Tuesday, June 20, 2017
A former Soviet spy, planted in America in the 1970s, comes in from the cold to talk with Mike Collins about the current investigation of Russian interference in the U.S., and to share a warning for corporate America on "the enemy within."
Questions about Russian involvement in the 2016 election continue to vex the Trump White House. On Friday, President Trump acknowledged for the first time he is under investigation, although one of his attorneys insisted Sunday that wasn't the case.
Kremlin meddling in American politics is nothing new, says Jack Barsky, a former KGB agent. The Soviets planted Barsky in the U.S. in the late 1970s. Over the next decade, he went to college in New York, worked his way up through the ranks of corporate America, and became a husband and father - all the while spying on the US.
The Kremlin’s goal, Barsky says of its current espionage efforts, is knocking Western governments off their balance in order to restore Russian dominance on the global stage. “Anything that could destabilize free and democratic nations was fair game,” Barsky says, including the use of “fake news,” something Barsky says the KGB pioneered.
But it isn’t just nations who have to keep their guard up. Corporations do, too, Barsky says, pointing to his own story of infiltrating the business world. That's a message Barsky will share Tuesday at a privacy and cybersecurity forum at UNC Charlotte's EPIC Building.
GUEST
Jack Barsky, author, Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America
EVENT INFO
Jack Barsky will be speaking Tuesday from 12:30-1:30 p.m at the Carolinas Energy HR Professionals Forum at UNC Charlotte. The forum is co-sponsored by Charlotte Area Society for Human Resource Management and E4 Carolinas.
More information, including registration, can be found here.