The Rest Is Classified

"The smartphone is a lethal collaborator. " This was the stark warning from Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in February 2024. In the wake of intense conflict with Israel, the group made a fateful decision to abandon high-tech communications. They knew that their phones could be used by the Israelis to pinpoint their location. The solution? Go analog. Go back to pagers. This episode be...

*Declassified Club exclusive: SUBSCRIBE to listen to the full interview* What does it take to smuggle the West’s most valuable Russian agent out of the Soviet Union, under the noses of the KGB? How do you lose a KGB surveillance team on the road from Moscow, while hiding a defector in the boot of your car? And how did the MI6 team manage to sneak Gordievsky past the Russian sniffer dogs on the Fin...

Oleg Gordievsky wants to leave Moscow, but how? How can a man under suspicion of being a traitor escape the watchful eye of the KGB? Do MI6 have a plan to rescue him? Or will the man who has leaked countless state secrets become the next victim of the USSR? Listen as David and Gordon finish their series on Oleg Gordievsky by looking at his fateful showdown with the KGB. ------------------- Join Th...

Just as Oleg Gordievsky was moments away from being the KGB’s most senior man in Britain, he is recalled to Moscow. Has his spying been revealed? What can MI6 do? And will he return to his homeland knowing he may never leave again? Listen as David and Gordon continue their series on Oleg Gordievsky by looking at his return to Moscow and the fateful decision it forces him to make. -----------------...

It’s 1983 and the world is on the brink of nuclear war. Operation Able Archer has ratcheted tensions right up, how is Oleg Gordievski going to prevent a nuclear apocalypse? Is this the greatest contribution of any spy to humanity? And what does it say about the enduring value of human intelligence? Listen as David and Gordon continue their series on Oleg Gordievski by looking at his role in defusi...

Oleg Gordievsky is now recruited as an agent for MI6 and he is providing intelligence of the highest order, but is there a chance he’ll be rumbled by the KGB? Who will keep him safe in London? And what does Oleg himself have to do to ensure his identity remains secret? Listen as David and Gordon continue their series on Oleg Gordievsky by looking at his time in London, his crazy KGB colleagues, an...

How did Oleg Gordievsky get recruited to work for MI6? What effect did living in Copenhagen have on his political views? And how did Britain nearly blow the recruitment of one of the most consequential spies in history? Listen as David and Gordon continue their series on Oleg Gordievsky by looking at how he became a double-agent, changing the course of his life and the Cold War. ------------------...

What makes a spy betray the very system that raised him? How does a loyal KGB officer, born into the service, become Britain’s most valuable Cold War agent? And how did one man’s intelligence reports help stop the world from sliding into nuclear confrontation? This is the story of Oleg Gordievsky — a man shaped by the terror of Stalin’s purges, the shadow of the Berlin Wall, and the crushing of th...

In the final months of 1993, the hunt for Pablo Escobar reached a fever pitch. On the run and isolated, Escobar is under immense pressure from both the Colombian search bloc and the shadowy death squad, Los Pepes. But it is his family, now targeted and in danger, that becomes his ultimate weakness. With his wife and children desperately seeking asylum abroad, Escobar's deep-seated need to connect...

After walking out of his luxurious prison, Pablo Escobar is back on the run. With the Colombian government humiliated, they turn to the United States for a new kind of help: a specialized, elite force. The answer comes in the form of a Delta Force team. Their mission is to train and advise the Colombian search bloc, but their ultimate goal is to find Pablo once and for all. In the penultimate epis...

By the autumn of 1989, the hunt for Pablo Escobar and the Medellín cartel was intensifying. With the US military and intelligence agencies now directly involved, a new, more aggressive phase of the War on Drugs had begun. Join Gordon and David as they explore how Escobar, facing a relentless manhunt, leverages his position to strike an extraordinary deal with the Colombian state. Discover how he u...

By the late 1980s, Pablo Escobar’s grip on the cocaine trade was unmatched. But a new threat loomed: extradition to the United States. To Escobar, it was a fate worse than death. His answer was brutal - declare open war on the Colombian state. In this episode, Gordon and David trace the rise of the so-called “Extraditables,” a loose alliance of cartel bosses who vowed to stop extradition at any co...

In the early 1980s, Pablo Escobar reinvented himself. He was no longer just the man who could smuggle tonnes of cocaine into Miami - he was the successful businessman, the philanthropist, the proud family man. To the poor, he built homes and football fields. To the powerful, he offered campaign donations and political loyalty. Listen as Gordon and David chart Escobar’s transformation from feared t...

Colombia in the mid-20th century was a place of beauty and bloodshed - where jungle mountains sheltered rebels, the cities were ruled by oligarchs, and outlaw legends became folk heroes. Into this world stepped Pablo Escobar. Charming, calm, and calculating, he would become one of the richest men in history - and one of the deadliest. In this first episode of our Escobar series, Gordon Corera and...

Who was the Nazi General who called the Allied Gunnerside mission “the most splendid coup I have seen?” How did the Norwegians stop the Nazis' nuclear program for good? And how did one commando use a large amount of laxatives to save his mother's life? Operation Gunnerside was a dangerous mission to destroy a Nazi heavy water plant in Norway. Led by Joachim Rønneberg, a team of commandos had to cl...

What was the most dangerous mission of World War II? How did a small team of Norwegian skiers stop the Nazis from building a nuclear bomb? And, what exactly is heavy water, and why was it so important to the Nazis? Operation Gunnerside was a high-stakes, real-life mission to sabotage a Nazi nuclear program in Norway. Led by the young and fearless Joachim Rønneberg, a team of Norwegian commandos we...

How did the Stuxnet cyberweapon, designed to be covert, break out into the wild? What were the world-changing implications of this sophisticated attack on Iran's nuclear centrifuges, and what happened when it was exposed? Listen as David McCloskey and Gordon Corera reach the finale of their series on the Stuxnet cyberweapon, discussing its discovery by cybersecurity researchers and the subsequent...

What was the "horse blanket" and how did it guide Obama's decisions on cyber warfare? How did the Stuxnet virus evolve to target Iran's centrifuges more aggressively? And what were the risks and ethical dilemmas involved in unleashing such a powerful and precise cyber weapon? Listen as David McCloskey and Gordon Corera delve into the Obama administration's acceleration of the Olympic Games program...

How did Israel and the US develop this new type of weapon which they would unleash upon Iran? Who will they rely on to get it into the system? And how will they try to sabotage Iran in silence? Listen as David McCloskey and Gordon Corera discuss Israel’s development of a cyber weapon that could damage the Iranian nuclear program without anyone even knowing it was there. ------------------- To sign...

When did Israel first attack Iran’s nuclear program? How did they do it? And how did Iran develop its nuclear program that has shaped so much of the politics of the Middle-East over the past 20 years? Listen as David McCloskey and Gordon Corera discuss Israel’s first attempt to slow down Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb. ------------------- To sign up to The Declassified Club, go to www.theres...

How do you switch sides and become a spy for the KGB? When the FBI is tracking you, how do you escape the country? And what is life like for a traitor on the other side of the Iron Curtain? Join David McCloskey and Gordon Corera as they discuss the life of Edward Lee Howard, his defection, and whether recent events mean there may soon be more like him. ------------------- Order a signed edition of...

How did an alcoholic, drug-addicted hippie end up working for the CIA? How are CIA agents trained? And what is the real purpose of a lie detector test? Join David McCloskey and Gordon Corera as they discuss the life of Edward Lee Howard, the only CIA officer ever to defect to Moscow. ------------------- To sign up to The Declassified Club, go to⁠ ⁠www.therestisclassified.com⁠⁠. To sign up to the f...

What was it truly like inside MI5 and the heart of government as the 7/7 attacks unfolded? How did 7/7 expose a shocking blind spot for Britain's spy agency? And what lessons are still being applied two decades later to prevent future attacks? Listen as David and Gordon sit down with former Head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, to discuss her role in investigating the 7/7 bombings and how the atta...

Two weeks after 52 people were murdered on London’s transport network, terrorists tried to strike again. How did the UK's domestic security services leverage bulk phone record collection to track down the fleeing bombers? And what was the significance of a gym membership card and abandoned bags in identifying the suspects? In the final episode of our series, we explore the intense investigation fo...

He left a video for his daughter before he vanished to Pakistan. A quiet farewell, wrapped in the language of faith and finality. What no one knew was that in the mountains near the Afghan border, he would meet the man who would change everything. In the penultimate episode of our series on the 7/7 Bombings, Gordon and David uncover how two young British men - Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tan...