Robert Baer

{{short description|American CIA case officer and author (born 1952)}} {{About|the CIA officer|the U.S. Army General|Robert J. Baer}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2013}} {{Infobox spy | name = Robert Baer | allegiance = US | service_branch = Central Intelligence Agency | service_years = 1976–97 | birth_name = Robert Booker Baer | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1952|7|11}} | birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | spouse = Dayna Williamson | children = 3 | occupation = {{ubl|Intelligence officer|Author|Political commentator}} | alma_mater = {{ubl|Georgetown University|University of California, Berkeley}} | image = Robert Baer 2008 (cropped).jpg | caption = Baer in 2008 }}

'''Robert Booker Baer''' (born July 11, 1952) is an American author and a former CIA case officer who was primarily assigned to the Middle East.<ref name="Time">Robert Baer [https://web.archive.org/web/20090619031454/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904953,00.html "Don't Assume Ahmadinejad Really Lost"], ''Time'' website, June 16, 2009</ref> He is ''Time'''s intelligence columnist<ref name="Time" /> and has contributed to ''Vanity Fair'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', and ''The Washington Post''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=36661 |title=Robert Baer – Authors – Random House |publisher=Randomhouse.com |access-date=2010-03-18}}</ref> Baer speaks eight languages, won the CIA Career Intelligence Medal<ref name="cspanjewish">{{cite web |title=Interview with Robert Baer (as uploaded on you tube) by Lowell Bergman – 2 hours 19 minutes |url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?322743-1/the-perfect-kill |website=c-span.org |publisher=Jewish community center San Francisco – retelecast by C-Span |access-date=12 April 2019}}</ref> and is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international relations, espionage, and U.S. foreign policy. He hosted the History reality television series ''Hunting Hitler''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.com/shows/hunting-hitler/cast/bob-baer|title=Bob Baer – Hunting Hitler Cast | HISTORY Channel|website=The HISTORY Channel}}</ref> He is an Intelligence and Security Analyst for CNN.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://edition.cnn.com/profiles/robert-baer-profile|title=Robert Baer Intelligence and Security Analyst|work=CNN|access-date=6 April 2017}}</ref> His book ''See No Evil'' was adapted by the director Stephen Gaghan and used as the basis for the film ''Syriana'', with George Clooney playing Baer's character.<ref name= "Halbfinger">{{cite news| last = Halbfinger| first = David M| title = Hollywood has a Hot New Agency| work = The New York Times| date = May 15, 2005| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/movies/15halb.html?_r=1&scp=13&sq=%22Syriana%22&st=nyt| access-date = 2009-04-15 }}</ref>

==Early life== Baer was born in Los Angeles.<ref name=ChiTribDemand>{{Cite web|last=Draper |first=Electa |title=Ex-CIA Middle East field officer a man in demand |publisher=Chicago Tribune|date=August 15, 2006 |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2006/08/15/ex-cia-middle-east-field-officer-a-man-in-demand/ }}</ref> At the age of 9, his parents divorced and he moved to Aspen, Colorado, where he aspired to become a professional skier.<ref name=ChiTribDemand /> After a fairly poor academic performance during his first year at high school, his mother, a wealthy heiress, took him to Europe where they traveled throughout Europe including Paris during the 1968 riots, Germany, Prague during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union.<ref name=Counterpunch>{{Cite web|last=Ketcham |first=Christopher |title=Unlearning the CIA |publisher=Counterpunch|date=October 23, 2009 |url=http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-08-15/features/0608150266_1_robert-baer-skis-passes|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151025115415/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-08-15/features/0608150266_1_robert-baer-skis-passes|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 25, 2015}}</ref>

==Career== Baer worked field assignments, starting in Madras and New Delhi, India; and subsequently in Beirut, Lebanon; Damascus, Syria; Khartoum, Sudan; Paris, France; Dushanbe, Tajikistan; Morocco; the former republic of Yugoslavia, and Salah al-Din in Iraqi Kurdistan during his 21 years with the CIA. During the mid-1990s, Baer was sent to Iraq with the mission of organizing opposition to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but was recalled and investigated by the FBI for allegedly conspiring to assassinate the Iraqi leader.<ref>Ignatius, David (2002) "Not a job for Kissinger," ''Washington Post''. December 20, 2002.</ref><ref>Turner, Michael A. (2006) ''Why Secret Intelligence Fails'' (revised edition). Potomac Books: Washington DC. {{ISBN|1-57488-891-9}}</ref>

Baer wrote the book ''See No Evil'' documenting his experiences while working for the Agency. ''The C.I. Desk: FBI and CIA Counterintelligence As Seen From My Cubicle'', by Christopher Lynch (Dog Ear Publishing), describes parts of the contentious CIA pre-publication review process for Baer's first book. In a blurb for ''See No Evil'', Seymour Hersh said Baer "was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East." In the book, Baer offers an analysis of the Middle East through the lens of his experiences as a CIA operative.

In 2004, he told a reporter of the British political weekly ''New Statesman'', regarding the way the CIA deals with terrorism suspects, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear – never to see them again – you send them to Egypt."<ref name=statesman2004may17>[http://www.newstatesman.com/node/147955 America's gulag]. By Stephen Grey. 17 May 2004. ''New Statesman''.</ref><ref name="American Gulag on Stephen Grey's Website">[http://www.stephengrey.com/2004/05/americas-gulag/ America's Gulag on Stephen Grey's Website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210119052229/http://www.stephengrey.com/2004/05/americas-gulag/ |date=January 19, 2021 }} By Stephen Grey. 17 May 2004. ''Stephen Grey''.</ref>

He retired to Silverton, Colorado.<ref>[http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/ex-spy-feels-at-home-in-mountain-town/article_4ca1c677-af8c-5c7a-8ee3-ac4a215061dd.html Ex-spy feels at home in mountain town | Wyoming News | trib.com] Retrieved 2016-11-14.</ref>

===Commentary=== In January 2002, Baer wrote about the events of the September 11 attacks in ''The Guardian'': "[D]id bin Laden act alone, through his own al-Qaida network, in launching the attacks? About that I'm far more certain and emphatic: no."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jan/12/extract1|title=See No Evil (Part 2)|last=Baer|first=Robert|date=January 11, 2002|work=The Guardian}}</ref> He later stated, "For the record, I don't believe that the World Trade Center was brought down by our own explosives, or that a rocket, rather than an airliner, hit the Pentagon. I spent a career in the CIA trying to orchestrate plots, wasn't all that good at it, and certainly couldn't carry off 9/11. Nor could the real pros I had the pleasure to work with."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Baer|first=Robert|date=December 7, 2007|title=Commentary: The CIA's Gift to Conspiracy Theorists|url=http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1692518,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071208204819/http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1692518,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 8, 2007|access-date=March 18, 2010|magazine=Time}}</ref>

In 2008, video interviewed 'live' by 'We Are Change.org' in Los Angeles about pre-9/11 intel, Baer exclaimed: "I know the guy that went into his broker in San Diego (on September 10th) and said, 'Cash me out, it's going down tomorrow'...His brother worked at the White House!"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Uot_R2Ee8|title=Part 4 – 9 ⁄11 Suspects – Robert Baer (Corbett Report)|date=January 23, 2019 |via=www.youtube.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bitchute.com/video/720p0gxlkdve/|title=The real Suspects of 911 (Corbett Report)|via=www.bitchute.com}}</ref>

In June 2009, Baer commented on the disputed election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iranian President and the protests that accompanied it. "For too many years now, the Western media have looked at Iran through the narrow prism of Iran's liberal middle class—an intelligentsia that is addicted to the Internet and American music and is more ready to talk to the Western press, including people with money to buy tickets to Paris or Los Angeles; but do they represent the real Iran?"<ref name="Time" /> Following reports of an attempt by Iranian agents to assassinate the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States, Baer told ''Die Zeit'' that he doubted that Iran was behind the attempt since there seemed no obvious motive and Iran had been more careful in past collaboration with terrorists.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2011-10/baer-anschlag-usa-iran|title=Warum sollte Iran so ein Risiko auf sich nehmen?|date=13 October 2011|last=Schack|first=Ramon|work=Zeit Online|language=German}}</ref>

Baer has long been a supporter of the theory that the PFLP-GC brought down Pan Am Flight 103. Later he began to promote the theory that Iran was behind the bombing. On August 23, 2009, Baer claimed that the CIA had known from the start that the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 had been orchestrated by Iran, and that a secret dossier proving this was to be presented as evidence in the final appeal by convicted Libyan bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. According to Baer, this suggests that Megrahi's withdrawal of the appeal in return for a release on compassionate grounds was encouraged to prevent this information from being presented in court.<ref>{{cite web|title=CIA Spook says Megrahi was freed before appeal humiliated justice system|url=http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2009/08/23/cia-spook-says-megrahi-was-freed-before-appeal-humiliated-justice-system-78057-21618329/|access-date=2010-06-05|work=Sunday Mail|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090906021911/http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2009/08/23/cia-spook-says-megrahi-was-freed-before-appeal-humiliated-justice-system-78057-21618329/ |archive-date=September 6, 2009}}</ref>

==Personal life== Baer has been married twice. He has two daughters and a son from his first marriage,<ref name=ChiTribDemand /> to a State Department secretary.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Ian|first=Shapira |title=How to keep your marriage going when you're in the CIA |newspaper=Washington Post|date=March 14, 2012|url=https://live.washingtonpost.com/cia-divorce.html }}</ref> His second marriage was to fellow CIA operative Dayna Williamson.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Pesta|first=Abigail |title=A Real-Life Spy Couple – Robert Baer and Dayna Williamson hid their real identities and spent their lives trying to be invisible. Then they got married. |publisher=Marie Claire|date=February 14, 2011 |url=http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a5800/real-life-spy-couple/ }}</ref>

==Books and media== In 2015–2017, Baer has appeared on ''Hunting Hitler'' (2015–2017),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.history.ca/hunting-hitler/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151010204441/http://www.history.ca/hunting-hitler/ |archive-date=October 10, 2015 |title=Hunting Hitler – Watch Online {{!}} Full Episodes on History}}</ref> and ''JFK Declassified: Tracking Oswald''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.history.ca/jfk-declassified-tracking-oswald/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170513145449/http://www.history.ca/jfk-declassified-tracking-oswald/ |archive-date=May 13, 2017 |title=JFK Declassified: Tracking Oswald {{!}} Schedule and Episodes on HISTORY}}</ref>

Robert Baer has never written or promoted a book with the title "The Secret of the White House", but a fabricated interview with him about promoting this book in Canada has been circulating on the web since 2012. In this fabricated interview the USA was accused of having caused the collapse of Yugoslavia.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://seecheck.org/index.php/2023/03/24/a-fictional-interview-with-a-former-cia-agent-has-been-circulating-in-the-balkans-for-a-decade/ |title=A fictional interview with a former CIA agent has been circulating in the Balkans for a decade |work=Raskrinkavanje.ba (BiH) |publisher=seecheck.org |access-date=31 March 2023 |date=24 March 2023|quote=Cupurdija claimed that he interviewed Baer in Canada, where he was promoting the book “The secret of the White House”. Baer never wrote or promoted such a book, nor was he in Canada at the time the interview was published. On the other hand, Baer did publish several books about his experiences working for this agency, in which he never claimed anything close to what the obscure author of the fake interview wrote. Finally, Robert Baer confirmed for Raskrinkavanje that he never gave the said interview.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author=Ramon Schack |url=https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Der-Staat-Jugoslawien-stand-dem-strategischen-Entwurf-der-USA-im-Wege-3378506.html |title=Der Staat Jugoslawien stand dem strategischen Entwurf der USA im Wege Ex-CIA-Agent Robert Baer über die Strategien der CIA während des Jugoslawien-Krieges) |work=Telepolis |publisher=heise.de |language=de |date=24 February 2016 |access-date=31 March 2023}} (fabricated interview in German translation)</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://en.azvision.az/news/26541/secrets-of-the-white-house-confession-of-a-cia-agent.html |title=Secrets of the White House - Confession of a CIA Agent |work=azvizion.az |date=24 December 2015 |access-date=31 March 2023}} (fabricated interview in English translation)</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author=Milos Cupurdij |url=https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv20n1/cia.htm |title=nterview with the Former Officer of the CIA, Robert Baer |work=revolutionarydemocracy.org |date=10 October 2015 |access-date=31 March 2023}} (fabricated interview in English translation)</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.moje-novine.com/vesti-iz-sveta/292-intervjuu-sa-robertom-baerom-kraj-jugoslavije |title= Intervju sa Robertom Baerom - Kraj Jugoslavije |work=Moje Novine |author=Napisao Miloš Ćupurdija, četvrtak |date=6 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120909190011/http://www.moje-novine.com/vesti-iz-sveta/292-intervjuu-sa-robertom-baerom-kraj-jugoslavije |archive-date=9 September 2012 |language=hr}} (origin of the fabricated Interview on a platform for aspiring young journalist)</ref>

==Media== ===Books=== * ''See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism'', Crown Publishing Group, January 2002, {{ISBN|0-609-60987-4}}. * ''Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude'', Crown Publishing Group, July 2003, {{ISBN|1-4000-5021-9}}. * ''Blow the House Down: A Novel'', Crown Publishing Group, 2006, {{ISBN|1-4000-9835-1}}. * ''The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower'', Crown Publishing Group, September 2008 {{ISBN|0-307-40864-7}} * ''The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story'', Crown Publishing Group, March 8, 2011 * ''The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins'', 2014 * ''The Fourth Man: The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia'', Hachette Books, May 2022 {{ISBN|978-0-306-92560-3}}

===Films=== * ''The Cult of the Suicide Bomber''<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.manyriversfilms.co.uk/pages/productions/the_cult_of_the_suicide_bomber.htm|title = Many rivers films – independent film production company making documentary films, investigative journalism, dramas, and feature films}}</ref> * ''Cult of the Suicide Bomber II''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.manyriversfilms.co.uk/pages/productions/the_cult_of_the_suicide_bomber_2.htm|title=many rivers films – independent film production company making documentary films, investigative journalism, dramas, and feature films.|website=www.manyriversfilms.co.uk}}</ref> * ''Cult of the Suicide Bomber III''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.manyriversfilms.co.uk/pages/productions/the_cult_of_the_suicide_bomber_3.htm|title=many rivers films – independent film production company making documentary films, investigative journalism, dramas, and feature films.|website=www.manyriversfilms.co.uk}}</ref> * ''Car Bomb''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.manyriversfilms.co.uk/pages/productions/car_bomb.htm|title=many rivers films – independent film production company making documentary films, investigative journalism, dramas, and feature films.|website=www.manyriversfilms.co.uk}}</ref> * ''Syriana''

===Television=== * ''Hunting Hitler'', History (2015–2018) * ''JFK Declassified: Tracking Oswald'', History (2017)

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * {{C-SPAN|92246}} * [https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/3-Response-to-The-Fourth-Man.pdf Dr. Richard Rita review of Robert Baer's 2022 book ''The Fourth Man'']

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baer, Robert}} Category:1952 births Category:21st-century American male writers Category:21st-century American novelists Category:American Cold War spymasters Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:American male novelists Category:American political writers Category:American spies Category:Cold War spies Category:Counterinsurgency theorists Category:Culver Academies alumni Category:Guerrilla warfare theorists Category:American historians of espionage Category:Historians of the Central Intelligence Agency Category:Living people Category:People from Aspen, Colorado Category:People from Silverton, Colorado Category:People of the Central Intelligence Agency Category:Post–Cold War spies Category:21st-century spies Category:Psychological warfare theorists Category:Scholars of terrorism Category:Walsh School of Foreign Service alumni Category:War on terror Category:21st-century American memoirists Category:Criticism of the official accounts of the September 11 attacks Category:People in counterterrorism