The Live Drop

Sep 22 2023 643

The Live Drop Podcast artwork

Venture into the elusive world of intelligence collection and espionage to spot, assess and debrief: spies, handlers, catchers, analysts, cut-outs, dangles, diplomats, security experts and the storytellers who bring them all to life. Check your electronics and subscribe, do a thorough surveillance detection route, secure your Live Drop location, and after a mad-minute introduction, listen in on conversations with our fascinating guests who help to illuminate a complex universe. A HUMINT experiment with host Mark Valley. Get bonus content on Patreon
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Trevor Aaronson Takes The Sting Out of Law Enforcement

Sep 22 2023 49 mins

Trevor Aaronson is an award winning investigative journalist and contributing writer to The Intercept. His podcast ALPHABET BOYS and the subject of his other works focuses on the use of informants in Law Enforcement. We discuss the use of sting operations and how the informant has evolved into a more proactive role over the last few decades. Season 2 of Alphabet Boys centers around

Professor Erik Dahl Offers a Prescription for Pandemic Intelligence

Apr 07 2023 54 mins

Professor Dahl asserts that the pandemic was a global failure of intelligence, including not only the traditional intelligence agencies that should have been able to do better, but perhaps even more importantly, a failure of the complex system of medical and public health surveillance that is designed to anticipate threats just like this one. He specifically cites a lack of wa

Syndicating the Experience of Brittany Butler

Mar 31 2023 47 mins

Brittany Butler is a former CIA targeting officer with first-hand knowledge in the recruitment and handling of spies, and dismantling of terrorist networks abroad. A staunch advocate Middle Eastern women's rights, Brittany has worked to protect the rights of disenfranchised Afghan women and girls, and works within her local community to resettle Afghan refugees. The first in a seri

Alma Katsu is Creating a Novel Spy Franchise

Mar 24 2023 40 mins

Alma Katsu is an accomplished writer and intelligence professional with an extensive career spanning over 35 years. She has held senior analyst positions at various federal agencies, providing policy advice to military and government officials on national security issues. Additionally, she has worked as a senior technology policy analyst for the RAND Corporation and operates as an

Berlin Author Bernd von Kostka Duels in the Dark with Cold War History

May 09 2022 42 mins

Bernd von Koska is the curator of the Allied Museum in Berlin and co-author of Capital of Spies. For almost half a century, From summer 1945 until 1990, NATO and the Warsaw Pact fought an ongoing duel in the dark. Espionage was part of everyday life in both East and West Berlin with spies of numerous nationalities and loyalties. In this conversation Bernd describes the highlig

John Pomfret and Polish American Intelligence Cooperation

May 02 2022 32 mins

John Pomfret is the author of From Warsaw With Love: Polish Spies, The CIA and the Forging of a Unlikely AllianceThis book starts out in Los Angeles with a particularly effective Polish spy who’d penetrated the aerospace industry. Along with a history of U.S. and Polish collaboration dating back to the Colonial period, Pomfret identifies the threads of eventual cooperation betwee

Author Rebecca Donner Enters Hostile Archives to Find Anti-Nazi Spy Mildred Harnack.

Apr 25 2022 53 mins

Rebecca Donner is the author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days. Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin the

Taking a Hard Look at the Five Eyes Agreement with Dr. Anthony Wells

Apr 15 2022 43 mins

It's not often you get to meet your heroes. As an Operations Research major in college, I Idolized the Bletchley Park giants. Dr. Anthony Wells was trained by these greats like his mentor the cryptoanalyst Sir Harry Hinsley. Fifty years of working in the British intelligence community leaves Dr. Wells with plenty to talk about -- and quite a lot to be kept secret as well. We discus

McCloskey Deconstructs Damascus Station

Apr 08 2022 45 mins

Though this episode was recorded in November of 2021, David's recollections and impressions of the Syrian Conflict are eerily similar to what's happening in Ukraine right now. A former CIA analyst, he's now a spy novelist to keep your eye on. David McCloskey reveals part of his process and some unique elements of craft that he brought to this auspicious first novel. Episode 58From

Spending Time on Target with Author Douglas London

Jan 28 2022 54 mins

Author of The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Espionage, Doug London was happy to get right into his book's revelations and talk about his process. With 34 years of experience in the CIA, this memoir is rich with the authentic personal encounters of a case officer. Doug walks me through some of the many things going through a case officer’s mind during all sta