Podcast: The spy who fooled me

Until about a year and a half ago, we did not talk about masks.

Ian Bremmer:

We obviously knew that other countries were using them.

Jonna Mendez:

When you are wearing some of these outfits for the first time, it's a little nervousness.

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer, and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. It's an audio version of what you can find on public television where I analyze global topics, sit down with big guests, and make use of little puppets. This week I sit down with former Chief of Disguise of the CIA, Jonna Mendez.

Jonna has got plenty of stories to tell about her decades of service undercover, like the time she briefed President George H.W. Bush in the Oval Office while in disguise. That takes guts. Let's get to it.

Jonna Mendez:

Until about a year and a half ago, we did not talk about masks.

Ian Bremmer:

We obviously knew that other countries were using them.

Jonna Mendez:

When you are wearing some of these outfits for the first time, it's a little nervousness.

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer, and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. It's an audio version of what you can find on public television where I analyze global topics, sit down with big guests, and make use of little puppets. This week I sit down with former Chief of Disguise of the CIA, Jonna Mendez.

Jonna has got plenty of stories to tell about her decades of service undercover, like the time she briefed President George H.W. Bush in the Oval Office while in disguise. That takes guts. Let's get to it.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of service, safety, and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

Ian Bremmer:

And I'm with Jonna Mendez, author of The Moscow Rules, and the former head of disguise, Chief of Disguise for the Central Intelligence Agency. I did not know that we had a Chief of Disguise. Do we still have a Chief of Disguise?

Jonna Mendez:

I believe we do.

Ian Bremmer:

You believe we do? Playing the same kind of role that you did when you were there?

Jonna Mendez:

I would imagine that it's changed somewhat. Everything has changed.

Ian Bremmer:

A lot of really fascinating stories about your history. But the one that I have to ask you about, have to, have to is that you were once in a meeting with former President George Bush Sr, in the White House?

Jonna Mendez:

Right.

Ian Bremmer:

In disguise?

Jonna Mendez:

Yes.

Ian Bremmer:

He was not aware you were in disguise?

Jonna Mendez:

No.

Ian Bremmer:

Until at some point in the meeting.

Jonna Mendez:

That's correct.

Ian Bremmer:

So how did that possibly come about?

Jonna Mendez:

Well, it evolved, that meeting, over some time. It came out of disguise division's sincere interest in mask technology. If we could do realistic masks, we could create scenarios and situations that would be wonderful from our point of view. But it went back to our use of stunt double masks out of Hollywood that Tony Mendez had initiated. They were used to...

Ian Bremmer:

Tony, your?

Jonna Mendez:

Tony Mendez, my husband, Tony Mendez.

Ian Bremmer:

Who was Chief of Disguise before you?

Jonna Mendez:

He was there 10 years ahead of me.

Ian Bremmer:

Did you guys occasionally not recognize each other as a consequences? It seems like something you shouldn't be doing.

Jonna Mendez:

We couldn't do that, but we had fun playing with that. I don't look very good in his mustache and wig. He looks less good in my wig and earrings, but we fiddled around with it. Tony was an artist. He was very creative. Some of that came out in that Argo movie. But anyway, he went out to Hollywood. He worked with John Chambers who did the masks for Planet of the Apes. He got very taken with those masks.

Ian Bremmer:

Very human-like masks.

Jonna Mendez:

Human like, that could convey a lot of emotion. They were not what we would call animated, but around the eyes and the eyebrows, there was some movement. So we started there. We wanted to make animated masks that were realistic, where I could sit and talk to you just like this wearing a mask and you would not know it was on me.

That was the beginning. It took a good 10 years of finding the right materials, working in some chemistry labs, putting together bits and pieces to come up with something that would serve our requirements, which was unlike the Tom Cruise masks or the masks that you see in Hollywood, the requirement for ours was that it would go on in 10 seconds. It would go on in a car in the dark without a mirror, that you could put it on and you knew when you stepped out of the car, it was perfect.

And the other requirement was that it came off the same way. It came off quickly, it collapsed down into nothing. So it could be stashed or hidden, and there was no residue. You looked just like you did when you put it on. That took some work because Hollywood could spent hours putting it on.

Ian Bremmer:

Putting it together, yeah.

Jonna Mendez:

And hours taking it off. When Hollywood, in the form of John Chambers saw what we had done with his technology, how we had moved it over here, they were stunned. So we started producing these masks and one of the first ones that came out was for me, and it was an African American male. So I showed it to my office director. Then we took it to Judge Webster, who was head of CIA. He said, "Let's take this to the White House. That is spectacular."

And I said, "It's not going to work in the White House because it's a male. I can't get away with this." And the mask that was made was a face that was donated to me by a woman who worked for me. And she was leaving to come out to California. And so she gave me, basically her face, took about 20 years off of my age. I looked very good in this mask. I had a great hairdo. I liked this mask a lot.

And we went to the White House. They were going long in the Oval Office in the first meeting so we were all gathered outside a big group of men and me, the unknown person. They were cracking jokes. And I was a little paranoid because when you are wearing some of these outfits for the first time, it's a little nervousness and it's the President of the United States. But when we went in and we sat in a half circle around his desk, and I was the first one to brief him. So I took some pictures to show him when he was Chief of CIA, wearing our more traditional disguises.

Ian Bremmer:

President Bush, he had served in that role before?

Jonna Mendez:

He had served in that role. So I said, "I'm here to show you where we are now. We've we've moved forward. I'm going to show you the latest new technology." He said, "Well, where is it? Show me." I said, "I'm wearing it, but I'm going to take it off and show it to you."

And before I could, he said, "No, no, hold on." And he got up and he walked around. He walked behind me. He's looking, went sat back down at the desk. He said, "Okay, take it off." So I did that Tom Cruise peeling it off as dramatically as I could.

John Sununu, who's sitting next to me in a chair, got very bothered by that because he had not been paying any attention. He was making notes for what he was going to say to the president. He was up next. Brent Scowcroft was there. Bob Gates was there. It was a great crowd.

Ian Bremmer:

This is a decent piece of cabinet actually.

Jonna Mendez:

Yes.

Ian Bremmer:

What did you see the purpose of having a Chief of Disguise as being in the CIA for American National Security purposes? This is the Cold War days, of course,

Jonna Mendez:

When I was Chief of Disguise and the whole time that I was coming up through the disguise ranks and doing the work all overseas, almost entirely overseas, in my heart, what kept me there all that time was the idea that we were protecting people that were working for us. And I always would take it to worst case scenario. And that was always Moscow because the people working for us in Moscow were in absolute danger if they were discovered

Ian Bremmer:

And their trade craft was very high.

Jonna Mendez:

Their trade craft had to be very high. In Moscow, it was so suffocating that environment to do the work, the KGG their surveillance, this embrace that they had us in, it was almost impossible to move. But we had to move. We had to collect intelligence. The use of disguise there was to let our officers step out of that surveillance perimeter, get on the other side of it, out of the bubble, and go and not meet face-to-face because that was too dangerous. Even if you were out of that surveillance bubble, it was still too dangerous. They would kill them if they found them.

So just to get our officers out where they could put down a dead drop or put up a signal, pick something up, put something down, make a phone call, mail a letter. Disguise would allow those things to happen. And we went to more and more extreme length with our disguises to let that happen.

Ian Bremmer:

Explain?

Jonna Mendez:

Well, this is...

Ian Bremmer:

What is an extreme length, a particularly extreme length, in the Cold War?

Jonna Mendez:

I keep taking this back to my husband Tony, who passed away in January. He's on my mind.

Ian Bremmer:

I'm sorry.

Jonna Mendez:

We had an operation that we wanted to do that would take one of our people down into a manhole. If you think of the beltway that encircles Washington DC, this was a manhole on a road like that, heavily traveled.

Ian Bremmer:

The Ring Road?

Jonna Mendez:

Think of the Ring Road.

Ian Bremmer:

That's what we talk about in Moscow.

Jonna Mendez:

Think of having an American walking down the Ring Road and dropping into a manhole. This is not a good way to go. So we came up with a new concept called Disguise on the Run, which meant that you can change your appearance while you're walking through crowds on the street in front of everyone. The more people, the better. The crowd is part of the operation.

So to demonstrate it, we set up a scenario in our buildings over by State Department where we had a long, long dimly lit hallway, and we put the office director at one end and we put my husband at the other end, and he had 45 steps and 45 seconds to show our office director how he was going to change his appearance, walking down a street. You had to imagine the crowd, but he's just walking straight at the director.

So Tony stands at one end. He's got a briefcase, a raincoat. He's wearing a suit. That's it. He starts walking toward the director. Now this is going to sound silly, but you have to hold your laugh till I tell you what happened at the end.

Ian Bremmer:

Okay.

Jonna Mendez:

He starts walking forward, sets down the briefcase, takes off his raincoat, but he didn't take it off any old way. He peeled off his raincoat. So he turned it inside out. He's holding the sleeves, and when he is out of it and it's inside out, it's a woman's coat. It's pink and it's kind of dirty and it's got a shawl attached to it. And he puts that on. He takes a couple of steps, pulls up his pants, pulls up his pants. There's Velcro. He's wearing black men's shoes, black stockings. He reaches down, takes off a shoe cover, takes off a shoe cover. Now he's wearing black Mary Janes. He's got two men's shoes, which he puts in the top. Now he's got breasts, pulls the coat together, pulls the shawl up, a gray wig, drops down, covering his hair, reaches in his pocket, puts on a mask just like that, has his briefcase, hits a button, pops open. It's a grocery cart full of groceries. It's inflated. It's a brown bag with bread, celery sticks. Keeps walking, keeps walking.

Ian Bremmer:

This is James Bond stuff we're talking about.

Jonna Mendez:

This is Tony Mendez, the creative guy that worked in our midst, thank goodness. So our office director thought, "Okay, that's pretty good." Now we took that to Moscow, but we didn't turn a guy in a suit into an old woman. We turned an American diplomat in a three piece suit out for an afternoon walk into an old Russian man who wreaked of vodka and smelled like garlic and he looked like one of these old pensioners that sometimes you see around. And he came through a woods and out of the woods walked out to the street. No pedestrians are there. He had a big heavy book. He opens it up. There's a very special tool. He reaches down, pulls up the manhole, drops down in it.

Ian Bremmer:

Now he is a diplomat.

Jonna Mendez:

He was a diplomat. He was an American Embassy.

Ian Bremmer:

I assume he was also an agency person undercover, being a diplomat.

Jonna Mendez:

He was all of those things.

Ian Bremmer:

So he had been trained in being able to do this very well?

Jonna Mendez:

Trained and trained and trained.

Ian Bremmer:

You could not have a diplomat, an American diplomat, a man on the street could not have pulled this off.

Jonna Mendez:

They wouldn't do it.

Ian Bremmer:

They wouldn't.

Jonna Mendez:

Well, they shouldn't do it.

Ian Bremmer:

Yes.

Jonna Mendez:

So this was the beginning.

Ian Bremmer:

Was it was successful?

Jonna Mendez:

This was the beginning of an incredible operation where there was a nuclear plant outside of the city. There was a headquarters in the city. We had seen from our satellites. They were digging a trench. We were interested in that trench. At the same time, their electronic communications from those two buildings ceased. So we went down and there was a communication cable and it was covered. It was encased in a gas filled sleeve, so you couldn't get into it.

But the man that dropped down into it and went in first, the first man in, the man in the Russian costume, took enough pictures to set us up to begin an operation. That was one of the most productive operations we ever ran in Moscow, intercepting those communications, and it went like gangbusters until an American traitor, Bob Hansen, divulged the secret to the Russians. So they shut it down.

Ian Bremmer:

That's an extraordinary story. When I hear about such some of the efforts of US Intelligence to go after our enemies in the field during the Cold War, some of the most extraordinary ones I hear about the Cubans and efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro exploding cigars, coconuts underwater while he is scuba diving. Were there efforts on the disguise side to infiltrate effectively to get close to Fidel?

Jonna Mendez:

I don't know of any particular efforts in that arena. I do know of those attempts at assassination. I know that they failed. I know that the men in my office said at one point, "If they want to assassinate him, they should get a professional." They were talking a mobster, not us. We clearly couldn't handle that very well. Our exploding cigars failed. They thought if the government really thinks they need to assassinate Castro, they should get a professional.

Ian Bremmer:

Because they said we weren't really in the business of assassination?

Jonna Mendez:

We really weren't in that business.

Ian Bremmer:

So how much do you think all of this has changed post Cold War? We had this brief period of time when it seemed like we no longer had to worry about these big spy versus spy issues. US Russia relations today seem to be every bit as bad as they were during the Cold War. China, very different kind of competitor, but unless all sorts of stealing each other's secrets, national security concerns. What do you think about the way that the world has evolved?

Jonna Mendez:

I think you could make a case that maybe the Cold War isn't over, that it's just tamped down, that it got muffled, that it got put into a lower level, a lower echelon. Putin was KGB and it shows. They're very heavy-handed. It's very coarse what they're doing. There's no nuance at all. He is a thug and they're behaving like thugs. They're going into our ambassador's residences. I'm in the middle of Ambassador McFaul's-

Ian Bremmer:

McFaul's book, yeah.

Jonna Mendez:

He was there 2012 to 2014.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, we've had him on the show.

Jonna Mendez:

I wish I had seen that show. I'd like very much to listen to him talk. But the things that they've done breaking into American's apartments, making aggressive moves with helicopters on Defense Attaché cars that are on approved trips out of the city. It's not a friendly place, but it's never been a friendly place.

Ian Bremmer:

Do you think that in terms of these efforts that we have to ensure the safety of our people and to carry out counterintelligence, are the Russians the most capable still today, or has it become much more defuse?

Jonna Mendez:

I think the Russians have always been so capable. They put so much energy into it. There's a Russian general Oleg Kalugin, who works with us at the Spy Museum.

Ian Bremmer:

He's written quite a bit, actually.

Jonna Mendez:

He's written quite a bit. The Second Director, it was the name of his book. In that book he said at one point that there were 50,000 KGB officers in Moscow. He's also said that there are as many, if not more, Russian operatives in the United States today as there ever have been. It's never eased off. It's never slacked off. It's absolutely still there. But you see they're working from different platforms now. They're working from electronics, from cipher, from hacking stations.

Ian Bremmer:

Now we're sitting here in the Nation's Capital right now. I'm a piker. I'm an amateur. I'm not involved in spy craft. If I wanted to disguise myself so I could walk down the street and look completely different, no prosthetics, I don't have anything special, no masks. What would you tell me to do?

Jonna Mendez:

I would tell you to just look it up. Look it up, picture of yourself, and just go up and down. It's not about your face always. It's part of it. The facial oval is a piece of it. But everything from the way you walk, what you do with your hands, everything from what you wear, the kinds of clothes that you wear, what you carry. You can come in to the facial oval and if you wear glasses, take them off, put on contacts. You can change your hair as easy as can be. You can put on a hat. W.

Hen we talk to some younger people, we talk about stereotyping, how people look at you, glance at you, and they make assumptions, big assumptions. It's like you have a barcode on you. People scan you and they go, "Oh, I know who that guy is. He drives that BMW over there. And this other guy? He drives that pickup truck." So to make that point, we have a baseball cap with a ponytail hanging down behind it. That's the guy that drives the truck.

You show that to a bunch of young people in a classroom and you say, "This guy's in front of you in line at 7-11. It's 6:30 in the evening. What did he drive in?" "He's in a truck?" "What's he listening to on the radio?" They know. "What's he buying?" "He's buying beer." "What kind of beer?" They know what kind of beer. They know that guy.

What we would like to do when we were disguising people is play into that stereotype. Give them just the handles that they need. They make the rest of the assumptions. So for instance...

Ian Bremmer:

Things they think they saw. They didn't actually see, their brain's just filling it in.

Jonna Mendez:

You take a diplomat, take his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, put a gold chain there, put too much cologne on him. Have him take off his wedding ring where you can still see the white band where he is married, but his ring is gone. You just start fooling around a little bit like that, add a tattoo, pierce some. He's over here. This is no longer an American diplomat. This is another guy. So there are different levels of disguise. Only a few of them have to do with putting on a mustache and a wig.

Ian Bremmer:

Jonna Mendez, lovely to have you on. Thank you so much.

Jonna Mendez:

Thank you. Good to be here.

Ian Bremmer:

That's our show this week. We'll be right back here next week, same place, same time. Unless you're watching on social media, in which case it's wherever you happen to be. Don't miss it. In the meantime, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of service, safety, and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.