Today Justin sits down with Andrew Kirsch. Andrew grew up in Toronto, Canada, and is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He worked as an investment advisor in London before applying for a position with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or CCIS. He spent nearly 10 years as an intelligence officer working in several positions, including analyst, investigator, and as a special operations team leader. He now runs the Kirsch Consulting Group, a risk advisory firm base...
Feb 10, 2025•54 min•Ep 183•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin talks to retired Special Agent Joe Navarro. Joe spent 25 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, primarily working on counterintelligence investigations. He is also a founding member of the National Security Division Behavioral Analysis Program, which focused on the behavior of spies, terrorists, and criminals. During his career, Joe developed tremendous expertise in nonverbal communication and body language, and after retiring, went on to write the international bestseller,...
Feb 03, 2025•43 min•Ep 182•Transcript available on Metacast Today's guest is Kit Turner. Kit has worked as an anthropologist and archeologist in the U. S., Polynesia, and Southwest Asia. He later joined the Central Intelligence Agency where he spent 25 years working in East Asia, South Asia, and Europe, running sensitive operations against high priority objectives. He's been awarded the Intelligence Star, a commendation for valor after a dangerous deployment. He's also the author of a nonfiction book, four novels, and has published article...
Jan 27, 2025•40 min•Ep 181•Transcript available on Metacast Today's guest is David Axe. David is a journalist and filmmaker. His work has appeared in The Daily Beast , Vice , Reuters , Wired.com , The Washington Post , Forbes , and many other publications. He's published several books including fiction, nonfiction, and graphic novels. He's also written, produced, or directed several independent films. David is here to discuss the origins of American battlefield drones and how their early successes and failures helped inform the continued d...
Jan 20, 2025•37 min•Ep 180•Transcript available on Metacast This week Justin talks with Pat Boland. Pat has worked in several different positions in sales and marketing, including as a Portfolio Analyst, Consultant, and Senior Account Executive. She's currently working as a writer and researcher. But aside from her career, she's also devoted a great deal of time to investigating one of the most intriguing mysteries of the 20th century, the true identity of the famous skyjacker known as D. B. Cooper, who quite literally disappeared into thin air...
Jan 13, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Ep 179•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin sits down with Dr. Daniela Richterova. Daniela received her master's degree from King's College London and her PhD from the University of Warwick. She is an associate professor of intelligence studies at the department of war studies at King's College London, as well as the co director of the King's Center for the Study of Intelligence. Her work has been published in international affairs, foreign policy, and other major media outlets and journals. She's her...
Jan 06, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Ep 178•Transcript available on Metacast In this solo episode, Justin share some of his own research. Today he discusses the very unusual case of Richard Craig Smith. Craig was a former army counterintelligence agent who was arrested in April, 1984 for passing classified information to a KGB officer in Japan on several occasions. There are two very different versions of Craig's story. He did meet with a Soviet intelligence agent. He did give him information on American double agents and he was paid for this information. Craig did ...
Dec 30, 2024•35 min•Ep 177•Transcript available on Metacast This week's guest is David Tyson. David served in the U. S. Army first as an enlisted artilleryman and later as an intelligence officer. During his time in the Army, he discovered he had an affinity for learning languages, and after leaving the service, he began working towards a graduate degree, focusing his studies on Central Asia. He was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1996, and five years later, was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in November 2001. David ...
Dec 23, 2024•2 hr 55 min•Ep 176•Transcript available on Metacast Join Justin for a special review episode of The Sandbaggers , a British television series that ran for three seasons between 1978 and 1980 following characters who worked at MI6. In Justin's opinion, this show is one of the best ever fictional portrayals of covert operations and the day-to-day running of an intelligence agency. You can find more reviews on Patreon , and catch The Sandbaggers on Prime Video. Connect with Spycraft 101: Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Cons...
Dec 19, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week Justin sits down with Dr. Claire Hubbard-Hall. Claire received her doctorate in European history from the University of Hull. She has lectured and taught history courses at several British universities over the past 16 years with a particular focus on secret intelligence. She's also appeared in several television documentaries and written articles for many different publications. Today she discusses the story of the often overlooked contributions of many long serving and hard work...
Dec 16, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep 175•Transcript available on Metacast This week Justin talks with Robert Weingartner. Rob is a lifelong resident of Staten Island, New York. He graduated from Drake Business School in Manhattan in 2002, and he enjoys reading and learning about history. Over the past few years, Rob has been researching an espionage story that began right in his own hometown. I invited Rob onto the podcast to discuss his research into a German spy ring, which operated on Staten Island during World War II. Connect with Robert: Facebook Group: WWII Germ...
Nov 25, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin sits down with Peter Merlin. Peter is an author, historian, and college instructor. He received his Bachelor's of Science degree in Aeronautical Studies from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and has just completed his Master's degree in Aviation Management from Southern Illinois University. He's been a freelance writer and researcher for more than 30 years and has worked as a historian and archivist at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards, Calif...
Nov 18, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep 173•Transcript available on Metacast This week Justin replays one of his personal favorite episodes, number 26, when author and former special forces officer Greg Walker shared the little-known story of a David Baez, a green beret defector. Baez was a Nicaraguan national whose father was killed by U.S.-backed President Samosa after voicing his displeasure with inequalities that had risen under Samosa's rule. After immigrating the U.S. and joining the Army (and then Special Forces), Baez found himself in El Salvador watching th...
Nov 11, 2024•2 hr 30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin sits down with repeat guest Tim Tate. Tim has worked as a documentary filmmaker and an investigative journalist for more than 40 years, and in that time has published 19 books and produced 80 documentaries. Some of the topics he's covered in the past include China's slave labor gulags, the worst child murderer in British history, and the orphans left behind after the Vietnam War. Today he discusses the topic of his latest book. It's the story of Peter Wright, MI5 seni...
Nov 04, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep 172•Transcript available on Metacast This week's guest is Dr. Lewis Sage-Passant. Lewis is a former British military intelligence officer and holds a PhD in Intelligence Studies. He's currently the global head of intelligence for one of Europe's most valuable companies, where he helps the firm navigate geopolitical, security, and industrial espionage risks. He also teaches courses in intelligence studies as an adjunct professor at Sciences Po Paris. His work has appeared in many publications and media organizations, ...
Oct 28, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Justin welcomes back Patrick K. O'Donnell. Patrick is a combat historian who has covered the war in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004, where he was armed and participated in the battle alongside the U.S. Marines. He's an expert on special operations units and irregular warfare. He's published 13 books so far on combat history, covering stories from the American Revolution, World War II, The Global War on Terror and more. He's also the author of The Brenner Assignment , which ...
Oct 21, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep 170•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin talks with Norman Ohler. Norman is a best selling novelist, a journalist, and a screenwriter. He's written three novels, which comprise the City Trilogy , and while working in the West Bank in 2004, he interviewed Yasser Arafat in what turned out to be the final interview of his life before he passed away in November of that year. He's also the author of the non fiction book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany , published in English in 2016. In this episode he discusses his new...
Oct 14, 2024•44 min•Ep 169•Transcript available on Metacast This week Justin sits down with Craig Unger. Craig is a journalist and the author of eight books. He's a graduate of Harvard University, where he worked as an editor for The Harvard Crimson . He's written articles which have appeared in The Washington Post , The Guardian , The New Yorker , The New York Times , Esquire , and other publications. He also served as a contributing editor for Vanity Fair , where he covered national security and foreign affairs for more than 15 years. He&apos...
Oct 07, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep 168•Transcript available on Metacast This week Justin talks with Caleb Daniels. Caleb is a lifelong fan of the James Bond films and novels, as well as a firearms enthusiast from Kansas City, Missouri. For seven years, he worked in the firearms industry. In 2020, he started the website and social media pages titled Commando Bond, which are a passion project of his to bridge the gap between pop culture and the world of firearms by analyzing how to live like James Bond from his daily carry to his wardrobe and lifestyle.Todya he discus...
Sep 30, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep 167•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin sits down with Vladimir McMillin. Vlad was born in Moscow and worked for 20 years for the TASS Russian news agency as a sports reporter. He immigrated to the United States in 1990 and has lived here since then. At a very young age, Vlad realized that there was something different about his family, because they were the only family named McMillin in all of Russia. Vlad's father was James McMillan, a former U.S. Army NCO stationed at the American Embassy in Moscow in the late 194...
Sep 23, 2024•58 min•Ep 166•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin talks with Dr. Paul McGarr. Paul is a researcher, lecturer, and author who has focused particularly on security and intelligence interventions by the U.S. and U.K. governments into the global south. He's published more than two dozen articles in professional journals over the past 15 years and teaches several courses on intelligence and diplomacy at King's College London. He is also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society. He's here to d...
Sep 16, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep 165•Transcript available on Metacast Today's guest is Jacek Waliszewski. Jacek is an Army Special Forces warrant officer. During his career, he has served primarily with 10th Group and has deployed 18 times on three different continents to date and trained more than 2, 500 soldiers worldwide in special operations tactics and strategies. He's also published two novels. He's here to discuss his newest book, the true memoirs of an OSS agent on the ground in Southern Europe in 1944, working with local partisans in the fi...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this solo episode, Justin discusses how the world's intelligence agencies have captured foreign case officers, spies, and even their own defectors alive after they've already escaped to other countries. Killing a target in another country is difficult enough, especially when they are enjoying the security of the host nation that welcomed them in, but it's often even more difficult than that to get them back alive. Different methods have been used over the years, and despite all...
Sep 02, 2024•42 min•Ep 163•Transcript available on Metacast Justin's guest today is Dr. Mark Stout, who has held many positions, both inside and outside the U.S. intelligence community. He's worked as an intelligence analyst for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research for the CIA, and was a civilian employee for the U.S. Army at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. He was also the historian for the International Spy Museum from 2010 until 2013, and was the director of the Master's in Arts Program for Global Security...
Aug 26, 2024•57 min•Ep 162•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin talks with Constance Huff. She retired from the U.S. Army as a Chief Warrant Officer IV. Connie spent more than 24 years in Army Intelligence, holding three occupational specialties, Interrogator, CI Special Agent, and Case Officer. She spent the majority of her career in counterintelligence, where she specialized in counterespionage investigations and operations. Connie was a senior instructor for the U.S. Army's Advanced Foreign Counterintelligence Training course, which was ...
Aug 19, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep 161•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin is joined by Zach Dorfman. Zach is a national security reporter whose work has appeared in Politico , The Atlantic , The Wall Street Journal , The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He received his Bachelor's degree from Skidmore College and a Master's degree in International Relations and Affairs from the University of Chicago. Zach is a former senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. He's also the host of the Spy Valley...
Aug 12, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, Justin sits down with William Boik. Bill served in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve for more than 30 years before retiring in 2005 at the rank of colonel. Over the course of his military career, he served in various positions in the armor branch and in military intelligence in South Korea, Germany and the U.S. From 2001 to 2018, Bill was a senior civilian at the Defense POW MIA Office, later known as the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency, first as the Director of Global Affairs and then as ...
Aug 05, 2024•2 hr 32 min•Ep 159•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin is joined by Christian Hansen. Christian is a graduate of Western Kentucky University and now lives in New York City, where he has worked as a photojournalist since 2007. His work has previously appeared in The New York Times . In 2013, he began to follow a thread of a story about the unexpected death of a writer pursuing his own story in West Virginia in 1991. That turned into a decade-long quest that connects the intelligence community, military, Reagan administration, private cor...
Jul 29, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today Justin sits down with Luis Munar Duran. Luis received his law degree from the University of Valencia in Spain and was a practicing attorney for nearly 20 years beginning in 1998. He's also a certified pilot and served as a reserve officer in the Spanish Air Force. Luis also has extensive training and experience in security and human rights issues. In 2012, After traveling to Aleppo, Syria to build a refugee camp and help train guerrilla fighters there, Luis was recruited by the Spanis...
Jul 22, 2024•1 hr•Ep 157•Transcript available on Metacast This week Justin talks with Dan Lawton. Dan received his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and graduated with his Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center in 1986 and has been practicing and a practicing attorney in San Diego, California for many years. He's also taught at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law since 2001 and has written articles and short fiction, which have appeared in numerous publications. Today Dan tells the story of Kevin Barry Artt, a ...
Jul 15, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
