Member-only story
One of my investigations in San Francisco targeted a foreign spy who hated the United States. I’ll call him Agent X. He worked for a hostile intelligence service headquartered in Asia. Silicon Valley was a hotbed of foreign spies trying to steal classified and proprietary information.
He agreed to meet me for lunch. Agent X began our conversation with charges that capitalism leads to poor moral values and that Americans were too stupid to recognize a better way of life — communism. He talked with his mouth full and spat bits of food over the table as he said more than once that he supported the 9/11 terrorists.
I felt angry and knew this conversation would continue in a downward spiral unless I got a handle on my emotions. Yes, Agent X was a bigoted as*hole, but I still needed to find a way to connect with him.
I needed to manage my flow of thought if I wanted to control my emotions. First, I knew Agent X had been brainwashed by his government to dislike the West in general and the U.S. in particular. He was a product of his environment.
Instead of arguing with Agent X, I asked him questions about the reasons for his beliefs. It turned out that many of the stereotypes he had about American culture came from reality TV shows. In which case, I might agree with him!
