Spybrary Spy Podcast

What happens when Britain fights the Cold War with typewriters, fake pamphlets, covert publishers, and even pretend hippies?

On this episode of Spybrary's Cold War Spy Files, Shane Whaley talks with historian Rory Cormac about his book Fakers: A Top Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Line.and the extraordinary true story of the Information Research Department — Britain's secret propaganda and forgery machine.
A fascinating dive into Cold War deception, disinformation, and 'state-sanctioned skullduggery.' The conversation opens the file on Britain's Cold War covert propaganda machine, especially the little-known Information Research Department — the IRD — a blandly named Foreign Office unit involved in unattributable propaganda, forgeries, fake groups, and intelligence laundering.


Professor Cormac explains how the IRD moved far beyond ordinary government messaging, creating forged pamphlets, fake political organisations, covert publishing operations, and disinformation campaigns designed to expose or disrupt Soviet influence worldwide. The episode is packed with strange-but-true stories, from British officials posing as hippies to disrupt a Soviet-backed youth festival in Bulgaria, to the painstaking forensic details of typewriters, staples, paper, and fonts used in Cold War forgery work.

 

The discussion also highlights the unusual people behind these operations: refugees, journalists, women, fixer-agents, propagandists, and oddball bureaucrats working in the shadows of British foreign policy. Rather than focusing on famous spies or prime ministers, Fakers reveals the human texture of covert influence work: the hustlers, handlers, writers, typists, and paper experts who helped wage Britain's secret propaganda war.

Buy Fakers by Rory Cormac
Follow Rory Cormac
Cold War Spy Files
Join the Spybrary Community
Support Spybrary
Sign up for The Dead Drop newsletter

I'm Shane Whaley — a self-confessed "guile over guns" spy fiction reader who has always preferred le Carré's slow burn spy novels to military firefights.

So what happens when a Le Carré fan picks up Jack Carr's Cry Havoc, a 550-page Vietnam War action thriller written by a former Navy SEAL?

Welcome to the Spybrary Rodeo — the brand new Spybrary feature where I pick up a book outside my comfort zone, or by a new-to-me author, give it a fair crack, and tell you exactly how many pages I stayed on for.

Sometimes I bail early.
Sometimes I go all the way to the final page.

Today's book is Cry Havoc by Jack Carr. 550 pages. Lots of guns. Not my usual territory. Did I finish it? Keep listening to find out.

In this episode:

What the Spybrary Rodeo is and how it works
The secret MACV-SOG unit running deniable missions in Vietnam in 1968
Why Cry Havoc is NOT your typical action thriller
The speech that stopped me cold
The spy fiction ingredients hidden inside this action thriller — GRU, moles, honey traps and the USS Pueblo The brilliant le Carré and Fleming passage that tells you everything about Jack Carr as a writer
The literary rabbit hole that sent me straight to Jean Lartéguy's The Centurions
My honest verdict

Books mentioned: Cry Havoc — Jack Carr https://geni.us/UMYz The Quiet American — Graham Greene The Tears of Autumn — Charles McCarry The Honourable Schoolboy — John le Carré The Centurions — Jean Lartéguy - https://geni.us/pzrFcJ

Suggest my next Rodeo read: 👉 Join the Spybrary community: https://www.spybrary.com/community 👉 Find me on X: @Spybrary - https://x.com/spybrary 👉 Full show notes: https://www.spybrary.com/298

If you're a spy fiction fan who has been avoiding Jack Carr because you thought he was too kinetic — start here. This is the episode that might just change your mind. Don't forget to subscribe for more Spybrary Rodeo episodes, Dead Drop Five conversations, and the best spy fiction and espionage history content on the internet.

If you think you already know the Cambridge Five story, think again.

In this episode of Spybrary, Shane Whaley is joined by journalist and author Antonia Senior to discuss her powerful new book, Stalin's Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire— a major re-examination of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross.

But this is not the familiar story of clubland betrayal, old boys' networks. ping gins and establishment embarrassment. Instead, Antonia asks a darker and more important question: what did Stalin actually want from his greatest spies and what was the human cost?

From Poland, the Baltics, Albania and Ukraine to the corridors of Whitehall and Washington, this conversation explores the real human cost of the Cambridge Five's betrayals — and why they were far more than 'Robin Hood' types embarrassing the British establishment.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why the Cambridge Five knew far more about Stalin's crimes than many like to admit

Kim Philby's role in betraying anti-Soviet operations

How Donald Maclean helped Stalin see the West's diplomatic hand

The fate of partisans and resistance fighters in Eastern Europe

Anthony Blunt, Poland, and the brutal realities behind the myth

The enduring mystery of Philby in Beirut: did he run, or was he allowed to go?

If you enjoy spy books, espionage history, and serious conversations about the moral consequences of intelligence work, this one is for you.

Buy Stalin's Apostles: https://geni.us/XcUoM2
Join the Spybrary Community
Support Spybrary
Sign up for The Dead Drop newsletter

One of crime fiction's most trusted voices reveals her 5 best spy novels. In our latest Spybrary Dead Drop Five series, crime fiction critic Ayo Onatade makes a passionate case for each one — and her picks may surprise you.

Welcome back to the Dead Drop 5 series! In this episode, Spybrary host Shane Whaley is joined by Ayo Onatade — one of the most respected voices in crime and thriller fiction.

Ayo is a critic, commentator, and moderator who has written extensively on crime and thriller fiction, contributed to major reference works on British and American crime writing, and served as judge and chair for some of the genre's most significant prizes, including the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.

Guest host Matthew Hurst sits down with author Michael Dylan to explore his debut spy thriller The New Spy. Dylan shares his unconventional journey from global advertising creative to full-time novelist, revealing how real-world research, including chilling conversations with a mysterious source known only as "Mr. Pickles" shaped the authenticity of his espionage writing.


The conversation dives deep into modern intelligence warfare, particularly the concept of "chaos warfare," where the goal is not conquest but destabilisation. Dylan explains how this evolving geopolitical reality inspired the novel's themes and characters, including rookie MI5 agent Joe Batten and a brilliant but physically limited analyst working from the shadows.

The episode also explores the realities of self-publishing versus traditional publishing, the creative risks of killing beloved characters, and the importance of writing stories that genuinely excite the author. It's a fascinating blend of craft, industry insight, and the unsettling truths behind modern espionage.