My guest is a West Point classmate of mine, Chris Petty, a retired Brigadier General. He created the book and online resource Battle Digest to fill the gap in military history education, offering concise lessons from historic battles. A former Rugby player, he emphasizes how studying history builds battlefield awareness and strategic thinking. Each digest follows a clear structure, covering strategic context, maneuvers, tactical actions, and lessons learned, making evident the principles of warf...
Jan 17, 2025•57 min•Ep 70•Transcript available on Metacast Eric O'Neill is a leading cybersecurity expert, former FBI operative, attorney, and founder of The Georgetown Group and NeXasure AI — which works with organizations to protect themselves against cybercriminals—whose activity on the dark web constitutes the world’s third largest economy. Eric began his career in the FBI as a “ghost” — an undercover field operative tasked to surveil foreign and domestic spies and terrorists. In 2001, he brought down the nation’s first cyb...
Aug 14, 2024•50 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast From bestselling author and the producer of the hit cable series Masters of Sex, Thomas Maier, comes a true story of espionage and mobsters, based on the never-before-released JFK Files. In this episode Mark talks with author and journalist Thomas Maier about his book Mafia Spies--A fact based look at a sensational event in intelligence history when the CIA approached the mafia to assist in the assassination attempts on Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro. In the early 1960s, two top gangsters, Jo...
Aug 01, 2024•51 min•Ep 68•Transcript available on Metacast Phil Gurski, an author and renowned Canadian intelligence professional. Phil worked as an analyst at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada's equivalent of the NSA, and as a senior strategic analyst at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). He contributes to the Ottawa Citizen and has published six books on counter-terrorism, including his recent work, The Peaceable Kingdom: A History of Terrorism in Canada from Confederation to the Present . I interviewed Phil in ...
Jul 18, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep 67•Transcript available on Metacast Trevor Aaronson is an award winning investigative journalist and contributing writer to The Intercept. His podcast ALPHABET BOYS and the subject of his other works focuses on the use of informants in Law Enforcement. We discuss the use of sting operations and how the informant has evolved into a more proactive role over the last few decades. Season 2 of Alphabet Boys centers around a singular motivated informant who somehow ends up working for the FBI, DEA and, he claims, the CIA. Live Drop 66 G...
Sep 22, 2023•50 min•Ep 66•Transcript available on Metacast Professor Dahl asserts that the pandemic was a global failure of intelligence, including not only the traditional intelligence agencies that should have been able to do better, but perhaps even more importantly, a failure of the complex system of medical and public health surveillance that is designed to anticipate threats just like this one. He specifically cites a lack of warning and failure of receptivity. Secondly, although the US and the rest of the world have taken some useful steps t...
Apr 07, 2023•54 min•Ep 65•Transcript available on Metacast Brittany Butler is a former CIA targeting officer with first-hand knowledge in the recruitment and handling of spies, and dismantling of terrorist networks abroad. A staunch advocate Middle Eastern women's rights, Brittany has worked to protect the rights of disenfranchised Afghan women and girls, and works within her local community to resettle Afghan refugees. The first in a series, THE SYNDICATE SPY combines facts with fiction, of how female intelligence officers utilize both intellect and sk...
Mar 31, 2023•48 min•Ep 64•Transcript available on Metacast Alma Katsu is an accomplished writer and intelligence professional with an extensive career spanning over 35 years. She has held senior analyst positions at various federal agencies, providing policy advice to military and government officials on national security issues. Additionally, she has worked as a senior technology policy analyst for the RAND Corporation and operates as an independent consultant and technology futurist, providing expert guidance to clients in both government and private ...
Mar 24, 2023•41 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast Bernd von Koska is the curator of the Allied Museum in Berlin and co-author of Capital of Spies . For almost half a century, From summer 1945 until 1990, NATO and the Warsaw Pact fought an ongoing duel in the dark. Espionage was part of everyday life in both East and West Berlin with spies of numerous nationalities and loyalties. In this conversation Bernd describes the highlights of his book and intelligence activities in Berlin: the success, failures, famous and the infamous to include: t...
May 09, 2022•43 min•Ep 62•Transcript available on Metacast John Pomfret is the author of From Warsaw With Love: Polish Spies, The CIA and the Forging of a Unlikely Alliance This book starts out in Los Angeles with a particularly effective Polish spy who’d penetrated the aerospace industry. Along with a history of U.S. and Polish collaboration dating back to the Colonial period, Pomfret identifies the threads of eventual cooperation between the intelligence organizations. I'm interested about how Poland gained entry into NATO in 19...
May 02, 2022•33 min•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast Rebecca Donner is the author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days . Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin the Rote Kapella. She recruited Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and wrote le...
Apr 25, 2022•53 min•Ep 60•Transcript available on Metacast It's not often you get to meet your heroes. As an Operations Research major in college, I Idolized the Bletchley Park giants. Dr. Anthony Wells was trained by these greats like his mentor the cryptoanalyst Sir Harry Hinsley. Fifty years of working in the British intelligence community leaves Dr. Wells with plenty to talk about -- and quite a lot to be kept secret as well. We discuss his book BETWEEN FIVE EYES - Fifty Years Inside the Five Eyes Intelligence Community which reads like a historical...
Apr 15, 2022•44 min•Ep 59•Transcript available on Metacast Though this episode was recorded in November of 2021, David's recollections and impressions of the Syrian Conflict are eerily similar to what's happening in Ukraine right now. A former CIA analyst, he's now a spy novelist to keep your eye on. David McCloskey reveals part of his process and some unique elements of craft that he brought to this auspicious first novel. Episode 58 From a CBS article by Kate Gibson, here are some links to help Ukranians: Convoy of Hope . The disaster relief group say...
Apr 09, 2022•46 min•Ep 58•Transcript available on Metacast Author of The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Espionage , Doug London was happy to get right into his book's revelations and talk about his process. With 34 years of experience in the CIA, this memoir is rich with the authentic personal encounters of a case officer. Doug walks me through some of the many things going through a case officer’s mind during all stages of Spot, Assess, Develop, and ultimately Terminate—sounds more violent than it is. Doug has a profound appreciati...
Jan 28, 2022•54 min•Ep 57•Transcript available on Metacast Jack Devine's career at the CIA spanned from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, including the fall of President Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the Iran–Contra affair in the mid-1980s, and the fight to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the late 1980s. Devine would go on to run the Counter Narcotics Center in the 1990s, and helped oversee capture Pablo Escobar in 1993. In this interview we talk about his initial impressions of ...
Nov 08, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep 56•Transcript available on Metacast Ann Hagedorn discusses her new book SLEEPER AGENT – about the little known Soviet-trained atomic spy who got away. George Koval was born to Russian immigrant parents and raised in Sioux City, Iowa. At the age of 17, he emigrated back to Russia in 1932 where, after university studies, he was discovered and trained by the GRU. He returned to the US, registered for the draft and used his scientific background to secure an assignment at a Uranium and Plutonium production site at Oak Ridge...
Nov 01, 2021•50 min•Ep 55•Transcript available on Metacast Marc Polymeropoulos has had to live with the consequences of decisions made under the most high-stress circumstances you can imagine as a senior intelligence officer in the CIA, retiring from his 26 years of service as one of the CIA’s most decorated field officers. In his book Clarity in Crisis , Marc shares how true leaders need to lead in and through times of crisis and thrive under conditions of ambiguity, rather than message their way out or duck from hard decisions. Far from ...
Oct 22, 2021•51 min•Ep 54•Transcript available on Metacast In his new book Proof of Lif e, American author Daniel Levin dives into the Syrian shadows - an underground industry of war where everything is for sale: arms, drugs, even people. In this thriller/memoir he draws on his perceptions and experience as a a lawyer turned armed conflict negotiator who, for the past twenty years, has worked with governments and development institutions worldwide. After a fairly worldly upbringing, he served in the Israeli Special Forces, studied law, taught ...
Oct 15, 2021•58 min•Ep 53•Transcript available on Metacast Back in April 2021, Todd Bensman talked with me about the nexus between immigration and national security in his book America’s Covert Border War: the Untold Story of the Nation’s Battle to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration . Todd is an award-winning journalist who transitioned to a career as a national security intelligence professional for the Texas Department of Public Safety and then returned to writing and publishing. We talk about the threat of muslim extremists crossing and the varied and cir...
Oct 08, 2021•53 min•Ep 52•Transcript available on Metacast Toby Harnden is an awarded journalist, foreign correspondent and former bureau chief of the Sunday Times. His most recent book is First Casualty: The untold story of he CIA mission to avenge 911 . After numerous interviews with key players and having visited Afganistan several times over the last decades, Toby documents the unconventional success story of CIA’s Team Alpha from their insertion into the Darya Suf Valley, coordination with Special Forces ODA 595, link-up and cooperation with Northe...
Oct 01, 2021•45 min•Ep 51•Transcript available on Metacast The Live Drop's 50th Episode - John Sipher - CIA & Spycraft Entertainment from Spycraftentertainment.com John retired in 2014 after a 28-year career in the Central Intelligence Agency’s National Clandestine Service. At the time of his retirement, he was a member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service, the leadership team that guides CIA activities globally. John served multiple overseas tours as Chief of Station and Deputy Chief of Station in Europe, Asia, and high-threat environments. He has ...
Oct 19, 2020•56 min•Ep 50•Transcript available on Metacast Live Drop guest Kao Kalia Yang is a celebrated Hmong-American writer. She holds degrees from Carleton College and Columbia University. Yang is the author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir winner of the 2009 Minnesota Book Awards in Creative Nonfiction/Memoir and Readers’ Choice, a finalist for the PEN USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, and the Asian Literary Award in Nonfiction. Her second book, The Song Poet won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award in Creative Nonfiction Memoir, was a finalis...
Oct 13, 2020•48 min•Ep 49•Transcript available on Metacast Jonathan Dyer spent three years during the Cold War living and working in Berlin as a Russian Linguist for the Army's Intelligence and Security Command at Field Station Berlin. From 1983 through 1986, Dyer worked at the NSA’s intercept site on Teufelsberg in what was at the time West Berlin. He was a SIGINT intercept operator and transcriber - his job was to keep tabs on the USSR’s military activities in the Group of Soviet Forces Germany. The Nick Temple Files His experiences in Berlin ser...
Oct 01, 2020•37 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast Mike Croll has been around a crisis or two - some violent and some peaceful - starting with the fall of the Berlin Wall. He's worked for the Halo Trust in Cambodia, and with the British Foreign Office, European Union, United Nations and more recently, Facebook. He's an old friend of your host Mark Valley and they share a few laughs as Mike offers some thoughts about Security from ancient times to the present and into the future. And there's a bonus guest around 48:52 who drops in - Mi...
Sep 22, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast American photographer Dan Kane has a vivid memory. He got to Berlin in 1983 and experienced some of the major events like the Nicholson shooting of 1985, the LaBelle bombing in 1986, the Wall coming down in 1989 - and he has some stories to share. Dan was a civilian, fluent in German, and an ex-pat with a variety of jobs in the American sector. He taught English, narrated ads for AFN Berlin (88FM,) and taught photography for the US Army – worth noting that his students were involved in surv...
Sep 14, 2020•49 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast Author Trevor Barnes talks about his new book Dead Doubles – about the Portland spy Ring – their Portland, not our Portland. In the late 50s Soviet illegal Gordon Lonsdale (Konan Molody) ran a group of spies who managed to penetrate a British research facility at the Portland Naval Base, and communicate effectively to Moscow. The compromised intelligence ranged from sonar to biological technologies. A famous counter-intelligence investigation led by MI-5 was an example of early cooperation betwe...
Sep 04, 2020•59 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode we gather some expert intelligence about global health supply chains, and how they are adapting to the demands and limitations of the Covid-19 pandemic. My guest Maeve Magner is an industry renowned global health supply chain advisor who’s clients include: Foundation for New Diagnostics, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Global Fund, and the GAVI Vaccine Alliance. Maeve informs from Ireland about the fundamentals of supply chain management from manufacturing, forecasting, an...
Aug 07, 2020•34 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast "Fake news" is a term you’ve probably heard a lot in the last few years, but it’s not a new phenomenon. From the ancient Egyptians to the French Revolution to Jack the Ripper and the founding fathers, fake news has been around as long as human civilization. But that doesn’t mean that we should just give up on the idea of finding the truth. In True or False, former CIA analyst Cindy Otis will take readers young and old through the history and impact of misinformation over the centuries,...
Jul 24, 2020•44 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast Lovers Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen formed an unconventional and enigmatic network of artists and intellectuals to resist the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s Berlin. As an officer of the Luftwaffe and Nazi film worker Harro and Libertas sought to operate in plain site, and combine friendship with opportunities for espionage. This gripping spy tale asks the question of how much we are willing to risk to challenge the status quo and change society. Norman spoke to me from Berlin about his research...
Jul 17, 2020•31 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast Emily Whalen is a historian of U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. She is a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Texas - Austin, and an Earnest May pre-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Soon to be Dr. Whalen essentially offers a thorough country profile starting literally with ancient history to the present unrest in Lebanon. We discuss how the political system represents the various ethnic and sectarian g...
Jun 20, 2020•51 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast 
