SPYCRAFT 101

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 Sc...

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...

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:...

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 Fai...

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 anal...

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 Jam...

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...

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...

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...

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 unti...

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...

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 Carne...

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, late...

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 deca...

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...

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...

Today just talks to Jan Stocklassa. Jan is an author and journalist focusing on large scale affairs in international politics. He served as a diplomat for Sweden in the Czech Republic from 1997 until 2003, and later helped found a newspaper paper in Prague. Jan spent more than a decade researching the 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, a case which is now officially closed but which...

Today, Justin talks with returning guest James Stejskal. James enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1973 and served for more than 20 years, including with the now famous Special Forces Detachment A in Berlin in the 1970s and 80s, among many other assignments. He was severely wounded in Somalia in 1992 and medically retired from the Army in 1996, after which he joined the CIA as a case officer, where he s...

Today Justin chats with Rose Mary Sheldon. This is her third time on the podcast. Rose Mary taught history as a professor at Virginia Military Institute for more than 25 years, and is a world renowned expert on intelligence activities in the ancient world. She earned her PhD from the University of Michigan in 1987 and has published several books and many articles over the years, as well as serving...

Justin talks with retired FBI special agent Raymond J. Batvinis. Ray served in the FBI from 1972 until 1997, working in counterterrorism and counterintelligence, including on the investigations into Ronald Pelton and the Walker spy ring. Shortly after 9/11, he returned to teach the basic counterintelligence course at the FBI Academy at Quantico.  Since retiring, Ray has worked as a historian and a...

Today Justin chats with Charles Lachman.  Since 1998, Charles has been the executive producer of the nationally syndicated news magazine Inside Edition. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC,  History Channel, Lifetime, C SPAN, and other local and national media. He's also the author of four non fiction books and one crime novel. Today he discusses the story of an almost impossible mission for the U. S. N...

Today Justin sits down with Dr. Luca Trenta. Luca is an associate professor in international relations at Swansea University in Wales, and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Higher Education Academy. He's written extensively on the subjects of covert action and assassination as tools of foreign policy. He is the host of the Out of the Shadows podcast with eight episodes availab...

This weak Justin chats with Peter Butt. Peter is an author and award -winning documentary filmmaker. He is the founder of Blackwattle Films and his work has appeared on BBC, National Geographic, The History Channel and elsewhere. Peter has focused particularly on the Cold War, the nuclear arms race and espionage activities, particularly in Australia. Today he discusses his work investigating Frank...

This week Justin is joined by Ronald Drabkin. Ron earned his Bachelor's Degree from Duke University and his Master's from UC Berkeley. Since then, he's worked in the tech industry, first with Intel Corporation and later as an entrepreneur and investor. He's also written peer reviewed articles on espionage history in Japan. Today he discusses his first book, published earlier this year, titled Beve...

Today, Justin talks with Joe Kent. Joe spent 20 years in the United States Army, serving in the Ranger Regiment, Army Special Forces, and later other elite units within Joint Special Operations Command, before retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer III. His time in the service included 11 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. It was during one of those deployments that he first met Shannon Smith, the...