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Harold Adrian Russell Philby was known to everyone as Kim. Four years after the infamous defection to the Soviet Union of British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, Kim was preparing to hold a press conference at his mother's Kensington flat.

Ever since the disappearance of the two defectors behind the Iron Curtain, whispers of another betrayal - a so-called "Third Man" started to hang like a dark cloud over Kim Philby’s head.

And so there he sat, ready to set the record straight.

When asked point-blank whether he was the "third man" who had tipped off Burgess and Maclean, he met the question with measured calm, denial.

This infamous proclamation of his innocence was delivered with such sincerity that he was able momentarily to silence his accusers.

The press conference in many ways served its purpose, allowing Kim Philby to continue on for the next 8 years.

He had, of course, been lying through his teeth. It was only after he disappeared in 1963 that questions started to be asked. How could this have happened? Did British intelligence know about it all along and did they allow him to flee to avoid an even greater scandal?

Even today, in 2025 newly declassified documents are shedding fresh light on this most extraordinary case of intrigue and betrayal.

This is the story of Kim Philby, the Cold War's most notorious spy and traitor.

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New Zealand convicts its first ever spy

Over in the UK, spy trials don't get out the starting gates. Not so in New Zealand, where in August 2025, the New Zealand courts convicted its first spy, sending a thus-far unnamed soldier in its defence forces to detention in a military camp for 2 years.

In this episode I detail the sting operation that went into apprehending and prosecuting the would-be spy who tried to pass classified New Zealand materials to a foreign power.

#PhilipThompson #deaddrop #TrueLifeSpyStories

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1985. American intelligence was bleeding secrets like a ruptured artery.

The Soviets were reading encrypted Navy communications. The Chinese knew what the CIA was translating before Washington did. Israel, an ally, had penetrated the heart of U.S. intelligence operations.

Fourteen Americans were arrested that year on espionage charges. Fourteen caught. How many remained hidden?

The damage was catastrophic. Decades of intelligence work evaporated overnight. Agents were executed. Military capabilities were exposed. The technological edge that kept America ahead in the Cold War vanished into enemy hands.

Their stories are varied and they came from all corners of the US intelligence world. Navy communications specialists. NSA analysts. CIA officers. Translators. Each had their reasons for betrayal. Each left a trail of destruction.

This is the year of the spy. These are the stories of betrayal that changed the Cold War forever.

#philipthompson #truelifespystories #yearofthespy

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It's finger-pointing time in Westminster!

In October 2025, the UK's first major Chinese espionage trial collapsed in spectacular fashion when prosecutors offered no evidence against two men accused of spying for Beijing.

The reason? The government refused to call China a "threat" to national security—a legal requirement under the century-old Official Secrets Act.

In this episode, I look at the latest developments in the scandal, including the collision of economic and political interests, and the planned Chinese mega embassy in the heart of London that perhaps stands at the centre of it all.

#PhilipThompson #deaddrop #TrueLifeSpyStories

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In October 2025 in a London courtroom, two men accused of spying for China stood ready for trial.

The case has been building for two and a half years by this point. Security services have invested countless hours and tax payer money. Then, in a matter of minutes, the whole thing evaporates. The prosecutor stan ds up and offers no evidence. Case dismissed.

How does the UK's first major Chinese espionage trial simply collapse? The answer, the full details of which the likes of you and I will probably never know, reveals a government too nervous to call China what MI5 has been screaming it is for years – a threat.

Now the two spies in question, Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry have not been convicted of anything and remain innocent until proven guilty. But the reason they so far have not had their day in court has nothing to do with their guilt or innocence. It has everything to do with politics.

#philipthompson #truelifespystories #deaddrop

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The country on the west African coast called Ghana is hardly the place one expects a true Cold War espionage drama to play out. It had no Berlin Wall. No missile sites. In truth, it was just a nation of gold mines and cocoa plantations trying to find its way after independence in 1957.

But it was in its capital city, Accra, that Ghana became a Cold War battleground in the proxy war between the United States and Soviet Union as they competed for the soul of an entire continent. This silent war raged for years, with neither side giving an inch. But then, disaster.

It was a textbook honey trap operation that obliterated America's intelligence network across West Africa. Ghanaian intelligence services engineered a sophisticated romance targeting the most vulnerable point in any spy operation: the human heart.

All it took was one charming operative targeting a lonely American woman on assignment for the CIA. Eighteen months of seduction and manipulation ended in the complete destruction of the CIA's presence in Ghana. The consequences for the CIA extended far beyond the borders of the West African country and onto the global stage of geopolitics.

This is the story of Sharon Scranage, which was yet another devastating blow for American intelligence in the infamous Year of the Spy that was 1985

#philipthompson #truelifespystories #yearofthespy

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6 June 1944 - D-Day. The largest seaborne invasion in history. But the landings on Normandy’s beaches were not won by force of arms alone.

Behind the front lines, a secret war was being fought — a war of lies, deception, and misdirection. A handful of double agents, run by Britain’s MI5, wove a web of falsehoods so convincing that Hitler and his generals kept their armies waiting in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are countless others, many of whom have been forgotten to history, who bravely contributed to the war effort and to the ultimate deception that paved the way for victory in Europe. 

This collection tells the stories of just a handful of the men and women whose stories have been preserved.

They are representative of every individual who fought so valiantly for the freedom we today so take for granted.

These are the D-Day Spies.

The double-agents covered in this supercut:

• Tricycle (Dušan Popov)
• Bronx (Elvira Chaudoir)
• Tate (Wulf Schmidt)
• Zigzag (Eddie Chapman)
• Brutus (Roman Czerniawski)
• Treasure (Lily Sergeyev)
• Garbo (Juan Pujol García)

Ways to support the channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284It was 16 November 1996, and Harold James Nicholson was walking across the tarmac at Dulles International Airport, his camera bag slung over his shoulder. He was the Branch Chief in the Counterterrorism Center based at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Inside his bag were 10 rolls of undeveloped film containing some of America's most closely guarded secrets.

He was boarding a flight to Switzerland, where Russian intelligence officers were waiting to pay him for betraying his own country. But what Nicholson didn't know was that FBI agents were closing in from all sides.

As he approached the aircraft stairs, the trap sprung. Agents surrounded him, and in that moment, they had within their grasp the highest-ranking CIA officer ever caught spying for a foreign power. But this arrest wasn't the end of Jim Nicholson's story of betrayal. In fact, it was only the beginning.Further reading (affiliate links):📕 The Spy's Son: The True Story of the Highest-Ranking CIA Officer Ever Convicted of Espionage and the Son He Trained to Spy for Russia - Bryan Denson: https://amzn.to/46agWLv#philipthompson #truelifespystories #jimnicholson

Ways to support the channel:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284The radio operator's fingers moved across the Morse key with practiced precision. In a cramped attic room in Richmond Hill, London, each tap sent another carefully crafted lie racing through the ether toward Nazi Germany. The messages bore the authentication codes of Agent Hubert—a trusted German spy who had penetrated the highest levels of Allied command. But the man dictating these reports wasn't German at all, nor did he hold any loyalty to the Nazis.Roman Czerniawski was a Polish patriot who had already survived capture, recruitment by the Abwehr, and a desperate flight to freedom. Now, in the spring of 1944, his fabricated intelligence about phantom American armies massing in southeast England was being read by Adolf Hitler himself.

The irony was exquisite. The Führer, studying reports of General Patton's fictional invasion force, had no idea that his most trusted source was a man whose hatred for the Nazi regime burned with the intensity of a thousand suns.Roman Czerniawski was a wartime double agent who was nearly lost to history. Fortunately, his story has been preserved so that his bravery may never be forgotten.Further reading (affiliate links):📕 Double Cross: The True Story of The D-Day Spies - Ben Macintyre: https://amzn.to/45LW1xP📕 The Big Network - Roman Czerniawski (out of print - look on eBay)#philipthompson #truelifespystories #agentbrutus

Ways to support the podcast:Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompsonDonate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284Five days before Germany's unconditional surrender, a coded message was sent from the crumbling heart of the Third Reich. The transmission carried thanks for intelligence on Soviet mining operations and inquired about personal effects left in Hamburg years earlier. The German Abwehr were communicating with their Agent 3725, code-named Leonhard. To them, he was one of their most trusted operatives in Britain. But, they were unknowingly conversing with a double agent.What the Germans celebrated as their finest intelligence triumph had been, for almost the entirety of the war, a masterpiece of Allied counter-espionage.He was a man whose success helped save thousands of Allied lives, misdirected German military operations, and contributed to one of the most sophisticated deception campaigns in intelligence history. This is the story of Wulf Schmidt, or Agent Tate - a penniless Danish colonial worker who became one of Britain's most valuable intelligence assets and helped turn the tide of war.Further reading (affiliate links):📕 Agent Tate: The Wartime Story of Harry Williamson - Tommy Jonason, Simon Olsson: https://amzn.to/4oJyTJl#philipthompson #truelifespystories #agenttate