True Life Spy Stories

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On 6 September 1976, Soviet Air Force Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected to the West in a MiG-25 interceptor, landing at a civilian airport in Japan and handing American intelligence the most secret aircraft in the Soviet arsenal.
The MiG-25 was studied for 67 days before being returned to the Soviet Union in pieces. What the West found overturned a decade of assumptions about Soviet air power.
This is the story of how Belenko did it, what the analysis revealed, and what became of the man who pulled it off.
📚 Sources & Further Reading (affiliate link):
📕 MiG Pilot by John Barron

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In 1982, an American signals intelligence sergeant walked past the Soviet consulate in West Berlin and dropped a letter through its mail slot, offering his services to the KGB. Within weeks he had opened a second channel to the East German Stasi, selling the same secrets to both.
For six years, James W. Hall III operated out of Field Station Berlin — one of the most sensitive NSA listening posts in Cold War Europe — passing material an NSA official later estimated cost three billion dollars in damage. He was paid roughly three hundred thousand dollars for it.
This episode tells the story of how he did it, what he sold, and how an unrelated shoplifting arrest in West Berlin set the chain of events in motion that would end his career in a motel room outside Savannah, Georgia.
📚 Sources & Further Reading (affiliate link):
📕 Traitors Among Us: Inside the Spy Catchers World by Stuart A. Herrington - https://amzn.to/4uVZXac

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Welcome to Dead Drop.
In this week's dossier:
FSB operative Zarubina jailed 14 months in New York;
the Pentagon raises Israel's espionage threat rating to critical;
Tulsi Gabbard resigns as US Director of National Intelligence; and 
China arrests US Myanmar scholar on suspicion of espionage.

Ways to support the podcast:
Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bmc.link/philipthompson⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
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John Anthony Walker Jnr. ran the largest and most damaging espionage ring in Cold War history. For nearly 18 years he and his co-conspirators sold US Navy secrets to the Soviets.
Yet things inevitably got too big and too messy. John Walker’s contempt for his wife and those around him meant that it was only a matter of time before his house of cards went tumbling down.
In the year of the spy, John Anthony Walker Jnr. was the spy of the decade.
#philipthompson #truelifespystories #johnwalker
Primary sources and further reading (afiiliate links):
📕 Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring, Pete Earley - Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring - https://amzn.to/4v0Sgjw
📘 Spy Hunter: Inside the FBI Investigation of the Walker Espionage Case, Robert W. Hunter - https://amzn.to/4ekCCYq
📕 Breaking the Ring, John Baron - https://amzn.to/3VgiKgo
Media shown in this video (affiliate links):
🎞️ On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - https://amzn.to/4b4L9vQ
🎞️ The Vietnam War (2017) - https://amzn.to/3VqClux

Ways to support the podcast:
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Welcome to Dead Drop.

In this week's dossier:
A former CIA officer steals gold bars worth more than 40 million dollars; 
Former MI6 chief, Sir Alex Younger, dies at the age of 62; 
IRA spy asks a judge if she can take off her ankle tag to go wedding dress shopping; and 
Former MI6 chief reveals how his cover was blown by a Christmas card.