John Kiriakou's Dead Drop

Documentary on the psychology and ethics of intelligence work AI summary

Costard & Touchstone Productions Visit website › History · EN · 60 episodes · latest 2026-11-09 · explicit

Rank 1643

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What it is about

Join ex-CIA officer John Kiriakou on a very personal deep dive into what makes a spy tick. One of the most famous spies in the whole world, John - a spy with a conscience - blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program after the war on terror and spent 23 months in federal prison for it. As John explains, no spy is ever an "ex-spy". Why is that so? Listen to the podcast and you'll understand why. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Publisher’s own description, taken unchanged from the podcast feed.
John Kiriakou & Alan Katz

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Latest episodes

S3E8 An Enemy Within: The Plot Thickens E

2026-11-09 · 46 min · Season 3, episode 8

IN THIS EPISODE So, what happened - or seemed to happen - the night of February 28, 1986, the night someone shot Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme to death on a Stockholm street corner as he walked beside his wife…
S3E7 An Enemy Within: Cold Warriors E

2026-11-02 · 57 min · Season 3, episode 7

IN THIS EPISODE As the hot war - WW2 - ended, a "cooler" but equally fervent Cold War replaced it. The stay-behind networks described in episode one quickly became a whole subset of cold warriors. How the Cold War…
S3E6 An Enemy Within: The Stay-Behinds E

2026-10-26 · 1 hr 1 min · Season 3, episode 6

IN THIS EPISODE One of the most remarkable stories that no one knows - which is remarkable in itself - is the assassinatioin of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme on a Stockholm street on February 28, 1986. Palme's…
S3E5 How To Interrogate A Monster: Saddam Hussein E

2026-10-19 · 1 hr 28 min · Season 3, episode 5

IN THIS EPISODE In the previous two Spy Academy episodes, we talked about liars and how to spot them. Now it's time to put all that knowledge to good use as we deep dive into interrogating a true psychopath, the former…
S3E4 The Body Language of Lying

2026-10-12 · 46 min · Season 3, episode 4

IN THIS EPISODE SHOW NOTESIf you're enjoying Dead Drop, podcast, please check out the rest of Costard & Touchstone's family of podcasts. They cover everything from journalism to Chinese medicine to culture to self help.…
S3E3 Liars (And Lying) 101 E

2026-10-05 · 47 min · Season 3, episode 3

IN THIS EPISODE Welcome to John Kiriakou's Spy Academy! Whether chatting with someone informally or conducting a full-on interrogation, every spy needs to know whether or not the person they're talking to is being…
S3E2 The Whistleblower's Tiger Mom E

2026-09-28 · 53 min · Season 3, episode 2

IN THIS EPISODE Every whistleblower should know one thing before they step forward with their secrets that demand exposing - at some point, the legal system will engage with you. When that happens, each and every…
S3E1 Whistleblowers & Spies E

2026-09-21 · 45 min · Season 3, episode 1

IN THIS EPISODE Welcome to Season 3! As the title of this episode suggests, season 3 will refocus the podcast on spying and, this season, on whistleblowing, too. We may be in a Golden Age of Corruption, but that's a…
S2E18 Whistleblower's Roundtable with Tom Drake E

2026-09-14 · 1 hr 32 min · Season 2, episode 18

IN THIS EPISODE We draw the curtain on season 2 with a preview of season 3 wherein we'll ask "What Makes A Whistleblower Tick?" To get us kicked off, John roundtables with whistleblower Tom Drake. A longtime member of…
S2E17 How NOT To Make A SPY Movie E

2026-09-07 · 1 hr 5 min · Season 2, episode 17

IN THIS EPISODE We join with another podcast in the Costard & Touchstone Family - The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast - to explore how NOT to make a SPY movie. John and Alan Katz (he's both the host of The How NOT To…

Episode details from the publisher’s feed. Playback happens at the publisher.

Publisher details

Oldest episode in feed: 10/2025 · over a year
Typical length: 39 min
Format: Serial Meant to be heard in order
Keywords: spies, spying, espionage, secrets, CIA, torture, Travel, Heroism

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