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Robert Baer Biography
Robert Baer, born as Robert Booker Baer, is an American author and a former CIA case officer who was primarily assigned to the Middle East. Robert is Time’s intelligence columnist and has also contributed to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Robert BaerHe speaks 8 languages. He won the CIA career intelligence medal and is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international relations, espionage, and U.S. foreign policy.
He is a reality television host on the History program Hunting Hitler. He is also an Intelligence and Security Analyst for CNN.
Robert Baer Age
Robert was born on July 11, 1952, in Los Angeles, California, U.S. He is 66 years old as of 2018.
Robert Baer Wife
Robert is married to fellow CIA operative Dayna Williamson. His marriage with Dayna is his second. He was initially married to another wife and has three children from that first marriage.Robert Baer Photo
Robert Baer Books
Robert has written two books; See No Evil and Sleeping with the Devil. Both of the books were the basis for the 2005 Academy Award-winning Warner Brothers motion picture Syriana. The film’s character Bob Barnes (played by George Clooney) is loosely based on Robert.
For this role, Clooney won a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In order to better resemble Baer, Clooney gained weight and when Robert learned of this, he was inspired to get back into shape.
Robert Baer See No Evil
Robert wrote the book See No Evil documenting his experiences while working for the Agency. he C.I. Desk: FBI and CIA Counterintelligence As Seen From My Cubicle, by Christopher Lynch (Dog Ear Publishing), describes parts of the contentious CIA pre-publication review process for Robert’s first book. In a blurb for See No Evil, Seymour Hersh said Robert “was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East.” In the book, Robert offers an analysis of the Middle East through the lens of his experiences as a CIA operative.
Robert Baer CIA
During his twenty-one years in with CIA, Robert worked field assignments, starting in Madras and New Delhi, India. He later went to Beirut, Lebanon; Damascus, Syria; Khartoum, Sudan; Paris, France; Dushanbe, Tajikistan; Morocco. Later, he went to the former republic of Yugoslavia, and Salah al-Din in Iraqi Kurdistan.
During the mid-1990s, he was sent to Iraq with the mission of organizing opposition to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but was recalled and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly conspiring to assassinate the Iraqi leader.
While he was in Salah al-Din, he unsuccessfully urged the Clinton administration to back an internal Iraqi attempt to overthrow Hussein (organized by a group of Sunni military officers, the Iraqi National Congress’ Ahmad Chalabi, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s Jalal Talabani) in March 1995 with covert CIA assistance. He quit the Agency in 1997 and received the CIA’s Career Intelligence Medal on March 11, 1998.
During those years as a clandestine officer, he gained a very thorough knowledge of the Middle East, Arab world and former Republics of the Soviet Union. Over the years, he has become a strong advocate of the Agency’s need to increase Human Intelligence (HUMINT) through the recruitment of agents.
In 2004, Robert told a reporter of the British political weekly New Statesman, regarding the way the CIA deals with terrorism suspects, “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear – never to see them again – you send them to Egypt.”
Robert retired to Silverton, Colorado.
Robert Baer Iran
In June 2009, Robert commented on the disputed election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iranian President and the protests that accompanied it. “For too many years now, the Western media have looked at Iran through the narrow prism of Iran’s liberal middle class—an intelligentsia that is addicted to the Internet and American music and is more ready to talk to the Western press, including people with money to buy tickets to Paris or Los Angeles; but do they represent the real Iran?”
Robert Baer Net Worth
Robert’s net worth is under review.
Robert Baer Movie
- The Cult of the Suicide Bomber
- Cult of the Suicide Bomber II
- Cult of the Suicide Bomber III
- Car Bomb
- Syriana
Robert Baer Interview 2019
