October 16, 2008 - My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin

Guest: Roland Haas

Former CIA agent and assassin Roland Haas joined us to share the story of his life as a spy and how keeping the secret of a double life almost destroyed him. Haas has authored "Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin" which tells of his gripping story about a skinny, troubled immigrant kid who became a highly trained covert operations specialist working for the CIA during the Cold War.

Growing up after WWII was a hard time for Haas being the son of German imigrants. Speaking German gave many kids, wanting to be like their fathers killing the Nazis, a reason to regularly bully and beat him.

Haas explained how the CIA recruited him while at Perdue. He was young, a loner and had no regard for life and being a secret operative for the CIA sounded like something out of a James Bond movie. His trained to prepare for insertion into hostile areas, including High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachuting and weapons instruction.

Haas described his first assignment that was to take out a drug dealer that had gotten greedy. With just a knife as his weapon, he eliminated 3 people that included the target. Upon leaving he ended up in an Iranian prision where his was physically and psychologically tortured.