SpyCast

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Ned Price, former CIA analyst and Special Assistant to President Obama on the National Security Council staff, where he also was the Spokesperson and Senior Director for Strategic Communications.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Keith Masback, the CEO of the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, to talk all things GEOINT.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with author Jason Fagone to discuss the history of American codebreaking and his book, The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with CIA veteran John Sipher, who served multiple overseas tours as Chief of Station and Deputy Chief of Station in Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and South Asia.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with author Nathan Englander to discuss his new novel, Middle East politics, the Mossad, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and growing up Jewish in America.

In late July, SPY Historian Vince Houghton traveled to Pasadena, CA to take part in Politicon, the “Unconventional Political Convention” (think Comic Con for political junkies). There he sat down with prolific actor Robert Davi, who played Franz Sanchez, Bond’s nemesis in License to Kill.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Dan Golden to discuss his new book, focused on the exploitation of American universities by both foreign and US intelligence agencies.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Bernd von Kostka, the Acting Director of the Allied Museum in Berlin, to discuss some of the key stories from the Cold War in Germany.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with attorneys John Tye and Mark Zaid to discuss their new project Whistleblower Aid, which is a non-profit organization designed to protect whistleblowers – and to prevent them from becoming leakers.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the Museum, SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former CIA operations officer Duane Evans, who led a team of special operators into Afghanistan in the weeks following 9/11.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former Army officer and historian James Kelly Morningstar to discuss the use of intelligence by legendary General George Patton, highlighted in Morningstar’s new book Patton’s Way: A Radical Theory of War.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with author and journalist Josh Dean to discuss Project Azorian, the Glomar Explorer, and one of the most spectacular covert operations in history. Buy The Taking of K-129 from the Spy Museum Store

In the second installment of our recurring series, SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with DIA Chief Historian Greg Elder to discuss the DIA’s role in some of the most momentous events in recent US history.

Because everyone else is going eclipse crazy, we thought we would re-post SPY Historian Vince Houghton’s interview with one of the tops guys at NASA, Dr. Jim Green. Green’s day job is Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA. In his spare time, he has become one to the top experts in Civil War balloon reconnaissance.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Sean McFate, a former paratrooper, private military contractor, and now author, novelist, and expert in foreign policy and national security strategy. Drs. Houghton and McFate discuss military and intelligence privatization, and McFate’s new book, Deep Black.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former CIA operations officer and Deputy Division Chief for Counterintelligence TL Williams to discuss his career and his new novel, Zero Day: China's Cyber Wars.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman to discuss his life in government, and his book “A Whistleblower at the CIA: The Path of Dissent” – an insiders account of the politics of intelligence.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former Green Beret James Stejskal to discuss the role of US Army Special Forces, and their actions against the Warsaw Pact, in Cold War Berlin.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Newsy reporter Liz Wahl to discuss Russian efforts to propagate disinformation to the American public – and her unique role in exposing this threat.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with US Naval Officer and helicopter pilot Jack McCain to discuss the potential lessons learned from his experiences and his new book, Angola, Clausewitz, and the American Way of War.

Hear from former CIA officer Kenneth Daigler, as he closely examines American intelligence activities during the era of the Revolutionary War from 1765 to 1783.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with James Rosen (McClatchy), James Ellenberger (formerly of AFL-CIO), and Curt Harris (NIH National Cancer Institute), authors of High Hand. Their novel, which involves a Republican presidential candidate with close ties to Russia, was written long before the 2016 election.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Tom Nichols, professor at the U.S. Naval War College and at the Harvard Extension School, and the author of The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

In the first installment of what will become a recurring series, SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with DIA Chief Historian Greg Elder to discuss the DIA’s role in some of the most momentous events in recent US history.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Ben Jones, the former Transition Coordinator for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, where he coordinated the transfer of Afghanistan's security from the coalition to the Afghan National Security Forces. He is also a contributor to the new book, Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down (remotely) with British author Henry Hemming to discuss his newest book Agent M: The Lives and Spies of MI5’s Maxwell Knight.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Stephan Talty, author of two previous books on intelligence, Agent Garbo and The Secret Agent: In Search of America’s Greatest World War II Spy. They discuss his newest book, The Black Hand: The Epic War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Sven Hughes, a former reserve soldier within British Military Intelligence, Psychological Operations, and UK Special Forces, to discuss counter-radicalization and the effectiveness of influence operations. Mr. Hughes is also the author of the new book, Verbalization: The Power of Words to Drive Change.

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 Iranians were able to track them down.

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 intelligence community.