Inside Sweden's Cold War Stay-Behind Operation
It was preparation for an invasion that might never come, and never did. Across Cold War Europe, stay-behind networks were established on the premise that Soviet forces might successfully invade and o...
29 Sep 34min
How the CIA Captured Carlos the Jackal
Before he became one of the world's most notorious terrorists in the 1970s and '80s, inspiring movies, books, and future terrorists, Carlos the Jackal was born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez to a privileged fa...
22 Sep 45min
A House Divided: The CIA, State, and a Coup in South Vietnam
It's a dark moment in American history that leads to a lot of what-ifs. By the spring of 1963, eight years into the Vietnam War, two opposing factions across the CIA and the State Department had Presi...
15 Sep 36min
25 Years After 9/11: The CIA's First Moments Behind Enemy Lines in Afghanistan
Retired Colonel Justin Sapp was a Green Beret detailed to the CIA after the September 11th terrorist attacks. He was part of Team Alpha, the first eight Americans to drop behind enemy lines into the m...
8 Sep 48min
Japanese Surveillance, Enslavement, and Experimentation in Wartime China
Graphic content warning: Not recommended for younger listeners. This episode contains material that may be triggering to some audiences, including violence and harm, medical and bodily content, sexual...
1 Sep 41min
Peter Ortiz: The WWII Marine Who Foreshadowed Modern-Day Special Forces
In 2017, journalist Katie Sanders discovered an episode of a radio program called This Is Your Life. It was a scratchy recording from 1949, and she heard the voice of 2nd Lt. Murray Simon, her grandf...
25 Aug 38min
What It Takes to Run the CIA's Southeast Asia Department
You might find Meredith Cavan playing music in an Irish pub. But long before her first album dropped, she clocked more than 20 years at the CIA. One of her jobs there was Southeast Asia Department chi...
18 Aug 42min
Cuba's Spies, Defectors, and the Ex-FBI Agent Who Met Them All
For decades, Cuban intelligence has been seen as a force that punches above its weight. Shaped during the Cold War through cooperation with the Soviet Union, its intelligence officers received extensi...
11 Aug 41min
