In a first, American spy agency CIA launches podcast to ‘demystify’ its work

American intelligence agency CIA has launched its own podcast, saying it wanted to step out from the shadows to “demystify” its spy work and help US citizens get a better understanding of its role.

Titled the “Langley Files,” the first 18-minute episode featured an interview with CIA Director William Burns, that has been widely published in the American media. Burns said it was vital to explain to the public how the agency operates, even while protecting its secrets.

Burns, who is trying to be open than his predecessors, said the CIA’s work did not resemble spy movies, a “world of heroic individuals who drive fast cars and defuse bombs and solve world crises all on their own every day.”

The former career diplomat said he never expected to be the CIA director, and he said his wife and daughters find it amusing that his daily routine is quite different from the glamorous life of spies depicted in Hollywood films.

But even so, he said, there was “no shortage of courage and skill and ingenuity among our officers.”

He cited two examples as recent successes for the agency, forecasting Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine and tracking down Al-Qaeda co-founder Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed in a U.S. strike last month.

The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies “were able to paint a pretty clear picture of Putin’s plans to mount a major new invasion of Ukraine, months before he actually launched that invasion on the 24th of February,” Burns said.

“That enabled us to help Ukrainians defend themselves,” he explained.

Burns explained that the new initiative was “reinforced” by a presidential decision to declassify some intelligence.

During Burns’ tenure, the CIA and other intelligence agencies have broken with past practice and declassified intelligence about Russia’s war effort in Ukraine as part of an information war with the Kremlin.

Burns also said the agency had placed a priority on China and set up a new center focused on the country. The CIA was trying to devote more resources to that effort and was recruiting more Mandarin speakers, he said.

CIA press secretary Susan Miller called the podcast “a major milestone” for the agency, representing “the latest in CIA’s ongoing efforts to be as open as possible with the public, sharing what we can about our mission, people, and history.”

Burns did not offer any major revelations in the podcast, and the two agency employees hosting the show posed polite questions to their boss. But Burns did mention a photo he has in his office that reminded him of the massive effort undertaken last year to evacuate Americans and their Afghan partners working with the CIA in Afghanistan.

“I saw our officers in those tumultuous, dangerous days at the end of last August take incredible risks going out beyond the wire at Kabul airport to help rescue stranded US citizens and Afghan partners,” Burns said.

Burns said the CIA’s intelligence gathering and analysis were shaped by ingenuity, dedication and remaining “apolitical.”

“Our job is to tell policymakers what they need to hear, not what they want to hear,” he said.

As the CIA marks its 75th anniversary, Burns said, it “is an opportunity to reflect on what we got right and what we got wrong over those years through the Cold War and then the war on terror in the two decades since 9/11.”