The Human Side of Counterintelligence | Pete A. Turner former US Army Intelligence

Podcast: Secrets and Spies Podcast: Espionage | Global Issues | Current Affairs · Secrets & Spies

Opublikowano: 2026-10-24

Former U.S. Army counterintelligence special agent Pete Turner joins Chris for a conversation about what human intelligence actually looks like on the ground. Turner’s career ran from post–Cold War Germany and Bosnia through Egypt in the weeks after 9/11 to Iraq and Afghanistan, and he explains why the work turned less on stealing secrets than on access: winning over wary commanders, building rapport with sheikhs and district governors, and treating interpreters as partners rather than mouthpieces. Along the way he recounts a meeting he later learned the Taliban had called to look him over, and a colleague’s hunt...