“The Third Option” – US Covert Action with Loch Johnson (Part 1 of 2)

Military deception was an important part of Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 coalition effort to eject the Iraqi Army from Kuwait. The man in charge of that U.S. Marine Corp’s part of that deception was Brigadier General Tom Draude. Despite the fact that he had no previous background in deception, General Draude and his team of clever American planners put together an elegant and effective deception plan. Hear him tell Peter how they exploited the expectations of Iraq's military to put them off guard and out of place. Also learn about the role in that books such as The Man Who Never Was and John Le Carre’s The Little Drummer Girl played in General Draude’s thinking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Jun 201337min

Mark Zaid is one of the nation’s top national security lawyers and has defended many alleged whistleblowers and leakers. SPY Historian, Mark Stout, called him in for a consultation on the case of Edward Snowden who has admitted leaking to the press top secret material from the National Security Agency. Hear them discuss Snowden’s present legal position, the options open to a would-be whistleblower, and the actual meanings of treason and asylum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Jun 201343min

Morten Storm was a Danish convert to Islam who became a close associate of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American imam who was a senior member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. He even ate in Awlaki’s home and helped find him a wife. When Storm repented of his radical ways, he turned to the Danish intelligence service and offered inside access to AQAP. Hear him tell SPY Historian Mark Stout how MI6 and CIA came into the picture and how he helped tracked down Awlaki, who died in a controversial CIA drone attack in September 2011. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Mai 201358min

After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the US Navy knew it would need vital information from the Pacific. Captain Milton ‘Mary’ Miles journeyed to China to set up weather stations and monitor the Chinese coastline—and to spy on the Japanese. After a handshake agreement with Chiang Kai-shek's spymaster, General Dai Li, the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO) was born. This top-secret network worked hand in hand with the Nationalist Chinese to fight the Japanese invasion of China while erecting crucial weather stations, providing critical information to the US military, intercepting Japanese communications, blowing up enemy supply depots, laying mines, destroying bridges, and training Chinese peasants in guerrilla warfare. Join author Linda Kush as she reveals the story of one of the most successful covert operation efforts of World War II. This event took place on March 5, 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Mai 201343min

Can you keep a secret? Maybe you can, but the United States government can’t. Since the birth of our country, nations from Russia and China to Ghana and Ecuador, have stolen some of our country’s most precious secrets. Michael Sulick, former director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, discusses his book, Spying in America, which presents a history of more than thirty espionage cases inside the United States. This event took place on January 15, 2013. Get the book: http://www.spymuseumstore.org/spying-in-america-book.html#.Vxk4FpMrJTY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Mai 201355min

Major General Michael Ennis was one of the rare Marine officers admitted to the Foreign Area Officer program where he became a specialist on the Soviet Union. This led to an assignment as a translator on the Washington-Moscow Hotline at the White House and then got him a license to spy in communist East Germany in the 1980s as part of the US Military Liaison Mission. Hear him tell SPY Historian Mark Stout what it’s like to penetrate a Soviet command bunker at night or be chased by a Soviet tank, and learn the intelligence value of a hunk of concrete. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

19 Apr 201339min

In the 1970s, historian John Earl Haynes was researching the American labor movement when he discovered interesting connections to the Communist party. Fast forward 20 years to the 1990s, when that ongoing research on the Communist party led him into the murky world of Soviet espionage. SPY Historian Mark Stout sits down with this groundbreaking historian to look back on his career and learn how he became a leading and unlikely expert on Soviet espionage in the America. Follow along on this fascinating journey from Minnesota, to the halls of power in Washington DC, to dusty archives in Moscow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Apr 201346min

The United Nations thinks “intelligence” is a dirty word but it still needs intelligence to conduct peacekeeping operations. The result is a euphemism: “military information.” SPY Historian Mark Stout talks with Tom Quiggin, a former Canadian intelligence officer who worked alongside Americans, Swedes, Jordanians, Russians, and others in the Military Information Office supporting UN peacekeeping operations in Bosnia during the 1990s. Hear what it’s like to pass through a checkpoint manned by drunken teenage soldiers or to know that your warnings of an upcoming massacre in Srebrenica are being ignored. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Feb 201344min