The Redefector
The Redefector
Podcast Description
It was 1985, the so-called “Year of the Spy”. The CIA had been losing Soviet assets left and right; the first loss seemed like bad luck, but four in a row? That wasn't coincidence — it was a deadly leak. And just as the Agency was scrambling to find answers, across the world, a KGB colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko walked into the American embassy in Rome and volunteered his services in exchange for immediate exfiltration to the United States.
At the time, Yurchenko was the highest ranked KGB officer ever to defect to America, and the Agency felt it had hit the jackpot. Instead, his defection would go on to become one of the most dizzying, high stakes espionage debacles of the last century. Although many of his bombshell revelations were bonafide, a doubt soon began haunting the intelligence community: Was Vitaly Yurchenko telling the whole truth? And if not... What had he been sent to hide?
Join host Julie Cohn in this ten-part series featuring interviews with CIA officers, bodyguards, FBI Special Agents, reporters and even a former KGB general as she uncovers the truth behind the decades-long Vitaly Yurchenko mystery.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
Focuses on historical espionage, intelligence failures, and the personal stories of defectors and agents with episodes detailing the CIA's losses in the 'Year of the Spy', the defection of Vitaly Yurchenko, and the broader implications of espionage during the Cold War.
It was 1985, the so-called “Year of the Spy”. The CIA had been losing Soviet assets left and right; the first loss seemed like bad luck, but four in a row? That wasn’t coincidence — it was a deadly leak. And just as the Agency was scrambling to find answers, across the world, a KGB colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko walked into the American embassy in Rome and volunteered his services in exchange for immediate exfiltration to the United States.
At the time, Yurchenko was the highest ranked KGB officer ever to defect to America, and the Agency felt it had hit the jackpot. Instead, his defection would go on to become one of the most dizzying, high stakes espionage debacles of the last century. Although many of his bombshell revelations were bonafide, a doubt soon began haunting the intelligence community: Was Vitaly Yurchenko telling the whole truth? And if not… What had he been sent to hide?
Join host Julie Cohn in this ten-part series featuring interviews with CIA officers, bodyguards, FBI Special Agents, reporters and even a former KGB general as she uncovers the truth behind the decades-long Vitaly Yurchenko mystery.
After two years building a mosaic of research about the Vitaly Yurchenko mystery, finally a full picture emerges: the truth.
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