Cuban Spies Among Us: The FBI’s Hunt for Castro’s Mole
South courtyard of the Harry S. Truman Building in Washington, D.C., headquarters of the United States Department of State, where Cuban spy Kendall Myers worked. Photo from Highsmith (Carol M.)…
Colonel “Mad Mike” Hoare: The Legendary Mercenary
Chris Hoare, left, with his father, Mike Hoare, and the biography he wrote on Mike Hoare. Durban, South Africa, June 2018. Photo by Roy Reed / CC BY-SA 4.0. Colonel…
Operation Sauerkraut: OSS’s Use of German POWs to Spread Propaganda
Collage of various gummed labels often carried and distributed by OSS agents All warfare is based on deception.” — Sun Tzu, “The Art of War.” Operation Sauerkraut was a series…
The Safari Club: Covert Operations in Cold War Africa
Adnan Khashoggi’s Mount Kenya Safari Club, from which the alliance derives its name. Attribution: Collectie Wereldmuseum (v/h Tropenmuseum), part of the National Museum of World Cultures / CC BY-SA 3.0.…
Indiana Jones® in Real Life: The OSS Archaeologists of WWII
The iconic bullwhip and hat used by Indiana Jones. Photo by Gary Stewart / CC BY 3.0. During World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to…
Project Iceworm: The Cold War’s Arctic Secret
Aerial view of Camp Century, Greenland. U,S, Army. During the height of the Cold War, the United States embarked on a top-secret mission known as Project Iceworm. This ambitious project…
Gin 101: Everything You Need to Know About This Versatile Spirit
Pexels photo by Kyle Miller. The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.” — Winston Churchill. Gin, a timeless and…
Operation Ghost Stories: Unmasking Russian Spies in America
Russian spy Anna Chapman and an undercover agent meet in a coffee shop in New York, June 26, 2010. Video frame from FBI surveillance video. Federal Bureau of Investigation Operation…
The Mystery of “Donovan of Central Intelligence”: A Classified Comic Strip
Few spy stories are as intriguing as that of “Donovan of Central Intelligence,” a seven-page comic strip from a 1950 issue of Atomic Spy Cases. This comic, which was kept…
Sotol: The Desert Spirit with a Rich History
Photo courtesy Desert Door Texas Sotol. Sotol, often overshadowed by its more famous cousins tequila and mezcal, is a distinctive distilled spirit with a rich history and unique production process.…