Talking “Skwerl” and “Cheese” with author Elliot Ackerman

Author and former Marine Elliot Ackerman’s latest tale is about an ex-CIA Ground Branch operator who goes by his call sign, “Skwerl” and a former Afghan special ops pilot who goes by the name “Big Cheese” so you’re probably already getting a good picture of Ackerman’s latest novel Sheepdogs, which follows Skwerl and Cheese on a globe-trotting adventure from Uganda to Marseille.  Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly welcomed Ackerman to the Cover Stories Studio to talk about missing handlers, hidden cargo and shadow war.

Ambassador Joe  DeTrani’s The North Korean Threat: Intelligence and Diplomacy — A Personal Memoir is a candid insider’s account of more than three decades navigating the perilous world of U.S.–North Korea relations. We’ll talk with him about some of his  experiences as a CIA officer, senior U.S. negotiator, and Special Envoy for the Six-Party Talks.  In his book, which is available for free at this site, DeTrani blends gripping personal stories with sharp analysis of nuclear diplomacy, intelligence challenges, and the delicate regional dynamics that shaped negotiations. The memoir offers rare insights into the mindset of Pyongyang’s leadership and the enduring importance of vigilance, credible intelligence, and sustained dialogue.

 Lots of forces were released when the Soviet Union came apart in the early 1990s. Brad Meslin imagines the worst case scenario in his novel “The Moldavian Gambit” in which a man-portable nuclear device goes missing from a Soviet arsenal in Moldova and may have ended up in the hands of terrorists threatening to detonate in a western capital. Meslin has worked in “the intersection of aerospace, defense, private equity, and national security.” His debut novel was very favorably reviewed in the Cipher Brief by former CIA counterproliferation officer Jim Lawler who praised the book for its realism and heart-stopping plot. We will talk with Meslin about what inspired him to write the book and his sources and methods for keeping readers at the edge of their seats.

 In  October1979, the most powerful cyclone in recorded history, raced across the Pacific and set in motion circumstances that caused a horrendous fire at a U.S. Marine Corps facility at the foot of Japan’s Mount Fuji. Thirteen Marines died of their burns and more than 70 other people were seriously injured.  And yet few people today know of or remember these events. Chas Henry who served twenty years as a Marine and went on to have a highly successful career as a broadcast journalist – is out with a new book called “Fuji Fire: Sifting Ashes of a Forgotten U.S. Marine Corps Tragedy.”  We will talk with him about his four-year-long effort to investigate the tragedy and what he learned about the chaos of the mass casualty event and the courage of those who fought the fire and battled their injuries during the long recovery process. We will ask him why a disaster of such magnitude is so little remembered and why official investigations into the fire appear to have been so limited.  

Martin Dugard is an enormously prolific, best-selling author. In addition to ten mega-million selling books co-authored with Bill O’Reilly,  He has authored a fistful of books about World War II including “Taking London,” “Taking Berlin” and “Taking Paris.” Now he is back with “Taking Midway: Naval Warfare, Secret Codes, and the Battle That Turned the Tide of World War II.”  Podcast host Bill Harlow will talk with him about his sources and methods for cranking out so many deeply researched and well-received books – and what the world should know about a crusty 4-star admiral and a quirky Navy commander who combined to surprise the Imperial Japanese Navy and the world in one of the most consequential naval battles in history. 

Former CIA Officer Rodney Faraon served in some pretty fascinating roles at CIA – including as a daily briefer to former director George Tenet and as Chief of the unit that dealt with Chinese and Taiwanese relations.  Since retiring, he’s kept his analytic hat on as a Partner at Crumpton Global but he also took a turn toward Hollywood and did what many who have come from the Agency – have yet to do – launch a show for television. In this episode of the Cover Stories podcast, Rodney spills the secrets on how he adopted his CIA skills to help him survive in Hollywood.

From 2007 – 2012, the Pentagon secretly funded a small program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program tasked with investigating reports of military encounters with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. In 2020, the Defense Department launched a new unit called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force led by the U.S. Navy. And in 2022, the Pentagon created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office – meant to identify, track and better share information with Congress and the public about the events they could not explain and looking at those events through the lens of national security. But Navajo Ranger Stanley Milton, Jr. was way ahead of them in terms of tracking and sharing information he was gleaning during his three decades working as a law enforcement officer in the Navajo Nation.  So what does he want you to know about UFOs?

Former CIA Officer Gus Kangas knew from his time in the ROTC in college, that he wanted to be an Intelligence Officer.  But a convergence of mission, technology, COVID and a CIA tragedy turned him in the direction of embracing Hollywood storytelling techniques, which later opened the door to him becoming a consultant on the Paramount+ show, “The Agency”, starring Michael Fassbender and Richard Gere among a cast of other talented actors

Veteran journalist Douglas Waller is out with a new book “The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner. We will talk with Waller about his fascinating examination of the life of a brilliant man who was a standout member of the World War II OSS, one of the founders of the CIA, and a combatant in the nascent Cold War. But Wisner also battled – and eventually lost a fight against bipolar disorder.

Ken Dekleva is no ordinary spy novelist. Not by a long shot. He is a doctor who served as a Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist with the State Department for 14 years. He is a Senior Fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, and a Salzburg Global Fellow. He brings his special insights to the fore in his third novel “The Russian Diplomat’s Wife.” We’ll talk with him about the advantages and challenges of bringing a psychiatrist's eye to creative writing, how his real-world career inspired his fiction and what can be learned about human motivation by observing the characters in “The Russian Diplomat’s Wife.”