SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Vin Arthey, who has spent most of his adult life researching the life of KGB Colonel William Fisher – better known as Rudolf Abel. Working with secret sources and inside information, Arthey turned this lifelong study into a fascinating book, Abel: The True Story of the Spy They Swapped for Gary Powers. Houghton and Arthey trace the adventures (and misadventures) of one of the most extraordinary characters in the history of the Cold War. Learn more about...
Nov 17, 2015•42 min•Ep. 181
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with author Doug Waller to discuss his new book Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan. The author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Wild Bill Donovan, Waller tells Houghton the story of four OSS warriors of World War II. All four later led the CIA. They are the most famous and controversial directors the CIA has ever had—Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Disciples is the s...
Nov 10, 2015•51 min•Ep. 180
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with University of Southern California history professor Steve Ross to discuss the ongoing research for his upcoming book Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews and their Spies Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America. Ross explains how a group of patriotic citizens refused to wait for the authorities to act on the Nazi menace in America, and instead took matters into their own hands. A never-before-told true story of classic infiltration and espionage in th...
Nov 03, 2015•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 179
Professor David Barrett discusses his book Blind over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis which he wrote with Max Holland. He describes to former SPY Historian Mark Stout how the Kennedy Administration impeded reconnaissance flights over Cuba in the weeks before the crisis and how the Administration successfully covered up that fact. From October 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 20, 2015•37 min•Ep. 178
SPY Executive Director Peter Earnest and former KGB General Oleg Kalugin discuss the current espionage conflict between Russia and Georgia, reminisce about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and bring an old question to light: Was Isaac Stone a Russian spy? From October 2006. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 20, 2015•22 min•Ep. 177
SPY Executive Director Peter Earnest sat down with author Mark Riebling to discuss his new book on the wartime espionage of the Catholic Church. The Vatican’s silence in the face of Nazi atrocities remains one of the great controversies of our time. History has accused wartime pontiff Pius the Twelfth of complicity in the Holocaust and dubbed him “Hitler’s Pope.” But a key part of the story has remained untold. In fact, Pius ran the world’s largest church, smallest state, and oldest spy service....
Oct 13, 2015•38 min•Ep. 176
When Jason Hanson joined the CIA in 2003, he never imagined that the same tactics he used as a CIA officer for counter intelligence, surveillance, and protecting agency personnel would prove to be essential in everyday civilian life. In addition to escaping handcuffs, picking locks, and spotting when someone is telling a lie, he can improvise a self-defense weapon, pack a perfect emergency kit, and even disappear off the grid if necessary. He has also honed his "positive awareness" – a heightene...
Oct 06, 2015•39 min•Ep. 175
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the radical force behind the nation’s most revolutionary, high-tech military initiatives over the past half century. To write the first definitive history of the world’s most powerful and productive military science agency, bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tracked down DARPA scientists, past and present, including current neuroscientists building an artificial brain, cell biologists working on limb regeneration, and even the Nobel Laureat...
Sep 29, 2015•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 174
In Part 3 of this three-part series, SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Greg Miller, who covers intelligence and national security for the Washington Post. Houghton and Miller discuss the difficulties in reporting on this most secret of topics, the dangers – and benefits – of using anonymous sources, and the ever-changing nature of intelligence and national security journalism. Part 1 of this series was with Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times, and P...
Sep 15, 2015•41 min•Ep. 172
In Part 2 of this three-part series, SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Ali Watkins, who covers intelligence and national security for the Huffington Post. Houghton and Watkins discuss the difficulties in reporting on this most secret of topics, the dangers – and benefits – of using anonymous sources, and the ever-changing nature of intelligence and national security journalism. Part 1 of this series was with Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times, and Part 3 will be with Greg Miller of...
Sep 15, 2015•46 min•Ep. 173
In Part 1 of this three-part series, SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mark Mazzetti, who covers intelligence and national security for the New York Times. Houghton and Mazzetti discuss the difficulties in reporting on this most secret of topics, the dangers – and benefits – of using anonymous sources, and the ever-changing nature of intelligence and national security journalism. Part 2 of this series will be with Ali Watkins of the Huffington Post,...
Sep 08, 2015•47 min•Ep. 171
SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with career US Foreign Service Officer J. Andrew Plowman to discuss his book, Climate Change and Conflict Prevention. Plowman uses the Darfur conflict as a case study to examine how the effects of climate change might lead to future violent conflicts, and he assesses the best way to prevent these conflicts. Mr. Plowman’s service with the State Department has included assignments to Peru, Panama, Kazakhstan, and Brazil, as well as Washington assignments w...
Sep 01, 2015•23 min•Ep. 170
SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Cuban-exile-turned-CIA-officer Felix Rodriguez to discuss his extraordinary intelligence career. As a teenager, Rodriguez joined the effort to overthrow (and kill) Fidel Castro. After that mission failed, he trained and led the team that hunted – and captured – the guerilla Che Guevara in Bolivia. By the late 1960s, he took his counterinsurgency experience and applied it in covert operations against America’s enemies in Vietnam. This, and much more....
Aug 25, 2015•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 169
SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Cuban-exile-turned-CIA-officer Felix Rodriguez to discuss his extraordinary intelligence career. As a teenager, Rodriguez joined the effort to overthrow (and kill) Fidel Castro. After that mission failed, he trained and led the team that hunted – and captured – the guerilla Che Guevara in Bolivia. By the late 1960s, he took his counterinsurgency experience and applied it in covert operations against America’s enemies in Vietnam. This, and much more....
Aug 18, 2015•38 min•Ep. 168
SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Cuban-exile-turned-CIA-officer Felix Rodriguez to discuss his extraordinary intelligence career. As a teenager, Rodriguez joined the effort to overthrow (and kill) Fidel Castro. After that mission failed, he trained and led the team that hunted – and captured – the guerilla Che Guevara in Bolivia. By the late 1960s, he took his counterinsurgency experience and applied it in covert operations against America’s enemies in Vietnam. This, and much more....
Aug 11, 2015•39 min•Ep. 167
While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States. From David Hoffman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Dead Hand, comes the riveting story of the CIA's most valuable spy in the Soviet Union and an evocative portrait of the agency's Mo...
Jul 16, 2015•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 166
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Joe Wippl, the Director of Graduate Studies and Professor of the Practice of International Relations, Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies. Wippl is also a former CIA officer, who spent a 30 year career as an operations officer in the National Clandestine Service – at the time (as it is again) the Directorate of Operations. Houghton and Wippl discuss his time serving overseas as an operations officer and operations manager in Bonn, West Ger...
Jun 30, 2015•39 min•Ep. 165
For three nerve-wracking years, Naveed Jamali spied on the United States for the Russians – or so the Russians believed. Hear Naveed bring his unbelievable, yet true, story to life. By trading thumb drives of sensitive technical data for envelopes of cash, he pretended to sell out his own country across noisy restaurant tables and in quiet parking lots. Although he had no formal espionage training, with the help of an initially reluctant FBI duo he ended up at the center of a highly successful c...
Jun 26, 2015•50 min•Ep. 164
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down (remotely) with biographer Phyllis Birnbaum to discuss her newest book, based on the life of Kawashima Yoshiko, who supported the puppet Manchu state established by the Japanese in 1932--one reason she was executed for treason after Japan's 1945 defeat. The truth of Yoshiko's life is still a source of contention between China and Japan: some believe she was exploited by powerful men, others claim she relished her role as political provocateur. China holds he...
Jun 16, 2015•28 min•Ep. 163
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Dr. Gen Lester to discuss her new book, When Should State Secrets Stay Secret. Lester’s book examines the oversight mechanisms that have developed within all three branches of government, how they interact, and what types of historical pivot points have driven change among them. She suggests ways to improve oversight mechanisms based on her expert analysis. The book also includes a fascinating chapter on the inner workings of the CIA to which a number o...
May 19, 2015•55 min•Ep. 162
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Representative Will Hurd, a Republican from Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, to discuss his unique background as a former CIA officer who is now a Member of the US House of Representatives. After spending most of a decade working in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan, Rep. Hurd brought his experiences and lessons-learned to the Halls of Congress, where he serves on key committees, including Homeland Security and Oversight and Government Reform. Learn m...
May 12, 2015•36 min•Ep. 161
More than sixty years after their execution in June 1953 for conspiring to steal atomic secrets for the Soviet Union, debate still rages about the Rosenbergs. Mike Meeropol, the son of Julius and Ethel, has spent his life in pursuit of the real story behind his parents’ secret lives, their trials, their convictions for espionage, and ultimately their executions. Sam Roberts, journalist for The New York Times, is the author of The Brother, a book written with exclusive access to David Greenglass,...
Apr 30, 2015•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 160
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Kelsey Davenport, the Director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association, where she provides research and analysis on the nuclear and missile programs in Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan and on nuclear security issues. Vince and Kelsey discuss the complexity of the arms control process, the role of intelligence in verifying the status of nuclear weapon states, and the hope for a future without the danger of nuclear proliferation....
Apr 28, 2015•47 min•Ep. 159
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with historian and author Alex Rose, whose book Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring, is the source material for AMC Network’s series TURN. Drs. Houghton and Rose (who is a writer and co-producer of TURN) discuss history on TV, and the plotline of the second season of the hit series. They also take time to focus on the real history of the period, what is history and what is “Hollywood”, the Culper spy ring, and the importance of intellig...
Apr 14, 2015•41 min•Ep. 158
Former SPY Historian Mark Stout sat down with Marine Maj. Gen. (ret.) Mike Ennis to discuss human intelligence (HUMINT) within the Defense Department and the CIA. In 1998, Ennis commanded the Joint Intelligence Center of the United States Pacific Command, was later named Director of Marine Corps Intelligence Command in 2000, and was the Director of HUMINT for the DIA. In 2006, he was named Deputy Director of Community HUMINT of the Central Intelligence Agency’s National Clandestine Service, his ...
Mar 31, 2015•38 min•Ep. 157
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down (remotely) with Australian author Stephen Dando-Collins to discuss his new book, Operation Chowhound. Beginning with a crazy plan hatched by a suspect prince, and an even crazier reliance on the word of the Nazis, Operation Chowhound was devised. Between May 1 and May 8, 1945, 2,268 military units flown by the USAAF, dropped food to 3.5 million starving Dutch civilians in German-occupied Holland. Dando-Collins takes the reader into the rooms where Operation ...
Mar 19, 2015•36 min•Ep. 156
The history of American intelligence in the Revolution and Civil War has been extensively covered by both professional and amateur historians. But what about the time in between the wars? SPY historian Vince Houghton sat down with retired career CIA operations officer and historian Ken Daigler to discuss American espionage during the earliest period of United States history. Who were the first foreign agents sent to collect HUMINT? Can we look at the Lewis and Clark expedition as an intelligence...
Feb 17, 2015•31 min•Ep. 155
For more than forty years, the United States has played an indispensable role helping the Chinese government build a booming economy, develop its scientific and military capabilities, and take its place on the world stage, in the belief that China’s rise will bring us cooperation, diplomacy, and free trade. But what if the "China Dream" is to replace us, just as America replaced the British Empire, without firing a shot? Mike Pillsbury, a fluent Mandarin speaker who has served in senior national...
Feb 03, 2015•44 min•Ep. 154
What do Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and Ana Montes have in common? Two things: they all spied against the United States, and they all had Plato Cacheris as their lawyer. SPY Historian Vince Houghton and Executive Director Peter Earnest sat down with the legendary defense attorney to discuss many of his most (in)famous clients – including Ames, Hanssen, Montes – who stole some of America’s most guarded secrets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 27, 2015•30 min•Ep. 153
Through exhaustive use of declassified documents, previously unavailable investigative materials, and wide-ranging interviews, Malcolm Byrne explores what made the Iran-Contra scandal possible and meticulously relates how it unfolded—including clarifying minor myths about cakes, keys, bibles, diversion memos, and shredding parties. Byrne, the Deputy Director and Research Director at the National Security Archive, demonstrates that the affair could not have occurred without awareness and approval...
Jan 13, 2015•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 152
