SpyCast

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. Join Peter and George as they relive the assassination attempts in Iran against the US Ambassador and George himself in the early 1970s and discuss CIA’s operations in the Middle East over three decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Belgian Air Force officer who was spying for Russia and his role in the embarrassing “spy flap” when he was the CIA chief in Paris. Get the book: http://www.spymuseumstore.org/craft-we-chose-life-in-cia-book.html#.Vz3rhPkrIdU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 guilty, given the evidence available since the end of the Cold War. Retired counterintelligence officer Christina Shelton has written a new biography of Hiss. She highlights the many missed opportunities and poor judgments in the Hiss case, and discusses them in the context of wide-scale Soviet infiltration and espionage. Join Shelton and SPY historian Mark Stout for a discussion of this provocative new book about one of America’s most controversial icons. Get the book: http://www.spymuseumstore.org/zimmermann-telegram-book.html#.Vxk4aZMrJTY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 genius who had plotted to kill the Pope and President Clinton and explode a dozen planes over the Pacific Ocean, all before masterminding the 9/11 attacks. Finally, hear how the US finally grabbed KSM as a result of the interrogation of another terrorist, Abu Zubaydah. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 price that he paid for serving his country as a young officer in the Congo in the 1960s. Get the book: http://www.spymuseumstore.org/craft-we-chose-life-in-cia-book.html#.Vz3rhPkrIdU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 of one of the most famous clandestine sources in American history: Deep Throat. Hear why Mark Felt, the Deputy Director of the FBI, betrayed President Nixon by leaking to the Washington Post and Time about Watergate. Were Felt’s motives patriotic or self-serving…or both? Get the book: http://www.spymuseumstore.org/leak-shy-mark-felt-became-deep-throat.html#.Vz3q4PkrIdU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 clandestine agents, and conducted psychological operations. The leader of this group in the mid-1960s was a legendary Army officer, Donald Blackburn. Listen to author Mike Guardia describe Blackburn’s colorful life in this event which took place on 16 February 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 sixth sense that good SIGINTers need to have, the difficulties of working in foreign languages, and how Glenn and his colleagues were able to predict every major Communist offensive. Learn also why American commanders did not always believe them. Finally, hear the wrenching story of Glenn’s last days in Saigon in 1975 as the city was falling to the North Vietnamese Army. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 one of the world’s leading practitioners of this art: Arno Reuser of the Dutch military intelligence service. With the growth of open source, can we stop stealing secrets? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Stalin’s wartime terror apparatus and it cut a bloody swath of death across Eastern Europe. Its job was to “filter” the Red Army for spies and it was responsible for the arrest, torture, and execution of many thousands of innocent people. Listen to historian Vadim J. Birstein as he discusses this bloodthirsty organization and discusses the evidence suggesting that Raoul Wallenberg was one of its victims. This event took place on 12 January 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices