Thank you to CHANGES for sponsoring this video. To learn about the terrible things the Nazis did in their bunker, click through to their channel: https://youtu.be/YLJq661j4Bw?si=xm5_xIL4o7uV7eeb The CHANGES channel page: youtube.com/@CHANGES_SCAMS |-----------------------------------------------------------------| The mid-20th Century saw no shortage of heroic men and women who bravely fought against fascism. While it was the collective efforts of the many operating with a singular purpose...

The summer of 1959 saw tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union experience an unprecedented thaw. The two global superpowers decided it would be a good idea to each stage an exhibition in the other’s country. Designed to encourage cultural exchange and to increase mutual understanding, in truth, it was more a means to show off the latest technology and propagandize. It was the Soviet Exhibition in New York that paved the way for one of the CIA’s most successful covert operations of the...

In 1954, Berlin was divided, having become the epicentre of the ideological battleground in the Cold War. The city was ruled more by spies and secrets than the tanks and troops lining its streets. Just a year earlier, in August 1953, the Soviets had detonated their first hydrogen bomb in their own rapidly advancing Atomic Project. The West was concerned about what else they might be planning and felt that they had to act before it was too late. But in order to act, they needed to know what...

Ways to support the podcast: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 |-----------------------------------------------------------------| In the aftermath of World War II, as the dust of global conflict settled and nations sought to rebuild, the Soviet Union extended a hand of friendship to the United States of America. The gift, handed over by children no less, would many years later reveal itself as a masterstroke of espionage, a...

Watch the full documentary on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qaiMhFpVgxw The art in espionage is the ability to hide in plain sight and the greatest of spies are the ones you never learn about. This statement rings true in the case of Anthony Blunt. His life seemed predestined for greatness. A Cambridge graduate with familial ties to the Royal Family, he was the very picture of establishment respectability. His brilliance as a polymath, fluency in multiple languages, and renown as a...

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iHnS-aKvEno Ways to support the podcast: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Primary sources and further reading (afiiliate links): 📕 Shadrin: The Spy Who Never Came Back - https://amzn.to/3XF90yH |--------------------------------------------------------------| Nicholas Shadrin, born Nikolai Artamonov, was a high-ranking Soviet naval officer who made a life-altering decision in the 1950s....

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/W13m5fiup28 Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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/3SgtfQ1 In the sun-drenched streets of the Vatican in the summer of 1985, a high-ranking KGB officer slipped away from...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wrS2jHMhPG4 Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5L4PByawRHg Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/k49GZB6anHU Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VdkPXhngptQ Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Uz0KJtCDy3U Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Listen to Spy Valley podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/spyvalley?at=1010l39W4&sid=fm.website https://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...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JSS3JzjYEWU Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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...

Watch this episode on YouTube: [check back later!] Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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 -...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/V73J3l5i6X0 Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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 📗...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XlLtHWipZps?si=LHSMKMzSQ1X5K-2z Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate 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 -...

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/CzP1NF0M4ko Ways to support my channel: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Primary source (afiiliate link): 📕 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 -...

Watch ⁠⁠⁠Philip Thompson's True-Life Spy Stories⁠⁠⁠ on YouTube. Watch this podcast on YouTube: ⁠ The Worst Intelligence Disaster in FBI History Support this podcast: ⁠⁠⁠Buy Me a Coffee⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠PayPal⁠⁠ In 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...

Watch ⁠⁠Philip Thompson's True-Life Spy Stories⁠⁠ on YouTube. Watch this podcast on YouTube: The Fearless White Mouse Who Outwitted the Gestapo⁠⁠ Support this podcast: ⁠⁠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...

Watch ⁠Philip Thompson's True-Life Spy Stories⁠ on YouTube. Watch this podcast on YouTube: The CIA Mole Who Brought US Intelligence to its Knees Support this podcast: ⁠Buy Me a Coffee⁠ ⁠PayPal What 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”...

Watch ⁠Philip Thompson's True-Life Spy Stories⁠ on YouTube. Watch this podcast on YouTube: ⁠Moscow's Man On The Inside.⁠ Support this podcast: ⁠Buy Me a Coffee⁠ ⁠PayPal In 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...

Watch Philip Thompson's True-Life Spy Stories on YouTube. Watch this podcast on YouTube: Moscow's Man On The Inside. Support this podcast: Buy Me a Coffee PayPal George 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...