If you have never read about the bloody past of Chile in the 70’s and the bloody reigns of Allende and Pinochet (whom the CIA helped install in a coup), you should definitely do some reading, if your google-fu is strong, you should have no trouble finding quality reading; You can start with this 2013…
Category: Spycraft
Espionage Files: Documentary on CIA to Air on CBS Tommorrow at 8pm CST
“THE SPYMASTERS” REMASTERED: If you missed Showtime’s “The Spymasters: The CIA in the Crosshairs” when it aired last fall – you get another shot on Saturday May 21nd at 8PM CST. on CBS. The original documentary included interviews with every living CIA Director. It is unclear if they all will be in this version – since…
Book Review: Playing to the Edge, American Intelligence in the Age of Terror
by Michael V. Hayden Penguin, 448 pp When Michael Hayden was a young air force officer in the 1980s, the military stationed him as an intelligence attaché in Bulgaria. There, the man who would rise to the top of the American intelligence community in the post–September 11 era lived under constant surveillance: he and his…
Spy Books Worth A Damn: “Missing Man: The American Spy Who Vanished in Iran”
MISSING MAN: THE AMERICAN SPY WHO VANISHED IN IRAN By Barry Meier Farrar Straus Giroux, $27.00, 273 pp. The American public — especially the media — tends to demand, “Who’s to blame?” when a person vanishes in a foreign land with no explanation as to why, or whether, he is being held. Such is the…
Espionage Files: The Day We Discovered Our Parents Were Russian Spies
For years Donald Heathfield, Tracey Foley and their two children lived the American dream. Then an FBI raid revealed the truth: they were agents of Putin’s Russia. Their sons tell their story. Tim Foley turned 20 on 27 June 2010. To celebrate, his parents took him and his younger brother Alex out for lunch at…
Espionage Files: The Life of the Modern Spy
The days of spy vs. spy of the Cold War are over. The enemies changed and technology revolutionized the world … and not always for the better. But spies remained an important part of the modern battlefield. This week on the War College Podcast, Jamillah Knowles chats with Reuters reporter and author Stephen Grey about his…
Espionage Files: Did The Pakistani ISI Poison the CIA Station Chief in 2011?
A leading article in The Washington Post suggests that the United States Central Intelligence Agency suspected that its most senior officer in Pakistan was poisoned by the host country’s intelligence services, in an attempt to kill him. The CIA pulled its station chief from Islamabad in the summer of 2011, two months after Operation…
Espionage Files: Russian Spies Put Full-Court Press on Sweden
The Swedish state security police, or SAPO, is getting pretty worried about a dramatic uptick in Russian espionage activity in Sweden, according to leaks in the Swedish press. And SAPO is hinting that it’s related to the fact that Sweden is gearing up for a May 25 parliamentary debate about ratifying a “Host Nation Support…
Iran Watch: Iran’s Shadow War in Africa
The Islamic Republic plants spies and weapons across the continent in a bid to outmaneuver the West The Cyclone-class patrol ship USS Sirocco closed in on a small boat in the Arabian Sea. After boarding, the American warship’s sailors discovered hundreds of Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The source — Iran. The destination — Houthi rebels in…
Espionage Files: The Long, Strange Trip of MK-ULTRA
The story below offers a rare close-up view of a man who is so creepy it’s fascinating. He actually performed some of the dirty, unthinkable deeds you read about in the various exposés on the CIA. According to the author, the man “looks like Danny DeVito playing the Penguin, and talks like Edward G….