SpyCast

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Eva Dillon, whose father Paul was a career CIA officer who ran one of the most prolific Soviet spies of the Cold War. Their stories are told in Eva’s new book, Spies in the Family: An American Spymaster, His Russian Crown Jewel, and the Friendship That Helped End the Cold War.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former improv comedienne and CIA operations officer Emily Brandwin to discuss her career(s) and views on many things intel-related.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with author and journalist Yudhijit Bhattacharjee to discuss the fascinating case of wannabee spy Brian Regan, detailed in Yudhijit’s book The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Sharon Weinberger, national security journalist and author of the book The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency that Changed the World.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with intelligence historian Keith Melton, and former chief of the CIA’s Office of Technical Services, Bob Wallace, to discuss their newest collaboration: Spy Sites of Washington, DC. Buy Spy Sites of Washington, DC from the Spy Museum Store

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Jack Barsky, the longest-surviving known member of the KGB illegals program that operated during the Cold War, and author of the memoir Deep Undercover: My Secret Life & Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with six extraordinary journalists to discuss the challenges associated with reporting on intelligence and national security. They include: Ali Watkins (BuzzFeed), Mary Louise Kelly (NPR), Jenna McLaughlin (The Intercept), Nancy Youssef (BuzzFeed), Molly O’Toole (Foreign Policy), and Ellen Nakashima (Washington Post).

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Scott Miller, author of Agent 110: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII, to discuss the relationship between future CIA director Dulles and those Germans scheming to overthrow Hitler.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with retired US Army Brigadier General Gerry Galloway and retired US Navy Rear Admiral Dave Titley to discuss the intelligence and national security implication of climate change. Both men are members of the Advisory Board of the Center for Climate and Security. ***NOTE: Vince messed up. The correct link to the survey is podcast.study

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down (remotely) with Joel Whitney, the cofounder and editor at large of Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics, to discuss his book on how the CIA used culture to fight the Cold War, Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former CIA Technical Operations Officer Warren Holston and former Air Force intel specialist Dave White to discuss their new book Beware the Predator: The American’s Guide to Personal Security. Get the Book: http://www.spymuseumstore.org/beware-the-predator.html#.WL7Y7xIrJUM

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Alex Howard, the Deputy Director of the Sunlight Foundation, to discuss the public’s right to know what the government is doing in its name.

A year ago, SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former DIA Director and National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Here is their conversation.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to discuss the threat of nuclear confrontation and how intelligence can play a vital role in reducing this danger.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Josh Kurlantzick of the Council on Foreign Relations to discuss his new book A Great Place to Have a War: The Secret War in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA.

SPY Historians Vince Houghton sat down to rehash the year that was 2016. He was joined by former SPY Historian Mark Stout, former CIA briefer David Priess, and BuzzFeed intelligence and national security reporter Ali Watkins.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton is joined by John Nixon, who shares what he learned as the first man to conduct a prolonged interrogation of the captured Iraqi president. Get the book:http://www.spymuseumstore.org/spycast-books.html

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with bioterrorism expert Hank Parker to discuss current threats and Parker's new book Containment.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Dmitri Alperovitch, the CTO and co-founder of CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that detected the hack of the DNC, and traced the breach back to Russian intelligence.

The Iranian Hostage Crisis (September 1, 2008) In November 1979, radical Iranian students overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran, capturing most of the embassy staff—except for six diplomats who found refuge with the Canadian embassy. Today, Peter talks with retired CIA officer Tony Mendez who, in an elaborate deception and disguise operation, managed to exfiltrate the six Americans from Tehran before...

The Secret History of Disguises (November 1, 2006) Peter talks with Tony Mendez, former Chief of Disguise for the CIA. Peter and Tony discuss the intricacies of developing disguises for use in hostile environments, the advantages of selective aging, and the secret history of facial recognition technology.

Woman in Disguise - Jonna Mendez (November 18, 2008) Jonna Hiestand Mendez began her CIA career as a secretary and ended it as head of the agency’s Office of Technical Services, overseeing the development of gadgets, disguises, and high-tech devices in support of espionage missions. Today, she discusses with Peter some of the operations she was involved in as well as opportunities for women in the...

Leon Trotsky — Murder in Mexico (September 1, 2007) Peter’s guest today is H. Keith Melton, renowned intelligence historian and owner of the largest collection of espionage artifacts. Keith sheds new light on one of the most notorious intelligence operations of all time—the assassination of exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940. Keith reconstructs the operation in all its pha...

An Army of Illegals: Assessing the Russian Spy Case (July 12, 2010) Two weeks ago on 27 June, the FBI arrested a network of 10 Russian "deep cover" spies. Peter sits down with former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin to discuss this remarkable case and the historic spy swap which took place last Friday. Kalugin, who once ran agents in the United States, is forthright in expressing his views about wha...

The Litvinenko Murder and Other Riddles from Moscow (December 4, 2006) Peter sits down with former CIA officer Bob Rayle and Oleg Kalugin to talk Russia past and present. The three discuss their perspectives on the recent poisoning of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. Then, they turn to 1967 and Bob's role in the extraordinary defection of Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Josef Stalin.