It was the 1980’s. “I don't think they'll ever have the fun I had that year, at 23 years old, going to the White House and the NSC, briefing cabinet members…I mean, you name it. It was just incredible!” Three years into her CIA career, Diana Bolsinger found herself on point as the sole person working on the Afghanistan account in her department. Thereafter, she was Acting Deputy to the Ambassador to the Afghan Resistance (“mujahedeen”), a political officer in Islamabad, an analyst at the Counter...
Sep 08, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 498
Turning the tide in the Pacific at the Battle of Midway, establishing secure communications on the beaches during D-Day, staving off nuclear Armageddon – what did cryptology ever have to do with anything, right? To discuss these big themes – and to celebrate our partnership on the exhibition “Codes, Ciphers and Mysteries” – we brought back you know who, Executive Director of the National Cryptologic Museum (NCM) and former SpyCast host, Vince Houghton (Retd). Through the end of September 2021, y...
Aug 31, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 497
Codes. Ciphers. Mysteries. This week’s guests are fascinated by codebreaking and cryptography: as well they should be! The Voynich Manuscript, the Dorabella Letter, The Beale Papers, the Zodiac Cipher, Kryptos – so much history, intrigue, and speculation. Andrew sat down with Elonka Dunin, code-breaker extraordinaire, and Klaus Schmeh, a world leading expert on the history of cryptography, to discuss the cat-and-mouse game between code-makers and code-breakers across the ages from ancient cuneif...
Aug 24, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 496
Is Edward Snowden a traitor a hero? Does the surveillance state threaten freedom or secure it? Andrew sat down with investigative reporter Barton Gellman, author of Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State , and part of the team that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the National Security Agency and Edward Snowden, to discuss these issues and more. Bart has a serious resume: The Atlantic , The Washington Post , LA Times Book Prize, Emmy Awards ...
Aug 17, 2021•59 min•Ep. 495
Have you ever felt like “cyber” is changing so quickly, it is difficult to keep up? This week’s guest has seen Cyber-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. How? He hosts no less than 10 podcasts per week on the topic! From the Cyberwire Daily to Hacking Humans , and from Career Notes to Recorded Future , Dave Bittner is what you might call: busy. Dave and Andrew talk the Silicon Valley of the East, state-affiliated hackers, organized crime and staying cyber-safe – because it’s a jun...
Aug 10, 2021•58 min•Ep. 494
Counterintelligence. Security. Two words that have serious pull in Washington D.C. The problem is, how do you ensure the strings, woodwind, brass and percussion are all playing the same music? Welcome to the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC). Acting Director Michael Orlando was this week’s guest, where he sat down with Andrew – yes, literally sat down, poor Hammond is actually getting to do what his predecessors did and do podcasts face-to-face – to discuss how he helps con...
Aug 03, 2021•58 min•Ep. 493
"Deeply, deeply, disturbing." This is how Alma's Katsu's book, The Hunger , was described by Stephen King. Ok, I'll repeat that, that's how her book was described by Stephen King, author of Carrie , The Shining and Misery ! The Hunger was based on the infamous Donner Party trip of the nineteenth century, but her most recent book, Red Widow , turns to intelligence and espionage - something Alma knows rather a lot about having spent over thirty years at the NSA and the CIA. Since leaving the intel...
Jul 27, 2021•58 min•Ep. 492
Last week’s episode focused on “Karen Schaefer, CIA Operator,” while this week’s episode looks at her time as a “Serial Collaborator.” Karen specialized in making sure the heart, brain, left hand and right hand had a better idea of what each was up to and were functioning in unison – whether as Director of Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council (NSC), in the leadership group at the FBI (then Director James Comey was fired two days after she arrived), or with the Joint Special Ope...
Jul 20, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 491
From counternarcotics to counterterrorism, from Latin America to the Middle East, and from the back streets of a warzone to the center of events in Washington DC – Karen Schaefer has had, how should we say, an “eventful” career as an intelligence officer. Charming, smart, thoughtful, and you haven’t even met Karen yet…but seriously, it was a pleasure to talk to this week’s guest who had all of those qualities, and more; so enjoyable it will be released as a double-header. This week, Part I focus...
Jul 13, 2021•55 min•Ep. 490
Cheesesteaks. Baseball. Rocky. Espionage? Hear about the Philly you never knew – as the birthplace of American espionage. From the Committee on Spies during the Revolution (now there is one committee, that actually sounds like it would be good to be on!) to Allen Pinkerton and Kate Warren during the Civil War, up through the A-bomb, a former Director of Central Intelligence, and a conspirator for the Mumbai Bombing of 2008 - Philadelphia has all kinds of fascinating links to the world of intelli...
Jul 04, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 489
Quit. Fail. Give-up. Rick Diaz refused to acknowledge the meaning of these terms. The result? Well, you’ll need to listen to find out.
Jun 29, 2021•34 min•Ep. 488
Spy satellites are fascinating! Man-made objects up there – sometimes way up there – looking down to see what other humans are up to. I believe it’s called a God’s eye view. You may not be as unfamiliar with satellites as you think: for starters, you’re on one! The earth is a satellite of the sun, the moon is a satellite of the earth, you are a satellite of…historian Dr. James Outzen sat down with Andrew to talk about artificial – i.e., man-made – satellites as part of a conversation marking the...
Jun 22, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 487
A superstar line-up chooses an African American spy from American history. Harriet Tubman, Ralph Bunche and Willie Merkerson Jr. are introduced, before we have a discussion about African Americans and the American experience. Our guests are Mel Gamble, a former CIA Chief of the Africa Division and Senior Intelligence officer; Reuben E. Brigety II, former US Ambassador to the African Union and current Vice Chancellor of the University of the South; and Kaia Niambi Shivers, writer, activist and fo...
Jun 19, 2021•52 min•Ep. 486
Barry Broman spent most of his life in South-east Asia as a photographer, an infantry officer, and as a “diplomat” (although not really!). It is not that he wasn’t a diplomat - it’s just that he did something else too…like recruit over 40 agents, escape the genocidal Khmer Rouge, supervise covert paramilitary operations, and bring in gargantuan quantities of heroin in major drug busts. Barry has lived a life – and then some. Andrew sat down with Barry to talk about his life east of the Irrawaddy...
Jun 15, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 485
What do Afghan Mujahedeen, the KGB, Pablo Escobar, Iran-Contra, and Chilean Elections have in common? Two words: Jack Devine. This CIA legend is the Forrest Gump of the intelligence world, in that he always finds himself at the center of events. Jack reflects on his remarkable career and hones in on Russian aggression and Vladimir Putin, the subject of his current book, The Spymaster’s Prism . Anybody who went from the streets of blue-collar Philadelphia to Acting Deputy Director of Operations f...
Jun 08, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 484
Rob Montgomery had a real scare on deployment in Afghanistan…the scare was back in Virginia though; he had a motion detect on his phone that showed multiple unidentified males outside his home in a sleepy college town - while his wife and children were asleep inside. You’ll need to listen to hear the rest of the story, but it did prompt Rob to think more deeply about the life-saving skills he developed over 34 years serving in some of the most austere and dangerous places on the planet. We talk ...
Jun 01, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 483
Hear an incredible true story. Marthe Cohn was a young Jewish woman who went behind enemy lines into Nazi Germany with a pair of walking shoes, a cover story, and about half a ton of chutzpah. 101-year-old Marthe spoke to Andrew over the phone from her home in Los Angeles.
May 25, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 482
In a first for the show, this week’s guest is a former spy chief from the world’s largest democracy. Vikram Sood was the Director of India's Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). Andrew and Vikram talk Pakistan, China, the United States, human capital, intelligence reform and the power of narratives: because spies can be sensitive souls too.
May 18, 2021•59 min•Ep. 481
Where to begin. Marty was described to me as, “the greatest analyst we ever had (truthfully),” would I be interested in speaking to him? Guess the answer!? The result, a SpyCast with a CIA analytic legend. For 40 years Marty analyzed intelligence for US foreign policymakers, trained a whole generation of analysts, and mentored figures who would go on to have senior leadership positions within American intelligence, such as former Acting and Deputy Director of CIA Mike Morrell. In this episode we...
May 11, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 480
This week’s guest is Frank Figliuzzi, former assistant director of Counterintelligence at the FBI, who oversaw all espionage investigations across the US govt. He served for 25 years as a Special Agent, which included countering economic espionage in Silicon Valley, being appointed the FBI’s Chief Inspector, and heading up the Cleveland Division. He is the recent author of “The FBI Way” and a current columnist and national security correspondent for NBC News. In this week’s episode we talk about...
May 04, 2021•53 min•Ep. 479
Infosec. Cybersec. Techsec. In the second part of our double-header on the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations, we round out our previous discussion with two former Directors of Counterintelligence for the US Air Force, Jude Sunderbruch and Terry Phillips . Their world-wide remit includes cybersecurity, information security, technology protection and all things air power and counter-intelligence. N.B. – SpyCast 2.0 Next week we reboot SpyCast with improved audio and some additional twe...
Apr 27, 2021•50 min•Ep. 478
Andrew and Director Dominic Cooke sit down to talk about his new movie The Courier (2021), starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel Brosnahan and Merab Ninidze, which tells the story of Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky. A Cold War spy thriller based on true events where humanity was precariously perched on a wire.
Apr 20, 2021•56 min•Ep. 477
If you think that all the best spy stories happened during the Cold War – we have a doozy for you. In 2008 FSB officer Alexy Yurievich Artmonov was presented with three choices: (1) put a bullet in his own head, (2) wait for someone else to do it, (3) run. Which would you choose? Alexy chose (3). In fact, this story has all the makings of Cold War spy fiction: caught between the long arm of corrupt government officials and the mob, a spy and his wife go on the run leaving friends and family behi...
Apr 13, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 476
Continuing our journey through SpyCast’s greatest hits enroute to our relaunch, we arrive on a topic of perennial interest and great importance: intelligence and the US presidency. Just how is information from the intelligence community (IC) conveyed to the president? How have different administrations incorporated intelligence into the political decision-making process? This blast from the past features John Hedley, former CIA officer and editor of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), who reviews...
Apr 06, 2021•27 min•Ep. 475
Josh Campbell lit his cigar and extinguished the match. It was Inauguration Day 2017, and he was on the roof of his Washington D.C. apartment building. As the outgoing Obama’s made their way overhead on a helicopter, he turned to his father who had flown up from Texas for the event and remarked, “ I hope Trump is good for the FBI .” Josh Campbell, former Special Assistant to the Director of the FBI , was chosen by James Comey because he didn’t shy away from speaking his mind. No matter what your...
Mar 30, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 474
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, fi...
Mar 23, 2021•28 min•Ep. 473
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) a...
Mar 16, 2021•25 min•Ep. 472
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 toge...
Mar 09, 2021•48 min•Ep. 471
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 ...
Mar 02, 2021•38 min•Ep. 470
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....
Feb 23, 2021•36 min•Ep. 469
