EP 199: Inside the Mind of a Traitor — Former CIA Officer Bill Costanza (Author of Treason, Terrorism and Betrayal)

So Bill, you spent 25 years working intelligence.

You, what a service you've had.

When did you first realize then that the conventional explanations for treason and terrorism weren't really telling the whole story?

story?Uh, I think, you know, after, after that career, I had sort of certain ideas of, of the process and, you know, dealing with human behavior as an operations officer, that's basically 90% of your job.

Maybe 70% of your job, 30% paperwork.

But, um, uh, but you're, you're-- y- you come into that job with certain perspectives of human behavior, and you interact with humans over time.

And I think, you know, in that particular job, you really come across a wide spectrum of types of people that you're, that you're, that you're dealing with.

I think, you know, to, to backtrack a little bit, how did I even get that job? And before I was hired, I had worked, uh, as a, uh, custody investigator in a court system in, in Chicago area.

And so my job was to go out and assess, you know, in child custody cases, you know, the, the parents and the child and, you know, and make a, a recommendation to the court on where's the best place that this child should be if they're fighting for custody.

And I learned a lot about human behavior then.

I mean, what's the most important thing in a pa- in, you know, a parent's life is, is they're fighting for custody of their child.

And, and so you see the whole range of emotions.

And I think I was hired because I had that experience, um, because they knew, you know, as being an operations officer, that's, that's sort of like, you know, the, the key element that, that, that, that, that they look for, a sort of a, an understanding of, of human behavior.

But even with that experience, uh, get into the academic world-- 'cause my undergraduate was in, I was pre-med and, and had a degree in psychology.

And, uh, but I even-- But then, you know, when I got my doctorate after my career, most of the psychology that I learned, you know, in the '70s really wasn't holding up, you know, theoretically.

And, um, and so with my, you know, doctoral chairman, he sort of, you know, reminded me that most of the stuff from the '70s was, was artifact, and it's really doesn't, you know, uh, you know, stay, uh, you know, theoretically founded, you know, in current environment.

So I knew that there's a way to sort of broaden explanations of human behavior and that there are other tools, other perspectives that can help create a more holistic view of an individual.

Because basically, you wanna find out, you know, it doesn't matter really what we think.

It's we're trying to get into the mind of the other person and see how they think and how they make decisions and how they sort of look at the world.

And then we'll be able to, you know, be able to predict what they, what they might, what they might do and what they can't do and, and so forth.

So it's just basically opening up the aperture and letting in, you know, different ideas and different lenses to sort of-

Mm-hmm

... you know, try to shine a light on some of the, uh, ways that, you know, people behave that we might not understand.

We might dismiss because it's just sort of outside of our experience, you know? But, um, that's, that's sort of like the whole idea of, uh, really getting down to truly understanding an individual's pathway.

Bill, I was, um, watching, um...