SpyCast
SpyCast, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum, is a journey into the shadows of international espionage. Each week, host Sasha Ingber brings you the latest insights and intriguing tales from spies, secret agents, and covert communicators, with a focus on how this secret world reaches us all in our everyday lives. Tune in to discover the critical role intelligence has played throughout history and today. Brought to you from Airwave, Goat Rodeo, and the International Spy Museum.
The Spy Museum does not endorse, approve, or support the opinions stated by guest speakers. Statements made by speakers do not represent the position or opinion of the International Spy Museum.
626
Eavesdropping in Vietnam: One Man’s Experience
SPY Historian Mark Stout explores the importance of signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the Vietnam War with retired National Security Agency cryptanalyst Tom Glenn. Glenn served more time in country than any other civilian of the NSA. Hear about the si...
35 min
627
The Power of Open Source Intelligence
With the ever increasing global connectivity, more and more information is available merely for the asking. This has led to a flourishing of the discipline of open source intelligence collection. SPY Historian Mark Stout has a probing discussion with...
30 min
628
Author Debriefing: Smersh: Stalin's Secret Wea...
In the early James Bond novels, the hero battled the villainous forces of Smersh, a shadowy Soviet intelligence organization. Bond was fictional, but Smersh really existed. Drawing its name from smert shpionam Russian for “death to spies,” it was Stali...
61 min
629
Investigating Historical Spies
Researching spy history is a difficult business. Spies carefully cover their tracks and intelligence agencies classify everything and release their records only after many years, if at all. Given these difficulties how do historians reconstruct espiona...
29 min
630
The Intelligence War Against Terrorism
Since 9/11, the United States Intelligence Community has expanded into an $80 billion behemoth and taken on many new tasks, for instance spying on terrorists in cyberspace and even becoming a combat organization in its own right. Are we getting value ...
35 min
631
Intelligence and Espionage in the U.S. Civil War
Spies, cavalry, and telescopes were the traditional intelligence tools available during the Civil War, but there was also cutting edge high tech: the telegraph and the observation balloon. How did Civil War generals combine these to help make strategi...
30 min
632
Author Debriefing: MH/CHAOS: The CIA’s Campaign...
Operation MHCHAOS was the code name for a secret domestic spying program conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency in the late 1960s and early 1970s charged with unmasking any foreign influences on left wing protestors. CIA counterintelligence offic...
44 min
633
The Silent Listener: British Eavesdropping in t...
D. J. Thorp, a signals intelligence officer in the British Army, spent many years eavesdropping on the hot spots of the Cold War in Europe and the Middle East. In 1982 he found himself on board a Royal Navy ship intercepting signals from the Argentine...
43 min
634
J. Edgar Hoover: Fact vs. Fiction
Clint Eastwood’s movie, J. Edgar, gives a Hollywood take on the controversial Director of the FBI. However, many people have criticized the movie for whitewashing Hoover’s abuses while others have criticized it for its implication that Hoover may have...
34 min
635
Uncompromised: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption o...
After a childhood in war-torn Lebanon with an abusive father, Nada Prouty jumped at the chance to forge her own path in America, a path that led to undercover work in the FBI, then the CIA. Her work earned her great respect from her colleagues but her ...
53 min
636
Identity, Espionage, and Social Media
Who are your friends on Facebook? Are you sure? Thomas Ryan, co-founder of Provide Security, knows that you can’t always be certain. Why? Because he created the fictional Robin Sage, a cyber femme fatale, who quickly wormed her way into the confide...
20 min
637
Interrogating a High Value Detainee: A Moralit...
What would you do if you were told to do whatever was necessary to get a prisoner to talk? This is the situation that career CIA officer Glenn Carle found himself in when he was made the lead interrogator for a detainee who was said to be a member of ...
33 min
638
In the Counterterrorism Center on 9/11: One Ana...
The war with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda did not begin on September 11th. CIA analyst Cindy Storer was there from the beginning in the early 1990s, a member of a small band of mostly female analysts who worked on Al Qaeda long before September 11. ...
28 min
639
The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole Who Infil...
In 2009, the CIA’s partners in the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate had a source named Humam Khalil al-Balawi working inside Al Qaeda and he knew where Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two man in al Qaeda was…or so they thought. In fact, Al Qae...
35 min
640
The Aftermath of Bin Laden’s Death: The Lessons...
The 13-year search for Osama Bin Laden may have seemed unprecedented, but actually such events have not been uncommon in American history. Since the days of Geronimo, the United States has embarked on at least eleven such “strategic manhunts.” Benjamin...
27 min
641
Mastermind: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architec...
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was behind many of the most heinous terrorist plots of the past twenty years, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Millenium Plots, and 9/11 itself. He even claims to have personally beheaded Wall Street Journal re...
64 min
642
Author Debriefing: "Wild Bill" Donovan
“Wild Bill” Donovan was a World War I hero with a Medal of Honor to prove it, a millionaire Wall Street lawyer, and a prominent Republican. Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt chose this brilliant yet disorganized visionary to be his spymaster, he...
64 min
643
Modern Intelligence Analysis: From Art to Science?
A great deal of public attention goes to the CIA’s case officers who recruit and run agents and steal secrets. However, few people pay attention to the fact that those secrets are stolen so that they can be put on desks of intelligence analysts. Analys...
26 min
644
The Aftermath of Bin Laden’s Death: Inside al Q...
After killing Osama bin Laden, the SEALs reportedly took hundreds of drives, disks, and computers from the house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. What challenges will American intelligence agencies face in exploiting bin Laden’s computers and what can be lear...
28 min
645
The Aftermath of bin Laden’s Death: Winning the...
What are the implications of Osama bin Laden’s death for the al Qaeda movement? What role did waterboarding and “enhanced interrogation techniques” play in tracking down Bin Laden and should we reassess our views of torture? Peter explores these prov...
31 min
646
Spy versus Spy in East Germany
The East German security service, the Stasi, was infamous for surveilling and oppressing the East German population. However, it also hunted Western spies and there were many to be found; the CIA, the West German BND, and Britain’s MI-6 were all very ...
32 min
647
Stalking Terrorists Online
Montana resident Shannen Rossmiller is proof that things are not as they seem online. Before September 11, she was a judge, a wife, and a mother but not an expert on terrorism or an Arabic speaker. After September 11, she taught herself Arabic and star...
30 min
648
Dropping Spies from the Sky during the Korean War
During the Korean War, US military intelligence worked with anti-communist Korean agents and partisans to collect information from behind North Korean lines. SPY Historian Mark Stout interviews Colonel Douglas Dillard, USA (Ret.) who led AVIARY operat...
29 min
649
Social Media: Tools of Liberation or Repression?
Social media—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others—are held up as powerful tools for peoples trying to overthrow police states. Iran’s “Twitter Revolution” electrified the world and the Egyptian government shut off Internet access as demonstrations sw...
28 min
650
Intelligence and Analysis in the National Footb...
In 2007, the New England Patriots were caught videotaping the New York Jet’s sideline defensive signals. That was illegal, but it’s remarkable what is allowed, even routine. From surveillance films, to secure communications, to briefing books, and dece...
22 min