Show Notes
Ways to support the podcast: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 In 1990, a German court made a finding that sent shockwaves through the Western intelligence community. If the Cold War had turned hot, NATO would have been forced to choose between capitulation and launching nuclear weapons on German soil. The man responsible was not a senior official, a diplomat, or a career intelligence officer. He was a U.S. Army sergeant from Ohio named Clyde Conrad. For thirteen years, Conrad walked into one of the most sensitive offices in NATO's European command and sold its most secret war plans to the other side. By the time investigators found him, the damage was done. A German judge would describe him as standing at the top of the worldwide list of all known spies. This is the full story of Clyde Conrad — his recruitment by a Hungarian-American mole inside his own unit, the thirteen-year operation that followed, the decade-long hunt to find him, and the undercover sting that finally brought him down. 📚 Sources & Further Reading (affiliate link): 📕 Damian and Mongoose: How a U.S. Army Counterespionage Agent Infiltrated an International Spy Ring by Danny L Williams - Danny L Williams 📕 Traitors Among Us: Inside the Spy Catchers World by Stuart A. Herrington - https://amzn.to/4uVZXac
More from True Life Spy Stories
Originally aired on 2/16/26, now expanded with new details on the story and republished in full video! Ways to support the podcast: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 In September 2024, thousands of pagers exploded across Lebanon in a single afternoon. The devices had been built by Israeli intelligence, packed with explosives, and sold to Hezbollah through a network of fake companies stretching from Budapest to Sofia. The operation had been ten years in the making. This is the story of Operation Grim Beeper.
Ways to support the podcast: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 On 6 October 2026, German police arrested August Hanning, the former head of the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence service. It's the equivalent of a former director of the CIA or chief of MI6 being arrested on suspicion of treason. Prosecutors allege that for 12 years his former chief of staff, Manfred Dankesreiter, supplied him with around 2,000 secret BND documents in return for payment. Hanning allegedly used them in his private security consultancy, and some of the material may have reached foreign intelligence services. Both men deny the core allegations, and neither has been indicted. The case only came to light by accident, through a police investigation into the kidnapping of two children from Denmark by a German steakhouse heiress. This is what we know so far.
Pick up your copy of Operation Sparrow at https://link.amazon/B02NMVdls (affiliate link) Learn more: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/operation-sparrow-jason-bell?variant=45398167388194 Author's website:Jason's website: https://jasonbell.org/ Ways to support the podcast: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 In this episode I sit down with author and professor Jason Bell to discuss the incredible story of the Sparrows, a World War 2 spy story that has been hidden from history, until now. Jason's new book Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War, is out now!
Originally aired 1 July 2026 as an audio-only episode. Now fully edited as a video documentary. Ways to support the podcast: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 On 6 September 1976, Soviet Air Force Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected to the West in a MiG-25 interceptor, landing at a civilian airport in Japan and handing American intelligence the most secret aircraft in the Soviet arsenal. The MiG-25 was studied for 67 days before being returned to the Soviet Union in pieces. What the West found overturned a decade of assumptions about Soviet air power. This is the story of how Belenko did it, what the analysis revealed, and what became of the man who pulled it off. 📚 Sources & Further Reading (affiliate link): 📕 MiG Pilot by John Barron
Ways to support the podcast: Buy Me a Coffee: ☕ https://bmc.link/philipthompson Donate via PayPal: 💸 paypal.me/PhilipT284 Welcome to this week's Intel Dossier: A Swindon man is denied bail over an alleged plot to sabotage UK drone factories for Russia; Two more Britons are arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran; Russian submarine crews rehearse cutting NATO's Arctic internet cables; and A Sydney consultant is jailed for feeding gossip to Chinese intelligence.