Vince Houghton

NEW EPISODE! - Secrets of The National Security Agency (with Vince Houghton) Podcast Episode · Mission Implausible · 11/09/2025 · 54m

Today with espionage historian @intelhistorian.bsky.social

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/m...

Hooolllllllddd on. Saw you all during the Green tour. You used a cheat sheet!

CIA is still light years ahead of…ahem…other agencies I won’t mention (so I don’t get fired)

Maybe that can be a blurb for the next edition

By the way, if anyone on here applies or is seriously considering doing so, they can DM me and I'm happy to discuss it. I'm doing some contract history work there now, as it happens.

Pretty cool opportunity at the International Spy Museum. These don’t come around very often…

One down…

Enigma Traitors Everyone knows the story of Enigma and secret codebreaking in the Second World War: the triumph of Bletchley Park over world-class cipher technology. Except that excellence in codebreaking was nearly ...

A very cool (and free) program at the International Spy Museum next Friday. There’s also a virtual option for those not in the area.

www.spymuseum.org/calendar/eni...

I feel like you can make the rules when you are Pope

Ohhhhhhh

I can’t decide if I should be the next Pope or the next Secretary of Defense.

Well….fuck

Especially after we (NSA) just finished warning everyone that Signal wasn’t secure. Sigh

My entire Agency is like….um, I ate lunch?

Well, shit

And my job is museum

I’m just Vince

Awesome time at the International Spy Museum last night for Spy Fest! In addition to engaging with several hundred attendees, I got a chance to play with a real Enigma machine (thanks to the National Cryptologic Museum and @intelhistorian.bsky.social for sharing it)

Yup

We brought home a kitten for Christmas! 🎄Meet Cosette (Cosy for short)! 😻

All non-fiction

Covert City in the wild

The Nuclear Spies

Nuking the Moon.

I suck at self-promotion, but since it’s the gift-giving season…I’ve written three books. People outside my family have enjoyed them.

Nuking the Moon (quirky history!)
The Nuclear Spies (more serious, but spooks, nukes, and Nazis)
Covert City (the city built by spies)

Available in stores/online

Optimism in the Time of Climate Change Mary and Jordan chat with Charly Frisk, Director of Climate Action at Time for Better, about her mission to reshape the climate conversation.

New Fissionary out today, and we talk to Time For Better’s Charly Frisk about the importance of reframing climate conversations thru a hopeful lens. In fact, you may have seen her team at well-known #climate events 👀 👇 www.nei.org/news/2024/fi...

Yesssssss

Yes. A letter from Kahn to W Friedman when Kahn was a kid. On display until…tomorrow. But available for researchers every day.

We have the whole David Kahn collection, which is available to any and all researchers. Just reach out!

Always a fun day when the galleys arrive…

There’s a publishing adage that no one will read biographies of people they’ve never heard of. Maybe this changes things

I’ve been trying for a decade (at least) to convince the publishing powers that be to let me write the Pash biography. Maybe now it’s time to try again? Who anyone read it??

Oh, it definitely is