Apr 1, 2022

In this OODAcast, we talk with Jim Lawler who is a Senior
Partner at MDO Group, which provides HUMINT training to the
Intelligence Community and the commercial sector focused on WMD,
CI, technical and cyber issues. Mr. Lawler is a noted speaker on
the Insider Threat in government and industry. Prior to this, Mr.
Lawler served for 25 years as a CIA operations officer in various
international posts and as Chief of the Counterproliferation
Division’s Special Activities Unit.  We talk with Jim about
his career in intelligence and national security, his views on the
current threats including some of his fictionalized accounts in his
novels, and his most notable intelligence operation; the A.Q. Khan
nuclear takedown.

Mr. Lawler was a member of CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service
(SIS-3) from 1998 until his retirement in 2005. He was a specialist
in the recruitment of foreign spies, and he spent well over half of
his CIA career battling the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. As Chief of the A.Q. Khan Nuclear Takedown Team, which
resulted in the disruption of the most dangerous nuclear weapons
network in history, Mr. Lawler was the recipient of one of the
CIA’s Trailblazer Awards in 2007, marking the 60th anniversary of
CIA. In 2004, former DCI George Tenet sent Mr. Lawler a note which
stated, “Jim, what you and your team have achieved will rank up
there as one of the most spectacular intelligence accomplishments
in the history of the CIA. It occurred because of your exemplary
leadership. Not only are we in the process of taking down a
network, we are also in the process of disarming a country as a
result of your fine work. With respect, George J. Tenet” And former
DDCI John McLaughlin noted that the effort was “the closest thing
I’ve ever seen to a perfect intelligence operation.”

Mr. Lawler also received the Director’s Award from DCI George
Tenet, the U.S. Intelligence Community’s HUMINT Collector of the
Year Award, and the Donovan Award from the CIA’s Deputy Director of
Operations.

He is a graduate of Rice University, Houston, Texas; and the
University of Texas School of Law. He is married to Ellen and has
three children and seven grandsons. He has completed two novels:
“Living Lies,” an espionage story of the Iranian nuclear weapons
program, and “In the Twinkling of an Eye,” about recruiting a spy
at the heart of a devastating covert Russian-North Korean genetic
bioweapons program. Both have been cleared by the CIA’s Publication
Review Board and are to be published in 2021. He is currently
writing his third espionage novel, “The Traitor’s Tale,” which is
about treachery and treason deep within the CIA.

Additional Resources:

Jim’s book Living Lies

Book Recommendations: