The Jack Hopkins Show Podcast
The Jack Hopkins Show Podcast; where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who lived those stories
Jack Hopkins has been studying human behavior for over three-decades. He's long had a passion for having conversations with fascinating people, and getting them to share the wisdom they've acquired through years of being immersed in their area of expertise, and overcoming the challenges and obstacles that are almost always part of the equation.
The Jack Hopkins Show Podcast
Confronting Curveball: Inside the CIA's Iraq Intelligence Controversy
Margaret Henoch, a former CIA intelligence officer with over two decades of service, shares her firsthand experience challenging faulty WMD intelligence before the Iraq War. Her story reveals how institutional pressure, confirmation bias, and a lack of critical analysis contributed to one of America's most consequential intelligence failures.
• Assigned to review reports from "Curveball," a source claiming Iraq had mobile biological weapons labs
• Discovered alarming gaps in basic biographical information about the source
• Repeatedly questioned intelligence in high-level meetings but faced institutional resistance
• Shocked to learn analysts evaluating highly technical claims lacked scientific expertise
• Witnessed Powell's UN presentation featuring the very intelligence she had flagged as unreliable
• Saw the administration's unwillingness to acknowledge intelligence flaws even after invasion
• Experienced challenges as a woman in the CIA's "testosterone marinade" environment
• Draws parallels between past intelligence failures and current concerns about politicized intelligence
• Expresses deep concern about threats to American democracy and the normalization of cruelty in politics
• Emphasizes the importance of cross-country, cross-generational connections in protecting democratic values
Fight complacency by engaging with others who share your concern for democracy, even if you differ politically. As Margaret says, "We're finding a way to fight back... it's cross-generational, it's cross-country, and it's cross all the other social sorts of things."
The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter https://wwwJackHopkinsNow.com
Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. I'm your host, jack Hopkins. Today I have Margaret Henoch as a guest, a career intelligence officer at the Central Intelligence Agency or the CIA. She served over two decades in the CIA's Directorate of Operations and Analytical Divisions, retiring in March of 2009 after 22 years of service. Margaret held the position of Branch Chief in the CIA's European Division, working under Chief Tyler Drumheller during the early 2000s, intelligence oversight Known for her principled skepticism, particularly confronting the reliability of key sources, including the infamous curveball in the lead-up to the Iraq War, where she flagged grave intelligence concerns.
Jack Hopkins:Within the agency, margaret was recognized as a senior analyst and central group chief. She provided critical insight and oversight of European-based human intelligence operations. Margaret continued to participate in public forums and expert panels. She appeared on 60 Minutes and engaged in policy discussions, bringing inside perspectives on national security and intelligence. Margaret Henoch's career was defined by analytical rigor, operational leadership and moral courage. As a key figure in assessing and challenging pivotal intelligence inside both operational and analytical realms, she helped shape the CIA's internal accountability mechanisms and its approach to briefing policymakers.
Jack Hopkins:I have to tell you, if you like it direct, if you like it blunt and from somebody who cuts through the bull and just tells it like it is, then you are in for a treat. Tells it like it is, then you are in for a treat. So sit back, relax and let's get right into this episode with Margaret Hennick. Okay, margaret, question for you. We just recently had a pretty major world event that took place that relied on some intel, some pretty critical intel. But we've also had a situation now where we're getting conflicting reports from the White House and the intelligence agencies themselves and it's creating quite a stir. You have a little bit of experience in the area of Intel. I'll tell you what let's do. If you don't mind, let's backtrack to the weapons of mass destruction and lay a foundation there, and then we'll come forward to present day.
Margaret Henoch:Okay.
Jack Hopkins:So tell me about your involvement and, specifically, maybe, the framework that you were presented with when you got involved and what you were asked and told to do.
Margaret Henoch:Okay, I was at the time working in headquarters of CIA in Europe division because my boss at a previous job had asked me to come work for him there. So that's where I was and the offices in Germany were part of my thing and I was minding my own business. And he came down to my office, which almost never happened, so I figured it was bad. And he said Jim Pabbott the DDO it was bad. And he said Jim Pavitt the DDO had asked that somebody take a look at the source what did he say? The source of the BW, bmd in Iraq. And he asked me if I would do it because the guy was in Germany. So I said sure, and it's a piece of vetting agents, is a piece of what the business is and should always be part of. And so I didn't know where. You know there's a ton of material.
Margaret Henoch:So I asked two guys to work for me to go find it and bring it to me and to read it so that I would have somebody to talk to. So they brought it to me and about I don't know. Three days later I finished it. It took us it actually took us a while to get the information. The people who held. It didn't want to give it to us and by sort of the way we worked, I should have had complete access from the minute it started because it was taking place in Germany. So we got all of it and as I read through it, I talked to one of the guys who was a longtime German hand and I asked him what he thought and he said, oh, you're going to be insane. So I thought, ok, not a good start.
Margaret Henoch:So I start reading it and I can't find what the way it works is. You get cables from the field or cables from somewhere to talk about the personality, the background, the biography of the person they're talking to, just so that you can figure out what you're dealing with. So I started to look for it and I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find his name, I couldn't find where he grew up, I couldn't find where he was from, I couldn't find how he got out, and that bothered me. And then there was no data on that kind of stuff. All I saw was his intelligence reports.
Margaret Henoch:And I don't know I'm hesitant to use this word I don't know jack about biological weapons. I mean, if it had been other things, I might have been able to do it and I have some background in estimating weapons capabilities from a distance, but BW, I don't know. So I started to ask, like, who is this? What's he doing there? So I put together my first reaction to it and sent it up the chain, which was we know nothing about him. I know nothing about him, I can't find out why I should trust him, because without any background, you don't know why you should trust him. And frankly, it's just like when you do anything, like if you go to buy a car and it's some guy on a country lot who has two cars and one is a 400 year old Volkswagen, you might be a little goosey, especially. So you have to find out where did he come from, what did he study, how did he get into the business, where did he work? And I couldn't find any of it. And then when I started to read it, it just didn't sound right. So I wrote a thing that said I don't know what's there, but I don't know what he knows either and I don't know who he is, and that's a problem. That would have been, say, mid-september 2002.
Margaret Henoch:So in mid I don't know mid-October, when it all sort of passed through, I got a call to go up to the deputy director of CIA's office and talk to his executive officer, whom I'd known for a long time and who was from the operational side. I should have said that first the stuff was all written by WinPAC, which was allegedly a combination of operational knowledge and expertise. So, okay, I believe that. So we get up to talk about it and we start talking and I say, well, we don't know his name. And they all just sit there and I said we don't know where he's from and I'm I'm saying this based.
Margaret Henoch:I said to them, I'm saying this based on the fact that nothing's written down and they just, they all just sort of sat and I thought this is sort of weird. So then I said and I don't know enough about biological weapons to sort of read the mechanical part of it, so can somebody talk to which one of you is the biological weapons person? And again, they just sat there and of course I got. I was not known, nor am I known now, for controlling my temper. My mentor at CIA was. I love him dearly, I still am in touch with him, but he was the least temperate person on the earth. He was a smart guy, but oh my God, I can't even tell that's where I learned the F word how you could use it as any form of speech.
Jack Hopkins:You sure can, and I am expert.
Margaret Henoch:So I started to get. I said, okay, so who's the expert? And then I said to the guy I knew who's the BW person here? And he said, well, mostly they're history and political science majors. Which I said, okay, so when we're looking at the thing that you think he's saying we should look for nobody in this room knows what that looks like. Have I got that right?
Margaret Henoch:And they started to get prickly which they should have and it just sort of went down in a giant cloud of fire and smoke, because I just got mad and I kept asking them what's his name? How do we know it? Did somebody interview him? Nobody answered anything. So I said to them here's what I think you guys have found a couple of paragraphs in an intelligence report that you're putting forward as real intelligence. And they said, okay, we're done.
Margaret Henoch:So I went back and I said to my boss okay, it's covered. I told him I thought he was worthless. Yeah, not just before Thanksgiving we have another meeting and it's exactly the same dynamic I'm still bitching about. You know, I don't know any details. I can't find any cable traffic. Somebody should give, and you, sir, who are the big head honcho here, you should be getting it for me. Then they all just sort of still look at me. So then one of them starts to argue with me which is fabulous as far as I'm concerned and I say, well, what makes you think it's biological warfare? And she says because he said it was. And I said OK. So I said what I always say. So if I brought you my Volkswagen Beetle and told you it was a Mercedes, would you buy it from me for $72,000? She looked at me. I mean you can imagine it wasn't pleasant, but it was fine with me. So I went through all of my objections, which I can enumerate for you, but it's a long list, and we broke up again and I thought I'd killed it again. And then, two days before the slam dunk meeting that Tenet had at the White House, we had another meeting and again they couldn't explain anything to me. I kept arguing with them, the referee said nothing and I kept thinking why do you keep calling me back? I can't figure out what this is. So I said they said well, it's very in the middle of this, george Tenet we're in his area who knows me sort of reaches his head in or sticks his head in and he says to everybody don't trust her pointing at me. She's, you know, she's out to something, just sort of a yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck. But of course I thought that should have meant that he and I know each other. Therefore you should maybe take me seriously. But of course that's not what happened. So it all blew up again and I just thought, ok, well, they're not going to ask me anymore.
Margaret Henoch:End of January, it's the Powell speech. We get a copy of the Powell speech because that's the way it works. They send it to the intelligence piece that has the account and I read it and it's all the stupid curveball BW information and it's. They've got these trailers and it's just like. I mean, I knew this because I knew it from previous experience. The Soviets had an MX weapons trailer that they put missiles on and they moved it around the Soviet Union. So you couldn't find it. So am I talking way too fast?
Jack Hopkins:Not at all. I think my listeners will love this Okay.
Margaret Henoch:So I say to them how do you know what you're looking at? How do you know that it's not? He didn't make it up. How did he get out of Iraq? An Iraqi in this kind of a position as is true in most countries like that can't just leave. So how did that happen? Still no answer. But we know he's an expert because he told us he was and that Sure.
Margaret Henoch:And so I read back and said I mean, so we came to nothing. And I went back down again to my boss and said okay, here's what happened. And I actually I wish I had the memos, but they're all classified and, unlike some people that we could mention, but we won't, I don't think it should be in my bathroom, so I don't remember the exact dates or some things like that. But I know I sent an Right, but this guy doesn't know anything, which I thought was the safest and most accurate way to say it. So then my boss says to me the day the speech is on, he calls me, says come up to the office and we'll watch the speech, and of course it opens with Powell in front of those pictures. Oh, I heard that Bush wanted an Adlai Stevenson Cuba moment. So you know you can only you can imagine.
Margaret Henoch:So I went back up and wrote another thing about what are you doing? What is this? We don't know what it is. And then I sent a piece to DOD and said how come you guys believe this? Tell me what's making you believe it, because I don't get it and I could be wrong. But nobody has given me a reason to believe that I'm wrong. So instead of writing me a cable back, a guy who worked at DIA, whom I knew, brought me a copy of the cable that I had sent and it was all marked up with snotty little you know. Oh look, it's another, this kind of a person who's going to tell us what we're doing. So I said to him get me the names of these people.
Margaret Henoch:Not for now but let me have my ammunition. And, of course, shortly before we went in we had another call to come to another meeting. It was the same thing, so that's, I think, five or six meetings like that. So I just figured. They kept trying to make me change my mind. I couldn't figure out why until all of a sudden, when they went in and they didn't find something quickly, I thought they knew it wasn't. I mean, I'm not sure that our people knew, right, they were not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but it was clear that they didn't care. It wasn't that they knew or they didn't, they just didn't care.
Jack Hopkins:It wasn't that they knew or they didn't. They just didn't care. And was it at this moment, margaret, that your bullshit detector went off, or had it already been triggered?
Margaret Henoch:It was In fact my parents lived. It was in Washington at the time. They lived just down in another suburb and my mom said to me when they finally announced that they hadn't found anything. She said to me do you think you can relax now? I said has it been that obvious? And she said how many times do you normally say the F word in a day?
Jack Hopkins:Right right.
Margaret Henoch:Frequently so yeah, it was. I was insane by Thanksgiving.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, now I've got a question for you because, having served in the military, I'm very familiar with the chain of command and how you don't. In the military anyway, you don't customarily call out somebody in the rank above you, particularly at the top, you know. That's just that you feel is so wrong and making such a bad decision that there's kind of an open-door policy of come in and unload and let me know.
Margaret Henoch:Not to the top, but what struck me at the time? Through the whole thing I kept thinking there must be a piece of this that I don't have. There's probably that I'm not cleared to know, and that's fine, that's how compartmentation works, but there's got to be something that I just don't know because nobody's reacting to me Every time. The meeting before the slam dunk meeting was, you know, five days before Christmas and the DDO, instead of the guy in charge of the operations directorate, instead of sitting through the meeting, sort of stood up halfway through and said I have to go buy my wife a Christmas present and walked out and I was like, okay, I don't know what this is, but something else. So again, I sort of thought they've got some fabulous agent who's giving them great stuff. This is just, this is what they're going to tell people. But it's not the real thing. I couldn't think of any and, believe me, I was not a Bush supporter. I was not terribly fond of most people in the world at that point. Sure, Kind of like now.
Jack Hopkins:Right.
Margaret Henoch:But it just never occurred to me. I had, I mean, I knew Tenet. Actually, tenet and I had spent the day before the slam dunk thing. He and I spent about two hours roaming around the building looking for a foreigner who had come to visit him, a senior guy in another service. That nobody could find he had gotten into the building or he was standing somewhere, and so I was with Tennant for that whole time and it wouldn't have ever not occurred to me to stop him and say something.
Jack Hopkins:Question for you that I often think about because clearly in, certainly in many facets of the CIA, deception is a powerful tool. When it comes to, when we look at deception as a tool to obtain the kind of information that we need to be able to keep America safe, can you take just a moment and speak to the difference between deception used as that and an administration just knowingly, outright lying, not for the benefit of the United States, but for the benefit of the administration?
Margaret Henoch:I don't know that it's ever happened before now that I knew of. I mean, I'm guessing that may have been Johnson, but thankfully I was just a small person at that point and I actually I don't. Well, I don't know what the Bush administration was doing. I don't know that they were actively lying. I think they really believed that they would find something. At least I would like to think that that's what they did, and I don't know whether that's my innocence, which I am not just for the record or my sort of faith in government and faith in the way the thing works, which, until fairly recently, has always been pretty significant.
Margaret Henoch:My dad was a federal worker. I have a brother who was a Fed. My baby brother for a while was a federal prosecutor. So I come from that family and, in all honesty, even the people that I don't love at work, it's basically a bunch of people who are pretty solid and pretty good, and it just never occurred to me that the administration would be that dreadful. They would follow policies that I might not agree with but that kind of lying, and you know when it became actually Jack.
Margaret Henoch:More probable maybe was when they were making the case that Mohammad Atta had met Saddam Hussein in Czechoslovakia, I think in the Czech Republic. That may be wrong, but he had met him somewhere and they kept saying it and they kept saying it. And we talked to you know, the officers there and they kept saying no, no, and then it sort of felt like lying. But again that was the hill instead of the president, at least that's who I saw there, but again that was the Hill instead of the president, at least that's who I saw there. So I would say I don't think I've seen administration be that well as dishonest as I think the current one is.
Jack Hopkins:Right no-transcript. Is it fair to say that that?
Margaret Henoch:kind of thing. You've seen that also happen on higher levels where it's really critical. My assumption is that's what happened with Iraq. Okay, they really wanted I don't I still don't know why they wanted to go in, but they really wanted to go in and I have a fabulous book on the topic. He is a friend, but he's also a real journalist Robert Draper's To Start a War. He walks through sort of how it happened and it makes and I read everything because of where I was. I don't think it was. I think they really wanted to go in and do something.
Margaret Henoch:And what I don't understand is you're the president of the United States, don't let the current one hear this Like so say you want to go in, especially after 9-11, which is, jack, another factor. But 9-11 changed things. I think we went from being sort of reasonable and a little bit less afraid and all of a sudden everybody was afraid and I think that changed things. I don't know whether it's changed back, because I think I told you I didn't, I retired in 2006,. Back because I think I told you I didn't I retired in 2006 because I could, but partly because it wasn't the place that it had been. Yeah, right. So I think I do think they did that. I'm sorry to keep talking.
Jack Hopkins:No, not gosh. I want you to talk forever.
Margaret Henoch:Oh, be, careful what you wish for.
Jack Hopkins:You know, I have to say I'd have to take a moment to say this that that all of my CIA guests are about as clear-eyed and unlikely to make accusations or to assign things to somebody that they don't know for sure, and that for me, I think there's such a as I'm sure you know better than I public perception has been so shaped by Hollywood about the CIA right, and then, with the advent of the internet, people being able to look at files of MKUltra and all of those things and that to them that's the CIA right. And my experience has been so far removed from that that if let me put it this way, if you want, if you're a pod podcast host who's looking, you run kind of a hammer. I'm just pound them with anything kind of show. Cia people are not who you want to have on because they're going to stick as close to facts as they know how to. Is that a fair assessment?
Margaret Henoch:It is. That's a very nice compliment, thank you.
Jack Hopkins:You're welcome.
Margaret Henoch:The ones that I've watched of yours. I mean I know Cash and I know Cypher and that's yes, that's totally them. And in fact when I joined the agency approximately 100 years ago I figured I was the only. I mean I grew up in Los Angeles, good liberal, I was born in Los Alamos, so that gives you sort of the picture and a pretty liberal family. I worked for Ralph Nader before I joined the agency Interesting, and so people I knew I assumed wouldn't be there and everybody would be pretty much a right wing In those days. Right wing wasn't what it is now, but would be much more conservative than I. And I was so stunned when and nobody, nobody ever said anything about it until after 9-11. I had no idea what anybody's politics were. I just sort of assumed that everybody was over there and it turned out they weren't. But it was something that just was not talked about ever and it was really. You didn't stuck to what you knew to be true.
Jack Hopkins:Well, that's what I find so interesting about the steady state right Is when you go down the list of names of the people who are members and participating in the steady state, while I certainly don't know the political affiliations of all of them or even most of them, but you can see there's a pretty diverse group and I make the assumption that there's a pretty good mix politically. But everybody's focused on the task at hand, which I guess is maybe a good reflection of how it was and is inside the CIA itself that we're here to do a job, so I don't need to know your party.
Margaret Henoch:And the other thing I would think and I don't know this, I'm just sort of extrapolating is that that's true everywhere else in the government. You have no idea. As I said, my baby brother was a US attorney and he's pretty conservative. I love him dearly. Sniff, sniff. He's pretty conservative and one of his closest friends is Jack Smith.
Jack Hopkins:Interesting.
Margaret Henoch:And look at who his sister is. And I think it's just you're used to people who it's just not part of the discussion.
Jack Hopkins:Right, right, and it's really strange, I'm sorry, no no, no, there's just such value in that, especially when you look at I've said this I don't know how many times on air on the podcast I think the internet has been both one of the greatest and one of the worst things that's ever ever happened. It's been one of the worst things. Well, even here it's it's, I think, been one of the best and one of the worst. It's allowed groups who have legitimate issues and concerns to be able to come together, right, and to find that, oh okay, it's not just the five people in my town, there are lots of us but it's also it's allowed the bad actors right to come together in such numbers and with such skills that they do things like influence elections, right. So, yeah, that's a spooky area.
Jack Hopkins:I don't want to deviate too far off topic, so I'll come back to too far off topic, so I'll come back to. So that culture. Then I would assume, having done that as long as you did, that when you leave the CIA, you just don't leave that behind, which is pretty evident in how you've been speaking so far today, in that, yeah, there have been opportunities to say, oh, bush lied, but you don't have that kind of information in front of you, and so you said you know, I don't.
Margaret Henoch:And, believe me, I wanted him to have lied, but I still don't know.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that because we're human right, most Right, sorry, yeah, my wife referenced that to me. We all have and I think so often. I think there's a lot of people who kind of believe that certain people in certain jobs believe that certain people in certain jobs because it's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum of what we've been talking about that they are so professional and so that they don't have their own emotions right that are kind of an aside. Of course they do. We're human beings. It's just that some people, namely yourself and your colleagues, you've learned to use a word that you said earlier in a different context to compartmentalize right, to acknowledge that and then place it over here and step into a different mindset.
Margaret Henoch:How crazy does it drive you?
Jack Hopkins:Totally, and I don't even know what the question is, how crazy does it drive you to get on, if you get on social media or if you watch the news, if you see, I guess, the dialogue right between just everyday human beings about what they know, what they're sure of, that drive you crazy.
Margaret Henoch:Oh yeah, in fact, I no longer really watch the news. I listen I'm a good coastal lefty and I listen to NPR for five minutes an hour. That's the news, although I do read most of the standard newspapers that you would expect me to read. Actually, that's not true. I do read most of the standard newspapers that you would expect me to read Actually, that's not true. I mostly do the crossword puzzles, mostly because I don't, I can't stand it. It just makes me a crazy person, right, and you don't get anything, or I don't get anything positive from it. It doesn't tell me we're moving in a good direction. It doesn't tell me people are smarter than they were or dumber than they were. It's just like People are smarter than they were or dumber than they were. It's just like, oh, my God, we're here again. Yeah, so I just don't. I can't stand it and I am not on social media at all.
Jack Hopkins:Is that something that you think is probably a lot of CIA people lean in that, or no?
Margaret Henoch:I doubt it. I think they're probably. I'm just sort of vaguely antisocial and kind of a hermit, so I'm happier not knowing things. I know an awful lot of people who spend a fair amount of time on things that I don't. I think I've never been on Twitter that I can remember. Maybe blue sky once or twice asked to go find something I don't. I've never been on Facebook. I do think there are people who do more than I do and I think for social reasons.
Jack Hopkins:Sure Sure.
Margaret Henoch:But I don't. It's a different thing than other people who are on Facebook who are on those, I think.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, it's interesting you say that because, while, because of what I do, a lot of people would maybe not guess this, I'm pretty much an introvert Right. So I use social media that's that's kind of my social time right Because you can just click and you're back to your, your, your privacy. Not that I don't have friends I think I have still have one but you know really, uh, yeah, All right, but I understand that and and um it, it can be overwhelming, and I think I talked to John Seifer about this that I was asking him about sometimes is too much information. Does it just slow things down and cloud the issue? And I can't remember his exact answer, but something along the lines of yes, and we have to be very good at sorting, and that Something along the lines of yes, and we have to be very good at sorting and that. So, coming back to WMD, tell me a little bit about the sorting process, after you saw where everyone was at.
Margaret Henoch:Give me more words about what sorting process.
Jack Hopkins:Well, when you realize that, okay, this perhaps is what they want to believe, and maybe even in the back of your mind thought, okay, and it could be just utter bullshit, right, because yes, it's what they want to believe, and perhaps for a good reason. But then maybe Mr Bush just harbors some ill feelings towards how his father was treated and has that agenda. How do you go through sorting the information that in your case you didn't have but that you were being fed? That wasn't really information in the first place.
Margaret Henoch:I think it sort of goes, has gone back for me to all the times that I thought about whoever it was, in a different circumstance, so that if it was somebody that I generally thought, yeah, that person's a pretty not my same shooting distance, but they know what they're talking about and they're generally honest about things like that and if it was somebody that I didn't in sort of the administration terms I just didn't they were still just as dishonest. It didn't what they did and things like that. I had my opinions formed pretty early on, based on the same things that everybody does, although mine are probably harsher and far less flexible, I'm guessing. But I think it's you. Just I started and I think I have a feeling that I'm not answering your question, jack, but I had a-.
Jack Hopkins:No, you are. I actually, I like that. You just aren't like giving kind of a standard. Yes, no, here's what you asked for, because you're filling in a lot of gaps, yeah really Not just totally babbling, which is what I think. No, you're actually. This is the kind of stuff that really fascinates me because it gives me and the viewers, the listeners, rather than just kind of a record of it. It's giving us an insight to the emotions and the thoughts and the different concepts that were bouncing around in your head at the time.
Margaret Henoch:You know, I think people. I think some people read people better than other people read them, and I've always been pretty good at that. And I'm contrasting that with my father, who was the nicest human being on earth ever and he was a nuclear physicist and anybody was his friend, anybody and everybody. The only time I ever heard him say negative things about people maybe two or three times in my life, and he lived to be 95. So there was a lot of his life that he did not, and I think that that's a little bit of the way a couple of my siblings are. I'm just. I've always been able to, I think, get a reasonably accurate read reasonably quickly. I also think and you can totally slap me down if you feel like I'm getting way out of line I think if you're female and in a particular place in the world like you want to go to work at someplace like that, or you're at certain other professions or universities, you have to be better at it than you would otherwise, because you'll get run over by it.
Jack Hopkins:Right, and am I right to assume that, much like the military that's where I guess my reference point is the CIA especially during the period that you were there is very testosterone driven?
Margaret Henoch:Oh my God, it was like a marinade every day.
Margaret Henoch:Yeah it was like a marinade every day. Yeah, and it was. It was horrible and I was as I said, I was incredibly lucky my mentor, who was one of the meaner human beings on earth, but he was brilliant and very well respected and he saved me more times than I can. Even it's too embarrassing to admit that I would never have gotten to where I got because he kept reaching in and grabbing me by the scruff of the neck and saying stop it, it, sit down, shut up. I'll tell you when you can talk, and it was mostly because I wasn't recognizing what it was like. When I went through training, there were 64 people in my class, eight of which whom eight of whom were women, and only five of whom were headed to the operations directorate. Really so, and here's the really terrifying thing I was the first one to be senior promoted, first female in my class, and that is so scary. You have no idea how I was worried, wow.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, that I can only imagine, because you did you feel like okay, well, the camera's on me Actually.
Margaret Henoch:I sort of felt like I was getting away with things that people weren't noticing. I believe that may have been an incredibly bad assessment of what was going on, but I got lucky. I was in the right place at the right time a few times and that's. You know, curveball kind of made my career in some ways. So that wasn't. It wasn't terrible, but I got. I've been lucky through this whole thing, I think. So it's.
Jack Hopkins:So let's, let's, let's. I know you may not have like be able to say I know how he felt, she felt, but if only if the only access to this answer you have is just how you felt about them. How many people in the administration at the time did you sense and this may just come from watching the news clips of different people speaking how many of them did you feel at the time were not at all uncomfortable with the WMD presentation as the public was getting it?
Margaret Henoch:I thought Powell was the only one who was uncomfortable and I didn't think he was uncomfortable enough, but everybody else and I didn't see lots of. I saw lots of underlings of people, lots of congressional staffers, lots of like the guy who was the DOD, what's his name? Rumsfeld's gopher, whatever he was. Those were the people that I saw, more than the actual principals, because they didn't come to see my level. They came to see George Tenet and people who are senior to me, but there was never any implication from anything they said and anything I read that maybe this wasn't the right. They started yelling about BMD like 10 seconds after 9-11.
Margaret Henoch:Right, and it felt. They all felt like that's what they really wanted to think. I don't know that they believed it, but they sure wanted it to be true. And I do remember a couple of senior aides to senior people saying to me it doesn't matter if curveball's not right, we'll go in and we'll find something terrible anyway, and I just thought, wow, really, yeah, so that would indicate that it was worse than I initially said to you that it was.
Jack Hopkins:Just what's your opinion on this? Just because of the powerful, domineering type of personality he was, how much did you sense that what President Bush was putting forth was because it's what Dick Cheney was leaning into?
Margaret Henoch:It always felt like that was what it must be, but I've had people tell me subsequently uh-uh, it was Bush, really Interesting. Now I don't know, I have zero idea how accurate Sure, sure, but more than one person has said no, no, this was George Bush, that's fascinating, I was sitting there on the I guess it was on 9-11, and watching Washington sort of again.
Margaret Henoch:I was in headquarters, then vanish, and seeing Bush with the look on his face when they told him he had to stop reading to the kids and I thought, well, that's got to be Cheney. But I have heard more than five people say it was Bush, so I don't know. But that does never stop me from talking.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah right, that's good. That's why I like having you on here. When you made your and I don't know that this is exactly how this flow chart works but in what I would call your final assessment right, when you put forth your final evaluation, how well received or not, was it?
Margaret Henoch:Of curveball? Yes, was it of curveball? Yes, not well, and in fact it was so bad that someone who will remain nameless, but who I've mentioned before as a special assistant to the deputy director of cia so he's out there and he knows who he is called me and said in like a nanny, nanny, nanny, nanny. He said you were wrong. We found one of the trailers. So I said great, who identified it as a BW thing? And he said Curveball.
Margaret Henoch:So I said so did you show him two different trailers? And he said no, we just showed him that trailer and he said it was BW. And I said to him you never showed him that trailer. And he said it was BW. And I said to him you never took a science class, did you? And he said well, what do you mean? I said you can't just show him the thing that he's been telling us about and then believe him. And so then I think four days later, they sent a BW team out and they came back and they said it's a weather trailer. So I got to call him on a big, fancy secure phone and say it was an extraordinarily mature moment.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, but is that in your mind similar to putting like one person in the lineup and saying is this the man who raped you?
Margaret Henoch:you know, whatever the case may, be especially one person who's wearing the outfit that the person said they were wearing? Who has the hair color? I mean, it was just I remembering again in like basic science, whatever you took the very first science class, you have to have a control group.
Jack Hopkins:Right.
Margaret Henoch:And I was stunned that somebody in at senior CIA levels or senior military levels and I'm guessing they didn't I'm guessing they said well, what does it look like? But the agency had so much vested in curveball that it was probably somebody from us that said is this a beat? And probably said is this a bw mobile trailer? And he said oh yes, because that's what you would say when you were a little kid, if you sure think terrible right or at least how much?
Jack Hopkins:and I'm only asking you to speak on the time that you were there and you may or may not have any real knowledge of this, but if not just instinctually, when an administration is wanting for something like this to be true, how much influence does that president and or that administration have with the top-tier CIA people, for example George Tenet? Are they persuadable?
Margaret Henoch:Sorry, I should have let you finish, no no, no, no.
Jack Hopkins:You jumped right to what I wanted to talk about.
Margaret Henoch:My guess partly is who the senior person is. I think director of CIA might be the worst job in Washington DC, mostly because you never get to say, hey, look at what great thing we did. There's always a whole tale of terrible things that go with it and because when you come out of it you don't get a good job. I mean if you do a really good job at state, you get either a huge ambassadorship or a vice presidential nominee. If you do a really good same thing at DOD, you get out of like who was it? Woolsey didn't get a great job coming out. What's his name? Webster? I mean, they were all older than dirt Casey, I think, died instead of coming, which was a little overreaction, but you know that worked.
Jack Hopkins:It's a little overreaction, but you know that I guess worked.
Margaret Henoch:So I think part of it is it's a terrible job and part of it is people with the exception of the guys who were the head of it sort of before I joined, like God I just had his name in front of me but the guys who came up through the agency they understood what they were looking at. Others of them just don't know what they're really looking at and they're much more comfortable at least I have found with the analysts, unless they're wanting to have and forgive me for this like a frat boy day. Then they like the ops guys because they're all going to sit around and you know, scratch and do those kinds of guy things. But I think it's a terrible job because you're basically walking into a situation that you don't know anything about. I mean, hayden was better prepared for it and probably wasn't quite as easily persuadable, but the rest of them just you know what I can't think of Deutsch and he was very nice to me.
Margaret Henoch:So I have to say you know that may have been one of his biggest mistakes, but he just was clueless and I think I was way too young or junior to know anything about Woolsey or Webster but was so angry and so sort of disinclined to be kind about anything and I could retire. So I did. I didn't follow the agency, I didn't pay any attention. Most of my friends were gone. I just said I am done with this, which is probably not a bad way to leave it.
Jack Hopkins:Right. Regarding Brennan, I will say this If ever there were a face of seriousness I mean boy. I'm sure it was unpleasant to be on the other side of his desk when he was not happy. Just even looking at him was pretty intimidating.
Margaret Henoch:He and I had one bad go-round when I was chief in a place not in this country and he came to visit and he didn't come through me, which is protocol. He was supposed to come through me but he came through, I think, the foreigners and he showed up in my office and I was like, what are you doing here? And he told me and I said you know, you're supposed to be coming through me Now. It didn't occur to me at the time that I should worry about being nice to him because he wasn't any part of management and because I never worried about being nice to anybody anyway. But I just had to say that before somebody called your suite and said, by the way, he was just like, and he was completely, he just sort of kept looking at me.
Margaret Henoch:I said no, no, you do understand that I'm the boss in this country and you just totally broke protocol and I could actually call and request that you go home, but our Christmas party's tonight. You want to come? And he did. And then I figured you know he could invite, he could introduce himself to people. So I didn't introduce him to anybody. Boy that showed that put him in his place. But yeah, he was kind of a jerk in my humble opinion.
Jack Hopkins:Sure yeah, he's definitely not a warm, cuddly kind of guy.
Margaret Henoch:The place isn't long on warm and cuddly. Let me tell you, yeah.
Jack Hopkins:And I want to, before we kind of come forward to current day, know I have a newsletter that I write that's very direct, it's very blunt and it's not a cozy. But the people who subscribe to my newsletter, they're people who have subscribed because that's what they want. They don't want to have to sort through the niceties to get to the meat of the information. Would you say that even people who may personally have found you abrasive, that on a professional level they appreciated and respected, or sometimes maybe?
Margaret Henoch:About once I was difficult. I mean, they were not wrong, I was not impressed with any. I don't know why. I mean what an ego. For absolutely zero reason, by the way, but I guess it just was. Yeah, I had some, and they're still not impressed with me now, nor do they care for me, but they would be confusing me with somebody who gives a rat's ass. And there were people and again this is my. His name is Paul Redmond. He was my absolute savior and it was just by coincidence that we became that. I worked for him and got some good jobs. We had testy moments, but other than him, nobody else quite ever forgave me completely for being me. And I did have when I was early on in training this is kind of what it was and I was in the office of a guy who was really senior to me, but I was just sort of roaming around the building and I said I'm going to go do this or whatever. I don't remember what it was and he said OK, whatever you do, try not to be yourself.
Jack Hopkins:The opposite of the usual. Vice versa.
Margaret Henoch:Why? And I thought, wow, but I suspect that was kind of the opinion of a lot of people, and there were people who still, even to this day, they don't like me.
Jack Hopkins:And you know, oh well, you've identified something else you and I have in common. So there's that.
Margaret Henoch:Again, you should really keep those things to yourself, but go ahead.
Jack Hopkins:Right, right. Is that something that you developed throughout your CIA experience, or was that who you were before the CIA?
Margaret Henoch:Probably a little bit of both. This is totally off topic, but it's a great story. I couldn't get a credit card until 1980 because I wasn't married. Wow, and I finally got a credit card from a high-end department store in washington because the woman said to me is this cash or credit? I said I don't have a credit card and she said stay here. And she got a form and we filled it out and she said I'm going to get this approved. She went off and got it approved and I I got a credit card from that store which I still use to this day, just because but but I couldn't. So I think that brings something up in you that, if you sort of grew up and believe me, I was incredibly entitled, I have never had a rough. I'm not saying that the world was mean to me, it's just it was how it was.
Jack Hopkins:Right.
Margaret Henoch:So I think I would sort of end, because I'm very secure in my own brilliance, which you know not exactly. When I listen to this, I think to myself what are you doing? But it never really bothered me. I mean, I got angry, I didn't get frightened, and that was.
Jack Hopkins:Well, would it be fair to say that within you, there is this I don't know, I see this phrasing used a lot now. There is this I don't know, I see this phrasing used a lot now. When somebody approached you with that attitude, or even maybe just going through the world sensing that that attitude about women existed, did that conjure up that? Oh yeah, hold my beer watch this yeah, yeah, was that part of your fuel, do you think?
Margaret Henoch:Probably? Yeah, that part of your fuel do you think? Probably? Yeah, I think it was. I mean, this is wow. I really am not young anymore. This is in like 70s and women were not in the engineering fields and women were not next to a mig 25 and just wasn't. And it was interesting to see the differences in how people reacted to me, because I expected the most grief from the fighter pilots, but they were not terrible. The worst were the mechanics, really, and I would be like, really, yeah.
Margaret Henoch:Although mechanics are still horrible to me today. So you know, I guess maybe that's mechanics. I think it. I do think it played into things. Again, jack, I want to make sure that I was not handicapped by it. I never felt like. I did feel sometimes like really that's where you're going to go with this, but I don't think it held me back. It probably benefited me in some ways.
Jack Hopkins:Right, and I really sensed that about you, that in no, no way, shape or form, did you ever feel like a victim, but but that you, if anything and I'm only saying this because this is kind of how I operate and I kind of think we're on the same wavelength with this I'm the kind of person that's quite often I'm glad that pushback exists because I thrive on it. Right if, if the world were always nice to me, my motivation level would probably plummet, because a lot of my drive is all right, asshole, asshole watch this.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, so I never, ever in any way feel victimized by anything or, like you said, handicapped by any belief approach. I might behaviorally if you're observing you might think boy, but what's going on within me is something totally different. I may be expressing anger, but I'm secretly appreciative for the opportunity if that makes sense, totally, totally, it's a great outlet.
Margaret Henoch:And it also trains you for the next time.
Jack Hopkins:It does, it does, and I think would you agree with me that we are always teaching others how they can treat us by what we allow right? So if you snip at the hand in front of you a few times, you have conditioning that person to say go ahead, stick it out as long as you don't mind getting nipped, which I think is important for all of us. Oh sure, because otherwise, if we are across from another human being, we are never not conditioning them for something. So if you would have been in the CIA, where tempers were always flaring except yours probably would have created a more uncomfortable position for you.
Margaret Henoch:Probably. I also think I was a very good boss. I was a, because there was no bullshit and I would say to them I'm going to come in, I'm going to holler, I'm going to yell, I'm angry doesn't mean anything. Holler, I'm going to yell, I'm angry Doesn't mean anything. And it was. People loved me, which is hilarious, especially because I was a pain in the ass most of the time.
Margaret Henoch:Right, you weren't really supposed to agree with that that quickly, but it was. It was, I just think it's also. I suspect it was home. I was a daddy's girl. Daddy, I could do no wrong I'm the oldest, you know. So I played by the rules mostly, but when I decided not to, it was just ugly.
Jack Hopkins:I'm sure though, on a childhood development side of things, it probably did a lot for your sense of security in yourself to have that unconditional love. Have you ever thought?
Margaret Henoch:about that. Oh, I'm sure you're right, I'm sure you're right, it gives you. And also because then I don't think any of the four of us ever says, oh well, I must have gotten that wrong, right? I mean you do sort of say, oh, did I get that right? Yeah, but it's a scary world out there. Yeah, thankfully, and he was great, and I appreciate that from you. I know You're starving. And then there's my new roommate. He has no boundaries either, right, yeah, and I think the agency was actually.
Margaret Henoch:It was worse when I first joined, but they weren't terrible to most women they were. I'm currently working with a woman at steady state who I met when I was a baby and trainee and her and she was like my idol. I can't really tell you why, but I just wanted I never. I met her like once again 30 years ago and we never really knew each other. And now it turns out that she's becoming a really really good friend for similar sort of experiences, because we were both brought up in that same craziness and I don't think I came out any meaner than I went in. I mean, you can't work for Ralph Nader and be a shrinking violet.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, tell me. Obviously I'm familiar with Ralph Nader and his political history, but on a personal level I don't know a lot about him. What kind of man was he to work for?
Margaret Henoch:Fabulous. I was in graduate school, I needed a job. He paid like nothing, but I figured it would be a good introduction to things. And he had an umbrella type group that was his sort of liaison to all of his other groups and I was in that top one and so I would go out and do banking research stuff in support of.
Margaret Henoch:The issue of the day back then was redlining. He would send me out to go to banks and all over the country and he said to me if they, by law, if you're doing redlining work, you ask the bank may I see your mortgage book, the thing that you have all the, and may I have a way to copy it please? And they don't want you to see it, and they don't want you to do that. And he said to me if they give you any trouble, you say may I use your phone for a collect call? Of course, now I don't think there's such a thing as a collect call and call and just ask for Ralph Nader, and if I'm not there, somebody will pretend to be Ralph Nader and you just say here's where I am.
Margaret Henoch:And I did it four times and all four times before I got through the end of the first sentence, the document they didn't want me to see and a means to copy it were on the table in front of me and I just I mean, he like didn't let you go out without protection into sort of hostile things. He was a little humorless, right, but it was a really fun place to work, yeah, and really weird Because actually I think this might be me and I'm going to say it before you have the chance to. I like places where you have to be really committed to doing something.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, I can sense that about you. You're not a one foot in, one foot out.
Margaret Henoch:No, I'm like you got the whole thing and that's why they were both good. So, yeah, he was entertaining and he could have paid a little better.
Jack Hopkins:Benefits and all.
Margaret Henoch:I think he felt a benefit was being in his aura.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure that's probably a common experience, isn't it, when you're working in that sphere. Yeah, but it was good. But it was good. What have you felt in terms of emotions and the thoughts that you were having about those emotions as you've watched the last, you know, four, five, three, four days of people saying we don't know at this point exactly how much damage we did and a president and a sec def saying it was obliterated. Bring back memories.
Margaret Henoch:And they're all unpleasant. This one feels worse to me. I mean that one was pretty miserable, but I was too wrapped up in it. Of course, then that one wasn't as miserable because I got to say in the end of it, wait. So I was right, which of course I said loudly and frequently.
Margaret Henoch:This one is appalling, I think it's just, and it takes me sort of back to what I think I said earlier, but of course that's too long ago, I can't remember it so bad and and it's so wrong and it's so teaches the world and the country the exact opposite of what should be happening after something like that, in my opinion, right, and I don't know whether I have the advantage of you know, being having been alive during vietnam and remembering what that was like, or that's no advantage at all, but it's just to be so comfortable with such dishonesty and to not get any. I mean, that's one piece of it, I think, jack. But the other piece of it is where are the people from that party who are saying, hey, wait, I mean, where's l's Lindsey Graham? I know that everybody's going to ask.
Jack Hopkins:Or maybe we don't want the answer.
Margaret Henoch:Where are the people who serve? Like Joni Ernst? Are you freaking kidding me? He served there and how can you allow them to reduce it to the guys who flew the planes? And how can you allow him to not? It's like I don't even know what else to say. It feels worse to me than curveball felt.
Jack Hopkins:Without asking you to, because I know you wouldn't without asking you to say, yes, he's lying, no, he's not lying, he's totally lying. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah. And I think do you agree with me that we can say that about this, among other reasons, because we have such a rich history of his willingness to blatantly lie that His affinity for it?
Margaret Henoch:Right, yeah, no, you're totally right, I think. I mean it just doesn't make any sense to me that if something had really happened, people wouldn't. Nobody wants the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon, right, and it's not like he bombed, you know, los Angeles and said, although he's moving in that direction, nobody wants that to happen, but it seems clear that it didn't. And to not be able to say we don't know yet or we're going to do the best we can with what we have, it's like having a two-year-old in charge.
Jack Hopkins:It is, it is. Are there people, I'm sorry you go.
Margaret Henoch:No, you go right ahead, I was just going to say I don't think it was the same thing as curveball, because when it turned out that there was nothing there, nobody said she's lying or oh, he's lying. I mean, they didn't say oops, which is helpful.
Jack Hopkins:That's a key point.
Margaret Henoch:And they didn't accuse anybody of lying and they didn't like screw over the people in those positions who kept saying it.
Jack Hopkins:Right, yeah, thanks for bringing that up, because that seems easy to overlook. That that's a really defining difference between those two events. Do you feel there are people in the CIA, or let's just say this are there people within our intelligence agencies, good people who've been there a while, who have not yet been, you know, escorted out, so to speak, that when they see this, when they see him coming on, even in the face of his own intelligence people saying, look slow down, here's what the intel is, and him to go right back to its obliterated, are there people within our intelligence agencies that are going, jesus Christ, what he has, no idea, the danger that he's putting this nation in? Is that an ongoing experience?
Margaret Henoch:I would assume. So, yeah, I mean, and I would assume that's true pretty much in other places besides just intelligence, yeah, but I would think that people are just, you know, does he have any? I mean, the answer to that question is he doesn't care whether he knows it or not. It's not the question, it's that he doesn't care. But I'm sure that that is. I mean, and people are. I have met several who are terrified and want out and they're not old geezers Like I think. I just said to you that. My dear friend Steve said to me yeah well, they're not grizzled old ladies like you are. I was like, excuse me, but they're not grizzled old ladies. They're, you know, in their early fates and their careers have been upended and their mortgages can't get paid and they don't see any upside to him being there. Yeah, and then when he lies about things, you know, the intelligence community does not need anybody to lie about it. It does a perfectly good job of not doing the right thing every time.
Margaret Henoch:And it's just a horrible and it's a betrayal. You know it's also a betrayal.
Jack Hopkins:Well, that's. That leads me to my next question. How much, just through his undisciplined use of speaking right, that it's just a flow of. It's like laying on Freud's couch right and just free association. How much? How much intel does he give away on a weekly basis to people who are watching and listening, who know how to read between the lines, are watching and listening? Who?
Margaret Henoch:know how to read between the lines, I don't know, but if I were working there I would be terrified. My question is are they telling him anything?
Jack Hopkins:Yeah.
Margaret Henoch:I mean, if I were still there would I be? And my guess is, if I were still there I would just be lying through my teeth, right. But I can say that now because I have a great pension and I'm retired. Sure, I'm filled with wisdom now that I don't have to actually, but I think that that's I mean. I'm sure it's horrible. I'm sure every day people say let's not tell him these six things, and then somebody overrules it because you know that he's going to just say something stupid. The advantage is he probably doesn't read anything, so I would just keep having him read stuff and it won't get retained.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, in terms of that, because we've heard many reports on that that he doesn't read and in fact, I don't know how credible this is, but I heard this and I can't tell you where I heard it right now but somebody speaking about I think it was on a podcast somebody speaking about I think it was on a podcast, somebody speaking about that the administration was even thinking about creating a Fox News type show where they could insert, they could have like hosts speaking this stuff. So he didn't have to read it, right, because he's so riveted to watching something like Fox News that they thought maybe we can get him. Now I have no idea whether that's true, but with what I've seen from this White House, it wouldn't surprise me, it's in the realm of possibility, without question.
Jack Hopkins:What's the danger of a sitting president having no interest in the intel briefings?
Margaret Henoch:World War III, not to overstate. I mean, he doesn't know. I think we're actually seeing bits and pieces of the danger with the NATO meeting and the group of seven, the G7, earlier in the week, when they're just I mean they're saying, oh well, we're only going to meet for two and a half hours. We're not privy to know what else they're talking about without us there. We're not privy knowing, I mean I'm guessing that somebody would tell a trusted whomever. But who do they trust at this point in the US government?
Jack Hopkins:Yeah.
Margaret Henoch:You can't. The danger is that we're going to get left out of everything from climate change to vaccinations, that we're just not going to have a huge blank slate because people, whether it's the intelligence community or not, they're not going to share stuff because they don't know what he's, because what he's going to do with it, assuming he remembers it for 10 seconds is going to be bad, is going to be bad. And if he doesn't like the messenger, if he's decided that he doesn't like the Italian prime minister, who was really making good faces the other day, if I were the Italians, I'd be waiting for what the next shoe to drop was going to be, and I guess it was at the queen of the Netherlands, who was also making faces at him. But that's also in a different way. Even the fact that they're making faces on camera internationally is a terribly damaging thing, because we have no, we used to have stature, we don't have it anymore.
Jack Hopkins:We don't. And boy, that stings to admit, doesn't it? It really does. I referenced a minute ago. I asked you how much, how much intel do you think he gives away just through lack of discipline? And let me speak directly to that kind of what I had in mind, because Trump has eight years not including his prior life eight, nine years of conditioning us to know that everything he says is a lie, conditioning us to know that everything he says is a lie.
Jack Hopkins:Here is what my mind immediately went to two, three weeks ago, when he said he was going to put things on pause for two weeks regarding Iran. Now, I didn't know clearly, but in my gut I knew he's probably going to take military action. My assumption is somebody in the regime in Iran had that same gut feeling, because we have intel reports that they moved. We don't know exactly what, but they were in the process of moving. They were in the process of moving, it could be. Do you think that he might have conditioned that regime to also know that everything he says is a lie? So if he says, hey, pause for two weeks, we better get ready for a strike.
Margaret Henoch:Oh, absolutely, I'm sure you're right. It seems like a ridiculous assumption that nobody's, because they don't know whether he's going to launch a nuclear war yet. I mean, it isn't even that they're going to come get us. What's he going to do? You have to assume that you got to be ready for God knows what, and I would not want to be in any of those and I wouldn't want to be what's her name? In Mexico, except that she's hilarious to listen to.
Jack Hopkins:She is Claudia.
Margaret Henoch:Yes, and I wouldn't want to be in Quebec in Canada, because every day they sort of have to wonder is he really going to come across the border? And Hegseth certainly doesn't appear to know anything or have any spine.
Jack Hopkins:I hadn't. I had a not necessarily an experience, I had a thought, kind of an epiphany this moment last night. I've long had on the various social media platforms. I've had a pretty good following from Canada and many different countries around the world and I used to get a lot of comments and go US prior to the election right 2024, and they're polling for you and you guys got to fight and I had a lot of dialogue back and forth and it just hit me a couple of evenings ago I was like I don't hear from those people anymore. I mean, I see they've liked the comment or something like that, but as far as the, they don't have anything positive, any public worldwide perception of the United States of America. And for people like you and I, I was born in 66.
Margaret Henoch:You're a baby.
Jack Hopkins:But I got in on the tail end of cerebrally and awareness-wise of watching what was going on in Vietnam on the news. Right, my parents were the Walter Cronkite every evening, oh yeah. And so I was right there by their side. With that Coming from myself, most of my childhood was in the 70s, right? Wow. It's such a weird sci-fi experience to try to comprehend that the world is now looking at us like this. It's just upside down and, having served in the military thrown into the mix, it's maddening.
Margaret Henoch:Yes, infuriating Absolutely. And disabled. You can't feel like you can't do anything about it. Yeah, I think that's another.
Jack Hopkins:I mean I guess, which brings me to this question.
Margaret Henoch:Steady state.
Jack Hopkins:I asked John Cypher this. I can't remember if I asked Stephen, but I asked John, what is your for him personally? So this is for you personally. What is the thing? The experience, the news report of the event, what is the one thing where you are like, fuck me, it's over. Of the event over Just the Constitution, the democracy, what this country has been for almost 250 years. What's that moment that rocks you back on your ass and you go. My God, we've crossed the line of no return.
Margaret Henoch:I guess for me it's another couple of Supreme Court decisions in the directions that I don't want to see them go. And while that's not quite him, that's why we're having those problems.
Jack Hopkins:Absolutely.
Margaret Henoch:It's. You know, I mean part of it. I just cannot imagine what person on earth resents medical care or food going to poor people and, more importantly, to poor people and, more importantly, to poor children, like, who are you and I don't know? Sure, those are the things that I just I mean the security of the country. That's terrifying. All of that stuff is terrifying.
Margaret Henoch:But the stuff about just cruelty is what puts me over the think. I don't think we were ever cruel. We were stupid sometimes, we did the wrong thing sometimes, but we weren't cruel. I don't think Right, and that's for me, that's what my and we're just getting crueler and crueler. Right, and I guess, again, this is his existence. But the followers who are not willing to say wait a second, you know what do you mean? People who have more money than God don't have to pay more. I'm going to have to pay more and I'm going to have to pay more outside of taxes, because people in my community are going to be starving and sick. That's where I have more trouble with that than with my former field of employ, because it's so awful.
Jack Hopkins:I like what you said about cruelty. Obviously, there are a diverse array of opinions on what I'm about to say, so I'm just speaking for myself. Personally, I have never looked at, even knowing, how horrible some of the consequences were. I've never looked at President Truman's decision to drop the bombs as an act of cruelty. For me, cruelty comes it starts at intention. Why are you doing what you are doing if the intention is rooted in solid pro-american, pro-democracy actions, even if those actions are horrific in the consequences that they create? It was, was not an act of cruelty and again, this is my definition. Donald Trump is not making most or, some would argue, any of the decisions that he's making with good intentions that support democracy and that defend the Constitution. And I would argue he, as I think, at least on some issues you would agree with me he engages in acts of cruelty, I think, sometimes just because he enjoys acts of cruelty. Any thoughts on that?
Margaret Henoch:Totally agree. He is a bully. He's an old, fat, weirdly orange-faced who doesn't. I mean he hasn't learned the first basic thing of makeup, which is to blend, blend, blend. Don't have those lines, and that in itself is enough of a crime for me. I grew up in Los Angeles. His cruelty, which is sort of ever-present and omnipresent, and at the top of him again, that's bad, but the fact that it's being accepted is what I think he's done to the country. I think he has made a whole slew of people unkind and cruel and all of the isms that nobody, even if you're sort of thinking it's maybe a little, he's just somebody who has made us and our population a crappy place to be. Yes, and you know I'm not planning to leave because in my world, if there's a way for me to stay here and torture him, that's what I will be doing. Right, right, but I can't imagine being any one of the number of people that he's gone at. What are you doing? Sorry, he's chewing on something.
Jack Hopkins:I'm a pet owner. So, yeah, I know how it happens.
Margaret Henoch:No, I think. I mean, I think that's the thing that I would say. He's a horrible, horrible everything. I can't imagine him. There's just no way I can think of. If there's a God, he will go to some place in his afterlife and I will be running it.
Jack Hopkins:There you go. I like how you think.
Margaret Henoch:And I'll let you know.
Jack Hopkins:Okay, if you need like a vice president in your capacity.
Margaret Henoch:Somebody who might make me even crazier. That would be good too. The fact that he has been able to turn this country into what it is turning into is just horrible, I think.
Jack Hopkins:I do as well, and I'm glad you brought that up, because I've often heard it said that the thing about technology is that it never reverses itself. In other words, it only goes in one direction. Right, you don't have something happen, some event, and you get a regression in technology. It continues moving forward. And I think human behavior is very similar to that in that when permissions are given to behave in a certain way, it's very hard to ungive those permissions. I think you're right. You know what I mean.
Margaret Henoch:Yes, unfortunately, I think you're completely right. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yes, unfortunately, I think you're completely right. And I don't know what, I don't know how we do it and I don't know what we do, but I'm there to try to fight it in however it is, and I think, unfortunately, it's not just relegated to the intelligence world, it's everywhere which gives I don't need a Kleenex sorry, kleenex a clearance anymore to fight him. But I think you're totally right, it goes in that direction and I don't know how we bring it back.
Jack Hopkins:Stephen. I remember a lot of what Stephen talked about, but one thing that seared into my mind because I remember in the moment kind of the icy chill that I experienced, not that I didn't already know this cerebrally, but coming from him and his background and who he is. Somewhere in the beginning of the podcast, stephen said to me he referenced that we're speaking out in support of the Constitution, and I can't remember exactly how he worded it, but essentially we are fighting against this thing that's happening to us. And he said in a very matter-of-fact way. He said you and I are both taking a risk doing that. Now, I knew that. But, boy, that was a solidifying moment to have someone who had operated in his capacity and experienced and seen the world in the way that he has, something you might expect from your neighbor. You know, just throwing out generalizations, but coming from someone, a qualified comment like that. I was like yeah, it's not just my crazy ass thinking things like that, you know, it's legitimate, qualified people.
Margaret Henoch:Oh yeah, I think everything's a risk now Stuff that didn't use, writing letters to certain people, writing letters to the editor, writing stuff that we're writing and putting up with names on it and we have, if people can join and not provide their names Not to us, but we'll keep them hidden, and that's just a terrifying place to be.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, and one that maybe this isn't true of you because of the things that you were privy to and the things you knew about and saw, but I can honestly say for myself, about and saw, but I can honestly say for myself, it's a place I just never, in a realistic way, never fathomed. I knew that, sure, theoretically these things happen in other countries, but we were raised on such messages of strength, right, and that the United States was the leader and the people looked to us that it almost created the illusion that this couldn't happen. And I think in some ways that's the very illusion that was taken advantage of. Our complacency, our comfortability with it can't happen here. So what could have hurt to vote for the guy? I mean?
Jack Hopkins:you know, I think that those things allowed it to sneak up and pop us right between the eyes.
Margaret Henoch:I think you're exactly, that's totally right. And when you come from, this can't happen here, you're basically saying, well, I'll just wait till it does. Yeah, yeah, I think it's.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, it's unbelievable agencies on some level to say what, if anything, can we do to compartmentalize or to prevent what we know is eventually going to happen with this kind of recklessness? I guess I'll ask it this way First of all, do you think anything like that is happening or not, and if so, what are some possibilities?
Margaret Henoch:I hope it is, but I don't know. I think it's a different. I think people who are currently like in the workforce there and other places are different from the way we were by virtue of their commitment to actually having balanced, healthy lives, where you know, sort of you do say you know, I don't really have to do this 12 hours a day for six and a half days a week, which we didn't say. We said, you know, yes, sir, yes sir. And as I was leaving, they were starting to say to me well, I can't do that. That's on Saturday, be like.
Margaret Henoch:So I'm guessing that the combination of well, I can't do that because it's going to take longer than 12 hours, but also I don't know how much risk, because this is big risk. I mean, this is like serious risk. Yeah, you can tell, I grew up in Los Angeles. This is like serious risk, man, sorry. And I think I don't know that they're thinking that way. If I were doing it, I would hope that, unless it was something that said the Russians are launching a weapon tomorrow, they just don't share it Now. I'm sure they're not doing that, I'm absolutely sure of that. But if it were me, I mean, if he wants to appoint me to that job and I am happy to take it. It would be, you know, run out of a different building, it would change its name and you'd have a whole bunch of people there still working, but you'd have a real one somewhere else.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, and is it mind-boggling to you to sit here now and even discuss like those kinds of things, you know? Oh yeah, I can only imagine that. It's just like what.
Margaret Henoch:Well, on an hourly basis, either I or one of my three siblings says I am so glad mom and daddy are not here anymore.
Jack Hopkins:I've said my mother passed in October. I swear to you, I've said that multiple times, I've said, of all of the grief and whatever, the one thing I'm glad about every time something happens I go. I'm glad she's not here for this.
Margaret Henoch:Oh yeah, it did happen when you were talking about things that were a risk. My folks are buried at Arlington and I have to say it's an odd thing to say, but it's a very nice cemetery to visit.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, yes.
Margaret Henoch:And it's very nice because you don't have to do anything, like they do everything, right, it's nice and it's well cupped up and it's beautiful and people come in and they're respectful. And I was over there one day and there were three police and I go fairly often, it's close and there were three police sort of vans and they did that barrel in through the main gate and you can't drive into the main gate unless you have a pass that says you're visiting a grave and you only get one of those if it's a family. And I thought my first thought was I'm going to turn around because I probably shouldn't be here with my parents in it. I will now be a target. And I started to actually turn around and then I thought and pardon my language, oh, fuck him. And of course, the cherry on top of this is I drive a turquoise blue Mini Cooper convertible. So I you know they're really going to come after me, right? It's like going after in a problem. So, yeah, it's ungodly, yeah.
Jack Hopkins:No, and I'd like that spirit though you know that on the fly you know, fuck him, because I can't tell you the number of times in the last year on things I've written, posts that I've made, podcasts that I've done I have to remind myself that that kind of hesitation goes against everything I believe.
Margaret Henoch:Mm-hmm.
Jack Hopkins:Right, because otherwise he wins. Look, nobody is not vulnerable.
Margaret Henoch:Right.
Jack Hopkins:Right, when the stakes get high enough, if you don't have your shit together and little reminders for yourself to keep you on track, you'll get off track. Mm-hmm is the country and I'm talking about from the side of resistance and the people who are pro-democracy from the masses getting off track far enough that, without realizing what they've done, they've thrown in the towel, They've given up. And for me that's my defining moment. Right, and I can't tell you exactly what that looks like. I think I'll know it when I see it or hear it. But once we've gone over that point, then the rest of it's like taking candy from a baby.
Margaret Henoch:Yeah, yeah.
Margaret Henoch:You know, Totally, I think it's, and I think we have to be there for each other. And I am not a yes by a kind of person, right, basically it's, you know, I'm here for me and my cat and the rest of you can just kiss my ass, which is, you know, generally not a really great position. But I think we have to just say we're going to do this and we're all going to do it together and we're going to be there, and when we need each other, we're going to do it. And I do realize that sounds like I should whip out my banjo and play Kumbaya, but I think it's true and it was very interesting.
Jack Hopkins:I do too.
Margaret Henoch:We had a protest here in Bethesda, which I don't know. If you know the geography, it's like a mile from the district line and it's a, you know, high-end community and all that education and the whole bit, and people were out there and I would say there were more gray heads than anything else and in part I think it's because that's I mean, first of all, we don't have that much else to do. Other people actually do the same job.
Margaret Henoch:It's like oh good an activity how bad is a sad and yet true statement, but I think it was sort of all of a sudden, everybody kind of looked at it. I went with two friends but we didn't know anybody else there, but it was like we are actually in this together, like we are actually in this together and because of whom? I for for sure who my mom was. We did a lot of vietnam protesting here, because by 68 we were back here and it felt similar.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, not that um less terrifying right.
Margaret Henoch:Feel that unity yeah, where you're in this and I went down to one of the, I can't remember. I'm always at some protest or another and it does feel like OK, there's other, it's not just me, yeah, yeah.
Jack Hopkins:And that's such an important feeling, feeling atmosphere. It's something that you kind of you feel it within, but you also, it's almost, it surrounds you, even even when you're alone.
Margaret Henoch:Yeah, right, totally.
Jack Hopkins:You know more and more often what I've done. I'll make a post or comment, or maybe post something in the news, and and over and over and over again, I'll I'll get the question what else? What can we do to fight this, though, or how does this end? And I've been posting more and more of this. You already know the answer. You already know the answer. You're asking the question because you are uncomfortable with the answer you keep coming up with, and you're hoping someone will have something that's less scary and more comfortable, and then that's the comment.
Jack Hopkins:I don't think. Well, I'll put it this way I think most people are intelligent enough that, if they choose to right, if they choose to apply some just basic analytical thinking, look at the pieces we know, look at the history, world history and US history, look at everything backing that. It's not hard to boil it down. You know what I mean. It's not that, at this point, there's some like you're out in your garden and witness an orchid opening, and it's this beautiful moment where everything goes back to normal. It's not so I think your point then, that we're there for each other I mean, I know you're on as a CIA person right on the episode, but in a way, the most non-CIA thing you've said is we need to be there for each other, and I think perhaps what we might benefit from more than anything regarding that is a better understanding of what it means to be there for each other, and I think we touched on that. That it doesn't mean we have to build a commune right and all huddle together and live in that.
Jack Hopkins:Like you said, I've got four dogs here at home and three kids and a wife Only two kids still at home. But my point is we can come together powerfully without you know, with the exception of protests and things of that nature, we can be connected in a way that spans coast to coast. Right, I'm sure you have a person or two in your life who you worked with that you've got such a deep level of trust in that it doesn't matter. They could be in Tokyo right now and you know they're in Tokyo and they know you're out on the East Coast, right, but nothing changes in that connection. It's not contingent upon distance or proximity, and I think that right now, if we can find a way to foster that, I think that's going to be key. I only pause there because, like I said, when people ask that question you know nobody wants to talk about it, nobody wants to even go to the potential ugliness of where this goes. But when you have somebody, that's only pushing ugliness and has ugliness for an end point.
Margaret Henoch:What else can you realistically think about in terms of what you're up against? That's not rhetorical, right? Right?
Jack Hopkins:Okay, just check, right, no, no, no, yeah, no Okay just check before I sort of Right, no, no, no, yeah, no, I'm just throwing that out there. Now, certainly, if you have anything to add to that, jump on it.
Margaret Henoch:I think it's important that one of the things that we continue to highlight and I think you're doing this and I didn't I will confess I didn't know you existed because I don't go on social media and because I'm an old, as Steve said, grizzled old lady- I, because I don't go on social media and because I'm an old, as Steve said, grizzled old lady.
Margaret Henoch:I think it's fair to say a lot of people don't know I exist, well, a. We have to change that. But I think the fact that you're interested not willing interested in expanding out that kind of connection, is a huge story. It's going to get up on the table again. I do wash the table before I invite people, but I think that's the kind of from the caricature that might be you. That's a really important thing, because people I mean people say I did say to somebody have you ever heard of Jack Hopkins? And it was my sister, and she is even more in a cave than I am and I said no and I said read Heather Cox Richardson on the 15th of June, because Heather Cox mentioned you, which I think is like I mean, having me on is really good, but having her mention you is like way better.
Margaret Henoch:As hard as I am, as loathe as I am to say that, but I think that's the kind of thing that we need, that you are and I less so. But because I'm vocal and I have a lot of time on my hands, that's the kind of connection I think we need to push. Is that we're not. A we don't live anywhere near each other. B. I can't believe you don't have cats, which is kind of something we may have to talk about.
Jack Hopkins:I once did. I lived on a farm and I had a bunch.
Margaret Henoch:Okay. Okay, you've got some points. Do not jump up there, sorry, but I think that it's the kind of cross not cross-cultural, but cross-country connections that we need to have and foster and maintain and expand so that we're all talking oh my Lord, you're about to hear such a squawk, mikey, really don't. Mikey, somebody really is a brat. Is what we do? That's a start point is that you build sort of the webbing underneath. It is that cross-country connection with people.
Margaret Henoch:I knew it, that you don't necessarily, you wouldn't necessarily run across in the circles in which you live, and that cross-country webbing, I think, is the beginning of the socialized. It's not socializing, but the beginning of the. Excuse me, just let me. Mike, you haven't been up here in decades. What are you doing? Don't sit on my lap. I know you hate me right now, but that's all right.
Margaret Henoch:But I think you start there and you have connections between people who look at things differently, which I think is also important. Yes, because then we can say we're not, we may not agree on everything, we may have come from different places, but I'm not selling my soul to Donald Trump and you're not selling your soul to Donald Trump. We're finding a way to fight back. Yes, it's those cross, and I think it's cross generational, I think it's cross country and I think it's cross all the other social sorts of things there are. And I had somebody who works with the steady state, one of our fellows, steve Found, and he had somebody who works with the steady state, one of our fellows, steve Found, and he had sponsored some kind of a seminar here in Washington last couple of weeks ago and asked me if I could put up anybody and I said I could take four and he said OK, and somehow on the way down here on the same bus, the three of them lost the fourth, which I think is a subject of concern.
Jack Hopkins:But he's like, don't you?
Margaret Henoch:guys want to go. They're like, nah, he'll call us, okay, but they were completely on a different planet than I am, like in pretty much every way possible. And still there was enough of a connection, because here's how expansive I was. I drove them to the subway, oh my God, and I fed them. But subway, oh my God, and I fed them. But now there's like a web, now there's a connection, and they wrote to me, each of them separately wrote to me after he bombed Iran and said what do I think? What do I think? And that's another beginning of sort of things that can be. You are really a pain in the ass. I even put out extra food. I'm sorry, jeff, but I know those are connections that are. This is why children of mine would become serial killers. For all I know, he's a serial killer.
Margaret Henoch:I don't know, look what you get. I think those connections are what we need, yeah.
Jack Hopkins:Yeah, I do as well. I had an experience just a couple of days ago. I saw a lifelong friend of mine. He was a warrant officer in the Army. He was a warrant officer in the Army, he was a Apache helicopter pilot and he lives in the same area that I do Republican, not MAGA and we ran into each other at the gas pumps. I hadn't seen him for some time. As far as speaking to him, and even though I'm fairly certain all of his foundational roots are still conservative and Republican, we were able to stand there for over an hour and voice our concerns about what we're facing right, what we're facing right. There was such value in that for me. I've reflected on that quite a little bit since the conversation and it's such a refreshing thing to be able to have different positions. And still, as you said, you know you were you were as different as you know, night and day between those three, three or four people. Well, four and one lost.
Jack Hopkins:But somewhere between here and connecticut but but you know to, to be able to to say this this thing is so important that we can. We can put everything else over here for now and unify, and I think we've. If nothing else and I certainly hope there's something else but if nothing else, if we can find a way to increase that web of connections. I think that's so key. And here's what's interesting. I think that's so key and here's what's interesting is when two people get together and talk that have kind of a common goal I never imagined that on this episode're connected to break out of those molds of usual discussion and to say you know, this is not really in our wheelhouse, so to speak, but we both agree this is important and those conversations are.
Margaret Henoch:And I think we all have to say we're not going to stay in our wheelhouses now, right, right.
Jack Hopkins:I'm getting out our wheelhouses now, right, right.
Margaret Henoch:I'm getting out of the wheelhouse.
Jack Hopkins:Yes, yes.
Margaret Henoch:I'm not an expert in X, y and Z, but all they need me to do is go downtown and make noise that I can do or sign this thing, and I think we win.
Jack Hopkins:Yes, you know, and let's wrap up with this, because I'm not anow. Sometimes people will tell me you're such an optimist, jack. I'm not. I'm a realist and I know how to—because I think that's important—I know how to weave an upbeat feeling into uncomfortable realism.
Jack Hopkins:Mm-hmm, an upbeat feeling into uncomfortable realism kind of blend right, Because sometimes realism, framed the wrong way, can be very counterproductive because it kills fight, it kills motivation. So but I think we have to be realistic and look the phrase, which is not politically correct today, but it's not over until the fat lady sings.
Margaret Henoch:Right.
Jack Hopkins:And I'm not seeing the fat lady right, At least not one who's singing. That is a spirit that not only that I have and feel, but when we are paying attention, that's a spirit that is so woven through our country, Mm-hmm. So any talk of like I see I post something today and somebody. Well, it's already too late, Jack. If I'm breathing and my heart is beating, my attitude is it's already too late, jack. If I'm breathing and my heart is beating, my attitude is it ain't too late. It's too late for me when they lower me into the ground. That's my attitude yeah because any other attitude?
Jack Hopkins:we just assist the very thing that we claim to be resisting yeah, exactly, you can't.
Margaret Henoch:you have to. I mean, nelson Mandela didn't ever do that, no Right. And I'm sure there are others, but that was the first thing that came to me is there are plenty of people who've stayed with the fight and if they can do it, I can do it, and they can do it, you can do it. And I do think the connection and I do think you're doing a fabulous thing by building some of the connection- Well, I appreciate that.
Margaret Henoch:You can sleep well tonight. Tomorrow may be a different. I do. I do mean that, jack, because I was like oh God, I've you know, I've only done this on really, really friendly places and I know if he's friendly, I can't tell. And of course, oh my God, oh my God, steve said shut up and do it. Mr Gracious, in fact he was here and I was like Steve, oh really, he was here.
Jack Hopkins:We live about maybe two miles apart, oh nice and his longtime family friends.
Margaret Henoch:His kids are friends of my families and they used to come visit my parents. Is that the sweetest thing ever? Oh, wow, wow. But he said to me I can't remember exactly what he said, but he basically said it's another block in the wall. This is a connection. I said what if we don't like? It was like oh, for God's sakes. So I think that's what we say is today. We may have built some more bridges.
Jack Hopkins:What a perfect ending that's. Yeah, I I'm so grateful for those kind words and likewise, gosh, you've. You've shared so much that I think people who were excited about listening to this episode or watching this episode were wanting to hear. But, like I said early on, this has been so conversational that you've also filled in. You know, when you watch somebody in a rigid setting where it's just rapid fire questions, you know and they answer them, they move on. You never get a sense. I think you never get a sense of who that person is. You got their answer, but it didn't tell you a whole lot about them, and so I think the more conversational something is, you do get to learn more about that person, and to me, that's where the real meaning of the answers they give comes from, Because without that context, it could be the curveball right.
Margaret Henoch:That was unnecessarily ugly. I would just like to say so, margaret, thank you oh. Jack. Thank you so, margaret.
Jack Hopkins:thank you oh, jack thank you, it was so much.
Margaret Henoch:No, thank you.
Jack Hopkins:You have been very pleasant, very cordial and just great to spend this much time with me.
Margaret Henoch:And.
Jack Hopkins:I think you and I could probably agree that for as many people as we have, that might not like us. I think we found we like each other at the very least.
Margaret Henoch:I would say that at the least. Thank you so much. It has been a pleasure.
Jack Hopkins:Thank you If someone weren't so whiny. Yeah, tell Mikey he can relax now. And Jack said hey.
Margaret Henoch:I'll tell him All right, thank you. Thank you, take care, I'm still on All right, you too.
