Category Archives: Ask A Spy

Dressed to Kill: Bond Villains Style

Whether it’s metal teeth, a piratical eye patch or fluffy cat, James Bond villains have a distinctive personal style, licenced to thrill!  With our Sharks and Lasers: Bond Villains Night Out party only days away, we’ve rounded up our favorite … Continue reading

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10 Amazing Facts About the Trabant

After WWII, East Germany had a hard time establishing a functioning industry. Not only had almost everything been destroyed during the war, but the Soviet Union dismantled most of the factories that were left. A steel embargo of the US, … Continue reading

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Behind the Scenes – Celebrity Spies

For some of these big-name personalities, spying taught them the skills that made them famous; for others, being famous made them the perfect spies. With that in mind, we blow the cover of ten of our favorite celebrity spies: Josephine … Continue reading

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The Spy Photo That Fooled Us All

History is a tricky thing.  And it turns out that we here at the International Spy Museum had part of it wrong.  Our only excuse is that a lot of other fine institutions had it wrong, too, including NPR, the … Continue reading

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Cold War Pop Culture: Dirty Spy Wars

During the Cold War the American public had an endless appetite for information and entertainment about the menace from the Soviet secret services.  Nazi spies had never really lived up to their promise and the Nazi regime had been rapidly … Continue reading

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What Did Intelligence Do for Us during the Cold War?

September 6, 2011 Mark Stout, SPY Historian Last week I had a pleasant chat with a customer down in our bookstore and he posed a really interesting question.  He said that he understood the importance of intelligence in wartime, but … Continue reading

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Q & A with a Real Spy

SPY talks with former CIA agent, John Kiriakou, about his experience with the controversy over waterboarding, and the pressures from both inside and outside the agency. Q: When a former CIA officer goes “public” does the information need to be … Continue reading

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Ask A SPY!

Listen Here: Ask a Spy, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh Assassination We go to our own resident SPY and Executive Director, Peter Earnest, to get an operative’s point of view on the breaking news over the spycraft and disguise tactics used in the assassination … Continue reading

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Sneak Peak: The Watchers- The Rise of America’s Surveillance State

SPY speaks with author Shane Harris about his assertion the American government still can’t discern future threats in the vast data cloud, but can now spy on its citizens with an ease that was impossible and illegal just a few … Continue reading

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Q&A with a Real SPY: Debrief on the Walter and Gwendolyn Myers Cuba SPY Case

With over 30 years in the CIA, SpyGuy answers frequently asked questions on current issues in the SPY world. Q.  What’s the story on this retired State Department officer and his wife who were arrested for spying in June, Walter … Continue reading

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