Speaker 1: 0:33

For this broadcast, I want to continue to build upon what was discussed in the previous one on the Broken Whistle A Deep State Run Amok. I mentioned that for this broadcast I would be going into the structure of the book, how it was written, and also to compare some of the most recent intelligence memoirs published by other authors. Let's begin by looking at the most recent intelligence memoir. This was published in 2022 by St Martin's Press. The book is titled Black Ops the Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior is the subtitle. Written by Rick Prado, and it's got a tagline CIA Counterterrorist Chief of Operations Retired.

Speaker 1: 1:13

I highly recommend this book and I encourage you to go out and buy it. It is a very intense read as far as the career of a true patriot and a hero who spent many years working in the front lines of the war against terrorism. His book is about 400 pages long and it follows a very linear, progressive timeline, building upon his career, his life, so that the reader looks at his entire life, from beginning to end of. You know his foundations, how he grew up, what motivated him to serve, how he started out the CIA, the downs and ups of service in the CIA, working overseas, working at CIA headquarters and so forth. It's a very well balanced book and it's written in first person. He's the main character and consequently there's a lot of I's, my I, so forth. Now his book was again published by a major publisher.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Let's talk about the publishing process. There are three ways to publish a book. You can get a mainline traditional publisher to pick up the book. You can do what's known as hybrid, where you're paying a publisher to basically help you to put the book together and to put the book in distribution. Or you can go the self-publishing route. With each of these processes there are advantages and disadvantages. The traditional publishing gives you the recognition of having a publisher pick up your book, but there's a lot that goes behind it and there are consequences with such an action. To have a book picked up by a traditional publisher, typically you have to propose a manuscript or a book, a title and the content. In your work. You have to hire a literary agent and the literary agent will basically shop the idea around with traditional publishers and hopefully a traditional publisher picks it up. And if a traditional publisher picks it up, obviously you've got some kind of agreement and in that agreement what happens is the rights of the book are predominantly owned by the traditional publisher. So the writer of the book has limitations what he can do with his own book. Those limitations can stop you from doing movies, potentially writing or translating the book yourself, or doing something to republish the book or having a publication where you can generate more income from it.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Traditional publishing basically yields you a gain of pennies for each book sold, and there are reasons for that. Specifically, a traditional published book that's going to get out into a bookstore. In order to get a book into a bookstore, it's also a process. You are literally giving the book away and you're almost putting the book on loan or collateral. You have to provide what's known as a wholesale discount to the booksellers and they require anywhere from 52% to 55% minimum and on top of that you have to make the book returnable at the wholesale value, which means the wholesaler let's say Barnes Noble if they want to return all the books, they can return all the books and the publisher has to pay the bookseller the wholesale price of the book. Now, on top of that, the books as far as being returned, there's no guarantee that the books returned are going to be in a condition that could be resold, so typically what they do is they say destroy the books and don't send them back because you would also have to pay the return shipping.

Speaker 1: 5:09

It basically makes it nearly impossible for a small publisher, a self-publisher, to try to put physical copies of books in a bookstore. Consequently, because the profits are so minimal for a publisher, what happens here is the rights of the book owned by the publisher. The author, by the time he gets his cut again, pennies. The author is not the only one getting paid. The literary agent will take a cut as well. So those are disadvantages of going to a traditional publisher, unless you are a celebrity and you have a big name and a publisher can capitalize on your name and they will give you an advance. I mean there are cases of some celebrities that get an advance of a million dollars for a book. It's not common but it can happen. But in most cases, if it's somebody small like Rick Prado, they're not going to give them a big chunk of money. They're basically getting their book published and they're going to receive very little from it and they're limited on what they can do with the book. And they're limited on what they can do with the book.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Now the hybrid publishing model. I will say very little about it, other than be very careful, should you ever entertain using a hybrid publisher. They are notorious for overcharging and underdelivering Overcharging you thousands of dollars and underdelivering quality. And that's where you have to ensure that, if you go with a hybrid publisher, that you're going to get your money's worth of services and hold them accountable. In fact, the truth is, your best bet is skip the hybrid publishing model and do self-published. With self-publishing, you will retain the rights to your book and you won't run into any issues where a hybrid publisher can claim that they own the rights when they may not. You can find yourself in very difficult situations with a hybrid publisher that are best avoided by just doing self-published.

Speaker 1: 7:07

And in today's world, self-published is actually very easy, but the pitfalls to it is you do not want to cut corners. To publish a book, you have to follow the industry standards and protocols to deliver a final manuscript of excellence so you can produce a pristine, polished product that meets industry standards. And what I mean by industry standards is that it's professionally done, professionally edited, professionally. Copy edited professionally, proofread, professionally done from cover to cover, every part of the book, literally reviewed, rewritten, polished and formatted to ensure that it looks like a professionally published book, like any traditional publisher. Again, in today's world, it's very easy. Readsee provides wonderful services with proofreaders, copy editors, marketing specialists, cover makers, graphic artists and so forth. And there are other venues out there as well Upwork, you also have Fiverr but I highly recommend Readsy. Readsy is made up mostly of professional book publishing experts who have been in the industry for decades at times and they do this as a side job. In fact, that's where I found my help. I had an award-winning cover graphic artist do the cover for my book. I had a professional copy editor with decades of experience doing similar books to do my book and the same with the proofreader. I left no stone unturned to ensure that the book was professionally done to deliver a quality product.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Now the narrative and format of my book is actually very similar to Black Ops the Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior. I followed a chronological, linear storyline for a particular reason making it easier for the reader to understand exactly what was going on, building from experience to experience the development of the characters. Characters reappear here and there in the book. It would have been extremely difficult to start the book at a future point of reference and then go back in time, as some books do. It's possible, but it would have made it more complex and perhaps convoluted, more difficult for the reader to grasp. At the same time, because the main emphasis is the broken whistle, the whistleblower process I needed to ensure that the reader would understand that, by the time that I got to an incident where the whistle was blown, that I did not have a performance problem, I did not have a character problem, I did not have a communication problem, but that my bona fides were established. So they can see that in reality we were having a systemic issue or a problem of individuals targeting me.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Consequently, I start out with my beginnings in Miami, chapter 2 and Chapter 3. I immediately get into the foundations of my Cuban legacy titling Chapter 2, chapter 3. I am merely getting to the foundations of my Cuban legacy titling chapter 2, cuban Legacy growing up in Miami, 1960s to 1980s, and I use a quote to reinforce it. The quote is the Cuban people have an amazingly strong and unbroken spirit by Wim Wenders. This chapter goes into the foundations of my character, growing up in a traditional Cuban household of hard-working people with integrity, honor and respect, where I lead into the next chapter describing my work history in Miami, 1980s to 2000.

Speaker 1: 10:51

I spent literally 14 years working in the Miami business world, where I titled this chapter Integrity. Working in the Miami business world. Where I titled this chapter Integrity, honor and Respect. Working in Miami 1980s to 2000. There are some critical aspects that are addressed in this chapter and again I must say, everything was written for a specific reason. It helps the reader to understand when I was coming from by the time I blew the whistle. Particularly this is what I wrote Speaking truth to power and clients was crucial and your integrity had to be rock solid to survive in this cutthroat industry.

Speaker 1: 11:27

No-transcript, a lack of integrity was a surefire way to ruin your career. In the end, business was all about teamwork and collaboration. No matter how different we were from one another, we learned how to work together despite our differences. Finally, in Chapter 4 is where we get into when I first began working for the CIA, where I titled this chapter Cool your Jets, welcome to the CIA. And I use a quote from William J Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services to precursor to the CIA. And I use a quote from William J Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services to precursor to the CIA and he said I want the OSS to recruit young men of discipline, daring, who are calculatedly daring.

Speaker 1: 12:06

Moving on from there, chapters 5 and 6 are my time in Iraq, where I spent literally two years working in Iraq in July 2004 through the end of August 2006. Critical time periods in the country, doing significant work, with significant accolades, with awards left and right. I believe it was five exceptional performance awards I received. I had a high-level position working with the senior leadership of the CIA station in Baghdad, with senior military officers such as, at the time, colonel Flynn, who became Major General Flynn, a very famous general. I'm sure you all know about him. I had the pleasure of working with him and I can attest to his character and his honor and his integrity. Him, and I can attest to his character and his honor and his integrity.

Speaker 1: 12:57

From then on I do a chapter. Chapter seven, back to the bureaucracy at CIA headquarters. This is an extremely important chapter. I mean it was a bureaucracy at its worst, some language that basically didn't make the book, or maybe it's in there, I don't remember right now if it's at. It would have been more productive to put a potted plant to change the putrid air in the basement where I was working into oxygen than having, in some cases, some people working in those desks. I'll just leave it there. It can be a little bit entertaining reading that chapter and I must say, up to this point, the redactions in the book are very minimal and I'll discuss redactions because, on that note the next chapters. We're dealing with chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11. And these are particularly very interesting.

Speaker 1: 13:50

These chapters cover a time of my career at the CIA where I worked overseas in a station that I named Patinkin station for a reason and in a country that I had to name Carminia for a reason. I had to protect CIA sources and methods, identities and partly to be able to have a flow to the narrative Rather than have more sections blacked out. The fictitious names helped to at least have some continuity in the narrative. However, there were still some significant redactions within these chapters and I can understand why the CIA redacted the information. I mean we're dealing with foreign relations. However, some of it is actually more of an embarrassment to them and I had a choice to make Do I contest the redactions or not?

Speaker 1: 14:43

After consulting with others who had written books, it was best not to contest the redactions and not to rewrite the narrative, to try to take out all the redactions. And let me explain Again as I stated earlier in the previous broadcast, because of a non-disclosure agreement and secrecy agreement, in order to publish a book, the book has to be reviewed, embedded by the CIA Pre-Publication Review Board, and only with their approval could I possibly publish a book. My approach to writing this book in a linear, progressive method, showing that I had no character issues, that I had no communication issues, proven performance prior to the CIA and in the CIA with materials that they needed to redact, actually led to what I would consider to be an expedited review. It actually took them ten and a half weeks to get back to me and tell me that, as long as I took out the language they did not want me to publish, that I can go ahead and publish the book. So I had an approval to publish.

Speaker 1: 15:49

I would have been an idiot not to publish the book the way it was and this is why I could have contested. But if you contest the redactions, it gets kicked back to them. Now they can hold on to it as long as they want to hold on to it, to either stall it or stop it, and that's a risk that was not worth taking. At the same time, if I would have chosen to rewrite things now, I would have had to kick the book back to them for a second review, and again, they can hold on to it as long as they want to. Particularly in this case, it would have potentially derailed the publication in a way that could have severely damaged the book from moving forward. There are many cases of books that get tied up and you end up having to get a lawyer, get into litigation, spend thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars and you're still delayed by a year or two or three to be able to get a book out. It only took me 10 and a half weeks.

Speaker 1: 16:53

And now, as far as the redactions, I mean, if you compare them with what is observed in Black Ops, they're very comparable. I mean, I have essentially light redactions, except for those in what is known as Carminia and Potemkin Station. For the critics who says I should have rewrote it or it never should have been published with redactions, that's actually an ignorant statement, because there are many intelligence-related memoirs or books that are published with redactions, and it adds also an element of mystique and suspense to it, which adds a little bit of credibility to it, because, I mean, the CIA reviewed it and they chose to withheld some material and they have every right to do so and again it was the best way to proceed. Now I don't want to get into too many details, but in those chapters for Potemkin Station, carminia, this is where I ran into a situation where I accidentally became a whistleblower on some equal employment opportunity issues that managers came out against me. Without getting into all the details, they're in the book. But again, here's where I have to be very clear and articulate. There is a reason for the depth of detail and the minutest details that are covered in this book as far as what I witnessed firsthand are critical in order to be able to make an argument that indeed the ability to blow the whistle is broken. It would be of no value for me to have written a book that did not have all these details and claim that there is a problem if I don't show you the problem through examples of instances that I observed firsthand or what people said or did, as I basically chronicle in my memoir. And all these details matter. You cannot ignore the chapter title names of the quotes. I mean, for example, chapters 11 and 12, the war within round one, the war within round two, respectively. And for chapter 11, I use a very colorful quote. Here we have met the enemy in he and us, and that is from Walt Kelly Pogo comic strip observing the inaugural Earth Day, april 22, 1970. The enemy within was a certain problem in that station.

Speaker 1: 19:15

By the time I get out of Carminia I'm looking at nine years plus working for the CIA, having done two years in Iraq, two years in this semi-war zone in Carminia. I mean by this time my body has paid a significant price. I mean that's one of the themes in this book the price we pay for working overseas. Our health takes a toll, our souls take a toll, our families take a toll, there are significant sacrifices, separation from family, you know your body gets beat up and so forth, and these are detailed in the book because you know I give the CIA credit when it needs to be given credit and at the same time I want to make sure that people realize that you do have good officers at the CIA who make significant contributions to national security and they make significant sacrifices and they should get credit and unfortunately they do not. Most of the time you only hear about the bad ones, and these bad ones are the ones that caused all the bad reputation. That shouldn't be so. Post-carmenia, it was one year of Afghanistan, and then followed by chapters 14, 15, and 16.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Back at CIA headquarters, working for the Information Operations Center, now the Director of Digital Innovation, the Center for Cyber Security and Intelligence. In this capacity I did some significant work with, again, deployments to the field, to war zones, earning exceptional performance awards, earning nominations for collaboration, collaborative efforts within the CIA and outside the CIA, which set me up for my deployment to Afghanistan. By this time I had had eight exceptional performance awards, significant contributions to US national security. My performance reviews throughout my CIA career absent one performance appraisal that was just absolutely just atrocious, because the managers were out to get me were all excellent, with superior performance. Other than that, I had no performance issues. I never had a security problem, always basically a good co worker. I had no problems working with other employees. So off I go to afghanistan chronicled in chapter 17 into the lion's den, afghanistan, and that's where all hell broke loose for me.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Now an important point I must make in chapters 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, there are quite a bit of details or tidbits as far as the broken equal employment opportunity processes at the CIA, as I detailed in chapter 12, when I was forced to use this process and actually I did so upon the recommendation of a senior executive to the CIA who told me you have an EEO issue. What they're doing against you is wrong. You should contact EEO. So I did. It turns out that EEO was more like a criminal conspiracy to come in and clean up the incident and cover it all up. It's all detailed in the book.

Speaker 1: 22:27

I leave no stone unturned, fully documented, and by the time I'm headed out to Afghanistan. I actually reached out to the CIA Office of Inspector General for the Intelligence Community and wanted to turn in a box with all the details showing indisputable proof that the EO office was broken beyond repair. Broken beyond repair, basically defrauding the complainants of their civil rights. And the CIA Office of Inspector General of Intelligence had no interest in looking into this issue, none whatsoever. In fact, they got mad at me because I had the audacity to provide proof to them that this office was broken and they basically said no, you can keep the box, you can keep the evidence, you can keep the evidence, do whatever you want with it and good luck with your tour in Afghanistan. So, yes, off I go to Afghanistan, literally into the lion's den. Little did I know what I was getting into.

Speaker 1: 23:26

Now, keep in mind, by the time I got out there I had already had 14 plus years of working at the CIA, six plus years working in war zones. I was trained as far as what to do, what not to do, in a war zone. I worked with significant senior leaders who would become directors of significant departments, significant departments I'm talking about, like the director of the counterterrorism center, the director of divisions for the directorate of operations and so forth. On top of that, in order to become a deputy chief of base, a chief of base, a chief of station, a deputy chief of station, you get significant training and you go through a vetting process by these directorate of operations leadership level personnel from the respective divisions. One of the seminars I attended was very detailed and specific as far as what to do, what not to do, on personnel matters, on interagency, collaboration on, you know, basically ensuring the safety of personnel, the psychological well-being of officers, and on and on. The list goes on. And as far as the leaders that came in. We're talking about the inspector general himself, the director of CIA himself, the deputy director of CIA himself. So we were very well advised of what was expected of us as a chief of base, a deputy chief of base, a chief of station or a deputy chief of station. Add to that what is known as the Senior Leadership Review Advisory Board, where the leaders for the respective division would meet with each officer and again tell them what they expected of them.

Speaker 1: 25:13

I detailed it in the book and it's all in there in chapter 16. Well, if you want the details as far as what happened, in a nutshell, I had a chief of base that should never have been there. That is the truth Caused harassment of personnel, endangered our lives and I was put in a situation where I had to speak truth to power, speak up about the endangerment of our lives and, at the same time, to protect a harassed individual, a subordinate of ours. But ultimately, the end result was again, they wanted to cover it up at my expense. So I got sent home, and that's where we get into chapters 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22, where I detail first what was known to me as the pit of hell, essentially what I ran into. And then a fight with the devil round one, a fight with the devil round two, a fight with the devil round three ultimately what I call wrestling with the kangaroos.

Speaker 1: 26:13

And at the end of the day, what happened here was just a complete cover-up by the entire CIA bureaucracy. I'm talking about the entire bureaucracy. Equal employment opportunity was a problem. They basically did not want to address two EEO issues the Office of Inspector General for the CIA in this particular case. They wanted to kill the case as well. They didn't even want to look at it. They basically wanted to punt it to EEO, but EEO tried to kill it and EEO essentially killed it. And then, when, eventually, when the CIA looked at it, they actually did an improper investigation. Not even an investigation really. It was an investigation with predetermined outcome, and the details are in the book. It's very clear and very obvious to whoever wants to read it. And I end the book with chapter 23, still standing strong, fighting tyranny, and the epilogue who will speak for you when they come looking for you? Because there are some critical messages in here. And the bottom line is who will speak for you when they come looking for you? That is going to be determined upon who you spoke up for, when you had an opportunity to speak up, for somebody who was being harassed, who was being targeted, who was a victim of weaponized government power or any type of injustice. If we collectively keep silent, we empower the abusers to proceed with more abuses of power. I want to read part of the closing parts of the epilogue Post-Nazi Germany.

Speaker 1: 27:40

In 1946, german Lutheran pastor and theologian Martin Neumüller uttered words in a speech that have reverberated around the world. He lived before, during and after the Nazi German regime, witnessing the evils of the rise and reign of Hitler and Nazism. His remarkable words return into the following poem First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialist and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionist and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me, and in the epilogue I have a quote the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous, and that is the problem and one of the main themes of this book.

Speaker 1: 28:35

Many themes, there are many themes in this book. I must say that you can read this book multiple times, with a different perspective, to get different ideas. One aspect is my own personal story. To get different ideas. One aspect is my own personal story. The other aspect is my daughter and my ex-wife, what they went through. Another aspect is what it's like to work inside the CIA, how the bureaucracy functions and doesn't function. Tidbits as far as what it was like to work in Iraq and Afghanistan, what worked, what didn't work, what went wrong. There's aspects of what it was like to work in a station of excellence at CIA and what it was like to work at a station of clowns, which is basically what Potemkin Station is best described as, since I had no choice but to use some colorful terms for that station and for some of the cast of characters, like you hear about Moe, larry and Curly and Napoleon, and there's reasons why I use these colorful names.

Speaker 1: 29:31

There's also the bureaucratic perspectives as far as what works and doesn't work in United States government bureaucracies. You see bureaucracy at its finest and at its worst in this book. Then you have the explicit, detailed inner workings of you know the conspiracy to obstruct civil right EEO processes and you know to defraud whistleblowers of the reprisal protections. That is all meticulously covered. It is covered basically blow by blow. Yeah, some people have complained about you know this email, that email or this person or that person, but it's all in there because it's a legal matter. Whistleblowing is a legal matter and you have to get into the minutest details. It's like an inquisition to determine whether or not there was a reprisal taken and the only way that you can affirm whether one was taken or not is to look at all the details of the matter.

Speaker 1: 30:31

And last but not least, shall we say, is the lack of the so-called righteous to act and take action. You see it in the book where, time and time, I reached out to certain leaders within the intelligence community the CIA, the DNI, the inspector generals in Congress and nobody rose up to help. It was as if they wanted to allow the CIA to take the reprisals against me, allow them to fire me and for that matter, here I am today still without. The reality is the first reprisal allegations were never correctly or fully investigated and, on top of that, the second wave of reprisals were never investigated. But you know, here we are going seven, eight, nine, ten years and still no resolution. And sadly, I find myself in a position that nobody has arisen to help has arisen to help, and I will end this broadcast by also stating that you know, we had significant change in presidential administrations in 2017. You would think that in the Trump administration in 2017, I would finally see justice. Well, I did not.

Speaker 1: 31:42

Pompeo and Coates missing in action. Pompeo and Coates missing in action. Basically, you know, pompeo, through his number three bullet towel, basically allowed the CIA to do as they pleased. When I reached out to them, I basically got back a cut and paste email with language that was put together obviously and very clearly by the Office of General Counsel and, potentially, the Inspector General. Basically, they washed their hands like Pontius Pilate and said let the IG do what they want to do, and at that time, the CIA IG was compromised and those details are covered in the book. Meanwhile, congress, missing in action, doing absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1: 32:22

For me, and even worse, in my opinion, is how, as an evangelical, as a licensed minister at the time, having some significant connections, I reached out to multiple evangelical leaders with access to Trump and not a single one of them was willing to help. Now, the beat up individual going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, beat up by robbers, thrown on the road and you know, the priest, the Levite, the scribes, just walking on by the side of the road, no, no help whatsoever. And eventually a Samaritan showed up, and the reality is that in this journey, I've had a few Samaritans show up, but my own kind, my own people in evangelical circles. To this day, despite the fact that some of them have significant influence, I have yet to have one of them reach out and try to help to see to it that these issues are resolved, which goes back to my closing epilogue who will speak for you when they come looking for you?

Speaker 1: 33:34

What we have seen in this country since 2017 has been an explosion of weaponized government power, and the reason why it is happening is is because men and women in positions of power have failed to act to counterbalance, to be light and to stop these forces of darkness. And unless we arise and stop these forces of darkness, it's going to continue to get worse. So this book is a clarion call to awaken the so-called righteous, so that we can stop this nonsense and push back the darkness with light.