SpyCast

As we continue ramping up for SpyCast 2.0, featuring a content overhaul and improved audio, we release a real gem on a perennial favorite of the SpyCast community. You literally couldn’t make this one up, it has everything you’d expect to see at Shakespeare’s Globe – betrayal, suspicion, ambition, political machinations, royal intrigue and flabbergasting chutzpah.Philby. Burgess. MacLean. Blunt. Cairncross. Spies who betrayed their country in the name of an ideal: communism. In the 1930s, five young Cambridge University students were recruited by Soviet intelligence to penetrate the British establishment. In the course of their espionage career, the Five did enormous damage to Western security. The gradual unravelling of the spy ring across the decades also led to mole-hunts and an ever widening ring of paranoia. It even put the “special relationship” between Britain and America under strain.While parts of their story inspired the pages of Cold War spy thrillers, back in 2009 British intelligence author Nigel West examined their motivations and activities, and revealed new evidence he unearthed in Soviet intelligence archives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we gear up for an exciting new Spring program – which will feature a number of changes including a content overhaul and improved audio – we are releasing some of our greatest hits from the vault. Back in 2007 Dame Stella Rimington, former Director-General of MI5, spoke about British intelligence past and present and compared British and American approaches to intelligence. She was the first female Director General of the Security Service (better known by its three letter abbreviation, MI5) and her autobiography is entitled, Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5. She is also the author of a number of novels. Most recently in her “Liz Carlyle” series are, The Moscow Sleepers (2018) and Breaking Cover (2016). During her 30+ year career, she worked in all the main fields of MI5’s area of responsibility: counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. During Dame Stella’s watch, MI5 moved towards greater openness, so it is fitting that this interview is with a former CIA Director of Media Relations, The International Spy Museum’s former Executive Director Peter Earnest. Suggested pairings: How Spies Think – Spy Chief David Omand (Nov 24, 2020) The MI5 Centenary (Dec 1, 2009) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ONE OF THE GREAT SPY STORIES OF MODERN TIMES Palestinian & Israeli. Agent & Handler. Mosab & Gonen.One became involved with Hamas almost as a birthright, his father, after all, was a founder and its spiritual leader; the other was inspired to join Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and had a father in the Israeli Army. They seemed destined for a collision course.Fate would bring them together, danger would bind them together, but it was loyalty that kept them together. A unique bond was forged between Mosab Hassan Yousef, aka “The Green Prince,” and Gonen Ben Yitzhak, aka “Captain Loai,” that is remarkably rare in agent-handler relationships. “If he could come to Israel – and I know he can’t – he would be like a member of my family,” notes the Israeli, who revealed his true identity to testify on Mosab’s behalf at an immigration hearing in San Diego. Gonen’s children, meanwhile, call the Palestinian “Uncle Yousef.” Some stories seem too far-fetched to be true. This one is both. Hopefully you can come to the International Spy Museum one day where we look at their story in one of our exhibits (in the meantime you can also stream the award-winning documentary, The Green Prince). This episode is a blast from the past, our founding Executive Director Peter Earnest was the compère, that lives on. Recommended pairings: “Shadow Wars, 2020” – Israel, Iran & America Dec 8, 2020 “Israeli Intelligence” Dec 1, 2020 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former FBI Special Agent Dennis Franks is nothing if not interesting. He has faced off against the Columbian Cali Cartel – yes, the Cali Cartel from Season 3 of Narcos – the Mexican Gulf Cartel, MS-13, Sicilian Mafioso’s, and all manner of gangbanger, gangster and narcotraficante. He has been a firearms instructor, on an Enhanced SWAT Team, and ran his own undercover unit. He has also worked Russian intelligence and Russian organized crime: “It was very much a learning experience, because that was very different from a lot of the other organizations I have worked.” Why? Well, you’ll have to listen to find out.It doesn’t stop there though, Dennis was at the Waco Siege in 1993, and he offers listeners a particularly poignant moment involving a little girl, a rearview mirror and a knot in his stomach. He now runs his own investigative and security company out of Austin, Texas, and he was recently the Host & Executive Producer of A&E Investigates: The Plot Against America. This was not the alternative history TV series where the USA and Nazi Germany sign a treaty under President Hindenburg, based on a Philip Roth novel, but a real-life hunt for Russian sleeper agents in North-eastern Tennessee. Yes, you heard it correctly – Tennessee. Why? It might have something to do with a beautiful woman and the atomic bomb. Again, you’ll need to listen to find out! As a North Carolina man in Texas, he gives us the final word on who has the best BBQ…or maybe the controversy will continue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nicole Perloth descended into the cyber netherworld and emerged to share her wisdom. This is the second of a double-header with the New York Times cybersecurity reporter and author of This is How They Tell Me The World Ends. Andrew and Nicole talk Armageddon, Stuxnet, Jiu Jitsu, and Michelle Obama – you’ll need to listen to see the link to the former First Lady. Sit back, buckle up, and get ready to tailgate the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The door to the walk-in cooler slammed shut behind Jack Barsky. This is it, he thought, this is how it all ends – in a restaurant in the Deep South at the hands of a crazy Irish-American eight inches shorter than me. “He said he was taking me through a secret passage to a speakeasy.” But it was not the end that day in Atlanta, 30 years after the Cold War’s end, but a new beginning. The residual fear felt by the former deep-cover KGB illegal soon dissipated and a new friendship was born over drinks. We ended up, “at a very small bar, looking out through a two-way mirror at all the people in the restaurant, what a great place for two old spies to be.” Hear Jack Barsky (if you’ve ever watched The Americans he worked for the real-life “Directorate S”!) and former US Navy Counterintelligence Agent, Keith Mahoney (if you’ve ever seen NCIS, he was in its 1980’s equivalent) swap war stories. They grew up on either side of the Cold War divide, drank the ascribed kool-aid, lived parallel lives – and ended up best buds! Enjoy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you seen that episode of The Crown where an intruder gets in one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the world via an unlocked window? Welcome to its cyber equivalent: “zero-days.” Join Andrew and Nicole Perloth, award-winning cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter for the New York Times, as they descend into a cyber netherworld that will enlighten, challenge and quite possibly terrify you. Oh, I almost forgot, she is also the author of what has been called “quite possibly the most important book of the year,” This is How They Tell Me The World Ends. Guess where you can hear all about it before talks at storied bookstores such as City Lights in San Francisco, Powell’s in Portland and McNally Jackson In NYC, or indeed conversations at UT Austin, UC Irvine or at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress. Yup, you’ve guessed it (we drop the podcast the day the book hits the shelves). Run your software updates, turn on two-factor authentication and cross your fingers: the future is gonna be wild. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Counterintelligence. Counterespionage. Criminal Investigations. The Office of Special Investigations (OSI) have a fascinating remit around the world and across the country – one that also includes cyber, infosec and technology protection. What better way to break all of this down than to chat to TWO former Directors of Counterintelligence for the U.S. Air Force, Jude Sunderbruch and Terry Phillips. They are colleagues, collaborators and close friends who have seen momentous changes in the operational environment since they first met back in the 90’s (are the 90’s “back in the day” already? What the hell happened? I’m getting old). Jude is currently Executive Director at their HQ in Quantico, Virginia. With regards to Terry, what could be more “special” than talking to a Special Agent from Special Investigations? Why, a Special Agent from Special Investigations who happens to be the Executive Director of Special Projects. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did. Muy interesante. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What better way to start developing an Antipodean flavor to SpyCast than to release an episode with Brett Peppler. Aussie Army. Spec Ops. Deputy Director Military Intelligence. AIPIO President. Professor. He’s been around the block, thought about the block, and anticipated what the block might do next (he said he is, "desperately, madly in love with Futures Intelligence"). The Indo-Pacific is often overlooked, but it will be a key component of international security long after Brett and I have slipped the surly bonds of earth for the Great Gig in the Sky. The timing of our conversation was interesting, it was the official national holiday of Australia where Brett was (Australia Day, 26th Jan), and the unofficial national holiday of Scotland where I was (Burns Night, Jan 25th). Coincidence? Serendipity? Conspiracy? One for the intelligence analysts among us methinks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marie Mitchell is an FBI agent sent by the CIA to spy on the “African Che Guevara,” leftist president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara. Inspired by real events, he became president in 1983 at the age of 33, this week’s guest takes what is best about the spy fiction genre and gives it her own unique je ne sais quoi (if most of what you know about this land-locked West African country can be written on a business card, guess the official language?). The week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day seemed like an opportune moment to introduce Lauren Wilkinson to the SpyCast community: for a spy thriller written by a black female author, featuring a black female protagonist, set in an African country is a triple rarity for the genre. Join Andrew and Lauren as they talk about her debut novel, which managed to make it on to summer reading list of a former US president – to find out which one you will have to listen – and about some of her favourite spy novels. Her book is now available One reviewer said it is “like the best of John le Carré.” Need I really say more? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices