138. The Defection of a Communist Spy Queen with Kathryn Olmsted
03/11/24 • 50 min
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This week Justin sits down with Dr. Kathryn Olmsted. Kathryn is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, where she has taught since 2001. She's published five books and many journal articles focusing on the political and cultural history of the United States since World War I. Today she discusses the story of Elizabeth Bentley, a spy and agent handler for the Communist Party of the United States and for the Soviet Union from the late 1930s through World War II. But in 1945, she broke ties with both organizations and walked into an FBI field office to alert them to the presence of a massive and almost completely unknown espionage ring that had penetrated the U.S. government at many different levels. She became a media sensation and helped to alert Congress and the American public to the new Cold War that they found themselves in with the USSR.
Connect with Kathryn:
Check out her book, Red Spy Queen, here.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Spy-Queen-Biography-Elizabeth/dp/0807827398
Connect with Spycraft 101:
Check out Justin's latest release, Covert Arms, here.spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: spycraft-101.myshopify.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101
Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.
This week Justin sits down with Dr. Kathryn Olmsted. Kathryn is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, where she has taught since 2001. She's published five books and many journal articles focusing on the political and cultural history of the United States since World War I. Today she discusses the story of Elizabeth Bentley, a spy and agent handler for the Communist Party of the United States and for the Soviet Union from the late 1930s through World War II. But in 1945, she broke ties with both organizations and walked into an FBI field office to alert them to the presence of a massive and almost completely unknown espionage ring that had penetrated the U.S. government at many different levels. She became a media sensation and helped to alert Congress and the American public to the new Cold War that they found themselves in with the USSR.
Connect with Kathryn:
Check out her book, Red Spy Queen, here.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Spy-Queen-Biography-Elizabeth/dp/0807827398
Connect with Spycraft 101:
Check out Justin's latest release, Covert Arms, here.spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: spycraft-101.myshopify.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101
Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.
Previous Episode
137. The Hitman, the Dissident, and the Detective with Ray Martinez
This week, Justin sits down with Ray Martinez. Ray served three consecutive terms as mayor of the city of Fort Collins, Colorado between 1999 and 2005. He was later elected to the Fort Collins City Council, serving a term from 2015 through 2019. Ray is an active member of several local advisory boards in the Fort Collins area. He's also the author of 15 books and he is the founder of RM Consulting Inc., where he provides consulting services in many different areas, including writing and publishing, business development, marketing, public relations, and more.
But long before Ray began his service as an elected official, he was a police officer and detective with the Fort Collins police department for 25 years beginning in 1974. Today, he's here to discuss what was arguably the biggest case of his career, which began one night in October, 1980 with a wife's frantic call reporting that her husband had been shot in their apartment. From there, it spiraled into a massive story involving international arms traffickers, an ex-Army Special Forces hitman, and a North African dictator and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Connect with Ray:
raymartinez.com
Connect with Spycraft 101:
Check out Justin's latest release, Covert Arms, here.spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: spycraft-101.myshopify.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101
Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.
Follow in the footsteps of legends and retrace some of the most famous operations of WWII.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Next Episode
139. Freddie Scappaticci: IRA Turncoat with Richard O'Rawe
This week Justin talks with Richard "Ricky" O'Rawe, a former member of the Irish Republican Army. Since leaving the IRA, Ricky has worked as a peace advocate and has written several nonfiction books as well as two novels about The Troubles. Today Ricky shares the story of Britain's greatest intelligence coup during The Troubles: the recruitment of Freddie Scappaticci, the man who ran the IRA's internal security unit. He vetted all the IRA recruits and hunted down informants within the ranks, all while reporting everything he saw, did, and learned to British intelligence.
Connect with Ricky:
Check out his book, Stakeknife's Dirty War, here.
https://www.amazon.com/Stakeknifes-Dirty-War-Scappaticci-Nutting/dp/1785374478
Connect with Spycraft 101:
Check out Justin's latest release, Covert Arms, here.spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: spycraft-101.myshopify.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101
Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.
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