Invisible to most, or maybe merely overlooked, these people change the course of history--with no one the wiser. Every week, Parcasts Original Podcast Espionage covers a real-life spy mission: the stakes, the deception, the gadgets, and how it changed the course of history. Espionage premieres on April 12th, with new episodes every Friday.
Starting in the early 1940s, Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel orchestrated a top-secret operation to steal atomic bomb secrets from right under the nose of the FBI. While living in New York City, they then sold those secrets to the Soviet Union and turned the tide of the Cold War in favor of communism.
After Julius and Ethel sold atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union in 1945, American intelligence began a manhunt to find the traitors. As the FBI swarmed around them and their USSR contacts abandoned them, the Rosenberg’s made a critical mistake.
In January 1943, a parachutist landed in a snowy field in Nazi-occupied France. At first glance, he was a wealthy Frenchman visiting an old friend in Paris. Below the surface, he was a spy for the British Special Operations Executive. Below that, his true goals were even more mysterious. Henri Dericourt was such a prolific liar, even he could barely keep track of his own loyalties.
Paris, 1943. World War II was in full swing, and triple-agent Henri Déricourt was right in the middle of it. His mission: secure an Allied victory before his carefully-spun web of lies comes unraveled.
One of the most important figures in World War II wasn’t a military commander or a powerful statesman: he was a mathematician. From a secretive mansion 50 miles north of London, Alan Turing and his fellow cryptanalysts broke the codes that led the Allies to victory.
Traveling to America, he finds his loyalties pulled between his home country and their new ally. Once Alan Turing returns home in 1942, he must navigate the end of the war and learn to live in the society he saved from extinction.
During the Korean War in the 1950s, Chinese-born linguist Larry Wu-Tai Chin was hired by the US State Department to translate prisoner of war interrogations. Larry would use his new position to embark on the longest career of espionage in U.S. history.
Linguist. Spy. Slumlord. Sex offender. Larry Chin was a man of many hats. But after 33 years spying for the Chinese government in 1985, the FBI still couldn’t force him into the role of “convicted prisoner.”
He was a chronic underachiever - lazy, reckless, alcoholic, and barely hanging on to his desk job at the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1960s. But all of these flaws made Aldrich Ames perfectly suited for a new career: leaking state secrets to the KGB.
Despite his below-average job performance and his secret work as a Soviet spy, Rick Ames managed to keep his CIA position for years in the 1960s. In the hunt for their elusive mole, the Agency was battling against their own inefficiency and ineptitude.
In the 1700s, the Venetian State Inquisitors arrested anyone they deemed a security threat: Spies. Blasphemers. Gamblers. Social climbers. Anyone who upset the traditional order. All of these traits applied to Giacomo Girolamo Casanova.
After his arrest and prison break in 1757, Casanova’s run-ins with the Venetian Inquisition were only beginning. To get protection from Venice, Casanova need to win the favor of a more powerful government: France.
Held in a Korean POW camp in 1948, British intelligence agent George Blake converted to communism and was released back to England. He thus began a long career of spying on the British for the Soviets throughout the Cold War.
After being found out by the British government, George Blake's spy career was finally at an end. His punishment was likely far greater than he anticipated. But even today, some believe the spy escaped true justice.
Baltimore-born Virginia Hall only had one leg, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from joining the Allied war effort and fighting fascism. She arrived in Vichy France in 1941 to help Jews escape over the Pyrenees and sabotage the Nazis.
Successfully infiltrating Vichy France and establishing high-level diplomatic contacts for British intelligence was just the beginning of Virginia Hall's plan to fight the Nazis. But as she executed prison breaks, recruited sex-workers, and hid downed RAF pilots in her apartment, the Gestapo was closing in...
In 1969, American intelligence officer George Trofimoff agreed to provide copies of highly classified documents to the Soviet Union. Driven by a lust for wealth, he was willing to give up his adopted country's biggest secrets for the chance to live a life of luxury.
After moving to Florida in the 1990s, George Trofimoff thought he had left all traces of his espionage back in Europe. However, the FBI knew what he had done, and was determined to make him pay for it.
When France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940 and established the puppet regime known as Vichy France, former journalist and socialite Nancy Wake knew she couldn't sit around and do nothing. Using her social status as cover, she quickly joined the young French Resistance and smuggled escaped Allied soldiers and Jewish refugees out France and into Spain.
Now an SOE agent trained in cryptic radio messages and sabotage, Nancy Wake found herself parachuting back into France. Her mission: organize over 7,000 French Maquis scattered across France, arm them, and prepare them for the impending invasion of Europe by the Allies, D-Day.
Mark Felt, also known as “Deep Throat” was the most famous whistleblower in the definitive government scandal in United States history. Serving in the Federal Bureau of Investigations for over 30 years placed Felt in the ideal position to observe and divulge key information regarding President Richard Nixon’s abuse of presidential powers in the 1960s and 70s.
After secretly giving Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward information on Watergate in the late 1960s, Mark Felt struggled to balance his public life and his secret one. He knew that what he shared with Woodward would have a dramatic effect on the way American citizens saw their government. When Watergate ended, Felt's friendship with Woodward deteriorated. And for the rest of Felt's life he struggled with whether or not to come clean about being the infamous informant known as Deep Throat.
In 1930s England, plenty of young Cambridge men were communists during their University Days. But most of them dropped the left wing politics when they left school. Donald Maclean, along with the rest of the Cambridge Five, was the exception: however high he climbed in the ranks of the Foreign Service, his loyalty was with the Soviets.
As Donald Maclean climbed the ranks of the British Foreign Service in the wake of WWII, his ideological commitment to communism never wavered. But his ability to withstand the lies and secrets did, and he turned to alcohol to numb the pain. But when he drank, he talked... It was only a matter of time before MI6 caught on.
As the War for Independence waged on, American General Benedict Arnold struggled to cope with increasing financial debt and injury. He had taken massive loans to marry the beautiful Peggy Shippen, and received a bullet in the leg in battle. Feeling disrespected, Arnold, with the whisper of his loyalist wife in his ear, decides that perhaps he could spy for the British. And in the process, make enough money to pay off his debts.
With his new post at West Point, American turncoat Benedict Arnold plots to hand over the fort over to British general Henry Clinton. But Arnold's trust in the wrong people, and careless tradecraft, leads to his undoing. And the loss of his potentially lucrative payout.
After becoming disillusioned with his Muslim faith’s more radical aspects, former Danish criminal Morten Storm started working for Danish intelligence services—becoming one of the most valuable spies in the War on Terror.
Although he risked his life to catch some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, when push came to shove, Morten Storm knew the CIA didn’t have his back. So in late 2011, with enemies on all sides, Morten is forced to choose between his personal safety and sharing his story.
Russia. 1972. Explore why Vasili Mitrokhin switched from spying for the Soviet Union to spying on them, and how he secretly copied and smuggled thousands of documents right out from under the KGB’s nose.
After retiring from the KGB in 1984, Vasili Mitrokhin had a new challenge: escape the Soviet Union and expose some of the dark secrets the KGB was desperate to keep hidden.
A Chinese opera singer and a french diplomat fell in love in 1960s China—and to protect that love, Bernard Boursicot began spying for the Chinese government. But Shi Pei Pu had secrets of her own...
Willing to do anything for his lover, Shi Pei Pu, and their young son—Bernard Boursicot would even go as far as betraying his own country. But as the authorities closed in on them by the 1980s, Bernard realized he wasn’t the only one capable of betrayal.
From her experience as an exotic dancer in the early 1900s, Mata Hari was used to moving amongst powerful men and switching into whatever persona suited the situation. But when WWI struck Europe, her overtly sexual, international lifestyle started to look very suspicious to the French.
Shrewd and calculating, Walter Schellenberg wasted no time in climbing his way through the ranks to become the head of all foreign intelligence in Nazi Germany. His understanding of subterfuge and his relationships with some of the most dangerous men in the world boosted his ascent to the top.
He had the trust of the top Nazi powerbrokers but was also starting to doubt the Party’s ability to win its war. Walter Schellenberg needed to plan an exit strategy.
During the Cold War, East Germany’s state security service was the Ministry for State Security—later known as the Stasi. Their creative spy technologies would make them famous, inventing gadgets such as button and pen cameras.
Parcast Exclusive! DAHMER: A SERIAL KILLERS 3-PART SPECIAL You know the name, but do you know the whole story? Jeffrey Dahmer—one of history’s most notorious serial killers, and our most requested episode, is now the subject of an exclusive 3-part special event. You can now listen to all 3 episodes within SERIAL KILLERS, and all of Parcast’s true-crime related feeds. He was one of the most infamous serial killers of the 20th century, murdering 17 young men between 1978 and 1991 through a variety of cruel and unusual methods. But how did Jeffrey Dahmer, one of the era's most monstrous killers, get his start?
Parcast Exclusive! DAHMER: A SERIAL KILLERS 3-PART SPECIALIt was a murderous rampage that could have possibly been stopped. Although Jeffrey Dahmer failed numerous times to turn his life around, his multi-year killing spree also went ignored by his family, neighbors, sentencing judges, and court-appointed therapists.
Parcast Exclusive! DAHMER: A SERIAL KILLERS 3-PART SPECIALWhile on probation after an early release from prison in March of 1990, Jeffrey Dahmer continued his wave of sadistic violence. A chance event would finally lead to his arrest, and a media spectacle would bring Dahmer to the masses.
He was a British intelligence agent who was the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s fictional spy James Bond. Sidney Reilly traveled the world on covert missions, but his womanizing, gambling, and lavish lifestyle were what made him a legend in the world of spycraft.
Sidney Reilly had escaped the clutches of the Soviet secret police before, but his mission wasn't complete. He would need to create a new alias for himself to return to Russia, even if it meant risking his entire career.
In 1945, American activists Morris and Lona Cohen provided the Soviet Union with a complete diagram and description of the atomic bomb, expediting the development of Russia’s own A-bomb and giving them a substantial advantage during the Cold War.
After the success of their atomic mission in 1945, Morris and Lona Cohen’s work was far from over and the USSR wanted more intel. The FBI, meanwhile, wanted them behind bars...
He was recruited by both Germany’s Abwehr and Britain’s MI6, cementing himself as one of World War II’s foremost double-agents. Promptly after Duško Popov started his life as a spy, he was given information that could have stopped Pearl Harbor.
While on assignment in America, he secured information that could have stopped Pearl Harbor—but his efforts were thwarted by the FBI’s politics of suspicion. As Duško Popov returned to Europe and his Nazi spymasters, he had to work harder than ever before to keep his cover intact—and ensure that D-Day happened.
In 1994, 43-year-old Jim Nicholson was a bona fide U.S. intelligence star. But a series of challenges in Jim’s personal life led him to sell top-secret U.S. intelligence secrets to the Russian spy service, the Service of the Russian Federation. His betrayal would put countless American lives at risk.
In July 1997, 46-year-old Jim Nicholson was admitted to the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan. Although he was locked up, Jim’s desire to work with the Russians was far from over. Even from behind bars, Jim was looking for ways to reach his contacts in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, without U.S. interference.
In 1943, 29-year-old Pearl Nicholson parachuted into France to lead a small band of resistance fighters in sabotaging the Nazi invasion. She was a member of the Special Operations Executive, a British spy network on the continent that operated at the height of World War II. Pearl's career would bring her to the brink of death as the Nazis closed in on the resistance.
In 1944, Pearl Nicholson lead her squad of resistance fighters into the Gitanes Forest in France to attack retreating Nazi units before they could reach Germany. Her successful sabotage missions would secure her place among the legends of British spy history.
Known as “Special Agent Fifi,” British agent Marie Chilver was a smart, beautiful woman—and an expert at coaxing secrets out of unsuspecting targets. In the midst of World War II, that was just the kind of person the newly formed Special Operations Executive needed.
“Agent Fifi” was a central part of Britain’s SOE training program during the 1940s, with new recruits having to take her test before they were released into the field. And Chilver’s tests were thorough.
Before he became President George Washington in 1789...he was the spymaster. The first spy agency was founded during the American Revolution by General Washington to gather intelligence on the British. The techniques developed by his "Culper Ring" laid the foundations for modern espionage.
His spy network would become America’s first official spy agency. But before the end of the Revolution, George Washington’s Culper Ring would need to use every espionage tactic in the book to capture the most notorious traitor in American history: General Benedict Arnold.
During the Cold War, Californian 20-something Christopher Boyce got a job at a defense plant. Before long, he and his drug dealer, Andrew Daulton Lee, had discovered just how easy it was to sell American secrets to the Soviet Union.
During the 1970s, California-bred spies Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee found themselves knee-deep in espionage for the Soviet Union. Two years and several hundred vodka shots later, the mistakes started to pile up... and the authorities started to catch on.
Advanced technology has fueled and sustained the CIA through the decades. From a luxury pen containing a microscopic camera, to the transmission of the first electronic messages, to clandestine radios and homing devices, the evolution of Spy Tech has been paramount to the success of Agency operations.
Ever since he was a young boy, Robert Hanssen had dreamed of being a spy like James Bond. In the 1970s, when Hanssen became an FBI agent in New York City, his dream came true. He betrayed the U.S. and volunteered to spy for the Soviet Union. In the years that followed, he became the most damaging spy in American history.
As cash and diamonds poured in from Russia and an FBI investigation circled him, the pressure of being the most damaging spy in U.S. history weighed on mild-mannered FBI agent Robert Hanssen. When the FBI finally caught Hanssen in 2001, he had earned almost $1.5 million dollars from the Russians.
Throughout the history of war, there is one type of soldier often overlooked: the homing pigeon. During wars in the 19th and 20th centuries, homing pigeons were used as messengers and spies, flying harrowing missions to deliver crucial—and sometimes life-saving—intel.
During the American Civil War, Elizabeth Van Lew lived among the enemy. She was a Union spy living in the capital of the Confederacy who organized prison breaks to bring captured Northern soldiers home.
After the end of the war, Elizabeth Van Lew was outed to her Confederate neighbors as a spy for the North. She spent the rest of her life paying the price for loyalty to the Union.
Led by a charismatic intelligence officer named Thomas Argyll Robertson, the Double Cross System recruited a ragtag team of hard-drinking, gambling double-agents to fight Nazis in World War Two—not with bombs or tanks, but disinformation.
In early 1944, with D-Day looming, the British and the Americans had a critical mission: mislead the Germans on when and where the liberation of Europe would begin. With careful deceptions, their network of spies helped turn the tide of World War Two.
In the early 1900s, Fritz Duquesne, a young Boer settler in South Africa, lost his mother and father to the brutal tactics of the invading British Army and their commander, Lord Horatio Kitchener. His vow to avenge his parents launched him on a lifelong journey of espionage and sabotage against the British Empire.
Even after killing Lord Horatio Kitchener in 1916, Fritz Duquesne's hatred of the British Empire still consumed him. During World War II, he turned to spying on Britain's main ally, eventually building one of the largest spy rings on American soil.
In the mid-1500s, Francis Walsingham witnessed fellow Protestants burned at the stake by order of Queen Mary I. When the queen died, Francis became her successor’s head of espionage, building an international spy network to protect Queen Elizabeth I and English Protestants at all costs.
As Queen Elizabeth I's head of espionage, Francis Walsingham thwarted assassinations and coups. He famously caught Elizabeth's bitter rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, who he executed for treason. But Francis’s constant vigilance took a heavy toll on his health and finances.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, hundreds of men from the Navajo Nation volunteered to protect their homeland. One of these men was Chester Nez, who was specially recruited to produce a top-secret code based on the Navajo language, and deploy it on the front lines.
The top-secret Navajo code used during the war in the Pacific had no written form, making it nearly impossible for the Japanese to break. But this also required each code-talker to memorize the entire code. If they died, the code died with them.
As a U.S. Navy Intelligence Analyst, Jonathan Jay Pollard provided over a million pages of classified information to Israel—then became the only American ever sentenced to life in prison for passing information to an ally.
In November 1985, after being interrogated by the Naval Investigative Service for mishandling top-secret documents, Jonathan Pollard sought asylum in the Israeli embassy. But he discovered that even amongst co-conspirators, loyalty can be tenuous.
Known as The Minnesota Mata Hari, Betty Pack was a seductive spy who used her charm as a weapon. From her debut during the Spanish Civil War to multiple clandestine missions during World War II, Betty used sex and wit in equal measure during her espionage career.
Amid the darkest days of World War II, British agent Betty Pack was a shining example of espionage. She used her considerable charm to seduce Nazi sympathizers and gain vital intelligence. While her methods were unorthodox, Betty herself knew that "wars were not won by respectable methods."
Growing up in the Soviet regime of the 1940s and ‘50s, Oleg Gordievsky loved his country but wanted it to be more progressive. Thinking he could help change it from the inside, he became a KGB agent — and when that didn’t work, he became a spy for Britain’s MI6.
Over a decade after becoming a double-agent for British MI6, Oleg Gordievsky’s life as a spy came crashing down. The KGB drugged and interrogated him — but before they could imprison him, Oleg and his British handlers attempted a daring escape through the Soviet countryside.
On the eve of the American Revolution, a young, idealistic Puritan volunteered to fight the British redcoats. And when General George Washington needed a spy to go behind enemy lines, only one man stepped up for the challenge: Nathan Hale.
In late September 1776, Nathan Hale was deep in British territory. He had successfully gathered intel for the American colonial army and was on his way back to base. But he was being hunted by a notorious British mercenary... and his life was about to be in jeopardy.
In the 6th century BCE, Chinese military general Sun Tzu wrote a guidebook on combat, believing that efficient and decisive warfare could restore the peace that endless wars destroyed. It became one of the most famous texts on warfare and espionage in human history.
At the height of WWII, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was deposed and imprisoned on a remote mountain summit. He had one hope for rescue: Adolf Hitler. Nazi paratroopers set out to extract Mussolini, knowing he would be executed if their mission was discovered.
Hitler's crack airborne team headed to save the deposed dictator Mussolini from certain death. The resulting raid became one of the most harrowing missions of the war.