Reporting Intelligence - with Warren Strobel and Brett Forrest of the Wall Street Journal

Andrew Hammond: Welcome to "SpyCast," the official podcast of the International Spy Museum. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Hammond, the museum's historian and curator. Every week we explore some aspect of the past, present or future of intelligence and espionage. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving us a five-star review. Coming up next on "SpyCast."

Brett Forrest: I realized what I was looking at was evidence of atrocity and just reported the heck out of it as best as I could, because I knew that this was critically important. [ Music ]

Andrew Hammond: This week, I was joined in the studio by Brett Forrest and Warren Strobel, intelligence correspondents of the Wall Street Journal. As "SpyCast" listeners will know, issues of intelligence and espionage are constantly going on all around us. But how can the public stay in the know and up to date on the latest cases and news from around the world? Well, that's where these two come in. Their jobs as national security reporters have Brett and Warren effectively working as detectives, salespeople and researchers all wrapped into one. In this episode, we discuss the ins and outs of national security reporting, including the intelligence learning curve, stories from the frontlines of modern conflicts and critical moments, the unique challenges that come with reporting on intelligence, and the risks, including being a potential target of espionage. The original podcast on intelligence since 2006, we are "SpyCast." Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Well, thanks ever so much for joining me today. It's a pleasure to speak to you both. >> Thank you for having us. >> Thanks for having us. Yes, you bet. So, first question, how did you guys meet. Both of you were at the Wall Street Journal. How do you bump into each other?

Brett Forrest: Well, we met in the office, probably pretty standard way for two colleagues--

Andrew Hammond: That's just the way it goes.

Brett Forrest: -to run into each other. We -- yes. But I think Warren, I was -- I preceded you just by a hair at the journal, if I remember correctly?

Warren Strobel: Five or six months, I think?

Brett Forrest: Okay, yes. But I do remember when Warren came in, I had not met you before, and you know, whenever there's a colleague coming in, of course there's some scuttlebutt around the office, "Who is this guy? Who knows this guy?" So, I got kind of Cliff's notes on Warren and what I'd heard was, "Oh, yes. He's going to -- he's going to be covering intelligence for us, and he's been doing this for a while and--." So, immediately, I was a little intimidated. I was like, "Oh, okay. He's kind of -- we're getting kind of the wizard of the U.S. intelligence community coming in here." At least from a journalistic standpoint.

Warren Strobel: Laying it on, Brett. Laying it on.

Brett Forrest: Yes, no, I mean seriously. I was -- I looked you up and I, you know, I was like, "Okay, I'm really looking forward to working with this guy as a real pro and as someone who's experienced and probably has a depth of contacts that, you know, quite frankly, I didn't have," don't have, and I looked forward to you know, getting to know him and cooking up some stories together.

Andrew Hammond: So, it was an, "Ouch, get off of my toes," initially? But then you grew to love him?

Brett Forrest: No, I mean, you know, I think once you get to a certain point in your career you -- I mean, hopefully you gain some confidence in what you know how to do, and you know that the world is big, and you certainly can't do everything. And you look for other people who can be complementary.

Andrew Hammond: I'm being playful, obviously.

Warren Strobel: I think we are complementary in the sense that I probably had more Washington policy reporting experience, covering national security institutions of Washington, whereas Brett has had -- not that I haven't had any, but he's more, a lot more time in the field doing reporting in dangerous places. And I first -- I'd already knew Brett, but I got to know more about him when he came back from a trip to Ukraine and Russia in which he had -- the subject of his book, "Lost Son," which he had helped parents find the body of their son who had gone over to Russia, sort of working for the FBI, but a little bit on his own, and got into a bunch of trouble and Brett untangled what was a really difficult, complex story, both here and in Eurasia, and actually helped the parents, at least you know, find Billy, right?

Brett Forrest: That's right, yes.

Warren Strobel: Yes. Billy's body. So, Brett came back to the bureau and talked about that, and it was pretty amazing.

Andrew Hammond: And if any listeners are interested, there's a program of -- with regards to the book available on the Spy Museum YouTube channel. Okay, so I guess I'm interested, how does one end up doing intelligence specifically? So, you like journalism. You enjoy writing, meet a deadline. There's a whole variety of things that you could write about. How do you sort of end up there? Is it circumstance? Are you -- do you go in and say, "I want to do intelligence. Tell me how to get there. I'll tic whatever boxes you want me to tic, but that's where I what to end up," or like, I'm just trying to get a sense of how one ends up where both of you gentlemen are?

Warren Strobel: I guess in my case, the answer's pretty -- somewhat simple. I'm a navy brat. My dad was a naval officer. He was actually a naval SIGINT intelligence officer, and I grew up around the world, including the U.K. and Japan and Philippines and other places where there are naval listening stations, shall we say? And so, that led to like a lifelong interest in foreign affairs and national security. And so, as with most journalists, I started out covering actually the streets of Washington when the very controversial mayor, named Marion Barry was running this place. But my goal had always been to do foreign reporting and national security related reporting. I'm lucky enough to have been able to fulfill that dream as it were.

Brett Forrest: Yes, yes, so it kind of runs in the family for you, basically. I came at it from a different perspective because I had been interested in, when I was sort of a young man coming up in the business. I'd been interested in living abroad, right? And reporting abroad. And so, I lived in Russia. I just -- it just by happenstance, I ended up living there just -- I knew some friends, visited, and was really struck by the place. This was 20 years ago. It was quite a different time than it is now. And I was writing articles about pretty much everything under the sun in the former Soviet Union and bopping around all over. And it was through those experiences that I became interested in the issues that you raised, you know, the intelligence, etcetera. So, it was sort of an incremental process for me, but I think once you're -- if you're living in that environment, if you're living in the heart you know, of what was once our Cold War enemy, I mean it's sort of inescapable, all those old stories, those old KGB, CIA battles. And you know, and I was fortunate enough to meet some of these sort of older, quote/end quote "retired" KGB officers who were active in the 70s and the 80s through various contacts of mine who, as I was looking for stories over there. And the stories that they would tell over you know, a cup of coffee or a beer or something, really you know, were fascinating but also some of these guys were so smooth that you know, you'd leave the restaurant, and you'd think, "Wow, that guy was great." And you'd think, "Wait, where's my wallet?" You know, "Did he take my wallet?" So, I kind of came at it through that lens and then eventually ended up in Washington with the Wall Street Journal where, you know, I met Warren and you know, became much more interested in things from the U.S. side.

Andrew Hammond: And the Wall Street Journal, not just nationally but globally is one of the most well-known names, you know, a really, big player in the field. Put our listeners in your shoes the minute you first saw your very first Wall Street Journal byline. What was that like?

Warren Strobel: It was cool, I must admit. I mean, yes. I had worked for other news organizations which were fine news organizations, but when you would introduce yourself, it was not exactly a calling card to say you're with, "McClatchy Newspapers," or even "Reuters." You know, a lot of people around the world know what Reuters is, but in Washington, it's not like a household name. Global International New Service. So, working at the Wall Street Journal, I think it helps open doors sometimes, quite honestly, just because we represent that publication. But that doesn't mean that covering intelligence is not still really hard. It opens doors, but it doesn't get you the answers.

Brett Forrest: Right. My story is maybe a little different is maybe a little different because I never thought that I -- it was never a goal of mine to work at the Wall Street Journal, but I was in the magazine business. And the internet killed the magazine business. So, I'm sort of a refugee from that world, and I ended up at the Journal, which you know, maybe it sounds a little ungrateful. I'm not ungrateful. You know, when I had that, as you mentioned, first byline, it didn't really mean anything to me, but it was only over time that I understood the, you know, the real -- the reach of the journal and what it would allow us to do. I mean, the access that it gives us to people. As you mentioned, it's known throughout the world, but more importantly, it's respected around the world. You know, people believe -- they generally believe what they read in the Journal. And they -- for that reason, I think they -- even though they may not know, they believe that we have a rigorous editorial process, which we do. And so, all of those elements really do assist us in just getting to people. You know? I mean, we can go to any country around the world, and meet with you know, political leaders, and it's often intelligence officials, which is you know, not easy to do.

Andrew Hammond: I'm imagining the -- a newspaper or a newsroom. There's some stereotypes about different types of reporters that report on different things. So, you know, I guess the classic one is the obituary person. What if any are the ideas that people have about intelligence reporters at newspapers? Are there any kind of stereotypes or--?

Warren Strobel: Secretive? I would say also just to broaden it out a little bit to like national security reporters. I mean, I've covered different beats so-called around this town, including the State Department, the White House, Capitol Hill. I think people who cover the State Department and the intelligence agencies, some -- and the Pentagon are more like less political and more substantive, pretty well versed. They have to be versed in order to form policy or U.S. intelligence practice. Pentagon, military practice, I think they're more substantive, and probably older, too, by and large.

Brett Forrest: Yes, I mean, you know, if I can share just a brief anecdote about you? You once told me that somebody at the CIA said, "Oh, you know what? You would have made a good case officer, because you know, you're good at sort of building trust." And as you can imagine, that is absolutely essential when you're doing this kind of work. And so, I think a stereotype about this type of reporter is that maybe you know, this person is maybe a bit more -- they seem to be maybe more plotting than maybe others who are hitting a lot of deadlines, because this work takes time. It takes time to build that trust to get access to the information that you're going to get -- you know, because this is going to be publishable and reveal something.

Andrew Hammond: So, because of this idea of trust, does that mean that normally when you end up working on this issue, intelligence, that you will stay there for a period of time whereas say other places you may do a few years here and a few years there, but I guess the opportunity costs of if someone spends three years building up their rolodex, knows how to work the town, then you rotate them out. Then essentially the first 18 months, they're just trying to get back up to where the last person was. So, do you not tend to see as much rotation in intelligence as you would in say some other parts of the news operation?

Brett Forrest: I think this is absolutely true in my experience. And an interesting thing about the Washington Press Corps that covers intelligence and national security and it takes 18 months to three years just to get up to speed. I've had a few friends who've joined the beat from other beats, and over a few beers, I've had to counsel them through the ups and downs and the difficulty of, you know -- and they're fine reporters, just trying to get their feet on the ground, or get some purchase as it were. So, yes, you tend to see people stay on the beat for a long time. And it's -- here we are at the International Spy Museum. I mean, it's a never-ending, fascinating series of stories and human intelligence of technical intelligence of great powers clashing, using intelligence. And it's just there's always something new. So, people tend to stay for that reason as well.

Warren Strobel: Yes, and for the -- just to sort of confirm what you're saying, I think for a certain type of reporter, a certain type of person, there's nothing that's more interesting, you know? Like that's the apex, especially if you have -- you know, if you're able to work at a place where we work, covering that topic, I mean, for some people, it's kind of like there's no better place to be.

Andrew Hammond: For your job, help me understand how you got up to speed with your contacts and everything. So, imagine you just -- you start at the Wall Street Journal. You obviously have what you know already, but are you -- do you get handed off a rolodex by the person that you've replaced, or did they take those contacts with them and they're not shared and there's probably some that you know, it's not like Bob Woodward would leave and say, "Oh, yes, there's Mark Felt. You know, you have him now by the way." This was Deep Throat, you know? So, I know that it's not like a complete like clean thing, but I guess I'm just wondering how much pass over is there between people that you may replace or like the institution, the Wall Street Journal. These are the relationships that we have as an institution, or is it really just, "Brett, here you go. There's a pen and a notepad. Have at it, son. Go and do your thing?"

Brett Forrest: There's some. There's some. I wouldn't say that the institution has sources. I would say that individual reporters and some editors, some, have sources, you know? I mean because obviously some editors were reporters, and some go back and forth. But yes, generally, you develop your own sources. I mean I think the Journal is really collegial in terms of how we all work together as reporters, and even though we each spent years and years developing sources globally, and some of these people are you know, hard to get to know, generally speaking, I mean we're pretty good about either sharing sources or working our sources to contribute something to someone else's story. But I wouldn't say that, yes, if somebody's leaving, the new guy comes in and gets the old guy's contacts.

Warren Strobel: But the collegiality that Brett talked about is key, because I think every national security story doesn't come from one quote building or one institution. I mean, just to take a current example, look at the war in Gaza, right? That's got a humanitarian aid aspect. It's obviously got the diplomatic aspect. You know, the administration trying to get a cease fire. It's got intelligence aspect, in terms of what the U.S. is doing to help the Israeli's. And the role that CIA Director Burns is playing in the negotiations. It's obviously got a military aspect. And it has a political aspect in terms of its impact on Biden in the 2020. So, we're always sharing ideas and most stories you see on our space aren't one byline. Yes. It's two or three.

Brett Forrest: And also -- yes, and also, we were talking about working with reporters and editors on different continents. You know, where our different bureaus are. I mean just the categories that Warren listed, you can see obviously that that's not all going to be done by reporters in Washington. I mean there are reporters in the Middle East obviously who have been working there for, yes, years and years, a decade, more than a decade -- you know, like there's so much -- our reporting bench is very deep and there's just a lot of -- many years of knowledge in just developing these contacts. So, you bring all that to bear, you put all that together, and you know, I think that's where the value lays.

Andrew Hammond: How big or small is the circle of people that do the intelligence beat? So, I mean, not just in the Wall Street Journal, but say in this town is it the case where you know pretty much all of them, or are you often fighting over the same stories, getting under each other's feet, and yes. Help me understand the intelligence reporting world as you see it in Washington.

Brett Forrest: I would say in Washington, everybody wants to write about intelligence, because it's fun, it's sexy, it you know, gets on the front page, it's sort of vital to the moment. Whatever's going on in the news. But the people that actually cover it day in and day out, it's a fairly circumscribed group. I hate to put a number on it but like I personally know almost everybody who does it like 24/7, and maybe 20, 30 people max, at least for major newsprint and TV and radio and news organizations. Yes.

Warren Strobel: How many people would you say cover politics in this town?

Brett Forrest: Thousands probably?

Warren Strobel: Yes.

Brett Forrest: How many people cover Capitol Hill or cover the White House, yes? The national security slice, intel press corps. It's not tiny but it's pretty well defined.

Warren Strobel: It's pretty slim.

Brett Forrest: Yes.

Warren Strobel: -- person.

Brett Forrest: Yes. They're all good competitors and they've been doing it a while, most of them. Yes, they're good.

Andrew Hammond: And how competitive is this world as a reporter? Is it like the Hunger Games? Do you's all have a monthly meeting at the National Press Club or I'm assuming it's somewhere in between?

Warren Strobel: Yes, I would say it's somewhere in between. It's not the Hunger Games. And there's no collegiality that's brought about because we all know how difficult the subject can be writing secret stuff about secret agencies. So, we all know how tough the beat can be. We're all often at the same -- there are public conferences and obviously events here. The International Spy Museum that we're all. So, we see each other. And we talk about stories, what's happening in the news, but it kind of stops there. You don't tell your competitors, as much as you might love that person, what your next story is going to be or what you're focusing on or where you're traveling to. But I wouldn't say it's Hunger Games, by any means, no. Probably more so in politics.

Brett Forrest: Yes.

Warren Strobel: Yes.

Brett Forrest: And also, there's -- you know, we cover intelligence not just in this country, but abroad. You know, I mean we have contacts that we've developed in intelligence agencies in other countries. And often those people can be much more forthcoming on important topics than their counterparts here in the U.S. So, then you're also getting into the realm of other reporters at other places in other countries. You know, and sort of you know, there's some competition there as well. [ Music ]

Andrew Hammond: In this episode, we mentioned Watergate. In case you're rusty on this, here is a primer. The Watergate Complex is a series of six office and residential buildings in Northwest Washington D.C. It is a humdinger of an intelligence story that took place there. In 1972, five burglars with previous links to the CIA broke into an office in this building, which led to a national scandal and the downfall of President Nixon. This was the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and President Nixon sought quote, "campaign intelligence," closed quotes, to ensure his reelection. The burglars and a unit known as the Plumbers, since they were originally set up to plug leaks, installed electronic bugs and phone taps. History could have been very different if it had worked, but it didn't. So, three weeks later, the burglars broke in again, but this time, they were caught. One of them had the phone number of a former CIA officer, E. Howard Hunt, who had overseen the operation. Other prominent figures involved in the operation were G. Gordon Liddy, formerly in the FBI, and James McCord, formerly in the CIA. It wasn't this operation but the cover-up that led to Nixon's downfall. We'll discuss this in the next interlude. [ Music ] Help me understand a little bit more about since you've started covering intelligence, is there anything that's changed in terms of what you cover, or how you cover it?

Warren Strobel: I guess I'll start off. It's on how you cover this, when I started covering intelligence like my dad's old agency, the National Security Agency, probably didn't have a press office and never talked. That changed when the digital age came about, public encryption and computer chips and the NSA had to be out there at least a little bit. So, I think -- and this is just a small example. I think generally over time, there has been more information available. And now we're in the age of OSIN, Open-Source Intelligence where during the invasion of Ukraine in the early days, we had access to not as good a picture as the analysts at their desks in the CIA, or the Defense Intelligence Agency, but we had like a lot more information than we would have, even five years earlier. And not all of it vetted, but we had good sources who could vet stuff for us that we were seeing on social media. We could see the Russian vehicles. We could see what Ukraine was doing. So, it's -- and that in turn, I'll stop here, the fact that there's now open-source intelligence out there has allowed the U.S. intelligence community, the CIA and ODNI to be able to put more out there as well, because some of the stuff is already public, so they kind of put their [inaudible 00:23:05] on it and confirm it. So, that is really the one thing that's really changed in the last couple of years.

Brett Forrest: Do you think -- I'll ask you a question. Do you think that has --

Andrew Hammond: Oh, please let's get up.

Brett Forrest: -- yes, has it enabled us to tell better stories, do you think, or has it enabled them to you know, put a higher wall around what remains or--?

Warren Strobel: I think their hope is that it puts a higher wall around that 1 or 2% of stuff that absolutely has to be kept secret, that should never be in the open-source realm. Does it allow us to tell better stories? I think, you know, more information is always good. I'm a kind of idealist in that way, so I think it does help tell better stories or stories that we couldn't have told otherwise?

Brett Forrest: I guess the reason I was asking that is because if it's out there for everybody, including our competitors, you know, because we're always of course trying to get something that nobody else has. I mean, they're basically -- I mean, you can define our -- the stories we publish in various ways, but one way to sort of bifurcate them is stories that like come apart -- come from news events, come from press conferences, come from things that are public, right? And things that like we have to cover, we have to make our readers aware of this stuff because it's sort of basic, you know, literacy, cultural literacy here in world events, right? But then there's the other category which is things that are exclusive and you know, that's really what we're primarily looking for, you know, as sort of investigative journalists, if you will. And you know, that's why I asked you that question, Warren, because if it's out there for everybody, then you know, it's less exciting for us to go chase, because there's nothing to chase, so -- but if I can answer your question in a different way, what's changed? I mean, Warren I would say is much more of a dyed in the wool intelligence guy, you know, having grown up with it and covered it much longer than I have. And I would say that, you know, for me, the thing that I noticed is really internationally how some countries have become more prominent in you know, sort of world affairs and more pivotal and how their intelligence agencies have grown with their national ambitions. I'm thinking you know, primarily in the Gulf, right? And suddenly you feel like, "Oh, well there's a whole new set of characters we need to know, and we need to learn how they operate and what their culture is like?" And I've been fortunate to spend a lot of time in that region, and you know, and I never thought I would. And it was very eye-opening of course, and you know, so you -- so, it's about like learning -- because you can't just swoop in and introduce yourself. You know, you need to spend time and you need to get to know people and what they value and how to talk to them. So, yes, I mean we're -- I grew up in the Cold War, but that's ancient history by this point and we're on to other things.

Andrew Hammond: Help me understand how when a major event goes down, how does it shake out in the newsroom and how do you guys as intelligence reporters get involved? So, for example, a riot, which I know you've done a lot of work on, Warren, or we can think of Korean and those events happened. It comes in. Okay. The Wall Street Journal, sorry, has to cover this. Then what are you guys doing? ARE you reaching out to people that are in Iraq or in Ukraine and you're, "Okay, here's what I know about this. Here's the intelligence component. I need you to do some reporting on the ground and let's body up and collaborate and try to write a story on X or Y." How does it just all kind of shake out? Like an event drops, like a big event like Iraq or Ukraine. Then how does everything shake out for you guys?

Warren Strobel: I think that's a pretty good way to describe it. And when the event first happened and we had people on the ground and Gaza, Ukraine, Iraq who were seeing things in here and things and very often it falls on us back in Washington to sort of -- we call it JV, joint venture with them, collaborate, and help confirm what they're seeing or hearing or being told. And then what happens, at least in my case, I will then go and look, "Okay, what's the particular intelligence angle here that there's a space for me to write a story that editors want, and the readers need to know." And to just give you some concrete examples, going back to Gaza. First question after the Hamas attack on October 7th was, "Okay, this was an intelligence failure, obviously. It was an Israeli intelligence failure, but was it also a U.S. intelligence failure?" And I did a story about how the U.S. had basically subcontracted intelligence on the Gaza Strip to Israel, thinking Israel had it in hand. So, it wasn't really an intelligence failure, but the U.S. pretty quickly after October 7th changed and started putting more intelligence resources on Gaza. And it was that story, other stories we've done about the intelligence sharing with Israel and some controversy associated with it in terms of Israel's targeting practices and so forth. So, it's a mix of collaborating with our colleagues overseas and in Washington, but also looking for what's the discreet intel story here that we can -- kind of should tell?

Brett Forrest: Well, you mentioned Ukraine. So, I happened to be in Kiev when the war expanded in 2022, so the initial confusion and flurry there was, yes, I was basically just trying to pitch in with our colleagues and just do war reporting. And there was an intelligence element there, but it was more like -- I mean when something like that happens and you're in the mix, it's just all hands-on deck and it's 24 hours and the appetite for information is through the roof. And you know, there are a million deadlines and a million stories coming at you that you need to address. As the front lines were established, and I could take a breath, I did start looking around at different types of stories. And I'll just give you an example. There was -- a few days after the war expanded, about ten days or so if memory serves, there was a man in Kiev, a Ukrainian who was murdered right in the center of town and his body was dumped right there. And it happened -- he happened to be part of the Ukrainian cease-fire delegation -- talks for cease fire with the Russians, you know, in the first week of the war. He was on the Ukrainian side of the table, talking to the Russians in their first discussions after the war had expanded, and here he was murdered. And it came out that the SBU, which is sort of the more or less equivalent of the Ukrainian FBI had killed him. And they said he was a traitor. That he was spying for Russia. But in the very next breath, the Ukrainian military intelligence said, "No, in fact he was an agent working for Ukraine." And there was so much going on in the first days of the war that people kind of forgot about it, but I started looking into it and it was a fascinating tale, trying to unwrap like who this guy was, who he was really working for, was he working for both sides? And for that story, I was able to talk to the head of Ukrainian intelligence in his office, with you know, filled with sandbags and you know, a million bodyguards all around and you know, the Russians had been trying to kill him for years. And he sat down with us and you know, he said he was actually -- that the guy who was murdered was indeed working for Ukraine and developed essential intelligence that had enabled Ukraine to withstand the assault on Kiev. And he said that this man was responsible for saving Kiev. So, you know, being out in the field and being in a big moment, you can still work on intelligence stories that matter.

Warren Strobel: That's a great story.

Brett Forrest: It was pretty wild.

Andrew Hammond: And you're the first reporter into Bucha after Russia's military withdrawal and you witnessed the atrocities that have happened there? Is that correct?

Brett Forrest: Yes, yes, that's correct. Yes.

Andrew Hammond: Yes. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about that?

Brett Forrest: Sure, of course. So, this was -- I'm trying to remember. This is -- was late, late March, early April 2022. And I'm sure many of your listeners understand like that when Russia expanded the war in February of that year, they drove toward Kiev. Their plan was to take the city, topple the government, install you know, their hand-picked president and take over the country that way. And it didn't work out so well for them, as we know. The Ukrainians proved to be much stronger than anybody expected. And so, about a month or so -- month-plus, about six weeks after they expanded the war, Russia realized, you know, "This isn't working." And so, they pulled out their forces that had been surrounding Kiev, and when that happened, I had just come up from the southern part of the country and was in Kiev. And I saw this picture on social media somewhere, and I was talking to a colleague of mine. It was a picture, I think, of three or four men who'd had their wrists fastened behind their backs and were laying in a street somewhere. And it looked pretty clearly -- clear to me that they had been killed. And I saw that it was -- that the picture had been taken in a suburb of Kiev. And this was a town, Bucha, which you mentioned which the Russians had occupied since the first days of the war. So, that you know, that very moment went in the car, and went out there with the photographer and sort of a local Ukrainian speaking fixer, a security guy, and we raced out there. And you know, we arrived just as the local militia was retaking the mayor's office, and they were reinstalling the Ukrainian flag on the building, and they were singing the national anthem, just as we were getting out of the car. And I'm thinking, "Wow, incredible timing," you know? And there was nobody -- I mean, I couldn't see any other reporters anywhere. They were just guys with guns walking around. And so, yes, I just -- I spoke with the militia commander, and I told him I wanted to see around the town, and he said it was too dangerous because the Russian's had booby-trapped a lot of buildings, and they hadn't had time to address any of that. And you know, I had an inkling that something had happened there, something important, and so I prevailed upon him to you know, to help me do this right now, you know? And so, he gave me a couple of his guys. He said it'll be safer if you go with them. And we drove around town that day and you know, it was raw. And because the Russians had killed hundreds of people, and left their bodies, willy-nilly, anywhere, you know, around the street. They had also deposited a lot of bodies into makeshift graves, you know, just small holes in the ground or open pits, you know, just without any kind of coffins or any kind of -- anything to bury them with respect, and just bodies everywhere. The Ukrainians hadn't had time to clean up the city. They had just retaken it. So, yes. So, I went around town that day and saw all that and then you know, you can't really prepare yourself for that. And nobody knew what had happened there, really. Nobody -- no outsiders like myself. So, it was a process. At some point during that day, I realized what I was looking at was, you know, evidence of atrocities. And so, I spent basically the whole week there. And, yes, and just reported the heck out of it as best as I could -- that I could. And because I knew that this was critically important, and for me it became the face of the war.

Andrew Hammond: How does this work in organizations like the Wall Street Journal these days with occasions like that where their people are exposed to trauma? I've read lots of books and memoirs by foreign correspondents, war correspondents, and they talk about people you know, coming home and being catatonic or you know, turning to alcohol, self-medicating and so-forth. Is there some kind of like structure now where when you come back, you're, I don't know, you're reentry is softened somehow or you have resources you can go to as opposed to the old-fashioned approach which was you know, just drink yourself to hopefully the point where you don't think about it so much anymore?

Brett Forrest: Yes, it's a good question. I know that the Journal does provide access to such assistance. I mean, when I came back, I remember our bureau chief at the time, Paul Beckett, you know, we were sitting down. He was asking me how everything went, and when it came to this part, he -- you know, he addressed that. He said, you know, "If you need anything, if you want anything, we have that stuff. I mean, it's not required, but--." Yes, so it's definitely there.

Andrew Hammond: Okay.

Brett Forrest: Yes.

Andrew Hammond: And I'm thinking, how much of this job relies on luck and how much of it is skill? I know it's always an interplay between the two. But I'm just thinking of the classic example if Bob Woodward is not in the navy and he's not delivering a package to the White House, and he doesn't just by coincidence sit down next to a senior FBI official, Mark Felt. It becomes Deep Throat which exposes what -- which leads to the fall of a president. I mean, that's a lot of luck there without taking away from you know, any skill that he may have. So, what's the kind of interplay like that as the -- in terms of how you guys look at it?

Warren Strobel: I'm a firm believer in that you make your own luck, and in the sense that I can't tell you how many times, I'm sure this has happened to Brett too, where you go to an event or you're out doing something, or you take somebody to lunch on your own initiative to get to know them, and then three months or three years down the line, that person either has something burning that they want to tell you that's highly important and sensitive, or they get promoted into a position here in Washington or an embassy around the world where they're able to help you in ways you never dreamed of. So, there is -- I've been -- I'm sure Brett would say the same, I've been incredibly lucky and fortunate in my career, but part of it is like getting out there, peddling the streets and meeting people, doing things, even the very act of publishing a story sometimes, not sometimes, very often, will lead to Story A may not be that great, but it'll maybe get the attention of readers who know something about Story A, and will call you and they become sources for a much better Story B. So, yes.

Brett Forrest: Yes, I would also say that that moment of luck that you mention, we are discounting all those other unlucky moments that are forgotten because to Warren's point, I mean, it's really about being in the game, making the effort constantly. Yes, I kind of say like, it's when you're working on something that's particularly difficult, it's about knocking on every possible door that you can imagine, that you can come up with that you can dig up. And all you're hoping for is one of those doors to open. You know, you knock on 100 doors, you get 99 doors don't. You just want that one door to open because that's where the information is, and that's where the source is. So, I don't know if I would call that luck. I would call that persistence.

Warren Strobel: Goes back to the Watergate analogy and I'm thinking of the movie where Woodward and Bernstein are knocking on all the doors. They've got a list of people working for CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President. And they knock and knock. Finally, a woman opens the door and doesn't really want to talk but they get her to talk and she kind of helps them break open the story. Luck, yes, but persistence. The other thing is like with investigative -- I don't spend all my time doing investigative reporting. I wish I could. But just it takes some percentage of my time doing investigative reporting, you drill in ten holes, and you hope like one is going to be a good hole. It's like try looking for oil, almost.

Brett Forrest: Yes, and also -- exactly. And all those potential oil wells, I mean they don't just miraculously appear. I mean, you have to work at it, and you have to be creative about you know, creative thinking like, "Okay, this is -- who has access to this information? It's a very small group. Okay, well who might have prior relationships with some of these people? How could I maybe get to them?" Like it's -- you're not just -- you're not given a sheet of ready targets, is what I'm saying. And you do have to work at it. You do have to think creatively about it. And then also, when you're approaching people, especially about sensitive topics, you know, you've got to try and be charming, right? I mean, you have to try and figure out--

Warren Strobel: You put people at ease.

Brett Forrest: Yes, yes. You have to disarm people, but you also -- it's you know, we're not in sales, you know? We're not selling cars, but we are in sales. We're trying to sell the story that we want to tell. Right? And we're trying to sell, and I don't mean this in a crass way, but we're trying to sell the value of having such a story published to the people who know the events intimately. And we're doing that every time out of the gate.

Warren Strobel: That means selling yourself as a trusted, knowledgeable person. [ Music ]

Andrew Hammond: In the last interlude, we spoke about Watergate and how it was the cover-up, not the operation itself that led to President Nixon's downfall. A tape, the so-called smoking gun, was discovered where Nixon discussed getting the director of the CIA, Richard Helms, to lean on the acting director of the FBI, Patrick Gray, to stop the investigation into the burglary on the false grounds of national security. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, helped unravel the story with the help of a mysterious source called "Deep Throat." Fifty-three years later, this was discovered to have been the then Deputy Director of the FBI, Mark Felt. The relationship the CIA and the FBI played in this event is debated to this day. It should be noted that though former intelligence community people were involved with the [inaudible 00:41:38], sometimes the then current leadership of these organizations were at odds with the presidency and the attempted coverup. It was Watergate, if you're curious, that have given us the suffix "gate" for all manner things. For example, Iran-gate which referred to the Iran contra affair that embroiled the Reagan presidency in 1986, and the White Watergate, a political controversy that swirled around the Clinton administration in the 1990's. [ Music ] So, I wonder if we could explore this question of making your own luck with the Iraq War, Warren? So, the National Headliners Award for how the Bush administration went to war in Iraq. So, for me that story actually plays quite an important role in how I'm sitting here. So, I'm in the Royal Air Force in a photographic intelligence section. We used to joke, you know, "Have you found the smoking gun yet?" People will be looking at imagery intelligence. We were convinced it would turn up, it never turned up. So, I guess like intelligence is such a massive part of the lead-up to outbreak of that war. You're working on this story. Tell us how that all shakes out for you? Like, how do you come across it? How do you report it? How do you bring it all together? Like, help me understand.

Warren Strobel: So, talk about foundational work. Those series of stories that I did with colleagues over the course of basically 2001 till 2007, 2008. We were still looking at the run-up to the war and what the intelligence failure and so forth. I mean, I was working with gentlemen, and they were all guys, at least in this corps group, who had been covering international affairs for, in some cases, three to four decades. They'd served in Lebanon. They served in the Middle East. One of them sadly passed away. Joseph L. Galloway was probably the most famous war correspondent in Vietnam. Certainly, most loved among the troops in Vietnam. So, we all had that foundational knowledge of how the world worked, how the Middle East worked, sources. And then you know, the Bush administration started saying that this secular Arab leader named Saddam Husein is in league with Islamic terrorists who are sworn to overthrow secular Arab leaders, and that just didn't sound right. And we started looking at it. And one of my colleagues -- we divvied it up. I looked more at the terrorist allegations that Bush was making, and my colleague looked more at the WMD allegations. And I mean, there was a lot of crisscross but the more we looked at the WMD stuff, there was no evidence among the people who really knew, deep buried in the government, that Saddam's weapons programs were advanced in the way the Bush administration said. I have to tell you, I was surprised as anybody when U.S. troops went in and found nothing, nothing, nothing. I thought Saddam had some kind of programs that he was hiding, but nothing that there was like an existential threat to the United States and the way Bush was saying in the wake of 9/11. So, there's that and then there's the other point that we were talking about earlier is that stories lead to another, and we did a few stories, questioning Bush's case, like in the months right after 9/11 when they started to talk about Iraq almost immediately as a target. And once our stories published, they were different from almost everything else we accomplished in the U.S. news media, and that brought other sources to us. And the final point I'll make is on one key story, two of the sources whose names I still can't say, but it was a really key story for us in this whole -- we did like 200 stories over the course of the years, but two of the sources on that story were people I had known for decades.

Andrew Hammond: So, they were already in place.

Warren Strobel: Yes, of trust. Or not even in place. I mean one example, this person told me that, try and simplify this, former CIA Director James Woolsey gets on a plane and goes to Wales to try and dig up evidence to prove an already disproven theory that Iraq was behind the first attempt at bombing of the World Trade Center. And who gave him that plane to go to England? Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz. My source told me that. I called somebody else. I confirmed it, and that small story as it was, it told me that they were looking for evidence to tie Saddam to terrorism, and they were actually trying to prove a theory that the FBI and CIA had already dismissed that Saddam had been involved back, I think it was 1993 in the attempted bombing of the World Trade Center. And that from a source who'd I'd known for years who actually was no longer in government, but hears things. So, that's how that works, you know?

Andrew Hammond: Okay. That goes back to the point of creating your own luck. All this foundational work that has to take place.

Warren Strobel: Sometimes I still speak to them, that source sometime. We've known each other for 35 years.

Brett Forrest: May I interject here because we don't -- I don't think we want to lose sight of the fact that Warren is the only one among us here who has been portrayed as a character in a movie, in a major motion picture, directed by Rob Reiner. There's a character named Warren Strobel, and the movie's based on this reporting that he did.

Warren Strobel: That we did. Four of us.

Brett Forrest: That you and your colleagues did, of course. Yes. And the name of the movie is "Shock and Awe."

Warren Strobel: "Shock and Awe."

Brett Forrest: Yes, everyone should go check it out. I've seen it. It's excellent. Woody Harrelson plays your colleague, and you are played by James Marsden, is that right? Yes, yes, who looks strikingly like you.

Warren Strobel: Twenty years ago.

Andrew Hammond: I've seen that movie. It's a good movie.

Brett Forrest: It's not a bad -- it's a good intel movie, yes.

Andrew Hammond: So, it sounds like some of what we've spoke about is almost -- there's analogies to the actual world of intelligence, whereas like you follow the facts. You don't -- the facts around a theory that you already have. Intelligence analysts that you get the facts from all the different sources. You sift through them. You analyze them. You synthesize them and you present them. And do you guys think about this about some of the symmetry between the world that you inhabit and the world that people in intelligence inhabit?

Warren Strobel: All the time.

Andrew Hammond: All the time? Okay.

Warren Strobel: Yes, and I have this debate with my current and former U.S. intelligence friends. It's a fun and healthy debate, and some of them are like, "Yes, what you do is very similar to what we do." And some of the former case officers are like, "No, no, you're just like a want-to-be spy," or whatever. But actually, what we do is we do both. We're like both case officers in the sense that we meet, develop, recruit sources, spot in a sense. Sometimes using techniques so the meetings are not seen. We get information and then we analyze it and then we publish a report. I mean, that's like what the DO and the DI does at CIA. I mean, obviously they have cooler technology.

Brett Forrest: They have easier access to information. Most information that we struggle to get.

Warren Strobel: They also have a lot more rules and bureaucracy Brett, than we do.

Brett Forrest: Oh, really. Glad--

Warren Strobel: In terms of like--

Brett Forrest: -glad we don't work there.

Andrew Hammond: But you've got a link to Homer Simpson, is that correct?

Brett Forrest: Yes, we go way back.

Warren Strobel: This is news.

Brett Forrest: Yes, yes. Homer, yes. It's so funny because I used to work at ESPN back when they had a magazine. This is some years ago. And I was writing about crime and corruption in international sports, and I got -- I had an editor who was really big into soccer and anyway, he came to me and said, "You know, I'm seeing all these crazy scores in all these games around the world." And you know, like obviously soccer isn't known for having, or as you might call football, sorry to offend.

Andrew Hammond: No problem.

Brett Forrest: But, yes, he was saying, "These crazy scores. You know, these matches don't have a lot of goals usually, but you know, here's one like 10 to 1, or this club beats another club in the exact -- by the exact margin it needs to avoid like relegation." Anyway, what he was talking about was match fixing. And that started me down this years' long path into the manipulation of soccer games globally for the purposes of illegal better. And this is something at its highest level that was run by Chinese organized crime, you know, the Triads. And so, I spent a lot of time in the Far East getting to know some of these figures, let's say. And ended up writing an article for ESPN the magazine about it, and a few months later, there was an episode of the Simpson's wherein Hunter -- I mean Hunter. I have Hunter Biden on the brain. Where Homer Simpson is sitting at home early in the episode, and he's approached by this -- I think he was a Brazilian or a Venezuelan man in a suit, very like smooth-talking guy. And he convinces him to become a referee in the upcoming World Cup held in Brazil. And Hunter -- I'm sorry, here I go again. Homer, you know, in his naive way, thinks it's just a cool opportunity, but it's a setup. And they eventually, you know, try to get him involved in a match -- a match fixing scheme. And I saw this. Somebody sent it to me, and I was like, "Well, that's very interesting. What--?" And then I watched the episode again, and I saw that when he was approached initially, the match fixer guy throws a magazine down on the coffee table, and there's a quick close-up of it. And it's a knock-off of ESPN the magazine. It says, "Le ESPN," and there's a cover story about match fixing. And I was like, "I know that story. That's my story." I should have retired right then.

Andrew Hammond: Go out on a high.

Brett Forrest: That's, yes, that's the apex of our business.

Warren Strobel: Royalties? Any royalties?

Brett Forrest: No, I'm still searching for those.

Andrew Hammond: Just as we get towards the end of the interview, is there a story -- we spoke about Bucha and Iraq and is there another story that either of you are really -- I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of stories that you're really proud of, but is there one that stands out that you're like, "This was me at my prime"?

Warren Strobel: I was really proud -- this is not a story that took a huge amount of work but after Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident was killed, somebody I know in the U.S. government handed to me, complete surprise, and allowed me to read the -- highly secret CIA report on the presumed role of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in the death. He then took it back, and I had made notes and I rushed home and transferred the notes to the computer and at my source's request, waited three or four days to even bureau chief Paul Beckett what I had. We did that story and it kind of broke the internet. I mean, it went viral. So, I was proud of that because I'd known Jamal. He was -- I wouldn't call him my friend, but he was a colleague and I'd met him for coffee like three months before he was murdered. And so, that's one that stands out. Brett, you must have dozens.

Brett Forrest: No, I would -- if you don't mind, I'd prefer to answer the question a little differently. Yes, because if you're -- if you're in this game for a number of years like we have been, yes, certainly there are things that you've gotten into that you know, interest you deeply, have high stakes, and you've been able to deliver, right? And those are the things that keep us going and sometimes we look back too, and you know, tell stories over a beer. That kind of thing. But I would, in answer to your question, I would also say I'm proud, and this may sound a little silly, but I'm proud of the stories that I haven't published because we get approached with so many things, and we talk to so many people who are trying to use us or manipulate us, right? And these could be everything from people have business interests who want to damage a competitor or want to -- yes, benefit their own business, all the way up to intelligence officials, or agents of foreign intelligence agencies. And you know, I know for sure that I've met with these people in different places around the world who have seen me as an opportunity for a score for them if they can plant information in the paper, right? And there's such pressure on us all the time internally to publish that sometimes it can be irresistible when you're sitting with somebody and you're handed like a dossier or a bit of information that seems really important, but you need to pump the brakes and you need to remember the rules of the road here, and you know, so I'm -- in addition to the stories that we've been able to achieve, I'm proud of you know, being a bit of a gatekeeper against that, being appropriately circumspect in those areas, because you know, when you're dealing with intelligence, you're going to come across people like that and moments like that where you just, you know, you just get a little feeling up the back of your neck that something doesn't feel right. Doesn't quite add up. And I'm not going to be so enthusiastic about getting this out there to the public.

Andrew Hammond: I remember reading in George Tenet's autobiography, "At the Center of the Storm," and he was saying that sometimes disclosures to the press are the Washington equivalent of improvised explosive devices, where you can maim someone else's career, or you can try to deflect the blame to another institution, or you can try to put a roadblock on the advance of a particular policy and so forth. So, the message that I took away from that was, yes, there's all kind of games that are being played, right? But the more you can read into how you're maybe getting ventriloquized by someone for their own ends, then the better, I'm sure you -- I mean we of course, I'll cut this part out, we get a lot of in the museum and the podcast, but you know, you guys will get it at a different level. But it's quite an interesting point, I think.

Warren Strobel: Yes, I mean when something appears in the Wall Street Journal, it can have devastating effects on someone's reputation, someone's professional or political future.

Brett Forrest: A business.

Warren Strobel: A business. A country's policy toward another country. So, you know, you have to understand that you and your colleagues and your editors in the papers are like -- when you sit down to write something or consider writing something, you can't forget that.

Andrew Hammond: And are you guys, because of the nature of the work that you do, or because of say contacts in your phones, are you guys ever the target of intelligence agencies, like foreign intelligence agencies, hostile intelligence agencies, counterintelligence? I mean, you name it, and I'm sure a lot of people would love to hack into your phone, read all your emails and steal all your contacts. I mean, it stands to reason, right? Is that something that you's are actively aware of? Are there countermeasures? Are there any recorded instances of it that you can talk about, etcetera?

Brett Forrest: I mean, I've definitely experienced some strange moments. That's for sure.

Andrew Hammond: Strange coincidences?

Brett Forrest: I mean there's--

Warren Strobel: Yes.

Brett Forrest: There's several I could share, but this one is a bit of a different nature. So, this one was when -- this was some years ago, I was at the Journal. And I was working on something related to this Russian oligarch. A very well-known one who had some possibly curious connections to folks in the Trump administration, sort of not direct but kind of roundabout. And you know, just trying to do some due diligence and make sure you know, there was nothing there. And I realized that I knew somebody from way back who had some common connection to that circle. So, and she was in New York. So, I went up to New York and she suggested this bar on Columbus Circle. We met there. Sat up at the bar, and as we were talking, the place got really, really busy. And we were talking for about an hour and then she left, leaving an open seat next to me. And immediately, somebody sat down in it. And I didn't look over. I just looked in the mirror, behind the bar, behind the bottles in the bar. I looked up and I saw that sitting next to me was this beautiful woman who had just sat down next to me. And I looked at her and I was like, "She's Slavik. Like, I'll bet money on that. And I will also bet my," I'm thinking this to myself, I'm thinking, "She's going to turn to me in the next two minutes and say something." And she did. She said, "Hi, have you eaten here before? Can you recommend anything?" And she had a bit of an accent. And I was like, "This is a total approach," because women who look like that, don't approach guys -- the guys like me. So, you know, it's always the other way around. And I just had to smile inside, and I talked to her politely and all that, and you know, of course she said she was Russian, which you know, is not an indictment of anybody of course, but yes, I walked out of there thinking, "Okay, that's not an organic thing that happened there." So, I don't know how that came about, but there you go.

Warren Strobel: On the cyber side, we had an incident about three years ago. I think News Corp, the owner of the Wall Street Journal has made public where the Chinese got into our Gmail and Google docs and servers and stayed there unbeknownst to our cyber security people for about a year and a half, and I don't know about you Brett, I was among the people whose documents got looked at. And at the time--

Brett Forrest: Same, same.

Warren Strobel: Yes.

Brett Forrest: Yes.

Warren Strobel: A colleague and I were doing a lot of sensitive and sort of groundbreaking work on the search for the origins of COVID, and yes, they'd gotten into that portion of -- I'm not sure there's anything super-secret in there that they couldn't have gleaned by looking at my reporting, but yes. I tend to, and I think sure you do, names of sources and sensitive information stays in my notebook. It doesn't go on something that's hooked to the internet.

Brett Forrest: Yes, and also for that Chinese hack, remember that they -- there was evidence that they were searching our in-boxes by keyword. So, they were trying to find specific things in our messages, for how long? More than a year?

Warren Strobel: I've forgotten now, but they were in there for a while before being detected.

Brett Forrest: Yes.

Warren Strobel: Yes.

Brett Forrest: Wild. Yes, I don't know, at some point, I mean we go through these periodic updates with our security just in terms of good cyber digital security practices. Like with your phones and your computers and all that. But I don't know about you Warren, but like I, from those sessions, I've taken away the basics and I try and do the basics, but I also feel like, "What are you going to do? You know? What are you really going to do?" because the people who are -- might be interested in what we have, are far more sophisticated at this than we could ever be. I mean how--

Andrew Hammond: Advanced persistent threat. Okay, well if any of our listeners are interested in your reporting, go to the Wall Street Journal, Brett Forrest and Warren Strobel. And how can our listeners get in contact with you if they have a story to share? You can find your email addresses on the Wall Street Journal website, that's correct, right?

Brett Forrest: Yes. Yes.

Andrew Hammond: Yes, yes, okay.

Brett Forrest: Yes, we -- each person who works there, we have like a little bio page--

Andrew Hammond: Yes.

Brett Forrest: -which is easily accessible, and then down at the bottom is our email address.

Andrew Hammond: Okay.

Warren Strobel: So, if you have a story, please touch base.

Andrew Hammond: Well, thanks every so much for your time. This has been a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed speaking to you both.

Warren Strobel: Thank you. This was great.

Andrew Hammond: Thank you. Thanks.

Brett Forrest: Same here. Thank you very much.

Andrew Hammond: Thank you. [ Music ] Thanks for listening to this episode of "SpyCast." Please follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoy the show, please tell your friends and loved ones. Please also consider leaving us a five-star review. Coming up next on "SpyCast." >> That the biggest story in the history of British intelligence over the last 70 years is one that's hardly been told, and it's the story of spies inside the IRA and the role they played in helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland. If you have feedback, you can reach us by email at spycast.spymuseum.org or on X @intlspycast. If you go to our page at the CyberWire.com/podcast/spycast you can find links to further resources, detailed show notes, and full transcripts. I'm your host Andrew Hammond, and my podcast content partner is Erin Dietrick. The rest of the team involved in the show is Mike Mincey, Memphis Vaughn III, Emily Coletta, Emily Rens, Afua Anokwa, Ariel Samuel, Elliott Peltzman, Tre Hester, and Jen Eiben. This show's brought to you from the home of the world's preeminent collection of intelligence and espionage-related artifacts, The International Spy Museum. [ Music ]