Former Army officer and CIA operations officer Delbert Roll joins us to discuss his path from Third Special Forces Group to the Agency, including joining CIA just before 9/11 and working counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. He breaks down CIA training, running sources, building targeting packages against al-Qaeda, working with JSOC and indigenous forces, and the realities of protecting assets in the field.
The episode also covers covert action, counterintelligence, counter-WMD work, teaching at the Farm, CIA bureaucracy, writing after retirement, and the bizarre CIA gold bar scandal.
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"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"
00:00 — Start / Delbert Roll joins The Team House
01:10 — Growing up in Pennsylvania and joining the Army
07:06 — Third Special Forces Group, Africa missions, and comms work in the 1990s
15:09 — Leaving the Army and trying to join the FBI before the CIA
16:04 — Joining CIA three weeks before 9/11
21:09 — The day after 9/11 and CIA’s shift toward counterterrorism
23:46 — Moving from analyst to operations officer
25:20 — CIA training and “Ranger School for your brain”
30:42 — First Afghanistan tour and arriving at a forward operating base
33:22 — Running a source operation against a senior al-Qaeda target
39:13 — Building a targeting package without GPS coordinates
44:40 — Airstrike decision, protecting assets, and the target slipping away
48:54 — Working with JSOC and indigenous forces to shut down rat lines
52:47 — CIA support to conventional Army units in Afghanistan
56:17 — Language training, European posting, and traditional case officer work
01:04:25 — Covert action, liaison partners, and gathering intelligence through proxies
01:05:05 — Counterintelligence, recruiting foreign officers, and disrupting Russian operations
01:09:07 — Counter-WMD work and handling sources without being the technical expert
01:12:50 — Teaching at the Farm and training future CIA officers
01:22:29 — CIA bureaucracy, NSA comparisons, and publication review problems
01:27:58 — Recruiting, technology, and learning how to talk around classified subjects
01:28:57 — From CIA officer to fantasy, spy, and horror novelist
01:43:42 — CIA gold bars, non-traditional payments, and final thoughts
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