SpyCast

Unraveling a Secret KGB Investigation That Separated a Father and Son

The Kremlin is not a fan of Alex Goldfarb. He left the Soviet Union as a scientist, becoming a prominent author and human rights activist. In 2006, he was in the room with ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, reading his dying words, which accused Vladimir Putin of assassination by radioactive polonium. Today, Alex's memoir, Refusenik's Son, traces a complicated family history made clear only decades later. His father, David, was a Jewish scientist denied permission to leave the Soviet Union - one of the so-called "refuseniks." David had been a prominent microbiologist in the 1970s and '80s, when Moscow's secret bioweapons program was under development. But only after an exiled KGB officer contacted Alex in 2010 did the full reason for his father's confinement become clear. It's a winding story involving an anthrax accident and a media leak, a Soviet scientist and a U.S. journalist trying to help him. Two men pulled unknowingly into a tide of suspicion.

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Ukraine’s Nord Stream Attack: Underwater Sabotage and Its Fallout

The trial of a former Ukrainian special forces officer, identified as Serhii K., is set to begin October 14th in Hamburg. German investigators have been unrelenting in their pursuit of justice since the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which carried Russian gas to Germany. It was about seven months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Scandinavian seismologists detected what appeared to be an undersea earthquake near a Danish island, on the floor of the Baltic Sea. Denmark, Germany, and Sweden opened investigations, but only Germany pushed forward. Since then, The Wall Street Journal’s chief European political correspondent, Bojan Pancevski, has uncovered what happened in his book, The Nord Stream Conspiracy. We sat down with him to talk about the operation and the fallout, part of which is set to unfold in a German courtroom.

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A Plan to Be Captured: How Three American Commandos Deceived Their Nazi Captors Before D-Day

In the spring of 1944, three elite commandos parachuted into Hungary. The country was aligned with Nazi Germany, and these men intended to be captured in what was meant to look like a failed operation. Their real mission was to help Hungary switch to the Allied side. But three days later, Germany launched a preemptive invasion. The men were captured by the Nazis, imprisoned, and interrogated. They used their interrogation as a chance to fool Adolf Hitler into thinking an Allied invasion would come from southeastern Europe, drawing German troops away from Normandy ahead of D-Day. Author Jason Bell unravels this daring and untold story in his new book, Operation Sparrow.

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Inside Sweden's Cold War Stay-Behind Operation

It was preparation for an invasion that might never come, and never did. Across Cold War Europe, stay-behind networks were established on the premise that Soviet forces might successfully invade and occupy sovereign territory. These clandestine organizations consisted of carefully vetted soldiers, intelligence officers, and everyday citizens tasked with remaining behind enemy lines to gather intelligence, conduct sabotage, and support resistance movements if their country were overrun. In neutral Sweden, the prime minister secretly authorized one such covert network in 1949 to mount guerrilla warfare against a potential Red Army occupation. Guest host Dr. Mark Jacobson speaks with Johan Wennström, author of The Stay Behinds: Sweden's Cold War Guardians, about this long-classified operation.

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How the CIA captured Carlos the Jackal

Before he became one of the world's most notorious terrorists in the 1970s and '80s, inspiring movies, books, and future terrorists, Carlos the Jackal was born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez to a privileged family in Venezuela. Over time, his crimes grew bolder, from an attempted assassination to abductions, murder, hijackings, and bombings. Some state leaders tolerated him out of fear he would target their countries, yet his alliances with militants and dictators soured as the years passed. In his new book, The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World's First Super Terrorist, journalist Joby Warrick profiles the mercenary terrorist and details how American and French intelligence took him down.

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