Simon Willmetts
swillmetts.bsky.social
Simon Willmetts
@swillmetts.bsky.social
Cultural historian with an interest in secrecy, intelligence agencies, and their impact upon wider culture and society. I work at Leiden University, but my views here are my own.
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
Many AHA members have expressed alarm about a posting by the National Archives about access restrictions at Archives II. In a message on X (formerly Twitter), the Archives has clarified that research rooms will remain open to the public. 🗃️(1/2)
Update on National Archives at College Park - AHA
Many AHA members have expressed alarm about a post on the National Archives website regarding restricted access to Archives II in College Park, Maryland. In a message on X (formerly Twitter), which we...
www.historians.org
June 25, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
The AHA recognizes that our colleagues in the federal government are facing unprecedented workforce reductions & has compiled resources in support, & are offering one year of free membership in the AHA to former employees of the federal govt. who have been terminated or resigned since January 20. 🗃️
Resources for Federal Historians - AHA
The American Historical Association supports historians employed by the federal government. We appreciate the important work they do every day to preserve, chronicle, and interpret American history. T...
www.historians.org
June 26, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
It's the official publication day for the 25th anniversary edition of Cold War Civil Rights!! New preface sets it in the context of the contemporary global Black Lives Matter movement.
press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...
Cold War Civil Rights
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the YearHow the fight for civil rights in America became an important front in the Cold War
press.princeton.edu
June 17, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Excited to announce my forthcoming collection on Spies, Culture and Society edited with Constant Hijzen. It develops ideas about the "cultural turn" in intelligence studies, bringing together leading scholars on intel + culture. More info to follow. Publication in early 2026!
May 20, 2025 at 11:29 AM
The obvious delusion of this statement aside, I’ve begun to notice Trump’s frequent use of the “going to” future tense, and this had me wondering why politicians use this particular construction, and whether it is an inherently deceptive communication style. So I asked ChatGPT:
April 3, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
Duke Press is having a flash sale for the next 48 hours!!! With the code FLASH50 you can get 50% off my book Police and the Empire City. The book explores how explicit considerations of race, panic over immigrant crime, and military counterinsurgency shaped the modern police department in the US.
March 25, 2025 at 2:06 PM
This is how the money goes round…. Great infographic on how CIA distributed funds via front organizations:
March 13, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Possibly the best file name I’ve ever found in an archive:
March 12, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
New addition

Book: Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors: Religion and the History of the CIA by Michael Graziano (published 01-07-2023)

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo80657461.html
Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors
Reveals the previous underexplored influence of religious thought in building the foundations of the CIA. Michael Graziano’s intriguing book fuses two landmark titles in American history: Perry Miller’s Errand into the Wilderness (1956), about the religious worldview of the early Massachusetts colonists, and David Martin’s Wilderness of Mirrors (1980), about the dangers and delusions inherent to the Central Intelligence Agency. Fittingly, Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors investigates the dangers and delusions that ensued from the religious worldview of the early molders of the Central Intelligence Agency. Graziano argues that the religious approach to intelligence by key OSS and CIA figures like “Wild” Bill Donovan and Edward Lansdale was an essential, and overlooked, factor in establishing the agency’s concerns, methods, and understandings of the world. In a practical sense, this was because the Roman Catholic Church already had global networks of people and safe places that American agents could use to their advantage. But more tellingly, Graziano shows, American intelligence officers were overly inclined to view powerful religions and religious figures through the frameworks of Catholicism. As Graziano makes clear, these misconceptions often led to tragedy and disaster on an international scale. By braiding the development of the modern intelligence agency with the story of postwar American religion, Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors delivers a provocative new look at a secret driver of one of the major engines of American power.
press.uchicago.edu
March 4, 2025 at 10:16 AM
It was a privilege to be among such esteemed company as part of this H-Diplo roundtable on Hugh Wilford’s “The CIA: An Imperial History”. As I argue here, it’s a book that can help us to rethink intelligence history: issforum.org/roundtables/...
issforum.org
March 3, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
New article titled "Technical and cultural barriers to leveraging U.S. intelligence to evaluate national level strategies and plans" by Cathryn Quantic Thurston published in the journal Intelligence and National Security, here:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Technical and cultural barriers to leveraging U.S. intelligence to evaluate national level strategies and plans
This paper explores the role of U.S. intelligence in assessing the effectiveness of national-level strategies and plans. A high-speed information environment may require a more dynamic, continuous ...
www.tandfonline.com
February 27, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
“Like a couple still appearing together in public while awaiting the formality of a divorce, CIA officers abroad will still have friendly meetings with their liaison partners, but they will know that the basis of the relationship in trust has gone.” foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/27/t...
Allies Assess What Intelligence They Can Still Share With Trump
Washington’s loose lips and closer ties to Moscow could unravel Western cooperation.
foreignpolicy.com
February 28, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
Very pleased to have NYT Pulitzer winner Jane Perlez now contributing to SpyTalk. A top former US intelligence expert pulls back the covers of Beijing’s espionage juggernaut www.spytalk.co/p/a-look-ins...
A Look Inside China's Army of Citizen Spies
A top former US intelligence expert pulls back the covers of Beijing’s espionage juggernaut
www.spytalk.co
February 28, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Clearly!
February 28, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Adventures of a Ukrainian intelligence officer: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com
February 26, 2025 at 12:43 PM
From the archive: Truman’s Secretary of Defence James Forrestal: “The word ‘security’ ought to be stricken from the language and the word ‘risk’ substituted… The great danger in any country is for people to believe that there is anything absolute about security.”
February 19, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
Upcoming Intelligence Studies Section Panels at ISA2025...2-5 March 2025 in Chicago, IL. Details here: www.academia.edu/127731336/In...
Intelligence Studies Section Panels at ISA2025
Intelligence Studies Section Panels at ISA2025
www.academia.edu
February 18, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Aaaaah the difficulties of managing academic egos in the intelligence business….
February 18, 2025 at 9:41 PM
General Donovan’s speech at the final gathering of OSS employees: “We have come to the end of an unusual experiment… to determine whether a group of Americans constituting a cross section of racial origins, of abilities, temperaments and talents could meet and risk an encounter with the… enemy.”
February 17, 2025 at 7:04 PM
From the archive: A CIA button. Just remember to take it off when you go undercover….
February 17, 2025 at 4:20 PM
1/4: New publication from me on how artificial intelligence will reshape the work of intelligence agencies, and transform our understanding in the process. A big shout out to the editors of this fantastic new collection that rethinks privacy in the 21st Century.
February 11, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Simon Willmetts
These men wanted to make the world better. But the Cold War was messy. Not everything went as planned. The book shows how ideals meet reality.
#TrueHistory #SpyTales
Cold War CIA Spies: The Quiet Americans Book Review
Explore the lives of CIA spies in The Quiet Americans, a gripping look at espionage during the Cold War. Book review inside.
thisgrandpablogs.com
February 8, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Great to see Elliot Higgins talking to our students at Leiden University!
February 6, 2025 at 5:21 PM