From the SpyCast Field of Dreams: to coincide with the first game of the 117th World Series, a special episode on the links – yes, there are many – between espionage and America’s Pastime with baseball fanatic and ex-spook (it’s a baseball special, not Halloween, so no pun intended) Marc Polymeropoulos. Baseball fans, welcome to espionage; espionage fans, welcome to baseball; fans of both – welcome to our very own Fall Classic.

#baseball #worldseries

On October 17, 2001, Team Alpha were dropped into the mountains of northern Afghanistan. Two of the eight appear in this week’s episode alongside the author of a new book telling the story of the first Americans behind enemy lines after 9/11 – and what a story it is. Justin Sapp was a Green Beret detailed to CIA, he would go on to be a commander in the Asymmetric Warfare Group, and is currently Senior Military Advisor to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. David Tyson was a polyglot former Central Asian academic who fought jihadists at close-hand to help his comrade, ex-Marine Mike Spann, the first American casualty in a war that would go on to become the longest in American history. In an extended podcast that is both conversation and historical document: this is their story. 

Award-winning journalist and author Toby Harnden helps contextualize the story of Team Alpha. You can learn more about the book here.

This is a big one, a very big one: our 500th episode & 15th anniversary
We have come a long way since we began back in 2006 – it’s quite fitting then, that in this week’s episode I speak to our very first historian and curator, Alexis Albion, who is currently the Curator for Special Projects here at the Spy Museum
Alexis actually left us way back when to be on the 9/11 Commission Report, where she was the central researcher on the CIA and US counterterrorism policy before 9/11.
Hang on, did you just say what I think you said, she was the central researcher on the CIA…?
Yup.
I know, what the hell, right, we’ve been sitting on this story all this time!
Episode 500 is a good time to thank two of the behind-the-scenes unsung technical heroes – Mike and Memphis who have been involved with more SpyCast’s than anyone else. They are awesome. They are great guys, and they rock.
Other people who have been involved in the content side of SpyCast have included Peter Earnest and Chris Costa, our former and current Exec Director, as well as my other predecessors in the Historian & Curator role: Thomas Bogart, Mark Stout and Vince Houghton.
The show would of course be nothing without our guests, who have contributed their time, expertise and experience to help educate, inform and occasionally entertain the public on the vitally important matters of intelligence and espionage.
Sometimes this past year I have felt like Churchill, in that he got the job he had always coveted: but under the least auspicious circumstances. It has been emotional people, but, we are getting there.
Here’s to the next 500.
Sláinthe.