This week Justin interviews Vince Houghton and Eric Driggs. Vince grew up in Miami, Florida, and is a veteran of the U. S. Army, where he served in The Balkans. He went on to receive a master's degree and PhD in Diplomatic and Military History from the University of Maryland. He spent more than six years as the historian and curator for the Interna…

Today just chats with Nick van der Bijl. Nick served for 24 years as a regular in the British Army in military intelligence, security, and later as an infantry officer in the Territorial Army. He saw active service in Northern Ireland, Belize, and with the 3 Commando Brigade during the Falklands Conflict. Since leaving the service, Nick has publish…

This week Justin sits down with Phillip Tourney. Phil enlisted in the U. S. Navy in February 1964. He served two tours on the USS Mauna Kea in the waters off Vietnam, then transferred to the USS Liberty, where he served three more tours. In June 1967, he was aboard the Liberty as a petty officer third class when the ship came under attack by Israel…

This week Justin talks with returning guest Aaron Stark. Aaron served in the U S army as an Apache helicopter pilot, including on two tours in Afghanistan. He finished his term of service teaching at his alma mater West Point Military Academy as an assistant professor of economics after completing his master's in business administration at Harvard …

This week Justin talks with Ann Hagedorn. Ann is a former staff writer for the Wall Street Journal and an award winning author of six narrative nonfiction books ranging in topics from thoroughbred horse racing to international kidnapping to unsung heroes of America's anti slavery movement and to the high drama of the tumultuous year 1919. She's a g…

This week Justin talks with Richard "Ricky" O'Rawe, a former member of the Irish Republican Army. Since leaving the IRA, Ricky has worked as a peace advocate and has written several nonfiction books as well as two novels about The Troubles. Today Ricky shares the story of Britain's greatest intelligence coup during The Troubles: the recruitment of …

This week Justin sits down with Dr. Kathryn Olmsted. Kathryn is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, where she has taught since 2001. She's published five books and many journal articles focusing on the political and cultural history of the United States since World War I. Today she discusses the story of Elizabeth Bentley…

This week, Justin sits down with Ray Martinez. Ray served three consecutive terms as mayor of the city of Fort Collins, Colorado between 1999 and 2005. He was later elected to the Fort Collins City Council, serving a term from 2015 through 2019. Ray is an active member of several local advisory boards in the Fort Collins area. He's also the author …

Today Justin talks with Dr. Larry Berman. Larry is a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis. He has published four books dealing with the history of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. His work has also been featured on C-SPAN, The History Channel, and Vietnam: A Television History. Today Larry discusses the incredible doub…

Today Justin talks with Howard W. Cox. Howard is a former federal prosecutor, criminal investigator, and senior intelligence service officer. After graduating from Georgetown University Law Center, he served as a trial attorney for the U. S. Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps, followed by many other investigative and prosecutorial assignments th…

This week, Justin sits down with Dr. David Strachan-Morris. David is a lecturer in intelligence and security at the University of Leicester, where he runs the M. A . in Intelligence and Security program, as well as being Director of Distance Learning for the School of History, Politics, and International Relations. Before embarking on an academic c…

This week's guest is Justin Ling. Justin is an award winning investigative journalist whose work has appeared in Vice, Maclean's Foreign Policy, and The Globe and Mail, among other publications. He's also the author of the book Missing from the Village, which is about Toronto based serial killer Bruce MacArthur and has hosted two seasons of the Unc…

This week, Justin sits down with Kati Marton. Kati is an author, journalist, and correspondent who has worked with National Public Radio and later ABC News, where she was the Bureau Chief in Germany. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Times of London, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, and many other publ…

This week Justin chats with Dr. Alan McPherson. Alan is a historian of U.S. foreign relations at Temple University and the director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his M.A. in history from San Francisco State University. He has also publish…

Today, Justin sits down with Vince Houghton. Vince is a veteran of the U.S. Army and served in the Balkans. He went on to receive a Master's Degree and PhD in Diplomatic and Military history from the University of Maryland. He spent more than six years as the historian and curator for the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, and is now the d…

This week Justin sits down with Dr. Paul Winter. Paul is an independent historian, an author who specializes in wartime intelligence and military history, and a Red Team consultant. He's published articles in several journals and has written two books about World War II called D Day Documents and Defeating Hitler, as well as a third book called Fir…

This week Justin's guest is James B. Stockdale II. Jim has worked in public education for many years, including as an independent school headmaster, public school district superintendent, and as a distinguished educator for the Pennsylvania Department of Education. He's also the son of U. S. Navy aviator, Admiral James B. Stockdale. Admiral Stockda…

In this bonus episode, Justin shares his interview from The Gunfighter Project podcast. With host B, he discusses espionage stories that sound too incredible to be true. The Gunfighter Project features members of some of the world's most elite military units. It's a conversational show where professionals from around the world share their expertise…

Justin's guest this week is Matti Friedman. Matti has worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, and elsewhere. He's also the author of four nonfiction books covering subjects related to the formation of Israel and the conflicts that followed the birth of t…

This week Justin talks with Robert Lancaster. Robert served in the British Army from 1977 until 1989, including time spent with 22nd SAS, and then in the Australian Army as a reserve special forces soldier. In 1991, he founded Lancaster's Global Risk Consultancy based in Australia, which has offered a wide variety of security surveillance, business…

This week Justin sits down with Naveed Jamali. Naveed is currently an editor at large for Newsweek, where he reports on national security issues. Naveed grew up in New York City, where his parents owned a small business selling technical journals and other hard to find publications. This inadvertently put them in touch with Russian agents working u…

Today Justin talks with Peter Dowding. Peter worked as a solicitor and barrister for many years in Australia, beginning in 1966. He also served in various positions with the Labour Party and was elected to serve as the 24th Premier for Western Australia from 1988 until 1990. Peter is here to tell the story of his uncle Bruce who was studying in Par…

This week's guest is Tomasz Awasiewicz. Tom is an author, journalist, and expert on counterintelligence who has taught courses at the SWPS University of Social Sciences in Warsaw and elsewhere. Currently, he focuses on the Cold War-era intelligence and counterintelligence units of the Polish People's Republic. Today, Tom discusses a covert unit of …

This week Justin is joined by Alex Joske. Alex is an analyst and researcher who focuses on the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party. He has worked for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and has also written articles which have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and with NBC News. Today he's here to discuss t…

This week Justin sits down with Robert David Booth. Robert served as a special agent with the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security all over the world for nearly 30 years, in locations like Beijing, Geneva, Tokyo, Haiti, and Paris. He was the deputy director for the Office of Counterintelligence from 1996 until 2002, and afterwards serve…

Repeat guest Rose Mary Sheldon 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 Ph. D. from the University of Michigan in 1987, and has published several books and many articles over the years, as well as serving as an e…

In this solo episode, Justin tells the story of a notorious serial killer active in France during World War II who effectively used the war itself as cover for his crimes. But Marcel Petiot was much more than just a murder. He was a conman, a thief, a doctor, a politician, a target for the Gestapo, and possibly even a source of information for a li…

This week's guest is Stuart Reid. Stuart is a graduate of Dartmouth college and has worked at Foreign Affairs Magazine for the past 15 years, where he's now an executive editor. He's also written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Businessweek, Politico Magazine, Slate, and other publications. Today he discusses h…

Today's guest is Michael Honegger. Michael is a professional photographer and author. He spent much of his youth growing up in West Germany in the 1960s. His father was an officer with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Michael knew almost nothing of his father's career at the time, but there were a lot of clues that he was involved in…

This week Justin sits down with Joe Augustyn. Joe was a member of the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine service for 28 years, working as a case officer in several locations and later as Chief of Station on three different occasions. After the September 11th attacks, he was appointed the deputy associate director of CIA for Homeland Security…

This week, Justin covers four mysterious espionage deaths. In most of these cases, the exact nature of the events that came to pass is still up for debate. He dives into chilling and complex stories from Cold War Germany to Czechoslovakia, Washington DC, and Scotland. Unfortunately in these cases, we often never find answers. Check out episode 76, …

This week, Justin shares the story of the military liaison missions in post-war Germany, or the spies in uniform. If you're a longtime listener, you might recall episode number 23 with Aden Magee, who participated in these missions himself and wrote a book about it titled Cold War Wilderness of Mirrors. Today Justin gives broader overview of the su…

This week, Justin shares his interview from the Mark of the Maker Podcast, with hosts Mark Stheiner, Tom Krein, and Sean Kendrick. It's a podcast about knives by knifemakers, discussing everything forging and creation to collecting and history. They dove into some of the most interesting weapons from Justin's book, Covert Arms. Connect with Mark of…

Today, Justin sits down with Jennifer O'Leary. Jennifer is an award-winning investigative reporter for BBC Northern Ireland's current affairs program called Spotlight. She has investigated a wide variety of stories, including money laundering by organized crime, criminal conspiracy to export horses unfit for human consumption into the food chain, a…

In this solo episode, Justin shares a confusing and twisted story he's posted about before on his Instagram page. This is the mysterious death of a Danish diplomat on Long Island in November, 1959. Connect with Spycraft 101: Check out Justin's latest release, Covert Arms, here. spycraft101.com IG: @spycraft101 Shop: spycraft-101.myshopify.com Patre…

This week Justin talks with author, attorney, public speaker, security expert, and former FBI agent Eric O'Neill. Eric is the founder of the Georgetown Group, a premier investigative services and security firm. In law, he specializes in national security matters. But long before that, he was a young investigative specialist with the FBI. In Decembe…

In another solo episode, Justin covers a relatively recent assassination. This is the story of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and dissident who was murdered in 2018 after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Connect with Spycraft 101: Check out Justin's latest release, Covert Arms, here. spycraft101.com IG: @spycraft101 Sh…

This week Justin sits down with Rory Cormac. Rory is a professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, specializing in secret intelligence and covert action. He's also given presentations at #10 Downing Street, he UK Ministry of Defense, the US State Department, and the Pentagon. In addition to teaching, …

This week's guest is Michelle Black (no relation). Michelle is a mother to two boys and the widow of Staff Sergeant Bryan Black, who was killed in an ambush along with three other Special Forces soldiers in Niger, Africa in October, 2017. Michelle sought answers in the aftermath of her husband's death, but only found more questions. She eventually …

This week, Justin shares his interview from the Thrive Unafraid podcast, hosted by situational awareness expert Kelly Sayre and former CIA case officer Doug Patteson. You may remember Doug from episode two of the podcast in which he discussed his life in the CIA. On their show, Justin discusses how to defend yourself against common manipulation tec…

This week Justin welcomes repeat guest Fred Burton. Fred is the former Deputy Chief of the Counter-Terrorism and Protective Intelligence Division for the US State Department's Diplomatic Security Service, and is currently the executive director of the Onyx Center for Protective Intelligence. He's also the author of four non-fiction books about coun…

Today, Justin speaks with John Crawley. John grew up in the United States in an Irish immigrant family, and after returning to Ireland for several years he became committed to the cause of Irish independence, vowing to return to join the IRA. After a stint in the USMC as a recon Marine, he brought his combat training back with the intent to fight b…

This week, Justin has a conversation with Nicholas Reynolds. After graduating from Oxford University in the 1970s, he served in the US Marine Corps as an infantry officer, and later as a historian. Nick retired from the Reserves as a colonel and the officer in charge of field history. He also served with the Central Intelligence Agency, including a…

In a special retrospective for episode 101 of the podcast, Justin discusses the lessons he's learned along the way. From getting into contact with incredible guests to growing an audience to some of his favorite episodes, we take a look back at how Spycraft 101 got where it is today. Connect with Spycraft 101: Check out Justin's latest release, Cov…

This week, Justin sits down with Barry Meier. Barry is a veteran reporter who has written for the New York Times and received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, along with other members of the New York Times staff. He's also the first journalist to bring significant attention to the dangers of abuse of the prescription drug, Oxyco…

Today, Justin speaks with Aaron Stark. Aaron served in the US Army as an Apache helicopter pilot, including on two tours in Afghanistan. He finished his term of service teaching at his alma mater, West Point Military Academy, as an assistant professor of economics after completing his Master's in Business administration at Harvard University, and h…

Today, Justin chats with author, veteran, and former CIA case officer James Stejskal. James enlisted in the US 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 other assignments, he was severely wounded in Somalia in 1992 and medically retired from the Ar…

This week, Justin chats with Olga Sheymov. Olga has worked in high technology, on arts projects, and as a television producer. Her TV credits include the Long-Running series Russia Today, produced from 1997 until 2015, and Your Source TV among other projects. But long before she began her media career, Olga and her husband Victor Sheymov defected t…

Today Justin sits down with Jon and Alex from Fenrir Group. They're licensed private investigators based in Atlanta, Georgia, who offer a wide range of services, including skip tracing, process, serving bond recovery, and boutique litigation support. Not only have they successfully closed hundreds of cases of all types, but they've also developed a…

Today Justin sits down with Sue Dobson. Sue grew up in Pretoria, South Africa during the apartheid era and witnessed firsthand the brutality and oppression of the government at that time. As a young woman, she decided to take action and join the outlawed African National Congress to do her part to improve the lives of Black South Africans. She was …