CIA ASSASSIN OR GREAT STORY TELLER?
This story first appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Roland Haas, a pathetic wannabe who described himself as a former CIA assassin, accidentally shot and killed himself Saturday. Haas, 58, died after driving a short distance from his apartment, stopping his car on a busy street and exiting it with the engine running. Investigators believe he had a 9mm semi-automatic handgun tucked in his waist and it accidentally discharged. Haas was struck in the leg, rupturing his femoral artery.
"We don't have anything to show that he did it intentionally," said Maj. James Yarbrough, Coweta County Sheriff's spokesman.
In a book he wrote, Haas detailed executing an Afghanistan heroin dealer and the man's two bodyguards, and described undergoing torture in an Iranian jail. People hailed it as a gritty, realistic account of Cold War spying.
Haas's motives for writing his 2007 book, "Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA assassin," are far more unclear. He claimed he was only 19 and a Purdue University student on an NROTC scholarship in 1971 when the CIA recruited him as a deep cover operative.
Bullshit - in 1971 the ranks were loaded with qualified operators with beaucoup experience from Southeast Asia. What the hell would the CIA want with a snot-nosed college kid still wet behind the ears?
At a Fayetteville bookstore appearance, Haas explained matter of fact how he supposedly killed the three men in Afghanistan and the effect it had on him.
Oh how I wish I was there that day. I would have called this guy out on his bullshit phony-baloney war stories. I would have shamed this guy into the middle of next week. I would have made him feel so low down and worthless, trying to pull off a chest-thumping stunt like this in front of an audience of real war heroes, he would have gone home to his hotel room and offed himself then and there, never mind the car stunt in Atlanta.
"Three people were deleted, they were removed," he said. "Those three acts irrevocably changed who I was . . . The day I undertook that first mission successfully, I ceased being the person I had been."
Of his time spent incarcerated in an Iran jail, he said: "The good thing is, you only feel about the first three or four hits and then you pretty much pass out."
Bullshit. Those Middle East regimes staff their prisons with professional goons, and they know how to make the pain go on, and on, and on to the point that just the teensiest pink-prick feels like you've just been skewered with a red-hot iron bar. This guy can't even lie good.
The official word out of Washington on this idiot:
"This individual was never a CIA employee," said Paula Weiss, CIA spokeswoman.
Specifically, the national intelligence agency says Haas wasn't a contractor, freelancer or hired in any capacity.
Plagiarism suggested.
Some readers immediately questioned the source and accuracy of his information. In an Amazon.com review of the book, a man named Geoff Deane accused Haas of using an account of a drug user and a shootout from a website article he wrote, replete with an error Deane had committed.
"It sounded very familiar when I read it," Deane wrote.
Haas's book was published by Dulles, Va.-based Potomac Books, which lists several titles invyolving intelligence themes. Claire Noble, publicity manager, described Haas as "a patriot who made his country better," and said Potomac had no reason to take issue with the book.
"His story passed muster with our outside reviewers and inside editorial board," Noble told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Yah, R-I-G-H-T . . . even my little-itty-bitty Korean wife saw through this guy's bullshit, looking over my shoulder as I scripted this post together: "HAH! Him shoot SELF??? That because he a STOOPID! This guy more full bull-dookey than a three-day Kimchee-eating contest!"
What's even MORE unbelievable is that Haas had a verifiable intelligence background; he was a civilian employee with the U.S. Army Reserve Command at Fort McPherson (metro Atlanta), deputy chief of staff for intelligence since 1995, according to Maj. Corey Schultz, Army Reserve spokesman. Records showed Haas came to his post from Wildflecken, Germany.
Just goes to show how a dedicated bullshit artist can pass initial muster, thrive and survive in a bureaucracy as big and wide as the U.S. Department of Defense. What's really unbelievable is the fact that he was able to keep his security clearance after transmitting such a really huge whopper like this.
Haas's duties included planning and coordinating Army Reserve resourcing, training and support within the broader Army and Department of Defense intelligence community. In this role, he had no reason to carry a gun. He was more of a computer geek.
Geek is right. A dead geek.Spy Talk, a Washington Post blog, reported that a handful of former CIA officers were so turned off by Haas's book, they protested his employment to his Army Reserve supervisors. "As one of an increasing number of former intelligence officers who believes that Roland Haas' book . . . is a hoax, I find your willingness to tolerate Mr. Haas in his scam very disturbing," wrote John F. Sullivan, a retired CIA polygrapher.
How classic is this? A professional bullshit detector called this guy out on his bullshit!
Marilyn Haas still doesn't question her husband's assertions he was a CIA operative, though she admitted that family members had no knowledge of it until the book was released.
"The family did not know, believe me," she said. "We knew when everyone else did, when the book came out."
That's because he never did any of it, Marilyn. I hate to put it to you like this, but you were married to a bullshit artist. He was a Legend in his Own Mind.
As for the CIA distancing itself from her husband, Marilyn Haas had a ready explanation: "Of course, they said that."
Thus is perpetuated the Perfect Lie - Haas never did any of the shit he describes, and the CIA will therefore continue to denounce the book and its author - the ultimate Plausible Denial.
Bet you dollars to doughnuts old Nerd Nuts never gets a star on the wall, either..
