Part two of my fireside with Darrell Blocker is up.
The short version on Darrell, in case you’re just finding us: thirty-two years in intelligence, twenty-eight of them at CIA. He ran the Farm. Deputy Director of the Counterterrorism Center. Chief of Africa Division. Chief of Station more times than most people change cars. When he retired in 2018, he was the most senior Black officer in CIA’s Directorate of Operations. And he’s still the funniest, kindest guy in any room he walks into – which matters more than any of the rest of it.
Part one was the road in – the early years, the messy parts, the “what am I doing here” moments. This one’s where we stopped looking back and got into the heavier stuff. Leadership and what the work costs you. Pouring into the next generation. The gap between Hollywood and the real thing. What he wishes he’d known starting out. And being a Black man climbing through the DO – what that was really like.
Here’s the thing about Darrell. He’s lived the career people only see in movies, and he’ll tell you straight that the movies get it wrong. It’s quieter than that. Harder. And it gets done by people – weird, brilliant, all of them human – who just kept showing up and doing the next right thing for a long time.
That’s the whole reason I wrote National Security Careers: The Ultimate Guide to Breaking In. Nobody hands you a map for this. Darrell’s proof you can find your way anyway.
Special! One more thing. Go annual on Dexter Ingram: Declassified and a book comes with it – your pick of National Security Careers: The Ultimate Guide to Breaking In or The Spy Archive: Hidden Lives, Secret Missions, and the History of Espionage, both $19.99 on their own. Signed, dedicated, and mailed straight to you. The book plus a full year for $80. My way of saying thanks for betting on this work.
