SpyCast

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Charlie Mitchell, editor and co-founder of Inside Cybersecurity, and the author of Hacked: The Inside Story of America's Struggle to Secure Cyberspace. Houghton and Mitchell discuss the ongoing congressional debates over cybersecurity, the landmark framework of cybersecurity standards crafted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the policy ramifications of major hacking events.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with antiterrorism advisor and risk management specialist Tom Ordeman to discuss the little-know case of the Dhofar Rebellion. Often called the “Secret War” (because so few people have heard of it), the Dhofar Rebellion is an example of COIN Theory implemented to perfection.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Ilya Zaslavskiy, who was falsely accused of espionage by Russian security services (the FSB). Unwilling to sit back and allow others to be victimized by a corrupt system, Ilya now dedicates his time to exposing those at the heart of the Russian kleptocracy. See his petition here: https://www.change.org/p/chancellor-chris-patten-oxford-university-and-other-academic-entities-review-cooperation-with-putin-s-oligarchs

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Richard Easton, author of GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones, to discuss the development of GPS and its role in the military, intelligence, and civilian domains. Easton’s father, Roger, led the Space Applications Branch of the Naval Research Laboratory from the Vanguard Satellite era to the early days of GPS development.

Blurred Lines: An Interview with Georgetown International Law Professor Rosa Brooks SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Rosa Brooks, professor of national security law, Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of the new book How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Stephen Budiansky, the author of seventeen books about military history, intelligence and espionage, science, the natural world, and other subjects, to discuss the history of the NSA and his new book, NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former CIA officer Steve Slick, who spent more than three decades at the Agency as a case officer, chief of station, and senior executive. He is now the inaugural Director of the Intelligence Studies Project at the University of Texas, Austin.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton traveled to Politicon in Pasadena, CA and sat down (before a live audience) with Jon Ronson, author of The Men Who Stare at Goats, and all-around interesting person.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with prolific author Sir Max Hastings, whose 20+ books have set the standard for historical writing over the last 40 years. Dr. Houghton and Sir Max discuss the fascinating topic of Hastings’ new book, The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945, arguably the best single-volume history of the secret side of the War.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Dr. John Prados, author of the new book Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy. Drs. Houghton and Prados discuss the role of intelligence in the Pacific War and, specifically, how it impacted the Battle of Leyte Gulf – the largest naval battle in world history.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Dr. Lori Clune, Associate Professor of History at California State University, Fresno, to discuss her new book on how the Rosenberg spy case affected American relations with the rest of the world. A completely new way of looking at this milestone in spy history.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Dr. Tara Maller, the Spokesperson and a Senior Policy Advisor for the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), to discuss the growing threat – and responses to – online extremism. To learn more about the CEP, go to http://www.counterextremism.com

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Barry Meier of the New York Times to discuss the story of Bob Levinson, former FBI agent and CIA contract worker, who disappeared in Iran in 2007. Meier’s book, Missing Man: The American Spy Who Vanished in Iran, drew on years of interviews and never-before-disclosed CIA files to weave together a riveting narrative of the ex-agent's journey to Iran and the hunt to rescue him.

Juan Pujol was the Walter Mitty of World War II, a nobody who at one doomed venture after another while dreaming of doing something interesting with his life -- saving Western civilization, if possible. Journalist Stephan Talty, whose work has appeared widely, including in the New York Times Magazine and GQ, has told the remarkable story of how against all the odds, Pujol did just that by becoming agent GARBO, the most important double agent of World War II. Hear Talty discuss his new book with SPY Historian Mark Stout in this author debriefing which took place on July 12, 2012.

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Howard Blum, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal, a book about one of the greatest spies of WWII, Betty Pack. Pack used seduction as her tradecraft, and stole some of the most consequential secrets of the war.