Staying Safe: Conducting a Personal Threat Assessment
Student anarchist riot against the IMF. Photo: Garry Knight / CC BY 2.0 DEED. We all need to take responsibility for our own personal security. This involves taking measures to…
Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale: The Real-Life Inspirations
A view of the Casino Estoril in Portugal, an inspiration for Casino Royale, showing the courtyard from the beach of Tamariz. The Casino Estoril was a gathering point for spies…
Tom Satterly Delta Force: A Life of Courage and Dedication
Tom Satterly spent 20 years as a member of the elite special forces unit known as Delta Force. His very first combat mission turned out to be the Battle of…
SOE Heroines: Female Spies Who Fought for the Liberation of France
Violette Szabo SOE agent memorial in front of Lambeth Palace. Photo: camerawalker. CC BY 3.0 DEED. Cropped Image. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by…
Ian Fleming’s London & Other Places That Inspired James Bond
Aston Martin DB5.Photo: © Copyright Aston Martin. Used by permission. Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes’, otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.” — Ian Fleming Ian Fleming,…
William King Harvey: America’s James Bond
Counterattack by Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces supported by T-34 tanks near Playa Giron during the Bay of Pigs invasion, 19 April 1961. Photo: Rumlin. CC BY 3.0 DEED. William King…
Oleg Penkovsky: The Spy Who Helped Save the World
President Kennedy meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the Oval Office on 18 October 1962. The President knows but does not reveal that he is now aware of…
Delta Force Jerry Boykin Never Surrender: A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom (2011) reviewed
I was able to see Boykin speak at my church many years ago. His son at that time was a Secret Service agent, and one of our parishioners was too;…
London’s Spy Tunnels: The Kingsway Exchange Tunnels
Kingsway Exchange Tunnel in 2014. Photo: John Pannell from Watford, UK. CC BY 2.0. The Kingsway Exchange Tunnels are a hidden network of underground passages that stretch for about a…
The KGB: How It Influenced Russia and the World
The Lubyanka building (former KGB headquarters) in Moscow. Photo: A.Savin. CC BY-SA 3.0. The KGB was the main security and intelligence agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until its…