Jack Barsky: KGB Spy
政治与社会心理与人性音乐与艺术历史与文明技术与编程
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"FBI for quite a while and living still undercover for several years until I had real good documentation"
FBI 工作了很长一段时间，并且卧底生活了好几年，直到我有了真正好的文件
— Jack Barsky （3:21:24.040）
🎙️ 完整对话（3073 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
Something happened where they forced my hand, and this is the only time that a Soviet agent
他们强迫我出手，发生了一些事情，这是苏联特工唯一一次
Lex Fridman (00:07.320)
was anywhere near me on the territory of the United States.
在美国领土上靠近我的任何地方。
Lex Fridman (00:12.120)
So I'm waiting for the A train on a dark morning still in Queens, and there's this man in a
一个漆黑的早晨，我仍在皇后区等待 A 号列车，而这个男人穿着一辆
Lex Fridman (00:20.680)
black trench coat comes up to me from my right, and he whispers into my ears, you gotta come
黑色风衣从我右边走到我面前，他在我耳边低语，你得过来
Lex Fridman (00:27.600)
back or else you're dead.
回来，不然你就死定了。
Jack Barsky (00:32.320)
The following is a conversation with Jack Barsky, a former KGB spy, author of Deep Undercover
以下是与前克格勃间谍、《深度卧底》作者杰克·巴尔斯基的对话
Lex Fridman (00:38.480)
and the subject of an excellent podcast series called The Agent.
以及名为《特工》的优秀播客系列的主题。
Jack Barsky (00:43.520)
There are very few people who have defected from the KGB and live to tell the story.
很少有人从克格勃叛逃后还能活着讲述这个故事。
Lex Fridman (00:49.160)
It is one of the most powerful intelligence organizations in history.
它是历史上最强大的情报组织之一。
Lex Fridman (00:53.280)
And this conversation gives a window into its operation, both from an ideological and
这次对话为我们提供了一个了解其运作的窗口，无论是从意识形态还是
Jack Barsky (00:59.120)
psychological perspective, but also it tells the story of a man who lived one heck of an
心理学的角度，但它也讲述了一个男人的故事
Jack Barsky (01:06.200)
incredible life.
难以置信的生活。
Jack Barsky (01:08.340)
This is the Lex Friedman podcast, to support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
这是 Lex Friedman 播客，为了支持它，请在说明中查看我们的赞助商。
Lex Fridman (01:13.880)
And now, dear friends, here's Jack Barsky.
现在，亲爱的朋友们，这是杰克·巴斯基。
Lex Fridman (01:18.280)
Let's start with a big basic question.
让我们从一个大的基本问题开始。
Lex Fridman (01:20.560)
What is the KGB?
克格勃是什么？
Lex Fridman (01:21.560)
Комитет Государственной Безопасности.
Комитет Государственной Безопасности。
Jack Barsky (01:24.560)
Right.
正确的。
Lex Fridman (01:26.120)
So that is the Committee of State Security.
这就是国家安全委员会。
Jack Barsky (01:29.000)
Yeah.
是的。
Lex Fridman (01:30.000)
There's an opossumist.
Lex Fridman (01:31.000)
Opossumist is a threat, right?
Lex Fridman (01:33.040)
Threat.
Jack Barsky (01:34.040)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (01:35.040)
And BS means...
Jack Barsky (01:36.040)
Without.
Lex Fridman (01:37.040)
Right.
Lex Fridman (01:38.040)
And I guess that directly translates to security.
Lex Fridman (01:39.800)
Without threat.
Jack Barsky (01:40.800)
So, and don't exist anymore.
Jack Barsky (01:43.640)
It was disbanded when the Soviet Union fell apart and the successor agencies are now the
Jack Barsky (01:49.840)
SVR and the FSB, FSB supposedly the equivalent to the FBI and SVR, the CIA.
Lex Fridman (01:57.300)
But the SVR is relatively weak and the FSB has taken on a lot of espionage and active
Jack Barsky (02:06.260)
measures and they're much bigger and stronger.
Lex Fridman (02:09.420)
But the most capable intelligence agency in Russia is the GRU, Military Intelligence.
Jack Barsky (02:16.720)
That nobody knows very much about.
Lex Fridman (02:18.560)
That's right.
Jack Barsky (02:19.560)
When I was in the KGB, I had no idea that there was military intelligence.
Lex Fridman (02:23.400)
Nobody ever mentioned anything like that.
Lex Fridman (02:25.560)
And by the way, I recently had the pleasure to give a talk at the DIA.
Lex Fridman (02:31.720)
When they reached out to me, I didn't know they existed either.
Jack Barsky (02:35.080)
Interesting.
Lex Fridman (02:36.080)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (02:37.080)
That's always the question.
Lex Fridman (02:38.080)
If you want to be an intelligence agency, should the world know anything about you?
Jack Barsky (02:42.760)
Because in some sense, you want to create the legend in order to attract great competent
Jack Barsky (02:48.760)
individuals to work for you, but at the same time, you want it to be shrouded in complete
Jack Barsky (02:54.480)
mystery.
Jack Barsky (02:55.480)
If nobody knows you exist, you might be able to operate well as an intelligence agency.
Jack Barsky (03:01.840)
That is fascinating.
Lex Fridman (03:03.200)
But FSB is the thing that carries the flag of KGB, KGB being probably one of, if not
Jack Barsky (03:12.600)
the most sort of infamous, famous, infamous, and powerful intelligence agencies in history
Lex Fridman (03:19.720)
ever.
Jack Barsky (03:20.720)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (03:21.720)
100%.
Jack Barsky (03:22.720)
It was founded in 1954 after the death of Stalin.
Lex Fridman (03:26.960)
In writing your book, you've looked back at the predecessors of the history.
Jack Barsky (03:31.200)
Is there some way in which the KGB is grounded in the culture, the spirit, the soul of the
Lex Fridman (03:42.560)
KGB?
Jack Barsky (03:43.560)
Its predecessors.
Lex Fridman (03:44.560)
Oh, absolutely.
Jack Barsky (03:45.560)
They just changed names and they changed personnel rather frequently, and that had something
Lex Fridman (03:51.320)
to do with Stalin's paranoia.
Jack Barsky (03:54.120)
From between 1923, and I don't remember what, I think it may have been the NKVD at that
Lex Fridman (04:00.560)
time.
Jack Barsky (04:01.560)
It started as the Chika, and then it became the GPU, the NKVD, but with those name changes,
Lex Fridman (04:11.920)
you also had changes at the top.
Jack Barsky (04:14.240)
Between 1923 and 1953, when Stalin died, that is 30 years, they had eight heads of intelligence,
Lex Fridman (04:24.040)
and of those eight, six were executed when they were replaced.
Lex Fridman (04:29.280)
So that's an indication that this was an organization that ate itself from the inside.
Jack Barsky (04:38.360)
The Soviet Union was the only dictatorship in history that did not rest its powers on
Jack Barsky (04:42.600)
the military.
Jack Barsky (04:43.920)
They rested its powers on the intelligence apparatus, and that thing was unstable.
Lex Fridman (04:49.900)
So you know where that leads.
Jack Barsky (04:52.320)
Eventually, if you rest your power on something that is made out of bricks that don't hold
Jack Barsky (04:58.120)
a lot of load, it will fall apart.
Lex Fridman (05:01.280)
On sand.
Jack Barsky (05:02.280)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (05:03.280)
Why was it unstable, would you say?
Lex Fridman (05:04.560)
What of human nature makes it unstable?
Lex Fridman (05:07.520)
It's the paranoia.
Jack Barsky (05:09.360)
Stalin was always worried about the most powerful people coming after him.
Lex Fridman (05:17.320)
So he proactively killed off heads of the KGB, and he had this great purge where he
Jack Barsky (05:23.080)
got rid of a lot of his generals, really capable generals, and that cost him dearly when World
Jack Barsky (05:31.760)
War II started, because he started off with a force that wasn't as capable as it could
Jack Barsky (05:39.640)
have been.
Lex Fridman (05:41.000)
Was it paranoia at all levels?
Jack Barsky (05:42.840)
I believe so.
Lex Fridman (05:43.840)
I believe so.
Jack Barsky (05:45.200)
It comes from the top.
Lex Fridman (05:46.680)
And so if the top doesn't trust you, you always have to worry about your peers snitching on
Jack Barsky (05:55.600)
you.
Lex Fridman (05:58.260)
And I think we have a very similar situation in Russia today, and in this kind of atmosphere,
Jack Barsky (06:07.840)
the truth will never get to the top.
Lex Fridman (06:10.320)
So no matter what moral rules the organization operates under, trust is fundamental to its
Jack Barsky (06:17.240)
competence.
Lex Fridman (06:18.240)
Oh, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (06:19.240)
And I want to extend this to my own existence, and this is kind of strange.
Jack Barsky (06:26.600)
It's almost dichotomous, because I was running around lying to everybody, and I couldn't
Jack Barsky (06:34.700)
fundamentally be trusted.
Lex Fridman (06:35.960)
But the relationship that I had with the KGB was based on trust.
Jack Barsky (06:40.000)
If they don't trust me, they don't send me out.
Lex Fridman (06:43.120)
And if I don't trust them, I'm not going.
Lex Fridman (06:45.960)
And I eventually broke that trust, and they knew there was always that danger.
Jack Barsky (06:50.960)
They knew that because something about you or just something about human beings that
Jack Barsky (06:56.240)
can be broken.
Lex Fridman (06:57.760)
There were hints about how long my assignment would be, so 10 to 12 years.
Lex Fridman (07:05.080)
And you see, it makes sense.
Jack Barsky (07:07.840)
I was becoming an American, and over time, I would become more and more American, and
Jack Barsky (07:13.840)
there was always a chance that I liked it more here than there, that I was really successful
Lex Fridman (07:19.920)
in what I was supposed to do.
Lex Fridman (07:22.680)
And it sort of happened, but in my case, it happened because I fathered a child who I
Lex Fridman (07:28.680)
didn't want to leave when they wanted me back.
Jack Barsky (07:30.880)
Love always screws up your employment competence, yes.
Lex Fridman (07:36.520)
You're absolutely right.
Lex Fridman (07:40.040)
But they thought that I had an anchor at home because I had a wife and a son at home, which
Lex Fridman (07:48.760)
you've got to worry about them if you defect.
Jack Barsky (07:53.800)
Because in the past, the KGB would go after family ruthlessly.
Lex Fridman (08:01.440)
Including perhaps violence?
Jack Barsky (08:03.000)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (08:04.000)
This is a hard question about the KGB because it's one of the most ruthless organizations,
Lex Fridman (08:08.320)
but in general, are there lines, KGB agents at every level of the hierarchy that they
Lex Fridman (08:18.680)
would not cross, political, legal, ethical, or does anything goes to achieve the goal?
Jack Barsky (08:25.280)
I was only in touch with two types of agents, the technical experts, the ones that taught
Jack Barsky (08:35.480)
me tradecraft, and they were like engineers and they were in charge of the secret writing
Lex Fridman (08:42.680)
and the Morse code, shortwave radio reception, decryption, encryption, and that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (08:53.000)
Those were just doing their job.
Lex Fridman (08:56.240)
And the others, the ones that trained me, that prepared me for life in the United States,
Lex Fridman (09:03.360)
they were nice people.
Jack Barsky (09:05.320)
They were elegant people.
Jack Barsky (09:08.320)
I don't think they would not fit into the stereotype of the ruthless gun carrying agent.
Jack Barsky (09:19.040)
Is it possible that you would not be aware of the parts of the KGB, I mean, it's very
Lex Fridman (09:25.080)
modular.
Lex Fridman (09:26.080)
Would you?
Lex Fridman (09:27.080)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (09:28.080)
It's possible that you're not aware of the parts of the KGB that are the quote unquote
Lex Fridman (09:30.880)
muscle.
Jack Barsky (09:31.880)
Oh, I didn't know.
Jack Barsky (09:32.960)
I would find out afterwards, after I retired and started doing some research, I had no
Jack Barsky (09:39.920)
clue.
Lex Fridman (09:40.920)
So you're kind of operating in a bubble.
Jack Barsky (09:42.240)
Oh, very much so.
Jack Barsky (09:43.480)
I mean, this is what the KGB did really, really well, compartmentalization, and that was based
Jack Barsky (09:51.840)
on the communist movement while it was still underground.
Jack Barsky (09:57.240)
The cells were very small, so that maybe there were three, four members in one cell that
Jack Barsky (10:02.840)
knew one another, and then they had a liaison to another cell.
Jack Barsky (10:07.760)
The bottom line is if you got one of those folks were caught, they could maybe betray
Jack Barsky (10:13.600)
four people or three, something like that, and the KGB continued with that tradition.
Jack Barsky (10:20.880)
I have reason to believe that my handler, the person in Moscow that sort of directed
Jack Barsky (10:27.560)
me and made decisions what to do and where to go, never met me personally.
Lex Fridman (10:33.040)
There's no reason to.
Jack Barsky (10:37.720)
This actually was a big advantage over other intelligence services because you look at
Lex Fridman (10:45.440)
what the CIA does.
Jack Barsky (10:46.800)
Everybody blabs.
Lex Fridman (10:47.800)
There's a lot of leaks coming out of American intelligence.
Jack Barsky (10:50.880)
I don't think there's as many leaks coming out of the Mossad.
Lex Fridman (10:54.480)
Strong words from Jack Barsky, by the way.
Jack Barsky (10:57.440)
That is a question I want to ask a little more systematically.
Lex Fridman (10:59.920)
Is there something unique about the KGB compared to the other intelligence agencies?
Jack Barsky (11:05.280)
Let's talk British intelligence, MI6, Mossad, CIA.
Jack Barsky (11:11.920)
Is there unique cultures, spirits, souls of the different organizations that maybe somehow
Jack Barsky (11:17.180)
connect to the structures of government, connect maybe the values of the people, those kinds
Lex Fridman (11:22.800)
of things?
Jack Barsky (11:23.800)
I believe we were all pretty much strong believers in communism and the future of the world being...
Lex Fridman (11:31.580)
In KGB?
Jack Barsky (11:32.580)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (11:33.580)
I think that unified us to a large degree, even the technicians.
Jack Barsky (11:38.960)
It wasn't something like, yeah, yeah, the parents believe this thing, but we know the
Lex Fridman (11:46.720)
truth.
Jack Barsky (11:47.720)
You really believe the story of communism.
Lex Fridman (11:49.800)
Absolutely did.
Lex Fridman (11:50.800)
And you need to look at the timeframe.
Jack Barsky (11:54.380)
The Soviet Union after World War II made quite a bit of progress in influencing the Third
Jack Barsky (12:02.760)
World.
Jack Barsky (12:03.760)
I still remember when I was in middle school, we had a map, the map of the world, and it
Jack Barsky (12:09.560)
was color coded.
Lex Fridman (12:11.200)
So red was communism, that was the Soviet Union and the Eastern states, and then blue
Jack Barsky (12:16.740)
was capitalism.
Lex Fridman (12:18.320)
And then we had green, which were the Third World countries, and the green slowly turned
Jack Barsky (12:24.400)
pink because a lot of Third World governments, like I'm looking at Angola, I'm looking at
Lex Fridman (12:30.480)
Vietnam, a lot of these countries were very sympathetic to the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (12:40.160)
And so we sort of knew that this would go on like that, and eventually we would take
Jack Barsky (12:45.640)
over and pretty much overtake, that was the myth, overtake the United States, not only
Jack Barsky (12:55.680)
militarily but also in terms of industrial production and so forth.
Lex Fridman (13:02.000)
That was a stupid pipe dream.
Jack Barsky (13:03.840)
The military, it was a standoff, as we know.
Lex Fridman (13:08.600)
A stupid pipe dream.
Jack Barsky (13:13.320)
Hitler had a stupid pipe dream that he executed it exceptionally effectively and on, if not
Lex Fridman (13:22.040)
for a handful of military mistakes, the world could look very different today.
Jack Barsky (13:28.200)
Well, the biggest one being invading the Soviet Union, particularly at the time that he did
Lex Fridman (13:34.480)
it because he ran into the same thing that Napoleon ran into General Winter.
Jack Barsky (13:40.480)
Well within, so Operation Barbarossa, within that he could have made different decisions.
Jack Barsky (13:49.520)
For example, attacking, skipping Kiev and attacking Moscow directly, overthrowing the
Jack Barsky (13:56.080)
government.
Lex Fridman (13:57.080)
So marching, I guess that would be learning lessons from Napoleon as opposed to a different
Jack Barsky (14:03.880)
kind of distribution of forces and then getting bogged down in the winter.
Lex Fridman (14:07.600)
But the point is these ambitions sometimes do, the ambitions of empires sometimes do
Jack Barsky (14:14.720)
materialize in the growth and the building and the establishment of those empires and
Jack Barsky (14:18.680)
those empires write the history books in such a way that we don't think of them as empires
Jack Barsky (14:25.080)
or we certainly don't think of them as the bad guys.
Lex Fridman (14:27.880)
They write the history books, therefore they're the good guys.
Lex Fridman (14:30.640)
And right now America has effectively written the book about the good guys.
Jack Barsky (14:35.120)
I happen to believe that book, but it's, we should be humbled and open minded to realize
Jack Barsky (14:41.680)
that that is in fact what is happening is effective empires write the history books
Lex Fridman (14:47.120)
and tell us stories and tell us propaganda and tell us narratives that we believe because
Jack Barsky (14:51.960)
we are human beings and we love to get together and believe ideas.
Jack Barsky (14:55.920)
We love to dream of a beautiful world and try to build that beautiful world together
Jack Barsky (15:00.480)
in the United States.
Lex Fridman (15:01.480)
That's a beautiful world.
Jack Barsky (15:02.480)
The freedom of respect of human rights of all men are created equal pursuit of happiness.
Lex Fridman (15:11.280)
You know, it always sounds good.
Jack Barsky (15:13.180)
If you look at what the dream of communism is, it sure as heck in its words on the surface
Lex Fridman (15:19.680)
sounds good.
Jack Barsky (15:20.680)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (15:21.680)
Respect for the workers.
Jack Barsky (15:22.680)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (15:23.680)
The working class, the lower classes that have been trodden on that have been stolen
Jack Barsky (15:27.860)
from by the powerful, they deserve to have the money, the power, the respect that they
Lex Fridman (15:33.360)
have earned through their hard work.
Jack Barsky (15:35.640)
Sounds great.
Lex Fridman (15:36.640)
And everybody gets along and we just have to, you know, uh, all men are wonderful people.
Lex Fridman (15:44.700)
And if they, if they go bad, it has something to do with the fact that they have, they have
Lex Fridman (15:48.360)
been oppressed, right?
Lex Fridman (15:51.000)
And uh, that dream just never worked out.
Lex Fridman (15:54.160)
And even, even it is when you think about it and I didn't think about it when you're
Jack Barsky (15:59.400)
young, you know, you just emotionally, you accept it.
Lex Fridman (16:02.840)
But when you think about it, somehow, uh, that new wonderful organization has to organize
Jack Barsky (16:09.640)
itself even though Lenin predicted that the state eventually would go away.
Lex Fridman (16:14.400)
Well, how does it, how does that work?
Lex Fridman (16:15.960)
Then you have like anarchy, right?
Lex Fridman (16:17.840)
You have to have an organization.
Jack Barsky (16:19.860)
The only way to really organize a large number of people is with a hierarchy.
Lex Fridman (16:26.800)
So and who gets to the top, the ones that are, that want to go to the top, the ones
Jack Barsky (16:32.800)
that believe in themselves, the ones, the ones that know better than everybody else.
Lex Fridman (16:37.360)
And once you have that hierarchy established, uh, there is no guarantee that it doesn't
Jack Barsky (16:41.880)
that it won't go bad.
Lex Fridman (16:43.640)
And actually when you look at history, every such hierarchy has gone bad.
Jack Barsky (16:48.900)
You know, you look at Cuba, for instance, I believe Fidel Castro was a, an honest revolutionary.
Lex Fridman (16:55.320)
I do believe that.
Lex Fridman (16:58.340)
And so what did Cuba turn into?
Lex Fridman (17:00.960)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (17:01.960)
There's something about, and you speak about Vladimir Putin in this way, but let's step
Lex Fridman (17:06.000)
away from that for a second.
Jack Barsky (17:08.820)
Is there something about being an honest revolutionary that wants to do good for their country and
Jack Barsky (17:15.680)
you start to believe that, you know, better than everyone else how to do good on the country
Lex Fridman (17:20.980)
and you very well might first, but then somehow that grows into a distortion field where,
Lex Fridman (17:30.040)
you know, you keep believing, you know, what's right.
Lex Fridman (17:33.160)
And all the people who disagree with you, you stop seeing them as having a point.
Jack Barsky (17:38.220)
You instead see them as like, um, um, evil manipulators of the truth that are actually
Jack Barsky (17:46.400)
trying to hurt people for their own greed, for their own power.
Lex Fridman (17:49.840)
And you will protect the people because you know, what's good in the case of Stalin.
Jack Barsky (17:54.200)
I, I mean, I don't know, but it seems like he really believed that communism would bring
Lex Fridman (18:02.400)
about a much better world.
Jack Barsky (18:04.240)
I mean, there was a sense the, you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, this idea
Lex Fridman (18:12.400)
that sacrifice is necessary to bring about a greater world.
Lex Fridman (18:18.680)
And then the other aspect is sort of ruling by terror, creating terrorism, justified political
Lex Fridman (18:27.800)
mechanism to achieve a better world.
Lex Fridman (18:30.680)
But it wasn't, I mean, perhaps he had to do that to be able to sleep at night with the
Lex Fridman (18:35.320)
atrocities he's committing.
Jack Barsky (18:37.120)
He's, I think he believed he will bring about a better world.
Lex Fridman (18:41.280)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (18:42.280)
And by the way, the terror didn't start with Stalin.
Jack Barsky (18:43.880)
It started right after the Bolsheviks took over when Lenin told Mr. Dzerzhinsky, Commodore
Jack Barsky (18:52.960)
Dzerzhinsky to build the Cheka and then execute the, this is what he called it, the red terror.
Lex Fridman (19:03.240)
So at the birth of the Soviet Union, there was already terror and it was deliberate.
Lex Fridman (19:11.080)
And it also was, it wasn't just focused on the enemies, it was focused on whoever you
Lex Fridman (19:18.680)
didn't like.
Jack Barsky (19:19.680)
There was no rule of law, there was no court cases, people were just pulled out of their
Lex Fridman (19:27.240)
apartments and shot on sight.
Lex Fridman (19:31.620)
And this was done by revolutionaries who were convinced that eventually, these sacrifices
Lex Fridman (19:40.480)
had to be made and eventually that would lead to a much better planet.
Lex Fridman (19:44.680)
And the populace believed this too, that those sacrifices in part.
Jack Barsky (19:48.880)
I mean, this is such a dark thing about dictatorships is you believe it, but you're also too afraid
Jack Barsky (19:59.720)
to question your beliefs.
Lex Fridman (1:00:03.360)
And it seems like a safe statement if it's not the right person, it would just come off
Jack Barsky (1:00:08.280)
absurd or crazy or whatever.
Lex Fridman (1:00:10.840)
You would have made a good secret agent.
Jack Barsky (1:00:12.840)
You know exactly...
Lex Fridman (1:00:13.840)
How do you know I'm not?
Jack Barsky (1:00:15.960)
This is...
Lex Fridman (1:00:16.960)
We'll discuss this further.
Jack Barsky (1:00:19.160)
I'm dressed like one.
Lex Fridman (1:00:21.160)
Actually, yeah, were there any dress code?
Jack Barsky (1:00:24.040)
No, just fit in.
Lex Fridman (1:00:26.200)
Fit in.
Jack Barsky (1:00:27.200)
No matter what.
Lex Fridman (1:00:28.200)
And then be creative.
Jack Barsky (1:00:29.200)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:00:30.200)
Figure out ways to fit.
Jack Barsky (1:00:31.200)
Right.
Lex Fridman (1:00:32.200)
So anyways, he gave me some tasks and since I had rented a room in a house, he gave me
Jack Barsky (1:00:40.000)
Western literature to read and we spent time together and there was a practice run to West
Lex Fridman (1:00:54.080)
Germany.
Jack Barsky (1:00:55.080)
Actually, there were two and that was very important.
Lex Fridman (1:00:58.760)
In hindsight, I figured that out.
Lex Fridman (1:01:01.680)
So I traveled to West Germany, no, not to West Berlin, with an East German passport
Lex Fridman (1:01:08.200)
that was stamped that that individual was allowed to go to the West.
Lex Fridman (1:01:13.840)
And there was a part of the border that was only guarded by Soviet troops and that's where
Lex Fridman (1:01:24.240)
they smuggled me into West Germany.
Jack Barsky (1:01:26.320)
I got on the subway and then appeared in West Berlin.
Lex Fridman (1:01:33.760)
No Americans, no Brits, no French knew that I had entered.
Lex Fridman (1:01:38.120)
Irish documents?
Lex Fridman (1:01:39.120)
No, no, this was an East German passport.
Jack Barsky (1:01:41.880)
It was real.
Lex Fridman (1:01:42.880)
Okay.
Jack Barsky (1:01:43.880)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:01:44.880)
So and the first trip, all they wanted me to do is just walk around, smell the air,
Jack Barsky (1:01:52.720)
have a beer or whatever and eat a sausage and then come back.
Jack Barsky (1:01:57.920)
The second trip, I had a task very similar to the one that I had back in Jena to ring
Jack Barsky (1:02:04.400)
the doorbell someplace and talk to some people and that worked very well also.
Jack Barsky (1:02:11.280)
I should mention that you talk about that, you know, eat a sausage, drink some beer.
Jack Barsky (1:02:17.560)
I suppose that's a good test too to see how you behave under Western, like when first
Lex Fridman (1:02:24.260)
introduced to the Western culture.
Jack Barsky (1:02:25.880)
Like this is why I might not make a good agent is when I first came to the United States
Lex Fridman (1:02:33.200)
in the supermarket, like bananas, as many bananas as I want to eat.
Jack Barsky (1:02:40.840)
That I think that would break me.
Lex Fridman (1:02:43.720)
It's a shock.
Jack Barsky (1:02:45.400)
It's a shock to have access to Western culture.
Jack Barsky (1:02:49.120)
You're getting very close to the reason they actually made me do these two practice trips.
Jack Barsky (1:02:57.600)
When I first emerged on West Berlin territory, I felt highly uncomfortable.
Lex Fridman (1:03:04.040)
That was at the enemy, right?
Lex Fridman (1:03:06.440)
And I saw the cops everywhere and even though those cops had like light blue uniforms, nothing,
Lex Fridman (1:03:12.000)
they weren't standouts.
Lex Fridman (1:03:13.600)
So I was wondering, you know, if they knew that, you know, I had like KGB on my forehead.
Lex Fridman (1:03:18.800)
So you were paranoid that they would know, they would see.
Jack Barsky (1:03:20.920)
I was scared, but I overcame that.
Lex Fridman (1:03:24.140)
So that's, can we just linger on that because I suppose that's a natural, like if I give
Jack Barsky (1:03:29.260)
anybody on the street the mission to do the mission you had to do is they would be paranoid.
Lex Fridman (1:03:35.720)
That's a natural human feeling is am I being watched?
Lex Fridman (1:03:39.280)
Do they know?
Jack Barsky (1:03:41.360)
Like if you try to steal something from a store, there's going to be a feeling like,
Lex Fridman (1:03:47.720)
are they watching me?
Lex Fridman (1:03:48.720)
Are the cameras watching?
Lex Fridman (1:03:49.720)
Are the people watching me?
Lex Fridman (1:03:50.720)
They all know that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:03:51.720)
So you have to over, or you have to be somehow rugged and robust to that kind of feeling
Lex Fridman (1:03:56.720)
and overcome it.
Jack Barsky (1:03:57.720)
Yes, exactly.
Lex Fridman (1:03:58.800)
So and something very interesting happened while I was being trained in Berlin, I met
Jack Barsky (1:04:04.960)
a classmate of mine from high school and he confided to me that he was recruited by the
Lex Fridman (1:04:11.180)
Stasi to become a spy, go as a spy to West Germany.
Lex Fridman (1:04:16.400)
And he also had this practice trip and he peed in his pants.
Lex Fridman (1:04:20.760)
He went back and told him, I can't do that.
Jack Barsky (1:04:23.800)
Just from the terror, that paranoia.
Lex Fridman (1:04:27.160)
Now this guy's career was over.
Jack Barsky (1:04:30.920)
He had an engineering degree, he was a pretty smart guy, he was just for the rest of his
Jack Barsky (1:04:39.340)
life and he's still alive I believe, floating around and trading in model railroads and
Jack Barsky (1:04:45.720)
stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (1:04:46.720)
You mean do you think that experience broke him?
Jack Barsky (1:04:49.920)
They wouldn't let him back in.
Lex Fridman (1:04:51.120)
Oh, I see.
Jack Barsky (1:04:52.120)
They, oh.
Lex Fridman (1:04:53.120)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:04:54.120)
So this is a test that if you fail, you pay the price.
Jack Barsky (1:04:56.800)
I had no idea that, you know, something bad would happen if I failed that test, but I
Jack Barsky (1:05:03.280)
didn't.
Lex Fridman (1:05:04.280)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:05:05.280)
I didn't fail.
Jack Barsky (1:05:06.280)
So, and this led then to the offer, all right, and after, you know, Boris was happy with
Jack Barsky (1:05:13.280)
me and he told his boss who was most likely the head of the KGB in East Berlin and I had
Lex Fridman (1:05:21.040)
an appointment to meet.
Jack Barsky (1:05:22.920)
In East Germany.
Lex Fridman (1:05:23.920)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (1:05:24.920)
In East Germany.
Lex Fridman (1:05:25.920)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:05:26.920)
All of East Germany.
Lex Fridman (1:05:27.920)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (1:05:28.920)
That's right.
Jack Barsky (1:05:29.920)
An appointment to meet with him and as we walk into the room, there was this huge desk
Lex Fridman (1:05:35.280)
and a little guy sitting behind it, very, very, just like little and unimpressive, right?
Jack Barsky (1:05:45.960)
A lot of paraphernalia, like, you know, had a bust of Dzerzhinsky on his desk and some
Jack Barsky (1:05:53.640)
paintings of Lenin and so forth, but when the guy opened his mouth, he went like, whoa.
Lex Fridman (1:06:03.560)
Huge psychological energy.
Jack Barsky (1:06:06.280)
He spoke only Russian now and initially, he would, you know, start the bet with five minutes
Jack Barsky (1:06:12.400)
worth of propaganda, why we're doing what we're doing, I didn't need that, I understood
Jack Barsky (1:06:17.040)
most of it, but when I didn't understand, I'd ask Boris to translate and then he sprung
Lex Fridman (1:06:25.240)
it on me and I was not prepared.
Lex Fridman (1:06:27.080)
He said, so what, are you in or not?
Lex Fridman (1:06:30.840)
And I was, no, I hadn't made up my mind.
Jack Barsky (1:06:34.720)
I wasn't expecting that would come and so I said to him, I'm not really trained, you
Jack Barsky (1:06:43.280)
know, there's a lot of things I need to learn and I came up with a couple of really stupid
Jack Barsky (1:06:46.840)
things, one not so stupid, but the other one was, I don't know why I said that, I said,
Jack Barsky (1:06:51.720)
for instance, I need to learn how to drive a car and to type with a typewriter and he
Jack Barsky (1:06:58.400)
got really annoyed and he said, don't worry about it, we'll train you.
Lex Fridman (1:07:03.200)
But I got to tell you, we need people who are decisive.
Lex Fridman (1:07:06.480)
So you got until tomorrow noon to give Boris your decision.
Lex Fridman (1:07:12.840)
That made for a sleepless night.
Lex Fridman (1:07:15.480)
So what was going through your mind?
Jack Barsky (1:07:17.320)
Well I had, this was almost 50, 50, I knew I was going to have a huge career, a good
Jack Barsky (1:07:26.160)
career.
Jack Barsky (1:07:27.160)
It was on my way because I was already employed by the university as an assistant professor.
Lex Fridman (1:07:35.240)
So that career would be to become a professor, become a 10 year professor, be a world class.
Lex Fridman (1:07:40.760)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (1:07:41.760)
Jena had become my hometown.
Lex Fridman (1:07:43.560)
I really loved the place.
Jack Barsky (1:07:45.400)
It was my oyster and my family was my basketball team.
Lex Fridman (1:07:54.520)
You love playing basketball.
Jack Barsky (1:07:55.520)
Oh absolutely.
Lex Fridman (1:07:56.520)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:07:57.520)
So this is home.
Lex Fridman (1:07:58.520)
This is home.
Jack Barsky (1:07:59.520)
This is where your love is.
Lex Fridman (1:08:00.520)
This was home.
Lex Fridman (1:08:01.520)
Did you understand that the choice involved leaving the home behind?
Lex Fridman (1:08:05.240)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:08:06.240)
And the one thing I didn't have, the two things I didn't have, an emotional relationship
Lex Fridman (1:08:11.900)
with my mother and I didn't have a steady girlfriend at the time.
Jack Barsky (1:08:16.920)
I think Freud would have a lot to say about that, but yeah, go ahead.
Lex Fridman (1:08:20.120)
But the connection between those two, but yeah, I'm sure.
Jack Barsky (1:08:24.360)
By the way, my friend Günther, the one who worked for the Stasi, was also, the Stasi
Jack Barsky (1:08:29.360)
tried to recruit him as an agent, but he had a love relationship at the time and he said
Jack Barsky (1:08:36.240)
politely, no, I won't.
Lex Fridman (1:08:37.800)
I can't.
Lex Fridman (1:08:38.800)
So you didn't have, that's the one thing that really could have held you to this place
Lex Fridman (1:08:44.520)
is love.
Lex Fridman (1:08:45.520)
So you got the career on the one hand, my basketball team, the town that I would be
Jack Barsky (1:08:49.800)
part of the ruling elite of, and then we had this great adventure and the ability to contribute
Jack Barsky (1:08:57.520)
to the victory, the worldwide victory of communism and stick it to the Nazis and of course the
Lex Fridman (1:09:04.660)
feeling that you're really special.
Jack Barsky (1:09:07.120)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:09:08.120)
James Bond.
Jack Barsky (1:09:09.120)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:09:10.120)
What's, the question, do I want to be a tenured professor or James Bond?
Jack Barsky (1:09:15.240)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:09:16.240)
And as funny as that sounds, that was probably a difficult decision.
Jack Barsky (1:09:19.240)
It was a difficult decision, but fundamentally it wasn't, and it wasn't my zeal to help the
Lex Fridman (1:09:27.320)
revolution.
Jack Barsky (1:09:28.320)
It was my, what they called, what the Stasi was looking for, the KGB was looking for in
Jack Barsky (1:09:37.320)
a character that they would send over a well controlled inclination to adventure.
Jack Barsky (1:09:42.480)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:09:43.480)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:09:44.480)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:09:45.480)
James Bond.
Lex Fridman (1:09:46.480)
What do you say?
Lex Fridman (1:09:49.120)
In the love of women.
Jack Barsky (1:09:50.120)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:09:51.120)
I was, yes, I got to put this in right here because I'm telling people I have two things
Jack Barsky (1:09:58.640)
in common with James Bond.
Lex Fridman (1:10:01.000)
These are my initials, JB, and I got the girl too, three times.
Jack Barsky (1:10:07.560)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:10:08.560)
I mean that's, and that's adventure.
Jack Barsky (1:10:11.360)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:10:12.360)
And the ability to travel to the West because the West was closed off to us, we could go
Jack Barsky (1:10:18.600)
to foreign countries, but they all had to be communist countries.
Jack Barsky (1:10:21.920)
You know, I wanted to see Paris because I had fallen in love with the Honore Balzac
Jack Barsky (1:10:29.800)
who wrote a phenomenal set of novels that I just ate up.
Lex Fridman (1:10:35.340)
And so when I eventually did go to Paris, I knew all the places already because he described
Jack Barsky (1:10:40.080)
them all.
Jack Barsky (1:10:41.080)
Okay, so that one, it was a, it was 5149, but eventually it, and you know, when you,
Jack Barsky (1:10:49.160)
when you do the side by side intellectual comparison, that doesn't work.
Lex Fridman (1:10:55.920)
It becomes a tie.
Lex Fridman (1:10:56.920)
And then, you know, you just go with your gut and I said, Hey, I'm in.
Lex Fridman (1:11:00.120)
So now that you successfully passed the test and you were sitting with this unimpressive
Jack Barsky (1:11:06.000)
man and had the invite and had to sleep on it and have made the decision to join.
Lex Fridman (1:11:13.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:11:14.920)
What was next?
Jack Barsky (1:11:15.920)
I was just told, you know, that I was being recruited by the state department of East
Jack Barsky (1:11:20.160)
Germany.
Lex Fridman (1:11:21.160)
I was going to become a diplomat.
Jack Barsky (1:11:24.600)
I must have had some paper, but I forgot because just by saying so, then that would, that wouldn't
Lex Fridman (1:11:30.480)
have worked.
Jack Barsky (1:11:31.480)
There's some kind of document that says that, and that was the only entanglement you had
Lex Fridman (1:11:35.000)
to that, to that place.
Jack Barsky (1:11:37.040)
No love.
Lex Fridman (1:11:38.040)
No basketball, basketball, giving up basketball was huge for me.
Jack Barsky (1:11:43.040)
I love playing that game.
Lex Fridman (1:11:44.920)
I started playing basketball when I was 18.
Jack Barsky (1:11:48.440)
That's a little late.
Lex Fridman (1:11:49.440)
Are you better offensive, defensive?
Lex Fridman (1:11:51.440)
What do you like more?
Lex Fridman (1:11:52.440)
Do you like to shoot from a distance?
Lex Fridman (1:11:54.000)
Do you like, I was a runner.
Lex Fridman (1:11:56.360)
I was very, very quick on my feet and I was a good jumper too.
Jack Barsky (1:12:01.720)
I typically played the, uh, the, the four position, you know, what's that, uh, forward
Lex Fridman (1:12:09.040)
or the forward position, forward position.
Lex Fridman (1:12:11.080)
But anyway, um, so that, that, that was the hardest, uh, uh, for me to give up.
Jack Barsky (1:12:16.320)
Um, but indeed the other thing that I remember I had to do to hand in my party document to
Jack Barsky (1:12:22.120)
the party secretary of the university.
Lex Fridman (1:12:25.520)
And uh, he made a comment.
Jack Barsky (1:12:27.480)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:12:28.480)
We probably won't hear much about you, but, uh, we know that you're going to do something
Jack Barsky (1:12:32.120)
very important.
Lex Fridman (1:12:33.360)
So he sort of had an inkling that, uh, I'm going, I'm going to go someplace, uh, undercover
Jack Barsky (1:12:39.420)
or something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:12:40.960)
And then I packed my bags and got on a train, uh, to Berlin for another one of those secret
Jack Barsky (1:12:47.960)
meetings with, uh, my, my new handler, Nikolai.
Lex Fridman (1:12:53.640)
So and here, here came another test that, that would have been quite easy to fail.
Lex Fridman (1:13:01.400)
So I, I had lived, uh, in Yena for six years in a dorm, even when I became a, an employee
Lex Fridman (1:13:09.720)
of the university, they didn't, they didn't have apartments.
Jack Barsky (1:13:12.800)
I was still living in a dorm and, and they won in a single room with a bed, a chair and
Lex Fridman (1:13:17.080)
a table and a toilet down the, down the hallway.
Lex Fridman (1:13:21.480)
So I figured, you know, Berlin KGB, I'm going to get a nice apartment, right?
Lex Fridman (1:13:26.980)
And so, uh, uh, Nikolai took me into his car.
Jack Barsky (1:13:31.700)
We started talking a little bit and then he said, I have a task for you already.
Lex Fridman (1:13:35.900)
Your first task is to find yourself a place to live.
Jack Barsky (1:13:40.200)
I mean, I don't think I showed it in my face, but you know, my heart, my, my, my, my heart
Lex Fridman (1:13:46.000)
dropped like down to into my pants.
Jack Barsky (1:13:48.640)
I, I knew this was nearly impossible because it was a severe shortage of, uh, of housing
Lex Fridman (1:13:54.920)
and in, in, in everywhere in Germany, East Germany and all the apartments and homes were
Jack Barsky (1:14:01.200)
controlled by, by the government.
Lex Fridman (1:14:03.940)
You know, there were long waiting lists.
Jack Barsky (1:14:05.920)
Uh, I know, I knew couples that, uh, were promised maybe to get an apartment, uh, five
Lex Fridman (1:14:12.340)
years down the road.
Lex Fridman (1:14:13.900)
So then they would postpone the decision to have a child.
Lex Fridman (1:14:18.200)
Anyway, this was impossible.
Jack Barsky (1:14:20.120)
Uh, well, yeah, but this was a test, you know, because I had to be inventive.
Lex Fridman (1:14:26.720)
Now I had to figure out, uh, how to get out of an impossible situation.
Jack Barsky (1:14:30.680)
I didn't realize it then at all.
Lex Fridman (1:14:33.520)
I just went with the flow, you know, what do I do?
Lex Fridman (1:14:37.280)
So what I did, I went, I took the train, the city train, uh, to the very last stop, a little
Lex Fridman (1:14:47.120)
town called Ackner.
Lex Fridman (1:14:49.480)
And I wandered around in that town and knocked on doors and asked people if they knew where
Lex Fridman (1:14:54.740)
somebody might have a place to live.
Lex Fridman (1:14:56.980)
And after a couple of hours, somebody said, there's this lady that, and she gave, and
Jack Barsky (1:15:00.600)
they gave me the address and I talked to the lady and she said, I happen to have a place
Jack Barsky (1:15:05.820)
that you might, uh, that where you might be able to stay.
Lex Fridman (1:15:08.880)
It was an outbuilding.
Jack Barsky (1:15:10.120)
Uh, I don't know what it was, what it served.
Lex Fridman (1:15:13.920)
It was not a garage.
Jack Barsky (1:15:14.920)
It was concrete.
Lex Fridman (1:15:16.680)
And it had, um, a bed and a chair, uh, running cold water and a stove, a cold stove.
Jack Barsky (1:15:25.940)
That was my, was going to be my...
Lex Fridman (1:15:28.120)
Pretty basic.
Jack Barsky (1:15:29.120)
Pretty basic.
Lex Fridman (1:15:30.120)
That's your...
Lex Fridman (1:15:31.120)
Pretty basic?
Lex Fridman (1:15:32.120)
Are you kidding me?
Jack Barsky (1:15:33.120)
That's the, uh...
Lex Fridman (1:15:34.120)
Toilet across the yard, of course.
Jack Barsky (1:15:35.120)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:15:36.120)
Well, all the essentials.
Lex Fridman (1:15:37.120)
What are you complaining about?
Lex Fridman (1:15:38.120)
So you were, you had to run the, uh, the special, James Bond had to run a special operation
Jack Barsky (1:15:45.320)
out of the house.
Jack Barsky (1:15:46.320)
To, to, to my credit, and I think that, that, uh, that established part of my reputation.
Jack Barsky (1:15:54.040)
I didn't complain at all to Nikolai.
Lex Fridman (1:15:56.960)
That was part of the test probably.
Jack Barsky (1:15:58.560)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:15:59.560)
I just told him, you know, I found something.
Lex Fridman (1:16:01.200)
And so, uh, for six months I would get up in the morning, get on the train and walk
Jack Barsky (1:16:08.040)
around in the city, you know, uh, did some operational stuff, uh, operational training.
Jack Barsky (1:16:13.920)
I went to the library, did a lot of reading in the library.
Lex Fridman (1:16:18.320)
And then I found a basketball team that I could join.
Lex Fridman (1:16:20.680)
So at least I could take a shower twice a week.
Jack Barsky (1:16:24.040)
Um, and, uh, and apparently it took about six months that I was still on probation because
Jack Barsky (1:16:34.160)
after six months, Nikolai, one day we were still meeting in his car, he said, he handed
Lex Fridman (1:16:40.600)
me a key and he said, I'm going to take you to your new apartment.
Jack Barsky (1:16:46.680)
Now I, and I didn't know this, you know, that now I was really in.
Lex Fridman (1:16:50.560)
Okay.
Jack Barsky (1:16:51.560)
Imagine the hurdles you have to jump over and how many times you can fail, but you know.
Lex Fridman (1:16:57.000)
But not complaining, not asking questions.
Jack Barsky (1:17:00.240)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:17:01.240)
I mean, that was something you've written about.
Jack Barsky (1:17:03.320)
Um, I think you wrote that bosses do not like to hear complaints or problems.
Lex Fridman (1:17:07.880)
They prefer solutions.
Jack Barsky (1:17:08.880)
That's right.
Lex Fridman (1:17:09.880)
So what was your interaction like with the bosses?
Lex Fridman (1:17:12.400)
Is that essentially, um, represents the way he went forward as well?
Lex Fridman (1:17:19.800)
I, no complaints, no arguments, no, no, I know this better.
Jack Barsky (1:17:25.560)
I was taking it all in now that the, the, the technical guys, you know, they taught
Lex Fridman (1:17:30.400)
me something I didn't know that made sense.
Jack Barsky (1:17:32.640)
Um, what Nikolai, some of the stuff that he taught me was somewhat questionable.
Lex Fridman (1:17:40.280)
He was a generalist and there's some things he didn't know really well.
Lex Fridman (1:17:44.800)
So I could have like asked, probed a little bit, but I didn't.
Lex Fridman (1:17:48.840)
So I just played along.
Lex Fridman (1:17:50.920)
So this new apartment was, uh, uh, it was a studio at, at, at, at a kitchen with running
Jack Barsky (1:17:57.480)
cold water and the bathroom was just one flight down the toilet, not a bathroom, uh, one flight
Jack Barsky (1:18:04.480)
down the stairs, uh, it was a big upgrade.
Lex Fridman (1:18:09.320)
And he gave me, uh, I think he gave me a thousand mark to buy, buy furniture.
Lex Fridman (1:18:14.640)
And in that place, I actually, I also bought a TV and started watching West German television.
Lex Fridman (1:18:20.000)
So I finally had a decent place to stay.
Jack Barsky (1:18:25.120)
Um, and the, the, my training in Berlin took about two years.
Lex Fridman (1:18:30.760)
What was the training?
Lex Fridman (1:18:31.760)
What were the interesting aspects to the training?
Lex Fridman (1:18:35.840)
What were sort of, if you do an overview systematic of what was the training process, what was
Jack Barsky (1:18:39.960)
difficult, what are some insights that generalize to the training process of what it takes to
Lex Fridman (1:18:45.320)
be a KGB spy?
Jack Barsky (1:18:47.400)
Right.
Lex Fridman (1:18:48.400)
So, uh, let me start with the trade craft.
Lex Fridman (1:18:51.840)
So I was taught Morse code that took a while, uh, I, I, I was, uh, instructed in how to,
Jack Barsky (1:18:59.280)
you know, use a shortwave radio and to receive, uh, the, the shortwave, uh, transmissions
Jack Barsky (1:19:06.740)
with Morse code.
Jack Barsky (1:19:08.880)
I was taught, uh, uh, and a encryption and decryption algorithm, manual algorithm, you,
Jack Barsky (1:19:17.820)
you might be interested that eventually I figured out, uh, at least one of the patterns,
Jack Barsky (1:19:22.760)
uh, the, the algorithm was such that the, and this was all about digits, like, uh, and
Jack Barsky (1:19:30.720)
the algorithm was such that in the end, the, uh, the digits that were used to decipher
Jack Barsky (1:19:37.440)
other digits that were handed, uh, that were sent to me by a shortwave radio, there were,
Jack Barsky (1:19:43.080)
let's say if there were a hundred digits, there were an equal number of ones, twos,
Lex Fridman (1:19:48.080)
threes, fours, fives, six, and seven, and up until zero.
Lex Fridman (1:19:52.840)
And I was told that, uh, these, um, uh, algorithms, these manual algorithms were, were good for
Lex Fridman (1:19:58.740)
about 300 uses.
Jack Barsky (1:20:00.280)
After that, they could still be deciphered.
Lex Fridman (1:20:03.080)
I'm assuming nowadays that, uh, wouldn't take as much.
Jack Barsky (1:20:06.680)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:20:07.680)
With, with computers for sure.
Lex Fridman (1:20:09.040)
But there's probably, they're probably designed in a way that you can manually sort of, uh,
Jack Barsky (1:20:15.880)
it's efficient and convenient to use them manually, it's not to optimize cryptographic
Jack Barsky (1:20:22.240)
security, it's to optimize, it's like to balance security and like humans being able to actually.
Lex Fridman (1:20:27.120)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:20:28.120)
No, I got to disagree.
Lex Fridman (1:20:29.120)
It was neither efficient nor convenient.
Jack Barsky (1:20:30.600)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:20:31.600)
It took a long time.
Lex Fridman (1:20:32.600)
So it wasn't decipherable.
Jack Barsky (1:20:33.600)
When, what was, what was significantly easier to do, uh, but, uh, that would require you
Jack Barsky (1:20:39.680)
to have spied paraphernalia with you.
Lex Fridman (1:20:42.000)
This is what's called a one time pad.
Lex Fridman (1:20:44.680)
So you have the set of numbers on, on a sheet of paper, uh, that had to be developed.
Lex Fridman (1:20:51.240)
I had to use iodine to make those numbers visible.
Jack Barsky (1:20:55.280)
Those are known to be unbreakable unless they are used multiple times, the same, the same
Jack Barsky (1:21:01.840)
sheet of paper, because, you know, the person who encrypts has the same set of numbers as
Jack Barsky (1:21:06.320)
the person who decrypts and one, one time use, you cannot figure out what the message
Lex Fridman (1:21:14.000)
is.
Jack Barsky (1:21:15.000)
Oh, interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:21:16.000)
But this is a quick way to communicate from one person to another one time, one time.
Lex Fridman (1:21:20.240)
One time, but I had a pad with multiple, uh, sheets of paper, right?
Jack Barsky (1:21:24.280)
And, uh, the reason that they gave me a manual one is because I literally, I had only when
Jack Barsky (1:21:31.760)
I, when I wound up in the United States, I had only one thing with me that, uh, only
Lex Fridman (1:21:38.560)
a spy can have.
Lex Fridman (1:21:39.560)
And that was a, uh, a writing pad with, uh, uh, where the first 10 pages or so were impregnated
Lex Fridman (1:21:46.200)
with a trace of a chemical that was used for secret writing.
Jack Barsky (1:21:49.760)
Uh, but you really would have to know what you're looking for to, you know, you see this
Lex Fridman (1:21:53.480)
pad it was bought at, uh, you know, Walmart and.
Lex Fridman (1:21:56.320)
Can you explain a little, a little further?
Lex Fridman (1:21:58.520)
What is the chemical here that, what are we talking about?
Lex Fridman (1:22:01.640)
So how, I don't understand how it's possible to have a physical pad that does the encryption
Lex Fridman (1:22:07.120)
without any computing.
Lex Fridman (1:22:09.920)
How does it encode?
Lex Fridman (1:22:10.920)
All right.
Jack Barsky (1:22:11.920)
So, so no, no, it doesn't, it doesn't do any work, you know, so, and the, uh, the communication
Jack Barsky (1:22:18.100)
that the encrypted communication was, uh, was, uh, a set of, uh, uh, groups of five,
Jack Barsky (1:22:26.020)
five digits and then another five and there's always a gap in between, um, and, uh, so let's
Jack Barsky (1:22:32.660)
say if I get this radio transmission, I write them all down and then I, then I use my, uh,
Jack Barsky (1:22:38.240)
develop my algorithm and then I do mathematics, either addition or subtraction.
Lex Fridman (1:22:42.840)
The resulting set of digits had then had a one to one correlation to letters.
Lex Fridman (1:22:48.840)
And this is an easy way to then do the correlation.
Lex Fridman (1:22:51.080)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (1:22:52.080)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:22:53.080)
Well, that's cool.
Lex Fridman (1:22:54.080)
So you're saying the algorithm was not efficient.
Lex Fridman (1:22:56.400)
It was not.
Jack Barsky (1:22:57.400)
Oh, the manual took a long time and, and you can't make an error.
Lex Fridman (1:23:02.120)
Right.
Lex Fridman (1:23:03.120)
Uh, would you know where, can you, is it easy to debug?
Lex Fridman (1:23:06.680)
No, no, you do it twice.
Jack Barsky (1:23:09.040)
You do it twice and that's how you check.
Jack Barsky (1:23:10.520)
If it's identical, then you know, but like, if it's not, then one is right and the other
Jack Barsky (1:23:15.540)
is wrong.
Lex Fridman (1:23:16.540)
You gotta do it again.
Jack Barsky (1:23:17.540)
Don't make mistakes.
Lex Fridman (1:23:18.540)
No, that's right.
Lex Fridman (1:23:19.540)
And I really didn't.
Lex Fridman (1:23:20.540)
So I was, I was learning that, uh, I was also, uh, told that I was required to become proficient
Jack Barsky (1:23:30.680)
in another language and they gave me a choice and I picked English.
Lex Fridman (1:23:36.120)
That's what was the other one.
Jack Barsky (1:23:37.120)
Oh no, pick one friend, you know, whatever is spoken in the West.
Lex Fridman (1:23:41.240)
Got it.
Lex Fridman (1:23:42.240)
Uh, what was, what was, what would be second to you?
Lex Fridman (1:23:44.400)
Would you, would you think French because of Paris?
Lex Fridman (1:23:46.760)
What would you, what, why English?
Jack Barsky (1:23:49.580)
English was a no brainer because I, I was a straight age to a student in English without
Jack Barsky (1:23:54.880)
studying.
Lex Fridman (1:23:55.880)
I like it came so easily to me.
Lex Fridman (1:23:58.200)
So that's why I chose it, right?
Lex Fridman (1:24:02.200)
So that was that, uh, then, uh, um, I, uh, I w I was taught the basics of, um, uh, counter
Jack Barsky (1:24:09.640)
surveillance, you know, some trickery and, and, and, uh, um, uh, surveillance detection
Jack Barsky (1:24:15.880)
routes where you wander around in the city for three hours and determine whether you're
Jack Barsky (1:24:24.000)
being followed or not.
Lex Fridman (1:24:26.160)
That requires you to plan the route very well.
Jack Barsky (1:24:29.280)
I give you one example that, uh, that will illustrate that as my, my favorite spot.
Lex Fridman (1:24:35.280)
When, when, when I was in Moscow, I did a lot of that also.
Lex Fridman (1:24:39.880)
And if my favorite spot was, I wasn't a not well traveled, uh, uh, road.
Lex Fridman (1:24:47.800)
It went down the hill and, and curved.
Lex Fridman (1:24:50.720)
And at the bottom of the hill, there was a telephone booth.
Lex Fridman (1:24:55.080)
And when you open the door and pick up the telephone, you have to look back.
Lex Fridman (1:25:00.640)
So it wasn't like this, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:01.960)
It wasn't a giveaway.
Jack Barsky (1:25:02.960)
This was normal.
Lex Fridman (1:25:03.960)
That was natural.
Lex Fridman (1:25:04.960)
So I could see if somebody would come walking after me, you know, these kinds of things.
Jack Barsky (1:25:09.840)
Or you would, uh, uh, you know, use, um, public transportation, uh, big buildings, uh, where
Jack Barsky (1:25:19.480)
you needed to use an elevator and see who's because surveillance, the, the object of
Jack Barsky (1:25:26.480)
surveillance is to never lose sight of the individual who you're surveilling because
Jack Barsky (1:25:31.160)
at that point you may miss the window where he does something that you're looking for.
Lex Fridman (1:25:36.980)
So somebody always has to come close, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:40.600)
Did you have to also study surveillance?
Lex Fridman (1:25:44.040)
No, only counter surveillance.
Lex Fridman (1:25:47.680)
And what helped me in, in, in all my training, uh, you know, I, I would be, uh, would have
Jack Barsky (1:25:54.560)
a competition with, uh, uh, folks that were coming, they were following me and me.
Lex Fridman (1:26:00.720)
And I beat them every time, uh, they were at a disadvantage because one of them always
Jack Barsky (1:26:05.760)
had to be close and, and if you saw the same face twice, you know that you were being followed.
Lex Fridman (1:26:11.720)
And I had a very, very good, uh, memory for, for faces.
Lex Fridman (1:26:15.540)
So basically figure out a fixed route and then a fixed route that allows you to, uh,
Jack Barsky (1:26:23.640)
survey the area and then record the faces you've seen inside your mind.
Lex Fridman (1:26:28.960)
And if, uh, you see multiple times a single face, that's, that's a bad sign.
Lex Fridman (1:26:33.200)
And then they could, they could, uh, you use, uh, different clothes, uh, but they didn't
Lex Fridman (1:26:38.880)
have was face masks.
Jack Barsky (1:26:41.760)
The CIA does nowadays.
Lex Fridman (1:26:44.280)
They can give you a different face within seconds.
Jack Barsky (1:26:47.000)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:26:48.000)
So how big, I mean, again, you talk about paranoia, um, is that part of the, is that
Jack Barsky (1:27:00.880)
a big part of the job, uh, counter surveillance, like being constantly paranoid that you're
Lex Fridman (1:27:06.840)
being watched?
Jack Barsky (1:27:07.840)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:27:08.840)
I was supposed to.
Jack Barsky (1:27:09.840)
Isn't that quite stressful.
Lex Fridman (1:27:10.840)
So is that, is that one of the, is that actually an effective way to operate?
Jack Barsky (1:27:14.240)
Uh, nobody, it sort of becomes a routine.
Lex Fridman (1:27:16.560)
Uh, I was told to do it, uh, while in the U S once a month and, uh, okay.
Jack Barsky (1:27:23.040)
It's like a cleaning out.
Lex Fridman (1:27:24.040)
Oh, not, not every day.
Jack Barsky (1:27:25.040)
No, no, no, no, no.
Lex Fridman (1:27:26.640)
Once a month or before I would say, mail a letter with secret writing.
Lex Fridman (1:27:31.000)
So I was sure that, you know, nobody saw me put an envelope into a postbox.
Lex Fridman (1:27:38.640)
So this is one of the tools in your toolbox is Morse code.
Jack Barsky (1:27:41.560)
There's the decryption and encryption.
Jack Barsky (1:27:43.820)
There's the car surveillance, photography, um, making, making microdots, you know, what
Lex Fridman (1:27:50.880)
a microdot is?
Lex Fridman (1:27:51.880)
What's a microdot?
Jack Barsky (1:27:52.880)
It's, uh, you use, you, you take a photograph and you use a microscope in reverse and, uh,
Jack Barsky (1:28:03.880)
make that photograph really small, so small that it's like the head of a pin that can
Jack Barsky (1:28:12.840)
be used to, uh, hide under a postage stamp.
Jack Barsky (1:28:17.400)
Uh, in reality, I knew how to make them, but in reality, they, they never asked me to make
Jack Barsky (1:28:24.200)
use of that technique.
Lex Fridman (1:28:25.200)
So it's a, it's a sort of an encryption mechanism for photographs.
Jack Barsky (1:28:29.400)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:28:30.400)
So what we do nowadays, embed, uh, code in, in, uh, PDFs and stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (1:28:35.920)
Right?
Lex Fridman (1:28:36.920)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:28:37.920)
Beautiful.
Lex Fridman (1:28:38.920)
Okay.
Jack Barsky (1:28:39.920)
All right.
Lex Fridman (1:28:40.920)
So that, that was a learning, a training process, both in the physical space and sort
Jack Barsky (1:28:43.000)
of, um, algorithmically.
Lex Fridman (1:28:46.080)
Is there other things?
Jack Barsky (1:28:47.080)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:28:48.080)
You bet.
Jack Barsky (1:28:49.080)
Uh, interestingly enough, the, uh, I was, um, the first book I was given to read was
Lex Fridman (1:28:55.320)
the history of this, uh, these, uh, communist party of the Soviet union.
Jack Barsky (1:28:59.840)
Oh, so understand.
Lex Fridman (1:29:02.360)
That's interesting.
Jack Barsky (1:29:03.360)
Cause you said you had to read Western literature.
Lex Fridman (1:29:04.640)
Yeah, that too.
Lex Fridman (1:29:05.640)
How much, how much reading, so history, how much history of politics, geopolitics, culture.
Lex Fridman (1:29:11.680)
Not much more, but they made me read that document.
Jack Barsky (1:29:15.680)
Other than that, I wasn't supposed to study the Soviet union.
Jack Barsky (1:29:19.080)
I wasn't supposed and that was not, and I didn't, when they sent me to Moscow, it wasn't
Lex Fridman (1:29:23.480)
to learn Russia, Russian, right?
Lex Fridman (1:29:25.040)
It was to learn English.
Jack Barsky (1:29:26.920)
Um, the, the second document they gave me was the, the constitution of West Germany.
Lex Fridman (1:29:32.720)
And then I got lots of magazines and stuff like that.
Jack Barsky (1:29:35.240)
Uh, as I told you, I was, uh, also told to, uh, uh, watch West German television, which
Jack Barsky (1:29:42.080)
I, which I, uh, embraced with a vengeance because it was better than East German.
Lex Fridman (1:29:49.760)
So I would get up in the morning and have a little breakfast and watch the German version
Lex Fridman (1:29:54.320)
of Sesame street.
Lex Fridman (1:29:56.320)
And that, that, that helps you, uh, that helps you get an understanding of the culture.
Jack Barsky (1:30:01.960)
You have to do any kind of, uh, interaction, kind of spying that you have to be, be able
Jack Barsky (1:30:08.960)
to effectively integrate.
Jack Barsky (1:30:09.960)
Well, you, you also have to know, like, and, and that would have been easier, uh, if I,
Jack Barsky (1:30:15.320)
they had sent me to West Germany, you know, all the soccer teams, you know, stuff that
Jack Barsky (1:30:18.920)
everybody knows when I came to the U S I knew very little stuff that everybody knows.
Jack Barsky (1:30:23.400)
That's why I had to be very cautious and, you know, take it in all the time anyway.
Jack Barsky (1:30:28.600)
Uh, and the, the last thing I want to mention is, uh, they, uh, I was strongly encouraged
Jack Barsky (1:30:34.360)
to, uh, expand my, my cultural education.
Jack Barsky (1:30:40.500)
In other words, go to visit museums, uh, go to the theater, uh, not so much movies, uh,
Jack Barsky (1:30:48.680)
opera, read, read books from all kinds of authors.
Lex Fridman (1:30:53.400)
Uh, that was important to them.
Lex Fridman (1:30:55.120)
And once a month I had to write a report what I did, but the interesting thing, there was
Lex Fridman (1:31:00.240)
not a, there was no curriculum, there was no agenda, there were no check marks.
Jack Barsky (1:31:05.400)
It was all ad hoc.
Lex Fridman (1:31:06.400)
You know, now you do this and then you do that.
Jack Barsky (1:31:08.960)
Uh, and, uh, and a lot of this also, they relied on my initiative.
Lex Fridman (1:31:14.920)
Again,
Jack Barsky (1:31:15.920)
I mean, that's part of the evaluation too.
Lex Fridman (1:31:17.920)
You bet.
Jack Barsky (1:31:18.920)
Um, are you able to have creative, it's interesting that they're like developing a James Bond
Jack Barsky (1:31:23.440)
type of character here, which is what, what's the reason to go to the opera as you become
Jack Barsky (1:31:28.680)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (1:31:29.680)
In a certain kind of way where perhaps that makes you, uh, more charming, more charismatic
Jack Barsky (1:31:35.440)
in terms of your ability to integrate yourself in different situations.
Lex Fridman (1:31:38.440)
You absolutely right.
Jack Barsky (1:31:39.440)
Uh, uh, I, I was, I was, um, uh, uh, when I came to the US after about, uh, two years
Jack Barsky (1:31:49.800)
roughly, um, I was cultured enough to, uh, not, uh, make a bad impression at a, at a
Jack Barsky (1:31:59.920)
diplomatic soiree in Washington, DC.
Lex Fridman (1:32:02.320)
I mingled freely.
Jack Barsky (1:32:03.800)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:32:04.800)
All right.
Jack Barsky (1:32:05.800)
And, and, and so the whole idea was for me to sort of reach into the upper, uh, realms
Lex Fridman (1:32:11.320)
of society where the targets would be juicier than, you know, the worker bees.
Lex Fridman (1:32:19.640)
And how did you end up in Moscow?
Lex Fridman (1:32:21.880)
Why?
Jack Barsky (1:32:22.880)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:32:23.880)
What is that journey?
Jack Barsky (1:32:24.880)
Well, so I, uh, I told you, and I started studying English, so I started back from scratch,
Jack Barsky (1:32:30.720)
you know, they paid for a tutor and I went from like English 101 and then I went through
Jack Barsky (1:32:37.400)
that in a couple of months then.
Lex Fridman (1:32:39.140)
And then I got another guy with whom we, I expanded this.
Jack Barsky (1:32:43.180)
We had conversations rather than working from a textbook and I, and I worked like a maniac.
Lex Fridman (1:32:48.640)
I threw myself into the study of, of, of, uh, uh, English.
Jack Barsky (1:32:54.600)
Like you wouldn't believe.
Lex Fridman (1:32:55.600)
Um, and, and my inspiration came from Vladimir Lenin.
Jack Barsky (1:33:00.240)
I had read somewhere in a book that when Lenin was in exile, he studied German and he learned
Lex Fridman (1:33:07.240)
100 German words every day, new German words.
Lex Fridman (1:33:11.400)
So I started reading newspapers and every word that I didn't know, I wrote down on an
Lex Fridman (1:33:15.800)
index card, uh, German, English, and, uh, and I piled them up.
Lex Fridman (1:33:21.140)
And so I really learned 100 new English words every day.
Lex Fridman (1:33:25.360)
I know this because I counted them and I had a system how to do this.
Jack Barsky (1:33:30.400)
Uh, uh, so you take your index card and you have five categories is a really good way
Lex Fridman (1:33:35.560)
to learn wrote by wrote.
Jack Barsky (1:33:38.120)
Uh, so you've got category one, that's the new ones and you've got category five.
Lex Fridman (1:33:43.340)
So you start with, uh, with five, five, you already had right four times.
Jack Barsky (1:33:50.400)
If you have it right again, it goes to the archive.
Lex Fridman (1:33:53.960)
Oh, in like longterm cold archive.
Jack Barsky (1:33:57.240)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:33:58.240)
Four.
Jack Barsky (1:33:59.240)
If you get it right, it goes to five.
Lex Fridman (1:34:01.720)
If you get it wrong, it gets relegated to three or so.
Lex Fridman (1:34:05.440)
And so you go through this and, uh, um, and occasionally I would throw the archive things
Lex Fridman (1:34:13.000)
back into one.
Lex Fridman (1:34:15.240)
So I really, I really acquired a phenomenal vocabulary.
Jack Barsky (1:34:20.120)
When I was done with my English, my vocabulary was significantly higher than the average
Jack Barsky (1:34:23.780)
American because I, I, I didn't discriminate whatever word I didn't know I learned, which
Lex Fridman (1:34:29.840)
is not necessarily the best way because you know, English has a lot of synonyms, right?
Jack Barsky (1:34:35.280)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:34:36.280)
And one synonym is usually the, the preferable one and, and I, um, when I first interacted
Jack Barsky (1:34:43.800)
with people, I very often used the one that wasn't as good.
Lex Fridman (1:34:48.380)
And people have found that I, you know, I have an interesting way of talking.
Jack Barsky (1:34:52.280)
They didn't know what that meant, but yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:34:54.740)
So it builds a good foundation for a language is getting a large vocabulary.
Jack Barsky (1:34:58.560)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:34:59.560)
It's really interesting.
Jack Barsky (1:35:00.560)
There's something I do, which is called space repetition, which is a programmatic way of
Jack Barsky (1:35:03.840)
doing this kind of system that you've developed yourself, which is if you successfully remember
Jack Barsky (1:35:09.700)
a thing, it's going to be a longer time before it brings it up to you again.
Lex Fridman (1:35:14.560)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:35:15.560)
Now that's requires a computer to keep track of information.
Lex Fridman (1:35:20.060)
If you have cars, that's a really interesting pile system.
Jack Barsky (1:35:22.680)
One, two, three, four, five, you upgrade it one, two, three, four, five.
Lex Fridman (1:35:26.600)
Maybe I wouldn't go to the archive and go to them to, to pile one right away.
Jack Barsky (1:35:31.360)
I would go to like, I don't know, pile five, perhaps is probably the right place to put
Lex Fridman (1:35:37.880)
it.
Jack Barsky (1:35:38.880)
Cause, cause you have to go through that full step again, but that is a really powerful
Lex Fridman (1:35:41.840)
way to learn definitely language, but also facts.
Jack Barsky (1:35:45.960)
Like people that go to medical school.
Lex Fridman (1:35:47.960)
Disconnected facts.
Jack Barsky (1:35:48.960)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:35:49.960)
And, and you pretty much, when you're done, you, you know what you know.
Jack Barsky (1:35:53.240)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:35:54.240)
You don't have to.
Jack Barsky (1:35:55.240)
Then again, to use it, to integrate it into the music of language.
Lex Fridman (1:35:57.640)
That's more difficult.
Jack Barsky (1:35:58.640)
That's what you're talking about.
Lex Fridman (1:35:59.640)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:36:00.640)
There's a charm.
Jack Barsky (1:36:01.640)
I mean, maybe it's not good for Spycraft, but there's a charm to this kind of, to having
Jack Barsky (1:36:06.960)
an accent and using words incorrectly, but confidently there's a, because language isn't
Lex Fridman (1:36:14.000)
a simple formula.
Jack Barsky (1:36:16.180)
Language is the play of words.
Lex Fridman (1:36:17.480)
So actually using the incorrect synonym, you know, as it, you know, if, instead of saying
Jack Barsky (1:36:25.680)
I'm cold saying I'm chilled or something.
Lex Fridman (1:36:28.960)
Like using off beat words can actually be part of the charm.
Lex Fridman (1:36:33.120)
So it's interesting if you can learn how to use that correctly.
Jack Barsky (1:36:35.800)
Cause I've known a bunch of people with the Russian accent and I feel like they get, get
Jack Barsky (1:36:40.640)
away with saying a lot of ridiculous shit because they're able to sort of leverage the
Lex Fridman (1:36:45.400)
charm of the non sequiturs.
Lex Fridman (1:36:47.440)
And by the way, by the way, just one, one thing that we talked about using a computer.
Jack Barsky (1:36:53.400)
When I had my first personal computer, I actually wrote a program that does that.
Jack Barsky (1:36:59.080)
It does that.
Lex Fridman (1:37:00.080)
By the way, when was that?
Jack Barsky (1:37:01.280)
When, cause you were a world class programmer for a time.
Lex Fridman (1:37:06.000)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:37:07.000)
You were a very good programmer.
Lex Fridman (1:37:08.000)
When, when did the birth?
Jack Barsky (1:37:09.000)
First PC was probably 1984.
Lex Fridman (1:37:10.560)
1984.
Lex Fridman (1:37:11.560)
When did you fall in love with programming?
Jack Barsky (1:37:13.920)
When I went to college in the US and part of the core curriculum was that you were required
Jack Barsky (1:37:19.560)
to take a course in computer and it was mostly just, you know, talk, but we also had to learn
Lex Fridman (1:37:26.440)
a language.
Jack Barsky (1:37:27.440)
Uh, we had to write some programs and Fortran, which was what five at the time, it was a,
Jack Barsky (1:37:35.080)
it was a dumbed down Fortran, but listen, so I, I see the ability, I see what, what
Jack Barsky (1:37:43.080)
you can do with this, I programmed a sine curve and then I divided the, the sine curve
Jack Barsky (1:37:50.080)
into really, really small rectangles and then ran the program and it came up with the right
Jack Barsky (1:37:55.840)
area.
Lex Fridman (1:37:56.840)
Wow.
Jack Barsky (1:37:57.840)
This is great.
Lex Fridman (1:37:58.840)
That's incredible.
Jack Barsky (1:37:59.840)
It's incredible.
Lex Fridman (1:38:00.840)
That's so powerful.
Jack Barsky (1:38:01.840)
It's, uh, you're creating, you're creating a little helper helps you understand the world
Lex Fridman (1:38:08.640)
to help you analyze the world and so on.
Jack Barsky (1:38:10.720)
Uh, we'll, we'll return to that cause it's interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:38:13.520)
So you have so many interesting aspects to your life, but Moscow.
Jack Barsky (1:38:16.560)
So
Lex Fridman (1:38:17.560)
Yeah, no, let me, let, no, let me, how I was sent to Moscow.
Jack Barsky (1:38:20.760)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:38:21.760)
So one day I had a visitor from Moscow, uh, and he came to visit me in my apartment, uh,
Lex Fridman (1:38:27.360)
together with, uh, Nikolai and he, you know, we talked and then he said, how's your English?
Jack Barsky (1:38:33.080)
I said, I pulled a book from the shelf and says, I can read that without the help of
Jack Barsky (1:38:37.680)
a dictionary.
Lex Fridman (1:38:38.680)
Oh, that's interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:38:41.000)
And he said, you know what, we're going to send you a tape recorder and you just talk,
Lex Fridman (1:38:48.440)
say something, you know, for 20 minutes, whatever you want to talk about.
Jack Barsky (1:38:52.280)
Uh, they sent this thing and two weeks later I was on a plane to Moscow because I also
Jack Barsky (1:39:00.700)
spoke English, sort of the British variety of English with not a strong German accent
Jack Barsky (1:39:07.760)
because I've always had the ability to imitate others and sounds that was an innate ability.
Jack Barsky (1:39:15.320)
I would, uh, you know, when, when, when we were in a lab and, uh, as students, I would
Jack Barsky (1:39:21.160)
very often do, uh, monologues, uh, imitating East German comedians.
Lex Fridman (1:39:27.000)
You know, I just, yes, yes.
Jack Barsky (1:39:30.140)
I'm not good enough to make a living out of it, but, uh, that raised some interest.
Lex Fridman (1:39:37.600)
And so when they sent me to Moscow, that was the first time on a plane, by the way, um,
Jack Barsky (1:39:43.120)
and, uh, I had a conversation with two ladies who spoke English.
Lex Fridman (1:39:47.280)
One was a, a Russian, a professor at, uh, Lomonosov University.
Jack Barsky (1:39:52.760)
She was obviously KGB, that was her cover.
Lex Fridman (1:39:55.380)
And the other one was an American born lady.
Jack Barsky (1:39:58.000)
Oh, by the way, she was an actual professor and using that as the cover or is it just
Lex Fridman (1:40:02.360)
a story?
Jack Barsky (1:40:03.360)
No, I, she said she was a professor.
Lex Fridman (1:40:06.280)
She may have taught there too.
Jack Barsky (1:40:08.120)
That's an interesting distinction.
Lex Fridman (1:40:09.120)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:40:10.120)
One is like a story you tell people and one is like you legit are doing the thing, but
Lex Fridman (1:40:14.360)
are also as a cover.
Jack Barsky (1:40:16.360)
Anyway, that's, that's an interesting aspect of how to be a good liar.
Lex Fridman (1:40:22.920)
You might, you might as well live the lie.
Jack Barsky (1:40:25.200)
Yeah, exactly right.
Jack Barsky (1:40:26.520)
Uh, so, uh, and the other one was a middle aged, the, the Russian was pretty young.
Jack Barsky (1:40:31.860)
The other one was middle aged and American and, uh, and so we talked for maybe a couple
Lex Fridman (1:40:37.640)
of hours and then they withdrew and I was left alone.
Jack Barsky (1:40:42.680)
Eventually my liaison, he came back in and he said, it was close, but the American thinks
Jack Barsky (1:40:49.920)
you can actually, uh, become, uh, you get close enough to become, becoming a native
Jack Barsky (1:40:56.720)
speaker of American English.
Lex Fridman (1:40:59.040)
And he said, the Russian was very doubtful.
Lex Fridman (1:41:02.000)
So I think wishful, it was, it was a tie, literally wishful thinking prevailed.
Lex Fridman (1:41:08.100)
So, uh, within a couple of weeks I was moving to Moscow.
Lex Fridman (1:41:15.560)
And what, what was the task in Moscow and what, how long were you in Moscow?
Lex Fridman (1:41:21.000)
Two years.
Lex Fridman (1:41:22.360)
And what was the task there?
Lex Fridman (1:41:24.840)
Is it training or is it espionage?
Jack Barsky (1:41:26.680)
No, it was training.
Lex Fridman (1:41:27.880)
It was, uh, so it was, uh, I, uh, the, the American born became my tutor.
Jack Barsky (1:41:33.280)
I met with her twice a week.
Jack Barsky (1:41:35.560)
Uh, I, uh, I also listened to a lot of BBC, shortwave BBC worldwide, uh, I read, uh, more
Jack Barsky (1:41:45.360)
English books.
Lex Fridman (1:41:46.360)
So a lot of that was about the language and the culture of English, uh, American.
Jack Barsky (1:41:51.040)
And, and I did phonetics exercises every night.
Jack Barsky (1:41:57.960)
I had a tape that was about a half hour long and they would say a word and I would repeat
Jack Barsky (1:42:05.720)
the word, say a word, repeat the word.
Lex Fridman (1:42:07.720)
And it was mostly about the vowels, by the way, most of the accent and, uh, uh, particularly
Jack Barsky (1:42:13.560)
because let's say coming from German into, into English, but also Russian.
Lex Fridman (1:42:18.560)
It's the vowels.
Jack Barsky (1:42:19.560)
You're talking about the, so you would have a single word, a word, apple, and you would
Lex Fridman (1:42:23.680)
just say apple.
Jack Barsky (1:42:24.680)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:42:25.680)
And American English or British English?
Jack Barsky (1:42:28.040)
No, American English.
Lex Fridman (1:42:29.040)
And, and I give you one, uh, example that almost nobody gets right.
Jack Barsky (1:42:34.200)
The difference between hot and hut, you know, and in German speakers, it's very tough.
Lex Fridman (1:42:43.200)
You know, which one, uh, for everyone is different.
Jack Barsky (1:42:46.200)
For example, uh, I could say this on a podcast, something that my brother struggles with,
Jack Barsky (1:42:51.240)
I struggled with too, when I first came to this country to learn English is there's differences.
Lex Fridman (1:42:56.600)
There's embarrassing differences, uh, like beach and bitch, right?
Lex Fridman (1:43:02.320)
And you get so, as a young kid, also you get so nervous of, I don't want to say the wrong
Jack Barsky (1:43:06.120)
thing.
Jack Barsky (1:43:07.120)
I, um, I can also say that this is almost as a jokey thing, but, uh, there's a, there's
Jack Barsky (1:43:12.600)
a famous philosopher, uh, Immanuel Kant, and you can, uh, guess which other word is very
Lex Fridman (1:43:18.280)
similar to that.
Lex Fridman (1:43:19.280)
So there's a, there's a nervousness about the, what is that?
Lex Fridman (1:43:24.120)
That's interesting.
Jack Barsky (1:43:25.120)
I mean, and Germans probably have a different, uh, tension of like what is hard to learn
Jack Barsky (1:43:31.600)
the difference between the pronunciation of the vowels or the control of the vowels.
Jack Barsky (1:43:35.200)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:43:36.200)
It's interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:43:37.200)
So you had to really master this daily exercise and, you know, and this, this was my discipline.
Lex Fridman (1:43:41.600)
I did this every night, routine, boring as hell.
Jack Barsky (1:43:45.200)
Uh, so English was the focus.
Lex Fridman (1:43:47.800)
And I also had interaction with some, uh, agents who had operated in the United States
Jack Barsky (1:43:53.480)
as diplomats on the, on the diplomatic cover.
Jack Barsky (1:43:56.320)
They would come and talk to me a little bit and tell me and sort of prepare me what was
Jack Barsky (1:44:02.380)
ahead of me.
Lex Fridman (1:44:03.380)
And then I did a whole lot of operational training, particularly surveillance detection.
Jack Barsky (1:44:07.720)
That was big.
Lex Fridman (1:44:08.720)
They also, they also taught me how to drive a car in Moscow.
Jack Barsky (1:44:11.720)
Finally, the one skill you needed.
Lex Fridman (1:44:14.080)
What's a surveillance detection?
Jack Barsky (1:44:15.480)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:44:16.480)
So this is what, when, when you find out whether you're being followed.
Jack Barsky (1:44:19.360)
Ah, got it, got it, got it.
Lex Fridman (1:44:21.120)
So it's the, yeah, got you.
Jack Barsky (1:44:22.960)
The abbreviation that's used in, uh, in, in, in, uh, yes, uh, in, uh, intelligence circles
Jack Barsky (1:44:30.180)
is SDR, surveillance detection route, you know, when they say that, you know what that
Jack Barsky (1:44:34.320)
is.
Lex Fridman (1:44:35.320)
Uh, and, and that was it.
Jack Barsky (1:44:37.000)
Uh, and a, and a few other things, you know, one offs, for instance, uh, I was once, uh,
Lex Fridman (1:44:44.760)
taught, uh, to read silhouettes of ships.
Jack Barsky (1:44:49.000)
When you see a ship from a distance, what kind of a ship it might be.
Lex Fridman (1:44:54.320)
They, they thought this would come in handy.
Jack Barsky (1:44:57.520)
Actually they, they, uh, there was in, in 1982, Andropov, uh, started, uh, a campaign
Jack Barsky (1:45:03.840)
that was, uh, now I forget the name, Operation something, something where everybody who was
Jack Barsky (1:45:09.200)
in the West was supposed to, uh, look for science that, uh, the West was, uh, uh, getting
Lex Fridman (1:45:15.060)
ready for war.
Lex Fridman (1:45:16.940)
And I had an, everybody had an object to, uh, to pay attention to.
Jack Barsky (1:45:21.960)
I had a, uh, uh, a harbor, a military harbor in, um, um, in, in New Jersey, uh, near Red
Jack Barsky (1:45:31.440)
Bank that was called Earl Weapon Station.
Lex Fridman (1:45:35.720)
And the code name for that was early.
Lex Fridman (1:45:37.520)
So they asked me to just wander by there to see if there was something unusual going on
Jack Barsky (1:45:44.960)
because the Soviet Union were at that point, it was Ronald Reagan were really afraid that
Jack Barsky (1:45:49.640)
Reagan was going to start a war.
Lex Fridman (1:45:51.520)
They were absolutely 100% afraid of him.
Jack Barsky (1:45:54.680)
Is there something memorable to you on a personal level and a philosophical level about your
Lex Fridman (1:46:00.160)
time in Moscow?
Jack Barsky (1:46:02.200)
Something that kind of stays with you outside of the training stuff, maybe like the details
Lex Fridman (1:46:07.160)
of the training.
Jack Barsky (1:46:08.160)
You love the answer.
Lex Fridman (1:46:09.160)
You will love the answer.
Jack Barsky (1:46:10.160)
Uh, I was, uh, I was given tickets to two, uh, performances by Americans.
Lex Fridman (1:46:19.720)
Uh, there was a theater troupe that, uh, played Our Town.
Jack Barsky (1:46:23.880)
Uh, and then there was this, I forgot the name of the guy, but, uh, uh, you may not
Lex Fridman (1:46:29.660)
be old enough.
Lex Fridman (1:46:30.660)
Have you ever watched Hee Haw?
Jack Barsky (1:46:32.480)
Uh, maybe, uh, there was a, it was a country music show, real kitschy, but, uh, the star
Jack Barsky (1:46:40.720)
of Hee Haw, uh, was giving a concert in Moscow and I guarantee you at least half the audience
Jack Barsky (1:46:47.880)
were KGB and at the other end, the, uh, uh, um, the, the, the opposite of, uh, of a, of
Jack Barsky (1:46:59.400)
a highlight was my visit to the, uh, to, to my, to the mausoleum where Lenin, uh, is still,
Lex Fridman (1:47:09.680)
still today.
Jack Barsky (1:47:10.680)
There, there was so, there was a nothing, you know, he was, he was my hero, but he,
Jack Barsky (1:47:18.340)
he looked like a wax figure and, and, and you walk by there, there was nothing inspirational
Lex Fridman (1:47:24.080)
and not, not, it was not a religious experience, nothing, it was, it was a big old nothing.
Lex Fridman (1:47:30.360)
Is that, did, did your faith and belief in communism start to crumble at some point here?
Jack Barsky (1:47:36.960)
No.
Lex Fridman (1:47:37.960)
Is that around, that was still pretty strong.
Lex Fridman (1:47:39.760)
What I did notice that, uh, the standard of living in, in, in Moscow was significantly
Lex Fridman (1:47:44.880)
lower than in East Germany.
Jack Barsky (1:47:47.100)
The, uh, uh, in the supermarkets, uh, you could, you could expect, uh, with reliability
Lex Fridman (1:47:54.140)
that you can find, uh, canned fish and, uh, mineral water.
Jack Barsky (1:47:58.220)
Everything else was whatever.
Lex Fridman (1:48:00.600)
And if you saw a line and at a store, you just line up.
Jack Barsky (1:48:04.120)
You don't even ask what they have because if you don't like it, somebody else will.
Lex Fridman (1:48:08.400)
It was, it, it was, uh, not poverty, but it was close to poverty.
Jack Barsky (1:48:14.400)
There were a lot of drunken men in the streets.
Lex Fridman (1:48:18.000)
And uh...
Lex Fridman (1:48:19.000)
This is the eighties?
Lex Fridman (1:48:20.000)
No, this is the late seventies, mid to late seventies.
Lex Fridman (1:48:24.080)
And uh, and also the, they had these high rise apartment buildings that looked pretty
Lex Fridman (1:48:29.640)
good from the front, but you went into the backyard, ouch.
Jack Barsky (1:48:34.720)
You know.
Lex Fridman (1:48:35.720)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:48:36.720)
You're describing my childhood here.
Lex Fridman (1:48:37.720)
Okay.
Jack Barsky (1:48:38.720)
Sorry.
Jack Barsky (1:48:39.720)
Uh, but it's interesting even, even with the professor, even with everything else, um,
Jack Barsky (1:48:45.440)
it's interesting because I think the standard of living was much lower.
Lex Fridman (1:48:49.160)
You're right.
Jack Barsky (1:48:50.160)
Even in Moscow.
Lex Fridman (1:48:51.160)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:48:52.160)
Absolutely was.
Jack Barsky (1:48:53.160)
The one thing that they always had, at least in my days, was in those two years, there
Jack Barsky (1:48:56.720)
was always fresh bread in the Bulatnoyars.
Lex Fridman (1:48:58.960)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:48:59.960)
Always.
Lex Fridman (1:49:00.960)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:49:01.960)
That's probably one of the memories I have of childhood is, well you're hungry a lot,
Lex Fridman (1:49:07.480)
but when you eat is bread and the bread was good.
Jack Barsky (1:49:11.280)
It was good.
Jack Barsky (1:49:12.280)
I mean, I don't, I actually wonder, I wonder how good it was, but I remember it being incredibly
Jack Barsky (1:49:18.800)
good.
Lex Fridman (1:49:19.800)
To me it was really good.
Jack Barsky (1:49:21.320)
And, and you know, you had it from white to very dark and all the varieties.
Jack Barsky (1:49:26.120)
The other thing that was good was, um, if you knew where to get it, Stolichnaya was
Jack Barsky (1:49:32.160)
four rubles.
Lex Fridman (1:49:36.320)
Not only is it good vodka, but it's a cheap vodka.
Jack Barsky (1:49:39.760)
I like it.
Lex Fridman (1:49:40.760)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:49:41.760)
But you had to know where, you know, this would be like holes in the wall someplace.
Jack Barsky (1:49:45.000)
Well, I think a lot of the way they operate, I don't, I wonder if East Germany is this
Jack Barsky (1:49:48.920)
way, but a lot of the ways that Moscow operate is you kind of, you had to know.
Lex Fridman (1:49:53.920)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (1:49:54.920)
Like there's a very kind of, um, if you make the right friends, if you give money to the
Jack Barsky (1:50:01.440)
right guy, the guy, the friend of the friend of the friend is going to hook you up and
Jack Barsky (1:50:05.760)
that's, there's a culture that this is how you work around a very big bureaucracy.
Lex Fridman (1:50:11.640)
Underground economy.
Jack Barsky (1:50:12.640)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:50:13.640)
Underground economy.
Jack Barsky (1:50:14.640)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:50:15.640)
You have to know, which is, uh, boy, um, such a stark contrast between, between that and
Jack Barsky (1:50:23.880)
the United States, the capitalist system.
Jack Barsky (1:50:26.680)
Um, yeah, that was a very big culture shock to me to understand the different, the different
Jack Barsky (1:50:35.360)
fundamentally different way of life.
Lex Fridman (1:50:36.920)
But the interesting thing is, um, human nature pervades both systems and there is something
Jack Barsky (1:50:44.280)
about the Russian system that reveals human nature more intensely because of the underground
Lex Fridman (1:50:49.720)
nature of it.
Jack Barsky (1:50:51.240)
Because you get to deal with greed and trust and all those kinds of things in the United
Lex Fridman (1:50:55.920)
States, there is much more power to the rule of law.
Lex Fridman (1:50:59.280)
So there's rules and people follow those rules, they had to break the rules nonstop.
Jack Barsky (1:51:05.000)
Well, in East Germany and Russia, I believe, uh, theft, if you could get away with it was
Jack Barsky (1:51:11.320)
part of your economic activity.
Lex Fridman (1:51:13.520)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:51:14.520)
I have a friend, uh, you know, who, who I went to school with, uh, up until my fourth
Jack Barsky (1:51:20.520)
year and, uh, we reconnected and he told me how he survived, you know, he would, you know,
Jack Barsky (1:51:25.600)
he would just steal stuff and then sell it and trade it.
Lex Fridman (1:51:28.840)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:51:29.840)
Thefts.
Lex Fridman (1:51:30.840)
I mean, it's a relative concept.
Jack Barsky (1:51:32.320)
You are taking stuff.
Jack Barsky (1:51:34.120)
Uh, bribery, all those kinds of things, people, you know, um, corruption, you know, it's a
Jack Barsky (1:51:41.320)
relative term.
Lex Fridman (1:51:42.320)
No, I'm just kidding.
Jack Barsky (1:51:43.320)
I mean, it is, you have to work around the giant bureaucracy about the giant corruption.
Jack Barsky (1:51:48.980)
Corruption builds on top of corruption and then it just becomes this giant system that's
Jack Barsky (1:51:53.080)
unstable as you talked about.
Lex Fridman (1:51:55.800)
One last word.
Jack Barsky (1:51:56.800)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:51:57.800)
The two years in Moscow taught me how to be alone.
Jack Barsky (1:52:05.920)
I had no social interaction.
Lex Fridman (1:52:08.880)
Not with friends, not with women, not.
Jack Barsky (1:52:11.560)
No.
Lex Fridman (1:52:12.560)
I was, the only interaction I had was with the folks that trained me.
Lex Fridman (1:52:16.540)
So I was alone.
Lex Fridman (1:52:17.540)
It was a lonely two years.
Jack Barsky (1:52:20.720)
For a person who, who loves love.
Lex Fridman (1:52:22.680)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:52:23.680)
Is that difficult?
Jack Barsky (1:52:24.680)
It was for my first year and first and second year in the United States because I could
Jack Barsky (1:52:30.400)
not interact socially without giving away that something was wrong with me.
Lex Fridman (1:52:35.080)
I had to learn how to be an American.
Jack Barsky (1:52:37.500)
They didn't teach me in Moscow.
Lex Fridman (1:52:39.200)
They couldn't.
Lex Fridman (1:52:40.200)
So the first two years in, uh, in America, you had to kind of listen more than talk.
Lex Fridman (1:52:46.080)
Oh, you bet.
Jack Barsky (1:52:47.080)
The very first year I couldn't even work because I had to acquire the documents, the social
Lex Fridman (1:52:51.940)
security card and a driver's license, uh, to get a job.
Lex Fridman (1:52:56.800)
And then when I had the job, uh, I worked as a bike messenger, uh, that gave me a good
Jack Barsky (1:53:03.340)
opportunity to listen as, as, you know, because these people, they weren't very curious about
Jack Barsky (1:53:10.640)
me.
Lex Fridman (1:53:11.640)
What was your name in East Germany, what was your name in Moscow, what was your name in
Lex Fridman (1:53:16.440)
America?
Lex Fridman (1:53:17.440)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:53:18.440)
So my, the name I was given at birth is Albrecht Dittrich.
Lex Fridman (1:53:21.840)
It's so sexy when you speak in German with a German accent.
Jack Barsky (1:53:25.720)
I hate, I hated that name, the Albrecht.
Lex Fridman (1:53:27.840)
I didn't like it.
Jack Barsky (1:53:28.840)
It was, it was very rarely used.
Lex Fridman (1:53:30.760)
Uh, my mother named me after a famous German painter, Albrecht Dittrich.
Jack Barsky (1:53:36.140)
My cover name in Moscow was known as Dieter and, and, and in the United States I became
Lex Fridman (1:53:42.960)
Jack Barsky.
Jack Barsky (1:53:44.520)
In between I used a whole bunch of other names that were associated with, uh, false passports
Lex Fridman (1:53:50.440)
that, uh, uh, I used.
Jack Barsky (1:53:53.900)
One of the names I remember is William Dyson because that is the name that was on the Canadian
Lex Fridman (1:53:59.960)
passport I used to enter the United States.
Lex Fridman (1:54:02.320)
So how did you enter the United States?
Lex Fridman (1:54:03.880)
Can we take the journey from Moscow to the United States?
Jack Barsky (1:54:06.720)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:54:07.720)
What was the assignment?
Lex Fridman (1:54:08.720)
What was the, what was that leap?
Lex Fridman (1:54:12.000)
What was like, what, uh.
Jack Barsky (1:54:13.900)
Just one, one, one thing in between, I had a three months practice trip to, to, uh, Canada.
Jack Barsky (1:54:20.680)
That was, that was a good idea and I got to tell you this, this one thing that happened
Jack Barsky (1:54:25.080)
there.
Lex Fridman (1:54:26.080)
Yes, please.
Jack Barsky (1:54:27.080)
Okay.
Jack Barsky (1:54:28.080)
So, because, you know, the one, one thing that I like to tell people nowadays is the,
Jack Barsky (1:54:33.240)
one of the secrets to happiness is the ability to make fun of the worst situations that you're
Lex Fridman (1:54:37.360)
in.
Jack Barsky (1:54:38.360)
Yes, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (1:54:39.360)
You see the humor.
Jack Barsky (1:54:40.360)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:54:41.360)
Okay.
Jack Barsky (1:54:42.360)
In hindsight, at least, uh, one of my, uh, the tasks that I had in, in, in Canada was
Jack Barsky (1:54:47.740)
to acquire a birth certificate, uh, with the name, uh, the name was Henry Van Randall,
Jack Barsky (1:54:54.760)
who was born someplace in California.
Lex Fridman (1:54:56.960)
And I was supposed to, uh, you know, write a little letter saying, I'm Henry Van Randall.
Jack Barsky (1:55:02.200)
Please send me a copy of my birth certificate.
Lex Fridman (1:55:04.200)
The fee is enclosed and, uh, and, and I, uh, I lived in a small hotel.
Lex Fridman (1:55:11.640)
So the return address, it wasn't visible that it was a hotel.
Lex Fridman (1:55:15.200)
That was important.
Jack Barsky (1:55:16.200)
So, and it took like three weeks and I get nothing, four weeks, I get nothing.
Jack Barsky (1:55:23.600)
Eventually I got annoyed and I, I, I, I mustered the courage to call them up from a pay phone.
Jack Barsky (1:55:34.160)
I called up the office registrar, whatever they were called in this, in this town in
Lex Fridman (1:55:39.320)
California and I, and I yelled at them, I said, you got my money, where's my birth certificate?
Jack Barsky (1:55:44.120)
Well, a couple of weeks later it came.
Lex Fridman (1:55:47.160)
So I see the envelope and it says Henry Van Randall.
Jack Barsky (1:55:50.160)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (1:55:51.160)
I had prepared the caretakers of the, um, of the hotel to, that I'm expecting a letter
Jack Barsky (1:55:58.300)
from my friend.
Lex Fridman (1:55:59.600)
So I went up to my room, I opened it and I was like, yes, yes, this is success.
Lex Fridman (1:56:04.600)
And then, and then I opened this thing and it was, it was a copy of a birth certificate,
Lex Fridman (1:56:09.600)
but it was stamped with big letters across in red deceased.
Jack Barsky (1:56:13.840)
Now think about it.
Lex Fridman (1:56:15.380)
So here's a dead people who was asking for that person who was asking for a birth certificate.
Jack Barsky (1:56:22.480)
I had the presence of mind to, to leave.
Lex Fridman (1:56:25.200)
Okay.
Jack Barsky (1:56:26.360)
I went to a couple of other cities.
Lex Fridman (1:56:27.680)
I should have left the country.
Lex Fridman (1:56:30.280)
But I know that the Royal Mounted Police was following me and I was given that information
Lex Fridman (1:56:36.280)
by the FBI later on.
Lex Fridman (1:56:38.280)
And they were,
Jack Barsky (1:56:39.280)
You were able to, oh, you were able to at least suspect that at the time through the,
Jack Barsky (1:56:44.920)
the, the,
Lex Fridman (1:56:45.920)
I knew that, I knew that there was trouble.
Lex Fridman (1:56:48.720)
So I, my counter surveillance route, yes, didn't discover anything.
Lex Fridman (1:56:57.440)
So I kept on going, I had to, supposed to, I was supposed to visit two more cities and
Jack Barsky (1:57:04.480)
they were always one step behind.
Jack Barsky (1:57:06.880)
What, what, what is interesting to me is that they didn't catch me on the way out.
Jack Barsky (1:57:11.960)
You have to show your passport to the airline.
Lex Fridman (1:57:14.960)
I mean, I, I, I was known by name.
Jack Barsky (1:57:18.720)
I would then, the path, because I had to give that to the hotel, right.
Lex Fridman (1:57:23.520)
And I, and I escaped with, by a hair.
Jack Barsky (1:57:26.760)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:57:27.760)
They, they would have to keep you on a list, right?
Jack Barsky (1:57:30.880)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:57:31.880)
Yeah, that's interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:57:33.160)
But that requires like a good computerized updated system to track all that stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:57:38.920)
This was Swiss air, so.
Jack Barsky (1:57:40.920)
Well, you got lucky.
Lex Fridman (1:57:42.920)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (1:57:43.920)
Part of life is luck.
Lex Fridman (1:57:44.920)
You bet.
Jack Barsky (1:57:45.920)
So, so, and, and other than that, the, the trip to Canada was a big success because it,
Jack Barsky (1:57:54.880)
it gave me the culture shock that, that I needed to not be blown out of, out of the
Jack Barsky (1:58:03.720)
water.
Lex Fridman (1:58:04.720)
And when I get, get to the United States.
Lex Fridman (1:58:06.040)
So you hopped a few places in Canada and then Swiss air.
Lex Fridman (1:58:10.760)
I even had a, I even had a relationship with a young lady.
Jack Barsky (1:58:14.120)
A Canadian, French Canadian, regular Canadian.
Jack Barsky (1:58:18.640)
French Canadian, and she, she gave me a book, Winnie the Pooh, because we went to see the
Jack Barsky (1:58:25.440)
movie and then she wrote the dedication, she says, to the nicest German I've ever met.
Lex Fridman (1:58:30.320)
Was she lying?
Jack Barsky (1:58:32.320)
No.
Lex Fridman (1:58:33.320)
Or you don't know, maybe.
Lex Fridman (1:58:37.240)
Speaking of Spycraft, and that, that led to heartbreak too?
Lex Fridman (1:58:41.400)
No.
Jack Barsky (1:58:42.960)
That was sexual.
Lex Fridman (1:58:47.000)
I was not at that point.
Lex Fridman (1:58:49.800)
Ready for love?
Lex Fridman (1:58:50.800)
No.
Jack Barsky (1:58:51.800)
Ready to return to that old.
Lex Fridman (1:58:52.800)
Well, and I was, I was already married in Germany.
Jack Barsky (1:58:56.040)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:58:57.040)
That woman I loved.
Jack Barsky (1:58:58.560)
We should return to this.
Lex Fridman (1:59:00.240)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:59:01.320)
So Swiss air, where did you land in the United States?
Lex Fridman (1:59:06.440)
Oh, when I came, where did I land?
Jack Barsky (1:59:08.920)
I, I, American Airlines, a flight from Mexico City to Toronto, but they made me deplane
Lex Fridman (1:59:17.680)
in Chicago.
Jack Barsky (1:59:19.480)
I have no idea.
Lex Fridman (1:59:20.480)
I think this was overengineering.
Jack Barsky (1:59:21.480)
That didn't make any sense to me.
Lex Fridman (1:59:24.120)
You know, why can't a Canadian just take a, take a flight from Mexico City?
Jack Barsky (1:59:29.440)
With this stopover, this kind of nonsense.
Lex Fridman (1:59:31.480)
Yeah, but, okay.
Lex Fridman (1:59:32.800)
But nevertheless, that was it, and then you landed in Chicago.
Lex Fridman (1:59:36.680)
Right.
Lex Fridman (1:59:37.680)
And tell me the story in America.
Lex Fridman (1:59:39.200)
What was the day to day life?
Jack Barsky (1:59:40.640)
Now this is, now you're a spy.
Lex Fridman (1:59:43.120)
No, no, no, no.
Jack Barsky (1:59:44.120)
I got to tell you another funny story.
Lex Fridman (1:59:47.080)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:59:48.140)
So it's another, there's two things that happened that could have ended my career as a spy right
Lex Fridman (1:59:55.260)
then and there.
Lex Fridman (1:59:56.580)
So I'm, so I'm, I'm arriving in, in Chicago in the evening.
Lex Fridman (20:01.560)
Like, you're not directly afraid, but almost like, I don't know what that is.
Jack Barsky (20:06.840)
That's almost like a subconscious fear.
Lex Fridman (20:08.960)
Like don't, there's a dark room with a locked door, don't look in that door.
Jack Barsky (20:13.400)
Don't check that door.
Lex Fridman (20:14.400)
And there's something about the United States that says, especially modern culture, it's
Jack Barsky (20:19.880)
like go to that door first and sort of question everything kind of, that's the power of the
Jack Barsky (20:25.400)
freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, but you can get almost become too critical
Lex Fridman (20:31.160)
and too cynical of your own culture in that way.
Lex Fridman (20:33.320)
So there's a balance to strike, of course, but man, if communism is not a lesson of human
Jack Barsky (20:39.080)
nature, I don't know what is, but you believed, without thinking too much about it, you believed
Jack Barsky (20:44.360)
in the story of, what did you see, just, you know, I came from the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (20:51.200)
What did you maybe feel that's right and good about communism, about the vision of communism?
Lex Fridman (21:01.480)
Do you remember?
Jack Barsky (21:02.480)
I think the biggest impetus in me believing in communism was that the communists, just
Jack Barsky (21:12.680)
before Hitler took over, the communists were the only force in Germany that fought the
Jack Barsky (21:20.000)
Nazis in the streets, and that's a historic truth.
Lex Fridman (21:26.320)
And communists were hunted down by the Nazis, killed, put in concentration camps.
Lex Fridman (21:34.320)
And so what we knew, what we were taught, and I think that was a huge unforced error
Jack Barsky (21:41.320)
by the Western countries, particularly the United States, that there were ex Nazis in
Jack Barsky (21:46.360)
the government in West Germany.
Lex Fridman (21:49.560)
And the most famous one was Reinhard Galen, who was in charge, was the general in charge
Jack Barsky (21:57.980)
of the intelligence on the Eastern Front under Hitler.
Lex Fridman (22:05.440)
And when the Allied won the war, it was decided that Galen was too important, his knowledge
Lex Fridman (22:15.800)
and his organization was too important to not use.
Lex Fridman (22:21.080)
So he was coopted by the CIA and eventually wound up being the head of the Bundesnachrichtendienst,
Jack Barsky (22:26.560)
the CIA of West Germany.
Jack Barsky (22:29.480)
That gave us, us, when I say us, the East German party, a huge propaganda victory.
Jack Barsky (22:36.520)
I wanted to, because the emotional aspect of this was as follows.
Jack Barsky (22:42.300)
When we were in, juniors in high school, and in those days, you were only allowed to go
Lex Fridman (22:54.400)
to high school if you were in the top 10% of students, okay?
Lex Fridman (22:57.120)
So this was going to be the next set of ruling elite in the country.
Jack Barsky (23:02.640)
We were sent, we were required to visit a concentration camp.
Lex Fridman (23:09.000)
And if you know what we as 17 year olds were made to look at, it was gut wrenching.
Lex Fridman (23:18.200)
How can men do something like that to men, piles of corpses, lampshades made out of human
Jack Barsky (23:28.080)
skin because that skin had tattoos on them, and shrunken heads like the size of my fist.
Jack Barsky (23:38.200)
I mean, the girls all cried, and it made a huge impression.
Lex Fridman (23:42.640)
And that was the Nazis, and the Communists defeated the Nazis.
Jack Barsky (23:48.600)
They were the good guys.
Jack Barsky (23:49.600)
Of course, in hindsight, if the Communists had come to power, it would have been just
Lex Fridman (23:53.780)
the other way around, as we know, given the example of Stalin and Mao, right?
Lex Fridman (23:59.000)
But we didn't know that.
Jack Barsky (24:02.240)
From the Russian and Soviet perspective, the Communist regime banded together to win the
Lex Fridman (24:10.920)
Great Patriotic War.
Lex Fridman (24:12.920)
And that was the second one, the big brother, the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (24:18.000)
I mean, when I was approached by the KGB, that was like, oh, I felt so honored.
Lex Fridman (24:24.500)
So we should say that we're talking about East Germany, that you're from East Germany.
Lex Fridman (24:31.680)
Can you describe, you were born four years and what is it?
Jack Barsky (24:36.760)
Yeah, four years.
Lex Fridman (24:37.760)
10 days?
Jack Barsky (24:38.760)
Yeah, sort of.
Lex Fridman (24:39.760)
Very good.
Jack Barsky (24:40.760)
After Germany's unconditional surrender in World War II.
Lex Fridman (24:46.000)
So what is East Germany?
Lex Fridman (24:47.720)
What is West Germany?
Lex Fridman (24:48.720)
What is East and West Germany?
Lex Fridman (24:51.120)
What is that?
Lex Fridman (24:52.120)
What's the difference?
Lex Fridman (24:53.120)
What's the historical context here?
Lex Fridman (24:54.500)
What is World War II again?
Lex Fridman (24:55.800)
And then, let's do it for some...
Jack Barsky (24:59.840)
We don't have to go to World War I, the result of which actually seeded World War II in some
Jack Barsky (25:05.840)
respect.
Lex Fridman (25:06.840)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (25:07.840)
There's a long history, yes.
Lex Fridman (25:09.820)
But let's start with World War II.
Lex Fridman (25:11.320)
So when Hitler came to power, he and his leadership decided that the Germans needed more what
Lex Fridman (25:20.960)
they call Lebensraum, that means room to live.
Lex Fridman (25:26.120)
And they would start expanding and they went into France, they took Belgium, the Netherlands,
Lex Fridman (25:35.160)
they annexed Austria and got a piece of Czechoslovakia.
Lex Fridman (25:44.240)
And then they decided to march into the Soviet Union after they took Poland.
Lex Fridman (25:53.240)
Cut up Poland together with the Soviet Union.
Jack Barsky (25:55.280)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (25:56.280)
They were friends.
Jack Barsky (25:57.280)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (25:58.280)
There was a nonaggression pact that was signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov, right?
Jack Barsky (26:03.280)
I think both parties knew that eventually they would fall apart.
Lex Fridman (26:06.280)
But at the time, it gave the Soviet Union a little more piece of Poland and a little
Jack Barsky (26:14.080)
more time to prepare what they thought might happen down the road.
Lex Fridman (26:19.840)
And the Germans had the time and the ability to pretty much conquer all of Western Europe.
Lex Fridman (26:29.320)
Do you think Stalin really knew that it's gonna fall apart?
Lex Fridman (26:33.140)
Why would somebody like Stalin trust somebody like Hitler?
Lex Fridman (26:36.140)
But why did he blunder so bad not to read the intelligence that was coming his way?
Lex Fridman (26:42.640)
Oh, he doesn't...
Jack Barsky (26:43.640)
The troops are amassing on the border of the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (26:46.000)
He didn't trust his own intelligence apparatus.
Jack Barsky (26:48.240)
Oh, boy.
Lex Fridman (26:49.240)
Here's one example.
Jack Barsky (26:52.540)
There was a German communist who went underground when Hitler took over and he went to Japan
Lex Fridman (26:59.960)
as a journalist.
Jack Barsky (27:00.960)
His name is Richard Sorge.
Jack Barsky (27:03.320)
Richard Sorge had really, really good intel about what the Japanese would do and not do.
Jack Barsky (27:11.680)
I forgot exactly what it was, but it came to Moscow and Stalin totally ignored it.
Lex Fridman (27:18.080)
And when Sorge was captured by the Japanese, the Soviet Union denied that he was one of
Jack Barsky (27:26.680)
them there, so he was executed, the paranoia, again, does a lot of damage.
Lex Fridman (27:35.400)
When you don't believe your own intelligence apparatus, why bother having one?
Jack Barsky (27:41.600)
Yeah, I mean, there...
Lex Fridman (27:44.960)
But I'm sure there's contradictory information coming in from the intelligence apparatus,
Lex Fridman (27:49.000)
so it's difficult.
Jack Barsky (27:50.000)
I mean, first of all, nobody likes to be disagreed with, especially when you become more and
Jack Barsky (27:55.720)
more powerful, and then the intelligence apparatus is probably giving information you don't like.
Jack Barsky (28:00.760)
It's often negative information about, basically, information that says that the decisions you
Jack Barsky (28:09.460)
made in the past are not great decisions, and that's a difficult truth to deal with.
Lex Fridman (28:15.600)
So in the modern times, if we hop around briefly, Vladimir Putin has been not happy with the
Jack Barsky (28:26.200)
intelligence of the FSB, thereby, at least if you read the news, choosing to put more
Lex Fridman (28:34.040)
priority to the GRU for the intelligence in Ukraine.
Lex Fridman (28:39.920)
But I guess I suppose the same story happens there, as it does throughout history, is paranoia.
Jack Barsky (28:46.720)
I give you an example that comes from a very reliable source, and that my best German friend
Jack Barsky (28:59.240)
worked as a chemist in the Stasi, East German intelligence.
Lex Fridman (29:04.560)
And he eventually, he rose to the rank of major and was in charge of the forgery department.
Jack Barsky (29:15.520)
It's very likely that he made passports that I use to travel.
Lex Fridman (29:20.140)
He was aware that there was intelligence that was collected.
Jack Barsky (29:24.640)
The Stasi was really good.
Jack Barsky (29:26.480)
They had about a thousand people in West Germany, undercover agents, some of them in government,
Lex Fridman (29:32.820)
and the central committee of the party, the decision makers ignored it because it didn't
Lex Fridman (29:37.920)
quite fit in their worldview, it didn't quite fit into their plans.
Lex Fridman (29:43.600)
So and one delicious thing that I just want to add on to this, when Gorbachev wrote his
Lex Fridman (29:53.380)
book about Perestroika and Glasnost, the East German rulers did not like it.
Jack Barsky (2:00:03.720)
It's already dark.
Jack Barsky (2:00:05.200)
I had no idea what kind of a hotel to take, you know, I picked one out of a, out of yellow
Jack Barsky (2:00:13.060)
pages and got a taxi.
Jack Barsky (2:00:15.900)
When I gave him the address, he looked at me like a little funny, you know, whatever,
Lex Fridman (2:00:20.920)
what do I know?
Lex Fridman (2:00:21.920)
You know, it was keep on going.
Jack Barsky (2:00:22.920)
I need to get, I need to get sleep because I was extremely tense, you know, having gone
Lex Fridman (2:00:29.460)
through customs and border control.
Lex Fridman (2:00:32.820)
So and we were going in the Southern direction and I noticed that the neighborhoods became
Lex Fridman (2:00:39.680)
less and less inviting.
Jack Barsky (2:00:41.720)
Didn't know what that meant either.
Jack Barsky (2:00:43.720)
I get, I enter the hotel, it was a five story brownstone and something else looked funny.
Lex Fridman (2:00:50.320)
So the reception desk was protected by plexiglass.
Jack Barsky (2:00:55.760)
Not having enough background, I didn't know that this was unusual because all I knew that
Jack Barsky (2:01:02.560)
there was a lot of crime in the United States.
Lex Fridman (2:01:04.480)
So I thought maybe every hotel was like that.
Lex Fridman (2:01:07.240)
So I go up into my room and drink a half a bottle of, uh, Johnny Walker red because I,
Lex Fridman (2:01:12.280)
as one does, yeah, because I was so damn tense.
Jack Barsky (2:01:16.620)
I just wanted to sleep.
Lex Fridman (2:01:17.800)
I wanted to get into a coma, which I did.
Lex Fridman (2:01:21.000)
And then the next day I woke up with a head that was twice as big as felt twice as big.
Lex Fridman (2:01:26.600)
But you know, I was prepared.
Jack Barsky (2:01:28.040)
I had aspirin with me, so I killed the headache and went outside to see if I can get something
Lex Fridman (2:01:33.760)
to eat.
Jack Barsky (2:01:34.760)
And, uh, so I was right smack in the middle of the South side of Chicago.
Lex Fridman (2:01:39.200)
I didn't know that the South side of Chicago existed.
Jack Barsky (2:01:41.680)
I found later, I found out where I was.
Lex Fridman (2:01:44.520)
So it was time to go very quickly, uh, go up there.
Lex Fridman (2:01:50.440)
And at that point I decided I would, uh, uh, I would register, uh, at the next hotel on
Lex Fridman (2:01:57.800)
the Jack Barsky.
Lex Fridman (2:01:59.900)
So I went to the bathroom and I tried to kill, kill off, uh, uh, Mr. Dyson by burning his
Lex Fridman (2:02:06.120)
passport.
Jack Barsky (2:02:07.120)
Um, unfortunately I was not trained in how to train passport, uh, how to, how to destroy
Lex Fridman (2:02:13.520)
passports was, uh, so I tried to burn it and these things are flame retardant.
Jack Barsky (2:02:20.080)
And, uh, it created a cloud of smoke and I'm looking up there and there's a smoke detector.
Lex Fridman (2:02:26.720)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:02:27.720)
Oh no.
Lex Fridman (2:02:28.720)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (2:02:29.720)
So presence of mind, I threw this thing in the toilet and then, then took out a pair
Lex Fridman (2:02:33.400)
of scissors and cut it into small pieces and flushed it down.
Jack Barsky (2:02:36.880)
If that smoke alarm goes off, I'm busted.
Lex Fridman (2:02:40.160)
Right.
Jack Barsky (2:02:41.160)
If somebody, if, if some, some criminal steals, I had $6,000 on me in cash, uh, steals either
Lex Fridman (2:02:46.840)
my passport or my, or my money or both.
Jack Barsky (2:02:51.400)
I don't know what to do.
Lex Fridman (2:02:52.400)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:02:53.400)
You can't go to the authorities.
Lex Fridman (2:02:54.400)
You can't do anything.
Jack Barsky (2:02:55.400)
There weren't, there weren't any Russian, the Soviets in Chicago.
Lex Fridman (2:02:56.880)
Do you have any contacts?
Jack Barsky (2:02:58.840)
No.
Lex Fridman (2:02:59.840)
There was no, there was no, um, there was no plan B for Chicago at all.
Jack Barsky (2:03:06.080)
That's an oversight.
Lex Fridman (2:03:07.080)
I shouldn't, I shouldn't have gone to Chicago.
Jack Barsky (2:03:09.000)
They, they could have shipped me into, uh, um, uh, San Francisco or Washington DC because
Lex Fridman (2:03:15.340)
both of them had Soviets.
Jack Barsky (2:03:17.360)
My end goal was, uh, was to go to, to, to New York.
Lex Fridman (2:03:22.160)
Fine.
Jack Barsky (2:03:23.160)
Uh, you know, I would have been a really, really, uh, dangerous agent if I had gone
Jack Barsky (2:03:27.680)
back and worked with the KGB because I could have told them all the things, how to do it
Jack Barsky (2:03:32.720)
right.
Lex Fridman (2:03:33.720)
Right.
Lex Fridman (2:03:34.720)
So in that sense, there is some, given the scale of the KGB, there is, uh, some incompetence
Lex Fridman (2:03:40.960)
in this.
Jack Barsky (2:03:41.960)
Some.
Lex Fridman (2:03:42.960)
A lot of incompetence.
Jack Barsky (2:03:43.960)
Uh, to preparing me to be an American was almost total incompetence.
Lex Fridman (2:03:47.800)
And that, do you think that's representative of the way they operate is, uh, there's an
Jack Barsky (2:03:52.200)
incompetence like to the, uh, logistics, to the strategies involved, all that kind of
Lex Fridman (2:04:00.080)
stuff.
Jack Barsky (2:04:01.080)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:04:02.080)
None of these guys had operated as illegals.
Jack Barsky (2:04:03.920)
They, they were outsiders to American society.
Jack Barsky (2:04:06.920)
They had interaction with Americans and, uh, but they all lived in, you know, in New York,
Jack Barsky (2:04:12.200)
they lived in a compound, uh, and in Northern Manhattan where they all lived together with
Lex Fridman (2:04:16.640)
their families.
Jack Barsky (2:04:17.640)
And, and they, most of the time they spent, uh, interacting with, with themselves, with
Lex Fridman (2:04:22.680)
their own people at work.
Lex Fridman (2:04:24.600)
So they really didn't integrate well.
Jack Barsky (2:04:26.260)
They did not know what it's like to be an American, to have a job, to, to, you know,
Jack Barsky (2:04:32.440)
live like an American.
Lex Fridman (2:04:33.440)
They didn't know it.
Jack Barsky (2:04:34.440)
It's interesting that KGB didn't put a high value to that kind of integration.
Lex Fridman (2:04:39.040)
They didn't know what they didn't know.
Jack Barsky (2:04:40.640)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:04:41.640)
And by the way, this was mutual.
Lex Fridman (2:04:42.640)
Do you think the CIA had, had, uh, good knowledge of the Russian culture?
Lex Fridman (2:04:47.320)
Uh, same thing.
Lex Fridman (2:04:49.160)
And so, um, there was a lot of lack of understanding because good, good intelligence could have,
Jack Barsky (2:04:54.880)
uh, possibly avoided some of the, uh, high tension that, uh, situations that we had when,
Jack Barsky (2:05:00.160)
when in the eighties, we got close to nuclear war.
Lex Fridman (2:05:03.880)
So good intelligence would be integrating yourself in society.
Jack Barsky (2:05:07.280)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (2:05:08.280)
Much, much deeper.
Lex Fridman (2:05:09.280)
And that Ronald Reagan was not a warmonger, but he was talking about the end times because
Lex Fridman (2:05:14.080)
he was a Christian.
Lex Fridman (2:05:16.560)
But then that kind of integration can be dangerous because you start to question the propaganda,
Lex Fridman (2:05:21.840)
the narratives that, on which the KGB is built, on which the CIA is built.
Lex Fridman (2:05:26.640)
And then they have, they always have had the option of ignoring the intelligence that they're
Lex Fridman (2:05:31.840)
getting, right?
Jack Barsky (2:05:32.840)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:05:33.840)
Well, let me ask you this question sort of to jump around.
Jack Barsky (2:05:37.320)
There's a lot of conspiracy theories in this, um, in this current climate, I mean, throughout
Jack Barsky (2:05:42.440)
history, but now especially, and some of the conspiracy theories put a lot of power in
Jack Barsky (2:05:50.520)
the hands of the intelligence agencies like CIA, FSB, Mossad, uh, MI6, they're basically
Lex Fridman (2:05:59.280)
the conspiracy theories go that they control the powerful people in this world.
Lex Fridman (2:06:06.360)
And are able to thereby manipulate those powerful people and manipulate the populace in order
Lex Fridman (2:06:13.000)
to deliver different kinds of messages and so on.
Jack Barsky (2:06:16.820)
Given your experience with this kind of tension between competence and malevolence, would
Lex Fridman (2:06:23.040)
you say there's some truth to those conspiracy theories?
Jack Barsky (2:06:27.120)
Not one way.
Jack Barsky (2:06:28.500)
I think, I think there is, there's collusion, there's collaboration, but I would think that,
Jack Barsky (2:06:33.920)
uh, like for instance, uh, uh, some folks in the CIA and the FBI, uh, are being used
Lex Fridman (2:06:39.680)
by the ones that are really in power.
Jack Barsky (2:06:42.680)
Power is money.
Lex Fridman (2:06:43.680)
Power is wealth.
Jack Barsky (2:06:44.680)
I know power is not the other, it can go both directions.
Jack Barsky (2:06:49.720)
You can acquire wealth first, which leads you to power, or you can acquire power first.
Jack Barsky (2:06:55.160)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:06:56.160)
Power is also knowledge, I understand, and, and, uh, and a position in the society, in
Jack Barsky (2:07:02.000)
the military or in intelligence, but I don't think it's a straight one way that all the
Lex Fridman (2:07:05.920)
intelligence agencies control the powerful people in their country.
Jack Barsky (2:07:09.780)
You see what's happening in Russia.
Lex Fridman (2:07:11.120)
I mean, Putin dominates his intelligence agencies, right?
Jack Barsky (2:07:17.440)
Well, uh, so the question is which way the direction goes, but you're saying that there
Lex Fridman (2:07:22.400)
is, um, it's not one way flow of power.
Jack Barsky (2:07:25.680)
I would think so.
Jack Barsky (2:07:27.240)
It, and, and I also believe it exists, but it's not as prevalent as, you know, not every
Jack Barsky (2:07:32.720)
conspiracy theory, uh, pans out and most of them don't, they're just damn rumors, but
Lex Fridman (2:07:38.440)
that doesn't mean they don't exist.
Jack Barsky (2:07:39.760)
I guarantee you that they exist.
Jack Barsky (2:07:41.320)
There's collusion, there's people getting together and, uh, not necessarily, uh, preparing
Jack Barsky (2:07:47.640)
a specific action, but more sort of a plan to go forward and maintain the position or
Lex Fridman (2:07:53.720)
even, you know, uh, uh, strengthen the position that they already have.
Lex Fridman (2:07:58.240)
So KGB, but we can generalize this, FSB, CIA, do you think a KGB agent would kill someone
Lex Fridman (2:08:05.200)
against international law if they were ordered to do so?
Lex Fridman (2:08:08.480)
So we talked about...
Lex Fridman (2:08:09.480)
They did.
Jack Barsky (2:08:10.480)
They did.
Jack Barsky (2:08:11.480)
Uh, and there's, uh, there's a famous, uh, case of, uh, one, uh, uh, I think it's Vasily
Jack Barsky (2:08:21.240)
Kuklov who defected.
Lex Fridman (2:08:24.120)
He was a killer.
Jack Barsky (2:08:25.120)
He was a trained killer and he had, had, uh, done assassinations in other countries.
Jack Barsky (2:08:31.360)
He was sent to West Germany to kill a defector, a KGB defector, and he decided not to do it.
Jack Barsky (2:08:37.520)
He, he talked to the guy and he said, I'm supposed to kill you.
Lex Fridman (2:08:40.200)
I'm not.
Lex Fridman (2:08:41.200)
And then, and he eventually wound up in the United States.
Jack Barsky (2:08:44.240)
I have a connection to this fellow because the KGB once asked me to go to California
Lex Fridman (2:08:50.400)
and see if the guy still lives and works there.
Lex Fridman (2:08:53.920)
And, uh, we, uh, I found him and we looked at each other.
Lex Fridman (2:09:03.160)
So there was an active KGB agent looking at a man that he didn't know was the KGB defector,
Lex Fridman (2:09:10.360)
looking at each other.
Jack Barsky (2:09:11.360)
Neither one knew who the other one was.
Lex Fridman (2:09:13.440)
I found out later.
Lex Fridman (2:09:15.000)
But he was able to survive.
Lex Fridman (2:09:18.040)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (2:09:19.040)
And, you know, there, there have been assassinations, not, not a lot.
Lex Fridman (2:09:24.240)
And, uh, you know, that, that we know of, a good point.
Jack Barsky (2:09:29.000)
This is very difficult, uh, the, the, the, the, the question is how many lines are intelligence
Lex Fridman (2:09:36.040)
agencies able, willing to cross to attain, to achieve the goal?
Jack Barsky (2:09:42.920)
I, I think none of these agencies have the ultimate line.
Jack Barsky (2:09:48.800)
I think eventually they, the last line will be crossed if they believe it's necessary.
Jack Barsky (2:09:55.600)
Well, I think you can justify a lot of things, especially in this modern world with nuclear
Lex Fridman (2:10:00.040)
weapons that you can justify that you're saving the world actually.
Jack Barsky (2:10:04.680)
Let me ask a few difficult questions and we'll jump back to your time in America.
Lex Fridman (2:10:08.400)
But Vladimir Putin has been accused of ordering the poisoning and assassination of several
Jack Barsky (2:10:17.360)
people, including Alexander Levinenko early on all the way to Alexei Navalny.
Lex Fridman (2:10:23.480)
Do you think these accusations are grounded in truth?
Lex Fridman (2:10:27.460)
And we will return to a couple more questions maybe about Vladimir Putin's early days in
Lex Fridman (2:10:34.200)
the KGB, which would be interesting.
Jack Barsky (2:10:36.200)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:10:37.200)
There, there's a, there's a phrase that I like to, uh, say in the response is called
Jack Barsky (2:10:40.980)
plausible deniability.
Lex Fridman (2:10:43.200)
I don't think Putin gave a direct command as they do that.
Jack Barsky (2:10:46.860)
He would just maybe muse.
Jack Barsky (2:10:48.280)
It would be nice if something were to happen and then somebody picks it up and does it.
Jack Barsky (2:10:54.980)
Is there, can you steel man the case that, uh, Putin did not have direct or indirect
Lex Fridman (2:11:01.040)
involvement with this?
Lex Fridman (2:11:02.040)
Who, who, who would know, who would know?
Jack Barsky (2:11:04.520)
You know, just the, the international, the reputation perhaps, um, perhaps catalyzed
Jack Barsky (2:11:14.720)
by Putin himself is that he is the kind of person that would directly or indirectly make
Lex Fridman (2:11:20.280)
those orders.
Jack Barsky (2:11:22.000)
Perhaps the case there is he's somebody to be feared and thereby you want that person
Lex Fridman (2:11:27.120)
out there.
Jack Barsky (2:11:28.120)
Uh, but the act itself, uh, the, the, the poisoning of, uh, Litvinenko and, uh, Oh,
Lex Fridman (2:11:37.360)
and then the assassination of the Bulgarian, uh, Markov and with a, with the umbrella
Jack Barsky (2:11:43.680)
and, and they all directly traced back to Russian, uh, Soviet intelligence.
Lex Fridman (2:11:49.960)
Uh, and so that's enough to be feared, right?
Jack Barsky (2:11:54.680)
Um, my answer that I gave you is an educated guess, you know, I can't pretend to know this
Lex Fridman (2:12:01.800)
for sure, but
Jack Barsky (2:12:02.800)
It's frustrating to me because there's a lot of people listening to this would say,
Lex Fridman (2:12:07.720)
but even, uh, sort of would chuckle at the naive nature of the question.
Lex Fridman (2:12:15.440)
But if you actually keep an open mind, you have to understand what is the way that intelligence
Lex Fridman (2:12:20.400)
agencies function?
Jack Barsky (2:12:21.880)
Is it possible to the head of an intelligence agency not to make direct orders of that kind
Lex Fridman (2:12:29.520)
where there's a distributed
Jack Barsky (2:12:30.760)
No, the head of the intelligence agency would most likely give the order.
Lex Fridman (2:12:34.880)
Even though it's compartmentalized.
Jack Barsky (2:12:36.440)
Yeah, but, but, uh, but not the head of state.
Jack Barsky (2:12:39.920)
Not maybe not the head of state, although, uh, in the case, this is the case in the United
Jack Barsky (2:12:46.760)
States as well, but certainly is the case in Russia.
Jack Barsky (2:12:50.160)
There are close relationships between the head of the FSB and the GRU and personal relationships,
Jack Barsky (2:12:55.840)
not just even
Lex Fridman (2:12:56.840)
The head of the FSB who is now in jail.
Jack Barsky (2:13:02.080)
There's a interesting details, especially, uh, coming out recently around the war in
Lex Fridman (2:13:08.320)
Ukraine.
Lex Fridman (2:13:09.320)
So let me actually ask about the war in Ukraine.
Lex Fridman (2:13:14.760)
What is your analysis of the war in Ukraine from 2014 to the full on invasion of Ukraine
Lex Fridman (2:13:21.120)
by Russia in 2022 in February, 2022?
Lex Fridman (2:13:27.440)
But um, there's many questions we could ask.
Lex Fridman (2:13:33.040)
One is, what are the sins of the governments involved?
Lex Fridman (2:13:37.800)
What are the sins of Russia, Ukraine, America, China?
Lex Fridman (2:13:45.920)
Are those sins comparable?
Lex Fridman (2:13:48.320)
Who are the good guys and the bad guys?
Jack Barsky (2:13:49.800)
That was more than one question.
Jack Barsky (2:13:52.240)
Let me just, uh, uh, give you my, the basics about this savvy observers saw this coming.
Jack Barsky (2:14:01.880)
There were very small minority, uh, because Vladimir Putin was pretty open about what
Jack Barsky (2:14:09.000)
he told the world his mission was, was the reestablishment of a strong Russia, the reestablishment
Jack Barsky (2:14:15.960)
of something like the, the Russian empire to unite all the Russian speaking, uh, uh,
Lex Fridman (2:14:22.160)
people, uh, in, under one country and, uh, the world ignored him.
Jack Barsky (2:14:27.280)
I mean, he was open, uh, what was, was at a, at a conference in, in, in, in France,
Jack Barsky (2:14:32.240)
I believe when we, we set this out, out in the open, uh, and then what we had, uh, in
Jack Barsky (2:14:38.600)
the United States, we had wishful, wishful thinking, you know, Obama had this reset with
Lex Fridman (2:14:44.960)
Russia, you know, we all get friendly.
Lex Fridman (2:14:48.640)
And then when, when, uh, uh, Putin invaded, uh, Crimea, we did nothing.
Lex Fridman (2:14:54.960)
So and it, and it just escalated slowly, but surely it was pretty clear.
Lex Fridman (2:15:03.440)
And then they said, uh, it was, I think two years ago, there was an essay published by,
Jack Barsky (2:15:08.400)
uh, Putin, whether he wrote it or not, it doesn't matter, but that was also out in public
Jack Barsky (2:15:12.880)
where he was, again, quite clear what he was going to do.
Lex Fridman (2:15:15.840)
Now how do you do this with force?
Jack Barsky (2:15:20.520)
And, uh, and the, the sins committed by the American government was that we ignored it.
Jack Barsky (2:15:26.160)
We weren't engaged in wishful thinking and we didn't stop it with sanctions before the
Jack Barsky (2:15:32.680)
shooting started.
Jack Barsky (2:15:34.040)
To push back, I don't think you're fully describing, you are describing the sins of the Russian
Jack Barsky (2:15:40.440)
government and Putin.
Jack Barsky (2:15:42.320)
I don't think you're fully describing the sins of the American government here because
Jack Barsky (2:15:46.440)
not only didn't, you're doing, you're describing the miscalculation.
Lex Fridman (2:15:51.580)
So not only did they not pressure correctly with sanctions and so on and, and, and clearly
Jack Barsky (2:15:58.200)
respond to the actual statements and the essays and the words spoken.
Lex Fridman (2:16:02.280)
I know where you're going, but keep on speaking.
Jack Barsky (2:16:04.080)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (2:16:05.080)
But they also, at the same time, pressured, pressured Russia and they also, as, as Putin
Jack Barsky (2:16:13.080)
himself said, sort of, there's a rat and they pushed the rat towards the corner by expanding
Jack Barsky (2:16:19.600)
NATO and, uh, and arming Ukraine and the military industrial complex is a machine that, uh,
Jack Barsky (2:16:31.320)
that led us, um, and I think a lot of younger people, I mean, when I came to this country
Lex Fridman (2:16:39.400)
and this is the country I love, I lived through 9 11, I lived through the full roller coaster
Jack Barsky (2:16:48.680)
of emotion.
Lex Fridman (2:16:49.680)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:16:50.680)
I'm a, at that time, before that and after was a proud American.
Jack Barsky (2:16:55.880)
I went through the whole roller coaster of, uh, being sold, uh, I would say a lie about
Jack Barsky (2:17:02.560)
the reason to invade Iraq and even Afghanistan.
Lex Fridman (2:17:07.780)
And I've got to live through understanding of this military industrial complex that leads
Jack Barsky (2:17:14.040)
to the expansion of vampires, of the delusion that we have in the populace, in, in the government
Jack Barsky (2:17:22.760)
that convinces us that we are the good guys and somehow with military force, we can instill
Jack Barsky (2:17:31.800)
our values, instill happiness, the pursuit of happiness that all men are created equal
Jack Barsky (2:17:36.160)
these ideas in, into other lands and we can do so with drones and we can do so with weapons
Lex Fridman (2:17:43.800)
and we could do so without significant cost to our own, from our own pockets.
Lex Fridman (2:17:49.140)
And so this idea, this machine doesn't just apply to Afghanistan and Iraq, it doesn't
Jack Barsky (2:17:55.040)
just apply to Yemen and Syria, it doesn't just apply to China, it also applies to Ukraine.
Lex Fridman (2:18:00.280)
It also applies to Russia.
Jack Barsky (2:18:01.840)
Agreed.
Jack Barsky (2:18:02.840)
Two thoughts, if I may, uh, first of all, when does not hear the term military industrial
Jack Barsky (2:18:09.680)
complex in the public discourse these days, Eisenhower warned about it, Eisenhower was
Lex Fridman (2:18:16.680)
a capitalist, he was the president of the United States.
Lex Fridman (2:18:20.780)
So it exists and it is very powerful.
Jack Barsky (2:18:24.120)
The more weapons you can sell, the more you have to replace them or send over, you have
Jack Barsky (2:18:29.120)
to replace them.
Lex Fridman (2:18:30.120)
So yes, the other thing is there's also a messianic streak that powers American foreign
Jack Barsky (2:18:41.580)
policy.
Lex Fridman (2:18:42.580)
We want to make the world just like us.
Lex Fridman (2:18:45.660)
Why don't they get it?
Lex Fridman (2:18:47.000)
Because they don't want to.
Jack Barsky (2:18:48.380)
It's almost like it's not communism, but it's a, it's a very similar romantic idea that
Lex Fridman (2:18:53.520)
we can make the world then fashion the world the way we are.
Lex Fridman (2:18:58.240)
And that's the romantic side and the sort of honest side, but it doesn't work.
Lex Fridman (2:19:04.080)
It failed every time, right?
Jack Barsky (2:19:05.320)
You know, Afghanistan is a Royal mess and was, would never become a functioning democracy.
Lex Fridman (2:19:11.800)
I don't know if, if Ukraine can become a functioning democracy.
Lex Fridman (2:19:16.440)
So well, I don't know if American weapons can help Ukraine become a functional democracy.
Jack Barsky (2:19:23.040)
I yeah, but there's a huge amount of interest in seeing the world in black and white and
Jack Barsky (2:19:31.680)
selling the story of the world is black and white that Ukraine is the symbol of democracy
Lex Fridman (2:19:39.560)
in this East Eastern European world.
Lex Fridman (2:19:42.960)
And Russia is the symbol of authoritarian dictatorship.
Lex Fridman (2:19:47.480)
And the story is not so simple as, as, as many indices show, Ukraine and Russia are
Jack Barsky (2:19:54.080)
the number one and the number two most corrupt countries in Europe.
Lex Fridman (2:19:57.320)
There are two P's in a pod.
Jack Barsky (2:19:59.600)
One is bigger and one is in this case, the aggressor.
Lex Fridman (2:20:03.440)
Now, you know, two P's, the aggressor is still ultimately responsible.
Lex Fridman (2:20:10.760)
And the person that throws the first punch.
Jack Barsky (2:20:13.480)
Now there's a lot of people going to disagree where the punch came from, but there is, there
Jack Barsky (2:20:19.040)
is magnitude and the struggle by Ukraine for its sovereignty stretches back to the beginning
Lex Fridman (2:20:28.080)
of the 20th century.
Jack Barsky (2:20:29.080)
It stretches back even further than that.
Lex Fridman (2:20:31.720)
But there's been the Ukrainian people are proud people and they've been in many cases
Jack Barsky (2:20:38.000)
tortured by those that sit in the Kremlin throughout the 20th century, the, the, the
Lex Fridman (2:20:44.200)
famine in the, in the early thirties.
Lex Fridman (2:20:46.940)
And it's always, it's never the middle class and upper class that suffer.
Lex Fridman (2:20:51.160)
So is the lower classes, the peasants in that time that this history stretches back far.
Lex Fridman (2:20:59.280)
And this is yet another manifestation of that.
Lex Fridman (2:21:02.360)
And there's a lot of interests at play.
Jack Barsky (2:21:05.920)
China watches closely, Russia, America watches closely.
Lex Fridman (2:21:12.360)
And there's an extra caveat here that there's nuclear weapons at play as well.
Jack Barsky (2:21:17.800)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (2:21:18.800)
And it's what this is the situation is as dangerous as I have lived through in my entire
Jack Barsky (2:21:26.360)
life, I believe.
Lex Fridman (2:21:28.040)
And because it's not necessarily at the highest point of escalation, but it will be in my
Jack Barsky (2:21:33.860)
view, a protracted crisis.
Lex Fridman (2:21:36.840)
And the longer that crisis lasts, the more of a chance there is of an accident.
Jack Barsky (2:21:42.640)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:21:43.680)
One rocket.
Jack Barsky (2:21:44.680)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:21:45.680)
There's seems to be a strong incentive to prolong, to do siege tactics, to prolong this
Jack Barsky (2:21:51.020)
conflict over perhaps many years, which is terrifying to think about.
Lex Fridman (2:21:57.200)
And over that, a single rocket can lead to, given that there's leaders that might be losing
Jack Barsky (2:22:05.960)
their mind and Ukraine is not part of NATO, the thing I'm really afraid of is that somebody
Lex Fridman (2:22:14.880)
might think it's a good idea for Russia.
Lex Fridman (2:22:19.420)
So Putin might think it's a good idea for Russia to send a message by launching a nuke
Lex Fridman (2:22:25.160)
against Ukraine because they're not part of NATO.
Lex Fridman (2:22:28.960)
So surely the West is not going to respond.
Lex Fridman (2:22:31.560)
What is the West going to do if Russia nukes Ukraine to send a message?
Jack Barsky (2:22:39.440)
I don't know if anyone knows the answer to that question, but it's a terrifying question.
Lex Fridman (2:22:44.880)
And I don't know the exact protocol that needs to be followed to launch a nuclear strike
Jack Barsky (2:22:53.840)
on NATO's end because we have several countries in NATO that have nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman (2:22:59.120)
So let's say for France to fire a nuke, does the United States have to agree?
Jack Barsky (2:23:04.760)
I don't know how that works.
Lex Fridman (2:23:05.840)
I don't know if anyone knows how that works.
Jack Barsky (2:23:10.600)
I worry, now we have different, very kind of anecdotal perspectives on these things,
Lex Fridman (2:23:17.680)
but the people I've interacted with in the DOD, Department of Defense, in the military,
Jack Barsky (2:23:23.240)
there is a compartmentalization, there is a bureaucracy, and within that giant bureaucracy,
Lex Fridman (2:23:28.960)
there's incompetence.
Jack Barsky (2:23:29.960)
We'd like to think that there is like really well organized for really important things.
Jack Barsky (2:23:37.860)
There's going to be the best of the best in the world that's going to execute on the correct
Jack Barsky (2:23:42.720)
decisions both geopolitically, militarily, all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:23:46.880)
And I've seen enough to know that competence at any level of government, at any level in
Jack Barsky (2:23:53.200)
the military is not guaranteed.
Lex Fridman (2:23:54.720)
Let's go back to the law of hierarchy.
Jack Barsky (2:23:57.920)
The government is the biggest hierarchy there is.
Lex Fridman (2:24:01.680)
And so invariably, politicians find their way to the top.
Lex Fridman (2:24:06.280)
And once you have politics dictating substantive decisions, they're going to be weak or wrong.
Lex Fridman (2:24:17.800)
I don't know how this could work any other way.
Jack Barsky (2:24:20.840)
Right now we have some functional idiots in the central United States government.
Jack Barsky (2:24:26.720)
Well, let me, because you said that, I think elsewhere you said that Putin was not a good
Jack Barsky (2:24:33.960)
KGB agent.
Lex Fridman (2:24:34.960)
That's right.
Jack Barsky (2:24:35.960)
A mediocre one, but is an excellent politician.
Lex Fridman (2:24:39.200)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:24:40.200)
And a good organizer.
Lex Fridman (2:24:41.200)
He was known as a really, really good organizer.
Jack Barsky (2:24:43.640)
When Yeltsin hired him as prime minister, he cleaned up the mess because under Yeltsin,
Jack Barsky (2:24:56.920)
Russia deteriorated tremendously and it became sort of a mix of an oligarchy and a criminal
Jack Barsky (2:25:03.800)
enterprise and chaotic.
Lex Fridman (2:25:06.760)
So he had skills that made him a good executive.
Jack Barsky (2:25:09.160)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (2:25:10.160)
Now let's go back to him as a KGB agent.
Jack Barsky (2:25:12.560)
He was a KGB agent.
Lex Fridman (2:25:14.720)
I mean, according to him, once a KGB agent, always a KGB agent.
Lex Fridman (2:25:20.300)
But 16 years, let's say, something like this.
Lex Fridman (2:25:25.900)
What do you think about, from your experience, now you're maybe the same age as him, approximately
Jack Barsky (2:25:33.800)
the same age as him.
Lex Fridman (2:25:34.800)
He's a little younger.
Jack Barsky (2:25:35.800)
A little younger.
Lex Fridman (2:25:36.800)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:25:37.800)
So what do you think about the KGB experience he had made him the man he is?
Lex Fridman (2:25:44.480)
What aspect of that, from your own experience, how much does that define you, who you are,
Lex Fridman (2:25:51.720)
how you think about the world, how you analyze the geopolitics of the world, how you analyze
Lex Fridman (2:25:56.820)
human nature?
Jack Barsky (2:25:58.040)
Now I got to tell you one thing.
Lex Fridman (2:26:00.000)
He had a different type of training than I did.
Jack Barsky (2:26:01.920)
Mine was one on one and he went to school, so to speak.
Lex Fridman (2:26:06.840)
So...
Jack Barsky (2:26:07.840)
Classroom training.
Lex Fridman (2:26:08.840)
Right.
Lex Fridman (2:26:09.840)
But fundamentally, he was not a top agent.
Lex Fridman (2:26:18.200)
This is very simple to... There's only one thing you need to know.
Jack Barsky (2:26:21.960)
He knows German pretty well.
Lex Fridman (2:26:24.720)
So where was he deployed?
Jack Barsky (2:26:27.240)
In East Germany.
Lex Fridman (2:26:28.920)
Not in West Germany, not in Switzerland, not in Austria.
Jack Barsky (2:26:31.160)
That's where they sent the best, right, one would think, generally.
Lex Fridman (2:26:35.800)
We're learning here.
Lex Fridman (2:26:37.360)
So this is your classification of where they send the best.
Lex Fridman (2:26:41.360)
People classify all kinds of stuff, like what is the best university in the world?
Lex Fridman (2:26:45.400)
What is the best football team in the world?
Jack Barsky (2:26:47.780)
You start to get a sense, the good guys get sent, the best athletes get sent to... Well,
Jack Barsky (2:26:53.720)
we disagree on this, but the football team is... But you have a sense and you're saying
Lex Fridman (2:26:58.200)
that the best agents would have been sent to West Germany.
Jack Barsky (2:27:00.240)
One would think so.
Lex Fridman (2:27:01.240)
So this is not a forcing argument, but I also have it from a word from the horse's mouth.
Lex Fridman (2:27:08.720)
Which horse?
Lex Fridman (2:27:10.520)
I mean, what kind of horse?
Lex Fridman (2:27:13.280)
What's the breed of the horse?
Lex Fridman (2:27:14.280)
Oleg Kalugin.
Jack Barsky (2:27:15.720)
You know who Oleg Kalugin is.
Lex Fridman (2:27:17.680)
He's still alive.
Lex Fridman (2:27:18.840)
He was, at one point, the head of counterintelligence for the first directorate, espionage, right?
Lex Fridman (2:27:25.960)
And Putin was in the first directorate and reported to Kalugin for a while.
Lex Fridman (2:27:31.000)
And Oleg told me, to my face, that Oleg was not an impressive agent trainee or agent.
Lex Fridman (2:27:39.240)
That Vladimir Putin was not impressive.
Jack Barsky (2:27:41.220)
Not impressive at all.
Lex Fridman (2:27:42.520)
Now he's biased, given this current situation.
Jack Barsky (2:27:47.720)
Well yeah, he could still make it up because he had this big ruckus when he was in parliament
Lex Fridman (2:27:53.240)
and called Putin a war criminal about the war in Serbia.
Jack Barsky (2:27:58.320)
Not only could he make it up, I wouldn't trust his analysis.
Jack Barsky (2:28:03.000)
I mean, I have to, you know, when people, I've been working very hard even before this
Jack Barsky (2:28:08.460)
war to try to understand objective analysis of all the parties involved.
Jack Barsky (2:28:12.200)
You have to really keep an open mind here to see clearly, to understand if you are to
Jack Barsky (2:28:17.480)
try to help in some way make a better world.
Jack Barsky (2:28:24.800)
In this case, stop this war or have all the countries involved flourish, bring out the
Jack Barsky (2:28:32.000)
best of the people, remove the corruption and the greed and the destructive aspects
Lex Fridman (2:28:36.860)
of the governments and let the people flourish.
Jack Barsky (2:28:39.240)
For all of that, you have to put all the biases aside, all the political bickering, all the,
Lex Fridman (2:28:48.440)
I don't know, all the biased analysis.
Lex Fridman (2:28:53.600)
And there's a lot of propaganda that says that, in fact, Putin was a good agent.
Lex Fridman (2:29:02.600)
How else would he rise through the ranks, right?
Jack Barsky (2:29:05.560)
Because he was a good politician and he made a lot of good connections within the KGB.
Lex Fridman (2:29:14.520)
Allow me to say something here.
Jack Barsky (2:29:16.680)
You just taught me a lesson and the lesson I should have figured out myself because I
Jack Barsky (2:29:23.800)
keep on telling people that in the intelligence world, you never know the truth 100%.
Lex Fridman (2:29:30.380)
So when you said, oh, I could make that up, of course you could have.
Lex Fridman (2:29:34.140)
But you get to a point where you're forced to make a decision or have an opinion and
Jack Barsky (2:29:39.720)
then you use your best educated guess.
Lex Fridman (2:29:43.880)
So I'm gonna take the certainty of the statement that I made back because it's quite possible
Jack Barsky (2:29:49.880)
that you're right.
Jack Barsky (2:29:50.880)
Well, what I've noticed about Vladimir Putin, and this is true about, for example, Donald
Jack Barsky (2:29:55.120)
Trump and all those kinds of divisive figures, that for some reason people's opinion on the
Lex Fridman (2:30:02.640)
details of those people are very sticky.
Jack Barsky (2:30:05.960)
Once you decide this is a bad guy, there's like a black hole and people are not able
Lex Fridman (2:30:12.300)
to think one act at a time.
Jack Barsky (2:30:15.640)
You don't have to, that doesn't somehow justify this, this somehow doesn't remove all the
Lex Fridman (2:30:23.760)
evil things that are done, but you can analyze clearly each of the actions.
Lex Fridman (2:30:27.240)
And to me, it is interesting to see how did this man rise through the ranks.
Lex Fridman (2:30:33.000)
Now you're saying that to be a KGB agent, there's a lot of skills involved.
Jack Barsky (2:30:40.200)
Perhaps raw technical skill of spycraft is perhaps not related to the skill of rising
Lex Fridman (2:30:51.400)
through the ranks.
Lex Fridman (2:30:53.720)
And you're saying as a politician, he was good at rising through the ranks.
Jack Barsky (2:30:56.760)
Lying and influencing, that is something that is significant as a significant talent and
Jack Barsky (2:31:05.200)
ability that an agent must have, that helps you as a politician.
Jack Barsky (2:31:11.440)
Continuing the kind of thread of the role of KGB in defining the heart, soul, and mind
Jack Barsky (2:31:20.480)
of Vladimir Putin, let me return to Yuri Bismenov, who was a Soviet KGB agent that wrote a four
Jack Barsky (2:31:27.200)
step framework for ideological subversion on a national scale as practiced by the Soviet
Jack Barsky (2:31:33.280)
Union.
Lex Fridman (2:31:34.280)
And the four steps are demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization.
Jack Barsky (2:31:40.920)
He had a lot of other kind of systematic ways of describing this kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:31:46.340)
So can you speak to some of these ideas about the systematic large scale ideological subversion
Lex Fridman (2:31:55.280)
goals of the KGB?
Lex Fridman (2:31:56.680)
Is there truth to that kind of those ideas?
Jack Barsky (2:32:00.040)
Yes, but I think I already sort of mentioned that I think Bismenov was a fraud.
Lex Fridman (2:32:08.280)
And I have, again, good arguments, let's put it this way.
Jack Barsky (2:32:15.160)
First of all, we know that the KGB was involved in active measures, which is...
Lex Fridman (2:32:24.760)
You can call it fake news.
Jack Barsky (2:32:29.240)
Putting fake news into the countries that are your adversaries.
Lex Fridman (2:32:36.080)
And the Russians have been doing this lately by meddling in our election and focusing
Jack Barsky (2:32:42.020)
on the left and the right fringe and influencing them to become more left and more right.
Lex Fridman (2:32:48.280)
And Vasily Mitrokhin has in one of his books, he has a whole chapter about active measures.
Jack Barsky (2:32:57.360)
Okay, so what he has to say about the department, and I forgot what department that was, was
Lex Fridman (2:33:03.040)
the one department that was the least desirable for KGB agents.
Jack Barsky (2:33:07.600)
Because these were desk jobs for people who had to come up with fake stories in countries
Lex Fridman (2:33:15.580)
where they didn't quite know too much about the country.
Jack Barsky (2:33:20.360)
Now there were some successes, like one of the two most famous successes that I'm aware
Jack Barsky (2:33:27.360)
of is that the AIDS virus was concocted in a CIA lab, and a lot of people around the
Jack Barsky (2:33:37.520)
world believe that.
Lex Fridman (2:33:39.080)
And the other one was that J. Edgar Hoover was a secret cross dresser.
Jack Barsky (2:33:47.760)
That is still known by a lot of Americans who are of a certain age that this was the
Lex Fridman (2:33:52.000)
truth.
Lex Fridman (2:33:53.000)
But Mitrokhin actually traces it back to a story that was placed in a sort of left wing
Lex Fridman (2:33:59.440)
but close to mainstream French magazine, and it was then taken up by larger newspapers
Lex Fridman (2:34:10.960)
and well established papers.
Lex Fridman (2:34:13.900)
So they had some successes, but this kind of a massive, well thought out campaign to
Jack Barsky (2:34:23.680)
destabilize the United States, I don't believe the KGB was capable of doing that.
Lex Fridman (2:34:31.240)
Mitrokhin seems to agree with me.
Jack Barsky (2:34:33.520)
I was trained, I would think, I was one of the crown jewels of their agents.
Jack Barsky (2:34:40.040)
One would think that they used the best that they had to help me how to become an American,
Lex Fridman (2:34:47.200)
and they didn't have a clue.
Jack Barsky (2:34:50.080)
If you don't know how a country operates, how do you come up with this kind of a very
Lex Fridman (2:34:55.300)
detailed long term plan that's also timed, two years this and one year that and all that?
Lex Fridman (2:35:02.920)
Yeah, so we should actually just clarify.
Jack Barsky (2:35:06.720)
He has this whole idea that there's 15 to 20 years needed for demoralization where you're
Jack Barsky (2:35:18.400)
basically infiltrating a country or people from a young age, manipulating their mind.
Jack Barsky (2:35:23.600)
You're destabilizing them, that's the second step that takes two to five years.
Lex Fridman (2:35:27.840)
You target the country's foreign relations, defense and economy.
Jack Barsky (2:35:31.480)
You create a crisis artificially and then you normalize it as if it always was this
Lex Fridman (2:35:36.880)
way.
Lex Fridman (2:35:37.880)
So it's basically saying that the KGB is capable of, at scale, over many years, manipulate
Lex Fridman (2:35:48.720)
an entire population of people.
Lex Fridman (2:35:52.080)
And this is kind of, there's a lot of people that believe in conspiracy theories that are
Lex Fridman (2:35:59.720)
amenable to this kind of idea.
Jack Barsky (2:36:01.920)
Now, my own experience is that there is, in fact, just a giant amount of incompetence
Lex Fridman (2:36:08.600)
and that this is something that's actually very difficult to pull off because it's incredibly
Jack Barsky (2:36:19.080)
difficult to achieve this kind of manipulation.
Jack Barsky (2:36:21.280)
I think it would require, first of all, not much bureaucracy, not much slowing down.
Jack Barsky (2:36:29.280)
You have to have incredible, in the modern world, digital systems that are able to do
Lex Fridman (2:36:33.500)
surveillance, manipulation.
Jack Barsky (2:36:36.320)
There has to be a strategy that is carried out in secrecy across a huge number of people
Lex Fridman (2:36:42.360)
effectively that also requires you hire the best people in the world.
Lex Fridman (2:36:48.240)
And I think it's difficult to execute on this kind of thing if you compartmentalize because
Lex Fridman (2:36:57.000)
there has to be great collaboration.
Jack Barsky (2:36:59.400)
There has to be a great, where there's a unified vision and coordination across multiple groups.
Lex Fridman (2:37:07.560)
There has to be, I mean, it's very difficult to do.
Jack Barsky (2:37:11.240)
Now, nevertheless, especially with technology, this becomes easier and easier.
Lex Fridman (2:37:15.880)
So the bar goes lower and lower.
Jack Barsky (2:37:17.960)
To achieve mass surveillance becomes easier and easier and easier.
Jack Barsky (2:37:22.920)
Mass manipulation through platforms, because we're now digitally connected, you can now
Jack Barsky (2:37:28.080)
do that kind of manipulation.
Lex Fridman (2:37:29.260)
So it becomes more and more realistic that you could do this kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (2:37:32.040)
But you're saying that, no, intelligence, first of all, intelligence is hard.
Lex Fridman (2:37:39.640)
And to do it at scale and to do it well and to do it in a way that it's also not just
Jack Barsky (2:37:47.520)
collecting information about the populace, but manipulating the populace is very, very
Lex Fridman (2:37:51.600)
difficult.
Jack Barsky (2:37:52.600)
Now, let me give you another argument why I think that Besminov was a fraud.
Jack Barsky (2:37:57.440)
I mean, I already have, I have Matrokin on my side and my personal observation of the
Jack Barsky (2:38:05.720)
incompetence that I witnessed.
Lex Fridman (2:38:08.640)
I mean, they really, really didn't know what they didn't know.
Lex Fridman (2:38:12.640)
So now Besminov was KGB, where was he stationed?
Lex Fridman (2:38:17.240)
In India.
Jack Barsky (2:38:19.760)
He was a low level agent in India.
Lex Fridman (2:38:25.040)
And I told you it was the one thing that the KGB was really good at was compartmentalization.
Lex Fridman (2:38:30.800)
How does Besminov in India find out about this massive plan that should have been super
Lex Fridman (2:38:36.520)
secret, right?
Jack Barsky (2:38:38.000)
He made it up, sorry.
Lex Fridman (2:38:40.920)
And you know why he got away with it?
Jack Barsky (2:38:42.520)
Because Americans eat that up, because it's not our fault.
Lex Fridman (2:38:45.460)
It's the damn Russians that doing all that bad stuff.
Jack Barsky (2:38:49.200)
Speaking of the damn Russians doing all that bad stuff, you know about the Internet Research
Lex Fridman (2:38:54.060)
Agency.
Jack Barsky (2:38:55.920)
They have been doing quite a bit of damage and I'm now familiar with the world of enhanced
Lex Fridman (2:39:04.880)
artificial persons.
Jack Barsky (2:39:06.800)
These are the avatars on Facebook and Twitter and so forth that look like real people.
Lex Fridman (2:39:15.200)
And there are quite a few of them.
Lex Fridman (2:39:18.800)
And I have a good friend who operates in that realm and he uses, for instance, facial recognition
Jack Barsky (2:39:26.360)
when he thinks that there's a suspicious character, say, on LinkedIn or on Facebook.
Lex Fridman (2:39:36.040)
And very often he finds out, yeah, that that person exists, but it's not the person who
Lex Fridman (2:39:42.440)
it pretends to be.
Lex Fridman (2:39:44.120)
So basically detecting the artificial, the enhanced artificial person.
Lex Fridman (2:39:48.280)
But he can also make them.
Lex Fridman (2:39:50.360)
You think the United States doesn't do it?
Lex Fridman (2:39:53.760)
We do it too.
Lex Fridman (2:39:54.760)
Well, this is to push back against your pushback, right?
Jack Barsky (2:39:57.760)
Yeah, Bezmenov might be a fraud, but is it possible, especially in the modern age, that
Lex Fridman (2:40:04.320)
there is these kind of large scale systematic operatives?
Jack Barsky (2:40:08.440)
Wouldn't you, as a government that's investing billions of dollars into military equipment,
Jack Barsky (2:40:22.360)
in a world that's more and more clearly going to be defined by cyber war versus hot war,
Jack Barsky (2:40:31.120)
wouldn't you start to have serious meetings, large amounts of hires that are working at
Lex Fridman (2:40:37.840)
how do we manipulate the information flow, how do we manipulate the minds of the populace,
Lex Fridman (2:40:44.040)
how do we sell them a narrative?
Lex Fridman (2:40:46.680)
So even though he might have been making up a story because people eat it up, could it
Lex Fridman (2:40:52.240)
speak to some deep truth that's actually different than the truth you came up in as a KGB agent?
Jack Barsky (2:40:59.120)
I agree with you 100%.
Lex Fridman (2:41:00.120)
It's much easier when all you need is an army of nerds who also know.
Jack Barsky (2:41:08.680)
No offense to nerds.
Lex Fridman (2:41:09.940)
That's a term of endearment I use.
Jack Barsky (2:41:11.600)
Yes, I love nerds.
Lex Fridman (2:41:14.600)
I used to be one myself, but anyway.
Jack Barsky (2:41:16.960)
Once a nerd, always a nerd.
Lex Fridman (2:41:21.020)
So what I was going to say here is.
Jack Barsky (2:41:23.000)
All you need is an army of nerds.
Lex Fridman (2:41:25.600)
And what also experts in the culture of the target country.
Jack Barsky (2:41:32.240)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (2:41:33.240)
And nowadays the world is different.
Jack Barsky (2:41:35.400)
There's a whole lot more fluidity.
Jack Barsky (2:41:37.040)
There's a whole lot of more people that like say Russians, for instance, study in the United
Jack Barsky (2:41:40.480)
States, Chinese, an army of Chinese studying in the United States, they have a lot more
Lex Fridman (2:41:46.560)
knowledge of how we function than the KGB did and it's vice versa.
Jack Barsky (2:41:52.660)
Not as many Americans in Russia, but we have some, but the Chinese and the Russians have
Lex Fridman (2:41:58.320)
an advantage here.
Lex Fridman (2:41:59.320)
Can I ask you a question based on your experience?
Lex Fridman (2:42:02.700)
So I have been talking to a lot of powerful people and some of which have very close connections
Jack Barsky (2:42:13.440)
to in this particular conflict, Ukraine and Russia, but in other places as well.
Jack Barsky (2:42:19.480)
I don't believe I've ever been contacted by or interacted with an intelligence agency.
Jack Barsky (2:42:24.960)
CIA, FSB, MI6, Mossad, I don't think I had, well, let me say explicitly, I haven't had
Jack Barsky (2:42:34.400)
an official conversation, which is what I assume I would have because I have nothing
Jack Barsky (2:42:38.580)
to hide.
Lex Fridman (2:42:39.580)
Right?
Lex Fridman (2:42:40.580)
So I think there's no reason for people to be secretive.
Lex Fridman (2:42:43.820)
But would I, why is that, would I know, am I interesting at all, how are people determined
Lex Fridman (2:42:52.000)
if they're a person of interest or not?
Lex Fridman (2:42:54.560)
And I guess the question, I mean, some of it I ask in a bit of a humorous way, but also
Jack Barsky (2:43:00.200)
perhaps there's truth in some of the humors.
Lex Fridman (2:43:02.960)
Would I know if I have ever interacted with a intelligence agency spy?
Jack Barsky (2:43:10.400)
Well, you don't know that you haven't been contacted, but certainly not, I think you
Lex Fridman (2:43:20.000)
never had a conversation that related to intelligence in any way, shape, or form, right?
Jack Barsky (2:43:24.640)
Right.
Lex Fridman (2:43:25.640)
Like where a person, another person introduced themselves.
Jack Barsky (2:43:27.520)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:43:28.520)
Introduced themselves or becomes, sort of wants to be your friend and then talks about
Lex Fridman (2:43:34.620)
these types of topics, right?
Lex Fridman (2:43:37.120)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:43:38.120)
I, there's people because of who I'm interacting with, they're, I mean, even with just, even
Jack Barsky (2:43:48.840)
with Elon Musk, like if you think about Elon Musk, there's a lot of people that are, that
Jack Barsky (2:43:57.080)
are part of the conversations that happen.
Lex Fridman (2:43:59.780)
How do I know they're all trustworthy?
Jack Barsky (2:44:01.600)
They all present themselves as trustworthy.
Lex Fridman (2:44:03.400)
Now, again, I have nothing, so this is, this is for the intelligence agencies.
Jack Barsky (2:44:07.560)
I have nothing to hide.
Jack Barsky (2:44:08.560)
I am the same person privately as publicly, well intentioned, real, no, no controlled,
Jack Barsky (2:44:16.560)
no weird sexual stuff where you can manipulate me.
Lex Fridman (2:44:20.400)
What else?
Jack Barsky (2:44:21.400)
No drug use.
Lex Fridman (2:44:22.400)
No drug use, no, no skeletons in the closet, none of that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:44:28.240)
But you know, I don't, I don't know, I mean, just even having these conversations, you
Lex Fridman (2:44:33.560)
know, I tend to trust people as a default.
Jack Barsky (2:44:36.440)
Yeah, me too.
Lex Fridman (2:44:38.080)
And you start when you think, well, especially with some of the people I've been talking
Jack Barsky (2:44:45.120)
with and some of the traveling I'm doing, I'm realizing there's a, you know, there's
Jack Barsky (2:44:52.080)
hard men in this world, there's military, there's serious suffering and there's war
Lex Fridman (2:45:01.080)
and there's serious people that are doing serious harm and so you have to be careful
Lex Fridman (2:45:06.600)
of thinking who to trust.
Jack Barsky (2:45:09.920)
The person approaches you with a smile and asks you a question.
Jack Barsky (2:45:14.720)
My natural inclination is that person is a cool person, I'll answer the question, become
Jack Barsky (2:45:20.120)
a friend.
Lex Fridman (2:45:21.120)
But it becomes difficult when you realize that there's things like intelligence agencies
Jack Barsky (2:45:26.640)
with thousands of employees.
Jack Barsky (2:45:28.880)
There's people that are doing major military actions that involve tens of thousands, hundreds
Jack Barsky (2:45:33.580)
of thousands of soldiers.
Lex Fridman (2:45:35.460)
This is serious stuff and so how do I, how do you know how to operate in this world?
Jack Barsky (2:45:39.920)
The folks that you're interacting with have a responsibility not to tell you what they
Lex Fridman (2:45:47.040)
shouldn't tell you, right?
Lex Fridman (2:45:49.000)
So and most of them probably won't and I'm guessing occasionally they will say, well,
Lex Fridman (2:45:54.080)
I can't go there, right?
Lex Fridman (2:45:57.320)
So what you are aware of is sort of public and what you're doing is you're collecting
Jack Barsky (2:46:08.320)
it and you're editing it to some extent, you're not changing the verbage, you just repeat
Lex Fridman (2:46:21.200)
what they say, so from that angle you're not privy to any real secrets.
Lex Fridman (2:46:27.560)
What you have possibly that could be of use is you learn to get to know the person.
Lex Fridman (2:46:36.360)
So I'm thinking there's a good possibility if you get the interviews in the East that
Lex Fridman (2:46:43.680)
somebody may actually approach you and ask you what's your opinion.
Jack Barsky (2:46:47.520)
I just hope they approach me and introduce themselves properly.
Jack Barsky (2:46:51.320)
I just, there's a kind of, I mean, would you know, like how many Russian spies are there
Lex Fridman (2:46:59.000)
in the United States?
Lex Fridman (2:47:00.040)
How many American spies are there in Russia?
Lex Fridman (2:47:02.480)
Do you have a sense?
Lex Fridman (2:47:03.680)
Is it just like with the GRU?
Jack Barsky (2:47:06.240)
No idea.
Lex Fridman (2:47:07.960)
Is it possible there's like tens of thousands and we're not, or like thousands?
Jack Barsky (2:47:13.560)
Not thousands like I used to operate.
Jack Barsky (2:47:16.160)
We are too hard to train and we weren't that successful to begin with, but particularly
Jack Barsky (2:47:22.520)
Russians and Chinese, both governments know who is going abroad and I guarantee you there's
Jack Barsky (2:47:34.000)
a lot of amateur spies, they're being asked to help us out, do something for the motherland.
Lex Fridman (2:47:40.640)
And crowdsource spying.
Lex Fridman (2:47:42.080)
Yeah, sort of.
Jack Barsky (2:47:43.720)
Not serious training, but yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:47:46.000)
For instance, this lady, I forgot her first name, Butina, she was a rank amateur.
Jack Barsky (2:47:52.840)
She used social media to communicate with Moscow.
Lex Fridman (2:47:57.840)
She had no training, but she was reasonably successful.
Jack Barsky (2:48:01.360)
I mean, and the difference between, let's say, the current Russian intelligence and
Jack Barsky (2:48:11.720)
the KGB, Vladimir Putin and his henchmen are okay with people being caught because, and
Jack Barsky (2:48:22.080)
every time I go and talk and give a talk someplace, I'm always asked this question, how many Russian
Lex Fridman (2:48:28.400)
spies do you think we have here?
Lex Fridman (2:48:31.260)
Because that scares the people, right?
Lex Fridman (2:48:33.520)
And Putin likes to scare people.
Jack Barsky (2:48:35.540)
The KGB was very solicitous of their agents.
Lex Fridman (2:48:40.960)
They didn't want any one of them caught, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:48:43.640)
So that's a big difference.
Lex Fridman (2:48:47.280)
So for the FSB, getting caught sends a strong signal to the world that there's agents everywhere.
Jack Barsky (2:48:52.160)
Yeah, there could be many more.
Lex Fridman (2:48:53.820)
And there probably are, but because also the world, again, there's a whole lot more travel
Jack Barsky (2:49:03.560)
going on, a whole lot more interaction, studying abroad, doing business.
Lex Fridman (2:49:09.200)
And there will be attempted espionage probably every minute in this country.
Jack Barsky (2:49:16.160)
That doesn't mean they will be successful, no.
Lex Fridman (2:49:20.560)
But there is a cottage industry now that is doing quite well that teaches companies how
Jack Barsky (2:49:27.120)
to fortify themselves against industrial espionage or also foreign actors spying.
Lex Fridman (2:49:37.680)
It's all over the place.
Jack Barsky (2:49:38.680)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (2:49:39.680)
As it becomes easier and easier with digital, with cyber, that becomes a serious, very serious
Jack Barsky (2:49:44.520)
threat.
Jack Barsky (2:49:45.520)
We might wind up in a world where nobody knows anymore what's up and what's down.
Jack Barsky (2:49:51.100)
If I was to have a conversation with Vladimir Putin and or Vladimir Zelensky, is there something
Lex Fridman (2:49:59.280)
you would ask about the time in the KGB and the time in his past?
Jack Barsky (2:50:10.200)
All of us, men and women, are creations of the experiences we have in our life, early
Lex Fridman (2:50:16.760)
on in life and through the formative experiences, successes and failures.
Jack Barsky (2:50:22.480)
So...
Lex Fridman (2:50:23.480)
Yeah, you just said the key words.
Jack Barsky (2:50:25.000)
I would ask, without giving away anything, just being high level, your biggest success
Lex Fridman (2:50:31.280)
and your biggest failure.
Lex Fridman (2:50:33.560)
As a politician or as a KGB agent?
Lex Fridman (2:50:35.520)
No, we're talking in the realm of KGB.
Jack Barsky (2:50:40.220)
When the wall came down, and he was in an office, a KGB office in the city of Dresden,
Lex Fridman (2:50:48.600)
and East Germans were besieging Stasi offices, and they also dropped by the KGB office, and
Jack Barsky (2:51:01.240)
they were...
Lex Fridman (2:51:02.240)
It was pretty threatening.
Jack Barsky (2:51:03.600)
It looked like they would actually storm the office and get, you know, the documents and
Lex Fridman (2:51:09.520)
stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (2:51:11.440)
And initially, the first demonstration was told that if they come any closer, weapons
Lex Fridman (2:51:23.920)
would be used.
Jack Barsky (2:51:24.920)
So, they disappeared, and then they came back, and I don't know, somebody in that office
Lex Fridman (2:51:31.040)
called Berlin and said, what are we gonna do?
Lex Fridman (2:51:35.280)
Are we allowed to use force?
Lex Fridman (2:51:37.440)
And the answer came back that Gorbachev said, absolutely not.
Lex Fridman (2:51:41.440)
And so, this is where Putin, all of a sudden, you know, he was at one point a member of
Jack Barsky (2:51:46.800)
the greatest, the most powerful intelligence organization in the world, and all of a sudden,
Jack Barsky (2:51:51.360)
he was powerless, and he had to watch how, you know, this was a defeat, big one.
Jack Barsky (2:51:59.960)
It's supposedly a powerful intelligence agency cowering, sort of crawling back into a position
Jack Barsky (2:52:09.400)
of weakness.
Lex Fridman (2:52:10.400)
And he probably promised himself, never again, Russia needs to be great again.
Jack Barsky (2:52:15.440)
The KGB, FSB, Russia, the Russian Empire needs to rise again, and that there's a feeling
Jack Barsky (2:52:23.400)
for him that that's, as he talks about the collapse of the Soviet Union being a great
Jack Barsky (2:52:28.320)
tragedy, there's a feeling like that was, like, never again.
Jack Barsky (2:52:38.080)
Yeah, and I believe that he has a strong conviction that, I don't know if he's religious, he
Jack Barsky (2:52:49.200)
carries the cross now, but I don't know what that means, but somehow, but that it's the
Jack Barsky (2:52:55.840)
destiny of the Russian nation to be great, and that is sort of, whether it's determined
Jack Barsky (2:53:03.760)
by God or some higher power, that is very important for him.
Jack Barsky (2:53:08.480)
Of course, that nationalist idea is one that Americans share as well, and it could help
Jack Barsky (2:53:17.640)
a nation flourish, so by itself, it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's how it manifests
Lex Fridman (2:53:22.600)
itself is the question.
Jack Barsky (2:53:25.240)
One other thing, if I were to get a chat with the Ukrainian president, I would ask him,
Lex Fridman (2:53:36.840)
how many lives, what is the equation between giving up some land and how many lives are
Lex Fridman (2:53:46.200)
worth this land?
Lex Fridman (2:53:50.120)
And that's a good way to phrase the question, of course, that question gets you killed in
Jack Barsky (2:53:54.080)
Ukraine, but because there's another part of that equation, which is it's not just land
Jack Barsky (2:54:01.200)
versus lives, it's the sovereignty, the knowledge that you're free and you're self determined,
Lex Fridman (2:54:10.660)
and it's not about fighting for the particular land, it's saying we are messed up, corrupt,
Lex Fridman (2:54:21.080)
we have problems, it's a messy world, but it's our world.
Jack Barsky (2:54:27.120)
I think Stephen Crane has a poem about a man eating his own heart, and he was asked how
Jack Barsky (2:54:35.320)
does it taste, and he said it's bitter, but I like it because it is bitter and because
Jack Barsky (2:54:39.680)
it is my heart, and that there's a sense of I want, this is not just about land, this
Lex Fridman (2:54:46.000)
is our nation.
Jack Barsky (2:54:47.800)
The same love of nation that Putin has for Russia, the greater Russia, this vision of
Lex Fridman (2:54:53.760)
this great empire, I believe Ukraine does as well.
Jack Barsky (2:54:58.760)
Not every nation, there's levels to this game, and Ukrainian people are some of the proudest
Jack Barsky (2:55:04.400)
people throughout the history of the 20th century, throughout the history of Earth.
Jack Barsky (2:55:10.840)
The Polish people are proud people.
Jack Barsky (2:55:12.160)
You can just see in World War II, the people who said fuck you, you're not having this,
Jack Barsky (2:55:20.840)
we will die to the last man.
Jack Barsky (2:55:23.240)
There's different cultures that kind of really hold their ground, and Ukrainian people are
Jack Barsky (2:55:28.160)
that.
Lex Fridman (2:55:29.160)
You know, I have to admit, in that respect, I'm a bit of a coward.
Jack Barsky (2:55:33.160)
I could not do what Zelensky has been doing.
Jack Barsky (2:55:40.560)
I would sort of try to find a way to carve out something that I can live with, however,
Jack Barsky (2:55:53.840)
if that force, that evil force gets to my family.
Lex Fridman (2:55:58.040)
Right.
Jack Barsky (2:55:59.040)
There's lines.
Lex Fridman (2:56:00.040)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (2:56:01.040)
That's right.
Lex Fridman (2:56:02.040)
You become the world's bravest man if somebody crosses that line.
Jack Barsky (2:56:09.560)
You mentioned something about you've not been to Moscow back, and that it might not be safe
Lex Fridman (2:56:16.840)
for you to travel there.
Jack Barsky (2:56:18.840)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (2:56:19.840)
Can you speak to the nature of that?
Lex Fridman (2:56:24.720)
As somebody that successfully got out of the KGB, how are you still alive?
Lex Fridman (2:56:33.520)
A number of reasons.
Lex Fridman (2:56:36.100)
First of all, when my story became public, it was six years ago, I was pretty old, right?
Lex Fridman (2:56:44.740)
And so the folks that may have a personal interest or may have had a personal interest
Lex Fridman (2:56:51.240)
in doing me harm, most of them don't live anymore, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:56:55.480)
That's number one.
Jack Barsky (2:56:56.480)
Number two, I did not, I wasn't, I hired hand, a German.
Lex Fridman (2:57:02.520)
I did not betray the motherland.
Jack Barsky (2:57:04.720)
That's a crime that is punished by death.
Lex Fridman (2:57:09.520)
You betray the motherland.
Lex Fridman (2:57:17.480)
And the other thing is, you know that these kinds of operations to assassination in another
Jack Barsky (2:57:27.040)
country are very difficult to plan and implement, and if there's a list of people that they
Jack Barsky (2:57:33.160)
don't like, I may not be at the very top.
Jack Barsky (2:57:36.920)
Having said that, you know, if I wind up, say, in Moscow or even in countries like Turkey
Jack Barsky (2:57:41.900)
where there's a lot of lawlessness, you know, accidents can easily be arranged, and that's
Jack Barsky (2:57:49.640)
just sending another message, you know, just like, you know, we can do a lot of things.
Jack Barsky (2:57:57.200)
Powerful.
Lex Fridman (2:57:58.200)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (2:57:59.200)
Do you think it's safe for me to travel in Russia and Ukraine?
Lex Fridman (2:58:02.960)
I think you know very well how to communicate in both countries.
Jack Barsky (2:58:11.160)
You know, you've shown this in this interaction that you have a lot of empathy for the people
Jack Barsky (2:58:18.200)
you'll be talking with, and empathy means good understanding where they're coming from,
Lex Fridman (2:58:22.920)
and that there are lines that you can't cross.
Lex Fridman (2:58:25.840)
Like the question that I was going to ask Zelensky, you're not going to ask.
Jack Barsky (2:58:29.080)
Good for you.
Lex Fridman (2:58:30.080)
Yeah, isn't that the funny thing about this world?
Jack Barsky (2:58:33.320)
There's lines.
Lex Fridman (2:58:34.320)
There's lines everywhere.
Jack Barsky (2:58:35.320)
Even in love, even in personal relationships, there's lines you should not cross.
Lex Fridman (2:58:38.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:58:39.920)
How did you finally get caught?
Lex Fridman (2:58:42.120)
I resigned in 1988, so...
Jack Barsky (2:58:45.040)
Let's actually talk about that.
Lex Fridman (2:58:46.040)
There was a...
Jack Barsky (2:58:47.040)
Okay, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:58:48.040)
Resigned.
Jack Barsky (2:58:49.040)
There's warning signs.
Lex Fridman (2:58:50.040)
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Jack Barsky (2:58:51.040)
There's yet another choice.
Lex Fridman (2:58:52.040)
Yet another crossroads.
Jack Barsky (2:58:53.040)
Yes, okay.
Lex Fridman (2:58:54.040)
What was the calculation?
Lex Fridman (2:58:55.040)
What was the choice to be made?
Lex Fridman (2:58:57.600)
To give a little background, it was 1988, and I thought they would...
Jack Barsky (2:59:08.600)
My time in the US would soon end because I thought 10 to 12 years, it was already past
Lex Fridman (2:59:15.960)
10 years.
Jack Barsky (2:59:16.960)
There was no indication that they indicated, that they said, you're done.
Lex Fridman (2:59:23.620)
But in December of 1988, I got this one thing that I never wanted to see.
Lex Fridman (2:59:30.040)
So we had a system of signals that either one of those diplomat agents could set at
Jack Barsky (2:59:39.440)
a spot that I pass by every day, or I could set where they would pass by, like on their
Jack Barsky (2:59:47.140)
way from where they live to the United Nations, for instance, who would just drive.
Lex Fridman (2:59:52.240)
So the signal spot for me was on a support beam for the elevated atrium in Queens.
Jack Barsky (30:01.600)
They were much, much more orthodox.
Lex Fridman (30:03.520)
So they had to print the books in translation, guess where they wound up.
Jack Barsky (30:09.240)
They were piled up in the hallways of the Stasi.
Lex Fridman (30:13.480)
They bought the entire print run.
Jack Barsky (30:16.680)
It's fascinating.
Lex Fridman (30:19.540)
So but let's backtrack.
Lex Fridman (30:20.820)
So Operation Barbarossa, invasion of Hitler to the Soviet Union, and then hopefully that
Lex Fridman (30:26.300)
leads us all the way to East Germany, West Germany after the end of the war.
Lex Fridman (30:30.540)
So what happened was the Soviet Union rolled into the eastern part of Germany and the Western
Jack Barsky (30:36.280)
allies took a larger chunk, which was eventually, it was occupied by the three allies, the French,
Jack Barsky (30:49.240)
the English and the Americans, and the eastern part was occupied by Soviet troops.
Lex Fridman (30:55.440)
And the Soviet troops actually conquered Berlin.
Lex Fridman (31:01.000)
But in a contract, they decided that Berlin would be ruled by the four allies and they
Lex Fridman (31:09.200)
all had free access to that city.
Jack Barsky (31:15.960)
I was born in the East German part, which very quickly became ruled by communists, socialists,
Jack Barsky (31:25.360)
the Communist Party and the Socialist Party United, but the leaders of that new party
Jack Barsky (31:31.200)
were all communists.
Lex Fridman (31:32.200)
It's nevertheless called democratic.
Jack Barsky (31:34.400)
Yes, German Democratic Republic, which was formed a couple of months after I was born.
Lex Fridman (31:42.120)
I was born into a remote southeastern corner of East Germany.
Lex Fridman (31:49.600)
And interestingly enough, genetically, I'm only half German.
Lex Fridman (31:54.520)
The other half is Czech and Polish.
Jack Barsky (31:58.720)
Because where I grew up, I could walk to the Nysa River, which was the border with Poland,
Lex Fridman (32:07.160)
and it was only about an hour by bus to get to the Czech border.
Lex Fridman (32:11.960)
So that's why I'm a mix.
Lex Fridman (32:14.640)
So okay, so East Germany after the war was communist, socialist, and then the West Germany
Jack Barsky (32:20.760)
was representing the Western world with democracy.
Lex Fridman (32:25.400)
And what the United States did, this was really, really very forward looking, very strategic,
Jack Barsky (32:35.200)
the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy in the West as compared to what the Soviet Union
Lex Fridman (32:41.520)
did.
Jack Barsky (32:42.520)
Whatever they hadn't destroyed on the way in, they took with them on the way out for
Lex Fridman (32:48.760)
reparations because they had every right to do that.
Lex Fridman (32:52.360)
But it was not a good idea because East Germany was always behind in economic development
Lex Fridman (32:59.280)
to their Western counterpart.
Lex Fridman (33:01.560)
So when you were young, as today, but when you were young, you were clearly an exceptional
Lex Fridman (33:08.160)
student.
Jack Barsky (33:09.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (33:10.160)
You're a brilliant academic superstar.
Jack Barsky (33:12.880)
Let's go to your childhood.
Jack Barsky (33:14.900)
What's the fond memory from childhood that you have in being woken up to the beauty of
Jack Barsky (33:21.800)
this world and sort of being curious about all the mysteries around you that I think
Lex Fridman (33:27.640)
ultimately lead to academic success?
Jack Barsky (33:33.480)
Or was it...
Lex Fridman (33:35.040)
The fondest memory that comes to mind is my first kiss.
Lex Fridman (33:38.520)
How's that?
Lex Fridman (33:39.520)
Do you want to go to the details of that?
Lex Fridman (33:44.560)
What did you make of that kiss?
Lex Fridman (33:47.220)
What did that teach you about yourself and human nature and all that?
Jack Barsky (33:51.400)
It taught me only in hindsight.
Lex Fridman (33:53.240)
At the time, I was just like, my God, I was head over heels in love.
Jack Barsky (33:57.640)
I was 16 years old.
Lex Fridman (34:00.720)
And I knew in those days, I admired girls.
Jack Barsky (34:05.160)
I knew the girls were like sort of magical beings.
Lex Fridman (34:10.720)
They were not capable of doing evil things.
Jack Barsky (34:13.560)
They were beautiful and they had to be adored.
Lex Fridman (34:16.160)
And one of them actually loved me too.
Jack Barsky (34:20.100)
She came after me initially.
Lex Fridman (34:23.040)
And that too was magical for you.
Jack Barsky (34:25.760)
Oh my God, yeah.
Lex Fridman (34:28.800)
And literally, I dedicated...
Jack Barsky (34:33.560)
That's when I started studying.
Lex Fridman (34:34.780)
Up until that point, I just did whatever I had to do to be in A minus students.
Lex Fridman (34:39.680)
And that's when I started studying.
Lex Fridman (34:41.000)
And every A that I got, I dedicated to her, sometimes explicitly, because I knew I was
Jack Barsky (34:48.040)
going to take care of her as I grew up.
Lex Fridman (34:50.240)
So you're going to have to work hard in this world to be somebody that could be adored
Jack Barsky (34:54.120)
by those you love.
Lex Fridman (34:55.840)
Yes, you're right.
Jack Barsky (34:57.200)
You know that kiss, the next day, I was running around in school with a grin on my face.
Lex Fridman (35:05.800)
And maybe that in some way, that grin never fades.
Lex Fridman (35:09.920)
So what about the heartbreak that followed?
Lex Fridman (35:15.400)
But just to expand on this a little more, because that passion that I had was an indication
Jack Barsky (35:27.240)
that eventually love would play a big role in my life.
Lex Fridman (35:30.560)
I wasn't aware of it.
Jack Barsky (35:31.560)
I was just directed at this one girl.
Lex Fridman (35:34.760)
But you understood that that feeling that taught you something, like that you're somebody
Jack Barsky (35:39.840)
that can feel those things.
Lex Fridman (35:41.840)
And that's a strong part of who you are.
Lex Fridman (35:46.440)
And therefore, it will also be a part of directing your life trajectory.
Lex Fridman (35:50.400)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (35:51.400)
So we were an item for two years.
Lex Fridman (35:55.400)
I lost my virginity.
Jack Barsky (35:57.920)
She was not a virgin at the time.
Lex Fridman (36:01.920)
My competitor was, he studied medicine in college already.
Lex Fridman (36:09.760)
In which ways was he better than you?
Lex Fridman (36:11.880)
He wasn't.
Jack Barsky (36:12.880)
He was older, and he was more experienced.
Lex Fridman (36:14.680)
And he was going to be a doctor.
Lex Fridman (36:18.000)
But I was there, and he was not.
Lex Fridman (36:21.560)
The presence wins.
Lex Fridman (36:24.520)
But you still had big dreams.
Lex Fridman (36:25.920)
You wanted to be a tenured professor.
Jack Barsky (36:28.520)
Yes, yes.
Lex Fridman (36:29.520)
So you still want to outdo that guy.
Jack Barsky (36:32.400)
Oh, yeah.
Lex Fridman (36:33.400)
And she eventually told me that he was not in the picture anymore.
Lex Fridman (36:39.200)
So it was back and forth, back and forth.
Lex Fridman (36:41.120)
And our senior year, we were an item, and I was just dreaming of the future.
Lex Fridman (36:48.880)
But we didn't figure out that in those days, if she went to college in Berlin and I went
Jack Barsky (36:55.000)
to college in Jena, and the distance between the two cities was too much for a weekend
Jack Barsky (37:06.580)
visit, public transportation was very slow, and nobody had cars.
Lex Fridman (37:13.520)
So the circumstance of life, you drifted apart.
Lex Fridman (37:18.160)
And so we interacted with a couple of letters, and then I got the goodbye letter.
Lex Fridman (37:23.160)
Oh, my God.
Lex Fridman (37:24.960)
That hurt?
Lex Fridman (37:26.680)
I can still feel it.
Jack Barsky (37:30.720)
That's a good thing.
Lex Fridman (37:31.920)
You could feel the pain.
Jack Barsky (37:33.960)
That's still part of love.
Lex Fridman (37:36.080)
It's that the pain of loss is still part of love.
Lex Fridman (37:39.160)
And then you kind of change that.
Jack Barsky (37:41.880)
You shape it, and you give that love in deeper, more profound ways to future people.
Jack Barsky (37:46.640)
That's very well put.
Lex Fridman (37:47.900)
But at the time, it emptied me out.
Jack Barsky (37:51.840)
If I had a tendency to have suicidal thoughts, I might have killed myself.
Lex Fridman (38:00.640)
Would you say that was one of the darker moments of your life?
Jack Barsky (38:04.800)
Let me see.
Lex Fridman (38:07.400)
As a single moment, yes.
Lex Fridman (38:09.120)
So I still remember we had a mail slot in the front door, and I wasn't expecting a letter
Lex Fridman (38:19.200)
any day, and there was the letter.
Jack Barsky (38:20.640)
I go upstairs into my bedroom, and I open it, and I read it, and just like the life
Lex Fridman (38:29.060)
went out of me.
Jack Barsky (38:30.060)
You're just there alone, and you have to experience this pain alone.
Lex Fridman (38:33.800)
And now you're deeply alone in this world.
Jack Barsky (38:37.600)
Yes, because there was no emotional relationship with my parents.
Lex Fridman (38:46.120)
I literally had nobody.
Lex Fridman (38:47.480)
So this love you have in you had no place to go.
Lex Fridman (38:51.520)
It was choked off, all right?
Lex Fridman (38:55.060)
But what I did was I wanted to go on, right?
Lex Fridman (39:02.960)
And so I threw myself into the study of chemistry.
Jack Barsky (39:07.560)
I outworked all of my fellow students in a big way.
Jack Barsky (39:13.920)
I worked my ass off, and since I was pretty smart, too, I just aced practically everything.
Lex Fridman (39:20.240)
And for the first two years in college, and look, we go to college, there are all these
Lex Fridman (39:24.120)
pretty girls, and there's dances and everything.
Jack Barsky (39:26.080)
We had this great student club where I didn't look at any girls.
Lex Fridman (39:32.800)
Eventually I knew I was going to, you know, want to have female companionship, but love?
Jack Barsky (39:38.160)
Uh uh.
Lex Fridman (39:39.160)
No more.
Jack Barsky (39:40.160)
That hurts.
Lex Fridman (39:41.160)
There's a song that goes, love hurts.
Jack Barsky (39:43.160)
Yeah, I know that one.
Lex Fridman (39:44.840)
That's true.
Jack Barsky (39:45.840)
There's actually many songs that have a similar message, yes.
Lex Fridman (39:50.760)
So during that time, during your excellence, just being an exceptional student of chemistry,
Jack Barsky (39:58.240)
let's go to your story.
Lex Fridman (39:59.240)
So in your book, Deep Undercover, My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy
Lex Fridman (3:00:03.400)
And it was morning in December that I walked by there and routinely look at it, and I never
Lex Fridman (3:00:10.480)
expected anything.
Lex Fridman (3:00:11.480)
And there was this red dot, it was about the size of my fist with a red paint.
Lex Fridman (3:00:17.640)
And since you have done it already, I think I can curse in this moment, because it's the
Jack Barsky (3:00:24.360)
only way I can really indicate how I felt, I said, oh shit, because that was the danger
Lex Fridman (3:00:30.880)
signal.
Jack Barsky (3:00:31.880)
It was like, you are in severe danger, and you need to get out of the country as soon
Lex Fridman (3:00:37.800)
as possible.
Jack Barsky (3:00:38.800)
There was a protocol that I was supposed to follow, I wasn't even supposed to go home,
Jack Barsky (3:00:44.320)
I just needed to, was supposed to get my reserve documents that I had hidden in a park in the
Jack Barsky (3:00:53.160)
Bronx and make a beeline to the Canadian border.
Lex Fridman (3:00:57.960)
I wasn't ready.
Lex Fridman (3:00:59.480)
So I just ignored this thing, I mean, I couldn't ignore it, but I went on to work, got on the
Jack Barsky (3:01:05.600)
A train, went to work, and then went to my cubicle and stared at the computer screen
Jack Barsky (3:01:11.240)
all day because I couldn't think.
Lex Fridman (3:01:12.720)
I could think only about what to do, what to do, what to do.
Jack Barsky (3:01:15.780)
The reason for this indecisiveness was that I was a father at the time.
Jack Barsky (3:01:24.480)
My little girl by the name of Chelsea was 18 months old, and I was there when she was
Jack Barsky (3:01:32.320)
born, I took her to her home, I watched her grow up, I watched her take the first steps,
Lex Fridman (3:01:45.200)
and always look at me with these big eyes, lovingly look at me, and that is when I started
Jack Barsky (3:01:52.000)
my reentry into the human race, because I just fell in love with this girl.
Jack Barsky (3:02:01.400)
That's when love came back, and it was completely unexpected, and there's a lot of fathers who
Jack Barsky (3:02:08.720)
understand, particularly fathers of girls who understand what happened there.
Jack Barsky (3:02:15.840)
I still thought I need to go back because there was probably some danger, but I hadn't
Jack Barsky (3:02:23.300)
figured out how to take care of the girl, leave her, but maybe she needs to have a good
Jack Barsky (3:02:29.840)
life and grow up and have a chance, and her mother, she was from South America, she had
Jack Barsky (3:02:35.760)
a fourth grade education.
Lex Fridman (3:02:38.320)
That would have not worked very well.
Lex Fridman (3:02:41.360)
So I played for time.
Jack Barsky (3:02:45.880)
Obviously I could be sick, I could be in a hospital, there was a precedent where I was
Jack Barsky (3:02:51.400)
sick where I couldn't communicate for about three weeks, so I just did nothing.
Jack Barsky (3:03:00.200)
That was on a Monday, on a Thursday was my regular shortwave transmission, I listened,
Lex Fridman (3:03:07.000)
and they explained a little in a few sentences.
Lex Fridman (3:03:11.880)
We have reason to believe that the FBI is on your case.
Jack Barsky (3:03:15.160)
You need to execute the emergency procedure, come home right away.
Jack Barsky (3:03:22.760)
I still had some time because the radio could be broken or the transmission was bad, or
Lex Fridman (3:03:28.560)
I still could be in a hospital, right?
Lex Fridman (3:03:30.120)
So I gave myself some more time, and then something happened where they forced my hand.
Lex Fridman (3:03:42.960)
And this is the only time that a Soviet agent was anywhere near me on the territory of the
Lex Fridman (3:03:48.160)
United States.
Lex Fridman (3:03:50.000)
So I'm waiting for the A train on a dark morning still in Queens, and there's this man, the
Jack Barsky (3:04:02.120)
short man in a black trench coat comes up to me from my right, and he whispers into
Jack Barsky (3:04:08.120)
my ears, you got to come back or else you're dead.
Lex Fridman (3:04:13.120)
I can't imitate the Russian accent, it was a Russian accent.
Lex Fridman (3:04:18.080)
And it was a pretty strong accent.
Jack Barsky (3:04:20.760)
The you're dead phrase can have two meanings, and an American would have said, or else you're
Jack Barsky (3:04:28.880)
busted or else you get arrested or else you're dead is very strong.
Lex Fridman (3:04:34.320)
So now you have to take it seriously to some degree because I knew that they had a history
Jack Barsky (3:04:42.640)
of assassinating or at least trying to assassinate defectors.
Lex Fridman (3:04:46.360)
So that obviously raised the stakes a little bit.
Lex Fridman (3:04:51.920)
But I just talked myself into believing this was just a bad phrasing.
Lex Fridman (3:04:59.360)
But at this point, I knew and they knew that we both knew, right?
Lex Fridman (3:05:03.920)
So there was no more guessing.
Lex Fridman (3:05:05.080)
He found me, he talked to me, I know.
Lex Fridman (3:05:07.980)
So now I had to act.
Lex Fridman (3:05:09.140)
So in the next radiogram, I was asked to execute a dead drop operation where they would give
Jack Barsky (3:05:18.460)
me money and a passport.
Lex Fridman (3:05:23.360)
And that was in a park on Staten Island, it was a location that I found and I described.
Lex Fridman (3:05:32.380)
And I was always praised for my ability to describe spots that are easy to find.
Lex Fridman (3:05:41.640)
So that was a given.
Lex Fridman (3:05:44.560)
And the only thing that was different for this operation, they scheduled it for the
Lex Fridman (3:05:49.600)
dark.
Jack Barsky (3:05:50.600)
All right.
Lex Fridman (3:05:51.880)
But it was still no problem because it was in a park and a couple of, about a hundred
Jack Barsky (3:05:58.800)
yards in by next to a fallen tree would be hard to miss.
Lex Fridman (3:06:06.060)
So I go to Staten Island and I read the signal that said, I put the container in the drop.
Jack Barsky (3:06:15.360)
That was the protocol.
Jack Barsky (3:06:16.360)
There's a signal that the person who hands over something puts at a spot not too far
Jack Barsky (3:06:25.600)
from the spot itself.
Lex Fridman (3:06:27.460)
That means I would go in and just pick it up.
Jack Barsky (3:06:30.040)
The reason I actually went to pick up this container, because there was money in it.
Lex Fridman (3:06:38.960)
So I didn't have to make a decision yet.
Jack Barsky (3:06:41.480)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (3:06:42.480)
I could throw away the passport.
Jack Barsky (3:06:44.260)
It was like I was still trying to figure out what to do, what to do, what to do.
Lex Fridman (3:06:48.240)
So I get to the spot, I get to the tree and I had a flashlight with me that the park,
Jack Barsky (3:06:53.800)
there was no way in the park.
Jack Barsky (3:06:56.460)
Even during the day though, this park was not, it was more, almost like a little forest.
Lex Fridman (3:07:02.360)
And I don't see the container.
Lex Fridman (3:07:05.920)
It wasn't supposed to be a crushed oil can, pretty sizable, hard to miss.
Lex Fridman (3:07:13.880)
And I do a double take and I look again and I look around and look around a little more,
Lex Fridman (3:07:18.560)
see if they misplaced it, can't find it.
Jack Barsky (3:07:22.200)
That's the only one that one of those operations failed.
Lex Fridman (3:07:29.000)
And that just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Lex Fridman (3:07:33.740)
So when, as I'm walking away from this, like sort of numb emotionally, I said to myself,
Lex Fridman (3:07:41.880)
I'm staying.
Jack Barsky (3:07:42.880)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:07:43.880)
That decision.
Jack Barsky (3:07:44.880)
That kind of signal, some kind of a muse just spoke to you.
Lex Fridman (3:07:50.360)
That decision was made for me.
Jack Barsky (3:07:53.880)
Now, you know that I'm a Christian now and I think that was like, God told me this, you
Lex Fridman (3:07:58.920)
know.
Lex Fridman (3:07:59.920)
But it was certain there.
Lex Fridman (3:08:01.920)
It was right there.
Jack Barsky (3:08:02.920)
That was it.
Lex Fridman (3:08:03.920)
That was it.
Jack Barsky (3:08:04.920)
That was it.
Lex Fridman (3:08:05.920)
And so what I did to, well, first of all, divine intervention helped me to find a good
Jack Barsky (3:08:15.400)
explanation.
Jack Barsky (3:08:16.960)
I sent them my last letter with secret writing, I communicated to them, I said, I wish I could
Jack Barsky (3:08:25.720)
come but I can't because I have contracted HIV AIDS.
Lex Fridman (3:08:31.880)
That was the best lie ever because nobody wanted to have AIDS in their country.
Lex Fridman (3:08:37.540)
Those days it was a death sentence, right?
Lex Fridman (3:08:39.840)
And I knew, we had conversations when I was back in Moscow, how they were snickering about
Jack Barsky (3:08:46.140)
what's going on in the United States, that depraved culture and you see, they're killing
Lex Fridman (3:08:51.600)
each other.
Lex Fridman (3:08:52.600)
And the depraved culture took over your being and how you're sitting.
Lex Fridman (3:08:57.680)
And I was convincing enough, I even traced it back to a girlfriend I had once that I
Jack Barsky (3:09:04.240)
actually reported on that she, I interacted with this lady who had a boyfriend at one
Lex Fridman (3:09:11.760)
point who was a drug addict and she was infected and she infected me.
Lex Fridman (3:09:16.920)
So they believed it, they sent and I asked them to give my dollar savings to my German
Lex Fridman (3:09:24.440)
family.
Jack Barsky (3:09:26.000)
They gave them some but they told my family that I already passed away, that I'm dead.
Lex Fridman (3:09:33.380)
They believed it, 100%.
Lex Fridman (3:09:35.420)
And I guess the agent who took the money took half of it for himself.
Lex Fridman (3:09:42.120)
So that was it.
Lex Fridman (3:09:43.120)
And the next three months I made sure that I wasn't reliably at the same spot and the
Lex Fridman (3:09:52.360)
same timeframe.
Lex Fridman (3:09:53.980)
So I went to work in different paths at different times just to, you know, just as a safety
Jack Barsky (3:10:01.520)
measure so to speak and not huge but, you know, it kept me, allowed me to keep my sanity.
Lex Fridman (3:10:14.360)
And obviously after I sent the letter I threw the shortwave radio in the Hudson River, destroyed
Lex Fridman (3:10:21.160)
the one time paths that I still had.
Lex Fridman (3:10:23.280)
So I was now ready to for a new life and live out my life as an American undiscovered but,
Lex Fridman (3:10:36.000)
you know, starting to work on my version of the American dream.
Lex Fridman (3:10:42.600)
And the first action was, I was telling my wife, the mother of this child, you know,
Jack Barsky (3:10:51.060)
she always wanted to have a house and said, you know what, we should buy a house.
Lex Fridman (3:10:58.440)
And a year later we moved into the suburbs and then I said, we should have another child
Lex Fridman (3:11:02.720)
and we had another child.
Lex Fridman (3:11:04.600)
So and I had a career where I did pretty well.
Lex Fridman (3:11:09.360)
I moved a couple of times, wound up in a McMansion.
Lex Fridman (3:11:14.320)
But before that my second house was actually in Pennsylvania, in rural Pennsylvania.
Lex Fridman (3:11:19.480)
And this is where I was discovered by the FBI.
Lex Fridman (3:11:25.960)
And how did they know about me?
Jack Barsky (3:11:28.880)
If it hadn't been for this defector, Vasily Mitrokhin, who was an archivist in the KGB
Jack Barsky (3:11:36.240)
archives, he was actually pretty high level.
Lex Fridman (3:11:38.960)
He was in charge of the relocation of the archive from Lubyanka to Yasenov.
Lex Fridman (3:11:48.200)
And he really hated, he had reason to believe he hated the Soviet system.
Jack Barsky (3:11:56.080)
I think I remember that his son was quite ill and he could have gotten treatment in
Jack Barsky (3:12:01.180)
England and he was not allowed to travel to England with his son.
Lex Fridman (3:12:05.680)
So his hatred, he tried to figure out what to do and how to do damage to that system.
Lex Fridman (3:12:12.480)
So he started copying notes, little slips of paper, handwritten that he smuggled out
Lex Fridman (3:12:19.980)
in his underwear and his socks over the years.
Lex Fridman (3:12:23.960)
And then he transcribed them with a typewriter and then put the pieces of paper into some
Lex Fridman (3:12:32.480)
kind of a container and buried this in his stash.
Jack Barsky (3:12:37.480)
It was, I believe in 1992 when he showed up, that was already the Soviet Union was gone.
Lex Fridman (3:12:45.760)
So he showed up at the US embassy in Moscow and told him what he had and it was on a weekend
Lex Fridman (3:12:51.600)
and apparently there was a junior person in charge and he said, you know what, what you
Lex Fridman (3:12:55.480)
got, we are not interested and it's really old.
Jack Barsky (3:13:00.440)
It's a career limiting move, right, because Vasily Mitrokhin then made his way to one
Jack Barsky (3:13:07.880)
of the Baltic republics and contacted MI6 and they said, come on in, old fellow, have
Jack Barsky (3:13:17.280)
a cup of tea.
Lex Fridman (3:13:19.920)
And so they managed to get this stuff out of the Dacha and get it to England and eventually
Jack Barsky (3:13:25.680)
MI6 shared it with the FBI and there wasn't a whole lot of information about me, it was
Lex Fridman (3:13:32.920)
very, very little.
Jack Barsky (3:13:33.920)
It was like, there's a person by the name of Jack Barsky who is an illegal operating
Lex Fridman (3:13:40.400)
in the northeast of the United States.
Jack Barsky (3:13:42.280)
Now if it was Jim Miller, they wouldn't have found me, Jack Barsky was easy to find.
Lex Fridman (3:13:47.780)
So they checked social security and Jack Barsky had gotten his social security card at the
Jack Barsky (3:13:55.700)
age of 33, bingo, okay.
Jack Barsky (3:14:00.520)
All they knew though was that I wasn't illegal, that I was still living there, they didn't
Jack Barsky (3:14:04.320)
know whether I was active, inactive and the other thing that they knew that I was a really,
Lex Fridman (3:14:10.640)
really well trained agent because I was still there, right.
Lex Fridman (3:14:15.160)
So they took, I think, almost three years to investigate me, watch me from a distance
Jack Barsky (3:14:22.660)
because if I was still active, I would have found out that somebody is investigating me.
Lex Fridman (3:14:30.000)
So you started being less and less active in terms of...
Lex Fridman (3:14:33.000)
Oh, I stopped completely.
Lex Fridman (3:14:34.900)
What I mean is...
Lex Fridman (3:14:35.900)
Oh, surveillance detection.
Jack Barsky (3:14:36.900)
Yes, surveillance detection.
Lex Fridman (3:14:37.900)
After three months, I stopped altogether.
Jack Barsky (3:14:40.000)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (3:14:41.000)
Yeah, good point.
Lex Fridman (3:14:42.000)
And FBI is still very careful.
Lex Fridman (3:14:44.000)
They were very careful.
Jack Barsky (3:14:45.400)
They pretty much watched me and at one point, I had a house in the country with one neighbor,
Jack Barsky (3:14:51.440)
at one point that house was for sale, so the FBI bought it and they put a couple of agents
Jack Barsky (3:14:57.200)
there and just didn't keep a closer eye on me.
Jack Barsky (3:15:01.200)
There was no indication that I was still active, but they were still cautious but at one point,
Jack Barsky (3:15:12.360)
they were able to plant a bug in my kitchen, a listening device and my wife and I didn't
Lex Fridman (3:15:23.160)
get along very well.
Jack Barsky (3:15:24.160)
There was a lot of friction and she was constantly complaining about things and I got sick and
Jack Barsky (3:15:29.600)
tired of it and one day we had an argument in the kitchen and I chose to deploy the nuclear
Jack Barsky (3:15:39.200)
option and that is telling her what I sacrificed to be with her so she would understand that
Lex Fridman (3:15:48.960)
I am there on her side.
Jack Barsky (3:15:51.320)
I'm supporting her.
Jack Barsky (3:15:52.320)
If something doesn't quite fit, it is not because I don't love the both of them, Chelsea
Lex Fridman (3:15:57.860)
and Penelope.
Lex Fridman (3:15:59.400)
So when I said that, the listening device was active, so the FBI was hearing my confession.
Jack Barsky (3:16:08.240)
I was once a KGB agent, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and I quit and then stayed here
Jack Barsky (3:16:17.200)
because of you and Chelsea and that also made it clear to the FBI that I wasn't active
Jack Barsky (3:16:25.560)
anymore.
Lex Fridman (3:16:26.560)
They had both of that.
Lex Fridman (3:16:27.560)
So now they knew an attempt to turn me would have been useless because you turned somebody
Jack Barsky (3:16:36.760)
who was active, but they figured there was enough reason to treat me nicely because they
Jack Barsky (3:16:46.280)
figured I had a lot of information that was as aged as it was, but it was still important
Lex Fridman (3:16:53.560)
for the FBI to get to know.
Lex Fridman (3:16:56.240)
And so one day, it was a Friday evening, I'm driving back home from the office and I'm
Lex Fridman (3:17:06.960)
being stopped by a state police.
Jack Barsky (3:17:16.360)
As I'm going through the toll, it's a bridge over the Hudson and they had to pay a toll
Lex Fridman (3:17:22.520)
and he waved me, he got me right where I stopped and he said, could you please move over here?
Jack Barsky (3:17:29.280)
It's a routine traffic stop and I thought nothing of it.
Lex Fridman (3:17:32.280)
I had forgotten at that point that I once was a spy, it was gone.
Lex Fridman (3:17:39.680)
And then he said, could you please step out of the car?
Lex Fridman (3:17:42.600)
That should have aroused my suspicion.
Lex Fridman (3:17:45.200)
That's unusual, right?
Lex Fridman (3:17:46.360)
Routine traffic stop.
Jack Barsky (3:17:47.760)
Yeah, I did it, no problem.
Lex Fridman (3:17:49.760)
And then again, somebody came from the right, came into my view and he flipped his ID and
Jack Barsky (3:17:57.760)
he said, FBI, we would like to have a talk with you.
Jack Barsky (3:18:02.440)
This is my now friend, Joe Riley, who actually is the, he's the godfather of Trinity and
Jack Barsky (3:18:10.080)
my last child.
Jack Barsky (3:18:11.080)
Anyway, he told me later that when I heard that phrase, all the blood left my face, I
Jack Barsky (3:18:20.320)
became totally white.
Lex Fridman (3:18:24.340)
But I recovered very quickly and he said it himself, so they took me to a vehicle and
Jack Barsky (3:18:32.600)
there was another agent in the vehicle and he had a gun strapped to his ankle, so it
Lex Fridman (3:18:39.440)
was pretty real.
Lex Fridman (3:18:42.280)
First question I had, so am I under arrest?
Lex Fridman (3:18:44.640)
And the answer was no.
Lex Fridman (3:18:47.600)
And then my instinct kicked in and my ability to operate very well under high pressure situations.
Lex Fridman (3:18:57.200)
And I asked him, so what took you so long?
Jack Barsky (3:19:01.520)
You know, the intent of that was to defuse any kind of tension.
Lex Fridman (3:19:12.360)
And I saw a smile.
Jack Barsky (3:19:15.360)
Instant friends.
Jack Barsky (3:19:16.360)
Yeah, I knew that I had to make them like me and I'm, I think by now I know I'm a pretty
Jack Barsky (3:19:26.520)
likable person.
Lex Fridman (3:19:31.280)
And I, when they took me to a motel, which they had rented, there was two wings at a
Jack Barsky (3:19:40.520)
right angle, they bought all the rooms in one wing and they had a guard at each end
Jack Barsky (3:19:47.760)
of that wing and they took me in the middle and there were some props there, some binders
Jack Barsky (3:19:55.560)
with labels and I immediately thought, this is pretty silly because what I noticed that
Lex Fridman (3:20:03.680)
the labels all referred back to my early years.
Jack Barsky (3:20:07.440)
I knew that they didn't know much else.
Lex Fridman (3:20:10.880)
So I told Joe that afterwards and that was not a great idea, but anyway.
Lex Fridman (3:20:19.520)
But I volunteered.
Lex Fridman (3:20:20.520)
I made the following statement before we even started the interview.
Jack Barsky (3:20:24.200)
I said, I know there's only one way for me to, and my family, to have a chance to get
Jack Barsky (3:20:30.160)
through here without much damages if I'm completely 100% cooperative and it's my intent to do
Jack Barsky (3:20:38.680)
exactly that.
Lex Fridman (3:20:39.920)
All right.
Lex Fridman (3:20:40.920)
So we spent about two hours in the interview.
Lex Fridman (3:20:43.680)
They allowed me to call my wife, tell her that I'm going to be late.
Jack Barsky (3:20:48.340)
That indicated to me already that they would let me go.
Lex Fridman (3:20:51.240)
And after two hours they let me go.
Lex Fridman (3:20:55.000)
But they had the area covered with a whole bunch of people.
Lex Fridman (3:21:00.000)
And the head of that team talked to me and he said, if you think of running, we got every
Jack Barsky (3:21:07.520)
intersection in this area covered.
Lex Fridman (3:21:09.560)
You can't.
Jack Barsky (3:21:10.560)
I didn't say anything, but you know, I had no thought of running.
Lex Fridman (3:21:16.620)
So and that was the beginning of another phase of my life where I was cooperating with the
Jack Barsky (3:21:24.040)
FBI for quite a while and living still undercover for several years until I had real good documentation
Lex Fridman (3:21:30.240)
and became an American citizen seven years ago.
Jack Barsky (3:21:33.840)
From today, seven years ago.
Lex Fridman (3:21:36.480)
So recently.
Jack Barsky (3:21:37.480)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:21:38.480)
Wow.
Jack Barsky (3:21:39.480)
Quite recent.
Jack Barsky (3:21:40.480)
The hypocrisy took a long time to figure out how to make me real and also not put me in
Jack Barsky (3:21:49.440)
these witness protection program, you know, to keep my name and then just, you know, make
Lex Fridman (3:21:55.080)
everything like official.
Lex Fridman (3:21:57.320)
So for instance, I had to change my birth year simply because if I, Jack Barsky was
Jack Barsky (3:22:03.880)
born in 1944, if I kept 1944, the FBI would have helped me commit a crime because I would
Jack Barsky (3:22:09.900)
have collected social security four years sooner.
Lex Fridman (3:22:15.820)
So anyway, yes, it took quite a while.
Lex Fridman (3:22:20.120)
And when I finally got the call from the office of Homeland Security, the lady says, this
Lex Fridman (3:22:29.120)
is agent so and so from Homeland Security, can you come into the office tomorrow?
Lex Fridman (3:22:37.240)
And I said, let me look at my calendar.
Lex Fridman (3:22:42.040)
And then I said, wait a minute, what am I talking about?
Lex Fridman (3:22:45.000)
What time do you want me to be there?
Lex Fridman (3:22:47.100)
Because I had waited for that moment for a long time.
Lex Fridman (3:22:49.360)
And I was sworn in right then and there.
Jack Barsky (3:22:52.760)
It was a good feeling to walk out of there because I had a country again, you know, and
Jack Barsky (3:22:58.400)
I love this country just as much as you said you love it with all its warts and its problems
Lex Fridman (3:23:03.520)
that we're going through right now.
Lex Fridman (3:23:06.880)
And then the last thing that changed my life again, and I don't want to get into details
Lex Fridman (3:23:12.780)
because it's a little complicated story, I never wanted to be a public person.
Lex Fridman (3:23:18.900)
And then I was discovered through a number of dots that were unlikely to be connected.
Jack Barsky (3:23:26.200)
It had to do with a relative, with a half brother of my wife who lives in Germany, was
Jack Barsky (3:23:33.440)
taken to Germany by his mother who came to visit somebody, not us, but that somebody
Jack Barsky (3:23:41.200)
that he came to visit lived 50 miles from our house and that my wife and this half brother
Jack Barsky (3:23:49.240)
never met in person before.
Lex Fridman (3:23:52.000)
They knew about each other through social media.
Lex Fridman (3:23:54.960)
And when he found out my background, he was a conductor of the German railroad at the
Jack Barsky (3:24:01.120)
time, he said, oh, this is a big story and that's going to be big, big, big, okay.
Jack Barsky (3:24:07.960)
Well he happened to know this one person who happened to know one of the star reporters
Jack Barsky (3:24:14.080)
of Der Spiegel and after she did some research and determined that I was real, she was on
Jack Barsky (3:24:23.000)
my case.
Lex Fridman (3:24:24.000)
And she happened to know Steve Croft, the guy from 60 Minutes, you see all these connections?
Jack Barsky (3:24:29.720)
I had nothing to do with it.
Jack Barsky (3:24:30.800)
That's how life works, dots get connected somehow, sometimes, for most of us it doesn't.
Jack Barsky (3:24:35.400)
Stuff happens.
Lex Fridman (3:24:36.400)
You get lucky.
Jack Barsky (3:24:37.400)
You don't know what's happening.
Lex Fridman (3:24:38.400)
You've gotten lucky a few times in your life.
Jack Barsky (3:24:40.560)
Yeah, I think I must be part Irish too.
Lex Fridman (3:24:44.640)
Yeah, so it's been an interesting ride.
Jack Barsky (3:24:53.080)
I'm just still shaking my head about all the stuff that happened.
Lex Fridman (3:24:57.360)
It's been a fun one.
Lex Fridman (3:24:58.760)
But you wrote, because I'm allowed to leave behind a documented legacy of my unusual life,
Lex Fridman (3:25:06.800)
I'm praying that the legacy will be described by a single word, love.
Lex Fridman (3:25:12.800)
So let us return to the thing we started the conversation with, which is love.
Lex Fridman (3:25:17.520)
What role does love play in this human condition, in your life and in our life here together?
Jack Barsky (3:25:24.920)
I give you an answer by telling you what happened one day.
Lex Fridman (3:25:31.600)
I gave a presentation at Microsoft headquarters.
Jack Barsky (3:25:37.640)
That's a strange beginning of a love story, but yes.
Lex Fridman (3:25:40.240)
No, that's not a love story.
Lex Fridman (3:25:41.680)
And so there's this beautiful young lady sitting in the back, and she's paying a lot of attention.
Lex Fridman (3:25:49.000)
Turned out later that her job at Microsoft, her job title was storyteller.
Lex Fridman (3:25:56.400)
It's soft marketing, right?
Lex Fridman (3:25:58.560)
Yeah, you could say that.
Lex Fridman (3:26:01.800)
But if you can't afford somebody like that, that's good.
Jack Barsky (3:26:06.800)
Anyway, question and answer, she raised her hand and she asked me, so all the things that
Jack Barsky (3:26:15.840)
you have done and you have experienced, what's the number one lesson you've taken away from
Lex Fridman (3:26:21.560)
your life?
Jack Barsky (3:26:22.560)
That was a new question for me.
Lex Fridman (3:26:25.280)
I've never been asked that question.
Lex Fridman (3:26:27.720)
And I thought about it for 20 seconds, and then I came up with this phrase that we all
Lex Fridman (3:26:35.320)
know, love conquers all, because in my life it did, in the end.
Lex Fridman (3:26:42.560)
And it's the strongest human emotion, and that is what makes us human, really.
Lex Fridman (3:26:50.280)
And you spoke about the, I mean, offline as I've spoken with you, it's clear to me how
Jack Barsky (3:26:57.540)
transformative, how powerful the life of your children are, your daughters in your life,
Lex Fridman (3:27:04.640)
and who you are, and why you think life is beautiful, and why you think this country
Jack Barsky (3:27:09.280)
is beautiful.
Jack Barsky (3:27:10.560)
Now that I'm pretty mature, to put it mildly, I'm also more loving towards many more people.
Jack Barsky (3:27:23.880)
These things like random acts of kindness for strangers, I do them, I'm looking for
Lex Fridman (3:27:28.840)
them now.
Lex Fridman (3:27:29.840)
And you know what?
Lex Fridman (3:27:30.840)
It's good for me.
Jack Barsky (3:27:31.840)
Well, welcome to Texas, because this random acts of kindness to strangers seems to be
Lex Fridman (3:27:38.420)
a way of life, which is one of the reasons I love it here.
Jack Barsky (3:27:44.480)
It just reminds me why I love human beings, is that there's just this warmth, this connection.
Lex Fridman (3:27:50.160)
Yeah, and Georgia is the same thing.
Jack Barsky (3:27:52.680)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:27:53.680)
Amen.
Lex Fridman (3:27:54.680)
Do you have any regrets?
Lex Fridman (3:27:58.840)
Looking back at life, do you wish you'd done something different?
Jack Barsky (3:28:02.280)
I could have, but then I would have a different regret.
Lex Fridman (3:28:08.920)
I betrayed the wife, the German wife that I loved.
Jack Barsky (3:28:12.440)
I really did love her, and I betrayed her.
Lex Fridman (3:28:16.740)
But if I don't betray her, then I betray the child.
Jack Barsky (3:28:24.680)
That is a source of so much love for you now.
Lex Fridman (3:28:27.400)
So maybe life is a kind of, you get to choose your regrets.
Jack Barsky (3:28:34.920)
You don't get to avoid them.
Jack Barsky (3:28:35.920)
Yeah, it's a little bit of a strange way of putting it, but there's no other choice.
Jack Barsky (3:28:43.680)
I tell you what I don't regret, and that may be, you probably understand it now because
Lex Fridman (3:28:50.600)
you have enough background about me, I don't regret having lied to my mother.
Jack Barsky (3:28:55.960)
Because I had no really strong emotional relationship with her.
Jack Barsky (3:29:00.600)
She took care of me, she was proud of me, but we didn't hug, we didn't interact emotionally
Jack Barsky (3:29:09.760)
whatsoever.
Lex Fridman (3:29:10.760)
So you don't feel like you betrayed that love that—
Jack Barsky (3:29:15.520)
Well I did, I know that she was looking for me until the day she died.
Lex Fridman (3:29:23.700)
She wrote a letter to President Gorbachev asking him for help to locate me.
Jack Barsky (3:29:30.120)
She checked with Astazi, she just was hell bent on finding me and couldn't find me,
Lex Fridman (3:29:40.880)
so she passed away without knowing what happened to me.
Jack Barsky (3:29:45.600)
Now there was this rumor that was flying around, and she possibly may have bought into that
Jack Barsky (3:29:52.400)
rumor because my cover for when I went to the United States was that I changed careers
Jack Barsky (3:30:01.480)
again and I joined an institution in Kazakhstan that did space research, intercosmos something
Jack Barsky (3:30:11.560)
something, and I had a piece of paper that invited me to start there, and it was a forgery.
Jack Barsky (3:30:21.360)
It never existed, but people knew that in Kazakhstan there were super secret facilities.
Jack Barsky (3:30:32.040)
One of my classmates, old classmates from high school started the rumor that I died
Jack Barsky (3:30:38.780)
in a rocket accident, and everybody knew that.
Lex Fridman (3:30:43.280)
So when I came back to Germany, I found the telephone number of this girl that had dumped
Jack Barsky (3:30:52.440)
me.
Lex Fridman (3:30:53.440)
I called her, and I said, so guess who this is?
Jack Barsky (3:30:59.600)
Maybe you hold on to your chair, she says yes, I said, this is Albrecht.
Lex Fridman (3:31:04.680)
It's a good payback.
Jack Barsky (3:31:09.880)
No, we actually met.
Lex Fridman (3:31:12.460)
So there's two elderly people in their 60s who meet each other after so many years, and
Jack Barsky (3:31:21.560)
the one that ended the relationship started the conversation by saying, you know what,
Lex Fridman (3:31:28.360)
I made a really bad mistake, and the tears came down her cheeks.
Jack Barsky (3:31:33.800)
I wasn't asking for that.
Lex Fridman (3:31:34.800)
I wasn't happy about it, but it did feel good.
Jack Barsky (3:31:39.160)
Now a while later, I knew why she said she made a mistake.
Lex Fridman (3:31:46.320)
I met her husband.
Jack Barsky (3:31:47.320)
Yeah, I mean, there's a, Tom Waits has a song called Martha, where an older gentleman calls
Lex Fridman (3:31:59.000)
somebody he used to love, and they have a conversation.
Jack Barsky (3:32:01.440)
They're both married now, and sometimes you can meet people from your past, and it gives
Lex Fridman (3:32:07.080)
you a glimpse of a possible different life you could have had.
Jack Barsky (3:32:11.040)
Oh yeah, and you know, I was actually, when she said I made a mistake, and I was thinking
Lex Fridman (3:32:15.680)
to myself, no, you didn't.
Jack Barsky (3:32:19.680)
There was none.
Lex Fridman (3:32:20.680)
There was nothing left.
Jack Barsky (3:32:21.680)
There was nothing left.
Jack Barsky (3:32:24.360)
Also the person that she became, personality wise, wasn't as attractive as I remembered
Jack Barsky (3:32:33.200)
her.
Lex Fridman (3:32:34.200)
You know, it's puppy love.
Lex Fridman (3:32:35.200)
But it's still love, and it still happened.
Lex Fridman (3:32:37.200)
Yeah, it was.
Jack Barsky (3:32:38.200)
It was passionate love for sure, and I would have thrown myself under the bus if I could
Lex Fridman (3:32:46.080)
save her.
Jack Barsky (3:32:47.080)
It was that strong, and it's just as strong as the love for my two girls.
Jack Barsky (3:32:54.480)
Life is full of moments and periods like that of love, and that's what makes life so freaking
Jack Barsky (3:33:00.440)
awesome.
Lex Fridman (3:33:01.640)
But it does come to an end.
Lex Fridman (3:33:03.840)
And so does this conversation, I guess.
Lex Fridman (3:33:07.440)
This goes on for many more hours, but yes, do you think about your own death?
Lex Fridman (3:33:11.920)
Huh?
Lex Fridman (3:33:12.920)
Do you think about death?
Lex Fridman (3:33:13.920)
Do you think about your own death?
Lex Fridman (3:33:14.920)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (3:33:15.920)
Are you afraid of it?
Lex Fridman (3:33:17.920)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (3:33:18.920)
Even though I'm a Christian.
Lex Fridman (3:33:23.920)
As a Christian, do you have a sense what's coming after, or is it full of uncertainty?
Jack Barsky (3:33:28.320)
I have a hope.
Lex Fridman (3:33:30.240)
I have a hope.
Jack Barsky (3:33:32.340)
You know, there's a lot of Christianity which is quite logical, a lot of Christianity which
Lex Fridman (3:33:40.620)
is also the life of Christ, there's a lot of proof.
Lex Fridman (3:33:46.760)
But I became a Christian starting with a head, and I was already quite old.
Lex Fridman (3:34:08.840)
When you don't get this faith very early, it's tougher to buy into everything.
Jack Barsky (3:34:17.000)
You know, there are some things that are difficult for me to understand and believe, but there's
Jack Barsky (3:34:25.000)
many, many other things that I can't explain only with the existence of a God, but whether
Jack Barsky (3:34:29.960)
He lets us go again for an eternity, I just hope.
Jack Barsky (3:34:37.480)
I won't convince somebody else at this point, which doesn't make me a really, really good
Jack Barsky (3:34:42.720)
Christian because I'm supposed to evangelize.
Lex Fridman (3:34:46.640)
But there's still a fear.
Jack Barsky (3:34:47.640)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:34:48.640)
There's a fear and a hope.
Jack Barsky (3:34:51.000)
On the other hand, I know that, you see, this is how I approach the last years of my life.
Lex Fridman (3:35:03.760)
I will not mentally or physically get decrepit.
Jack Barsky (3:35:08.520)
I will do everything I can do to be alert and fit.
Lex Fridman (3:35:14.440)
I still run.
Jack Barsky (3:35:16.200)
I run four or five times a week, and I'm going to start lifting weights again.
Lex Fridman (3:35:21.720)
Good.
Jack Barsky (3:35:22.720)
You stay physically and mentally sharp.
Lex Fridman (3:35:25.400)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (3:35:26.400)
Go out with guns blazing.
Jack Barsky (3:35:28.840)
I once read a book written by a medical doctor, he said, most people, when they're becoming
Jack Barsky (3:35:38.640)
mature, the rest of their life is a slow downward move.
Lex Fridman (3:35:46.640)
Not for you.
Jack Barsky (3:35:47.640)
No.
Lex Fridman (3:35:48.640)
The last years are pretty bad.
Jack Barsky (3:35:52.480)
He said, you got to do this, boom.
Lex Fridman (3:35:55.920)
That's pretty good advice from a doctor.
Jack Barsky (3:35:59.040)
If nothing else from Christianity, whichever parts you take on, one of the big ones is
Lex Fridman (3:36:06.200)
love.
Jack Barsky (3:36:07.200)
That's something you've lived from the very beginning before God was part of your life,
Lex Fridman (3:36:12.920)
before anything was part of your life.
Jack Barsky (3:36:14.280)
It seemed that love was part of your life and has been a consistent thread throughout.
Lex Fridman (3:36:18.840)
Yes, sir.
Jack Barsky (3:36:19.840)
There's a short sentence in the Bible that says, God is love.
Jack Barsky (3:36:27.880)
The other thing I want to say, the Christian morality is, I can sign that with my blood.
Jack Barsky (3:36:37.080)
God is love.
Lex Fridman (3:36:38.080)
Amen.
Jack Barsky (3:36:39.080)
Jack, you're an incredible person, lived an incredible life.
Lex Fridman (3:36:45.180)
Thank you for talking today.
Jack Barsky (3:36:46.180)
Thank you for telling your story.
Lex Fridman (3:36:48.720)
Thank you for being who you are, and thank you for being all about love.
Jack Barsky (3:36:53.720)
This is a beautiful conversation, it was an honor.
Lex Fridman (3:36:56.160)
Thank you for talking today.
Jack Barsky (3:36:57.160)
Yeah, and I appreciate the tough questions that you asked.
Lex Fridman (3:37:00.880)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Jack Barsky.
Jack Barsky (3:37:03.080)
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
Lex Fridman (3:37:07.320)
And now, let me leave you with some words from Edward Snowden.
Jack Barsky (3:37:11.380)
You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept
Lex Fridman (3:37:15.700)
the risk.
Jack Barsky (3:37:16.700)
If they want to get you, over time, they will.
Lex Fridman (3:37:22.280)
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
Jack Barsky (40:06.200)
in America, and in the really, really excellent podcast series that I've been listening to,
Lex Fridman (40:12.120)
people should definitely listen to, it's called The Agent.
Jack Barsky (40:15.120)
You document your time as a KGB spy before, during, and after.
Lex Fridman (40:19.760)
Can you tell the story of when you first were contacted by the KGB, how you were invited,
Lex Fridman (40:28.280)
the offer to join was made?
Jack Barsky (40:30.440)
Well, it was a big surprise, and I never thought of myself as a potential agent.
Jack Barsky (40:36.160)
You know, I was going to be a tenured professor and join the ruling elite, because in Europe,
Lex Fridman (40:42.640)
tenured professors are few.
Jack Barsky (40:44.360)
It's not like in the United States, you know, anybody who teaches at colleges has a title
Lex Fridman (40:48.840)
of professor.
Jack Barsky (40:49.840)
Easy now.
Lex Fridman (40:50.840)
It's true.
Jack Barsky (40:51.840)
That's not a criticism.
Lex Fridman (40:52.840)
That's 100%.
Lex Fridman (40:53.840)
So we should also clarify that, tenured professor or not, it is a very prestigious position
Lex Fridman (41:00.640)
throughout history of Europe.
Jack Barsky (41:03.440)
I would say, especially communists, I don't actually know the full landscape of the respect,
Lex Fridman (41:09.520)
but at least in the Soviet Union where I grew up, it's a prestigious position.
Jack Barsky (41:13.560)
Absolutely was.
Lex Fridman (41:14.560)
And the town of Yanuk had about 100,000 people live there, and I would, it's a wild guess,
Lex Fridman (41:22.520)
but maybe 30 tenured professors, and they were part of the ruling elite.
Lex Fridman (41:26.880)
I was trying to do as much as I can to live the good life, right?
Jack Barsky (41:32.360)
You know, have access to things that are nice.
Jack Barsky (41:35.760)
Yeah, but I think the powerful thing about being a professor in that context of East
Jack Barsky (41:41.840)
Germany is the prestige.
Lex Fridman (41:44.540)
And the feeling of superiority.
Jack Barsky (41:47.240)
You know, I was full of myself.
Jack Barsky (41:49.600)
You know, when you are the best of the best, and in my third year I received a scholarship,
Jack Barsky (41:57.360)
the Karl Marx Scholarship, that was limited to 100 concurrent recipients in the country.
Lex Fridman (42:05.160)
So my God, you know, I was full of myself.
Jack Barsky (42:08.400)
I believed in myself, hook, line, and sinker.
Lex Fridman (42:11.720)
And I was also, I got a lot of accolades from teachers and fellow students.
Jack Barsky (42:22.760)
They were feeding the ego, the old, I mean, you have to believe in yourself often when
Lex Fridman (42:29.020)
you're young to truly, to excel.
Lex Fridman (42:32.400)
And you sure as heck did.
Lex Fridman (42:34.900)
But you know, as a balance, you need a mentor, somebody who puts things in perspective, and
Jack Barsky (42:39.520)
I didn't have one.
Lex Fridman (42:41.160)
My father was a nonentity and nobody else.
Jack Barsky (42:44.000)
They all looked up to me.
Lex Fridman (42:46.000)
I was an up and coming guy, right?
Lex Fridman (42:47.960)
So there's no father figure that put you in your place.
Lex Fridman (42:50.400)
Not at all.
Lex Fridman (42:51.440)
And I give you one extreme example.
Lex Fridman (42:53.200)
It was down the road when I fathered a child out of wedlock.
Jack Barsky (43:00.240)
That was in my fifth year, I believe.
Lex Fridman (43:03.360)
The Communist Party in East Germany was very moralistic.
Jack Barsky (43:07.120)
If you did that, they would have a talk with you and give you whatever, a severe reprimand.
Lex Fridman (43:13.680)
Nobody even mentioned a word about this.
Lex Fridman (43:16.560)
So yeah, so this is how this ego gets nurtured.
Lex Fridman (43:20.400)
But anyway, getting back to how the KGB came in contact.
Lex Fridman (43:25.280)
So they most likely got knowledge of me by, you know, looking at Stasi records.
Lex Fridman (43:34.320)
What's Stasi?
Jack Barsky (43:35.320)
That was East German secret police, Staatssicherheit, security for the state.
Lex Fridman (43:42.280)
There's that word security again.
Lex Fridman (43:45.760)
And they pretty much kept a record on everybody in the country.
Lex Fridman (43:50.720)
And so when you look through this, and this is what the KGB was looking for.
Jack Barsky (43:55.920)
They were looking for candidates, particularly for this kind of job that they had in mind
Jack Barsky (44:00.000)
for me, for candidates who were not, you know, in their mid 20s, who were not fully developed
Lex Fridman (44:09.200)
yet, but mature enough to get there and still young enough, right?
Jack Barsky (44:17.240)
Because at that level of maturity, you can test whether they can handle this kind of
Jack Barsky (44:20.200)
job.
Lex Fridman (44:21.200)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (44:22.200)
Absolutely right.
Lex Fridman (44:23.200)
And one day I got a knock on my door and my dorm room door was on a Saturday.
Lex Fridman (44:32.000)
And they knew that I was by myself.
Lex Fridman (44:37.400)
How did they know it?
Jack Barsky (44:39.680)
We had a, I pieced this together.
Lex Fridman (44:43.600)
We had an exchange student from the Soviet Union, and he was next door to me.
Lex Fridman (44:51.220)
And he befriended me.
Lex Fridman (44:54.240)
So he got to know me a little bit.
Lex Fridman (44:57.360)
And the pattern was that my roommate would always go home for the weekend.
Lex Fridman (45:02.600)
And of course they also knew which door to knock on, even though there were no nameplates.
Jack Barsky (45:08.960)
Somebody knocks.
Lex Fridman (45:11.000)
And I knew it was a stranger because if it had been a student, the pattern was that we
Jack Barsky (45:17.000)
would knock on the door and then go in.
Lex Fridman (45:18.680)
We wouldn't wait for somebody to let us in.
Lex Fridman (45:22.000)
So I waited for 10 seconds and he didn't come in.
Lex Fridman (45:26.880)
I knew that it was a stranger.
Jack Barsky (45:28.600)
I said, come on in.
Lex Fridman (45:30.640)
And in came a person who spoke fluent German.
Lex Fridman (45:34.640)
So that was not a KGB guy.
Lex Fridman (45:36.440)
That was a collaborator.
Lex Fridman (45:40.140)
And so he started making a bunch of small talk.
Jack Barsky (45:42.360)
He introduced himself as a representative of Carl Zeiss Jena, which was the optics company
Jack Barsky (45:52.000)
that made really, really good optical instruments, was one of the best in the world.
Lex Fridman (45:58.520)
So it's like the super prestigious company in that place.
Lex Fridman (46:05.200)
And he said that he was a representative of that company and he would just want to find
Lex Fridman (46:11.860)
out what my plans were after graduating from college.
Lex Fridman (46:16.720)
And at that point I knew he wasn't from Carl Zeiss Jena because in those days there was
Lex Fridman (46:22.800)
no recruitment.
Jack Barsky (46:25.000)
When you were done, if you were in the top 10% of the graduates, you would most likely
Lex Fridman (46:34.000)
pick to stay and get a doctorate.
Lex Fridman (46:37.720)
And the rest of them were assigned.
Lex Fridman (46:40.400)
You had no choice.
Lex Fridman (46:43.180)
So that guy was an idiot.
Lex Fridman (46:48.100)
He didn't know the basics about...
Lex Fridman (46:50.880)
You interviewed him a little bit to understand, like feel out, is this guy full of shit?
Lex Fridman (46:57.960)
Because yeah, he's a stranger showing up to your dorm room.
Jack Barsky (47:00.560)
I knew that at that point, I knew he was a Stasi, which is wrong, but it doesn't matter
Lex Fridman (47:06.360)
because he was German and I had no idea that the KGB would be involved.
Lex Fridman (47:10.200)
So sorry to pause briefly, did you have a sense, did people know that there's a Stasi
Jack Barsky (47:17.800)
type of organization, that there is a large number of people doing this kind of work in
Lex Fridman (47:23.920)
East Germany in order for you to make that guess?
Lex Fridman (47:27.320)
Yeah, we knew that the Stasi existed.
Jack Barsky (47:31.240)
We even had our James Bond, we had a series called the Invisible Visor where a Stasi employee
Lex Fridman (47:40.800)
in East German would go into West Germany and hunt down Nazis.
Lex Fridman (47:45.040)
So yes, the Stasi was known to be there.
Lex Fridman (47:47.520)
And admired in part or feared or both?
Jack Barsky (47:51.600)
I thought they were necessary and I admired them.
Lex Fridman (47:55.040)
James Bond.
Jack Barsky (47:56.040)
Yes, the reason I did so because I had no information to the contrary.
Jack Barsky (48:01.520)
I never knew anybody personally or even somewhat removed who was followed by the Stasi, was
Jack Barsky (48:16.680)
put in jail.
Lex Fridman (48:17.680)
I had no clue.
Jack Barsky (48:19.720)
I had no clue that they did a lot of damage and that they were doing a lot of surveillance
Lex Fridman (48:24.420)
of the East German population the same way the KGB did for the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (48:30.240)
So for me to be talking to somebody from the Stasi, it raised my interest.
Jack Barsky (48:38.400)
I was curious what comes next because I sort of knew something interesting would be coming
Jack Barsky (48:44.220)
at me and I had no other thoughts about that at that point.
Lex Fridman (48:49.160)
So when he was finally, when he went for the kill by reversing himself, he said, you know,
Jack Barsky (48:56.360)
I got to tell you that I really, I really am not from Karl Stasi, you know, I'm from
Lex Fridman (49:00.920)
the government.
Jack Barsky (49:01.920)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (49:02.920)
Thank you for pointing that out.
Lex Fridman (49:05.540)
And then he asked this question, he says, can you imagine to one day work for the government?
Lex Fridman (49:11.920)
And so I gave a pretty clever answer.
Jack Barsky (49:14.480)
I said, yes, but not as a chemist.
Lex Fridman (49:17.680)
So I answered the question that he didn't ask.
Jack Barsky (49:21.480)
I helped him out.
Lex Fridman (49:23.280)
So we made an arrangement to meet for lunch, which in Germany is the main meal at the number
Jack Barsky (49:31.320)
one restaurant in Vienna, you know, I still remember what I ate.
Lex Fridman (49:35.520)
What was that?
Jack Barsky (49:36.700)
Rump steak with butter on top and French fries, it was my favorite.
Jack Barsky (49:43.120)
Anyway, so when I get to the restaurant, I saw this fellow sitting in the back there
Jack Barsky (49:48.920)
at the table and there was another person at the table.
Lex Fridman (49:52.520)
So I was a little bit hesitant because in those days it was not unusual for perfect
Jack Barsky (49:58.600)
strangers to share a table because there wasn't enough tables and chairs and so forth.
Lex Fridman (50:04.720)
So I didn't know if I could approach him, but he got up and came to me and he took me
Jack Barsky (50:09.860)
to the table and he said, I want to introduce Herman.
Lex Fridman (50:15.160)
We work with our Soviet comrades.
Jack Barsky (50:18.280)
Aha, KGB.
Lex Fridman (50:21.160)
And then he disappeared.
Jack Barsky (50:22.160)
He says, I got something else to do.
Lex Fridman (50:24.080)
I never knew his name.
Jack Barsky (50:26.440)
He just handed me over to the KGB.
Lex Fridman (50:29.640)
What was the relationship between the KGB and Astazies as collaborators, close collaborators
Lex Fridman (50:35.300)
or just distant associates?
Jack Barsky (50:37.700)
They were pretty close collaborators as I told you that they bought forged documents
Jack Barsky (50:43.760)
that the Germans made because the Germans were better at forgery.
Jack Barsky (50:47.800)
They also exchanged information, but they didn't trust each other 100% and I tell you
Lex Fridman (50:54.240)
why I know that.
Lex Fridman (50:56.040)
So they recruited me to send me to West Germany.
Jack Barsky (51:01.280)
As I already said, East Germany had a thousand agents over there.
Lex Fridman (51:04.360)
Why would they want to have their own?
Jack Barsky (51:06.760)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (51:07.760)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (51:08.760)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (51:09.760)
This is a fascinating internal and external dynamic of distrust.
Jack Barsky (51:13.200)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (51:14.200)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (51:15.200)
So there you are welcomed by the KGB.
Lex Fridman (51:19.160)
When did the offer, the invite come?
Jack Barsky (51:21.320)
Well, that took a while.
Lex Fridman (51:22.680)
So Herman and I had an unofficial relationship for about a year and a half.
Jack Barsky (51:29.760)
I would meet him once a week, once every two weeks, initially in his car, but then he took
Jack Barsky (51:39.520)
me to a conspirational flat that was an apartment that was occupied by a party member, a lady,
Jack Barsky (51:49.080)
single lady.
Jack Barsky (51:50.520)
When we came in, she would leave, she left us tea and cookies and then we could freely
Jack Barsky (51:55.720)
talk.
Jack Barsky (51:56.720)
He also at that time gave me some West German literature magazines to read, which was of
Jack Barsky (52:03.060)
course forbidden.
Lex Fridman (52:04.680)
So I'm starting to feel somewhat special and as we were talking about what they had in
Jack Barsky (52:11.280)
mind for me in general, I knew that I was going to be even more special because I would
Lex Fridman (52:17.840)
be above the law.
Jack Barsky (52:20.640)
I would operate outside the law of the countries I would go to as well as East Germany because
Jack Barsky (52:27.280)
the magazines and eventually when I joined up, they told me I had better watch West German
Jack Barsky (52:35.680)
television, which was also not explicitly prohibited, but it was something that could
Lex Fridman (52:43.960)
get you in trouble.
Lex Fridman (52:44.960)
So on many levels, you're super special, you're the James Bond.
Lex Fridman (52:48.440)
Yes.
Jack Barsky (52:49.440)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (52:50.440)
What was that recruitment testing process like?
Lex Fridman (52:55.240)
Testing whether you have what it takes to be a KGB agent?
Jack Barsky (53:01.600)
First of all, we had very in depth talks, Herman and I, about life and I still am very
Jack Barsky (53:16.160)
honest in sharing my feelings.
Lex Fridman (53:19.880)
Philosophical or personal?
Jack Barsky (53:21.600)
Personal.
Lex Fridman (53:22.600)
I even told him that I was shy around the girls.
Lex Fridman (53:26.920)
He was giving you relationship advice or what?
Lex Fridman (53:29.640)
How old was he?
Lex Fridman (53:30.640)
So what was the dynamic?
Lex Fridman (53:31.640)
Can you tell me, was it a father, son?
Jack Barsky (53:33.680)
No, older brother.
Lex Fridman (53:34.680)
Older brother.
Jack Barsky (53:35.680)
Older brother.
Lex Fridman (53:36.680)
Yeah, he was maybe in his early to mid 30s and I was maybe 10 years younger.
Lex Fridman (53:42.500)
And what languages did he speak?
Lex Fridman (53:43.880)
He spoke German pretty well.
Lex Fridman (53:46.680)
But he's originally from Russia?
Lex Fridman (53:48.160)
Yeah, with a Russian accent.
Lex Fridman (53:50.780)
So I got in trouble one time with him when I asked him, is your real name German?
Lex Fridman (53:57.040)
He didn't like that.
Jack Barsky (53:58.040)
He didn't like it.
Lex Fridman (53:59.240)
Was he good with girls?
Jack Barsky (54:00.240)
No, no.
Jack Barsky (54:01.240)
I remember what he told me, he says, you've got to understand one thing, they're looking
Jack Barsky (54:07.680)
for guys too.
Lex Fridman (54:10.080)
That's all.
Lex Fridman (54:11.080)
Oh, girls are looking for guys too?
Lex Fridman (54:13.120)
Yeah.
Jack Barsky (54:14.120)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (54:15.120)
It's a competitive game.
Jack Barsky (54:16.120)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (54:17.120)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (54:18.120)
So that little flame of love that we talked about and all the shapes that it takes in
Jack Barsky (54:23.520)
our life, did he talk to you about that, that that could be taken advantage of, that that
Lex Fridman (54:29.280)
could be used or was it implied?
Lex Fridman (54:32.040)
Yeah, but not in, it was not very focused, not in great detail.
Lex Fridman (54:36.920)
So let's, so we talked about personal stuff and you know, like, dislikes, he gave me tasks.
Jack Barsky (54:43.360)
For instance, when my friend and I hitchhiked from East Germany all the way down to Bulgaria,
Jack Barsky (54:50.360)
he told me to write a report about it, what I saw.
Lex Fridman (54:53.280)
So fundamentally he wanted to see how well I can write and how well I can report, how
Jack Barsky (55:01.160)
well I observe.
Lex Fridman (55:04.300)
He also asked me to write some profiles about fellow students.
Jack Barsky (55:08.120)
I don't believe that was for them to give him to the Stasi, it was just like, how well
Lex Fridman (55:12.940)
do I characterize people?
Jack Barsky (55:14.800)
That's important when you're talking about, when I was in the US, active in the US I operated
Lex Fridman (55:21.200)
as a spotter.
Lex Fridman (55:22.200)
So I did exactly that.
Lex Fridman (55:23.200)
I wrote profiles about people.
Jack Barsky (55:26.400)
He also gave me some tasks to do that were rather unpleasant.
Jack Barsky (55:36.320)
He would give me an address and a name of the people who lived at the address and he
Jack Barsky (55:42.720)
told me to go there, ring the doorbell and find out something about a relative who lived
Lex Fridman (55:49.320)
in West Germany.
Lex Fridman (55:52.580)
That is undercover exploration, right?
Lex Fridman (55:55.040)
So you go, you make up a story and somehow win the confidence of your target to tell
Jack Barsky (56:01.600)
you something that you want to know.
Lex Fridman (56:04.080)
Was that, did that come naturally to you?
Jack Barsky (56:06.040)
No, no, I hated it.
Lex Fridman (56:07.080)
The charisma involved, which part did you hate?
Jack Barsky (56:09.760)
Charisma, I think, I didn't know that I had it.
Lex Fridman (56:13.440)
It took you some time to discover.
Jack Barsky (56:15.640)
You know, I was, I always was and I still am to some degree a bit shy.
Jack Barsky (56:21.320)
I lost a lot of the shyness after moving to the South because, here in the United States,
Jack Barsky (56:26.440)
because you don't have to be shy, you know.
Lex Fridman (56:31.480)
You can let your love shine.
Jack Barsky (56:33.720)
That's exactly right.
Lex Fridman (56:34.720)
So, but anyway, I hated doing that, but I did it well.
Jack Barsky (56:38.840)
I still remember.
Lex Fridman (56:39.840)
So I, in those days, I had a beard and I rang the bell and...
Jack Barsky (56:46.160)
Tall, handsome fella.
Lex Fridman (56:47.720)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (56:48.720)
And I looked the part, I said, I'm a sociology student and I'm doing a survey and I asked
Lex Fridman (56:54.880)
a whole bunch of questions, would you like to answer the questions?
Jack Barsky (56:58.720)
No problem.
Lex Fridman (57:00.760)
And then I directed the conversation to the lady's private life and she actually gave
Jack Barsky (57:09.240)
me information.
Lex Fridman (57:10.240)
She volunteered information that I wanted to know.
Jack Barsky (57:13.280)
Beautiful.
Lex Fridman (57:14.280)
I did well.
Lex Fridman (57:15.280)
And the other one that I didn't like, but I also did well with, when Herman drove me
Jack Barsky (57:22.640)
around the city and showed me a building and he said, find out what organization is in
Jack Barsky (57:27.600)
there, what they do.
Lex Fridman (57:29.720)
We get to know some people and I did that pretty well also.
Jack Barsky (57:33.960)
You know, you have to be inventive, you know, to come up with a cover story and I've always
Jack Barsky (57:40.440)
been quite inventive, you know, I'm a storyteller at heart and that, I didn't know it then,
Lex Fridman (57:48.720)
but you know, I...
Lex Fridman (57:49.720)
But there was still something unpleasant about it.
Jack Barsky (57:52.000)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (57:53.000)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (57:54.000)
Which part was unpleasant?
Lex Fridman (57:55.000)
Well, the shyness and then, you know, I wasn't very comfortable lying.
Jack Barsky (57:59.040)
I became comfortable down the road, but you know, I was brutally honest and never hid
Lex Fridman (58:08.560)
anything of me.
Lex Fridman (58:12.000)
But you know, over time you lose that uncomfortable feeling and you rationalize that you've got
Lex Fridman (58:21.240)
to do it.
Lex Fridman (58:22.240)
There's only one way, right?
Lex Fridman (58:23.840)
And you're serving a good cause.
Lex Fridman (58:25.120)
So you were talking to Herman for a year and a half?
Lex Fridman (58:28.320)
A year and a half.
Lex Fridman (58:29.360)
And then how did that progress?
Lex Fridman (58:31.280)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (58:32.280)
So he finally, I guess he sent a report to headquarters in Berlin and then he sent me
Lex Fridman (58:40.520)
on a three week, quote unquote, practice trip to Berlin.
Jack Barsky (58:45.160)
This was the first time when I had like a conspiratorial meeting where I had an address
Lex Fridman (58:53.640)
and a time and a code phrase and I met another agent.
Jack Barsky (58:59.080)
His name was Boris.
Lex Fridman (59:01.540)
These names were meaningless.
Lex Fridman (59:02.840)
They were all like cover names, right?
Lex Fridman (59:04.800)
So what was the code and the meaning?
Lex Fridman (59:06.480)
What was then?
Lex Fridman (59:07.480)
Can you give a little more detail?
Jack Barsky (59:08.640)
That code I don't remember.
Lex Fridman (59:10.420)
Not the code, but like, what do you mean by code?
Lex Fridman (59:13.240)
So what was...
Jack Barsky (59:14.240)
I tell you, the code we used when I met while I was active, I would approach the other person
Jack Barsky (59:22.360)
who I thought may be the person I want to meet.
Jack Barsky (59:25.620)
We both had something with us or on us to make us more likely to be the right person.
Lex Fridman (59:36.000)
And I would ask him the following questions, excuse me, I'm looking for Susan Green.
Lex Fridman (59:45.880)
And he would answer, yes, you must be David.
Jack Barsky (59:48.680)
Stupid.
Lex Fridman (59:50.400)
If I ask a stranger, they would look at me, well, how could I help you?
Lex Fridman (59:56.440)
So I know it's the wrong guy.
Jack Barsky (59:58.680)
It's just a low probability that the right thing would be said, so it's a nice entry.
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