Brian Latell worked for the CIA for nearly 40 years. He formerly ran CIA’s Latin American office. In Talking to Strangers, Gladwell describes a meeting Latell had with former Cuban spy Florentino Aspillaga, who has kept a low profile under an assumed name since his defection in 1987. During their meeting, Aspillaga gave Latell a manuscript of the memoir he wrote about his years as a spy. The manuscript contained shocking details about the high number of CIA agents stationed in Cuba who were working as double agents for the Cuban government. Latell thinks these agents were able to continue working undetected due to their skill, but Gladwell thinks the more accurate reason is that people—even trained CIA agents—are simply not good judges of whether someone is lying to them.