Inside Counterintelligence: Reagan to Retrenchment

In this third installment of The IWP Podcast: Inside Counterintelligence Series, Professor John Quattrocki sits down with Paul Kepp, a former senior CIA operations officer with decades of experience in the Directorate of Operations, much of it overseas. The conversation moves into the Reagan era and examines a period of rapid expansion in U.S. counterintelligence, where both the FBI and CIA scaled their capabilities to confront a growing and increasingly complex espionage threat. The discussion highlights how manpower, operational demands, and interagency coordination shaped the counterintelligence mission at its peak during the final chapter of the Cold War.Reagan to Retrenchment explores how this surge in capability exposed both strengths and vulnerabilities within the system. The episode examines major espionage cases that defined the era, the operational realities behind investigating them, and how the end of the Cold War triggered a shift in priorities that reduced resources at a critical moment. It underscores how strategic decisions, institutional pressures, and evolving threat landscapes reshaped the trajectory of U.S. counterintelligence moving into the 1990s.