About Me — Brian Fairchild
Former CIA Officer, Author, and Writer
For me it all started in Boulder, Colorado when I was fourteen watching the movie From Russia with Love, starring Sean Connery as James Bond 007.
I decided then and there that I wanted to be a spy.
So, I wrote a letter to the CIA.
A couple of weeks later, I received a reply from CIA officer Michael Todorovich. It provided a virtual blueprint on how to do it.
He suggested that I gain some military experience, so at eighteen, I joined the Green Berets enlisting with the 19th Special Forces Group.
After basic training and advanced individual training, I went to paratrooper school at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and then on to Ft. Bragg for special forces training.
Later, I went to college.
I spent my junior year as an exchange student learning Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan.
When I graduated, I applied to the CIA and was offered a career position in the clandestine service.
During nineteen years with the CIA, I served all over the world: Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe.
After I retired, I worked for a while one-on-one with Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al Qassimi, then Crown Prince (now Ruler) of the Emirate of Ras al Khaima in the United Arab Emirates.
After the UAE, I served for a year and a half in Afghanistan as an advisor to Afghan intelligence officers.
A few years ago, I became upset with how the CIA had betrayed its charter as the country’s premier intelligence agency.
It had focused almost totally on terrorism for the past two decades while ignoring China, Russia, and the rest of the world.
The result of my anger was my debut novel, The Hidden, which became Amazon’s #1 Best Seller, and #1 New Release.
Wanting to continue writing for an audience, I joined Medium about three weeks ago, and I’m loving it.
I’ve broadened my writing by taking on some personal stories as well as news-style stories about some of the most important national security issues of the day.
Thank you to both Illumination and Dialogue & Discourse for inviting me into the fold and providing me with an audience.
I couldn’t be happier.
I’ve been blessed with fifty members thus far and have high hopes for the future.
A sincere thank you to all who have become followers!
New followers are always more than welcome!
Thank you all for taking the time to read this introduction.
If you’d like to see some of the national security issues I follow, I use my Twitter account to bookmark them.
More information on my background, the media I’ve appeared in, and other stories I’ve written can be found on my website: Brian Fairchild Books
