David McCloskey
Author
It, it is kind of insane because they, they clear you as a college undergraduate, uh, for top secret, like it’s the full clearance. So you are a full analyst, you’re not, they don’t hold back. So you go through the full polygraph, background investigation, you know, psych exam, medical, all that stuff, interview process. Then they give you, you sit down and you have full access to everything. And I remember my first summer was 2006 and that summer there was a 34 day war between Israel and Hezbollah. I, I wrote in memo, uh, for the President’s daily brief. That summer, uh, as a 20 year old. Um, which again is like probably inadvisable on the part of the US National Security Community. But I did it and I remember thinking, I actually really love this. And it is extremely satisfying regardless of sort of how that thing gets used by the President. It’s extremely satisfying to be involved in, uh, in an endeavour that is aiming to sort of bring truth to someone who can make that decision.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Hi everyone and welcome to this Mishcon Academy session. Uh, it is a series of podcasts, events and meetings where we discuss some of the biggest issues faced society – yes I was told explicitly to say that. Um, my name is Emeric Bernard-Jones, I’m the Intelligence Manager working with Mishcon and I am going to be your host today. And with that out of the way, I’m going to introduce my guest, David McCloskey. Hi.
David McCloskey
Author
Great to be here.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Oh applause. Wow.
David McCloskey
Author
Thank you for having me.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Thanks for joining us. Um, so for the benefit of everyone who haven’t spent the last three weeks googling you like I have, um, I’m going to do a quick career overview. You are a former CIA agent, uh, an analyst, a national security advisor, McKinsey Consultant, podcaster and now a bestselling spy novelist. So, I know it’s hard to pick career highlights when your CV is that long. Um, but why don’t you give us a little sense of kind of how you got here?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah, sure. Uh, and thanks again for having me. Great to be with you Emeric. Um, so it was all a series of accidents. I think I could probably go back and like draw out some kind of wonderful portrait of how all of those different things that you, uh, mentioned I have done made some kind of sense. But at the time, it just sort of felt like stumbling forward into the next thing. So I, um, I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I went to a small school outside of Chicago. The CIA showed up and recruited on campus and at the time I basically had two things on my resume; I had been, uh, a cashier at the American burger chain, Wendy’s and I had dug holes for a sprinkler system company.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Nice.
David McCloskey
Author
So those were my two jobs. So I thought there is no way I’m getting in to the CIA. Uh, somehow I did. Uh, joined, worked on Syria as an undergraduate intern, which is actually bizarrely a real job that the CIA has. So my first day at the agency, I was 20 years old, and did that, worked on Syria, worked on the Middle East and obviously worked on that country as it went from sort of, you know, stable to not, protests, civil war, eventually State failure. And, um, the experience working on Syria at that time was, was probably the most sort of deeply affecting professional experience that I’ve ever had. Um, it, it was so tragic and, and sad to work on that, uh, that country at that time. And so when I left the CIA in 2014, I started to write about it and there’s a long and winding road, uh, to get to actually writing spy novels. Um, but that process of kind of writing really came out of that experience working on Syria at the CIA. Um, and I haven’t looked back.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
No. And so, when you started writing, were you writing about your own experiences or were you trying to always keep them in the kind of fictional realm so that you didn’t get, you know, sued or dragged off somewhere?
David McCloskey
Author
Right, right. Yeah, you know, I, um, when I first started there was a little bit that were kind of my stories or experiences but I found in that kind of first, there was really this like four month period after I left the CIA where I was essentially going to a coffee shop like a homeless person and sitting there all day. And just kind of writing and people legitimately were like, what is this guy doing, you know, because I was just kind of staring at a computer screen all day. And, and for me it, it felt like this opportunity to kind of just let the things that I wanted to write kind of come out of me and I found that in that period, when I was, you know, writing 8 to 10 hours a day, um, the things that gave me the most energy were not writing my own stories but kind of, I guess in some ways, writing stories of others who I’d, you know, got to know in Syria, um, coming up with characters, drawing out scenes that were sort of inspired by reality but not real.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm.
David McCloskey
Author
That stuff was more interesting to me. Um, and allowed me, I think at the time, to kind of play around and explore the more human aspects of that conflict. Because, you know, when you’re at the CIA and you’re writing analysis, it’s very dry.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yep.
David McCloskey
Author
You know, very dry. Maybe you might have experienced writing some similar things here?
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah, also very dry.
David McCloskey
Author
It’s like, you know, there is a, I think a hunger that I had to engage with the human level of that war, having seen it, having experienced it, having known so many people who have lived through it but not really making that a focus of my professional, you know, life at the CIA. Writing allowed me to do that.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
It sounds quite cathartic?
David McCloskey
Author
Yes.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah.
David McCloskey
Author
Absolutely.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
And is your process for writing still the same today? Do you just go to a coffee shop and sit there for 8 hours or is it different now?
David McCloskey
Author
More or less, yeah. I mean, so with, with the podcast now, um, it’s a little bit chunk, like my days are little bit chunkier so I do have to do that and I record that from a studio at home. But when I’m writing, that is very much, even though I have space at home to do that, um, and it’s quite comfortable. Like, for some reason I really like to go to coffee shops to write. I find that just kind of the, the buzz around me is both sort of like white noise, and then also helps. It actually really helps me focus, to have more stuff around. So I just put on big noise cancelling headphones and sit there in the middle of a very busy coffee shop and write and that’s kind of my preferred, uh, my preferred way to get words on a page.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm, okay. So going back to I guess, your time at the CIA and your time in intelligence more generally. Most of the people who work in the field early, so people who I speak to, um, quite frequently. We all have like a, like a spark, a thing that initially got us interested in wanting to work for it.
David McCloskey
Author
Mm hmm.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
We’re quite a passionate bunch, I guess. You don’t really find too many disinterested, um, analysts or political commentators, or maybe one or two but they don’t work here anymore. Um, so what was that for you? What was your kind of, um, your inspiration moment?
David McCloskey
Author
Before I joined or sort of once I had joined?
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
What did you like think, oh okay I can really work in intelligence, this is like something that really interests me?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah. I think that probably, uh, happened for me when, it was a few months after I’d joined. Because I think the reason I did it, other than just sort of feeling like they had made some kind of massive mistake hiring me, given my background.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm hmm.
David McCloskey
Author
And just feeling lucky to have gotten in. Um, was, was that I was genuinely interested in the world. I had some sense of wanting to know how it works. I, I loved reading history and sort of about what was going on in the world. So, but again, you know, I’m 19 years old so there’s this kind of this general feeling of, I’m interested in this stuff. When I got in, it is kind of insane because they, they clear you as a college undergraduate, uh, for top secret, like it’s the full clearance. So you are a full analyst, you’re not, they don’t hold back. So you go through the full polygraph, background investigation, you know, psych exam, medical, all that stuff, interview process. Then they give you, you sit down and you have full access to everything. And I remember my first summer was 2006 and that summer there was a 34 day war between Israel and Hezbollah. I, I wrote in memo, uh, for the President’s daily brief. That summer, uh, as a 20 year old. Um, which again is like probably inadvisable on the part of the US National Security Community. But I did it and I remember thinking, I actually really love this. And it is extremely satisfying regardless of sort of how that thing gets used by the President. It’s extremely satisfying to be involved in, uh, in an endeavour that is aiming to sort of bring truth to someone who can make that decision.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Okay, and when you first got access to all of the information, did you look yourself up?
David McCloskey
Author
Did I look myself up? You, uh, so surprisingly the Central Intelligence Agency…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
That’s a yes.
David McCloskey
Author
…no, no, no. The Central Intelligence Agency has not spied on Americans in America since, uh, the early 1970s. We did a little bit back in the day.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm hmm, yeah.
David McCloskey
Author
Um, but I did not have access to any databases that would have enabled me to, uh, conduct those searches. Yes, wink.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Got it. Got it. So moving swiftly on, uh, let’s talk about the reason that we’re here today, um, The Persian, which is your fourth book. And I guess at its core, it’s about, um, a man who’s going to extreme lengths to leave Sweden, of all places, and kind of go to live his American dream.
David McCloskey
Author
It’s a very anti-Swedish novel.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah, very anti-Swedish. What did the Swedish ever do to you? Um, set against a backdrop of, uh, Israeli intelligence and Iranian, kind of State penetration. Um, and it kind of comes at a time where the region is uncharacteristically volatile I guess. Um, so what made you want to write this now?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah, it’s a good question because I have, uh, I think throughout the, I’ve tallied it up now, throughout the writing process I was sort of scooped by reality, like four times. You know, there was missile and rocket volleys and drone volleys between Israel and Iran. Right after I started writing this, there was of course the pager attacks in Lebanon. Um, there was the strike against Iran’s nuclear programme last summer and then the 12 day War between Israel and Iran. So, that all was happening as I was writing this novel which was, uh, immensely frustrating from a plotting stand point. Uh, but obviously created a lot of material for this book and look, I started it because, you know, I had sort of watched the Israel/Iran shadow conflict at the CIA a little bit. I worked on Syria, so these weren’t my main accounts but Syria’s involved in that, right? So I had kind of a half an eye on it and it had always fascinated me because it is this really intense intelligence competition between the two that frequently is quite violent.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm hmm.
David McCloskey
Author
And that to me felt like a setting for a spy novel where you have extremely high stakes. And you have characters who are involved for all kinds of different reason and who are putting a lot on the line to get things done. So right there, you know, from a setting stand point there’s a lot to work with. Um, and the way I write is the characters come out of the setting and the plot comes out of the characters. And so if you start with a great setting, that is just charged, you’re going to have a lot to work with. And, uh, you know, it started, this one doesn’t have any Americans in it. No CIA officers. Didn’t start that way, it was kind of a CIA Mossad operation, uh, initially. And then, you know, there are, kind of target a group of Iranians and over time the CIA fell out because it was just storytelling, it was too clunky. Um, and it became this, this kind of novel set amid this shadow War between the two nations.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Okay. So whilst you were writing it, since all of this stuff was kind of going on at the same time. How much were you reacting to it versus trying to anticipate what was going to happen next?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah. Well you can’t, you can’t anticipate that. I think the timeline, you know, you start writing a novel. It takes me somewhere between 12 and 15 months to write them. And then there’s, there’s another year’ish kind of getting it ready for publication, the editing, the marketing, the production, the distribution, all that. So you’re talking about like when you start you’re sort of aiming at a target that’s two years out and you need the setting of the book hopefully to feel authentic for the readers, right, at that point. But as you’re starting, two years before that, you know, in today’s geopolitical environment it’s, it’s really challenging to sort of hit that on the money, you know.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm.
David McCloskey
Author
Um, so I, it’s impossible to anticipate where things are going. Uh, I mean, side note, my fifth novel, the one I’m finishing now, I actually set amid the US/UK relationship because I thought it would be more placid, you know. And, uh…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Are we at War with the US? What?
David McCloskey
Author
…and that didn’t. Yeah. And then, you know, now it’s like I have to incorporate the possibility of armed conflict on Greenland into, into the novel. So you can’t really beat or anticipate the headlines. I think what, what I have generally tried to do is make sure that I am not entirely dependent on a particular aspect of the geopolitical conflict.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm.
David McCloskey
Author
So that, you know, for example, my second novel, Moscow X, Putin the character. And, you know, I woke up one morning when Yevgeny Prigozhin was marching on Moscow and found myself kind of secretly hoping that Vladimir Putin would survive just purely from a stand point of plot continuity, you know?
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah, yeah.
David McCloskey
Author
Uh, and so you, you kind of, you know, this novel, I mean quite intentionally doesn’t have any very senior Israeli politicians in it. The supreme leader of Iran is not in this novel and I kind of did that in part so that I wouldn’t…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah.
David McCloskey
Author
…actually be scooped. And so, this novel, you know, while it reflects a lot of the shadow War around it and the real headlines that we’ve all seen over the last couple of years. It’s not ultimately dependent on them and I think that, I have really tried hard, uh, to make, make that so. So that it doesn’t feel outdated by events when you pick it up.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
One of the things that you kind of mention is that there is a lack of, um, there’s no CIA agents in the book, there’s no American military in the book. But the idea of kind of, America and what it means kind of permeates throughout what you’ve written. So obviously he’s based in Sweden but he’s looking to move to America and then in order to kind of fund that journey, gets involved in all of his escapades and I just kind of think that it’s interesting because a lot of the members of the, um, like Iranian diaspora that I’ve met, always have quite a close, uh, understanding or an interest in, kind of American pop culture?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
But with relations between Iran and America being so, um, tense. Um, do you think that that idea of the US as a kind of gold State as a place to aspire to still really exists?
David McCloskey
Author
Still exists. I mean, I’m sure it does to some degree. I think, you know, that this is recency bias on my part. It certainly doesn’t help when, you know, we say help is coming and it’s not.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
It’s not.
David McCloskey
Author
Um, which is, you know, sort of yet another deeply tragic aspect of much of our policy in the Middle East where we just get so out in front in what we say and then we don’t actually do the things that we say we’re going to do. That doesn’t help. Um, and yet, I mean there’s an extremely vibrant, you know, Persian community in Los Angeles for example, uh, or in New York. And I think deep connections between those places and, you know, big cities and in Iran that, um, that exist irrespective of what the politics are. And, and so I think there probably is still, you know, a sort of a strong desire given particularly just how dire the situation is for so many in Iran. Um, to, to get out and come to the States. But I think, you know, in setting anti Swedish, you know, sort of tendencies aside…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah.
David McCloskey
Author
…um, in setting this in Sweden, I mean, a lot of, a lot of Iranians after the revolution, you know, went to Stockholm and, and set up there and have made tremendous lives for themselves outside of, uh, Iran in places like Sweden.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
And so what is it that you think that specifically makes the States the kind of golden ideal because those, there are protests in Berlin the other day and there were, you know, American flags saying that, you know, America is going to help them and guide Iran out of whatever kind of State that it’s in. Um, but specifically for the main character, he has this like idealised view…
David McCloskey
Author
Mm hmm.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
…of what he expects his retirement is going to be like in the States. And after like maybe 20 years of sanctions and, I don’t know, travel bans etcetera, etcetera…
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
…why did that kind of ring true for him?
David McCloskey
Author
Well I think, you know, he’s, he is a bit of a fantasist. He admits this in the novel and a lot of this book is written from, you know, from his first person perspective as a, as a confession to is Iranian captures. Um, so he, he can imagine things in his own head and sort of hope that they’re true without any of them ever actually becoming true. So he’s, he’s a bit of a fantasist. Um, his names Kam also. Kamran Esfahani. Um, I think he, you know, he has a sort of messed up and I think, kind of disconnected family environment where he lives in Stockholm…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm.
…as well. And he wants to escape that. So in some ways I think he has a very, um, postcard version of the States and of Los Angeles that’s pretty disconnected from any reality but that for him represents just a desire. Which I hope, you know, resonates with, with a lot of us, just present circumstances may not be what we want them to be and so the grass must be greener elsewhere, right?
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm.
David McCloskey
Author
And that, that really motivates and drives him. And also, you know, a lot of this book is a story about somebody who, you know, he’s an extremely, uh, in particular at the beginning, I think, you know, interesting character and in some respects, likeable but also quite narcissistic and quite self-interested. And this…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Aren’t we all.
David McCloskey
Author
…this is, right, to some degree yes. And, um, you know, he wants money at the end of the day. Now I will say to everybody like, you know, public service announcement. If, if you want to raise money working for an Intelligence Service, it’s probably not the best way to do it, okay? So, this is, but this is the opportunity that sort of lands in his, um, his dental chair.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm hmm.
David McCloskey
Author
In, in Sweden, because he’s also, he’s a dentist. Um, and he jumped at it.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Right. And what was it, okay we’ve mentioned like six times now, all of the kind of anti Sweden rhetoric. Is Sweden, is a perfectly pleasant place.
David McCloskey
Author
It’s really not very anti Swedish.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
It’s, no, it’s not, it’s not. Um, what was, why set it in Sweden?
David McCloskey
Author
Yep so, um, there’s a couple of answers to that question.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm hmm.
David McCloskey
Author
The first one is if he, I needed this character, this character had to be someone that the Mossad would recruit to work inside Iran. If he had been living in California, which I thought about, you know, or in the States, he’s not going to be, it’s going to be much harder to imagine how he’s sort of moving in and out of Iran and freely operating inside of Iran. It’s, it’s much easier to imagine that if he’s coming from a place like Sweden or a place, you know, somewhere else outside the US where you have a, a Persian or Iranian diaspora. So that was kind of the Sweden thing. Um, I also wanted him, especially as I kind of got going in the writing, I was really interested by the fact that he’s got a bunch of different potential identities. So he’s, um, he’s a Persian Jew right, so, but he’s Jewish but he’s not Israeli. Uh, he’s Iranian but he hasn’t really grown up in Iran even though he grew up in an Iranian family in Stockholm. He’s Swedish, he has a Swedish passport but as he will frequently say in the novel, it’s like, well is he really Swedish because a lot of Swedes don’t think he is. So, he’s got all of these kind of potential identities that he can slip into and frequently does at different points in the novel and I think a lot of the stories that I don’t frankly interest me the most, are ones where there can be a lot going on in a book, in a novel but at the end of the day it’s a story about a person and there is a central question of who is this person? And, and we as readers, you know, there’s the great, um, scene in Lawrence of Arabia where, um, you know, this guy pulls up on a motorbike and looks at Lawrence. Lawrence looks at him for a while and he says, who are you? And you can kind of see Lawrence’s face moving and the change. And he’s thinking about that question. And I think that’s kind of a central question in a lot of stories, is, is this person? And we’re interested, we turn the page, we keep watching the movie because we want to figure out who they are. And I think in this novel for me as I was writing it, it was kind of this process of discovering who this guy is.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm hmm. Interesting. Okay. And so how much of the research that you did for it was, uh, kind of based in what you’ve done before and how much of it was you either going to Israel or going to Sweden and then kind of seeing what it’s like because there’s some exerts, there’s some parts in the book where you describe things like the traffic in Jerusalem which is truly…
David McCloskey
Author
Horrendous, yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
…horrible. It’s, it’s horrible. It’s, it’s awful.
David McCloskey
Author
Yes.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Um, and the fact that they, you know, take out a lot of their rage about what’s going on, on the roads and that is pretty true.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Um, how much of it was, yeah, based here and how much of it was kind of on the ground research?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah. So I, um, I travelled extensively in Israel when I was at the CIA but was not able to go back for this novel but had very, I had very visceral memories of the traffic there and…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
And the horns.
David McCloskey
Author
…driving there and horns and also in Syria. I think my general like model for driving in most of the Middle East is that you are responsible for the front part of your car. That is it and there is an immense fatalism that comes. And even though I’m not born and raised in the Middle East, getting behind the wheel in any of these countries you sort of, you feel it seep into your bones of like, if I die, I die. You know, I will protect the front of my car and everything else that happens will be, you know, in the hands of god. Um, so, I, you know, I had that experience, uh, from, from my time working there. I think, you know, it, I will say that we talk about the different layers of Kam’s identity and the different places the story goes. Um, I dug myself into a major hole because, uh, as you tick off the different aspects of Kam, just to take him, uh, I am not Israeli. I am not Iranian. I’ve never lived in Stockholm. I’m not Jewish, right? Um, like I can travel to some of these places, uh, I obviously can’t travel in Tehran. So you have this question of like, well how do you, how could I presume to write a character like that? Or to write about places that I haven’t been and maybe never will go. And I think the answer in fiction, and maybe the sort of dirty secret, is you don’t need to have lived it yourself to write about it. You need friends who have, or contacts who have and in this case, you know, there would be people who would get on the phone with me and I would say, look okay, I’m thinking about a character like this. What neighbourhood in Iran would they, in Tehran would they live in? And if you’re talking to someone who lives in Tehran, they would say, oh it might be this place. And then you’d get on the phone or find someone who lives in that place and you would say, well where do you go to get your bread, your cheese, your fruit? What is the traffic like? What does it smell like? What kinds of things do you wear when you’re going to a dinner party? Like these kind of, these questions that you really won’t get the answers to if you’re just a book about Iran’s foreign policy or the history of Iran. Like you kind of need that stuff in the back of your head particularly early in the writing process but as you go you realise you need a lot of very fine detail that you can only get from people who have lived those.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah.
David McCloskey
Author
Lived through those experiences, lived in those places. And so my research process is just a tremendous amount of phone calls. And Zooms and Facetimes with people who will talk to me, even just for 10 or 15 minutes about, you know, the traffic in Tehran which is another feature of this. So just when you talk to actual humans who live in these places, a lot of it is the same stuff but it’s like…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Everyone hates traffic.
David McCloskey
Author
…traffic, food, congestion, you know, uh, the fact that the Islamic Republic cannot, uh, collect sewage, uh, you know, or manage the water infrastructure or collect trash off the streets. Things like that, that you just, you know, if you’re reading foreign policy stuff, you’ll just never see.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
I have all the same complaints of Brent Council. So that’s great. Okay, so changing pace a little bit, um, we’re going to play a little game with you.
David McCloskey
Author
Uh oh.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Um, so I’m going to have, um, I’m going to play a game that I am going to call, Asking David very pointed questions for my own amusement. Um, and basically I’m just going to grill you about a couple of the things that you wrote in the book.
David McCloskey
Author
Okay.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Because we’re in a law firm and that’s what we have to do.
David McCloskey
Author
Yes.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
So I’m going to have my very glamorous assistant pass me the Board of Doom. Thank you.
David McCloskey
Author
We have one of these at the CIA too.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
The Board of Doom. Okay so can you please tell me, who this man is and why you hate him?
David McCloskey
Author
Okay. Um, so this is, is this video going to be distributed widely? Or is this… this is Tim McGraw.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
This is Tim McGraw.
David McCloskey
Author
Um, so when I was, uh, when I was writing The Persian, I, I needed, as I said, the protagonist is in an Iranian prison for most of the story and is undergoing severe, uh, interrogation and torture at the hands of his captures. And one of the ways that you actually do this is by blaring for periods of time, extremely, um, horrendous music. And I wanted, I wanted there to be a, a song that had been played constantly for Kam in the early days and throughout his, his sort of interrogation in his captivity that he has a visceral reaction to. And, and I remember, I don’t exactly recall when this song came out but I remember hearing, uh, a Tim McGraw song called Truck Yeah that…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
It’s terrible. It’s terrible.
David McCloskey
Author
…they’re playing on the radio incessantly when I was, I think in high school and I just really despised the song and this is my prerogative as a writer of fiction was that I could then just put that into the novel and make that an instrument of torture that the Iranian’s had used against Kam. Because they had, they had figured out at some point that he also despised the song and so just played it on endless, endless repeat. So there are scenes where he gets thrown back into his, uh, cell after he’s interrogated and after he’s writing where he can hear Truck Yeah blaring and he just, those are some of his darkest moments in the novel at the hands of Tim McGraw.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah.
David McCloskey
Author
Yes.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
So, um, is Tim McGraw aware of this beef? Is he aware that, that you, don’t like Truck Yeah?
David McCloskey
Author
I don’t, I don’t think so.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
No.
David McCloskey
Author
I mean if he is, I have not yet heard from his lawyers.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Well I think we can make it happen, um, do you have any messages to deliver directly to the camera that we can sent to Tim McGraw?
David McCloskey
Author
Um don’t get litigious Tim, there is nothing here for you to come for.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Okay, well thank you Tim. Come to the Academy next time. So that was exhibit A and now we have exhibit B.
David McCloskey
Author
Yes okay.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah. So in chapter 2.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah, yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Of the book there is an interrogation scene.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
In which a man called, Amir Ali, is sentenced to 50 lashes administered in part by a women wearing, Valentino heels. And you specifically say…
David McCloskey
Author
If that doesn’t sell you on the novel I don’t know what will.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
…well yeah it is great. But you specifically say that they are ‘studded Valentino shoes’. Now as I am sure that you’re aware, the shoe in question is almost certainly the Valentino Garavani Rockstud Pump. Now this pump came out in 2010 and almost immediately was taken up by the glitterati, you know, you had some diplomat’s wives wearing it, you had some minor royals, you had some well-dressed lawyers. But because it was so unique, it was, it was, uh, it was really vulnerable to duplication.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
And so almost immediately filtered down, you know, through to department stores and kind of knock off brands where it eventually landed, where now it’s less of a, less of a status symbol and more of a, a sad gift that a husband would buy his third wife after he forgets their anniversary. Um, so I wanted to ask you, when you placed…
David McCloskey
Author
Yes. Yes.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
…the Valentino Garavani Rockstud Pump into the world of The Persian, what did you intend it to say about the women wearing them?
David McCloskey
Author
All of the things you just said.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Well is she, is she the 2010, uh, diplomat, or is she the, the sad woman who got it bought for her by a man who doesn’t understand footwear?
David McCloskey
Author
It’s probably the latter.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Probably the latter.
David McCloskey
Author
Given the character in the novel.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Given the character. Okay.
David McCloskey
Author
Yes.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Okay, and what was it about this particular shoe that stuck out to you because you were, you know, writing and you decided to pen that little detail in so clearly it had an impact on you?
David McCloskey
Author
Yes. Yeah. My, it was, uh, it was more of a knuckle dragger response which was that they were shiny.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
They were shiny. Okay, okay. You saw someone wearing them and you went, oh shoes.
David McCloskey
Author
Shiny, shiny.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Okay, shiny shoe.
David McCloskey
Author
The points in that scene, which I don’t want to like belabour that scene because it is.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Yeah.
David McCloskey
Author
There’s a lot going on there.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
I don’t want to ruin it.
David McCloskey
Author
There’s a lot going on there. Um, was contrast.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm hmm.
David McCloskey
Author
Because the character who was wearing these horrendous shoes, um, is, is pretending to be a member of, uh, the Islamic Republic’s guidance patrol.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm hmm.
David McCloskey
Author
So a version of its morality police and that is the moment where you as the reader will realise that she’s not actually that and so it was a contrast between the sort of clothing of that uniform and this horrendous fashion statement.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Horrendous shoe.
David McCloskey
Author
That’s right.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Well at least now you know what not to get your wife for your next anniversary.
David McCloskey
Author
I’ll add it to the list.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Add it to the list. Can I just thank you glamorous assistant. Okay, so after the… oh did you enjoy the game?
David McCloskey
Author
I did actually, immensely.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Good, good. Um, after this you’ve got a, uh, live podcast recording, um, for The Rest is Classified.
David McCloskey
Author
Yes.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Um, congrats on selling out the show.
David McCloskey
Author
Thank you.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
I look forward to being a guest – tee hee hee. Um, what’s the most challenging part of kind of hosting a show that covers so many hot button topics and issues?
David McCloskey
Author
Well I think, you know, the headline on the podcast is it’s great fun. I mean, Gordon and I, um, get along really well and I have fun poking at his Britishness and his journalist tendencies because I’m just not those things. Um, so we have a really good time with it. I think the, you know, the way we do this podcast is that it is a, like, conversation between Gordon and I. So it’s not a show where we have a guest come on, we get ten questions we’re going to ask and we’ve done a little research and we have an interesting conversation. It’s Gordon and I go back and forth for forty five minutes to an hour, um, about a real, kind of meaty topic in the intelligence world. And that can be something from, you know, our first episodes were on Iran in 1953, the coup, the CIA, MI6 coup against Mosaddegh. Two episodes on that and then this past month we’ve done two episodes on Venezuela and the raid on Maduro. Two episodes on Jeffery Epstein and whether had any connections to intelligence services and like, two episodes on Iran. So really current stuff. So everything in between. It’s a lot of, we don’t have research assistants. We do all of the digging and research to the calls ourselves to build that content. So that’s the hard part is, you know, if we’re recording episodes we’ve gone really deep together to research that topic. It’s tremendous fun but it’s also, you know, we’re putting in a lot of work because we want that, you know, I think we hope people come to the podcast for the banter and the fun conversation that Gordon and I have, but we also hope that people come because we provide value. Um, in giving you insights about what might actually be going on in the intelligence business, sort of scraping beneath the service of the headlines to describe what’s actually going on. So we do a lot of work to make sure we, we deliver that.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
And one of the, uh, people on the back of the book with other lovely quotes is Rory Stewart.
David McCloskey
Author
Yes.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Who’s in another one of the, The Rest Is kind of podcasts. So is there a, The Rest Is collective like group chat? Do you all, is there like a WhatsApp group? Do you all chat with each other?
David McCloskey
Author
They are a select kind one off. We don’t have a full Rest Is chat.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Ah wow.
David McCloskey
Author
Um, but there is a lot of connection obviously between, between the shows. Um, and, you know, we’re are all, we’re all working with Goalhanger Productions on this. So, um, there’s connection through that as well and I think, I’m not sure if it’s been announced yet but there will be like a, I think it’s called The Rest Is Fest, that is happening in September this year, um, where they will do a whole collab thing with the other shows. Which will be great fun.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Oh nice.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
It’s like a cinematic universe?
David McCloskey
Author
Yes exactly. It’s like the Marvel cinematic universe of sort of, awkward podcasters, yeah that’s right.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Sign me up, wow. Um, and so what do you think has been your most, um, let’s say, challenging discussion that you’ve had on the podcast to date or that made you either, I don’t know, the angriest I want to swing at someone?
David McCloskey
Author
The angriest. Um, well we did, we did six episodes on Edward Snowden last, last year. And I, I really don’t like Edward Snowden, at all. Uh, I think what he did is horrendous and I don’t like him personally. And I was hopeful that in the research on that I might soften my opinion but it only went the other direction. It’s like, as I got deeper in it. So that was kind of a bit of a hard conversation. Also because I know a lot of people who were involved in sort of trying to plug some of the leaks around the, that fall out and it was just really messy because I was, I was still inside the agency at that time. So that was a kind of a, I think it ended up being a good series that we did but it was a tough conversation. I think honestly the, um, episodes that we did recently on Iran, right. Coming off of working on The Persian and getting ready to launch it and just seeing this sort of how immensely tragic the situation is there. Um, and the massacres that, that the government has perpetrated on its own population, it’s always hard to have a conversation that is happening at kind of the intellectual, analytical level when you know that there’s a tremendous, just incredible amount of suffering that’s happening on the ground. I mean it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have that analytical conversation but it makes it, I think, more delicate and, and you have to be careful. So, so those were hard episodes to record as well.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm. And what do you see kind of, um, going forward. What’s next for either, um, well if you cast a crystal ball, what’s next for Iran, but also what’s next for you?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah. So in Iran, I mean, that’s, you know, sort of an impossible question to answer. I think, you know, um, we, in those episodes we, we talk a lot about how, um difficult it is to predict what’s going to happen next in these kind of situations and kind of why, because when you get down to a potential revolutionary situation, and you’re trying to predict what comes next, you’re really getting into the, what’s going on inside the minds of hundreds of thousands of people, be they protestors, oppositionists or the people who in particular work inside the security services in that country. You know, is there a point where they’re going, their sort of private views become the public views, you know.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Mm.
David McCloskey
Author
And they see that cascade happening around everybody in the society. Um, there’s a reason why nobody saw really, Iran 1979 coming. People didn’t see the French Revolution coming. People didn’t see the Russian Revolution coming. People didn’t see 1989 coming, right, across central and eastern Europe. These things are inherently unpredictable and we, we, you really get to the limits of human cognition and prediction while in, in trying to, you know, look into a crystal ball in these situations. Uh, so it’s just, it’s, it’s immensely challenging. The, the pillars that support the Islamic Republic are a lot weaker now than they were even a month ago. Um, but the two most important ones, which is that loyalty and effectiveness of your security services and your military and how the elites kind of cohere together, those two things have held so far, for the most part. Um, so, you know, we’ll, we’ll see. And in terms of what’s next for me, uh, I literally sent the draft of my fifth novel to my, uh, publishers when I landed at Heathrow on Saturday, uh, to get here. So that’s, that’s done hopefully.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Coffee shop wifi?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah, um, well actually I had not had good plane wifi so when I landed I literally got a personal hotspot going and fired it off.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Nice.
David McCloskey
Author
Um, after staying up all night finishing it. Um, it is, uh, it’s a novel set in the US/UK relationship of today which again, as I was saying, oh this’ll be, you know, nothing will happen. Right, obviously in the last year, that’ll be quite. Nope. Wrong. Um, and it’s about whether I could find ways to really stress and rupture, uh, the CIA, MI6 intelligence partnership. And bring that to a point where both services are spying on each other again. Uh, and it turns out, I was able to find a way to do it.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Good job.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah. Yeah. And initially when I started I thought it would be hard and it was a lot easier than I had, I had imagined. Um, which gave me a lot of fodder for the novel and also made me deeply concerned about the future of the special relationship. Um, but that is what’s next and, uh, it will be out, um, either, either later this year or a year from now here in the UK.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Excellent.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Well I think that’s all the questions I have but I think I’ve saved some time to open things up to the room and to any kind of questions that we may have online. So I guess I’ll start with the room first. Um, if we have any questions, comments, concerns, compliments? You.
Audience
Why did you name your, one of your lead characters Artemis Aphrodite?
David McCloskey
Author
So, uh, one of my characters, she’s not in this novel, she’s in the first three and then she’ll be back in the next one, coughs, excuse me. Is a CIA case officer named Artemis Aphrodite Proctor. And I, you know, to be honest with you, this is why I think she’s such a great character. I, I distinctly remember starting with the last name when I was writing my first novel and she was the Chief of Station in Damascus actually. It’s like Proctor, okay, Proctor is the last name. I don’t know where it came from to this day. And as I went, you know, later on in the chapter I realised I needed to come up with a first name and Artemis came out of the blue. And I didn’t have a middle name for a little bit but as I was thinking about who she is and how someone gets the name Artemis, no offence to any Artemis’ who might be in the house, um, I thought well maybe she’s got a dad who just is fascinated with Greek mythology and so, then I thought of well, Aphrodite and I thought Artemis Aphrodite Proctor like that’s a pretty good name for a fictional character and it also gives you some of the contrast between those two, uh, Greek goddesses which I, which I really enjoyed. And so that’s how the, where the name came from and it just was one of those things instantly where you look at it and it’s like, that’s perfect.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Great. Any other questions? I like to point at people. You.
Audience
Hi you’ve worked obviously for the CIA as well as you did lots of research for Mossad. Would you say there were any similarities or differences between the two?
David McCloskey
Author
Hmm. So this novel was different from the others in that I had to find Mossad officers who would talk to me, um.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
That’s notoriously easy to do.
David McCloskey
Author
Yes, very easy and they were, they were slightly, um, more reluctant to speak to me than my CIA counterparts and much more circumspect when they, when they did. Um, but I did find a few who would talk to me and who would kind of let me, you know, hey I want to write a scene that looks like this and how would you be thinking about this situation or what would this, you know, is your trade craft in this piece the same as ours and I can kind of compare and contrast which was really helpful. And the thing I discovered was that the two services are immensely different. Um, there are some similarities, a lot of the trade craft is just the trade craft, you know, how do you detect surveillance and things like that. But the services themselves are just very different. One way that they’re different is that Mossad, as I was reminded over and over again by Mossad officers but also just by the things that happened as I’m writing the novel, uh, the risk aversion is pretty low, right? They are willing to do things that take, that put their officers and their assets in extreme danger and they do that when they feel, you know, they feel, particularly you are talking about Iran, like this is an existential problem for the Israeli State and for Mossad and so they are willing to do things that the CIA would just never do. Um, and so that, that makes obviously compelling fodder for a spy novel but it’s a reality of the way Mossad works. You know, the other way they’re different, kind of bureaucratically is Mossad, like at the CIA we have, we, we call it global coverage. So if the President has a question about the, um, you know, sort of economy of Argentina, uh, we have an Argentine economic analyst who will write something. Mossad doesn’t have Argentine economic analysts, like they are very focussed on a set of threats and States in the Middle East that matter deeply to Israeli security. So they have a very like a kind of, a much more narrow focus. Um, you know, the other way they’re different is the CIA is a really big bureaucracy in some respects. And so when we’re putting a team together or an operation is coming together it is bureaucratic feeling, right? Mossad is much more nimble, they’re smaller, and the way they put teams together is really kind ad hoc. So an idea might pop up, we’re going to do this thing. You saw this with the pager attacks actually, if you go in and look at the Reuters reporting on this and some of the, uh, New York Times reports on how that thing came together, it was an idea that a pretty low level Mossad officer had. That was just a good idea. And so it starts to gain traction in the system. People from, you know, operations, tech analysis get added to it over time and it kind of snowballs from there. So the bureaucracy sort of moves more nimbly based on need in a way that the CIA kind of doesn’t. So a lot of different, a lot of differences between, between the two services, uh, for sure.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Anymore? Any online? No, okay well then I’ll ask another one.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Which one do you think is more effective then? You’ve got to pick, you’ve got a little mission going on. Who are you going to bet on?
David McCloskey
Author
I think it depends on where it is.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Oh, Lebanon.
David McCloskey
Author
Oh Mossad.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Okay. Turkey.
David McCloskey
Author
Mossad.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Egypt.
David McCloskey
Author
Mossad.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Well I think we’ve got our answer there.
David McCloskey
Author
Argentina maybe not.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Maybe not.
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah. I mean the way the, all kidding aside, like the way the partnership works between, you know, the US and Israel on intel is like, we have a massive, and it’s, it’s not totally dissimilar between the US and the UK, where we have a massive amount of technological resources and a reach that we essentially use as leverage and barter with smaller services who might have really deep regional kind of connections, human capabilities but in a tighter geographic pocket. And so a lot of the kind of trade is we will give you access to sort of essentially capital, intel capital and you give us access to stuff that you’ve collected, you know, on the ground, be it in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, whatever. So that trade back and forth is, is kind of the way that that commerce functions. And it works for the CIA because we don’t need, I mean the Israeli’s don’t share everything with us. You guys don’t share everything with us. You share more than the Israeli’s do, um, but we actually don’t have to collect some of that stuff and we don’t need, like, the US doesn’t really need the same covert action capability in Lebanon or in Syria or in Iran that the Israeli’s do. Because we…
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
From some level.
David McCloskey
Author
…we’re a long ways away.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
And so what made you switch to looking at the UK/US relation?
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
From everything else?
David McCloskey
Author
I, uh, I was fascinated by how it worked, um, I also thought that given, you know, I had never, I’ve done a lot of analytic exchanges with UK services with the JIC, you know, with, with MI6 or SIS, um, but I didn’t really understand how the organisation works, you know, um, I met people but there’s kind a limited understanding of, well how do you conduct operations, how does the sort of, kind of commerce with the Americans work? So I was fascinated by that and I also thought, you know, given that so many of your former officers, well everybody has to sign the Official Secrets Act, um, I might actually have a way to write something about your service. Because I’m, I didn’t sign that. You didn’t that, right? Um, I might have a way to write about your service and I mean, obviously I’m not going to be irresponsible, but to, to kind of shed a bit more light on it, uh, then even a lot of the formers coming out of SIS are able to do. So it felt like an opportunity to kind of indulge my own research instincts on a topic that I really am interested in, um, and to bring something new to the table.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
Cool. Amazing. Well I think we all look forward to reading it. Um, I think we’ve got some to do book signings and anything…
David McCloskey
Author
Yeah, perfect.
Emeric Bernard-Jones
Intelligence Manager (non-lawyer)
…further that people want but David thank you so much.
David McCloskey
Author
Thank you, thanks for having me.
[applause]