Masters of disinformation: how British spies played dirty in the Cold War

About this episode

The episode discusses the absurd and controversial tactics used by British spies during the Cold War.

They 'haunted' an Indonesian general with a talking ghost and planted fake hippies in a Bulgarian youth festival. But did they change the course of the Cold War? Rory Cormac introduces Spencer Mizen to the comically absurd – and dangerously controversial – tactics deployed by a group of misfits and mavericks charged with raining down confusion on Britain's adversaries in the 1950s and 60s. ----- GO BEYOND THE PODCAST To hear more from Rory Cormac on the HistoryExtra podcast, listen to him discussing Queen Victoria's spy network here: https://bit.ly/4sHYQKJ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Rory Cormac

Guest: Spencer Mizen

Topics covered

• disinformation
• Cold War
• British spies
• tactics
• history
• intelligence

Keywords

• disinformation
• British spies
• Cold War tactics
• intelligence operations
• historical espionage

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Queen Victoria's spy network

Places: Indonesia, Bulgaria

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