Today Justin sits down with Peter Merlin. Peter is an author, historian, and college instructor. He received his Bachelor's of Science degree in Aeronautical Studies from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and has just completed his Master's degree in Aviation Management from Southern Illinois University. He's been a freelance writer and researcher for more than 30 years and has worked as a historian and archivist at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards, California. He current...

This week Justin replays one of his personal favorite episodes, number 26, when author and former special forces officer Greg Walker shared the little-known story of a David Baez, a green beret defector. Baez was a Nicaraguan national whose father was killed by U.S.-backed President Samosa after voicing his displeasure with inequalities that had risen under Samosa's rule. After immigrating the U.S. and joining the Army (and then Special Forces), Baez found himself in El Salvador watching the ...

Today Justin sits down with repeat guest Tim Tate. Tim has worked as a documentary filmmaker and an investigative journalist for more than 40 years, and in that time has published 19 books and produced 80 documentaries. Some of the topics he's covered in the past include China's slave labor gulags, the worst child murderer in British history, and the orphans left behind after the Vietnam War. Today he discusses the topic of his latest book. It's the story of Peter Wright, MI5 senior counterin...

This week's guest is Dr. Lewis Sage-Passant. Lewis is a former British military intelligence officer and holds a PhD in Intelligence Studies. He's currently the global head of intelligence for one of Europe's most valuable companies, where he helps the firm navigate geopolitical, security, and industrial espionage risks. He also teaches courses in intelligence studies as an adjunct professor at Sciences Po Paris. His work has appeared in many publications and media organizations, including BB...

This week, Justin welcomes back Patrick K. O'Donnell. Patrick is a combat historian who has covered the war in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004, where he was armed and participated in the battle alongside the U.S. Marines. He's an expert on special operations units and irregular warfare. He's published 13 books so far on combat history, covering stories from the American Revolution, World War II, The Global War on Terror and more. He's also the author of The Brenner Assignment, which informed episode n...

Today Justin talks with Norman Ohler. Norman is a best selling novelist, a journalist, and a screenwriter. He's written three novels, which comprise the City Trilogy, and while working in the West Bank in 2004, he interviewed Yasser Arafat in what turned out to be the final interview of his life before he passed away in November of that year. He's also the author of the non fiction book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, published in English in 2016. In this episode he discusses his newest book,...

This week Justin sits down with Craig Unger. Craig is a journalist and the author of eight books. He's a graduate of Harvard University, where he worked as an editor for The Harvard Crimson. He's written articles which have appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, and other publications. He also served as a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, where he covered national security and foreign affairs for more than 15 years. He's here today to di...

This week Justin talks with Caleb Daniels. Caleb is a lifelong fan of the James Bond films and novels, as well as a firearms enthusiast from Kansas City, Missouri. For seven years, he worked in the firearms industry. In 2020, he started the website and social media pages titled Commando Bond, which are a passion project of his to bridge the gap between pop culture and the world of firearms by analyzing how to live like James Bond from his daily carry to his wardrobe and lifestyle.Todya he dis...

Today Justin sits down with Vladimir McMillin. Vlad was born in Moscow and worked for 20 years for the TASS Russian news agency as a sports reporter. He immigrated to the United States in 1990 and has lived here since then. At a very young age, Vlad realized that there was something different about his family, because they were the only family named McMillin in all of Russia. Vlad's father was James McMillan, a former U.S. Army NCO stationed at the American Embassy in Moscow in the late 1940s...

Today Justin talks with Dr. Paul McGarr. Paul is a researcher, lecturer, and author who has focused particularly on security and intelligence interventions by the U.S. and U.K. governments into the global south. He's published more than two dozen articles in professional journals over the past 15 years and teaches several courses on intelligence and diplomacy at King's College London. He is also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society. He's here to discuss...

Today's guest us Jacek Waliszewski. Jacek is an Army Special Forces warrant officer. During his career, he has served primarily with 10th Group and has deployed 18 times on three different continents to date and trained more than 2, 500 soldiers worldwide in special operations tactics and strategies. He's also published two novels. He's here to discuss his newest book, the true memoirs of an OSS agent on the ground in Southern Europe in 1944, working with local partisans in the fight ag...

In this solo episode, Justin discusses how the world's intelligence agencies have captured foreign case officers, spies, and even their own defectors alive after they've already escaped to other countries. Killing a target in another country is difficult enough, especially when they are enjoying the security of the host nation that welcomed them in, but it's often even more difficult than that to get them back alive. Different methods have been used over the years, and despite all the plannin...

Justin's guest today is Dr. Mark Stout, who has held many positions, both inside and outside the U.S. intelligence community. He's worked as an intelligence analyst for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research for the CIA, and was a civilian employee for the U.S. Army at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. He was also the historian for the International Spy Museum from 2010 until 2013, and was the director of the Master's in Arts Program for Global Security Studies at John ...

Today Justin talks with Constance Huff. She retired from the U.S. Army as a Chief Warrant Officer IV. Connie spent more than 24 years in Army Intelligence, holding three occupational specialties, Interrogator, CI Special Agent, and Case Officer. She spent the majority of her career in counterintelligence, where she specialized in counterespionage investigations and operations. Connie was a senior instructor for the U.S. Army's Advanced Foreign Counterintelligence Training course, which was a ...

Today Justin is joined by Zach Dorfman. Zach is a national security reporter whose work has appeared in Politico, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He received his Bachelor's degree from Skidmore College and a Master's degree in International Relations and Affairs from the University of Chicago. Zach is a former senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. He's also the host of the Spy Valley Podcast from P...

Today Justin sits down with William Boik. Bill served in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve for more than 30 years before retiring in 2005 at the rank of colonel. Over the course of his military career, he served in various positions in the armor branch and in military intelligence in South Korea, Germany and the U.S. From 2001 to 2018, Bill was a senior civilian at the Defense POW MIA Office, later known as the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency, first as the Director of Global Affair...

Today Justin is joined by Christian Hansen. Christian is a graduate of Western Kentucky University and now lives in New York City, where he has worked as a photojournalist since 2007. His work has previously appeared in The New York Times. In 2013, he began to follow a thread of a story about the unexpected death of a writer pursuing his own story in West Virginia in 1991. That turned into a decade-long quest that connects the intelligence community, military, Reagan administration, private c...

Today Justin sits down with Luis Munar Duran. Luis received his law degree from the University of Valencia in Spain and was a practicing attorney for nearly 20 years beginning in 1998. He's also a certified pilot and served as a reserve officer in the Spanish Air Force. Luis also has extensive training and experience in security and human rights issues. In 2012, After traveling to Aleppo, Syria to build a refugee camp and help train guerrilla fighters there, Luis was recruited by the Spanish ...

This week Justin talks with Dan Lawton. Dan received his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and graduated with his Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center in 1986 and has been practicing and a practicing attorney in San Diego, California for many years. He's also taught at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law since 2001 and has written articles and short fiction, which have appeared in numerous publications. Today Dan tells the story of Kevin Barry Artt, a young m...

Today just talks to Jan Stocklassa. Jan is an author and journalist focusing on large scale affairs in international politics. He served as a diplomat for Sweden in the Czech Republic from 1997 until 2003, and later helped found a newspaper paper in Prague. Jan spent more than a decade researching the 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, a case which is now officially closed but which still deserves a lot of attention and perhaps to be reopened and reinvestigated. Connect with Ja...

Today, Justin talks with returning guest James Stejskal. James enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1973 and served for more than 20 years, including with the now famous Special Forces Detachment A in Berlin in the 1970s and 80s, among many other assignments. He was severely wounded in Somalia in 1992 and medically retired from the Army in 1996, after which he joined the CIA as a case officer, where he spent nearly another 15 years. Now fully retired from government service, James has written severa...

Today Justin chats with Rose Mary Sheldon. This is her third time on the podcast. Rose Mary taught history as a professor at Virginia Military Institute for more than 25 years, and is a world renowned expert on intelligence activities in the ancient world. She earned her PhD from the University of Michigan in 1987 and has published several books and many articles over the years, as well as serving as an editor for the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence in Small Wars...

Justin talks with retired FBI special agent Raymond J. Batvinis. Ray served in the FBI from 1972 until 1997, working in counterterrorism and counterintelligence, including on the investigations into Ronald Pelton and the Walker spy ring. Shortly after 9/11, he returned to teach the basic counterintelligence course at the FBI Academy at Quantico. Since retiring, Ray has worked as a historian and author. He's published articles on intelligence history in scholarly journals and on his webs...

Today Justin chats with Charles Lachman. Since 1998, Charles has been the executive producer of the nationally syndicated news magazine Inside Edition. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, History Channel, Lifetime, C SPAN, and other local and national media. He's also the author of four non fiction books and one crime novel. Today he discusses the story of an almost impossible mission for the U. S. Navy to locate, disable, and capture a mostly intact U Boat in the middle of the Atlanti...