me was the massive amount of data and information that snowden had access to. some of the revelations coming out every few days that i would read the latest revelation and

think to myself i never even knew that was going on. so a 29-year-old a contract is sitting out in the light and somehow gets the stuff that the legal officer in the cia i couldn't have gotten to that when i was there. >> host: do you think it has created a worthwhile debate as we wrap up your? >> guest: i think it is going on the metadata and the issue of the u.s. surveillance to the phone records. i think that is valuable and fruitful and i think it had come about in a different way and i don't think that honestly would have happened without the snowden disclosures that he disclosed so much else. so much else that had nothing to do with america or the american constitution. i think that it is hugely damaging and reprehensible. >> host: do you think it is damaging because the technology

cannot adapt quick enough to learn how to do things differently, or what is so damaging about it? you just said many of these countries are going to continue working with us. >> guest: inevitably, but i mean it will have a chilling effect for a while. they would be more reluctant to share what they have. and why to live is not going to be permanent, you know, what happens if there is some sort of information out there about a terrorist attack and for whatever reason because of the political climate, because of what snowden created, that information is not passed? and that's what i'm worried about. >> host: we are out of time. this has to be my last question. where our government and certainly the cia too needs to just assume the cia needs to get out and then in other words secrets will not remain secret especially 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: yeah. i mean, we can talk about it for at least when i joined the cia 35 years ago, they are going to have weeks to 35 years from now. they are a fact of life in the intelligence business and the community as we know. so we have to just live with that and reconciled. they've gotten more in tax trouble seemingly, but we do have to factor that in. our national leaders and intelligence leadership has to factor that in every ability and what they are planning. >> host: thank you so much. enjoy your book. >> guest: thank you.

>> that was "after words," booktv signature program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books were interviewed by journalists, public policy makers, legislators and others familiar with their material. "after words" airs every weekend at 10 p.m. on saturday, 12 p.m. and 9 p.m. on sunday and 12 a.m. on monday. you can also watch "after words" online. go to booktv.org and on "after words" in the book tv series and the topics list on the upper right side of the page. one of the concluding sections of the book is an affect on wesson's learned about the war, and one of the things you would think people would understand what b. how frequently people who advocate going to war and people who make decisions to go t