From KGB Spy to Trusted Leader

Jack Barsky joins Richard Lowe (The Writing King) on Leaders and Their Stories for one of the most remarkable backstories the show has featured.

A former KGB sleeper agent who lived for years under a false American identity, Jack now mentors and speaks on leadership, drawing on what espionage taught him about people, trust, and making decisions under uncertainty.

Jack Barsky is a former KGB sleeper agent, author, and public speaker. After years living undercover in the United States, he built a career in IT management and now teaches leadership drawn from his extraordinary life.

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Full transcript of the interview follows.

Richard: Recording hello and welcome to the leaders in their stories. Podcast I’m Richard Lowe, the writing king and ghostwriting Guru, and you can find me@thewritingking.com and ghostwriting dot guru. and I’m here with Jack Barsky, and he’s got some fascinating stories to tell about his life. I told him. It’s going to be 30 min long, and he warned me that’s going to be tough because he’s got so many stories and so much interesting things to say.

But I’m going to try. So, Jack, why don’t you give us a little bit of introduction about yourself? Maybe a couple paragraphs.

From KGB Sleeper Agent to American Life

Jack Barsky: Yeah, we’ll focus on some of the most interesting stuff, because the stories still evolve and get new ones all the time. So in a nutshell. I was born 4 years after the end of World War Ii. In East Germany became a Communist country. I was raised as a high, highly disciplined German, little good Communist.

and my grades in school and college were outstanding. I aced everything. and that, and I also joined the Communist Party, which was normal in those days. And I that is how I got came to the attention of the Kgb. They reached out to me in my junior year in college and studied me for 18 months before.

Eventually, when I had just finished my studies, and I was already employed by the University as an assistant professor when they made made me the offer. and for a number of reasons there was an offer I could not refuse. and so then I got 5 years of training and highly unusual.

The reason it was 5 years. It was base training was about 2 and a half years. I was supposed to go to West Germany. That makes sense right. But then it turns out that I have, and had extraordinary talent to speak other languages without much of an accent.

and that came to their attention, and they said, Wait a minute. Maybe we can send them to the United States. possibly even as a born American. So I got 2 more, 2 more years of training in Moscow. and and then, in 1978 in the fall. I arrived in the United States with a false Canadian passport.

and 3 days later I became Jack Barsky because we they stole the Jack Barsky identity. Jack Barsky was a real person who passed away at the age of eleven, and they were able to somehow get that birth certificate, which I used to establish myself as an American.

and then 10 years into the service. I I quit the Kgb. Because of I had a I had it lovely young daughter. who I didn’t want to leave too much of a story in and of itself. So I quit the KGB out of love, not for them, but for my daughter., and then I was eventually discovered by the FBI.

And 9 years later, after I quit and I cooperated fully. I’m now full full 100% legal Us. Citizen. and probably more patriotic than a lot of people who were born in this country.

Richard: Interesting. That’s a fascinating story. When you say given an offer, you couldn’t refuse. I hope it wasn’t the godfather version of that.

Jack: No, no, no! See what they recruited me, for. You must not force somebody into that kind of a job, because they were going to send me as a lone wolf without supervision into enemy territory. So I had to believe one hundred percent in what I was doing. I had to be very, very low risk to become a turncoat and low risk of defecting period.

And I was not. I was a low risk at the time. The offer I couldn’t refuse was adventure and traveling to the West that was not accessible to us East German citizens. and living the good life we had. Our own version of James Bond, and you know he hunted down Nazis in West Germany, but we also got the girls.

He drove the fast cars, and he lived in nice houses. And this is this is what I expected to find. In reality, the good life didn’t start until after I had quit the Kgp.

Jack: Yeah, oh, there’s there’s a lot of irony, and and actually a lot of humor in my story.

What Espionage Taught Him About People

Richard: Indeed, indeed. But now you’re a mentor and a public speaker. Yeah. And based on your intelligence past. And you’ve become successful in corporate.

Jack: Yeah, I, you know, based my my intelligence past. Help me with one thing exceptionally well. And that is what I call people skills, you know, put a big big umbrella and big heading over this reading people working with people convincing people. All this, you know, I read I and I.

I’m honest with myself. most strangers that I meet for the 1st time. It takes about 5 min for me to come up with a very generic assessment thumbs up and thumbs down smart, not smart. trustworthy, not trustworthy. There’s all this because I’ve been watching people, and that was a survival skill.

And as an agent. and my I built up in my subconscious mind is a bunch of avatars that my subconscious when I’m talking to a new person. Scans these avatars and finds a match. and it’s like people call your your gut instinct. This is actually confirmed by my friend the neurologist Antoine aid, and you know about him, don’t you?

Making Decisions Without Full Information

Jack: Off and on very famous neurologist. And anyway, that’s 1 thing. And the other thing is also I, I learned how to make decisions without too much analysis. which really helped me in my corporate career. Because I was I was my 1st real job in management was crisis management.

I had to fix a team that was falling apart, and it was the the infrastructure team that for for united healthcare. if that team breaks apart at a time when, when talent was rare, united healthcare would have been in great danger, and I walked in there, and I immediately made decisions.

This, this, this and this because I was so used to it. I was used to not having to discuss this with somebody else, because there was nobody there.

Richard: Right? Okay, how’d that work out for you?

Jack: I. Within 6 or 7 months I had I I had the team improved and my successor in place, and I and I went back home.

Jack: So that was, I mean, I was severely underpaid for that job. and that was a real real crisis to the enterprise.

The Shock When the Wall Came Down

Richard: Now I bet you that it was a real shock to you. When the Soviet Union fell.

Jack: The shock was initially when the wall came down.

Jack: That was one year after I quit the Kgb. But I still knew, deep down inside that Communism was still going to be victorious, even though in a moderated form, like more like a Socialist of welfare, state kind of a thing, but not raw capitalism. So when the wall came down and says, what happened here.

You know we had. We had the second best set of athletes in the world, you know. except the the females. Women talk funny.

Jack: Because of hormones. It was a huge shock, and it wasn’t just a shock for me if you paid attention to history. The CIA didn’t see it coming. The Kgb. Didn’t coming. Nobody saw this coming, and clearly not me. It was a groundswell that there was just unbelievable. And then, when the Soviet Union fell apart. That wasn’t so surprising anymore.

Jack: Because there was Gorbachev, you know, who wanted to reform the Soviet Union, and he was leaning a little more towards Welfare, state and Socialism didn’t. He didn’t succeed, but that was there was more gradual than than when East Germany went under.

The Chernobyl Lesson for Leaders

Richard: Right right. Have you seen the the Hbo series? Chernobyl.

Jack: Oh, my favorite, my absolutely favorite documentary. It’s so much of a lesson to even today’s leaders in corporate is if you lead with an iron hand from the top. People will not tell you the truth.

Jack: Chernobyl blew up altogether because they didn’t tell anybody the truth.

Richard: They blind, they blind, they blindly followed people in routine.

Jack: Yeah, number one and number 2. They were afraid to give bad news to the boss.

Richard: Right right, cause they didn’t. They didn’t want to get disappeared.

Jack: That’s a that’s such a such a great documentary. And I’m I’m actually friends, friends with the guy who was involved as a technical guy for the setup, and so forth. So, as I said, it’s it’s worth watching. It has phenomenal lessons that can be that are applicable in in every sizeable organization these days.

Richard: And the acting’s good, and the story’s good, and it’s heartbreaking. And yeah, one of the best docudramas I’ve ever seen in my life. probably not a hundred percent true, I know that they.

Jack: That’s why it’s a Docu drama, right?

Richard: I know they collapsed like the scientists, into one scientist, just to make it easier and stuff like that.

Richard: But cause, you know, can’t have a hundred scientists around a table, and that’s easier with one. Don’t the woman, the woman.

Why Spy Fiction Never Gets It Right

Jack: In general. In general, it is. It is also fundamentally impossible to even make a documentary about espionage and get it right, because it would put everybody to sleep. because the you know, it’s it’s just real. Life is different from what you can depict in in one to 2 h on a screen.

Richard: You mean? It’s not a James Bond movie.

Richard: You were busy out out in the background shooting people and picking up the babes and having a good time.

Jack: Well, let me tell you something. I have 2 things in common with James Bond, the initials Jb. Jack and and I did get the girl 2, 3 times.

Jack: I’ve been married 3 times to absolutely, stunningly good looking ladies.

Jack: Except I couldn’t hang on to any any one of them.

Jack: Very, very good looking children. As a result.

The Lessons That Matter Most

Richard: Do you interesting, interesting. So what lessons have you learned throughout your career that our listeners could apply to their own lives?

Jack: Well, the lesson number one is. and this is the foundation to for me to to that, I think, is the foundation for living a satisfying. happy, joyful life is. Get to know yourself. Understand who you are. Be okay with your weaknesses. Make sure that they don’t get away.

Quite get in the way. But use your strengths. Do what you like doing that way. You will be successful. You will like what you’re doing, and you will never have to utter the words. Thank God, it’s Friday, because work is not really drudgery. We all need to work right, I mean, with some exceptions.

But but that, and it helped me very much that my 1st job in the Us. Was hands-on programming. And I love this stuff. I you know I I could go. I I went home and did more programming on my my personal computer because I loved it so much.

Richard: When was that?

Jack: That was in the let me see, it’s only 8 mid mid to late late eighties.

Richard: That’s when I got started in the early eighties to start with digital equipment Corporation.

Jack: Assembly language. Oh, me, too! I I was I actually we. I studied assembly in in college. And I tell you what, this teacher was my favorite teacher, because he he did not had any textbook he. He told us to read the manual, and on day one he gave out 5 projects that had to be finished by the end of the semester.

A week later I handed him all the 5 projects because I loved what I doing. I was doing. I spent nights doing that.

Richard: Assembly language was back when real men excuse, quote, quote, real programmers knew how to program.

Respect Over Fear in Management

Jack: Yes, yeah, it gives you the power. What? What? That helped me, how that helped me in my management career. I had a deep understanding of engineers and specialists. This is a kind of a a set of people that are really very good at what they’re doing. very specialized.

And and I and I. I used to be one of them. So I was. I was really, really able to manage them incredibly well, you know what the most important thing is, when when we’re talking about managing nerds or engineers take a wild guess, love, they want to. They work for love and and recognition.

Jack: Money is important, but number one. 1st of all, recognition by their peers is very important, but if they respect you with having an understanding of what they’re doing. They they they will love you and go through the fire for you.

Richard: I assume it works the same way in a spy business.

Trust Is the Foundation

Jack: Oh, absolutely you don’t. You don’t recruit some somebody to spy on your behalf and your country’s behalf, unless they totally trust you. Yeah, because, you know, in that that relationship, and it sounds like an oxymoron. That trust is the most important thing in espionage. If the the Ktp.

Didn’t trust me they wouldn’t send me. and if I don’t trust them that they would keep their promise to get me out of jail in case I get in, I wouldn’t sign up either, so and then I was the one who broke the trust. Hey? So there’s 1 1 thing more powerful than even trust. and that is in loyalty, and that is love.

Richard: Interesting. I saw a movie yesterday called Salt with Angelina Jolie. She’s a deep spy, and she gets uncovered, and she gets in all kinds of adventures. I’m sure if you watched it, you would be like. That’s not the way it is.

Jack: Oh, yeah, sure. But you know, and I don’t mind. You know, I there is not a single scene in the Americans that depicts espionage, activity that is true to real life, and I loved. I loved the whole series. I even was an extra in it at 1 point very entertaining, but but it’s not real. Okay, but that’s okay.

Leaving the KGB by Faking His Death

Richard: Right? Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. Have you had any contacts from the Kgb since you left.

Jack: No, they, because they knew that I died. I when I resigned I came up with the second biggest lie in my entire life, the biggest one being born in New Jersey. Right? The second one is. I told him that I was infected with HIV Aids, which at the time was a death sentence.

Jack: And, interestingly enough. I’m going to now pronounce my German Nametrich as the name I was given at birth is listed in the, in the records that are kept by the German Government as passed away, having passed away in 1988.

Jack: So they they went to my German family and told me that that I had passed away, so there was no attempt to contact me, and when I came out in public and told everybody, Hey, I’m still there. That was most. Everybody who who would have had a grudge towards me was not with us anymore.

or didn’t have much of a grudge. So so there there was. There was no sense of, you know, coming after me and and and doing harm in some way. because this this doing harm takes takes a lot of super super agents, and they don’t have that many there.

These are! These are people who who like like the Secret Service, you know. If you get recruited into the Secret Service, you you are among men. You’re a superman. You have all kinds of talent and and abilities, and and they don’t have that many teams, so they wouldn’t not necessarily waste those teams on somebody like me.

Richard: Right, and I guess it’s called the Fsb. Now, not the Kgb.

Jack: Oh, it’s Fsp. Svr. And Gru.

Jack: Military intelligence which wasn’t, which was carried forward from the Soviet Union, did not get reconfigured at all. The Fsb. Was supposed to be like the FBI. But the Fsb is much bigger, and they’re doing espionage, and the Svr. Is smaller and do mostly espionage.

Richard: Yup, Yup! So, getting on a slight subject here, you might have some opinions on the Ukraine situation. Now any thoughts.

Jack: Yeah. I’m I continue to worry about an accidental release of the nuclear weapon, because the bottom line is that war is not winnable by either side. because the Ukrainians will fight to the last child, and that was something that and our American policy makers did not understand. The media did not understand when they said, Well, it’s going to take no more than a week than putin to march right into Kiev.

There’s there’s so much hatred. historic hatred between the 2 countries. For a number of reasons. I don’t want to get to into detail that there’s no way that Zelensky and and and the folks under him, all, all of them. As I said, women and children will fight the evil Russians.

So, on the other hand, Putin is is bleeding manpower. and now he has to get, you know, contract labor, so to speak, from from North Korea and some other places. Well, video.

Richard: The the ultimate in irony. To me.

Jack: Yeah, the the war is not winnable. So what? I don’t want to speculate. Zelensky is unpredictable. He’s he’s an amateur politician. He’s an actor. Okay. But Vladimir Putin wants to get out of this thing with his reputation as a hero, as a savior of his nation intact much?

He is an an extremely. an accomplished narcissist, if accomplished, is the right word. He, his goal in life is his legacy. He wants to have a monument built right next to Peter the Great, it’s called Vladimir the Great. And when you look at his behavior throughout his history.

it he’s it’s going all that way. So the only way for this guy to actually sit down and agree to something that would require him to go back to the Russian people and say we did it. whatever it is to to the extent he can redefine it.

Richard: Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, that that whole war is fascinating. Me, it’s turned really ugly with all this drone warfare and stuff.

Jack: Oh, yeah. But as I let me get back to the, to to the threat of a nuclear accident nuclear release towards the end of the Cold War there were 3 near near accidental releases, some based on misunderstood, based on misunderstandings, but there was also one that had to do with technical malfunction, and I guarantee the nuclear arsenal of Russia is aging at this age, and I guarantee you it’s not well maintained. There is no excellent in Russian engine excellence in Russian engineering. I’m worried about that.

Richard: Yeah, there’s question as to whether even the nukes even work anymore. The rockets still work. But do the nukes because they have to be. The tritium has to be fine. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t rely on that idea. I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. No.

Jack: But but you know it’s that’s what it is. And I, without getting political. I don’t think we should have gotten too much involved in that conflict with regard to, you know, feeding one side weapons and weapons and weapons without knowing what’s gonna but whether that’s going to help.

It’s just that blind anti-russian attitude. Russia is a country that has to be reckoned with, and one day Putin is going to be gone, and you think he’s going to be replaced by a Democrat by somebody who will take the Us. Constitution and translate it into Russian. No, it’s going to be another one of those guys. We have to live with them.

Jack: Quite possibly true, because Putin Putin knows one thing. If he he launches a nuclear mission he will be missile. He will be dead in in a few minutes later.

What He Wants People to Take Away

Richard: Anyway. Enough of that. So How would you like to? What takeaways would you like for people to get from this interview? We’ve done.

Jack: Well, takeaways, you know, and I I here’s the thing, I my. I become pretty famous because of my background and my unique story. but I want people to understand that there’s another side of me, and the side is that I was very, very successful in corporate in corporate America.

that there’s a there’s a now Jack Barsky, who has a lot of value that he contribute to an organization or to even individuals based on the experience that I’ve gathered through a life that 60 min. you know. Mark this, that I they said I lived 3 lives, maybe 4.

So I’m still learning, and I’m and I’m now benefiting from all the contacts that I have made because because of my brand, the smart people that I’ve I’m interacting with. So. And I’m sucking it all up, and I’m ready to share that.

Where to Find Jack

Richard: Nice, nice. Well, thank you for appearing on the podcast. Is there? Is there a way for people to get hold of? You?

Jack: Yeah. Just just look, look for me on Linkedin, you know. Just if if you want to find out more about my background. Just Google my name. There’s there’s there’s hundreds of hours of of the videos available there. And so you don’t have to go to my website. I will have a new website. But right now I don’t. So Linkedin is where I can be reached.

Richard: All right. Sounds good. Well, thank you for coming. This has been the leaders in their stories. Podcast as I said before, I’m Richard, Lowe, the writing king and ghostwriting, Guru, and you can reach me at the writing king.com and ghostwriting dot Guru. and stay tuned for the next leaders in their stories. Podcast thank you very much.

Jack: I tell you congratulations, you you you win 1st prize. Nobody else has been able to do what you just did.

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