# SpyCast SpyCast, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum, is a journey into the shadows of international espionage. Each week, host Sasha Ingber brings you the latest insights and intriguing tales from spies, secret agents, and covert communicators, with a focus on how this secret world reaches us all in our everyday lives. Tune in to discover the critical role intelligence has played throughout history and today. Brought to you from Airwave, Goat Rodeo, and the International Spy Museum.… Page: Feed: --- ## [What It Takes to Run the CIA's Southeast Asia Department](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/746/notes) _2026-08-18_ You might find Meredith Cavan playing music in an Irish pub. But long before her first album dropped, she clocked more than 20 years at the CIA. One of her jobs there was Southeast Asia Department chief, where she oversaw covert action, intelligence operations, and analysis across 30 countries. We're talking about the years 2021 to 2023, when terrorism was taking a back seat to strategic… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW5085365240.mp3) ## [Cuba's Spies, Defectors, and the Ex-FBI Agent Who Met Them All](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/745/notes) _2026-08-11_ For decades, Cuban intelligence has been seen as a force that punches above its weight. Shaped during the Cold War through cooperation with the Soviet Union, its intelligence officers received extensive training by the KGB. But where does Cuba’s spy service stand today, especially as it faces pressure from Washington? Retired FBI special agent Peter J. Lapp, who wrote Queen of Cuba, came in to… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW1438511383.mp3) ## [Smears, Fakes & Phantoms: Cold War Britain's Secret Propaganda Department](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/744/notes) _2026-08-04_ In Cold War Britain, a secret propaganda department saw its list of targets and tactics widen. Personnel inside the Information Research Department went beyond forgeries, fakes, and plants, conducting bold impersonations to smear critics and stoke tensions among foes. The team, which consisted of refugees, ex-journalists, and even daughters of aristocrats, hatched a slew of audacious operations… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW8219904763.mp3) ## [Murder in Mexico City: The Assassination of Leon Trotsky](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/743/notes) _2026-07-28_ For those of you who have visited the International Spy Museum, you may be familiar with one of our most prized artifacts, the ice ax used to assassinate Leon Trotsky in 1940. Trotsky was the operational mastermind of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and when Vladimir Lenin died, many assumed Trotsky would succeed him as the central figure of the revolution. Joseph Stalin had other plans. What… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW7144982225.mp3) ## [The Triumphs and Failures of France's Foreign Intel Service](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/742/notes) _2026-07-21_ The DGSE, or Directorate General for External Security, is France's foreign intelligence service. It's found inside the Ministry of Defense but reports to the president. It was established under that name in 1982, learning the hard way, through a string of high-profile blunders, how to conduct espionage. The service is responsible for all sources of intelligence and has benefited from a popular TV… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW7990796969.mp3) ## [Inside China's Cyber Espionage Business](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/741/notes) _2026-07-14_ Ahana Datta Fasel became the British government’s first ethical hacker in 2014, testing vulnerabilities in computer systems and networks that hackers could potentially exploit. She was only 23, but that gave her an early look at state-sponsored cyber intrusions, which have of course grown more serious and sophisticated. Today, her book, Full Stack Spies: Cyber Espionage in the Age of US-China… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW7249779859.mp3) ## [The Navy Spy who Sold Secrets for $377 a Year](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/740/notes) _2026-07-07_ You may have heard of the long-running TV show NCIS, based on the real work of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. But you may never have heard of a unit inside it, called the Office of Special Projects, where staff work on espionage cases that originate inside the U.S. Navy. Case agent Mike Garzon has worked in the office for four years. He sits down with Sasha to talk about a case that… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW7363937413.mp3) ## [Closer than Cuba: the Able Archer Nuclear Crisis of 1983](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/739/notes) _2026-06-30_ It's November of 1983, the closest the world came to nuclear war, some may argue even closer than the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Yet the Able Archer 1983 exercise incident is relatively unknown by comparison. A series of events that started with the Soviet shootdown of a Korean Air Lines plane, ended with not one but two almosts, when it came to accidental nuclear war. This included a simulated… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW8509041681.mp3) ## [Putin’s Paramilitary 2.0](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/738/notes) _2026-06-23_ Since its emergence in 2014, the Wagner Group operated as the Kremlin's shadow army, deploying mercenaries across Africa and the Middle East. It gave Vladimir Putin plausible deniability, expanding Moscow's geopolitical influence by propping up leaders through military assistance and securing Moscow's economic interests through weapons deals and access to natural resources. UN experts and human… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW6011703777.mp3) ## [AI publishing with human taste (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/nR3bQaTN7noS) _2026-06-23 · **Sponsored**_ Convert AI research into blogs, podcasts, and newsletters with optional human review. ## [Tricked and Extradited: Inside the First FBI Operation to Lure a Chinese Spy to the US](https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/spycast/737/notes) _2026-06-16_ The FBI won’t discuss exactly how Chinese spy Xu Yanjun came to the attention of special agents. Xu was handling a GE Aviation engineer in Ohio who specialized in composite fan-blade technology. That engineer, David Zheng, had been approached by an official from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, on LinkedIn with a request to give a presentation. So Zheng ended up traveling from… [Listen](https://pdst.fm/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/YfZO4tERxneauNcW9Fgn/traffic.megaphone.fm/CYBW7195338398.mp3)