The Live Drop

My guest Neil Graham Hansen began his aviation career as a pilot for Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. He then spent more than a decade in Southeast Asia as a captain for Air America - the CIA's airline that operated during the Vietnam era and the 'Secret War' in Laos. Upon returning to the States, unable to let go of the thrills of high stakes flying, his career trajectory veered off course into a Federal prison for smuggling narcotics - where he began his redemption as an advocate for his fallen Air America colleagues.

Neil talks with me about the history Air America (the world’s most shot-at airline) that could go anywhere anytime, especially where military wasn’t allowed.  He talks about his relationship to the customer - the CIA, and he clarifies the daring, diverse, and patriotic culture of Air America pilots and crew.  Look for him to explain terms like: sticky brick, blackpearl, hard rice, the customer, and five-dollar turns.

Neil has recently written a great book FLIGHT with co-writer Luann Grosscup – An Air America Pilots story of Adventure Descent and Redemption.

This historical aviation narrative incorporates the pathos of a war zone, humor, and candid insight. Neil pulls the reader directly into the cockpit, onto dirt mountaintop landing strips, into the raunchy brothels of Laos, alongside his first toddling steps into Buddhism, aboard the plane he flew out of Cambodia hours before it fell to the Khmer Rouge, down the road of self-destruction and beside him as he regains a foothold on the path to integrity.

Neil's tireless in telling the story of Air America’s heroes. His appearances are currently subject to confirmation, but look for his presentation at:  AIRVENTURE in Oshkosh, WI

Other links and resources mentioned:

Air America Historical Social Club

Flight Facebook Page

Air America, by Christopher Robbins

Experimental Aviation Association

Veteran’s Channel

Flying Men Flying Machines

Episode 032

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 discuss his book BETWEEN FIVE EYES - Fifty Years Inside the Five Eyes Intelligence Community which reads like a historical witness of key events, and remains a lasting contribution to the institutional knowledge of the intelligence field. Anthony has another book to look out for --> Crossroads in Time: Philby and Angleton, The Story of Treachery. The first dedicated work to explore their treasonous relationship.

From the author's Amazon page:

Dr. Wells is the only living person to have worked for British Intelligence as a British citizen and U.S. Intelligence as an American citizen. He has worked in C4ISRT, counter terrorism, as well as asymmetric and irregular warfare. Dr. Wells has led programs in the U.S National Intelligence Community to mitigate the effects of terrorist and adversary attacks on personnel, infrastructure, political systems, and communities. He was trained in the 1960s by the most distinguished exponents of deception and other clandestine operations from the World War Two period. His mentors included Professor Sir Harry Hinsley, the Bletchley Park code breaker and operations specialist. Dr. Wells is a foremost expert in the science and art of modern Information and Deception Operations, in both the offensive and defensive modes. Dr. Wells while in the Royal Navy served in Washington DC with the US Navy and Intelligence Community, and at sea in the Third Fleet, US Pacific Fleet. He became Head of Special Programs in one of the lead British Intelligence Directorates and as a US citizen was the Technical Director of Fleet Battle Experiments Alpha and Bravo in the Pacific Fleet. He is a recognized expert on threats, strategy, and tactics in the INDOPACOM area of operations.

Dr. Wells is the third Chairman of the Board of the USS Liberty Alliance. He succeeded the late Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chief of Naval Operations, and the late Rear Admiral Clarence “Mark” Hill, distinguished battle group commander and naval aviator. He was made an honorary crew member of the USS Liberty by surviving crew members. USS Liberty is the most highly decorated warship in the history of the US Navy for a single action. He is an acknowledged expert on the Middle East, and the 1967 June War.

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The Secret War in Laos was sponsored by Americans, fought by Laotians, Thais, Vietnamese, American advisors and pilots while almost entirely eclipsed by the war in Vietnam. Jessica Pearce Rotondi’s book What We Inherit – is a poignant memoir of a family’s loss and search for answers over generations to find Jack Pearce whose AC130 gunship was shot down over Laos in 1972. Decades later Jack's niece Jessica picked up the search where her mother and grandfather had left off. Her quest led her to Vientiane, to revisit the Secret War in Laos in which the CIA aided Laotian fighters against the North Vietnamese seeking to secure their supply lines along the Ho Chi Min Trail. Jessica’s memoir, published last month is ten years in the making, and started with finding a closet of classified documents her mother had assembled. Jessica talks about the Secret War, the legacy of loss, cost of war on a family, the nature of grief, and the healing powers of storytelling.
What We Inherit , Jessica Pearce Rotondi

Published by Olivia Smith at unnamedpress.com – Untold stories, uncharted territory, undiscovered writers. Check them out.

Jessica is on twitter and Instagram @jessicarotondi and there’s further information on her website jessicapearcerotondi.com

Opening music is from "Lao Phene" a piece of Lao classical music. Performed here by Musiciens du Palais Royal, Luang Prabang. Please consider donating to the HALO TRUSTwhose work is focused in Savannaket Province, Laos, where 70 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line. Most families are almost entirely dependent on growing rice, but unexploded bombs make cultivating rice potentially life threatening. Since 2012, they have destroyed over 50,000 explosives and taught communities how to recognize and report dangerous items, so families no longer need to choose between taking risks or going hungry.
Live Drop Episode 040

If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more please consider signing up as a contributing patron and join the community for exclusive commentary and content. A $5 a month donation will really keep us going - https://www.patreon.com/thelivedropAlternatively, if you would like to help make Season 3 operational you could make a one time donation of any amount right here ---> https://www.paypal.me/thelivedropThank you for listening and your support,
The Live Drop Team

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Focusing on the motivations, The Anatomy of a Spy by Michael Smith tells the story of why spies spy, presenting a wealth of spy stories—some previously unknown and some famous—from the very human angle of the agents themselves. He breaks them into categories that go beyond the widely shared MICE - Money, Ideology, Compromise/Coercion, Ego. We discuss some classic examples from his book: Operation Diamond where the Mossad used sex and coercion on pilots to fly a MIG-29 out of Iraq in the early 60s; Gabriele Gast - who was caught up in a Stasi Romeo-operation; Polish spy Ryszard Kukliński was a patriot who shared the Warsaw Pact operational plans. We touch on the intentions and needs of spies like: Oleg Penkovsky, Aldrich Ames, Stephen Hanssen, and Ronald Pelton - what was the nugget they were after?
Michael shares some of his experience working for the BBC Monitoring Service - listening in on Cold War transmissions across Poland and East Germany. We also discuss the similarities to journalism with both terminology (stringer, fireman, source) and tradecraft from his experience as an award-winning journalist for the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times. Smith is the author of a number of books, including The Secrets of Station X, Killer Elite and Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews, and MI6: The Real James Bonds. He is a visiting fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford.
Look for the debut of the #dozendecions that Michael makes in under a minute that reveal if his true nature is that of a spy, handler, or analyst. I’m thinking he’s secret agent material. Episode 037
More on the author at michaelsmithauthor.com
Resources Cited:
An Alternative Framework for Agent Recruitment: From MICE to RASCLS, Randy Burkett
Ryszard Kukliński
Kuklinski Documents on Martial Law in Poland
If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, please consider signing up as a contributing patron and join the community for exclusive commentary, and content. A $10 a month donation will really keep us going ---> https://www.patreon.com/thelivedrop

Alternatively, if you would like to help make Season Three operational you could offer a one time donation of any amount right here ---> https://www.paypal.me/thelivedrop

Thank you for listening and your support,

Mark Valley
Creator/Host

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TRANSMISSION 028
Witold’s experience as a daring underground operator working within and around the Polish borders offers a view into the relationships, ratlines, allies, enemies, and tradecraft necessary to fund and supply the Solidarity insurgency movement from the late 70s until the Communists were peacefully voted out of power in 1989. He speaks to me from an apartment in Warsaw near the former Ghetto where his relatives had struggled a generation before him.
His unassuming codename - Makaron - means ‘noodle' in Polish, which may offer an explanation to why he was never caught. After the interview he showed me his favorite spot in Old Warsaw to lose a tail, how they encoded messages using poetry, and the home of controversial Polish spy Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski.
This is the first episode in collaboration with my sponsor the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Los Angeles, California. I’ve included one of my interviews for the The Wende Museum’s Historical Witness Project, sponsored by Fiona Chalum and Joel Aronowitz, which seeks to preserve voices of the Cold War for future generations.

In November of last year I went to Warsaw, Poland to help retrieve historical documents and samzidat (smuggled during the near decade of martial law) for an upcoming exhibit for the Wende Museum. I interviewed several key players in the Polish anti-communist movement, one of whom is my guest for this episode - Witold Radwanski.

thelivedrop.comHello Listener, If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, please consider signing up as a contributing patron and join the community for exclusive commentary, and content. A $10 a month donation will really keep us going ---> https://www.patreon.com/thelivedrop

Alternatively, if you would like to help make Season Three operational you could offer a one time donation of any amount right here ---> https://www.paypal.me/thelivedrop

Thank you for listening and your support,

Mark Valley
Creator/Host

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.