SpyCast

Sean Maloney (Website) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss the secret history of emergency war plans and the nuclear doomsday machine. He was the first Canadian civilian historian to go into combat since WWII. 

Sean Maloney is a force of nature. The first Canadian civilian historian to go into combat since WWII - he went to Afghanistan eleven times, survived multiple attempts on his life, and two bomb attacks. “I’ve been shot at, rocketed, mortared, all of it.” He is also a Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and the author of more than a dozen books, including the “Rogue Historian in Afghanistan” trilogy, as well as another trilogy in the form of the official history of the Canadian Army in Afghanistan. 

He is never happier, though, than when wading through secret nuclear war plans and documents. Coming on the back of Learning to Love the Bomb (2007) and The Secret History of Nuclear War Films (2020), he returns to “Nukes” in Emergency War Plan: The American Doomsday Machine. Sean has been described as intense and unorthodox, but I found him intense and unorthodox.

“Megadeath” is a unit of measurement for nuclear war, equivalent to the death of one million people. It is crazy that as a species we have reached the point where we now have a term for it.

Quote of the Week

"We have public pronouncements…We have the media and academic discussion of the public pronouncements, but then there's the strategy itself. Which is usually highly classified…that's what I'm getting at with the Emergency War Plan book…you can see all the factors that fed into that, including the intelligence and the intelligence directly affects the plan…there is a direct relationship between the intelligence and the targeting, but it's also in terms of collection of information to get the bombers to the target…that's important because, to have a deterrent posture, that's credible, you have to demonstrate that you're capable of carrying it out."

Volko Ruhnke (Website; Twitter) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss his life and career in the CIA as an analyst and designer of board games. He is a former World Board Game Champion.

Intelligence

Reflections

And more…

Volko Ruhnke is a helluva interesting guy. He grew up as an avid board gamer raised on stories of the French and Indian War, which led him to design the 2001 winner of the best pre-WWII boardgame Wilderness War. His time at the CIA after 9/11 then led him to design the 2010 winner of the best post-WWII boardgame Labyrinth, where players were immersed in the operational and ideological aspects of the Global War on Terror. It doesn’t stop there, though, he has also designed a series of counter-insurgency games such as Andean Abyss, which focused on 1990’s Columbia, and Fire in the Lake, a multi-faction treatment of the Vietnam War.

While teaching a new generation of intelligence analysts, Volko combined both of his passions to help them understand the complexity and open-endedness of the real-world via board games. As an analyst himself, Volko looked at the Soviet & Russian military and counter-proliferation, before going on to be Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Science and Technology at the National Intelligence Council, and then on the Presidents Daily Brief (PDB) staff to brief cabinet level officials. 

And…

Volko is now a commercial board game designer, and you can get quite a few of his games here – but not all of them. One day historians, one day…

"Games allow you to get inside and operate the machine yourself and do experiments and pull a lever or push a button and see what happens. And because it's happening on the tabletop, rather than say, in a computer program, you, you can understand it very well. You can see exactly why what just happened. So, I became among others, a promulgator of, of that particular medium for teaching as well as for analysis." - Volko Ruhnke

SpyCasts

Books

Articles

Video

Primary Sources

Wildcard Resource

Hans Holmer (LinkedIn) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss his time as a CIA operations officer and his transition to a cyber strategist. He served on every continent except South America and won a CIA Intelligence Star.

Intelligence

Reflections

And more…

Hans Holmer describes the cat-and-mouse of surveillance and counter-surveillance the most fun you can have (a) in public and (b) sober. Ever wondered how you go from a CIA case officer in the Sub-continent, to a technical counterintelligence evangelist who travelled the world, to a cyber strategist living in Vienna, Austria?

To find out, listen to this week’s episode where you’ll find Hans thoughtful and articulate, but I think you will also appreciate his forthright views on corporate data leaks and digital personal responsibility. He originally got in touch to talk about the Operation Silver, the British intelligence operation that covertly tapped the communications of the Soviet Army HQ in Vienna, at SPY we actually have a piece – yes, an actual piece – of the Berlin Tunnel, which was a successor operation – betrayed by communist MI6 officer George Blake – which borrowed heavily from Silver: it was even called Operation Gold!

The monitoring station in Op. Silver was disguised as a tweed clothing shop on the assumption that no one in Vienna would be interested in Scottish clothing! Hans actually tracked down the modern site of the tweed store and is trying to dig (no pun intended) for further information on the operation – can anyone help…?

"I've been arguing that the way to improve cyber security in the U.S. is very simple. Any company that loses personally identifiable information, payment card information, healthcare information, HIPAA data, or access to critical infrastructure, has to pay each victim a dollar a day from the beginning of the breach till it's been closed off…the average breach lasts about a hundred days…some of the more recent breaches are a hundred million people. So, imagine a hundred million people who get a dollar a day for a hundred days. Companies would take that seriously."

SpyCasts

Books

Articles

Documentaries

Education

Primary Sources

Wildcard Resource

Enrique “Ric” Prado (LinkedIn) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss his new memoir “Black Ops.” One of the most renowned CIA officers of his generation tells his story.

Book

You can buy Ric’s book, Black Ops, and support the International Spy Museum’s mission here.

Intelligence

Reflections

And much, much more…

Ric Prado spent twenty-four-years in the CIA – and what a twenty-four years it was. His first 36 months were in the jungles of Central America as the first CIA officer to live among the “Contras,” including a period with the Miskito Native people; indeed, the photos he took ending up on the desk of CIA Director Bill Casey. So, what was it like at the pointy end of the Reagan Doctrine’s anti-communist spear, or as CIA Counterterrorist Center Chief of Ops during 9/11?

To find out, and to hear more about Ric’s storied career, Andrew sat down with him for this week’s episode. One of the meanings of the noun “legend” is “a story coming down from the past.” Many people who were in the business at the CIA and elsewhere will have heard the stories that come down from the past re Enrique “Ric” Prado, but now we all have a chance to hear Ric set the record straight in his own words. 

And…

If Ric’s communist uncle hadn’t alerted the family that his school intended to send him off to the Soviet Union as a promising student for further education…if he hadn’t taken an Oceanography class at Miami Dade College and met someone who led him to USAF Pararescue…if he hadn’t been tipped off that he was to be killed in a Contra camp during the night and extricated himself from the situation…as Bob Dylan said, summing up so much of the human condition, “one more time, for a simple twist of fate.”

"The wiring was there and the mentoring from my dad…then the trip to the orphanage. And then definitely when I got into pararescue…being one of our special operations forces, the training is very, very intense…And making it through SERE school, making it through mountain climbing school. There's a certain level of conquering your emotions that you have to do…But I think that the most important thing was that I believed in what I was doing." – Ric Prado

SpyCast Episodes

Books

Articles

Documentaries

Primary Sources

Wildcard Resource

• The Clash, Sandanista (Album, 1980)

Summary

J. Scott Cameron (LinkedIn) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss the National Intelligence University (NIU). He is the President of this unique “skiffed” institution.

What You’ll Learn

Intelligence

o  The NIU – what it is, what it does, and what it does differently.

o  NIU’s position within the American intelligence ecosystem

o  How NIU “banks knowledge” without compromising intelligence

o  What it is like to be a student in a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS-SCI) research facility

Reflections

o  20th century institutions for 21st century problems

o  Scott’s journey from a plant biologist who has been shot at, to his recruitment into the IC at a high school soccer match, to NIU President

And much more…

Quote of the Week

"We do work in secret. So how do you bank knowledge in that kind of a community? All communities that are healthy bank knowledge and learn from it. So, our job is not just to be a classroom, but to be that defender of knowledge building in the community to make sure that we're learning from ourselves, that we understand ourselves and advance our mission by better ideas and then empowering the next generation to take those and equip them with the confidence to go out there and do something with it." – Scott Cameron

Episode Notes

“TS-SCI” is one of the major terms you will hear with regards to American intelligence, but what happens if you cross that with the concept of “the university,” a place that relies on sharing information, pooling knowledge, and the free flow of ideas? To find out how this circle is squared, Andrew sat down with President of the National Intelligence University, Scott Cameron.

The NIU, which is housed at the Intelligence Community Campus Bethesda (ICCB), alongside our friends at the NCSC and quite a few other agencies, is unique in many ways. It is behind “guards, guns, and gates,” you need TS-SCI clearance to apply, and tuition is courtesy of the government. The staff-student ratio is also in the very top tier of the 4000 or so degree granting institutions in the United States. It transitioned from the DIA to the ODNI in June of 2021.

And…

Scott’s grandmother was from Glasgow, as was Allan Pinkerton, Bobby Thompson, Craig Ferguson, and Christina Conte (try her fish n’ chips recipe!). Incidentally, there are many more Glasgow’s in the United States than in Scotland, at 21.

Further Resources

SpyCast Episodes

·     Joint Special Operations University President “Ike” Wilson

Virtual Exhibition

·     Wall of Spies (ICC-B)

Books

·     China’s Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem, R. Uber (2020)

·     History of American Higher Ed., R. Geiger (2016)

·     Higher Ed. & the Growth of Knowledge, M. Segre (2015)

·     NIU’s Role in Interagency Research, Johnson et al. (2013)

Articles

·     Eisenhower Signs National Defense Intelligence Ed. Act (Politico, 2018)

·     Goldwater-Nichols & the Evolution of JPME (CRS, 2016)

·     The Origins of JPME (JFQ, 2005)

Audio

·     NIU Moving Under ODNI Umbrella (FedNewsNet, 2021)

Websites

·     NIU Degrees (NIU)

·     NIU Catalog, 2021-22 (NIU)

·     College of Strategic Intelligence (NIU)

·     School of Science & Technology Intelligence (NIU)

·     Institute for Intelligence Research (NIU)

·     IC Centers for Academic Excellence (DNI)

Primary Sources

·     The American Scholar, R. Waldo Emerson (Em.Cent., 1837)

·     The Idea of a University, J. H. Newham (1852, 1858)

·     National Defense Education Act of 1958 (FedEdPolicy)

·     Degree Granting Authority for NIU (GovInfo, 2012)

·     US Intelligence Community’s Human Capital Vision 2020 (DNI, 2014)

·     The National Intelligence Strategy of the US (DNI, 2019)

·     NIC - Global Trends 2040 (DNI, 2021)

Wildcard Resource

How to set up a “SCIF,” aka:

·  “Technical Specifications for Construction & Management of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities” (DNI, 2020)

Summary

David Fricker (Website; LinkedIn) had the No.2 job at Australia’s security and intelligence agency ASIO. He sat down with Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss the relationship between this role and his most recent one as Director-General of the National Archives of Australia.

What You’ll Learn…

Intelligence

o  ASIO, the Australian intelligence landscape and the region

o  His role as CIO and then Deputy-Director General of ASIO

o  The role major allies & partners play including the US and Five Eyes (FVEY)

o  David’s views on intelligence and public trust

Reflections

o  David’s abiding interest in the power of information

o  The importance of museums and archives in a knowledge society

And much more…

Episode Notes

Ever wondered what it would be like to go from gamekeeper to poacher, spy chief to chief archivist and - as this week's guest said tongue-in-cheek - the “biggest blabber-mouth in the country”?

If the answer is yes, you’ll appreciate this week’s guest David Fricker, who has had all manner of interesting jobs, including a ten-year stint with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), akin to the FBI and MI5, followed by ten years with the National Archives of Australia.

By way of information, the “Australian Intelligence Community” is also comprised of: the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), similar to the CIA; Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), similar to the DIA; the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), similar to the NSA; and Australian Geo-spatial Intelligence Organization (AGO), similar to the NGA; and Office of National Intelligence (ONI), similar to the ODNI.

And… 

David was a pretty mean COBOL programmer back in the day, a computer language that grew out of a Department of Defence sponsored program to find a common business language. You can learn it here. It is a legacy software system across the U.S. government and you can command six-figure salaries if you can program in it: any retirement plans David?

Quote of the Week

"I think what the SPY museum does and what I hope we do at the National Archives in Australia, gets back to the public...some of it can be quite entertaining. It can be quite engaging and fun, but the work we do has got a serious message as well. And I think it's to make sure the public in a liberal democracy, the public should know. What espionage, what spycraft is all about." – David Fricker

Further Resources

SpyCasts

o  “Desperately, Madly in Love” – Brett Peppler and the Australian IC

o  “I was a Presidential Daily Briefer on 9/11” – Mike Morell & President Bush

Virtual Exhibition

o  Spy: Espionage in Australia (NAA)

Books

o  Spies & Sparrows: ASIO & the Cold War, P. Deery (2022)

o  Between Five Eyes, A. Wells (2020)

o  Intelligence & the Function of Government, D. Baldino & E. Crawley (2018)

o  The Official History of ASIO – 3 Volumes, D. Horner, J. Blaxland, R. Crawley (2014/2015/2016)

Articles

o  “Strategic Intelligence Practice in the Australian IC,” P. Walsh & M. Harrison, INS, 2021)

o  “The Post-9/11 Evolution of an Australian National Security Community,” D. Jones, INS (2016)

o  “ASIO Debate”, L. Clohesy, The Conversation (2014)

Audio

o  Spymasters & Secret Agents: the Birth of ASIO (ABC, 2022)

o  ASIO’s Official History, J. Blaxland (The Conversation, 2015)

Documentary

o  Final Rendezvous (ABC, 2020)

Websites

o  ASIO (ASIO)

o  NAA (NAA)

Primary Sources

o  Letter to Petrov from Prime Minister Menzies (1954)

o  Royal Commission on Espionage Report (1955)

o  ASIO Report on Ric Throssell (1971-74, NAA)

o  Report on ASIO (NLA, 1977)

o  Australian Intelligence, 1900-1950 (NAA, 1977)

o  Soviet Embassy Contact with Members of Parliament (1971-86)

o  ASIO Annual Report 2020-21 (2021, ASIO)

Further Research

o  History of Intelligence & Security (NAA)

o  US-Australia Diplomatic Oral Histories (ADST)

Wildcard Resource

Pine Gap

o  A fictional portrayal of a real-world AUS-US spy site in Central Australia (Netflix, 2018)

Summary

Joe Weisberg (Twitter) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss his new book on Russia. Joe is the creator of award-winning TV drama The Americans and a former CIA officer.

What You’ll Learn

Intelligence

o  His past experience as a hardliner who loved to hate the “evil empire”

o  His thoughts on a trip through the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the twilight of the Cold War, especially experiencing it as an American Jew

o  His interpretation of the KGB and Vladimir Putin

o  His take on the “moral equivalency” argument and U.S. foreign policy

·Reflections

o  The role of complexity vs. simplicity in understanding “the Other”

o  Joe’s journey from the Chicago suburbs of Illinois to Langley to New York City

And much, much more…

Episode Notes

“How dare you, Joe Weisberg, make me rethink my comfortable loathing of the Russians.” Not Andrew’s words, but those of former chief of CIA counterintelligence James Olson in an encomium for the book (albeit a little tongue-in-cheek). If that is not enough to get you intrigued in Joe’s new book, Russia Upside Down, then perhaps the sub-title will, An Exit Strategy for the Second Cold War. So how do we get out of the Second Cold War?

To find out Joe’s diagnosis and prognosis, and much else besides, Andrew sat down with him for this week’s episode. A fair number of listeners will know of Joe as creator of the award-winning and hugely popular TV series, The Americans, some may even know that he had a three-and-a-half-year stint in the CIA where he trained to be a case officer; a few may even be a know him from his stint at the Agency which began on the eve of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

And…

The Americans is set in and around NoVa which is replete with all manner of famous sites from intelligence history – including the Arlington home of real-life Russian illegals Nataliya Pereverzeva and Michael Zottoli Mikhail Kutsik who were rolled up by the FBI in 2010 as part of Operation Ghost Stories” which we cover in our exhibits.

Quote of the Week

"When I was working at the CIA and in my younger years, I had a very one-dimensional view of this evil empire, this totalitarian state that we had to fight because we were the good guys, and we were the bad guys. And the book that I've written is essentially a kind of argument with myself or me with my younger self to say, huh, I think you were not looking at that in all the complexity that you might have." – Joe Weisberg

FURTHER RESOURCES

SpyCasts

o  KGB Illegal Jack Barsky here and here

o  The Spymasters Prism: CIA Legend Jack Devine on Countering Russian Aggression

o  2010 Russian Spy Case – KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin

o  Spy Sites of Washington D.C.

Books

o  Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia, Catherine Belton (2020)

o  The New Tsar: Rise & Reign of Vladimir Putin, Steven Lee Myers (2016).

o  Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer - The Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen & Aldrich Ames, Victor Cherkashin (2004)

o  The Caucasus, Thomas De Waal (2018)

o  Khrushchev's Thaw and National Identity in Soviet Azerbaijan, Jamil Hasanli (2014)

o  The Best Books on Contemporary Russia (Five Books)

Articles

o  “Dictatorship and Double Standards,” Jeane Kirkpatrick, Commentary (1979)

o  NATO Enlargement & Russia (NATO, 2014)

o  “False Equivalence” & “Tu Quoque”, IEP

Documentaries

o  The Putin Interviews (ShowTime, 2017)

o  Cold War 2.0, Vice/HBO (2015)

Primary Sources

o  Russian-Chinese Relations (CIA, 1998)

o  Putin’s Munich Speech, (WaPo, 2007)

o  Interview With KGB/SVR Illegal (Chekist Monitor, 2020)

o  U.S. Ambassadors to Russia Interviewed (NSA)

o  US-Russia Oral Histories (ADST)

o  Archival Research on Russia (NSA)

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Summary

David Cattler (Twitter; LinkedIn) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss how intelligence functions at NATO. He is the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security.

What You’ll Learn

o  What it is like to be the leader of intelligence and security across the largest peacetime alliance in history?

o  How does intelligence come together at NATO – who are the key-players, institutions, and stakeholders?

o  What are some of the main challenges facing the Alliance including Russia and Cyber?

o  “Reading” an institution and its key players

o  The importance of “soft skills” in professional life

Episode Notes

Every polisci student knows from their Plato to NATO class, that NATO is (a) considered the most successful alliance of its kind in history and (b) was founded in 1949. As you can imagine, intelligence is incredibly important to the whole endeavor, so why has NATO only had an intelligence supremo since 2016?

To find out the answer, and much else besides, Andrew sat down with David Cattler. David is (a) the principal advisor on intelligence to the NATO Secretary General and (b) the lead for coordinating intelligence relationships between NATO and the 75 individual intelligence agencies across its 30 constituent nations (talk about herding cats).

With Russian forces built up on the Ukrainian border in February 2022, the timing of this episode is, well, germane.

And…

Andrew picked David up outside the U.S. Department of State and drove him to the SpyCast studio at SPY – if the traffic is right, you can do it in under 10 minutes!

Quote of the Week 

"The secretary general is my boss but imagine him in this context to put it in a different frame is that he is the CEO of a large international conglomerate that engages in multiple business lines. And I am the CEO of the business line for intelligence and security. The nation's intelligence services in effect are my corporate board. So, they provide that governance and the oversight for all the work." – David Cattler

Further Resources

SpyCasts

o  Able Archer 83: An Interview with Nate Jones

o  Our Latest Long War: An Interview with Ben Jones

Books

o  Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO & the Postwar Global Order, Timothy Andrews Sayle (2019)

o  How NATO Adapts: Strategy & Organization in the Alliance Since 1950, Seth A. Johnson (2017)

o  The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, Lord Ismay (1960)

o  Present at the Creation, Dean Acheson (1969)

o  The Best Books on Contemporary Russia (Five Books)

Video

o  What is NATO, Why Does it Exist, and How Does it Work? (NATO)

o  How Does a Country Join NATO? (NATO)

Documentary

o  The Cold War, Narrated by Kenneth Branagh (CNN 1998)

Websites

o  NATO Declassified (NATO)

o  NATO (Atlantic Council)

o  NATO (RUSI)

Primary Sources

o  The North Atlantic Treaty (1949)

o  Address by Harry S. Truman on the Signing of the North Atlantic Treaty (1949)

o  North Atlantic Council – First Session – Summary Minutes (1949)

o  Historical Holdings on NATO (Eisenhower Library)

o  The NATO Problem: French Forces in Europe (CIA, 1966)

o  Being NATO’s Secretary General on 9/11 (2011)

o  USNATO Oral Histories (ADST)

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"The Wright Brothers of the U.S. Drone Warfare Program." That is how some people have referred to this week's guests, Alec Bierbauer and Mark Cooter. Andrew sat down with them to dig into drones and their intelligence implications.

This was the most popular episode of 2020. Apparently, people are interested in the views of former GCHQ Director, Joint Intelligence Committee Chair, and first UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator on, well - how spies think. I am sure David – now a Visiting Professor at Kings College, London – has a few thoughts on the subject. Hear Andrew debrief this week’s guest on the insights derived from a career spent at the summit of British intelligence. 1 Book, 2 Glaswegians, 10 Lessons in Intelligence. It’s simple, really. Sláinte!