Spies of War

June 6th, 1944: nearly 130,000 Allied soldiers storm Normandy's beaches, initiating the liberation of French territory from the Nazis. Behind the scenes of this major event of WWII, British MI-5’s double agents contributed to the largest deception campaign of the entire war. Their mission: to trick the Germans into thinking that the Allies would land elsewhere to keep German troops out of Normandy. Discover how those agents lured Hitler by delivering a careful mix of truth and lies. See how the agent Garbo led the Germans to believe that he built a network of 24 agents. Read Treasure’s diary and decode Bronx’s telegrams… In this episode of “Spies of War”, relive this extraordinary mission of disinformation, completely hidden in the shadows, but contributing immensely to the success of D-Day.

July 10th, 1943: the Allied troops land in Sicily and open a new breach in the Nazi empire. Crucial to this key operation, two British Intelligence officers devise a most ingenious deception plan to divert the Germans from Sicily… Two months earlier, the corpse of a British officer was discovered on a Spanish beach, carrying confidential documents that revealed a military landing in the Balkans. The Germans immediately seized this valuable information, never suspecting that the officer never existed, and that the documents he carried were false. It was, in fact, a British ruse to deceive them about the real landing. In this episode of “Spies of War,” you will relive all the details of this extraordinary, crucial, and darkly humorous ploy.

October 1962: The Cuban missile crisis. The world holds its breath under the imminent threat of a nuclear war. Behind the scenes of the most harrowing days of the Cold War, one of the greatest spies of the century plays a crucial role to help Kennedy stand up to Khrushchev. This episode of “Spies of War” reveals the remarkable achievements of Oleg Penkovsky, a Soviet officer who worked in the shadows of the CIA. You will discover how his family history led him to be a traitor to the Soviet Union and a priceless mole to the West. Witness the amazing stunts he pulled to steal thousands of documents and pass them across the Iron Curtain. As you relive his incredible double life until its tragic end, you will understand how this spy prevented World War III.

August 29, 1949: only four years after the U.S. drops the first atomic bomb, the Soviets drop one. No one expected it so soon. Behind the scenes of this major event which froze the world in four decades of cold war, Soviet Secret Intelligence developed one of the most massive networks of moles of the twentieth century. In this episode of “Spies of War,” you will discover how and why several brilliant scientists divulged the secrets of the atomic bomb to the sworn enemy of the U.S. Understand the hidden motivation of those atomic spies and follow them into their clandestine meetings. Discover the astonishing Venona Project, how the US counter-intelligence services managed to crack the codes of Soviet telegrams to expose and plug the leaks.