Spy TV

When it comes to British intelligence, there are three rules: (1) Trust no one, (2) Trust nothing that they say...

The post Subscribercast #66 – The Undeclared War vs Slow Horses first appeared on Spy Culture.

Three years ago, when the third and final season of Designated Survivor came out on Netflix, I said the show...

The post CIA Confirm Months-Long Relationship with Producers of Designated Survivor first appeared on Spy Culture.

The soft reboot of the political drama Designated Survivor recently dropped on Netflix and in spite of Kiefer Sutherland making the least convincing president since Sarah Palin it is a considerable improvement on the first two seasons. What no other critic has noticed is that the CIA supported the series, likely through their 'longtime contact' Rich Klein.

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The long-running ABC show The F.B.I. was perhaps the greatest success of the FBI's entertainment liaison office during Hoover's time as head of the Bureau. The deal struck between the FBI and the producers granted Hoover approval and veto power over scripts, casting and even sponsors. In return Hoover allowed unprecedented access to case files, personnel and FBI properties and even appeared in the show on occasion himself.

In last weekend's ClandesTime I discussed how the CIA no longer allow film-makers to shoot footage of the CIA headquarters, leading the producers of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation to re-use old footage of Langley, but it appears they may have relaxed this rule and are now allowing filming, or at least providing newer footage to entertainment producers.

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Pearse hosted this podcast for his subscribers but I am also making it available for those of you who support me on Patreon as well. In the first of three episodes, Pearse and I examine season 1 of the original (and superior) House of Cards, which follows Francis Urquhart's rise from Chief Whip to Prime Minister.

John Harrison of Sputnik radio's Level Talk invited Matt and I on to talk about National Security Cinema and the relationship between Hollywood and Washington.

I recently obtained a copy of the notorious 2004 CIA recruitment video featuring Alias star Jennifer Garner. This is not available anywhere else online, and the CIA did not release it in response to my FOIA request (they claimed to be unable to find a copy). Basically, after a lot of screwing around I managed to download a version from an archive of the page on the CIA's web site.

Good friend Pearse Redmond invited Matt and I on his radio show to talk about our new book National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Go

In this month's subscriber-only podcast Pearse and I discuss the 1986 TV movie Under Siege. Co-written by former Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward on the surface this is a liberal take on the Reagan White House, but underneath is a profoundly neoconservative film.

The CIA'>

In 1969 the CIA obtained a copy of The CIA, a screenplay being developed at Universal Studios, written by William Woodfield and Allan Balter. Woodfield and Balter were perhaps best known for writing the TV series of Mission: Impossible, until they had a well-publicised falling out with series creator Bruce Geller.

On the face of it former CIA officer, Watergate burglar and confessed JFK assassin E Howard Hunt shouldn't have had much to do with former MPAA president Jack Valenti. They both served in WW2 (Hunt in the OSS, Valenti in the Army Air Forces) and both died in 2007. They may both have been present at the John Kennedy assassination.

Covert Affairs was a not particularly original spy series telling the tale of an attractive young woman who is thrust into the world of CIA black operations. It lasted for five seasons, mostly because it starred Piper Perabo and people like Piper Perabo.

Newly-available emails show that when Claire Danes first visited CIA headquarters, she did so in very low-key fashion after a friendly CIA agent got her in. This confirms that the Agency have been involved in the production of Homeland since the first season, and shows how even their liaisons with the entertainment industry are sometimes done very quietly.

This week I joined Pearse to talk about the beginning of the new season of Homeland, and how it isn't quite what we expected. The entire 6th season is set between the US presidential election and inauguration day and while the president-elect is female, she is no Hitlery Clinton. Instead she is a peacenik who wants to withdraw from Syria, and believes the domestic terrorist threat is overblown.

Spies is the 'new' game show from Channel 4. I say 'new' because it's a blow-for-blow remake of the 2004 BBC series Spy, which also took a small group of members of the public and had three former spooks put them through their paces via a series of tests and training exercises.

In this subscriber-only podcast I talk about the new book I am working on, the fake news hype of recent weeks and review nuclear war sitcom The Brink. This podcast is only available to supporters of my patreon campaign.