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The AFIO Now series offers the association’s members and the public prerecorded interviews and presentations that feature intelligence experts, historians and officers from the U.S. intelligence community. Content includes historical reviews and analyses of past and current domestic and global events, career insight, intelligence related author and national security reporter interviews.
AFIO NOW videos are released first to our members. Please consider joining AFIO to have access to these videos months before they are released to the public. Already a member? Log in to your account.
Released to the publicmembers on 9 June 2025
Interview of Friday, 28 March 2025 with Leon Carroll Jr, co-author (with Mark Harmon) on "Ghosts of Panama: A Strongman Out of Control, A Murdered Marine, and the Special Agents Caught in the Middle of an Invasion"
The warm relationship in 1989 between US and Gen. Manuel Noriega has eroded dangerously. President George Bush declares Noriega a drug trafficker and a rigger of elections causing intimidation on streets for U.S. personnel. The nation becomes a powder keg. Naval Investigative Service (NIS) Special Agent Rick Yell has worked the job in Panama since 1986, and lives there with wife Annya and a child. Yell develops an intelligence source with access to the Noriega regime turning into spy-versus-spy with secret meetings and hidden documents.
A source has info on an imprisoned CIA asset and helps track Noriega’s movements. The reports shape the decisions made in Washington D.C., CIA headquarters, and the Pentagon. The powder keg is lit on December 16, 1989, when a young U.S. Marine is gunned down at a checkpoint in Panama City. This is the rest of that story.
Carroll provides a comparison of Panama 30 years ago and his impressions from a recent visit in 2024-25.
Run time: 33 minutes with many Q&As.
Released to the publicmembers on 27 May 2025
Interview of Saturday, 29 March 2025 with Alexander Rose PhD on "Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring"
"Fascinating…. tells how the work of the spies proved to be the tipping point in the summer of 1778, helping Washington begin breaking the stalemate with the British…. [and] brings to light their crucial help in winning American independence."—Dallas Morning News
"After working on Washington, I knew there was a story to tell about his reliance on spies during the Revolutionary War. But I believed the story could never be told because the evidence did not exist. Well, I was wrong, and Alexander Rose tells this important story with style and wit."—Joseph Ellis, author of His Excellency: George Washington
"Making brilliant use of documentary sources, Rose gives us intrigue, crossed signals, derring-do, and a priceless slice of 18th century life…Rose unfolds the story of a Long Island-based spy ring of idealists and misfits who kept George Washington informed of what was going on in enemy-occupied New York." —Richard Brookhiser, author of Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington
Run time: 20 minutes with many Q&As
To view our other publicly available AFIO Now videos, please visit AFIO on YouTube or browse through the playlists below. To view other items in the playlists, select the icon with three lines and a small arrow on the bottom that is to the right of the title.
To listen to the AFIO Now series as audio only, please download from wherever you get your podcasts.
"AFIO Now" Interviews and Podcasts are sponsored by Northwest Financial Advisors. Read the Press Release on this new Joint Arrangement.