The Zimmermann Telegram: Intelligence, Diplomacy, and America's Entry into World War I
In January 1917, British naval intelligence intercepted what became the most important telegram in all of American history. It was a daring proposition from Germany's foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmerm...
31 Dec 201240min
From Nazi Germany to the OSS to the CIA (Part 1)
Today Peter begins a conversation with the remarkable Peter Sichel, OSS veteran, senior CIA official of the 1950s, and onetime head of Blue Nun wines. After fleeing Nazi Germany with his family in th...
21 Dec 201223min
The Evolution of Spy Fiction: Bond and His Brethren
The modern spy novel was born in early twentieth century Britain with writers such as Erskine Childers and William LeQueux whose one-dimensional heroes were English gentlemen holding back the barbaria...
14 Nov 201244min
Author Debriefing: The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran
The United States and Iran have been at daggers drawn for more than thirty years. While this rivalry has never erupted into open war, it has been an enduring “twilight war” in which spies and terroris...
8 Nov 201248min
Author Debrief: Castro's Secrets: The CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine
In Castro’s Secrets, Brian Latell, former National Intelligence Officer for Latin America and long-time Cuba analyst, offers a strikingly original image of Fidel Castro as Cuba's supreme spymaster. La...
6 Nov 20121h 1min
Author Debriefing: The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service
In the days after 9/11, the CIA directed Henry Crumpton to organize and lead its covert action campaign in Afghanistan. In less than 90 days Al Qaeda and the Taliban were routed. The Art of Intelligen...
25 Sep 201259min
The Red Cell: Fact and Fiction
The surprise of September 11 2001 was, in part, a failure of imagination and CIA Director George Tenet did not want that to happen again. On September 13 he created the Red Cell and staffed it with “p...
23 Aug 201236min
Agent Garbo: How a Brilliant & Eccentric Double Agent Tricked the Nazis & Saved D-Day
Juan Pujol was the Walter Mitty of World War II, a nobody who at one doomed venture after another while dreaming of doing something interesting with his life -- saving Western civilization, if possibl...
21 Aug 201244min
