SpyCast was one of the first podcasts (period) back in 2006 when podcasting began.
In fact, the first podcasts appeared online around 2004, around the same time the word “podcast” was coined by British journalist and BBC broadcaster Ben Hammersley. He coined the term (a combination of two words; “iPod” and “broadcast”) in an article in The Guardian to describe the then emerging trend of RSS feed type of audio blogging.
SpyCast was an early podcasting pioneer and is produced by the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, with the podcast featuring interviews with spies, intelligence analysts and experts. Over the past 20 years, the podcast has interviewed high-profile and notable guests, including experts on Robert Hanssen, El Chapo, as well as figures from MI6, IDF Intelligence and even award-winning directors. Some notable episodes include interviews with Robert Gates, former CIA director, David Cattler, former director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, and Brian Carbaugh, former director of the Special Activities Center.
In 2025, the show relaunched with host Sasha Ingber to continue the run as its fifth permanent host. The first ever host of SpyCast was Peter Earnest, the first executive director of the International Spy Museum. To date, SpyCast has a portfolio of over 700 episodes for people to listen to.
Flora Warshaw, the current podcast producer on SpyCast, works to create the podcast from the heart of the history museum in Washington, helping to book interviews with incredibly high-profile guests in the US intelligence community. She works with four distinct teams within the International Spy Museum to create podcast videography, social media, presenters and podcast editors. At just 25 years old, she runs one of the most successful intelligence podcasts in the US. With SpyCast’s 20th anniversary coming up, she talks about celebrating the milestone and what’s next for SpyCast.
In 2026, SpyCast celebrates 20 years. What will the podcast do to celebrate this milestone year?
Flora Warshaw: Our 20th anniversary also coincides with America’s 250th anniversary, so we’ve got some fun episodes coming up that highlight the best of American intelligence. I mean we have twenty years of episodes for the audience to listen to, so we’ll definitely be doing some posts showcasing some of our best.
How to bring the story to a wider audience through podcasts?
The first podcast I first fell in love with was “The Rest Is History”. Of course, I’m biased because I studied history for four years at university, but what really drew me to that podcast was the storytelling aspect. If you make the past sound engaging and exciting and you can create a real plot, then it’s hard not to love history. A good podcast will do that and hopefully ours will have the same effect.
How to take weekly feedback on viewership and listenership and adjust accordingly?
We know the topics that people are really drawn to. Our audience loves Chinese and Russian espionage episodes and many of the more historical WWII ones. So we always see increased listenership with these. Of course we want to give the audience what they like, but it’s good to also stick to our mission of educating people about all different types of global intelligence.
How do you work with podcast hosts to adjust the questions asked of guests, or other types of adjustments?
We do a very thorough pre-interview with our guests which really helps inform the questions we want to ask, as we know what the guest is very knowledgeable about. Our host is then incredible at crafting questions that create a beautiful story, and the interview then flows seamlessly from one question to the next as we now know the content so well from the pre-interview. Since we’re editing the episode down from an hour to 30 minutes, we can also cut the questions that weren’t necessarily the strongest.
Photo by Liz Mueller, International Spy Museum
How does your British upbringing contribute to making this podcast stand out to an American audience?
It’s interesting, I can’t say it helps the podcast stand out, but it definitely helps a lot of our interviews. Much of our subject matter is historically based and focuses on British Intelligence characters, and I can relate to and understand many of these time periods because they were of course what I was taught! So it definitely helps in the editing process that I really understand the subject. It’s also nice for some of our British guests to hear a different English accent when they walk into the interview, and they’re always taken aback and a little surprised to hear my voice on the other end of the online podcast recording next to our American host.
Listen to SpyCast on Apple Podcasts.
