Cover Stories: Spies, Books & Entertainment

Admiral Jim Stavridis has an amazing resume. Retired 4-star officer, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Dean Emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University and current Vice Chairman of the Carlyle Group and Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation. But our focus of this podcast (recorded live at The Cipher Brief’s Annual Threat Conference at Sea Island, GA) instead is on his record as a master communicator.  He is the author of 12 books, literally thousands of magazine, newspaper and professional journal articles and the subject of countless broadcast interviews. We’ll ask him why he devotes so much effort to communicating, whether his publications (which started when he was a midshipman) were ever frowned upon by his superiors, how he navigates subjects which are viewed as political –and his advice for national security experts who aspire to follow in his wake as a communicator.

Former CIA officer David McCloskey is out with his second novel.  His first, Damascus Station, received glowing reviews. Now he is back with a tale that Cipher Brief Russia experts say “brilliantly captures the nuances of field work in hostile environments” and provides a “propulsive thrill ride and a moving portrait of life, betrayal, and vengeance in Putin’s Russia.”  We will talk with him about writing a novel and the real-world facts that are the stuff of thrillers.

Michael O’Hanlon’s 2023 book, Military History for the Modern Strategist earned rave reviews from Cipher Brief Experts like General Stan McChrystal. Cover Stories co-host Suzanne Kelly sits down with the author to talk about the constant themes that emerged as he studied seven major wars and the three lessons that McChrystal called ‘required reading for policymakers’.

A new book, End Game First by Cipher Brief Expert Vice Admiral Mike LeFever (Ret.) and Concentric Chairman Roderick Jones draws on the experience of both men to take crisis management from their military and law enforcement backgrounds to the boardroom, sharing what they learned guiding their own company through the COVID crisis.

Netflix has just started streaming a 8-episode series called “Spy Ops” which they where intelligence operatives from the CIA, MI6, Mossad and elsewhere share insider stories of spy craft, Cold War campaigns, and coups carried out by covert operatives. Featuring interviews with real officials, officers, and spies. We will get a preview of  Spy Ops  from one of executive  producers, John Loew, and consulting producer, former CIA officer (and Cipher Brief Expert) Mark Kelton.

Like so many American teens in the mid-1980s, Scott Kartvedt saw the movie “Top Gun” and decided: “I want to do that!” Unlike most of them though – he actually pursued it.  After graduating from college with a business degree he decided that a career in accounting didn’t offer the thrills he was seeking – so he joined the Navy, flying F/A-18s. He also joined the Blue Angels and ended up on giant posters in museums and saw an action figure made in his likeness. Kartvedt, whose call sign was “Intake,” commanded a couple squadrons, amassed thousands of flight hours and flew 91 combat missions. When he retired from the Navy, he became a motivational speaker and started flying at airshows. That’s what led him to help train the actors - and eventually - to fly, in some of the critical mission scenes filmed in the Top Gun sequel: Top Gun Maverick.  Cover Stories Co-host Bill Harlow talks with Kartvedt about the twists and turns of a highly successful career.

A book by British former intelligence official and award-winning journalist Michael Smith has written a book about how U.S. and British intelligence formed a close working relationship at the start of World War II and continue to build on it to this day. The cast of characters ranges from Winston Churchil, Ian Fleming, John F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher and even Edward Snowden.  The book was published in the UK in 2022 and very favorably reviewed in the pages of The Cipher Brief. But now a U.S. edition is being published and we take advantage of that event to have a special conversation with Michael Smith.

Captain Brett Crozier’s Navy career was soaring.  As commanding officer of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier  USS Theodore Roosevelt - he was a shoe-in to make flag officer. And then COVID struck and he made a controversial decision to plead with higher command to protect his sailors.  As a result he was beloved by the crew – and fired by the Navy.  Now retired, Crozier has written a book that reflects not only on that incident – but on a lifetime full of lessons about the power of kindness, the importance of teamwork, and the value of standing up for what you believe in.  We’ll talk with him about his book: “Surf When You Can: Lessons in Life, Loyalty, and Leadership from a Maverick Navy Captain.”

On June 5, former FBI agent Robert Hanssen died in the SuperMax prison in Colorado.  While few will lament his passing, his death gives us occasion to talk with New York Times bestselling author Lis Wiehl about her 2022 book “A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen, America’s Most Damaging Russian Spy.” We ask her about how Hanssen got started betraying his country, how he got away with it for so long and how he was finally captured. Wiehl, a Harvard Law School grad, former federal prosecutor, and daughter of a former FBI agent shares new insights into the life and evil deeds of an odd and awful traitor.

Historian and author Calder Walton shares some of the secrets he uncovered while researching his new book, Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West, including his unearthing of a document from more than one hundred years ago containing a desperate plea for the West to help push Russia out of Ukraine. Find out how history is repeating itself and what we’ve learned about Intelligence in this episode of the Cover Stories podcast.

The thought of what would happen in the United States in the face of a massive power outage has intrigued authors and television producers for years. Dr. William R. Forstchen is partly to blame due to his popular book, One Second After, first published in 2009.  The fictional tale imagines life after an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that takes out power across much of the country.  Now, he’s back with Five Years After, which follows the main character John Matherson as he deals with new threats to a fragile new global balance..  Cover Stories co-host Suzanne Kelly and special guest host Brad Christian talk with Dr. Forstchen about what brought him to Five Years After and the frightful path forward.

Bill Rapp was an academic historian before joining the CIA where he spent 35 years as an analyst. Among his assignments was as White House PDB briefer for Condoleezza Rice. After retiring he combined his past careers to become a prolific novelist. We talk to him about his latest book set in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis - but the action is in Turkey where CIA Soviet assets are mysteriously dying.

Imad Mughniyeah was a Lebanese terrorist responsible for more American deaths than any other individual – until 9/11. He is now the subject of a 4-part Showtime dramatic series that debuts on May 19. We talk with Greg Barker who directed and co-wrote this unusual series that tells from American, Israeli and Lebanese perspectives the story of the man who was behind many suicide bombings, hijackings and murders in the Middle East and who evaded capture for two decades until he was killed by a car bomb in Syria.  The drama also weaves in first-hand, real-life interviews with prominent officials from the CIA and Mossad.

Former New York Times correspondent Thom Shanker and defense expert Andrew Hoehn have crafted an important new book looking at the challenges the United States faces from Russia and China – and from emerging threats like pandemics, AI-enabled weapons and cybersecurity. We talk with them about how to address these challenges which they say will require revamping the U.S. national security structure.

The story of how a small group of women - wives of Vietnam POWs founded the  National League of Families and rallied the nation behind the cause of bringing home American POWs and resolving the status of MIAs. Author Taylor Kiland tell this moving story.

Interview with VADM Pete Daly, USN, Ret. CEO and Publisher of the U.S. Naval Institute. Daly discusses how USNI Press differs from mainstream publishers and academic presses.  He talks about trends in the publishing industry, how the pandemic impacted book publishing, how authors can submit material for consideration  and some of USNI’s greatest hits – including Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October.”

A few weeks ago, Cover Stories co-host Suzanne Kelly interviewed Executive Producer Alex Cary, the man behind the new show (on MGM+) A Spy Among Friends.  The series is a fictional adaptation of the book by the same name by author Ben McIntyre, and tells the story of Kim Philby, one of the most damaging double agents to ever infiltrate MI6.  Cary made his own confession during that conversation, that there is a real-life woman who inspired him to create one of the central characters in the series.  Kelly has a surprise of her own for Cary as she introduces him for the first time to the woman who served as his inspiration for the character.

Richard Klein, Managing Partner of McLarty Media plays an unusual role in the entertainment industry. He and his firm serve as intermediaries helping some of Hollywood’s biggest movies get made.  They advise film studios, directors and producers on issues of “international interest” – on matters like story development, script authenticity, unique overseas location requirements, and complex production logistics. He’ll tell us why there is a need for outfits like his – some of their biggest challenges – and how filmmakers balance entertainment – with accuracy.

Nick Reynolds’ resume is one for the history books. A PhD from Oxford, followed by active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, and then service with the CIA – both overseas and running the CIA Museum. Last year he published “Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence” a well-received book that explores the origins. Successes and failures of the whole range of U.S. intelligence agencies during the war. We’ll ask Nick about some of the colorful cast of characters who populate the book.

Alex Cary has always been drawn to storytelling. It’s a passion that moved him from his life as a soldier in the UK to Hollywood, where he began writing and producing on shows like ‘Lie to Me’, ‘Homeland’ and ‘Taken’. A few years ago, someone sent him a book by author Ben McIntyre and it set Cary off on a new adventure, this time, creating the television show he’s always wanted to make.  His new series tells the story of British Intelligence Officer Kim Philby, who lived a double life by spying for the Soviet Union during World War II and in the early years of the Cold War. In 1963, Philby’s past caught up with him and that’s where Cary’s new series, ‘A Spy Among Friends’, begins.  Cary called on a few friends of his own to make it happen, including actor Damian Lewis, whom he’d met on the set of Homeland years earlier. Cover Stories co-host Suzanne Kelly caught up with Cary in Los Angeles to talk about his journey from reading the book to writing and producing the new television series.

Alma Katsu draws on her 30+ year career in the Intelligence Community for inspiration for her new spy novels.  Her latest, Red London follows main character Lindsey Duncan to the UK, where she digs into an undercover assignment to find out everything she can about a Russian oligarch.  That’s the obvious mission. Katsu’s own mission in writing the second book in the series is to attract more female readers to the genre by giving women what they want: action, adventure and a really good plot twist.

As Executive Producer and Showrunner for shows like Homeland and 24, Howard Gordon has shown that he understands how to take compelling national security topics and make them Hollywood hits.  While his new show on Fox, The Accused, doesn’t have a national security angle, Cover Stories caught up with Gordon to talk about what it takes to make good TV in an age of geopolitical turmoil.

As author Mark Greaney unleashes the latest novel in his Gray Man series, Cover Stories digs deep into the inspiration behind Burner and asks how that whole Netflix series thing is working out, and what’s next for Court Gentry.

Erich Schwartzel covers Hollywood for The Wall Street Journal. Last year, he published a terrific book called Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy about the power China wields over the American film industry.  The Cover Stories Podcast is about books, entertainment and national security and Schwartzel’s book covers all of that like a carpet. 

Former New York Times journalist Philip Taubman discusses his new biography of George Shultz, one of only two Americans to have held four cabinet level positions (including more than 6 years as Secretary of State during the Reagan administration), In the book Taubman quotes Gorbachev as saying “Without Reagan, the cold war would not have ended, but without Shultz, Reagan would not have ended the cold war.” In this episode – we will ask Taubman why.

Ben Griffin is the author of “Reagan’s War Stories: A Cold War Presidency.” The book examines how Ronald Reagan was shaped by books he read as a young man – and how themes from these books, such as the battle of good vs. evil, continued to influence Reagan throughout his life.  It also looks at how popular culture, like Tom Clancy’s novel “The Hunt for Red October,” became an important communications tool during the Reagan presidency. Popular culture and national security are what Cover Stories is all about.  Join us for this discussion with Ben Griffin.

Author John le Carre was an avid writer of letters as well as novels. What does a new collection of his private correspondence reveal about one of the greatest authors of our time?  Who better to ask than someone with intimate knowledge of the world of espionage, who was both irritated and entertained by le Carre’s writing?  Join us as former Senior Member of the British Foreign Office Nick Fishwick talks about the new book A Private Spy, edited by Tim Cornwell.

In this episode, Bill Harlow interviews Jim Popkin, author of the just-published: Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy - and the Sister She Betrayed. Popkin talks about his fascination with the story of Ana Montes, a long-time senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who was arrested in 2001 for spying for Cuba.  They discuss what might have motivated Montes to betray the United States, how she was recruited by Cuba, the tradecraft she employed and how she evaded detection for many years.  Having served the bulk of a 25 year sentence in federal prison, Montes is about to be released.

In this inaugural episode, Cover Stories co-hosts Suzanne Kelly and Bill Harlow, who once sat on opposite sides of the press room, take turns grilling each other with questions about spies and the media. Kelly, a former Intelligence Correspondent and Harlow, a former government spokesperson always knew there were limits to what could be shared.  So, what are those limits and how does the relationship between intelligence agencies and the media really work?