Ray McGovern on the CIA's Torture Program, 2018

TRANSCRIPT: covertactionmagazine.com/index.php/2018/11/27/ray-mcgovern-on-the-cia-torture-program
We are very happy to bring you this interview with Ray McGovern, former CIA officer from 1963 to 1990. Ray was born on August 25, 1939 and is a former CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a CIA analyst in the 1980s, chair of the national intelligence estimates, and prepared the president’s daily brief. He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement, only to return it in 2006 to protest the CIA’s involvement in torture. Ray McGovern now works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the Ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner city Washington.

During his 27-year career at the CIA he worked for 9 CIA directors, several of them at close remove. Primarily a substantive analyst and briefer, he nonetheless served in all four of the CIA’s main directorates, and during one of his postings abroad helped manage a large covert action project. McGovern’s post-retirement work also includes commenting on intelligence issues, and in 2003 co-founding Veterans Intelligence Professionals For Sanity, otherwise known as VIPS.

Ray sat down with Lou Wolf and Chris Agee, co-founders of the new CovertAction Magazine, recently relaunched in May 2018. This interview, which is part of a series of interviews we will be bringing you in segments, is part of what we are calling “the McGovern Tapes”. They were recorded back in August of 2018. In this initial part of the interview, Ray reflects on CIA torture activities and addresses the question of whether the new CIA director, Gina Haspel, will, as she purports, discontinue the CIA torture program.