Clarity in Crisis: True Stories from Your Spy Next Door Marc Polymeropoulos

He’s the kind of guy you’d love to grab a beer with—as this bearded baseball fan drives a pickup truck and listens to country music—but this down-to-earth dude actually ran counterterrorist operations around the globe and also headed CIA’s clandestine operations from Dublin to Moscow. 

Meet Marc Polymeropoulos. He served 26 years in the CIA before retiring from the Senior Intelligence Service in June 2019. His positions included field and headquarters operational assignments covering the Middle East, Europe, Eurasia, and counterterrorism. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the Intelligence Commendation Medal, and the Intelligence Medal of Merit. Polymeropoulos is joining us tonight to share some of his most intriguing “war” stories. Don’t worry though, they’ve been cleared. Polymeropoulos has just written Clarity in Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the CIA. He bases his strategies and core principles on hard-earned experience. He had to live with the consequences of decisions made under the most high-stress of circumstances, and he wants to help others approach crisis head on and come through stronger. Spy Museum Historian and Curator Andrew Hammond will talk with Polymeropoulos about his extraordinary career and how what he learned can help regular people gain confidence in the face of crisis and embrace less than ideal situations with no fear. Something we can all use!

Tonight we’re taking a field trip to the venerable Vienna Inn in Vienna, Virginia, one of the classic CIA watering holes that dot northern Virginia. We’ll be drinking ice-cold draft beer and trying their world-famous chili dog. Polymeropoulos will even show off his favorite artifact on display at this beloved spy hang-out, where he regularly meets up with his old teammates to swap war stories and memorialize those colleagues who have fallen in the line of duty. If you’re local, you can order carry-out from the Inn.

Otherwise, just grab your beer of choice and sit back for a scintillating conversation.

Auto-generated closed captioning will be available for this program.