Former intelligence officer speaks about his time as a spy in new book

We chat with retired Warrant Officer Mike Fournier about his new memoir, "Intelligence Operator 230," and what it's really like to be spy.

When many people think of spies they often think of someone in a fancy suit who drives fast cars and drinks martinis, but the reality of the job can be very different.

Mike Fournier, who lives in Halifax, was an intelligence officer for the Canadian Armed Forces and was even a founding member of the modern Canadian Forces Intelligence Branch. He’s also the author of ‘Intelligence Operator 230: In the Service of Canada,’ which highlights his time as a spy.

“It started off with I needed to put down my story I guess and because of my PTSD I had to kind of put it out. So, it evolved into a very large manuscript and I thought, ‘Well, you know, I could make a book out of this,’ and I shortened it, I cut out parts and shortened it to what I have here,” said Fournier in an interview with CTV Your Morning Atlantic’s Crystal Garrett.

Fournier spent time covertly gathering intelligence for Canada behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, and later in Afghanistan as an intelligence analyst. He says the job is quite different and can be much less glamorous than what you see in the movies.

“It certainly is not the same, not in any imagination. It’s quite straight forward. It’s an everyday sort of job. You have a task, you plan for the task, and then you go out, and when I was in Poland you went out and execute the task,” he said.

“That was usually to collect information that you were asked to go and get, and I’d go out with my NATO partner, and we’d go out and do that. Sometimes trips would take one or two days.”

Fournier says much of the job while he was behind Soviet lines consisted of sneaking into places he wasn’t supposed to be able to update files on military installations.

“Generally, the only thing that was a danger was getting caught or even having a car accident, but there was a few times where you go at a place and someone shouts at you and they have an AK-47 and they level it at you and you just boot it out of there,” he said.

While many of the movies got the job wrong, Fournier says there’s one that seemed to have hit the mark.

“The one show I thought was extremely well done was ‘The Americans.’ That was a very good show where people are blackmailing other folks to help them out with information and so on,” he said.

Fournier says his goal with the book was to give veterans something to relate to.

“I’ve had a lot of feedback from a lot of military folks that have read it already and some civilians, friends of mine that have read it. One of my old commanding officers had read it, and he felt that this book would be really helpful to other veterans because I say so much about my PTSD and the things I did in my military career that are relatable to other veterans, that they read it and relate to it. So, I’m hoping they get something out of it,” he said.

Fournier’s book is now available online or in store.

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page