Julian Fisher spent his career as a British intelligence operative before distilling what he learned into the Think Like a Spy: Strategic Relations Workshop—and his central argument is counterintuitive: the most transferable lessons from intelligence work aren't classified techniques, they're interpersonal skills. In conversation with Chris, Fisher argues that human intelligence, at its core, is the disciplined practice of building trust, reading people accurately, and cultivating long-term strategic relationships—competencies with direct applications in leadership, negotiation, and professional life. The conversation covers his distinction between influence and manipulation (one operates in a subject's interests; the other subverts them), the role of self-awareness and genuine curiosity in effective leadership, and the trained capacity to step off the emotional battlefield and respond deliberately rather than react. Drawing on methods developed in intelligence, military, and law-enforcement contexts, Fisher's framework treats networking not as contact collection but as the construction of durable, mutually beneficial bonds—the kind that take years to build and, when they matter, make all the difference.

Join Julian's course that starts on 23rd June here:
https://theintelligencemaven.com

Connect with Julian here:
https://julesfisher.com/

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Music by Andrew R. Bird

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Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

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In the late 1940s and early 1950s, CIA and MI6 launched an audacious series of clandestine operations to infiltrate and destabilize Communist Albania — and lost nearly every agent they sent in. Historian Stephen Long, Assistant Professor in International Relations at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and author of A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit, reconstructs how the Albanian Sigurimi, one of Eastern Europe's most formidable counterintelligence services, turned the West's covert action program into a catastrophe — aided, from the inside, by British Russian spy Kim Philby. Long examines the fractured exile networks that became the human raw material for these missions, the diverging British and American strategic objectives, and the 1952 Apple mission's disastrous double cross. He traces how Albania's failures quietly shaped the covert interventions to come — in Iran, in Guatemala — and what the human cost demands of the institutions that ordered it.

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Order A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/A-Rich-Harvest-of-Bitter-Fruit-by-Stephen-Long/9781837732241

Connect with Stephen: https://scholar.xjtlu.edu.cn/en/persons/SteveLong/

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Music by Andrew R. Bird

Photo by AFP, Canva

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

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Chris and Matt break down a packed few weeks in intelligence and geopolitics, opening with the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence — a departure framed officially around her husband's illness but widely read as an exit under pressure. Drawing on a Bulwark piece by former CIA officer John Sipher, they examine whether the ODNI was ever structurally sound enough to survive a politicized occupant, and what Gabbard's tenure — from her reversal on the IC's Iran nuclear assessment to her exclusion from senior meetings — reveals about what this administration actually wants from intelligence. From there, the episode turns to the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, where the photo-op framing papered over a sharper story: divergent definitions of "constructive strategic stability," a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan left unsigned, and a delegation of American CEOs carrying hat-in-hand business pitches to Washington's principal strategic adversary. They also examine a New York Times investigation into Chinese intelligence's recruitment attempt of a House committee staffer — a case that doubled as a window into Beijing's priorities in the weeks before the summit. Finally, an investigation into Russia's covert cyber warfare training program at a university near Moscow, and a Telegraph profile of Oleg Gordievsky's quiet final years in rural Surrey — including a regular table at a restaurant Chris knows all too well.

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Articles discussed in today’s episode

"Tulsi Gabbard’s Office Shouldn’t Exist" by John Sipher | The Bulwark: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/tulsi-gabbard-office-shouldnt-exist-director-national-intelligence-9-11

"Tulsi Gabbard’s resistance to foreign wars amid Trump’s aggression was her undoing" by Mohamad Bazzi | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/24/tulsi-gabbard-foreign-wars-trump

"Tulsi Gabbard is showing why her job shouldn’t exist" by David Ignatius | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/05/tulsi-gabbard-trump-dni-intelligence-agency/

"China and the U.S. Agreed to ‘Strategic Stability’ in Beijing. They Don’t Define It the Same Way." by Zongyuan Zoe Liu | Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/articles/china-and-the-u-s-agreed-to-strategic-stability-in-beijing-they-dont-define-it-the-same-way

"What did Trump and Xi accomplish?" | Atlantic Council: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/fastthinking/what-did-trump-and-xi-accomplish/

"He Offered a Lawmaker’s Aide Quick Cash. Was He Spying for China?" by Dustin Volz | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/us/politics/china-us-spy-congressional-aide.html

"Russia’s top secret spy school teaching hacking and election meddling" by Pjotr Sauer & Shaun Walker | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/revealed-russia-top-secret-spy-school-hacking-western-electoral-interference

"Revealed: The secret suburban life of Britain’s greatest Cold War spy" by Samuel Montgomery | The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/26/revealed-the-secret-suburban-life-of-britains-greatest-cold/

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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Kenny Holston/NYT, Heather Diehl/Getty

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

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The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Congress hasn't formally done so since 1942. Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer and current senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, joins Matt to make sense of how that happened — and what it means now that the United States is at war with Iran. Brian has spent years arguing, across administrations of both parties, that executive branch war-making has drifted dangerously far from its constitutional moorings. Operation Epic Fury, he contends, is the most consequential test of that argument yet.

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Please share this episode using these links

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Further reading

"What the Iran War Reveals About the War Powers Resolution and How Congress Can Act" by Tess Bridgeman & Brian Finucane | Just Security: https://www.justsecurity.org/137977/iran-hostilities-war-powers-restart-clock/

"On the State Department Memorandum 'Operation Epic Fury and International Law’" by Brian Finucane | Just Security: https://www.justsecurity.org/137097/state-department-epic-fury-international-law/

"An Unserious Justification for an Unnecessary War: Assessing the U.S. 'Article 51’ Letter to U.N. on Iran War" by Brian Finucane | Just Security: https://www.justsecurity.org/134290/us-article-51-letter-united-nations/

"Senate Votes to Take Up Measure to Force Trump to End Iran War" by Megan Mineiro | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/us/politics/senate-iran-war-authorization.html

"Bending the Guardrails: U.S. War Powers after 7 October" by Brian Finucane | International Crisis Group: https://www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/united-states/009-bending-guardrails-us-war-powers-after-7-october

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Music by Andrew R. Bird
USAF photo by Staff Sgt. Sandra Welch

#IranWar #USWarPowers #NationalSecurity

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Charles Beaumont spent years as an MI6 officer running human sources before turning to fiction—and his second novel, A Spy at War, carries the authority of someone who has actually done the work. Set against the early days of the Ukraine War in 2022, the book maps the architecture of Russian disinformation: corruption narratives seeded into sympathetic media, useful idiots at senior policy levels, and the Chechen enforcers whose own histories implicate Moscow in the violence that built Putin's state. His conversation with Matt covers the CIA-SIS pre-invasion intelligence coup, the fracturing transatlantic alliance, and the Global South's soft-power vacuum—arriving at a conclusion that is harder to dismiss with every passing month: that this war won't be decided in the Donbas, but in the battle for Western public opinion, a battle the West is still not sure it's fighting.

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Order A Spy at War and Charles’s first novel, A Spy Alone: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/259672/charles-beaumont/

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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Canva

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

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There will be no show on Saturday 9th May as we are on a production break. We will return on Saturday 16th May

Chris has some recommendations from our back catalogue.

Chris's Episode recommendations

From CIA to CEO with Rupal Patel
Audio: https://pod.fo/e/371b55
YouTube: https://youtu.be/94-vBjgdNzA

Former CIA analyst Rupal Patel joins Chris to explore reinvention, resilience and life after intelligence, from tactical ignorance and time management to building a life that truly fits.

The Fourth Intelligence revolution with Anthony Vinci
Audio: https://pod.fo/e/365bae
YouTube: https://youtu.be/D4ZagwI5Z3o

Former chief technology officer of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Dr. Anthony Vinci explains how AI, China and disinformation are driving a new intelligence revolution, where citizens, companies and trust itself have become targets

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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/

Music by Andrew R. Bird

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Two months into Operation Epic Fury, the US and Iran remain locked in an uncomfortable limbo: a ceasefire is technically holding, the Strait of Hormuz is still contested, and diplomacy has collapsed over the question of nuclear enrichment. Chris and Matt assess the war's compounding costs—severely drawn-down munitions stockpiles with implications stretching from Taiwan to NATO, and reporting that JD Vance has privately challenged whether the Pentagon is telling the president the truth about how the war is going. Then: Viktor Orbán is out in Hungary after sixteen years, replaced by Peter Magyar in a cleaner democratic handover than many expected—but nativist politics didn't leave with him. Finally, two CIA officers killed in a car crash in the mountains of Chihuahua pull back the curtain on a quietly expanding American intelligence footprint in the cartel fight, and the pointed question of what Mexican authorities actually knew.

Please share this episode using these links

Audio: https://pod.fo/e/40c0f2
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Articles discussed in today’s episode

"US-Iran ceasefire and nuclear talks in 2026" by Philip Loft | House of Commons Library: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10637/

"The Pentagon May Not Be Telling Trump the Full Picture About the War" by Missy Ryan, Vivian Salama, Michael Scherer, & Nancy A. Youssef | The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/04/iran-war-vance-hegseth-trump/686905/

"Illiberalism is not Inevitable" by Anne Applebaum | Open Letters Substack: https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/illiberalism-is-not-inevitable

"Orbán may be gone, but his prejudices are now baked into the European political mainstream" by Shada Islam | The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/27/orban-europe-eu-racism-migration-border

"2 Americans Killed in Mexico Crash Were C.I.A. Officers" by Maria Abi-Habib, Dustin Volz, Adam Goldman & Paulina Villegas | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/world/americas/americans-cia-mexico-crash.html

"Mexico’s Sheinbaum rules out a conflict with US over 2 CIA agents killed in Chihuahua accident" by Associated Press | Politico: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/27/mexicos-sheinbaum-rules-out-a-conflict-with-us-over-2-cia-agents-killed-in-chihuahua-accident-00894034

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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photos by Getty/AP

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In today’s episode, former Special Forces Detachment A operator James Stejskal shares his extraordinary insights into Berlin's role as the epicenter of Cold War espionage. From his personal experiences in the city to the strategic importance of intelligence operations, James explains how Berlin became the world's most notorious spy hub. Whether you're a history buff or an espionage enthusiast, this conversation unveils the secrets behind Berlin's legendary status in covert warfare.

Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs.

More on Cold War Berlin

Spy's Guide to Berlin: James Stejskal's book exploring Berlin’s Cold War espionage history

Markus Wolf Biography: On Amazon for deeper insights into Germany's top spy

Teufelsberg NSA Listening Station: Historical overview of one of Berlin’s key signals intelligence sites

Berlin Wall Museum: Experience the history of the Berlin Wall firsthand

Stasi Museum Berlin: Dive into the secret world of East Germany’s secret police

Checkpoint Charlie Museum: Discover stories of espionage and escape in Cold War Berlin

Learn more about James on his webiste: https://jamesstejskal.wordpress.com

Follow James on X/Twitter: https://x.com/jamesstejskal

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Secrets and Spies is produced by F & P LTD.

Music by Andrew R. Bird

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the fall of 1983, NATO's annual nuclear war exercise, Able Archer 83, brought the United States and the Soviet Union closer to catastrophe than almost anyone in Washington understood at the time. Brian J. Morra—decorated former Air Force intelligence officer, aerospace executive, and author of the historical thriller The Able Archers—was inside those events: stationed in Tokyo during the KAL 007 shootdown, transferred to Washington just as the crisis peaked, and present in Germany as Soviet nuclear alerts reached levels never seen before or since. He walks Chris through the paranoia that drove Operation RYAN, the Kremlin's vast intelligence collection effort premised on the certainty of a NATO first strike; why mirror imaging at CIA left Reagan largely uninformed; and how three individuals—General Charles Donnelly, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, and General Leonard Perutz—each exercised the kind of cool judgment that kept the crisis from tipping into war. Morra draws the line from 1983 to the present: when leadership on opposing sides stops talking directly, the system fails—and that failure, he argues, looks familiar today.

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Learn more about Brian and his work: https://brianjmorra.com/

Order The Able Archers: https://brianjmorra.com/the-able-archers/

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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by US National Archives/Getty

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

#Espionage #ColdWar #Spy

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John Sipher and Jerry O'Shea, former senior CIA officers and co-founders of Spycraft Entertainment, return to the show for a conversation with Matt and Chris about what Hollywood gets wrong about espionage—and what they're trying to do about it. They dig into the tropes that break the spell (the lone hero, the ditched tail, the torture-porn shortcuts), why real intelligence work is quieter, more bureaucratic, and more character-driven than the screen suggests, and how lazy spy fiction feeds the conspiracy theories they now debunk on their podcast Mission Implausible. Their conversation ranges across the economics of pitching subtlety to risk-averse studios, the moral gray zones that make for better drama than propaganda ever could, the "deep state" as misnomer, and the unsung assets who are the real heroes of most operations. Along the way: a bubble in Moscow for marital fights, a 16-year-old Yazidi girl who helped bring down ISIS, and why the Glomar Explorer remains the great white whale of the genre.

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Learn more about Spycraft Entertainment: https://spycraftentertainment.com/

Listen to John and Jerry’s podcast, Mission Implausible: https://podcasts.apple.com/fm/podcast/mission-implausible/id1728340033

Follow John on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/johnsipher.bsky.social

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Audio: https://pod.fo/e/401167
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Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Spycraft Entertainment

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sean Wiswesser spent three decades in the U.S. intelligence community, much of it running operations against Russia for the CIA. His new book, Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks, dissects of how the FSB, SVR, and GRU actually do their work: dead drops, signal sites, surveillance detection routes, and the street tradecraft that protected agents like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen for years. Wiswesser explains why Russian services keep returning to Cold War–era methods, breaks down the operational differences between the SVR and GRU, and assesses elite units like Alpha, Vympel, and Spetsnaz whose mythology often outpaces their record. He also charts the sharp escalation in Russian sabotage across Europe, the mafia-like culture driving increasingly reckless operations, and Moscow's use of AI-enhanced active measures to deepen division in Western democracies.

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Order Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: https://www.usni.org/press/books/tradecraft-tactics-and-dirty-tricks

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Please share this episode using these links

Audio: https://pod.fo/e/3fb9a1
YouTube: https://youtu.be/WI7IChkSNps

Support Secrets and Spies

Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies
Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996
Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies
Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg

For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com

Connect with us on social media

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social
Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies
Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies
Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies

Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net

Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/
Music by Andrew R. Bird
Photo by Dmitry Astakhov / REX

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.