Chatter: How the Cold War Made Miami with Vince Houghton
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2024
⏱️ 81 minutes
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Summary
For a period of time in the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, employer in the city of Miami. The CIA had set up a base of operations there, aimed primarily at undermining the regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. From those early days, writes historian Vince Houghton, the Cold War battle against communism shaped the city, which he says should rank among the world’s great capitals of espionage.
Houghton and co-author Eric Driggs, both Miami natives, chronicle the city’s spooky history in their rolicking new book Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami. Houghton spoke to Shane Harris about some of the colorful characters that span this decades-long story, why Miami has played such a pivotal role in the history of U.S. spying, and how the the Cuban intelligence service became one of the best in the world.
The books, people, events, films, TV shows, video games, and actors discussed in this book include:
- Covert City https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/vince-houghton/covert-city/9781541774575/?lens=publicaffairs
- The Mariel Boatlift https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/cuba/mariel_port.htm
- Operation Mongoose https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2019-10-03/kennedy-cuba-operation-mongoose
- “Griselda” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15837600/
- “Contra,” the video game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_(video_game)
- Queen of Cuba: An FBI Agent's Insider Account of the Spy Who Evaded Detection for 17 Years by Peter J. Lapp, with Kelly Kennedy https://44thand3rdbookseller.com/book/9781637589595
- Chatter episode about Montes with author Jim Popkin https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/chatter-podcast-ana-montes-american-who-spied-cuba-jim-popkin
- 537 Votes https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13128292/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
More about Vince Houghton
- https://www.nsa.gov/Press-Room/News-Highlights/Article/Article/2423003/from-soldier-to-scholar-vince-houghton-named-director-of-national-cryptologic-m/
- https://twitter.com/intelhistorian?lang=en
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the Lawfair Podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com |
| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.7 | This is Chatter, I'm Shane Harris. |
| 0:35.0 | This week historian Vince Houghton on how the Cold War made Miami. |
| 0:49.2 | The only reason Miami is what it is today is because of national security concerns and primarily because of intelligence, right, the CIA built Miami. |
| 0:54.0 | Castro, you don't always think about him as this master of propaganda information operations. |
| 1:02.0 | He's this, you you know despotic dictator who |
| 1:04.6 | throws people in prison for political reasons but he is a genius when it comes to |
| 1:09.8 | using immigration and exile as a weapon against the United States. |
| 1:15.0 | Every single asset we thought we had in Cuba for over 20 years was actually working for Castro the whole time. |
| 1:26.2 | The Cubans were pound for pound the best intelligence agency that's ever stepped on the |
| 1:29.7 | planet. it's great to see you're |
| 1:43.0 | Vince Houghton. Welcome back to Chatter. You're a repeat guest. It's great to see you. It's great to be here Shane. Thanks thanks. You are, you have like behind you, |
| 1:45.0 | listeners can't see this, but there is like a wheel |
| 1:48.6 | with the National Security Agency logo on it |
| 1:51.4 | and an array of letters of the alphabet. Is this like a big blow up of like an |
| 1:56.0 | an enigma rotor or something? |
| 1:57.9 | So this is a blow up of a very traditional cipher wheel created about 500 years ago so not quite as advanced as |
| 2:05.2 | enigma but it's a it's really appropriate kind of behind me because of my current job |
| 2:10.1 | yes yes which for those who don't know Vince is the director of the National Cryptologic Museum at the National Security Agency, which unlike your counterpart at the CIA is open to the public. |
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