Episodes
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Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/W13m5fiup28Ways to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Primary sources and further reading (afiiliate links):📕 The Spy Who Got Away - https://amzn.to/46dQRuh📘 Safe House: The Compelling Memoirs of the Only CIA Spy to Seek Asylum in Russia - https://amzn.to/3SgtfQ1In the sun-drenched streets of the Vatican in the summer of 1985, a high-ranking KGB officer slipped away from his group touring the Vatican Museum. He disappeared without trace, only to reemerge a few weeks later in the United States.Vitaly Yurchenko’s defection was an intelligence coup for the CIA. In a secure, dimly lit room in a safehouse in northern Virginia, Yurchenko faced his American interrogators. The air was thick with tension as he began to divulge KGB secrets. The CIA’s glee turned to dismay as Yurchenko began to speak of a mole within their ranks. He didn’t know his name, only his codename. Agent ‘Robert’ had been preparing for a posting to the CIA’s Moscow station before abruptly being taken off the assignment.The CIA agents’ blood ran cold. Agent ROBERT could be only one man - a disgruntled former CIA employee who had been fired from the Agency 2 years prior. Ever since, the CIA had done their best to conceal the affair from the FBI.The man’s name was Edward Lee Howard.#philipthompson #truelifespystories #thespywhogotaway
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Watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/wrS2jHMhPG4Ways to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Episode description:Mata Hari is a name that has for more than 100 years captured the public’s imagination. The woman behind the persona acquired her fame as an exotic dancer and courtesan living in Paris during the French Belle Époque.Meaning “eye of dawn” in Javanese, Mata Hari would have had you believe that she was a Hindu princess born of a union between a Dutch adventurer and a Javanese temple dancer. As the story goes, she blossomed into a beautiful young lady and learned the sensuous and sacred temple dances from her mother. It was then her gift to bring these lithe routines to the Western world where she entertained, enthralled and seduced.Yet, the character of Mata Hari was just that - an invention. According to biographer Pat Shipman, Mata Hari (real name Margaretha Zelle MacLeod) loved men, but she did not love the truth. Ultimately, the myth that she had created was turned against her as she faced a French firing squad. Convicted of being the most lethal and dangerous spy of World War 1 it was said that she was responsible for the death of 50,000 French soldiers.Not surprisingly, the true story of Mata Hari, in so far as it can be ascertained, is far different from what both she and the French political elite of her day would have you believe.This is the legend and the truth about Mata Hari, the naked spy.Ways to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Primary sources (afiiliate links):📕 Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata HariFemme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari, Pat Shipman - https://amzn.to/3ThNjkS📕 Mata Hari: The biography of an Exotic Dutch Courtesan and World War I spy, United Library - https://amzn.to/4a9Aujg 📕 The Fatal Lover, Julie Wheelwright - https://amzn.to/3vctIKR#philipthompson #truelifespystories #matahari
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Watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/5L4PByawRHgWays to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Episode description:
Hong Kong. The 2nd of June 2013. A cybersecurity agent sits in the bustling restaurant of the Mira Hotel. He fiddles nervously with a Rubik's cube. He looks up and his gaze locks with two newcomers - a man and a woman, one a hardened journalist and the other a documentary filmmaker. As he recognises the pair, he pockets the cube and stands.Silently, they make their way through the hotel towards the elevators. As they enter the agent's hotel room silently, the woman unclasps her case on the unmade bed, revealing camera equipment.As she sets her camera on a tripod, the agent takes his position on a chair opposite the journalist. The room hums with the weight of their impending conversation. The world, unknowing, teetered on the brink of a revelation from Edward Snowden that would change it forever.More than 10 years on since Snowden’s infamous NSA leaks, the debate over whether he is a friend or foe to America rages on.#philipthompson #truelifespystories #edwardsnowden
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Watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/k49GZB6anHUWays to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Episode description:
Karel and Hana Koecher arrived on American shores in December 1965. The Czechoslovakian nationals had fled to America to start a new life. As Soviet emigres, they set out to live the American dream. For Karel, this was by climbing the ranks of academia. For Hana, it was a lucrative career in the diamond trade. Both had become naturalised US citizens.But all this was a smokescreen. Karel was in fact a sleeper agent deployed by Czechoslovakian intelligence to spy on the United States. He achieved what no other before him had managed - to infiltrate the CIA as an illegal Soviet spy.This is the story of Karel and Hana Koecher, the last of the Cold War super spies.Primary sources (afiiliate links):📕 The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man, Benjamin Cunningham - https://amzn.to/48lSntR📕 Spy VS. Spy, Ronald Kessler - https://amzn.to/42FEYvHFurther reading/viewing:🌐 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/30/how-a-czech-super-spy-infiltrated-cia-karel-koecher 🌐 Betrayed! A Stranger in a Strange Land, https://tubitv.com/tv-shows/285639/s01-e02-karl-koecher-stranger-in-a-strange-landhttps://archive.org/details/territoryofliese0000blit_g3r0/page/350/mode/2up#philipthompson #truelifespystories #karelkoecher
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Watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/VdkPXhngptQWays to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Episode description:
1985 was the 'Year of the Spy'. A dozen high profile espionage cases dominated news headlines in the United States as the Cold War entered its final phase. One of the spies outted in that year stood out from among his peers. Jonathan 'Jay' Pollard was a Jewish American civilian intelligence analyst stationed at the US Navy's Anti-Terrorist Alert Center (ATAC).Over a period of 18 months, Pollard supplied an estimated 30 cubic feet worth of claassifid and top secret material, not to the Soviet Union or another of the USA's enemies, but to one of its closest allies - Israel.The revelation of his betrayal sent shockwaves through the inlelligence community and the public at large, and threatened to caused the USA and Israel to teeter on the brink of a diplomatic criss.His life sentence following a plea deal only served to fan the flames of controversry, with some regarding Pollard's punishment as a grave miscarriage of justice, while others believe he got exactly what he deserved.Primary sources (afiiliate links):📕 Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice, Ronald J. Olive - https://amzn.to/47Ms53Q📕 Miscarriage of Justice: The Jonathan Pollard Story, Mark Shaw - https://amzn.to/4b6pQLu📕 The Hunting Horse: The Truth Behind the Jonathan Pollard Spy Case, Elliot Goldenberg - https://amzn.to/4b4g3WmFurther reading:🌐 https://historyofspies.com/jonathan-pollard/🌐 https://archive.org/details/territoryofliese0000blit_g3r0/page/350/mode/2up🌐 https://amc.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/Sohnen-Pollard-Case.pdf🌐 https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jonathan-pollard 🌐 https://aish.com/48900367/ 🌐 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jonathan-pollard-released-free-landed-israel-spy-with-wife/🌐 https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2007-010-doc1.pdf🌐 https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2013-084-doc1.pdf🌐 https://cryptome.org/jya/traitor.htm 🌐 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1998/07/05/the-spy-whos-been-left-in-the-cold/6a042fc2-90b0-4a19-821d-5fc8f42ab6eb/ #jonathanpollard #philipthompson #truelifespystories
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Watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/Uz0KJtCDy3UWays to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Listen to Spy Valley podcast:https://link.chtbl.com/spyvalley?at=1010l39W4&sid=fm.websitehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXiMXx2shRmuWNxsPkYdlQEzR3oM2_Nnr Episode Description:
James Durwood Harper Jr. was an electronics engineer living in Silicon Valley during one of its many tech booms in the 1960s and 1970s. He was the quintessential tech businessman seeking his fortune in the Valley.He was also a boozer, an embezzler, an adulterer and a spy. After meeting up with an old girlfriend, James Harper saw an opportunity to sell the US’s most classified ballistic missile secrets to the Soviet bloc. During one of the most tense periods of the Cold War nuclear arms race, the US had a mole. The CIA and FBI would stop at nothing to catch him and put him behind bars. But first, they had to identify the man betraying the country’s secrets.This is the story of James Harper, the Silicon Valley Spy.#truespystories #philipthompson #siliconvalleyspy
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Watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/JSS3JzjYEWUWays to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Sources and further reading 📚: (affiliate links) 🛒:📕 Counterfeit Hero: Fritz Duquesne, Adventurer and Spy by Art Ronnie - https://amzn.to/4eg2FQq
📘 A Magnificent Lie: Fritz Joubert Duquesne - A Voice From The Grave by Paula Hewitt - https://amzn.to/45me79j
Episode Description:
An explorer, a big game hunter, a raconteur, a saboteur and a certified lunatic. These are just a few of the personas adopted by a man who is considered one of the most iconic and notorious spies of the 20th century.Yet for a man of his spying prowess, few today know his real name. Known at various points of his life either as The Black Panther, the Duke, or the man who killed Kitchener, he was handsome, charismatic, intelligent, and fluent in several languages. To some, he was just a common shyster and a conman, while to others, he was a master spy and saboteur.For a man as enigmatic and complex as South African-born super spy Fritz Duquesne, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.#truespystories #philipthompson #fritzduquesne
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Watch this episode on YouTube:[check back later!]Ways to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Sources and further reading 📚: (affiliate links) 🛒:📕 Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring, Pete Earley - Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring📘 Spy Hunter: Inside the FBI Investigation of the Walker Espionage Case, Robert W. Hunter - https://amzn.to/4ekCCYq📕 Breaking the Ring, John Baron - https://amzn.to/3VgiKgoEpisode DescriptionJohn Anthony Walker Jnr. ran the largest and most damaging espionage ring in Cold War history. For nearly 18 years he and his co-conspirators sold US Navy secrets to the Soviets.Yet things inevitably got too big and too messy. John Walker’s contempt for his wife and those around him meant that it was only a matter of time before his house of cards went tumbling down.In the year of the spy, John Anthony Walker Jnr. was the spy of the decade.#philipthompson #truelifespystories #johnwalker
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Watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/V73J3l5i6X0Ways to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Sources and further reading 📚: (affiliate links) 🛒:📕 A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell - https://amzn.to/3xJ7M7y📘 Wolves at the Door: The True Story Of America's Greatest Female Spy by Judith Pearson - https://amzn.to/3KpP9NQ📗 S.O.E.: An outline history of the special operations executive 1940 - 46 by M.R.D Foot - https://amzn.to/3IjrhIOThe year is 1942. The shadows of Vichy France, the Nazi puppet state, were crawling with danger. In Lyon, the third largest city in France, wanted posters started appearing on street corners. A rough sketch showed a woman’s face with sharp features and shoulder-length hair. The Abwehr and the Gestapo relentlessly hunted the woman they knew only as “the limping lady”. The woman in the poster was Virginia Hall, an American woman with a wooden leg and the unlikely mastermind behind the French Resistance in the south of France. The Gestapo's orders were clear and uncompromising: she was the most dangerous spy in the Allied forces, and they would stop at nothing to find and destroy her.As the Gestapo closed in, the stakes grew ever higher. Would Virginia succeed in establishing a resistance network able to assist in the toppling of the German war machine, or would she be caught and the resistance crushed beneath the heel of the Third Reich?#spystories #ww2 #virginiahall
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Watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/XlLtHWipZps?si=LHSMKMzSQ1X5K-2zWays to support my channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Primary sources (afiiliate links):📕 Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-day, Stephen Talty - https://amzn.to/4anSNkn📕 Operation Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Spy of World War II, Juan Pujol Garcia & Nigel West - https://amzn.to/3QNz6M4📕 Garbo: The Spy Who Saved D-Day, National Archives - https://amzn.to/3K2eagu1939, Barcelona. Amidst the ruins of the Spanish Civil War, a man finds himself standing at a crossroads. The brutality of the conflict in his own country has left him disillusioned, and the ominous spectre of Nazi Germany looms large over Europe. He can continue to run and to hide, or he can face his enemy dead on and fight against tyranny. Armed with nothing more than his wits and imagination, Juan Pujol Garcia embarks on a remarkable journey that would transform him from a chicken farmer and a failed businessman into a self-made spy. His elaborate network of fictional sub-agents, he has Nazis hanging on his every word. As the Allies meticulously plan their invasion of Normandy and the liberation of Europe, he becomes their secret weapon, masterfully deceiving the enemy.Arguably the most successful double-agent in all recorded history, this is the true story of the brilliant, eccentric Agent GARBO - the myth, the spy, the legend.
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📕 The Spy Within: Larry Chin and China's Penetration of the CIA, Tod Hoffman - https://amzn.to/3xFics6
1985 was a devastating year for American intelligence - so much so that it was dubbed ‘the year of the spy’. 14 Americans were arrested that year on charges of espionage - and those were just the ones that were caught. From the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and the Navy, American intelligence institutions were thoroughly compromised.
The majority of these men and women spied for the Soviet Union. The Communist behemoth, only 6 years away from its ruin, remained the greatest enemy and chief rival of the United States of America. It is perhaps for this reason that someone like the subject of today’s video managed to sail undetected for 3 decades, spying on behalf of a sleeping giant in the Far East.
Larry Wu-tai Chin worked for a comparatively obscure branch of the CIA known as the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, or FBIS. He moved unseen, feeding his handlers information that greatly helped the Communist Party of China to identify traitors and inform its US foreign policy.
He was a scholar and a brilliant linguist. He was unassuming and perceived as a loyal, hard working employee. It was these traits that made him, as some would claim, the perfect spy. -
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Watch this podcast on YouTube: The Worst Intelligence Disaster in FBI HistorySupport this podcast:
Buy Me a Coffee PayPalIn 1986, a chilling revelation sent shockwaves through the FBI's Soviet counterintelligence section in Washington. Two prized Soviet informants, Valery Martynov and Sergei Motorin, had been compromised. Once exposed, the men were lured back to Moscow, and brutally executed - a bullet in the head for each, the KGB's grim signature for traitors.The loss of the two agents referred to affectionately within the FBI as ‘M&M’ marked an abrupt end to what had become routine covert meetings and intelligence exchanges.Parallel to this, the CIA, ensconced across the Potomac in Langley, grappled with its own nightmare. Over the years, dozens of their operatives in the Soviet Union had suddenly gone dark, were executed or imprisoned.The FBI scrambled to form an elite investigative team to unravel the mystery. Yet, as the years wore on and the puzzle remained unsolved, the unsettling possibility of the traitor being one of their own lingered in the air like a bad smell.Determined to root out the mole, experienced analysts within the FBI’s Soviet unit delved into archives of debriefings and reports, searching for a pattern, a clue, anything that might reveal a link to the betrayer. They honed in on an innocent agent, meanwhile the culprit, who was outwardly a devout Catholic, a loving husband, father of 6, and a trusted FBI agent, harboured a perilous secret. Robert Philip Hanssen’s decades-long path of treachery is considered the worst intelligence disaster in FBI history.
This is his story.
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Watch this podcast on YouTube: The Fearless White Mouse Who Outwitted the Gestapo
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Buy Me a Coffee PayPal“A rebel, always laughing and very, very feminine”. This is how author Russell Braddon described Nancy Wake. Exuberant and gregarious, she swore like a sailor and was able to drink nearly all her male counterparts under the table.Her story is an inspiring journey through the darkest days of World War II and of triumph in near-impossible circumstances. A fearless leader, skilled saboteur, and dedicated member of the French Resistance, Nancy's incredible contribution to the fight against Nazi Germany and her uncanny ability to evade capture by the Gestapo earned her the nickname "the White Mouse". Her notoriety among the Gestapo rose to the degree that a 5 million Franc bounty was put on her head. Nancy Wake would go on to become the most decorated British servicewoman, earning accolades for her courage, resilience, and cunning as a member of the British Special Operations Executive.This is Nancy’s Wake story.
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Watch this podcast on YouTube: The CIA Mole Who Brought US Intelligence to its Knees
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Buy Me a Coffee PayPalWhat motivates a person to become a spy and betray their own country? For some, it's a matter of principle and ideology, a belief in a cause that supersedes national loyalty. For others, it's all about the money, the allure of wealth proving stronger than any patriotic duty.
Aldrich “Rick” Ames, a former CIA officer turned KGB mole, fell firmly into the latter category. Driven by greed and the demands of an extravagant second wife who lived well beyond her means, Ames embarked on a 9-year path of treachery that would lead to the arrest or death of no less than 10 of the US’s highest-ranking spies.
The aftermath of his near-decade-long spying spree was immense, with the US government recognising it as the most disastrous failure of intelligence in the nation’s history.
This is the story of the notorious CIA mole who shook American intelligence to its very foundations.
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Watch this podcast on YouTube: Moscow's Man On The Inside.
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Buy Me a Coffee PayPalIn the quaint, unassuming Isle of Portland, Dorset, the late 1950s hummed with the monotony of everyday life. Little did its residents know that their sleepy enclave would soon become the epicentre of an international espionage drama.
At the heart of this tale of betrayal were two love-struck British spies, a KGB operative masquerading as a Canadian businessman, and two American communists posing as antiquarian book dealers.
Operating between 1953 and 1961 from within the United Kingdom’s Underwater Weapons Establishment, the Portland Spy Ring sent highly classified research documents, including on nuclear submarine technology to the UK’s Cold War adversary the Soviet Union.
If only MI5 had paid more attention to the red flags and heeded the direct warnings, they could have staunched the flow of secrets to the Soviets years earlier.
It would take a tip-off from a Polish intelligence officer and one of the CIA’s most prized agents in place to bring the entire house of cards that was the Portland Spy Ring tumbling down.
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Watch Philip Thompson's True-Life Spy Stories on YouTube.
Watch this podcast on YouTube: Moscow's Man On The Inside.
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Buy Me a Coffee PayPalGeorge Blake was the embodiment of the quintessential British gentleman. Charismatic, intelligent, and radiating charm, he was, to MI6, the very model of an intelligence officer.
However, beneath this polished exterior lay a mastermind of deception. Enthralled by the promise of a Communist utopia and disillusioned by NATO military tactics during the Korean War, Blake turned his back on his homeland, betraying national secrets and fellow agents to the Soviets during the tense 1950s era of the Cold War.
Unlike many of those whom he betrayed, Blake went on to enjoy a long life in Moscow, courtesy of the Kremlin. With decades to ponder his life’s choices, he harboured no regrets. To the very end, he remained a contented spy, his conscience unburdened, believing that in the world of espionage, no one is truly innocent.
