Chatter: Russian Spies in Reality and Fiction with Calder Walton
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2023
⏱️ 97 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr. Calder Walton, assistant director of the Applied History Project and Intelligence Project at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, has become one of the world's most highly respected intelligence historians. His most recent book, Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West, describes the long history of Russian spying--placing it into the wider context of the hundred-year espionage war between the East and West. And this gives him a remarkable perspective on how Soviet and Russian operations against the West have been portrayed in movies and television.
David Priess spoke with Calder about his path to researching and writing within the intelligence history subfield; the story of the Mitrokhin archive; the Cambridge Five; the Rosenbergs; Oleg Penkovsky; Aldrich Ames; Robert Hanssen; Russian disinformation campaigns in historical context; enduring popular myths about the master recruits of the KGB; and much more.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
- The article "How Oppenheimer's Atomic Bomb Secrets Were Really Stolen by Soviet Russia," Fortune (July 24, 2023), by Calder Walton
- The play Hamilton and book Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
- The book The Sword and the Shield by Christopher Andrew
- The book The Mitrokhin Archive by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin
- The book Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew
- The book The Secret History of MI6 by Keith Jeffery
- The book Behind the Enigma: The Authorized History of GCHQ by John Ferris
- The book Empire of Secrets by Calder Walton
- The book Spies -- digital expansion website
- The book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms by Amy Zegart
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 to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.9 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:28.2 | Welcome to chatter. I'm David Priest. This week, author Kolder Walton on Russian Spies |
| 0:41.4 | in Reality and Fiction. |
| 0:43.1 | Basil E. Metrokin was the KGB's archivist and he set his mind to the fact that he would |
| 0:53.4 | compile a private archive of KGB records which he would one day hopefully reveal to the |
| 1:01.2 | world. |
| 1:03.7 | The Russian services today like their Soviet predecessors are the sort of the world leading |
| 1:09.3 | spy masters. But some of these staggering successes were actually owed more to the dedication |
| 1:15.5 | of the agents than the masterful trade craft on the part of the Soviet and Russian |
| 1:20.1 | services. |
| 1:23.0 | Putin's threats about using a nuclear weapon, a tactical nuke. If he does this, it's going |
| 1:29.3 | to just fundamentally change our entire understanding of post-war international security. |
| 1:40.5 | Kolder Walton, welcome to chatter. |
| 1:42.1 | Oh, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. |
| 1:44.5 | And it's great to have you here. I've wanted you on since we've started this podcast because |
| 1:48.5 | your work has intersected not only with some of my interests and past career, but also |
| 1:55.1 | you do a really good job in your public conversations about intelligence history of linking it to |
| 2:01.7 | pop culture and the popular imagination to make sure people understand the context of |
| 2:06.7 | this thing you have made your life's work. And I really appreciate it. And it fits |
... |
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