The Saga of the Swinging Spies | True Life Spy Stories

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Published 2024-02-18
Listen to my spy stories on the Heroes & Traitors with Philip Thompson podcast!
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Karel and Hana Koecher arrived on American shores in December 1965. The Czechoslovakian nationals had fled to America to start a new life. As Soviet emigres, they set out to live the American dream. For Karel, this was by climbing the ranks of academia. For Hana, it was a lucrative career in the diamond trade. Both had become naturalised US citizens.

But all this was a smokescreen. Karel was in fact a sleeper agent deployed by Czechoslovakian intelligence to spy on the United States. He achieved what no other before him had managed - to infiltrate the CIA as an illegal Soviet spy.

This is the story of Karel and Hana Koecher, the last of the Cold War super spies.

Primary sources (afiiliate links):

📕 The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man, Benjamin Cunningham - amzn.to/48lSntR
📕 Spy VS. Spy, Ronald Kessler - amzn.to/42FEYvH

Further reading/viewing:

🌐 www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/30/how-a-czech-…
🌐 Betrayed! A Stranger in a Strange Land, tubitv.com/tv-shows/285639/s01-e02-karl-koecher-st…

#philipthompson #truelifespystories #karelkoecher

All Comments (21)
  • @cattymajiv
    I agree the narration is excellent in 99.% of the video, but people need to take note that the dates stated need to be listened to very carefully. The events that occured in the 1930s are stated correctly, but the pronunciation makes it easy to mistake them for being said as 1953, 1954, 1955, etc. People have complained below that the narrator has the dates wrong. He doesn't. It's just hard to hear whether he is saying 1933 or 1953, and 1939 or 1959, etc. But now that you know to listen more carefully, you can understand it correctly,because it's not really possible to rerecord an entire video just to fix a couple of words.
  • @robinwells8879
    British Foreign Office on the ball as ever. Lets employ this person without any checks to see if she is a world famous spy’s wife. 😂
  • @zaper2904
    It's kind of funny how in these stories double agents are only ever really caught through the reports of other double agents.
  • @dhmacher
    Love your work! Your narration is 100x better than the AI, for what it’s worth.
  • @ScepticPJ
    Excellent. We especially like the lack of pointless, noisy interjections and your own, human narration. Well done.
  • @humbleguy4726
    I think this the best spy documentary i have watched so far, really well put together it had my attention all the way through. Thank you for posting it, you are very talented.
  • @annehersey9895
    Dubcek forgot the lesson of how to effectively change things when surrounded by people who want things to remain the same-more or less like Gorbachev tried to do. You start with a baby step , then when that change seems normal, you make another change and wait until that is absorbed and repeat and realize it’s going to take you years. What you DONT do is announce it! I really don’t like that the FBI reneged on the deal!
  • @crimony3054
    The swinger parties included several private residences in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, not just the "clubs" listed. After all, the clubs were public. The private residences could be accessed only by invitation or court-approved search warrant. Hana was known as, essentially if not specifically, a nymphomaniac. Therefore, once she got started, she wouldn't stop, and she is not a bad looking woman.
  • @aryabastani
    Hanna got a job at the British Embassy post her husband being outed as a spy? You couldn't make this sxxt up.
  • @Hollandsemum2
    You forgot the part about Zbigniew Brzezinski being National Security Advisor for President Carter, which I remember more than his work w Johnson.
  • @davidc3839
    If he wants to be proud of something he should focus on the death of the man he betrayed. Ultimately he was in it for the money and cared little about others.
  • @drlobomalo
    "What difference did I make?" Oddly enough, that's the major theme of Czech-born playwright Tom Stoppard's play about Cold War espionage, "The Dog It Was that Died."
  • @peterpluim7912
    This is an interesting and very well made video. Thanks. I subscribed.
  • @noisepuppet
    The algorithm finally shows me this channel
  • Thank you, Phillip, for an excellent story on espionage. Your narration is on point that I have no need for subtitles.
  • @vince5348
    This reminds me of the finale of the show The Americans. *Spoiler Alert* In the series finale, the Russian spy couple are exfiltrated home to Russia with the FBI closing in. After so many years of integrating themselves into American society, making friends, living a comfortable middle-class life, they are suddenly back in Russia, their kids have decided to stay in America and you can feel their regret as they realize their lives will never be as good as when they were in the U.S. And they're asking themselves what it was all for in the end.
  • @blueodum
    I think his life would make a very interesting docudrama film.
  • Another brilliant documentary masterfully put together and presented. Bravo Sir, Bravo.
  • @GaryPritchard
    Fascinating as usual. Superbly narrated and illustrated. Can’t wait for the next one