At least, that was the case in 1951, when the CIA carried out its first coup in Iran at the request of an oil-thirsty British government. This audacious Anglo-American venture makes for the perfect introduction to a podcast on espionage co-presented by a British journalist and an ex-CIA agent.

Armed with redacted documents and candid memoirs, Gordon Corera and David McCloskey drolly transport us to a time of analogue tradecraft, when coded messages were delivered via BBC radio programmes – and chased with a vodka lime or three.

If this sounds like that other Goalhanger podcast The Rest is History, that’s because it is. What sets it apart? Mostly the presenters’ specialist CVs. As a journalist, Corera has spent 25 years oxymoronically “covering the world of spies and secrets”. McCloskey, the US answer to John le Carré, is an ex-CIA analyst who now writes spy fiction.

First and foremost, both are clearly writers, and this has more pros than cons. They know how to tell a gripping story filled with memorable characters. At the centre of the Iranian coup was the bizarrely named Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore, whose professionalism left much to be desired.

Roosevelt supposedly masterminded the whole operation, which saw the CIA overthrow the country’s Prime Minister Mosaddegh, who had nationalised Iran’s oil industry, and assert the autocratic rule of the Shah. But we soon learn how this binge-drinking, tennis-playing, undercover operative, codename James Lockridge, was prone to cursing his real surname (“Oh, Roosevelt!”). He was knocking back vodka limes and playing Broadway musicals on his gramophone through the nervy days and nights of the coup.

It’s at times like these when McCloskey’s insider knowledge pays dividends as he reveals that the CIA still plays music in its offices as a last line of defence against listening devices. In his time at the agency, the faux- jingoistic theme tune of Team America: World Police (the chorus is: “America, fuck yeah!”) could be heard blasting across all US bases in the Middle East.

From the Russian mole at the heart of the Manhattan Project to the CIA’s post-9/11 operations in Afghanistan, Corera and McCloskey have been casting their historical net far and wide. But as Donald Trump has gone about chaotically remaking the global order, they have also started discussing the security implications of that in special topical episodes.

The first saw them dive into Trump’s reversal of Biden’s TikTok ban. Sure, it’s helpful to have an ex-CIA analyst run a “Red Cell exercise” (“a briefing from the standpoint of a foreign adversary”) on potential uses of the app for China’s Ministry of State Security. This includes the harnessing of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm for “cognitive warfare”. You can all but hear Charlie Brooker plot- ting his next episode of Black Mirror.

But, although informative, these topical talks can turn coldly technical and speculative, and miss the colourful, unredacted details that bring the historical episodes to life. The latest state secrets obviously do not belong on a podcast, but it has meant that, to date, I prefer it when the rest is declassified.