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.
651
Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secre...
The history of Israel’s intelligence community—led by the feared and famous Mossad—includes stunning successes and embarrassing failures with important implications for war and peace today. CBS journalist Dan Raviv co-author with Israeli journalist Yos...
60 min
652
Spies and Commissars: The Early Years of the Ru...
Russia was a chaotic hotspot after the Revolution of 1917 and an extraordinary collection of spies, adventurers, and opportunists poured into the roiling Russian political scene. Outsized characters like Sidney “Ace of Spies” Reilly, communist activist...
56 min
653
Our Man in the Middle East (Part 2)
Peter continues his discussion with career CIA officer George Cave. They cover Cave’s time in Saudi Arabia—from which he was expelled when a candid cable he wrote about Saudi politics leaked to the press—and back in Washington where he became embroiled...
29 min
654
Our Man in the Middle East (Part 1)
George Cave is a legend in the CIA’s Clandestine Service. He was recruited into the CIA in 1956 as a fluent Farsi speaker and was pulled out of his entry training and sent to Afghanistan to deal with an urgent operation there. He never looked back. Joi...
39 min
655
Dick Holm: the Perils and Rewards of a Life in ...
Peter continues his discussion with legendary case officer Dick Holm, the author of The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA. Holm discusses several highlights and low points of his career. Learn about his work with Belgian intelligence in thwarting a B...
30 min
656
Author Debriefing: Alger Hiss - Why He Chose Tr...
In 1948, when Whittaker Chambers accused Ivy League-educated senior diplomat Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviets, few Americans were willing to believe him. In fact, Hiss went to his grave protesting his innocence, but now it seems clear that he was ...
56 min
657
The Hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedo...
Josh Meyer, co-author with Terry McDermott of The Hunt for KSM, visits the International Spy Museum to talk about the decade-long FBI and CIA effort to capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Meyer discusses the repeated failed attempts to find the evil geniu...
26 min
658
Dick Holm: the Perils and Rewards of a Life in ...
Today Peter starts a conversation with Dick Holm, a legendary CIA operations officer, who has served all over the world. Dick, the author of The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA, talks about the importance of intelligence and reveals the terrible pr...
17 min
659
Leak: Why Mark Felt became Deep Throat
Intelligence officers and investigative journalists both depend on clandestine sources to divulge secrets. But why do people betray a trust? Peter interviews veteran journalist Max Holland about his new book, Leak, which probes the mind and motivations...
36 min
660
Author Debriefing: Shadow Commander: The Epic S...
During the Vietnam War, perhaps the US Army’s most secretive unit was the Studies and Observations Group (SOG). This unit conducted reconnaissance missions, captured enemy prisoners for interrogation and rescued American POWs. It also ran teams of clan...
34 min
661
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
662
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
663
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
664
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
665
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
666
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
667
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
668
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
669
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
670
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
671
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
672
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
673
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
674
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
675
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