341. Stop Believing the CIA Tried to Overthrow Albania with Stephen Long

About this episode

Think you know the history of early Cold War espionage? Think again. In this gripping episode of History Rage, host Paul Bavill sits down with Dr. Stephen Long, Assistant Professor of International Relations and author of A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit, to dismantle decades of myths surrounding the CIA and MI6’s covert operations in communist Albania. For years, mainstream history has claimed that the West launched a failed "rollback" operation to achieve regime change against Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, and that notorious Soviet mole Kim Philby single-handedly sabotaged the mission. Using a massive cache of recently declassified CIA documents, Dr. Long exposes these narratives as fundamental fallacies. Discover how the operation was actually constrained by geopolitical anxieties surrounding Yugoslavia's Tito, how the CIA "cut its teeth" on a sophisticated propaganda war, and why Kim Philby's true significance has been vastly distorted by his historical celebrity. From the heartbreaking double-cross of the "Apple" agent team to the tactical lineage that led directly to the Bay of Pigs, this episode completely rewrites the playbook on early Western intelligence failures.