Senior CIA Officer on Russia | Legendary Case Officer and Chief of Station | Glenn Corn
Combat Story
Ryan Fugit
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2024
⏱️ 128 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today I’m so excited to share this Combat Story with a legend from the CIA spanning the First Cold War battling the Soviet Union, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the Counterterrorism refocus, and then the second Cold War with Putin’s Russia: Glenn Corn.
Glenn recently retired after 34 years of US government service that included time with the Army and State Department but, primarily, was with the CIA as Case Officer, Russia expert, and multiple time Chief of Station in some of the most important countries in the world for America’s security.
In this interview, we delve into Glenn’s experience at the Agency, to include close calls, lessons learned, his command of foreign languages (Glenn’s a fluent Russian speaker) and where the Agency is going today, but we spend the entire second half digging into everything Russia, to include Putin’s motivations, Navalny’s death, the experience of the Russian people from the late 1980s until today, and what it would take for Putin’s reign to finally stop and give the Russian people a just leader.
I’m good friends with Glenn’s brother, Gavin, who was sitting just off-screen during this interview, who also spent many years in government service with the Department of Justice. They come from a family that has given so much to this country and I’m so excited for you all to hear Glenn’s story for the first time.
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👇 Show Notes:
00:00 - Introduction
00:56 - Guest Profile:
02:13 - Start of Interview
2:43 - Getting Out of CIA
04:46 - Thoughts To Return To Russia
06:09 - Interest In Government Service
10:00 - Learning Languages
15:29 - Time in Soviet Union
19:55 - Challenging Moments
22:19 - Bolotor Ad
23:32 - Experience During 9/11
27:26 - Children Going Into the Military
29:00 - Mentorships
33:10 - Losing Teammates
40:37 - Planning and Executing
45:25 - Misunderstandings of the Agency
47:18 - First Time Outside the Wire
50:44 - Give Legacy Ad
52:05 - Aftermath of the First Mission
59:27 - Pre and Post 9/11 CIA
01:05:31 - Toughest Moments
01:08:34 - Thoughts on Russia/Soviet Union
01:23:47 - American/Russian Proxy Wars
01:29:50 - Second Cold War
01:34:11 - Russian Propaganda
01:41:50 - Putin's Motivations
01:45:29 - Theoretical Changes in Russia
01:56:04 - Glenn's Book
02:01:54 - Sentimental Items
02:030:06 - Would You Do It All Again?
02:04:57 - Listener Feedback
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | With my first assignment, I got somewhere and they were just, okay, sorry, but we got to we got to deploy in an hour. |
| 0:07.0 | And then you're just out the door. |
| 0:09.0 | And yes, your heart's in your mouth, then you're nervous, and you're scared. |
| 0:13.6 | And by the way, to the very end, there were times when, |
| 0:15.7 | you know, I never, like it never went away that, |
| 0:18.7 | that I'm not like fear that something's going to go bad. |
| 0:22.4 | And especially when you work in certain environments. fear that something's going to go bad. |
| 0:22.5 | And especially when you work in certain environments |
| 0:25.4 | where the locals are very good at creating cases, |
| 0:30.0 | right, so double agent operations, dangles. You have to always know that you could be |
| 0:35.1 | on the wrong end of a very well-planned operation. |
| 0:38.0 | Welcome to Combat Story I'm Ryan Puget and I serve war zone tours as an Army |
| 0:42.2 | attack helicopter pilot and CIA officer over a 15 year career. |
| 0:46.0 | I'm fascinated by the experiences of the elite in combat. |
| 0:49.0 | On this show I interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their |
| 0:54.0 | front lines. This is combat story. Today I am so excited to share this combat |
| 0:58.8 | story with a legend from the CIA spanning the first Cold War battling the Soviet Union to the fall of the Berlin Wall, |
| 1:05.2 | to the Counterterrorism Refocus, and then the Second Cold War with Putin's Russia, Glenn |
| 1:10.5 | recently retired after 34 years of US government service |
| 1:13.6 | that included time with the Army and State Department but primarily was with |
| 1:17.5 | the CIA as a case officer, Russia expert, and multiple time chief of station, |
| 1:21.7 | some of the most important countries around the world for America's security. |
... |
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