SpyCast

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Gary Powers, Jr., the son of the legendary U-2 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960. Vince and Gary discuss his father’s legacy, the incorrect assumptions about his father’s capture, and the retelling of his father’s story in the Spielberg movie Bridge of Spies, now available on Blu-Ray.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with USAF Colonel (Ret.) Buz Carpenter, who flew some of the most incredible aircraft ever developed. As an RF-4C pilot in Vietnam, Col. Carpenter flew low level reconnaissance missions over enemy territory. Later, as the pilot of the SR-71, Buz took aviation to speeds and heights that have yet to be equaled (except by other SR-71s). Finally, at the end of his...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Farhana Qazi, a scholar and speaker on conflicts in the Islamic world, and the first American Muslim woman to serve in the National Counter-Terrorism Center. Houghton and Qazi discuss the role of women in radical Islam, the fight against ISIS, The changing status of women in the Muslim world, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the current state of Pakistan an...

During a public program at the Museum, SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Bruce Riedel, author of JFK's Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA, and Sino-Indian War. Riedel, who is a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project, joined Brookings following a thirty-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, serving as a senior adviser to the last four U.S. presidents on So...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Ken Vogel, Chief Investigative Reporter for POLITICO and author of the article, “The Koch Intelligence Agency.” Houghton and Vogel (who tracks the confluence of money, politics, and influence for POLITICO) discuss the use of use surveillance, propaganda, disinformation, deception, and even covert action in modern political campaigns.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with PW Singer, co-author of Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War (which he wrote with August Cole). In the spirit of early Tom Clancy (especially Red Storm Rising), Ghost Fleet is a imagining of how World War III might play out. But what makes it even more notable is how the book smashes together the technothriller and nonfiction genres. It is a novel,...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Thomas Drake, former senior executive of the NSA – and whistleblower – who in 2010 was indicted on 10 felony counts; charges that would have carried decades of prison time had Drake been convicted. Instead, in early June 2011, the government dropped all of the charges and agreed not to seek any jail time in return for Drake's guilty plea to a misdemeanor...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Captain Erich Telfer, the commanding officer of the Coast Guard Maritime Intelligence Fusion Center Atlantic in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Houghton and Telfer discuss the role of the Coast Guard in the broader American intelligence community, the professionalization of the Coast Guard intel branch, and CAPT Telfer’s research into the intelligence response...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Tom Ryan, former intelligence professional for the Department of Defense and author of Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign. The first book to offer a unique and incisive comparative study of intelligence operations during what many consider the war’s decisive campaign, Ryan’s study evaluates how Gen. Robert E. Lee used intelligence resou...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton talked to Morten Storm, who, after a decade of jihadi life, not only repudiated extremism but, in a quest for atonement, became a double agent for the CIA and British and Danish intelligence. He is now in hiding, fearful that some vengeful jihadist will try to kill him for his work with Western intelligence. However, this won’t stop him from providing SpyCast with his...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Sheryl Shenberger, the Director of the National Declassification Center at the National Archives. President Obama pledged to preside over the most transparent government ever — a vow that included declassifying as many documents as possible. Houghton and Shenberger discuss the process behind declassification, as the NDC tries to honor the President’s prom...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Vin Arthey, who has spent most of his adult life researching the life of KGB Colonel William Fisher – better known as Rudolf Abel. Working with secret sources and inside information, Arthey turned this lifelong study into a fascinating book, Abel: The True Story of the Spy They Swapped for Gary Powers. Houghton and Arthey trace the adventures (and misadve...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with author Doug Waller to discuss his new book Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan. The author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Wild Bill Donovan, Waller tells Houghton the story of four OSS warriors of World War II. All four later led the CIA. They are the most famous and controversial directors th...

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with University of Southern California history professor Steve Ross to discuss the ongoing research for his upcoming book Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews and their Spies Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America. Ross explains how a group of patriotic citizens refused to wait for the authorities to act on the Nazi menace in America, and instead took matt...

Professor David Barrett discusses his book Blind over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis which he wrote with Max Holland. He describes to former SPY Historian Mark Stout how the Kennedy Administration impeded reconnaissance flights over Cuba in the weeks before the crisis and how the Administration successfully covered up that fact. From October 2012.

SPY Executive Director Peter Earnest and former KGB General Oleg Kalugin discuss the current espionage conflict between Russia and Georgia, reminisce about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and bring an old question to light: Was Isaac Stone a Russian spy? From October 2006.

SPY Executive Director Peter Earnest sat down with author Mark Riebling to discuss his new book on the wartime espionage of the Catholic Church. The Vatican’s silence in the face of Nazi atrocities remains one of the great controversies of our time. History has accused wartime pontiff Pius the Twelfth of complicity in the Holocaust and dubbed him “Hitler’s Pope.” But a key part of the story has re...

When Jason Hanson joined the CIA in 2003, he never imagined that the same tactics he used as a CIA officer for counter intelligence, surveillance, and protecting agency personnel would prove to be essential in everyday civilian life. In addition to escaping handcuffs, picking locks, and spotting when someone is telling a lie, he can improvise a self-defense weapon, pack a perfect emergency kit, an...

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the radical force behind the nation’s most revolutionary, high-tech military initiatives over the past half century. To write the first definitive history of the world’s most powerful and productive military science agency, bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tracked down DARPA scientists, past and present, including current neuroscientists bu...

In Part 3 of this three-part series, SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Greg Miller, who covers intelligence and national security for the Washington Post. Houghton and Miller discuss the difficulties in reporting on this most secret of topics, the dangers – and benefits – of using anonymous sources, and the ever-changing nature of intelligence and nat...

In Part 2 of this three-part series, SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Ali Watkins, who covers intelligence and national security for the Huffington Post. Houghton and Watkins discuss the difficulties in reporting on this most secret of topics, the dangers – and benefits – of using anonymous sources, and the ever-changing nature of intelligence and national security journalism. Part 1...

In Part 1 of this three-part series, SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mark Mazzetti, who covers intelligence and national security for the New York Times. Houghton and Mazzetti discuss the difficulties in reporting on this most secret of topics, the dangers – and benefits – of using anonymous sources, and the ever-changing nature of intelligence and...

SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with career US Foreign Service Officer J. Andrew Plowman to discuss his book, Climate Change and Conflict Prevention. Plowman uses the Darfur conflict as a case study to examine how the effects of climate change might lead to future violent conflicts, and he assesses the best way to prevent these conflicts. Mr. Plowman’s service with the State Department h...

SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Cuban-exile-turned-CIA-officer Felix Rodriguez to discuss his extraordinary intelligence career. As a teenager, Rodriguez joined the effort to overthrow (and kill) Fidel Castro. After that mission failed, he trained and led the team that hunted – and captured – the guerilla Che Guevara in Bolivia. By the late 1960s, he took his counterinsurgency exper...

SPY Historian Dr. Vince Houghton sat down with Cuban-exile-turned-CIA-officer Felix Rodriguez to discuss his extraordinary intelligence career. As a teenager, Rodriguez joined the effort to overthrow (and kill) Fidel Castro. After that mission failed, he trained and led the team that hunted – and captured – the guerilla Che Guevara in Bolivia. By the late 1960s, he took his counterinsurgency exper...