American Communism and Soviet Espionage: A Look Back with John Earl Haynes
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
Intelligence in Support of UN Peacekeeping in Bosnia during the 1990s
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
Born Under an Assumed Name
Looking back on her childhood, Sarah Taber remembers that “my identity was problematic because of moving from country to country and the overall atmosphere of growing up in the CIA.” As an adult she wrote about what it was like to be raised in a culture of “secrecy, stoicism and silence” in her book Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter. Feel the stresses and learn the secrets of a CIA family in this heart-to-heart talk between Sarah and Peter, himself a CIA father. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
11 Feb 201327min
From Nazi Germany to the OSS to the CIA (Part 2)
In this Spycast Peter finishes his conversation with Peter Sichel. Listen to this insider talking about CIA operations in Germany after World War II, the futile support for anti-communist guerrillas in Ukraine and China during the 1940s and 1950s, the strains of leading an undercover life and his friendship with legendary CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
22 Jan 201328min
Canada’s Security Intelligence Service in the Post-Cold War World
Canada’s Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) operates on a very different model from the American CIA, being neither strictly a foreign intelligence agency nor a domestic intelligence agency. Today SPY Historian Mark Stout discusses CSIS with Ray Boisvert, who was one of the founding members of the Service in 1984 and rose to become its Assistant Director, Intelligence, a position from which he retired in 2012. Hear them talk about the concept of “security intelligence” in a democratic society and explore the dilemmas which the Service faces in an era of terrorism emanating from groups such as al Qaeda and foreign covert influence from nation states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
10 Jan 201343min
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 Zimmermann, offering German support to Mexico for regaining Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in exchange for a Mexican attack on America. Five weeks later, America entered World War I. Former SPY Historian Dr. Thomas Boghardt who is now at the US Army’s Center of Military History talks about his new account of the Zimmerman Telegram. This event took place on, November 27, 2012. Get the book: http://www.spymuseumstore.org/zimmermann-telegram-book.html#.Vxk4aZMrJTY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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 the 1930s and eventually finding himself in the United States, Sichel joined the OSS and in 1944 he went back to Europe where he recruited German prisoners of war to spy for the US 7th Army. Hear him talk about his operations in Europe and his friendship with future Director of the CIA, Richard Helms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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 barbarians. How did we get from there to the gray and morally ambiguous world of John Le Carré? And how does all this relate to James Bond and even George Orwell’s 1984? Listen to SPY Historian Mark Stout discuss the development and importance of spy fiction with intelligence historian Wesley Wark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
14 Nov 201244min
