Something is changing in our country, and most
people feel it before they can explain it. Hello,
you're listening to the Steady State Sentinel
from the Steady State. I'm Jim Lawler, a former
senior CIA operations officer. I've worked some
of the most sensitive counterproliferation and
espionage cases in the agency's history. And
today I'm honored to be joined by my good friend
and former CIA colleague, Bruce Held. Bruce,
you've had one of the most remarkable careers
in the national security space. You were a CIA
clandestine case officer. You were chief of station
on three continents. You were special assistant
to two National Security Council principals.
And ultimately, you were acting undersecretary
for nuclear security. And I shouldn't omit the
fact that you and I worked together when you
were director of DOE's Office of Intelligence
and Counterintelligence under two different energy
secretaries. So could you please give our listeners
a sense of the through line in that career and
what motivated you to during all that time? Thanks
for the kind words, Jim. I only wish I had been
one tenth the case officer that you were. The
question you posed resonates quite deeply with
me. In life, I found meaning in serving ideals
that are greater than I am. And in my career,
U .S. National Security called out to me because
I believe in America. I believe that the entire
world is much better off with America. Because
sooner or later, we Americans always come back
to the noble ideals that animate our country.
As Winston Churchill reportedly said, you can
always count on Americans to do the right thing
after they have exhausted all other possibilities.
I love that quote. I really do. If we focus on
just when you were the director of DOE's Office
of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and
for people who don't know how large that portfolio
is, that includes over 30 offices nationwide.
What does DOE intelligence do that the CIA and
the DIA do not? The core value proposition of
the Department of Energy are the thousands and
thousands of top secret cleared scientists and
engineers who are employed by the 17 U .S. national
labs. No other element of the U .S. government
has that anywhere near that type of that concentration
of scientific and technical talent. It is central
to our nation's ability to understand and do
something about foreign nuclear weapons programs
that pose an existential threat to the United
States. It is central to our ability to understand
and do something about advanced cyber threats
and AI threats. It is central to our ability
to anticipate and thereby prevent a technological
surprise. Within that context, the DOE's Office
of Intelligence and Counterintelligence has two
core responsibilities. One, protect the Secretary
of Energy from a counterintelligence disaster,
i .e. a spy inside of DOE. And to enable, to
protect the Secretary while enabling the U .S.
intelligence community to effectively and efficiently
and securely make use of DOE's exceptional scientific
and technical talent to advance our national
intelligence mission. It was the best job I ever
had. In part because I had two wonderful bosses,
Energy Secretary Steve Chu and Director of National
Intelligence Jim Clapper. They listened to what
we said and they acted upon it. In particular,
Steve Chu, very amusing to me, Steve Chu, the
Chinese, the senior Chinese American in the Obama
cabinet, along with Jim Clapper. convinced the
rest of the U .S. government in 2012 to adopt
a more cautious policy towards China. And that
was a fundamental shift of the policy of the
United States government, the more optimistic
policy of the United States government towards
China that had been pursued by Republican and
Democratic administrations for 30 years. So it
was a pretty big deal. I'm not surprised about
that, what you say about Steve Chu. I've met
him a couple of times. And what a lot of people
may not realize is he's a Nobel laureate. He
won the Nobel Prize, I believe, in physics, maybe
10 or 15 years before he became energy secretary.
And he's just a brilliant man, absolutely a complete
patriot. So let's talk a little bit about the
National Nuclear Security Administration. When
I first went to DOE and I heard NNSA, I thought
people were stuttering over NSA. I really did.
I had never heard of the National Nuclear Security
Administration. And yet it is one of the most
consequential agencies that most Americans have
never heard of. So can you kind of walk us through
what NNSA does? What do they actually protect
and manage? And why does it matter to every American
that they do this? NNSA is by far the largest
part of the Department of Energy. It designs,
produces, and maintains all of the nuclear weapons
that make up America's nuclear deterrent. The
Pentagon uses the weapons and operates the weapons,
but it is NSA within DOE that creates the American
nuclear deterrent. So that's a pretty big deal.
In addition, NSA develops the technology that
enables America to keep tabs on foreign nuclear
weapons programs that threaten America and our
allies. So NSA is unknown, but it very professionally
and quietly protects Americans from nuclear Armageddon.
Well, building on that, when you were the acting
undersecretary for nuclear security, what kept
you up at night? What were the threat vectors
you considered to be the most dangerous to the
nuclear security enterprise? NSA, I do it myself.
NSA was the hardest job I ever had. I, you know,
I had a... book that thick of briefing papers
every night that I had to go, or I was supposed
to go read. I never did. So I was there for a
year of sleepless nights. The overriding concern
of the new Secretary of Energy, who put me in
the NNSA job, Bernie Moniz, was that America
had been neglecting our nuclear deterrent for
over 20 years, while our adversaries, China,
Russia, and North Korea were rapidly expanding
and modernizing their nuclear arsenal. Secretary
Moniz was determined to put a stop to this. My
job was to win over my four Pentagon colleagues
on the Nuclear Weapons Council to allocate more
money for my nukes and less money for their conventional
weapon systems. Those mediators were absolutely
brutal. Sandy Winnefeld screamed at me once.
But ultimately, Frank Kendall and Admiral Winnefeld
came around to support us. If you don't know,
Sandy Winnefeld was a true -life model for the
Tom Cruise character in Top Gun. That's fascinating.
I didn't know this. So as you're saying this,
you described that NNSA, National Nuclear Security
Administration, sits basically at the intersection
of Department of Energy, Department of Defense,
and the intelligence community. So you've described
a little, let's say, spirited discussions. But
how well did these spirited discussions, may
be kind, how well did these institutional cultures
actually collaborate? And what were the friction
points? Was it all about money? What were the
things of contention there? On one level, it's
all about money. Billions and billions of dollars
of lots of money. So in a brutal struggle over
money, if you put a little old DOE up against
a big intelligence community or the humongous
Department of Defense, DOE has to have a prayer.
But on a more important level, it's about U .S.
national security. All four of my colleagues
on the Nuclear Weapons Council were deeply committed
to protecting U .S. national security. It was
a tremendous honor to work with them. To my dying
day, I'll remember on the decisive meeting in
the White House Situation Room, Sandy Winnefeld,
bless his heart, said, We all need to remember
that this is America's nuclear deterrent we're
talking about. And so we got the money and the
sacrifice of his own budget. Well, that's wonderful.
That's a great testimony to somebody who looked
past their parochial interests and looked at
our national security. That's the mark of a true
patriot. Sandy Winterfeld is a great American.
Absolutely. No, from what you've said, I'd love
to chat with him someday. Let's talk about what
we're seeing, though, now under this current
administration. We all know that there have been
significant staff reductions at National Nuclear
Security Administration. There have been disruptions
to the nuclear nonproliferation programs and
to the broader DOE restructuring. From your vantage
point, and you were there in the middle of this
for quite a while, how serious is the damage
that's being done? Very serious damage. First
of all, I need to say I don't get involved in
partisan politics. I'm an intelligence officer
like you are. I don't do politics. I'm slightly
left of center, but consider Ronald Reagan the
greatest president of my lifetime. I agree with
that. I have loyally supported, as you have,
four Republican presidents and four Democratic
presidents. And we do so by providing facts,
intelligence facts, that the presidents need
to make their own policy, whatever their policy
might be, to make their policy a success. And
all those eight presidents listened. President
Trump, however, particularly Trump 47, 45 was
a little bit different than 47. But Trump 47
chooses not to listen to the intelligence community.
He acts on his own gut instincts, which have
all too frequently been proven wrong. And he
sees himself as a dealmaker, but he has no long
-term policy on anything. So let's look at his
record. He's done nothing for normal Americans
who are struggling economically. He has failed
to end Russian aggression against Ukraine. He
has failed to restrain the nuclear weapons program
of North Korea. He has created even more of a
mess in the Middle East with the Iran war. He
has alienated our allies in Israel. He has alienated
our allies in Europe. He has left our allies
in Asia deeply worried about his policy towards
China. And his recent political stunt disrupted
what was meant to be a joyous sporting event,
was foolishly impulsive, and politically backfired
against him. His greatest success has been to
advance the financial interests of his family,
his buddies, and most egregiously himself. For
heaven's sake, he made $2 billion, used the presidency
to make $2 billion in the last year alone. So,
yeah, I'm kind of concerned. Well, other than
that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
No, I agree with you. I don't mean to make light
of it. Former Director of National Intelligence,
General Jim Clapper, one of the finest men I've
ever met, he recognized you for transforming
DOE's intelligence and counterintelligence capacity.
It took many, many years to build those offices.
How quickly can that kind of institutional capability
be degraded, and how hard is it to rebuild it?
I love Jim Clapper. I think he is great. And
I think he and Leon Panetta, it was just great
working with him. So let me be clear about what
your question is. We can rebuild it. We know
how to rebuild it. We've experienced setbacks
before. We can rebuild it. But it's going to
take a decade. In a decade period where we're
going to be vulnerable to that counterintelligence
disaster that I spoke about, we might have a
spy. Somebody might feel the motivation to become
a spy inside the U .S. nuclear complex, and that
would be a disaster. Well, you know, you're right.
We had a colleague who used to say, I think it
was Paul Redman, he said, it's an actuarial certainty
with the number of people who have clearances
that were penetrated. And as you well know, Bruce,
when you were a case officer and we were out
looking for targets, what we were looking for
were stressed out, unhappy people. And I think
we have inadvertently or intentionally. well,
actually intentionally created a lot of massively
stressed out people in the intelligence community
and at National Nuclear Security Administration,
et cetera. And they're guarding our most precious
secrets, our crown jewels of this nation. And
yet we have. seeing this broader pattern of experienced
career professionals being pushed out, senior
positions left vacant, interagency coordination
weakened. And as someone who served, as you did,
as special assistant to both an NSA and a DCI,
how dependent is our effective national security
policy on those experienced professionals beneath
the political appointees themselves, the very
people that were beating over the head? The American
people elect presidents to run the country. I
respect that. Those of us in the so -called deep
state, the presidents aren't obliged to us. We
are obliged to win their trust. We do this by
providing facts. Facts frequently are uncomfortable
facts. But there are facts that are needed to
make the president's policy a success, no matter
what the policy is. We don't do politics. We
provide facts. Once a president's national security
advisor, the one you refer to, quoted me. I hated
every Aardwolf cable you ever sent me, but I
always trusted them and I always acted on them.
For our listeners, explain what an Aardwolf cable
is. Sorry, I dropped into, thinking I'm talking
to you, I dropped into... CIA talk. Yeah. And
Ardwolf is, which is an unclassified journal,
and Ardwolf is a COS assessment. The COS, no
matter where he happens to be, sits down and
writes, what do I think is going on? And that
assessment, that COS, Chief of Station's assessment,
goes directly to the president without being
touched. No editing by headquarters. It goes
directly to the president, to the National Security
Advisor, without being touched. So you are really
on the line to... You really want to be careful
what you say because it's going to have impact.
Right. I mean, it's an unvarnished appraisal
of the situation and the chief of station, he
or she has to give their best view on what's
going on. And that's why we count on the chief
of station so importantly to give that unbiased,
unblemished, unvarnished view, just a clear view.
And I know you did that in three occasions as
chief of station. In fact, I think I recall you
served as chief of station on three different
continents, which is absolutely remarkable, including
one of our. largest stations in Asia. I won't
mention which one it was, but anyways, I recall
you did quite a good job out there. So there's
been a reporting on the administration's relationship
with Russia, creating serious concerns inside
the intelligence community. From a counterintelligence
standpoint, what are the structural vulnerabilities
when the policy leadership and the professional
intelligence apparatus aren't aligned? Or worse,
Yeah, when one seems to be working against the
other. That is not a good situation. That is
a very dangerous situation for America. But I
have to say, I don't pretend to understand the
admiration that President Trump evidently feels
towards Vladimir Putin. I see no evidence, however,
that Vladimir Putin reciprocates that feeling.
I think the same is true with Xi Jinping and
Kim Jong -un. All three of them are brutal dictators
who wish harm to America. And I don't see why
we, Tom Tillis said that same thing. I don't
see what the president sees in his friendship,
what he gets out of his friendship. I see that
at this latest meeting, I believe it's in Turkey,
that President Trump gave actually a fairly positive
view of Ukrainian President Zelensky, which I
was stunned. I wonder how long that little bromance
is going to last. President Trump had a good
meeting with Zelensky? Yes, he did. He said that
now we may supply Ukraine with the capacity to
manufacture their own Patriot missiles, which
they badly need to stop all of the Russian ballistic
missiles coming in. But I do wonder how long,
like I said, that bromance, how long that's going
to last. I 100 % support that. I believe that
the United States should. back Ukraine absolutely,
and we have a vested interest in backing Ukraine
with the fullest of our ability. Absolutely.
No, I agree with you 100 percent. And it's just
our support has been so tepid and up and down,
though. I wonder sometimes, you know, and what
our European allies, what our NATO allies all
must be thinking. How strong is a commitment
from the United States if, in fact, you know,
if what they speak out of both sides of their
mouth. But let's go on to something else. Let's
go on to. I just want to touch on that. Oh, sure.
I do agree with President Trump that NATO allies
should bear more of the bruit. So I give him
total credit for doing that. But I totally oppose
the way he's done it. Right. I mean, I agree.
And yeah, it is sad that a lot of our NATO allies,
in fact, most of them, maybe with the exception
of the Baltic countries, have not. held their
commitments of 5 % of their GDP to national defense.
Let's turn to when you were running counterintelligence
at Sandia National Lab. And before you came to
DOE headquarters to be director of intelligence
and counterintelligence. So we know that foreign
intelligence services, particularly Russia and
China, have long targeted our national labs.
I mean, this goes back to the Manhattan Project
when they... so thoroughly penetrated the Manhattan
Project at multiple layers. In your opinion,
is the counterintelligence threat getting better
or worse? And are we better or worse positioned
to counter today than we were, say, five years
ago or 10 years ago? The foreign intelligence
services of Russia and China are very professional
and very determined. They always have been, and
they always will be. We won't win every match.
They will succeed on some occasions. The challenge
for America is to have a counterintelligence
strategy that wins more matches than we lose.
The key to a successful counter strategy is a
proactive personal engagement with your community
that you're trying to protect. And that, unfortunately,
can be hard for secretive counterintelligence
types. It's kind of a cultural phenomenon. For
example, at Sandia, Sandia is a top secret village
of tens of thousands of people. As in any village,
there's a small number of people, say one per
thousand. who may at one time or another be motivated
to behave against the interests of other village
members. These are the people that intelligence
services are looking for. And you, who we're
very good at, if the village counterintelligence
program totally alienates the entire village.
by reporting requirements or spying on them or
doing, you know, dumb things, we will lose more
matches than we win. But if the people in the
counterintelligence proactively win the trust
and confidence of the 999 good citizens of the
village to provide an early tip -off, to the
worrisome behavior of the one so that we can
move quickly and early to nip it in the bud,
then we will win more matches than we lose. It's
very simple. It's very simple to see. But like
I said, it can be difficult for secretive CI
people to do it. I am not a CI guy. I am like
you. I'm an intelligence guy. And so I want to
counter our colleagues, our Russian colleagues
and our Chinese colleagues. I want to counter
their efforts. I don't want to prosecute anything.
I want to nip the counterintelligence, developing
counterintelligence in the bud before we lose
a lot of information. And that's why Steve Chu
hired me to. to be as my end director. Yeah,
exactly, exactly. So the former Department of
Government Efficiency, which is, well, maybe
not particularly efficient. And certainly not
for the government. But anyways, it and other
efforts have created unusual access to government
systems and personnel databases. From a counterintelligence
professional's perspective, what questions should
the American public be asking about who has access
to what and whether that appropriate vetting
has occurred with respect to these DOGE people
who are looking at all this data? Yes, yes, yes.
The American people most certainly should ask
about who has access to what, whether appropriate
vetting occurred, and most importantly, maybe,
whether Doge members took that information with
them when they left government. I don't know
the answers to those questions. Maybe it's...
Totally innocent. But the American people have
a vital interest in asking those questions and
demanding the answers. In particular, did they
take any information with them that doesn't belong
to them that is stealing U .S. government property
and they should be prosecuted for it if they
did it? Exactly. You know, as a former... operations
officer, you and I would have been delighted
if somebody in Russia or China had stolen all
that personnel information about their people,
because it would have showed us amazing amount
of vulnerabilities, financial problems, all kinds.
As I said, you don't recruit happy people, you
recruit unhappy people. And having all the personnel
data that was contained in those files would
have been a goldmine of targeting information.
And I'm just wondering, you know, how our ad
adversaries, the Russians, the Chinese, the North
Koreans, the Iranians, how they may be very,
very possibly are exploiting that information.
So let's turn to the fact that I know, because
I've read some of your books, you've written
some books on the impact of espionage in American
history. So tell our listeners. What the titles
of your books are, where they can find them,
and are there any historical parallels that concern
you? Moments when institutional sabotage or political
interference created intelligence failures that
we paid for dearly later. Please tell us some
more about that, Bruce. On espionage history,
I've written two books, and I shot that one.
The first book is called A Spy's Guide to Santa
Fe and Albuquerque, which I wrote out when I
was out in Sandia. And it's amazing the amount
of espionage basically running around nuclear
weapons, but the amount of espionage that has
taken place in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. in fact,
is considered a sacred site in the KGB, former
KGB. Santa Fe is considered the sacred site of
their espionage, the greatest intelligence success.
took place, the greatest counterintelligence
success took place, and the planning of their
greatest assassination, Leon Trotsky, all took
place within a one -mile radius of Santa Fe Cathedral.
It's just amazing. The second book I wrote is
called The Spy's Guide to the Kennedy Assassination.
We will never know whether there was a conspiracy
involved. There was definitely a government screw
-up on the part of an intelligence failure, on
the part of the Secret Service, the FBI, and
worse, most egregiously, the CIA. And the Substack
blog is entitled The Spy's Guide to American
History. And that deals with the five major intelligence
successes and failures of my lifetime. The Cuban
Missile Crisis and success. The Kennedy assassination,
which was a miserable failure. I don't know whether
there was a conspiracy. No one will ever know
whether there was a conspiracy. But it was definitely
an intelligence failure. The demise of the Soviet
Union, which was the greatest success of my lifetime.
And President Reagan is why I consider Reagan
the greatest president of the United States in
my lifetime. The 9 -11, which was a... A failure,
but a tragic failure wasn't because we got beat.
We got beat by a very determined foe in the Iraq
weapons mass destruction fiasco. That was the
tragedy, but it was fiasco. Yeah, absolutely.
So these have had enormous impacts on American
people, even though they might not realize it.
Like you, Jim, I also write. spy fiction. The
first of a five -part series was published last
year, and the second will come out next month.
The title of the first is The Intimate Spy, and
the title of the second is The Young Spy in Love.
And can we find those on Amazon or Barnes & Noble,
or where can we find those? Amazon is the easiest
way to get it. Okay, great. So let's go back
and let's assume that you're testifying before
a Senate committee today about the state of nuclear
security and DOE's intelligence capacity. What
would be your core message, just in a few words?
America is preoccupied by the chaos and the confusion
that we are living through domestically. Some
of that's political, some of that has to do with
AI, but we're preoccupied by this. So I would
remind the senators that America has very dangerous
adversaries in the outside world. And when it
comes to U .S. national security, I would plead
with the senators to check their partisan instincts
at the door. And when we go inside those closed
rooms, those skiffs, and talk about U .S. national
security, I think we should focus on the national
interest of our great country. I think that happens,
in fact, more frequently than we in the public
know about. But I would like to reinforce that.
Leave your partisan instincts at the door. This
is America. I had a very favorable experience
when I was briefing some of the senior. politicians,
both Senate and House, on some counterproliferation
programs I was running. And I always enjoyed
bipartisan support. They kept asking me, what
more do you need? What more do you need? And
that should be the same type of answer that we
have today. But unfortunately, it's gotten to
be very partisan. I don't know. I just, I grieve
for our country. I've had the exact same experience.
And I was always heartened with those eight other
presidents. I was always heartened that you get
inside the skiffs, people eject the partisan
things at the door. I am not inside the skiffs
now, so I don't know. But I fear that it has
changed. So do I. So do I. So our organization,
the Steady State, which is basically sponsoring
this Sentinel podcast, our Steady State community
is largely made up of former national security
professionals who are watching what's going on
in our national security makeup with deep alarm.
What do you say to those colleagues who feel
powerless? What can experienced professionals
actually do at this moment? First, I share their
alarm. I would recommend that we all do what
we in the so -called, I'm proud to be a member
of the deep state. That's what I'm proud of.
So that we should do what we in the deep state
have always done. We should get engaged. We should
be respectful. We should avoid partisan politics.
Excuse me. And we should frankly speak truth
to power about the dangers facing America. Yeah,
I couldn't agree more, Bruce. I am with you 100%.
You know, prior to the 2016 election, I have
a feeling that you were like me. I neither knew
nor cared what the political affiliation of any
of my colleagues. In fact, it didn't matter to
me. We were serving America. We were serving
the Constitution. And I never once asked you,
Bruce, by the way, Bruce, how are you voting
these days? Who do you support? It just wasn't
relevant to me. We didn't have a clue. We didn't
have a clue and we didn't care. We didn't care.
I really didn't care. But I said. prior to 2016.
Since then, it has seemed like there's some poison
in the spirit of America. I don't know what it
is. You mentioned your Substack column a few
minutes ago. Tell our listeners how they can
find it. You know, I read that thing every week.
I love it. So tell our listeners how they can
find your Substack column. The easiest way to
find it is to go to my website. BruceHellBooks
.com. BruceHellBooks is all one word, .com. In
there, you'll find a link to the completed blog,
Spice Guide to American History, as well as my
ongoing blog, Spice Guide to American Future.
And the history one deals with five... past intelligence
successes or failures of my lifetime. The future
is trying to reach an understanding of what is
happening in Bush 47, really. I'm sorry, Trump
47. And so it really is, it's easiest to go to
my website and then you can just hit the link
and get you right to it. Yeah, no, I love your
I love your substack column. And so I, as I said,
I read every word. So one last question. You've
seen administrations come and go. You've worked
for both parties. You've worked for four Republicans,
four Democrat presidents. You've watched the
intelligence community through some genuinely
dark periods. Are you ultimately optimistic that
these institutions survive this or are we at
a genuinely different kind of inflection point?
We have to speak truth to power. That's what
our job is. And our nation is in the most perilous
moment we've been in since the 1970s. It's very,
very dangerous out there. But Jim, I never bet
against America. And so I think we'll come back.
That's kind of like betting against Seabiscuit
in a race. I really don't want to do that, nor
do the Chinese, nor do the Russians, nor do the
North Koreans. Okay, Bruce, any last words for
our listeners? I've really enjoyed this. I've
enjoyed the preparation for it, and I appreciate
the invitation. Well, we've been delighted to
have you on the program. Your viewpoints across
your broad experience across the intelligence
community and the national security establishment.
So to our listeners, if you like today's conversation,
please subscribe to the Steady State Sentinel.
Leave us a five star review and join us next
week for the Steady State Sentinel. I'm Jim Lawler.
Still standing watch. Thank you for listening
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