Constitutions and bills of rights. Exactly and exactly. That is what makes this country GREAT. NOT baseball or football guys. You can ask that questions to all immigrants and especially the educated ones. Fascinating story this guy has.

I could listen to this guy talk all day. Fascinating. And he's super sharp.

Very nice !

I just finished his book and I could not put it down. I couldn't SLEEP until the book was finished. I highly recommend it. I read tons of autobiographies and biographies, but this one really stood out as a story that is just not typical of this world, as only a former KGB spy could tell it. He reveals everything and nothing. You feel his heart beating, yet he does not share many words from the reports on which he worked so hard. Then again, if he had relinquished those reports in his book, it would not have been such a passionate read. One day, I am sure I shall read it once again. I still, however, feel badly for Gerlinde, the woman he loved but ultimately left behind for his life in America. She received his pay, exotic trinkets and after his fake "death" from AIDS, the $60,000 he had in his account, and his son. However, all she wanted was his love and his time and in the end, she's the one with the broken heart.

The way he constantly scans the room. awesome.

Thank you for mentioning how important and wonderful our United States Constitution is!! I agree!

His accent is very slight , but he could probably pass as being Dutch Pennsylvanian or something. Yes there are places in the US german is still spoken.

There needs to be a film on this guy

the part where the American Intelligence officer and jack barsky start talking about a situation they both knew about and had different perspective of is crazy. Even Barksy is surprised when the American intelligence officer starts to explain his knowledge of the situation.

I myself had a cat who was brought out of east Germany. That cat is still alive today!

That killer stare pierced right through my soul 9:33

Jack's natural self had played a very important roll in every situation of his life.

I almost cried when he said that the best part about America was its constitution. 41:56

He choosed the good side! Really cool story!! Thanks for showing it!

The way he Chuckled when you said “he didn’t kill a bunch of people” lmaooo boi I’m rolllin 😂😂🤣 JACK IS A WHOLE CARRER LIFETIME HARDEN SAVAGE!

The Americans tv series was fantastic! And thanks for posting

Mr Brasky is fully switched on even now. Maintain safe distance.

Great channel:interesting times for sure, thanks for posting

The book was absolutely amazing!!!

In 1981 I climbed some wooden stairs to a public platform which looked over the Berlin Wall into East Berlin. The “green belt” just over the wall was barren ground covered with barbed wire, ditches, etc. Then the street running parallel to the wall was completely empty. Then every building across the street was boarded up so that no one could live or work there. There was nothing of color whatsoever. No people. No advertisements. No curtains or shutters. No painted front doors. No business signs. No tree or flowers or grass or even weeds. No street names. As far as I could see it was completely devoid of humanity. Except for the East German soldiers standing watch over their fellow citizens from their crows nest, one with a 35mm camera with huge telephoto lens. All the others held rifles at ready with their fingers near the trigger.

I went into East Germany within months of wall coming down. My initial reaction was everything is a shade of gray. I kept looking for color. I also was shocked at empty shelves in stores. Jack and I both reacted to same thing.

Wow, this was an amazing video!

@13:00 I went to East Berlin as a sophomore exchange student, everything in East Berlin was grey, dreary and lifeless. Back in West Berlin we danced and partied at discos until morning.

51:00 the beer question at the end got the spy real bad- holy shit

It is the most fascinating story that I have ever heard.

His English is great, far better than my German or Russian, but to claim that he has no accent, you'd have to be near deaf, or an extremely careless listener. It's not just a few words here or there, it's almost everything being slightly off. He sounds like a German who was really committed to learning English, which he was, and major props to him, but you can't pass that off as a flawless American accent, and even his backstory doesn't really justify it. I know a lot of Americans who spoke a language other than English at home, but they speak English with an American accent, because you don't pick up your accent from your parents, you get it from your peers. My dad has a very thick southern accent, but I grew up all over the place because he was in the army, and my accent just kind of turned out like an amalgam of the most reduced accents possible in American English to the point that northerners only occasionally think I have a slight southern accent, and Southerners think I have a slight northern accent, or maybe I'm from out west. Anyway, my point is saying that you picked up a slight but easily noticable accent because you spoke German with your mom is not exactly believable. Regardless, I just got on Amazon, and bought the book, so excited! This is a badass guy!

I emigrated to the US at 13 with my parents from Uruguay, I knew extremely basic English with okay pronunciation when I arrived, within a year and a half I learned to speak fluently because of being in contact with the language all the time, and also TV and music (I already listened to music in English since I was around 7), was "upgraded" from ESL (English as a second language) to regular classes in English in freshman year because I learned really fast, I was congratulated by many teachers because I "didn't have an accent", some people are just fast learners when it comes to languages, and English is a pretty easy language to learn and pick up, especially with its mass exposition.

Liam Neeson vibes, anyone?

this is a great podcast!

love this guy. very real down to earth.

Interesting body language as he holds onto the fold in his lap in his lap.

I never realised how similar East Germany was to the UK. The Cambridge Five: mostly sent away to boarding school, joined the KGB. Jack Barsky: sent away to boarding school, joined the KGB. Actually, I know somebody who went to a boarding school in the former East Germany... Dun-dun-duuuuuun!

The interviewer's shadow looks like Stan Beeman

Awesome!

Never thought to look up a KZfaq channel... I’ve missed a lot by just listening to the audio show.

What a beautiful soul.

He still does have a slight foreign accent. For example the "what" at 26:27. Impressive nonetheless

20:23 In another interview, I think he even gave it in German, he said that he was almost captured once because he wanted to apply for something or to apply for a job, I don't remember what it was, and he should give the name of his high school or his middle school. And he didn't know the answer to that because the KGB supposedly hadn't given him a name for his schools, where he should have been. Here he tells a different story. So I don't know what to believe him now and what not.

All the former kgb ones have been turned into museum peices... Nice one

Hope all is well safe travels

Amen 🙏 God bless you Sir. Would had love to be trained by you.

The intelligence of this man is exquisite.

Audience had better questions than Moderator

26:48 A Future Government Agent was probably in that crowd. (I wonder if any other undercover agents were there.)

35:19 "Your Story Shifts Pretty Dramatically...." NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why must you leave me hanging computer!

Dang, no need to flatter the guy! Barsky does speak with a pronounced German accent. His story is fascinating enough without fawning all over him, Mr. Moderator.

God that bottle story, "only funny in hindsight," that's so real

Vince is a wonderful interviewer.

DAMN WE HAVE A FORMER KGB OPERATIVE IN MY CITY OF ATLANTA !!!!!!!!

23:14 Well, I've lived in West Germany for 38 years, and so have my parents and grandparents, and not once have I heard that we in Germany have beers with a screw cap. I first saw the American sitcoms that there was such a thing. This is now here, I think, but definitely not in the 90s or 80s or before.

will read it

I would like to here him speak about the 60 million plus Russian, Ukrainian, and other various peoples who were slaughtered by stalin, trotsky, and the other butcher that America politicians and the west just looked the other way while tens of millions were being slaughtered.

39:36 The Americans is definitely a great show, but what I missed are the little things. How did they get the different cars, how did they get the different license plates, how was it discovered that this person could possibly have useful information? How did they get their weapons, whigs, and so on and so forth. In the series Patriot it is much better portrayed, the everyday life of a secret service employee who has to travel abroad (it is on Amazon Prime) and there are shown in great detail How to get weapons, how to get documents, and so on, very detailed and more detailed than "The Americans" . Both series are extremely recommendable!

He does have a German accent. It isn't thick, but it's there. Listen to 21:56 , 21:16 on the "try" very noticeable, 26:27 on the "what" German through and through. If German-born speakers met him on the street, in a matter of minutes would they notice he is from Germany. I came to America when I was a four year old, still have a slight accent.

His book on Audible, more info with his sense of humor. I recommend it.

42:00 Absolutely, sir!

47:00 Peters questions _JC

Jack you do know you have a very unique German accent well join the club 🍀👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Certainly sounds like a German accent to me. I was also suspicious of the beer bottle cap anecdote as well.

One cannot hold three flags. He knew the difference from right and wrong and was clearly loyal to the KGB for 10 years! Clearly an opportunist and a dubious character at best

23:06 By the way, very interesting, because many think the series the Americans is not realistic, they don't spend their passports there either and I asked myself why they don't. They just buried the passports in a very remote place. And now I hear here and have heard elsewhere that passports cannot be burned. Well, the series is just brilliant and extremely realistic, of course they do a lot of things that are a bit exaggerated, but what they do is extremely realistic, I think he also said himself

I love discussion of America with American people, so few of them have read their founding documents. Pearls before swine.

this is more like it.

I've always thought he was Russian, not German. He looks as Russian as a man can look.

Amazing man! Kinda looks like the dude from Jurassic Park

At 49:48 Jack Barsky explains being overwhelmed by material wealth and goes on to explain his feelings in detail, which I found fascinating for the reason that follows: I visited the Soviet Union at the period of Peristroika and Gorbachev etc., I went there to try to get to obtain diamond dust, which was a waste by product of diamond polishing for a friend of mine who funded my journey there because he was a diamond merchant in Antwerp and had a market for it. I made a stopover in Moscow and was invited to a dinner hosted by a doctor and his wife, and a group of their friends including two ballerinas and a dentist The dinner conversation was in French, mostly. The wife, from what I understood was a physiotherapist and during the dinner proceeded to tell me how she was able to make a fleeting visit to the west via Warsaw connected to a sporting event and how in Warsaw itself she was overwhelmed (incredible to me) by what she saw as apparently freely available luxuries and how on her return could not get to sleep for several nights thinking of what she had seen. And then she made a very curious statement that although all of it made a deep impression on her at the same time she found herself hating and despising herself for having such feelings. I did the prudent thing and did not pursue the matter with her and always wondered why she felt so confused. Now at last after many years the solution to this ( essentially communist) riddle is provided. Many thanks. I now understand at last.

Ain't no way he's letting his phone drop at 42:35

I had never heard of this guy,

Have a movie too ?

There is beer you can twist-open, in germany as well!

Geneticists would love to study this guys genes, the man Is super human. Just finished hes lex freedman interview, extraordinary.

Wonder what he thinks about the Kennedy asassination

7:15 Manipulating the crowd.... niiice 😁

34:23 I believe that he will never return to Russia or even close to it in his life. I know that he has now been back to Germany because he gave interviews in Germany, which I find amazing, although of course quite a few Decades ago. I can imagine that the KGB or the FSB is still out to take revenge for not keeping to the order at the time.

So he was told to leave on 1988. Got caught ten years later let’s say 1998. And we found out about him now. Seems to me there’s about a decade missing. Was he in prison?

He has a German "R" still because if you do not learn hard R while a child it is almost impossible to do as adult but you can pass that as a speech impediment!

What means: "the longest-surviving known member of the KGB" in the description? English is not my first language, so... i think there are others, like President Vladimir Putin... what i understand wrong? Please help me... thank you

A spy is trained to lie and never quits!

Glory to Arstotzka!

That’s odd. I speak Spanish and I do my math in Spanish. Doing it in English takes me longer.

This is so awesome, this is proof that you don't have to be born as a native English to speak native English. if you're a former KGB guy of course. but it's possible, you can speak like them, seem like them, kick some ass and they don't even know.

Good story. And his English is excellent. But his mannerisms and accent scream “Central/Eastern European”. I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but I remember somewhere else he said his backstory was his mother spoke German at home. Because he does not sound or act like a born and raised American.

I'd believe he was from New York and his parents elsewhere

How come he keeps his head down and eyes up at the crowd? Does he think somebody is gonna try to harm him?

Wasn't Putin also KGB?

I don't really get the initial impression of a German accent. That stare, though? That's a German stare, 100%

We need a film about this gay. I just bought his book for my son and my son love it very much

At 20:10 he says 'certificate' in a German accent.

6:20. Name of org

No doubt the relationship between the KGB and Stasi was as cordial and cooperative as that between the FBI and the CIA.

KGB have no idea who this person is, they have never seen him ever!

Seems like a super cool guy and I’m just starting debate that’s probably false. But what if he’s still part of the KGB and is using all of this as a master coverup?

I want more Jonna Mendez lol

To my ears Barsky has a very definite foreign accent. There's no way that I'd accept that he was born in the USA and that English is his mother's tongue. No way at all.

His English may be excellent, but the accent is clearly German, not American (to the English ear).

Did he speak differently when he was undercover? He definitely sounds like a foreigner in this interview.

Why is jack barsky divulging all of this information

This guy is like Gianna Russo.

How many agents numb your miserable reality? Or reality of others?🥂

@13:29 Barsky’s English: fluent, yes; ESL, distinctly; native, ‘fraid not. What an odd premise to assert in the context of interviewing a spy whose accent is clearly identifiable as ESL. At first, I thought he was ribbing Barsky about his accent!