Foreign Influence Read Online Free PDF Page A

years cum laude with a double major in political science and military history. By the time he finished, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
    Following in his father’s footsteps, he joined the Navy and was eventually accepted to Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL school (BUD/S) and a specialized program known as SQT or SEAL Qualification Training.Though the process was grueling beyond measure, his mental and physical conditioning as a world-class athlete, his stubborn refusal to ever give up on anything, and the belief that he had finally found his true calling in life propelled him forward and earned him the honor of being counted as one of the world’s most elite warriors—a U.S. Navy SEAL.
    He served with SEAL Team Two and then Team Six, where he assisted a presidential security detail and caught the eye of the Secret Service. Wanting to bolster their anti-terrorism expertise at the White House, they eventually succeeded in wooing him away from the Navy and up to D.C. Harvath soon distinguished himself even further and after a short time was recommended for an above-top-secret program at the Department of Homeland Security called the Apex Project.
    The project’s raison d’être was to level the playing field against America’s enemies. The belief was that if the terrorists weren’t playing by any rules, then neither should the United States, especially when it came to defending its citizens and interests at home and abroad.
    But with a new administration had come a new approach to dealing with terrorism, and the Apex Project was dismantled. Harvath had found himself out of a job.
    With a unique skill set and a desire to continue serving the interests of his country, he accepted a private sector position with a company specializing in intelligence gathering and highly advanced special operations training near Telluride, Colorado.
    In the words of a former CIA director, Harvath knew that intelligence was at the nexus of every major security challenge facing the United States. It didn’t matter if it was al-Qaeda or Hugo Chavez, the need for timely, accurate, comprehensive information was unprecedented.
    Harvath and the former CIA director weren’t the only people to recognize that the drive for quality intelligence was paramount in the post–9/11 world. A well-funded group of high-level former military and intelligence operatives had seen the need as well. Deeply concerned with the entrenched bureaucracy at the CIA and the political hobbling of the nation’s defense apparatus, they sought to create an organization that would boldly do what the country’s politically correct, vote-chasing politiciansand constantly-covering-their-cowering-asses bureaucrats were too timid and too inept to attempt.
    Named after its founder, Reed Carlton—a retired thirty-year veteran of the CIA and one of the nation’s most revered spymasters—the Carlton Group was based upon the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, the wartime intelligence agency that had been the predecessor to the CIA. The Carlton Group was composed of patriots who wanted one thing and one thing only: to keep Americans safe no matter what the cost.
    Its modus operandi was quite similar to that of the Apex Project, except for one thing—it didn’t fall under the auspices of any politicians or bureaucrats. The Carlton Group was an obscure, private organization funded completely from Department of Defense black budgets. Only a handful of high-level career military DOD personnel knew of its existence, and it represented a major shift in counterterrorism’s center of gravity. The only thing it was missing was a reliable private intelligence branch. To use existing government intelligence apparatus like DOD, DIA, NSA, or CIA risked exposure and was out of the question. Therefore, they had to seek something in the private sector.
    When the Carlton Group purchased the company Harvath had been working for in Colorado, he received a phone call. The new powers that be