‘The Americans’ Creator Joe Weisberg Says Being in the CIA Made Him Empathize with the KGB

Joseph Weisberg’s ebook Russia Upside Down began with a lecture he by no means gave. The Individuals showrunner labored briefly within the CIA, the place his fascination with, and analysis about, Russia started. Nevertheless, the lecture could be on counterintelligence, which wasn’t his discipline of experience.

As a substitute of throwing away his Russia notes for the canceled class, he determined to jot down a ebook about it. And his stance is evident: Russia will not be as dangerous as we predict it’s.

“I learn this ebook by a man who had been a KGB officer and his ebook was about him and his buddies [in the] KGB,” he tells Molly Jong-Quick on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. “They usually sounded precisely like me and my buddies from the CIA.”