[MUSIC PLAYING]
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
Thank you, guys.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you so much for
having me at Google.
I'm really honored
that you all showed up
during your lunch break.
Very cool.
JASMINE JAKSIC: And for
those in the audience
who haven't read the book, can
you summarize what it's about?
MICHELLE RIGBY ASSAD: Sure.
So the book, "Breaking
Cover," is a memoir.
And it answers all
the key questions,
like, how in the world
did you get into the CIA?
It talks about my
career at the CIA,
which was being an
undercover counterterrorism
officer along with my husband.
We served together for 10 years,
primarily in the Middle East.
And then it also follows us
after we leave the agency
and what we did afterwards.
So it's a memoir.
And the whole point
of the book is
to use my story
to inspire others.
Because I'm from a
small town in Florida.
And I come from a
very rural area.
And I never imagined
myself doing anything
remotely like the CIA.
And I eventually found out that
ordinary people can do really
extraordinary things
when you don't
let your fear get in the way.
And that's the
point of the book.
JASMINE JAKSIC: How did
you go from being someone
who wanted to become a
ballerina to actually becoming
an expert with
counterterrorism in the CIA?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yeah.
So people just assume,
you must have grown up
wanting to be a spy.
I'm like, really, no.
I wanted to be a
Rockette or a ballerina.
But instead, I
actually found myself
being very fascinated by foreign
affairs because of "National
Geographic" magazine.
I love "National Geographic."
And so as a kid, it
introduced me to a world
completely outside of anything
I knew from central Florida.
And I eventually
followed that passion
to the Middle East for study
abroad programs in college.
And then I went to Georgetown
for my master's in Arab studies
and got recruited out of
Georgetown into the CIA.
JASMINE JAKSIC: In the book,
you talk about your mentor, who
wouldn't even make eye contact
with you because of your gender
and would only address your
male colleague in the room.
How did you deal with that?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: OK.
So here you are.
You're from a small town.
You've been offered
a job in the CIA.
But now you've got to go through
a year's worth of training,
which is kind of like boot
camp for intelligence officers.
And so I totally had
imposter syndrome.
How in the world did I
get hired into the CIA?
What am I doing here?
Am I capable of this job?
And so during that
year of training,
because you're learning a
tradecraft, it's very intense.
And so you get
placed with a mentor.
So there's one mentor
and two students.
And so it was a male
student and myself.
And this guy was a
legend at the CIA.
And on the first day, in
the little tiny office
where we were meeting,
he introduced himself.
And I realized he was only
talking to my male colleague
the whole time.
He couldn't even look at me.
And I was like,
that's really weird.
And after we were done with
that hour-long session,
my male colleagues said,
well, that was strange.
And I said, did you notice that?
He goes, yeah.
He didn't look at you once.
And eventually, it came out that
this gentleman, who had already
been retired for about
20 years, had only
worked with women in the
context of being secretaries
in the agency.
And he could not conceive
of the idea of a female
being an intelligence officer.
And he just couldn't wrap
his brain around that.
And so I realized
in that moment,
OK, so I guess I'm going to have
to deal with being a little bit
invisible.
But you've got to do
what you've got to do.
JASMINE JAKSIC: How
do you transition
something that
can be a perceived
weakness into an advantage?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: So
I decided in that moment,
like, I can't help what
this guy thinks about me.
He has his own preconceived
ideas of what women may or may
not be capable of.
And he kept saying
things to me like,
are you sure you want to
work in the Middle East?
And I kept saying, yeah.
I mean, I've actually
spent a lot of time
already in the Middle East, and
I'm fascinated by this culture.
And he said, but you
know it's dangerous?
And I said, I get that.
And he admitted to me
one day that he could not
envision me carrying out
clandestine operations
on behalf of the CIA as a woman.
But I just decided, OK.
There's nothing I
can do about that.
So I'm just going to learn
everything I can from him
and just push past it.
So there are places like--
I'm sure a company like
Google, if you perceive
a systematic issue
or problem, you
can address that officially.
But the agency is not
one of those places.
So I just had to put up with it.
I'll show him eventually.
JASMINE JAKSIC: And
it's interesting
because I remember there is a
part in the book where you talk
about it's the HR department
that decides to place people,
especially women, at desk jobs.
And it's intentional.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yeah.
It's an intentional
decision at the agency.
Certain positions, they would
like women to be in primarily.
When you're talking
about field positions,
being deployed overseas in
the clandestine service,
there's a case officer role.
And they tend to like
having men in that role,
particularly in the
Middle East region.
And then there's one that's
more behind the desk, that's
managing the flow
of intelligence.
And so they put me
in that position.
And they said,
your husband, who's
a native speaker of Arabic,
he can do this field role much
better than you as a female.
And I was like, OK.
Well, they're the CIA.
They must know because
they kept saying,
these guys are not
going to respect you.
The kind of sources
that we're dealing with
are very hardened
terrorists and insurgents.
And you're just never going
to be able to do this job.
And so I thought,
well, the CIA must now.
And when I got to Baghdad
in my third deployment,
I'm in the field.
And I'm seeing that
my male colleagues,
other than my husband
and a couple of others,
had never been to
the Middle East.
And it suddenly dawned
on me, wait a minute.
How can these people
do a better job
than I can when I've
been busting my butt
to study the Middle East, and
I know this culture really,
really well?
And I finally
realized in Baghdad,
when I finally got into
the debriefing room,
that the CIA was wrong.
But it took me a really
long time to figure it out.
JASMINE JAKSIC: And
unfortunately, this is not just
at the CIA, as you know.
We all deal with it
in various forms.
A lot of my friends, not
just in the tech field,
but even outside, they get
sick and tired of the biases,
and they decide to
leave the workforce.
Have you ever felt
like doing that?
And if so, what kept you going?
MICHELE RIGBY
ASSAD: So I would be
lying if I said that I
didn't consider leaving
the CIA about 1,000 times.
It was a really hard career.
But I'm also a very
stubborn person.
So if somebody tells me
I can't do something,
or I'm told I'm not good
enough, or I'm pushed aside,
there's something deep
inside me that just
wants to prove everybody wrong.
And so I think that
determination to win
is what kept me in there,
kept me in the role.
JASMINE JAKSIC: Based
on your experience,
what advice would
you give to women
who feel somewhat
marginalized in their role?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
So it's really tough
to be completely
underestimated all the time.
But at the same time,
it can be useful,
especially in the agency,
when you're dealing
with counterterrorism issues.
There are a lot of
experiences in which it
was good to be underestimated.
So meeting with
special cases where
they thought we could be dealing
with a double agent, what
was really useful was walking
to a meeting with an individual
from a different culture--
some were from the Middle East.
Some were from
different cultures--
who essentially thought
that I didn't know anything.
And so I used that to my
advantage in those meetings.
And so I would get
people to open up to me,
not realizing what
they were doing.
So being underestimated--
you can't help what
other people think about you.
You have no control
over what's going on
in somebody else's mind.
But what you do
have control over
is the extent to which
you develop yourself
to a point you can
no longer be ignored.
So all those years when people
thought I wasn't intelligent
and couldn't know anything
about Arab culture,
I put my head
down, and I decided
to figure out how to do this
job better than anybody else.
I mean, I just decided,
I've got to figure out
how to be a really good
intelligence officer.
And so I built up this
expertise over time,
a counterintelligence and a
counterterrorism expertise,
until finally the point at which
I demonstrated very clearly
that I could walk
into a debriefing
room with an Arab source and
get him to give me intelligence
he wouldn't give other people.
And then finally, I,
after years and years
of building up this
knowledge, could prove myself.
And then I could
use that leverage
to get the kind of job I
wanted in the CIA, which
was that special job looking
at potential double agents
and things like that.
But it's a slow process.
It takes time to become
an expert in your field.
But I would just
say, do the best you
can to become really
good at that thing
you're most passionate about.
And then make it so that
people can no longer ignore you
because you're so
good at your job.
JASMINE JAKSIC: This is a bit
of a loaded question, I admit.
But do you think you would
have ultimately achieved more
in your career if
you were a man?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: I know,
that is a loaded question,
isn't it?
I don't know, and I guess I try
not to think of it that way.
I'm the eternal optimist.
So even when I'm up
against something that's
a huge challenge, I guess
I feel like eventually,
on the other end of
this, something good's
going to work out.
And if I think back to
what if I had been a guy,
or what if this, it just--
I guess I try not to
think of it that way.
JASMINE JAKSIC: In
the book, you talk
about how sometimes
being open and smiling
can be misconstrued as
one-dimensional and naive.
How did you deal with it?
Do you think that sort of
assumption is warranted?
And also, does it
make sense for us
to put up a tougher exterior?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: So
you guys can tell, just
in the short period
of time we've
been in this room,
that I'm a fairly
outgoing, smiley personality.
I really enjoy
interacting with people.
And so I have noticed,
especially in an environment
like Washington,
DC, people assume
that when you're nice and
friendly and open and smiley,
you are not multifaceted,
that you're not intelligent.
And it's not people being jerks.
They don't even really
often understand
they're creating these ideas
about you in their head.
But I learned in DC
and in the Middle East
how to show other aspects of my
personality at different times.
So I learned when I was
in a place like Cairo
as a student studying
culture, I learned
how to stand up for
myself in situations
where I was being
taken advantage of.
And that's when the smile
comes off your face,
and that's when you
show the rougher
part or the more aggressive
part of your personality.
So coming from the South, as
a good Southern girl, where
you don't show when
something's wrong
or you have to be very subtle
in how you approach people
when something's
wrong, it doesn't
work in a place like Washington
or the CIA or the Middle East.
You have to find ways to reveal
the multidimensional nature
of your personality.
So I can stand up for myself.
I can get aggressive
when I need to.
And understanding and having
the confidence to do that
was something I learned
in the Middle East.
JASMINE JAKSIC: And
earlier in the talk,
you mentioned imposter syndrome.
And this is something that's
not tied to just being a woman.
It cuts across gender.
And you also talk about one
of your male colleagues,
who also dealt with it.
How does one overcome
imposter syndrome?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yeah, OK.
Has anyone in this
room-- raise your hand
if you've ever dealt with the
whole imposter syndrome issue?
OK.
I feel so at home right now.
That's so interesting
because I came to Google
thinking you guys all knew how
awesome you are all the time.
And Jasmine's like,
no, we feel it, too.
JASMINE JAKSIC: Yes.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: And
so imposter syndrome,
I think there's something
refreshing about knowing
that you're not the only
person who suffers that.
OK.
So I get into the CIA.
I've never known anybody
who worked at the CIA.
I've only seen it
in Hollywood movies.
So in my mind, people were
prepped their whole lives
to be CIA officers.
They're all martial
artists with black belts.
They all speak five languages.
They're all total cultural
savants who traveled the world.
And so you walk in there all
meek and mild and thinking,
I'm not sure I can do this.
And then you discover
how very wrong you were.
And you look around you,
and you're like, OK.
These are just regular human
beings here in this building.
The way that I dealt
with imposter syndrome
is simply by not quitting.
And much of the time,
it was just because I
was too embarrassed to quit.
And so I like to
tell people I've
had a lot of success
in my life simply
just because I hung in there
longer than other people.
The secret to my success.
And it's because, I
think, when you struggle,
when you work so hard to
deal with your imposter
syndrome, the process
of that struggle breeds
something really beautiful in
you in terms of your expertise.
When I had a meeting and the
guy sitting across from me
is telling me he's an al-Qaeda
emir, and he's telling me
he's been running
operations in Baghdad,
and something about
his body language
is telling me
intuitively that there's
something wrong with this guy.
And I sat in the
struggle for weeks
after this debriefing
trying to figure out,
why is it bothering me?
What about this guy is
giving me this bad feeling?
And after weeks of trying to
go through this debriefing
in my head, I suddenly
realized, this guy wasn't
acting like an al-Qaeda emir.
He wasn't behaving like
all of the other terrorists
I had dealt with.
When they walked in a
room, these other guys,
they walked in like
they owned the place.
They had the biggest egos I
have ever seen in my life.
And I suddenly realized,
this guy didn't have an ego.
And he was scared.
And when I picked
him up in my car,
I actually had a
moment where I thought,
this guy's gonna pee his pants.
Like, he was
shaking like a leaf.
And after weeks of going back
through the entire meeting,
this struggle brought me
to a point where I said,
I don't think he's
what he's telling us.
I don't think he's
an al-Qaeda emir.
I don't even think he's
in al-Qaeda at all,
never mind being the
leader of a cell group.
And it turns out that
after a couple of months
of intensive efforts for
me to vet his information,
he was never in al-Qaeda.
And so that struggle
brought me to a place
where I suddenly had
this confidence like,
I can read body language.
I get the culture enough to
realize when something's wrong.
And then finally, that whole
imposter syndrome thing,
it finally went away.
And it was like a turning
point in my career,
when I realized
that I was actually
really good at intelligence.
So the moral of the story
is just hang in there.
JASMINE JAKSIC:
You know how biases
goes both ways, like how people
judged you in Middle East,
we tend to have always
stereotypical ideas
about people from
Middle East, as well.
But you have spent a
lot of time with them.
You know them on
a personal basis.
What are some of
the misconceptions
that we as Americans
have against them?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
So the first thing
is that when you don't interact
with a certain people group,
you tend to have the
worst ideas about them.
And the thing that I love about
people from the Middle East
that you realize immediately
when you go to the Middle East
is how hospitable people are
and how they will literally
give you the shirt
off of their back.
The way they treat visitors,
the way that they welcome you
into their home or welcome
you to the country,
I learned what hospitality
was from Arabs.
And it taught me a lot
about being a better person.
So that's one thing I
like to tell people.
Another thing that
makes me crazy
is when I hear people
say things like,
oh, you served in
the Middle East.
It's that place
where people just
kill each other all the time.
And this has been going
on for thousands of years.
And it sounds like, oh, they're
just animals over there.
They just love to fight.
They're just warmongers.
And what makes me crazy
about that is it's
a fundamental misunderstanding
of the Middle East.
There's a lot of
identity politics
that exist in the Middle East
that are different than what
we have in America.
Our political
system here is very
different than the political
system in the Middle East.
And so what you
have, you don't have
separation of church and state.
They're integrated into one.
And so that creates a
completely different dynamic
in terms of identity politics
and fighting for control
over ideology, which is
fighting for control over power.
It's not because-- people
aren't fighting each other
because they just love warring
or they're just these animals.
It's that they're dealing
with a different set
of political circumstances.
And in order to understand
that, you really
have to look at and recognize
how different the systems are
that we're dealing with.
JASMINE JAKSIC: That's quite
fascinating because most of us
hear about terrorism and
terrorists based on headlines
that we get through media.
But you know them as
people beyond criminals.
And that is really interesting.
We don't get to see that
side of those people.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
The most fun part
of my job as an intelligence
officer, everybody
thinks it's Hollywood.
You're driving fast cars.
You're drinking Martinis.
You're doing all this
high-speed stuff.
But what I find the
most fascinating aspect
of being an intelligence officer
is the psychological aspect
of those interactions
with another human being.
So the way I like
to explain it is you
have created a relationship
with a guy who you
have nothing in common with.
As a counterterrorism
officer, your job
is to get insider information.
You need to stop terrorist
attacks from occurring.
So who are you gonna
be meeting with?
You're going to be
meeting with penetrations
of a terrorist group.
These are guys who
have turned on the rest
of the terrorist group and
have agreed to be the mole.
They've agreed to risk their
lives to partner with the CIA
to give you this intelligence.
So while he's a terrorist, while
he has clearly killed people,
he now is in a place that
he's willing to work with you.
If you mishandle
his intelligence,
if you mishandle his
identity information,
you could get him killed.
So he's risking his life
to be meeting with you.
So if I'm going
to be interacting
with this human being to
get intelligence out of him,
fundamentally, he
has to trust me.
And if I walk through
the door, and I'm
the opposite of what he's
expecting, as a female,
he's not going to trust me.
So how do I connect
with this guy
who has crazy,
hardened ideology,
thinks women should never leave
home, and if they leave home,
they should be completely
covered and have a male escort?
How am I going to
connect with him?
If I want him to see
me as a human being,
I have to understand who he is.
And it's got to be something
other than terrorist sitting
in a seat across from me.
He has strengths.
He has weaknesses.
He has his own motivations.
And if I'm going to work
with him in intelligence,
I have to know what
his motivations are.
Is he doing this for money?
Is he doing this to take
out the competition?
Is he doing this because he no
longer buys into the ideology,
and he's had it with
al-Qaeda, and he's
willing to risk his life
to work against them?
So fundamentally,
I can't do my job
unless I can see that person
and interact with them
as a human being.
JASMINE JAKSIC: You say every
agent who interacts with them,
they have three big challenges.
And in your case, you
have the fourth one.
Do you want to elaborate
what those challenges are?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yeah.
So your challenges,
as you're trying
to then make this
connection with this person
you have hardly anything in
common with, is first of all,
you're an American.
So you're the enemy
from the get-go.
And we're talking about
not all Middle Easterners.
We're talking about
these terrorist sources
we're meeting with.
Then secondly, you
work for the CIA.
So you're double enemy.
And then thirdly,
it's assumed you're
Christian if you're white.
It's obviously not necessarily
the case, but they assume that.
So you're American, CIA,
Christian, and then female.
So it's like you have the
deck stacked against you.
And so you have to figure out--
preparing for my first
debriefing in Baghdad,
I realized, OK, again, I can't
help what that guy thinks of me
when I walk through the door.
But I've got to figure out
very quickly how to make
this connection with him.
So I've got to take all of
his assessments about me
and turn them on their heads.
I have to absolutely
turn them upside down.
And the reason why it's
got to happen quickly
is because we're getting
shelled constantly.
And we're in the green zone.
And we've got a curfew.
And we've got all of these
external things going on.
So we have got to make this
meeting happen quickly.
So I walk in the
room, and I have
to be sure that my body
language is exuding confidence.
Even though I'm
terrified, I'm excited.
I'm shaking.
But I don't want him to
see that I'm shaking.
So I'm, like, deep
breathing exercises.
I greet him in Arabic.
I greet him using Arabic
phrases that show--
they're not [ARABIC],, thank
you, or silly phrases.
I'm using phrases
that demonstrate
I've studied Arabic.
And then I'm talking
to him about something
that matters to him.
So I've studied this
guy inside and out.
And I know that the guy I'm
meeting with has this huge ego,
and he feels really important.
So I stroke his ego.
I say, Abu Muhammad, I am so
impressed by what you have
done in the last few months.
You have been incredibly
brave by sharing
X, Y, Z. What you have
done has literally pushed
al-Qaeda out of your village.
I'm really impressed with you.
So I'm stroking his ego.
And making him feel
important because we all
want to feel important.
And then I got to show
him that I'm intelligent.
So I have to talk
about Iraq writ large,
my knowledge of Iraq, what
kind of a country Iraq is.
I have to show him that
I know specifically
how Iraq is different than the
rest of the Middle East, what
makes Iraq unique.
And as I'm having this
conversation with him, this,
like, back and forth, nice to
meet you, and this exchange,
I'm seeing his eyes
twitching because I am not
what he expected.
And so I know that it's working.
And so I continue this
dialogue with him.
And I can see that I am
shocking the heck out of him.
And about five minutes
into this exchange,
where I have confronted
every single mis-assessment,
he has this moment
where he just decides,
like, wow, she's smart.
I like her.
And I'm going to work with her.
And now we can get
down to business.
And now I have taken my
disadvantage as a female,
and now I've turned
it on its head.
And now he wants to impress
me because I'm a female.
Fine.
I can work with that.
If that's what we're
dealing with, fine.
And so I realized that
anyone can use this strategy
to deal with people
who don't fundamentally
understand who you are.
But you have to work
with them, nonetheless.
JASMINE JAKSIC: I'm going to
switch gears a little bit.
There have been a lot
of shootings recently,
including the one at
our YouTube campus.
Is there something that
we as civilians can do
to be more alert and stay safe?
MICHELE RIGBY
ASSAD: Yeah, I know.
That's such a tiny question.
Such an easy question
you ask, Jasmine.
So I think the most
important thing
is to realize where
you're most vulnerable.
Because some attacks are
a surprise, like this one.
And you can't plan for that.
And you can't really
prepare in many situations
for the lone wolf to crack
and do what this woman did.
However, I do like
to tell people
it's really important to know
when you're most vulnerable
or to know when you're
in situations where
if something's
happened, this might be
a place where it will happen.
So it tends to be in
places where, like, you're
at a concert.
Or you're at a mall
during Christmastime,
buying presents
in December, where
you're in large
gatherings of people--
you're at a sporting event.
Whenever you're in
places like that,
you have to just say,
OK, in this moment,
I realize that I
am in a place where
this would be-- we're just
target-rich environment
for a terrorist.
But here's the other thing.
It's telling yourself
ahead of time
that you're going to
have the right response,
God forbid something happens.
Because when an attack occurs,
you have a surge of adrenaline
that courses through your body.
And you have one
of three reactions.
It's either fight,
flight, or freeze.
And it sounds really
basic, but a lot of people
freeze in those situations
because they are so
overcome by fear, or they
don't know what's happening.
And so the idea is to tell
yourself ahead of time,
God forbid I am ever in
one of those situations,
I am not going to freeze.
And so sometimes, survival
is as simple as not freezing.
And the CIA gave us
training because a lot of us
were sent to war
zones and places
where we could be ambushed.
And the idea is that the
place where the attack occurs
is called the X. And you have to
do anything possible to get off
the X in those situations.
So they actually
trained us, find out
where the threat's coming
from, which direction,
and run the other way.
And again, it sounds
really-- like, really,
the CIA has to teach
you people that?
But yes, they do.
And actually, I think as
human beings, just recognizing
the potential responses and
being able to say, like,
you're taking your family out.
And you guys are
in a public place.
And you realize, we could be
a little bit vulnerable here.
Where are the exits?
So when I go to a concert,
I look at the concert hall.
And I already-- exit,
exit, exit, exit.
Where is everybody going to go?
Probably that direction.
Is there another direction
I could go to not
get involved in a stampede?
These are the kinds of things
I think through in my head.
Where's cover or concealment?
If something happened right
now, where would I run?
And so as a
counterterrorism officer,
I'm a little sick like that.
I think through these
things all the time.
But anyway, it gives you an idea
of what you can think through
in your head as you're
dealing with an attack,
like what just happened
on your YouTube campus.
How long did she
have her weapon out?
Did she brandish it
for several seconds?
Did she give anybody
a moment to respond?
Or did she literally just pull
it out and start shooting?
So the questions are, how
much time do you have?
And to just do anything--
I'm telling you guys, anything--
to get off the X.
JASMINE JAKSIC: That's
actually great advice.
As someone who has dealt with a
lot of people with ill intent,
can you even spot
them in public?
Is it even possible?
I mean, once they pull the gun
out, then of course you know.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
I think that you
could be quite surprised
at how much you can see
when you're paying attention.
I was with my family.
This was during my CIA training.
So I started learning how to
pay attention to my surroundings
at this period of time.
And we were in a toy store.
And this story's actually in the
book, so you'll recognize it.
But we were in a toy store.
And we were walking
down the aisle.
And I saw this guy crouched
down by the Barbie dolls.
And he looked weird.
He looked unkempt, like his
hair was, like, not combed.
Half of his shirt was tucked in.
He just looked super sketchy.
And he, like, made the hair on
the back of my neck stand up.
And so I literally
watched this guy's eyes
glom onto my six-year-old
niece and watch her walk down
the aisle in such an
inappropriate manner,
I could barely
put it into words.
In that moment, all
I thought in my head
was, pedophile,
pedophile, and grabbed her
and ushered her
through the aisle.
And I didn't have confidence
at that point to say something
because I didn't--
I was, like,
second-guessing myself.
Am I correct?
Is that right?
What could I say?
Like, I think there's a
weird guy in aisle five.
Like, what do you tell people?
Knowing what I know now, I
would have gone back in time,
and I would have gone to
the front desk or whatever
and said, there's a really
sketchy guy in aisle five.
He looks like a pedophile to me.
But, you know, just
letting you know.
So it's interesting because
I noticed something.
I was paying
attention to something
that didn't look right.
And so I think you really have
to honor your gut feeling when
something is out of place.
And the more you pay attention
to your surroundings,
the more you'll see things
that just don't fit in
or just don't look right.
And you'll be surprised.
JASMINE JAKSIC:
That makes sense.
Last question, and then we'll
move on to audience questions.
What's the most valuable
lesson that you learned
at CIA that might be
applicable to everyone,
including us civilians?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
So it really kind of--
it's the theme of
today, which is
you have to find a way in
your job to be authentically
who you are.
It takes a long period of time
to build up the confidence
to say, how can I, with
my unique perspective,
bring who I am to
this job or this role,
and to have the confidence to
say, I see things a little bit
differently.
Can we potentially
do this or that?
And what's nice is Google,
you work for a company
that really honors innovation.
And you work in a place that
kind of upholds that which
is fabulous.
Like, I'm jealous.
But the idea is to feel free to
disrupt because of who you are.
Use your personality to
disrupt the status quo,
to innovate, to change
how things are done.
Your power comes in
your authenticity.
When I tried to run an operation
like my male colleagues,
I wasn't doing a very good job.
But when I decided
in that moment,
I'm going to be Michele,
my smiley Michele
face, whatever, that seemed
so foreign to the CIA.
But when I brought that into my
job and brought it into the way
that I planned and
executed operations,
I stood out in the
best possible way.
And what made me feel initially
like an oddball in the CIA
is what enabled me
to shine eventually.
And again, it took me, like,
five years to figure that out.
And hopefully, it
won't take you as long.
But it is to encourage you
to be as authentic in what
you do every day.
Because I think that's
where your success lies.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So the question
is what do I think
about what's going on
in terms of terrorism
in the Middle East?
And is it getting
better or worse?
So we've done a pretty
good job of disrupting ISIS
from its stronghold in Syria and
northern Iraq, as you all know.
There's no longer a
caliphate, although there
are pockets of ISIS
in northern Iraq,
and obviously still in Syria.
Now, what the press is not
telling you very much--
I think there's just been
little glimpses of it,
but this is the big
insight right here--
a lot of the
leadership that hasn't
been killed in counterterrorism
operations is in Libya.
I think Libya is going to be
the next Afghanistan in terms
of a base of operations.
And so I think because
Libya's essentially
a hardly functioning country--
Libya, as you can
tell, is a mess.
There is a government,
but the government
has very little control over
what happens all over Libya.
And so things are going
haywire in the country, which
is why you have people smugglers
and crime syndicates sending
migrants across the
Mediterranean into Europe.
And now I think that the more
that terrorism leadership sets
up base in Libya,
the more you're
going to see a
marriage of terrorism
and the human
smuggling trade, which
is very lucrative in terms
of lining their pockets
and helping them
kind of recalibrate,
reconstitute themselves.
And so I'd say
heads up on Libya.
AUDIENCE: You mentioned
earlier getting
the motivation behind
why these individuals are
doing what they're doing.
And one of them
that struck me was
to eliminate the competition.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yes.
AUDIENCE: What kind of
terrorist competition is there?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
Yeah, I'll let you know.
This is interesting, actually.
So it took me a long
while to figure this out.
But there were a lot of
sources who pretended like they
were all, like, oh, yeah, CIA.
We're friends.
We're good.
We're gonna work together.
When in effect, they
had never intended
to leave terrorism behind.
They just wanted to take out
the other guy on the block
so they could be in charge.
So it's like a double
agent, but not in order
to work against
CIA, necessarily,
but a double agent to establish
their power on the street.
So they'd be like, hey,
that guy over there,
he's a really bad terrorist.
His name is so-and-so.
This is his phone number.
This is his make and
model of his car.
And this is the location
of his safe house.
Next thing you know, military
troops take out that guy.
Next thing you know, we
find out a year later,
we took out the
competition, and that guy
took over as head honcho and
was playing us, essentially.
That happened more often
than we'd like to admit.
AUDIENCE: I'm curious
about [INAUDIBLE]..
So I can imagine that
there are many sources who
are kind of coming to you.
But the case that
you're reaching out,
how are you finding the people
that are the best sources,
and then how do you
kind of turn them
into sources of [INAUDIBLE]?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: It's tricky
because so much of that I'm not
allowed to talk about.
I can say, because this
was cleared for my book,
people think it's so
hard to recruit sources.
And there's certain
things in intelligence--
like, it's hard to recruit
a North Korean because it's
hard to find them.
It's hard to recruit
Putin's inner circle
for obvious reasons.
It's not hard to recruit
in the Middle East,
especially for
counterterrorism operations.
It's not hard to
collect information.
What is really hard is
collecting good information.
Most of what we get is
fabrications or lies.
And so the better we are
at vetting the information
and finding the golden
nuggets, the better--
that's the hard part of the job.
And recruiting people who
are being truly recruited
versus using you to take
out the competition, that's
also the hard part.
It's like a half answer.
How do you like that one?
AUDIENCE: You were
talking a little bit
about developing those
instincts for spotting things
that you feel are off.
We have programs running
here around making
you more aware of your
unconscious biases
and how those can
be really damaging,
the assumptions that you
make about other people
can potentially
be really damaging
if they're based
on unconscious bias
rather than on
some kind of fact.
So I'm curious, as you were
developing those instincts,
how did you differentiate
between what
might be bias on the basis
of how we're socialized
in society broadly
and where you found
that your instincts
were really right,
and how you sort of made
those determinations.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Gosh.
That's a good question.
I mean, was it in terms of
understanding my own biases,
or understanding theirs?
AUDIENCE: Understanding theirs.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: My own.
OK.
Yeah, because we all
bring biases to the job.
Absolutely.
All of us.
And I think it's
impossible to completely--
we're human beings.
We're flawed.
But I think the extent to
which you can call it out,
and I think there's some level
of emotional intelligence
involved in that, and
being aware of yourself.
Some people just aren't aware.
And that's where dialogue
and debate with others
can be helpful to you,
you know, healthy dialogue
to help us each
understand our own things.
So I had to be--
if I'm gonna deal with
this guy, my natural--
actually, this is funny.
I would say my natural
inclination was to not trust.
But that's actually a good
thing in intelligence.
So in that case, it worked.
But in real life, outside of
intelligence, not trusting
anyone is a hard way
to live your life.
But I don't know if that
answers your question.
You're gonna make me think
about that for a while.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] skilled
or being tenacious and sticking
around, [INAUDIBLE]
opportunities.
And it seems like both
of those strategies
are kind of internally
focused, like being
really good at what you're
doing versus gutting it out.
Are there any ways, or
do you have any thoughts,
about ways to kind
of more directly
address some of the obstacles
that you faced in your career?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
That's a great question.
One of the things that I did,
because I had to find ways
to show that expertise--
you're like, yeah, OK.
Become really good at what
you do, and then what?
And so for a long period
of time in the CIA,
I was really jealous of
a lot of my classmates
that kept getting sent
to really nice places.
I admit it now.
Like, I can't tell you where.
But they were eating great food.
They were-- classical
architecture,
and nobody's shooting at them.
And my husband
and I felt like we
kept getting the shaft
because OK, one war zone.
OK, two war zones.
But really, 10 years of that?
And we kept doing the jobs
no one else wanted to do.
And part of that was,
OK, we were Arabists.
OK, there's a
reason why you keep
getting sent to these
places because that's
where a lot of the
conflict is going
on at this moment in time.
It took me looking
back at my CIA career
to realize by taking the jobs
no one else wanted to do,
we had developed this level
of terrorism expertise
that I would sit
with my classmates
back at CIA headquarters
when I was on TDY,
and they would listen to
my stories of my meetings
with terrorists and be like, I
have nothing to relate to that.
I've never done
anything like that.
I realize getting shafted
over and over again
was actually a career builder.
And so I also realize that by
taking a couple of the projects
that no one else wanted to do--
Jasmine and I talked about
this last night a little bit.
She did something similar.
And sometimes, you don't know.
Somebody's giving you, like,
the project no one else wants.
There were a couple of
occasions when I did that.
And I said, like, I've
got to show my skills.
And so I found some ways
to do these projects
to be unique and
creative and different.
And when I actually handed
it back to the manager,
they were like, what is it that?
You actually did do the project.
I'm like, well, yeah.
You gave it to me.
I did it.
So there's something about doing
the things others don't want
and knocking the
ball out of the park.
I don't know.
There's something to be
said in that strategy.
I know that's not
the only strategy.
But that's one strategy
that worked for me.
AUDIENCE: So in your talk,
you mentioned that as a female
and constantly
smiling and people
might think that you're being
naive and unprofessional,
especially in Washington,
DC [INAUDIBLE]..
And sometimes you only
interact with people briefly.
So what's your strategy
to [INAUDIBLE]??
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: I think
that it's really impossible
to do if you have a really
short interaction with someone.
They're probably
gonna still walk away
from you after a five-minute
meeting or a two-minute meeting
or an introduction thinking
what they walked in.
So I think in order to
change people's minds,
you have to have some time.
You have to have some
history with them.
I figured out how to make
it work in those debriefings
because it had to happen
really, really quickly.
But that was a very artificial,
compressed period of time.
We just had to get in that
room and get down to business.
But that was unusual.
I think that often, I'm not a
person that feels comfortable
being like, yeah, I'm smart.
I'm not one of those people
that feels comfortable
trying to self-promote.
I don't like self-promotion.
But I think in some
cases, you have
to find some subtle
way to do that that
might be against your
nature in order to survive.
AUDIENCE: I'm curious
if the CIA today,
is it different than
when you joined?
Or how much has it changed
since you've been there?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
I don't know for sure
because when you leave
the CIA, you can only
stay in touch with people who
reach out to you because you
don't want to blow their cover.
And so it's very tricky
about who you talk to.
And so it's not like I'm
still in touch with everyone.
So I am surmising that
probably nothing has changed
just because I've talked--
was that diplomatic enough?
Just because I talk to
women and men who served,
like, in the 1980s.
And I hear the same stories.
And so nothing's
changed since 1982 .
It probably hasn't
changed in the six years
since I left the agency.
AUDIENCE: In 2003,
the war was sold
to allies and the
American public in part
on the basis of information
developed by the CIA that
proved to be false.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yes.
AUDIENCE: To what extent
did you feel pressure
to develop information
that supported
a particular point of view?
And to what extent
did you counter that?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yes.
So we were there
when that all was
happening because we were just
baby intelligence officers.
And so there was efforts
to try to find this elusive
information that
just didn't exist.
There was a situation when my
husband's boss changed a report
to reflect something that didn't
actually happen in the meeting.
And he stood up and
said, that's not
what happened in the meeting.
And that information was of
such a consequential nature
it was going to end up in front
of the president and the White
House.
My husband basically got nixed
on his annual performance
because he stood up to his boss
and said that never happened.
So when I say the
CIA's a hostile work
environment, that's the kind
of thing I'm talking about.
So you have a decision.
Are you gonna do
the right thing,
even if it means that you're
set back in your career?
Or are you just going
to toe the line?
But just to be fair, that
guy was very unusual.
I hope to never work with
someone like that again.
I didn't see that
in other places.
I just saw that with that
particular individual,
a lot of fabrication going on.
But I wish that on
no one because that's
such a hard place to-- that's
such a awful place to be,
really.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: I've got
another question.
You keep mentioning your
husband as obviously in the CIA,
or was with you.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Was, yeah.
AUDIENCE: We see
movies all the time.
And I'm sure movies-- like,
we watch hacking in movies.
It's like, oh, I'm
bypassing the mainframe.
Oh, that's cool.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
Eyes roll back?
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: How true
is it in your life
where you weren't allowed to
tell your extended family what
you actually did
or where you were?
Or did you have a cover
story for back home?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: So
it was really interesting.
So as we were going through
that CIA recruitment process,
the recruiter said, be
careful who you tell
about the process you're
going through right now.
Because you can't
tell your 50 friends
that you're applying
to the CIA and you're
going through this
process, and then suddenly,
no, I'm just kidding.
Then they also, once we got
into the CIA and we got hired,
you are allowed to tell
your immediate family,
but only if you think
they can handle it.
And so there are
some people-- like,
I had a colleague in
Baghdad whose family
thought she was working on
her PhD in the United States.
They had no idea she
worked for CIA, government.
I'm like, how do you keep
that cover story running?
We're, like, eight-,
nine-hour time difference.
How do you do that?
I don't think she hardly
ever talked to her family.
There were people who were
like, yeah, if I tell my mom,
she's gonna shout it
from the rooftops.
She's gonna be like, my
daughter's so awesome.
She works for the CIA.
Or there was somebody who
was like, my dad's gonna
be watching the evening news
every night thinking he's
gonna see my face on there.
And he can't handle it.
So you have to make this--
because they now have
to protect your cover
story when you tell them.
And they have to do it
convincingly for you.
And if you pick up the
phone and you call home,
and they say, how are
things at the CIA,
they've blow your cover.
So you have to be
absolutely certain
that the few people
that you do tell
understand that your
life is on the line.
And they've got to protect you.
My husband's family, because
he's originally from Egypt,
were not American citizens.
And so we never told
them because we didn't
want to put them in danger.
I think towards the
end of our career,
before they passed away, I think
they suspected that something
else was going on.
And I think they were
proud of my husband, which
makes him feel good now.
But he was never actually
able to tell them.
I think at one point
he said to his dad,
like a month before
he passed away,
you know, Dad, I've been
doing counterterrorism work.
And he goes, I know.
Just shook his head like that.
So I think he figured it out.
AUDIENCE: I have an
interesting question.
What do terrorists want?
Like, what do they really want?
If they had a magic wand and
could make anything happen,
what is it?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: To
create this caliphate, which
they thought they were creating
in Syria, where they could
control this whole new
umma, the body of believers,
this political-religious
state firmly grounded
on their interpretation
of Sharia law.
And of course, the guys
that are terrorists really
want this to be
the woman doesn't
leave the home uncovered.
And the men are warriors.
And you give people a choice
to convert to Islam or die.
So their interpretation of
Islam is what you see on the TV.
And in their perfect world,
their idea of perfection
is this caliphate, really.
Yeah.
And the caliphate then being
used to then spread Islam
to the rest of the
world, and specifically
their interpretation of Islam,
and bringing that either
by missionary efforts or force.
AUDIENCE: So would you say that
in some ways they're idealists?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yes.
Absolutely.
AUDIENCE: So I have a question
about what is the reason
that you leave CIA?
And then what's your current--
how do you think your current
career or life compared
with previous [INAUDIBLE]?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
So after 10 years
of war zones and
working weekends,
working holidays, not
seeing your family
except maybe once a
year for a couple weeks,
being undercover, working in
places where you're constantly
looking for hostile
surveillance--
because we were in
places where there
were carjackings
and kidnappings,
and al-Qaeda was running around.
So it was like this really
intense and hard way to live,
where Joseph and
I are constantly
looking if somebody got an
AK-47 or an RPG aimed at us.
You just-- it's not
sustainable, that lifestyle.
And we were exhausted.
And also, at that same time,
I felt this spiritual calling
to write this book.
And I knew that in order to help
inspire others with my story,
I had to do it in true name
versus pseudonym, which
meant I'd have to
leave the CIA, and I'd
have to request permission
to drop cover, which
is a big deal.
And they don't have to do it.
So after 10 years, we left.
And I actually started writing
this book, "Breaking, Cover,"
a year before I left the agency.
And now I feel so free.
Nobody's trying to shoot me,
most of the time, anyway.
Yeah, I understand the
United States is still
a dangerous place and all.
But it's very different than
what our former lives were.
The fact that I can be
sharing these stories with you
gives me intense--
a lot of joy to share my
stories and inspire others.
And so I could not be
happier at the moment.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
very public events
affect your ability
to build trust
with your contacts and your
ability to do your job?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Public
events like speaking events?
AUDIENCE: No, very public events
like Benghazi in the news.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
Oh, sorry, sorry.
How do those events affect--
AUDIENCE: Your ability to
develop that trust you need.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Got it.
You know, it's really hard to
tell your sources these days,
trust me.
Your name will never get leaked.
I think there's just
been so many leaks.
So much classified
information has come out.
And it's made our jobs--
I can tell you, every
time there was a leak
and we were still
working at the CIA,
we had all kinds of sources
quit left and right.
Because once those names were
leaked, people lose lives.
They either had to get out of
Dodge, or they were killed.
So it is very hard these days to
recruit new sources because we
can't really--
I can do everything
I can to protect you.
But I can't help
what other people do.
So it's hard.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: So having
this picture of the CIA
as a bureaucratic good old
boy network, very [INAUDIBLE],,
somewhat rigorous in
their determination, well,
we've always done it this way.
And at the same time, the
terrorist organization
or something like the Westboro
Baptist Church meets the mafia,
are there any upsides?
I mean, this doesn't look
like a recipe for any sort
of improvement, even long-term.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Yeah.
I think that the CIA, there are
a lot of good people at the CIA
that succeed and protect
us every single day
despite this bureaucratic
organization that is still
living like it's 1960.
We're gonna need some serious
strategic and visionary
leadership to change that.
I don't see that happening.
I really don't.
I'm a realist in that regard.
Usually I'm an
optimist, but I've
been in long enough to
realize that it's probably not
going to happen.
But I think that the
world has changed so much,
and we're still pretending
like we're in a Cold War.
We haven't adjusted the
way that we carried out
operations to the new realities
that we're dealing with.
So I think that we're
not doing as good a job.
America deserves better.
I don't know how
to get us there.
But even having these
talks, I hope in some way,
will influence
some people to join
who are going to be visionary
people in the future,
and maybe bring something
new and fresh to the CIA.
AUDIENCE: What are your thought
on Edward Snowden's actions
and what he revealed?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: He put
a lot of people and sources
in danger.
So I don't have a very high
opinion of Mr. Snowden.
Let's just put it at that.
A lot of the programs
that he talked
about were not secret
programs in the sense
that they weren't this--
they were coordinated
amongst all
of the entities in
Washington that have
oversight over intelligence.
So it wasn't like a rogue--
they weren't rogue
programs in that regard.
The way that the
media makes it sound
is as if they were the NSA
and its own rogue program.
But you have
congressional oversight,
and you have this oversight
and that oversight.
So these programs were,
as I understand it,
properly coordinated.
But he released so
much information
that was so damaging to our
relationships with our allies
abroad.
I mean, all of our ambassadors
had to have meetings after that
where they basically were
told by the president
or minister of interior
in that country, like,
we can't trust you people.
You guys can't keep
anything a secret.
And so we're not going to
tell you secrets anymore.
So our counterterrorism
fight has suffered.
Our ability to work
with our foreign powers
on law enforcement
and migration issues
has suffered a great deal
because of that stuff.
AUDIENCE: Is there any
sense of responsibility
for if we weren't
spying on Americans,
it wouldn't have been an issue?
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD: Then
you get into the details
of is it spying?
It's metadata collection.
Then how are you using
it, and all of that stuff?
Yeah.
I mean because then
the question would
be to the oversight committees,
you thought that was OK.
But now we're telling you--
if you disagree with
that, then there's
a debate about should
we be doing this or not.
JASMINE JAKSIC: Yeah, I
mean, this was a delight.
Thank you for coming here
and sharing your experience
with us.
We really appreciate it.
MICHELE RIGBY ASSAD:
Thank you, Jasmine.
Thank you, all.
[APPLAUSE]
