Cover Stories: Spies, Books & Entertainment

Cover Stories: Spies, Books & Entertainment is a new podcast from The Cipher Brief hosted by Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly and Cipher Brief Senior Book Editor and author, Bill Harlow exploring the entertainment side of espionage as well as non-fiction books and media on national security issues that are making a difference. Join us each week for new episodes with authors, former intelligence officers, actors, directors, television and movie producers, agents, publishers and more.

March 21st, 2024

CNN’s Jim Sciutto On His Book: “The Return of Great Powers”

CNN anchor and Chief National Security Analyst Jim Sciutto is out with a new book called “The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China and the Next World War.” Drawing on his reporting from current hot spots like Ukraine, Taiwan and the Middle East - and in depth interviews with top U.S. and foreign leaders, Sciutto has written about the precarious nature of global security and how developments in each of these hot spots impacts the other. We’ll talk to him about how Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin have similar views about their destinies in expanding their countries borders.

March 14th, 2024

2054: Consider Yourself Warned

Cipher Brief Expert Retired Admiral Jim Stavridis has witnessed today’s complicated national security environment firsthand while he served in the Navy and now, as he helps others navigate it from the private sector. He has teamed up with author and former Marine Elliott Ackerman – who served in Iraq and Afghanistan - to foreshadow what national security threats are lurking around the corner and they’re using fiction to do it. In the pair’s first book together, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, they examine - in page-turning fashion - how the U.S. might stumble into war with China. In their new novel 2054, they revisit some of their favorite characters to examine how technology and civil conflict can be used as a weapon as great nations vie for power.

March 9th, 2024

The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq

Veteran journalist Steve Coll is out with a new book dissecting the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein. We talk with him about his discovery of unpublished and underreported information which sheds new light into how “human error, cultural miscommunication, and hubris lead to one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time.” After listening to the podcast, we recommend the review of “The Achilles Trap” that recently appeared in The Cipher Brief: https://www.thecipherbrief.com/book-review/the-cia-and-the-invasion-of-iraq

February 23rd, 2024

Tons of Chaos

Best-selling NYT author Mark Greaney returns for his third appearance on a Cipher Brief podcast – this time to mark the publication of his latest novel “The Chaos Agent” which is the latest in his “Gray Man” series. In the new novel Greaney mines the headlines about artificial intelligence. The book connects a car accident in Japan, a drowning in Seoul, a home invasion in Boston, and someone killing the world’s leading experts on AI. We’ll talk to Mark about the challenge of producing a series of engaging thrillers – staying ahead of the news and satisfying his most discerning readers.

February 19th, 2024

The Real-Life Spy Coast

Award-winning author Tess Gerritsen, perhaps best-known for her medical and crime thrillers (like Rizzoli & Isles that was adapted for television), is trying her hand at the espionage game with her new thriller The Spy Coast. It seems in real life, the award-winning author noticed something a little odd about her neighbors in the small Maine town she calls home. She did some investigating of her own, only to find that many of her neighbors are retired spies and diplomats. Like any good novelist, she went back to her keyboard and created an international tale of espionage involving a group of retired spies who refer to themselves as ‘The Martini Club’. Cover Stories co-host Suzanne Kelly uncovers the details that led Gerritsen down this path in the latest episode of Cover Stories.

February 8th, 2024

The Wingmen

Just in time for the opening of spring training – we talk with author Adam Lazarus about his book: “The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams.” Lazarus tells us about iconic Americas met during the crucible of combat during the Korean War. USMC Captain Ted Williams, already a famed baseball player recalled to active duty to fly combat and soon-to-be famous Major John Glenn. Despite wildly different personalities, politics and approaches to life – the two formed a life-long bond that may be instructive to us during the current time of a divided America.

December 8th, 2023

Reel Life Stories of the CIA

Tammy Kupperman Thorp is chief spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency. Her principal role is communicating with major media organizations on matters of national security and helping CIA Director Bill Burns communicate with the Agency’s worldwide workforce. But an interesting side aspect of her job involves coordinating the CIA's contact with the motion picture and television industry and major authors and publishers. We’ll ask her how and why the Agency works with Hollywood and authors and will explode some myths about the CIA’s role in entertainment, documentaries and more.

November 7th, 2023

How to Write A Book That People Will Read

Serial best-selling author George Galdorisi has written a ton of books, mostly novels including including several of the rebooted Tom Clancy Op-Center series . But now he and co-author Kevin McDonald are out with a very useful work of non-fiction giving aspiring writers tips on how to write, publish and sell a book. Practical advice from someone who has been there, done that – and will help you do so too.

October 23rd, 2023

The Sisters of the CIA

Former Washington Post correspondent Liza Mundy is out with a new book called: “The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA.” Mundy who previously wrote a New York Times bestseller “Code Girls” about female codebreakers of World War II turns her expert eye to telling the stories of three generations of women at the CIA. Mundy reveals a portrait of a workplace hampered by bias and male ego and yet an agency populated by intrepid women who found creative ways to work within – and expand – the confines of the roles to which they were funneled for decades. We will ask her to share some of the stories she has uncovered about the challenges and successes of a remarkable group of women.

October 11th, 2023

Admirable Communications

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.

October 4th, 2023

Moscow X

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.

October 2nd, 2023

The Lessons of Modern Military Strategy

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’.

September 14th, 2023

Managing a Crisis by Putting the End Game First

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.

September 8th, 2023

Spy Ops on Netflix

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.

August 17th, 2023

What do Spies, Aliens and Authors have in Common?

CIA Alum turned author Alma Katsu takes a ‘ripped from the headlines’ story about what happens when a CIA Case Officer spots a UFO while stationed overseas. Katsu is definitely exploring new territory here, not only in the subject matter, but in how she is reaching readers as well. Cover Stories co-host Suzanne Kelly talks with Katsu about her new mission to reach more readers by coupling good writing with new publishing options.

August 8th, 2023

Top Gun Intake

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.

July 27th, 2023

The Real Special Relationship

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 Churchill, Ian Flemming, 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.

July 12th, 2023

Surf’s Up: A Discussion with Captain Brett Crozier, USN, Ret.

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.”

June 20th, 2023

The Demise of A Spy in Plain Sight

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.

Search

Close