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3rd Bill Sewell CCTV Interview on Manning & NSA-Snowden Leaks, Author of NonOfficial Asset

165 views · Published 9 August 2013 · 4:46 · Indexed 1 October 2026

Channel: Michael B. Butler Books · 2013 · Entertainment

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NSA Leaks & Pfc. Manning Verdict: William Sewell, author of NonOfficial Asset: The Iran Affair and Ex U.S. Intelligence Officer, on China Central TV's Biz Asia America on July 31, 2013 talking about the verdict of Pfc. Bradley Manning and the ongoing story of NSA leaker Edward Snowden.  The day after this interview, Vladimir Putin granted Snowden temporary asylum after he had been holed up in Moscow airport for two months.  

This was William Sewell's third appearance on China Central TV after the story broke in mid-June.  First he was on China 24, broadcast from Beijing, followed by two appearances on Biz Asia America, broadcast out of Washington, D.C.  In this interview Sewell was asked about General Alexander, Director of the NSA, and his speech at the Las Vegas Black Hat Conference where he defended the NSA data collection program. 

For more info go www.WilliamSewell.com

About Nonofficial Asset: The Iran Affair by William Sewell 

Peyton Stone never quit his day job. But it's his other profession that might just get him killed.
Islamabad. Baghdad. Shanghai. Kazakhstan, Kabul. Langley. For Peyton Stone, that's a work commute. But his is no normal job. On the surface he's a world-renowned security expert. But his real occupation is serving as a "nonofficial asset," a contractor working for the CIA when the government needs complete deniability. While advancing American interests globally, Stone discovers that those interests can exact a steep personal price. And when his business partner is murdered in a Shanghai hotel, ominous ghosts from his past return and he's drawn deeper into the covert maze, on the hunt for a stolen nuclear weapon and the rogue Iranian admiral hell-bent on using it. In Nonofficial Asset his skills, training, tactics, mettle, and allegiance to family and country are all pushed to the limit as he races to prevent nuclear catastrophe.

A captivating international espionage cliffhanger, William Sewell's new spy thriller is not some fake fantasy conjured by an uninformed novice writer working from his safe, local Starbucks. This is an adroitly told tale of very real and likely scenarios by someone who has been in some, if not most, of these dark bunkers--and lived to tell about it. A 30-year veteran of the clandestine services, William Sewell is a communications security expert by day. But like Peyton Stone, he has another profession. Exploiting his behind-enemy-lines intelligence experience, Sewell infuses Nonofficial Asset with an authenticity that can only be gained from real-world experience in the trenches.

About William Sewell, author of Nonofficial Asset: The Iran Affair: 

If William "Bill" Sewell believes in a guiding principle, it comes from world champion racecar driver Mario Andretti, who said, "If things seem really under control, you're not going fast enough." Sewell spends his life pushing to find that razor's edge between velocity and control.

Raised in Dublin, Georgia, Sewell began his clandestine adventuring as a boy, with rifle in hand, hunting imaginary Nazis, the Japanese army, and even Yankees in the Peachtree state's backwoods. A Vietnam and U.S. Air Force veteran, Sewell left military service to become a contractor for the U.S. government. In addition to working with the Departments of State and Defense, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration, Sewell also consulted on security matters with the governments of Kuwait, Australia, India, Oman, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, China, Canada, and even with the European Council of Mayors. But Sewell also pursued an alternative profession—with the U.S. intelligence community.

"There's a thrill to participating in covert enterprises. And of course there's the patriotic aspect of doing some good for your country. Unfortunately, I'm not yet at liberty to talk about much of what we did. But we had a lot of fun. . . ."

Though his speech is carefully measured, it's clear that Sewell experienced a lot during his tenure. For example, while a contractor with the State Department's Diplomatic Security Branch, Sewell witnessed tectonic political shifts that had real consequences in the field. "The end of the Cold War was a strange time because the rules were changing in the Soviet bloc at different rates in different places. For us, the challenge was that some of the good guys became bad guys and some bad guys became good guys. It was a very fluid and uncertain situation. So to be safe, we pretty much trusted no one."

Sewell also experienced the direct effects of what can be a very dangerous business. "At the end of the first Gulf War I went over to Kuwait, working with their interior ministry. Aside from the terrible cost in lives, the war had turned Kuwait into a pile of rubble.

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