Explore every episode of the podcast The Redefector

The CIA and FBI have less than 24 hours to prepare to welcome the KGB colonel who, in the defector world, appeared to be the catch of the century.

It was August 1st, 1985, a year so full of espionage drama that it has since become known as "The Year of the Spy." The CIA had been suspiciously losing Soviet assets one after another. Just as the Agency was beginning to suspect a leak, around the world in Italy, a KGB Colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko made his way to the American Embassy in Rome, ready to trade Soviet intelligence in exchange for immediate exfiltration to the U.S. The first secret he revealed: The CIA had a mole in its midst. Two secrets he doesn't mention: Yurchenko believes he's dying, and wants to spend his last months reunited with a woman he met while stationed in America.

It was 1985, and the CIA had a painful secret. Soviet assets who had been secretly working for the CIA had begun ominously disappearing one, after another. One might be bad luck… But four was three too many to be a coincidence. And that was just the beginning. 1985 would later become known as the Year Of the Spy because of the sheer amount of blown covers, assassinations, double agents and espionage debacles that would unfold over the coming months. 

As the Agency was scrambling to find answers, on a hot summer day in Rome, a Soviet Colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko walked into the US Embassy and volunteered his services. In exchange for exfiltration to the US and total secrecy, Yurchenko would tell the Americans everything he knew. And he knew a lot - because he was the highest ranked KGB officer at that time ever to defect. In fact, he knew about a CIA mole, a man who would have been in a position to know about all the covers that had just been blown. 

At first, the Agency felt it had hit the jackpot. Instead, Yurchenko's defection would go on to become one of the most dizzying, high stakes espionage debacles of the last century. Although many of his bombshell revelations were bonafide, a doubt began haunting the intelligence community: Was Vitaly Yurchenko telling the whole truth? And if not... What had he been sent to hide? 

Join host Julie Cohn in this ten-part series featuring interviews with CIA officers, bodyguards, FBI Special Agents, reporters and even a former KGB general as she uncovers the truth behind the decades-long Vitaly Yurchenko mystery.

Vitaly Yurchenko is a fountain of intelligence and quickly becomes a celebrity in US intelligence circles. But the higher his profile, the greater the threat to his safety... 

Yurchenko and his team of CIA and FBI officers start over in a new safehouse in the Virginia countryside. Meanwhile, the mole Yurchenko revealed... makes a run for it. 

To cheer up the despondent Yurchenko, the CIA takes Yurchenko on a road trip through the American Southwest, complete with a stop in Sin City. Soon after he returns from the trip, his spirits still low, Yurchenko... disappears. 

Yurchenko travels to Canada to be reunited with the love of his life, but plans go awry... 

Yurchenko... reappears, sowing chaos. A debate begins to rage in the press, at the CIA, and even in the White House: Was Vitaly Yurchenko a plant from the very beginning? 

BONUS EPISODE: Bodies continue to drop, despite the leaks identified by Yurchenko. Despite intensifying debate over his legitimacy, the SE division has a new desperate focus: to find answers. It creates a special task force to identify the remaining leak before any more lives are lost. In this bonus episode, we track the three fascinating reasons why the task force took years: Masterful deception campaigns by the Soviets; the ghost of James Jesus Angleton; and a scandal at the White House. 

The modern day hunt for Vitaly Yurchenko, the 90 year-old spy. 

Some old veterans from the Soviet and Eastern Europe division decide to take matters into their own hands and start a new hunt. It's unconventional, it's personal, and this time, it's successful.

After two years building a mosaic of research about the Vitaly Yurchenko mystery, finally a full picture emerges: the truth.