A Mole in the CIA

March 5, 1953. The Premier of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, is on his deathbed, and he’s turning blue. At the end of his life, Stalin is surrounded by his closest advisors, but these comrades aren’t hoping for his quick recovery. For days, they’ve been sneaking away from their ...  Show more

March 1, 1951. Two Texas horse trainers sit down to lunch with Walt Disney. They assume he wants to use their animals in a movie. Instead, Walt leans in and tells them about something that doesn’t exist yet. Not a carnival. Not an amusement park. Something movie-like in the real ...  Show more

On June 13, 1985, Aldrich Ames packed up six pounds of top secret documents into a plastic bag and walked out the door of the CIA headquarters. He drove to lunch, where he gave the documents to a Soviet diplomat. They contained the identities of America’s most important spies ...

Author Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on the CIA and its often secretive directors in his new book, "The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future," published by Scribner an imprint of Simon & Schuster a division of ViacomCBS. Having spoken to almost ev ...  Show more

This week, Justin brings on journalist and author Howard Blum.  Howard studied at Stanford University where he received both his bachelor's and master's degree and has worked as a reporter for the New York Times where he was nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize. Mo ...

You might’ve seen spies use disguises in movies, but for real-life CIA officers, masks, wigs, makeup, and clothing are just the beginning. So what else do Agency officers need to transform themselves into someone else? How do they pull off such sleight of hand under pressure—and ...  Show more