Code Name: Citizen is Now Dexter Ingram: Declassified
You may have noticed a change around here – Code Name: Citizen has become Dexter Ingram: Declassified.
The mission hasn’t changed. I’m still here for the intelligence history, the national security analysis, and the stories most people never hear about. The new name is about where I’m taking this next – into declassified operations, the spies that history forgot, and what the past can teach us about the threats we’re facing right now.
There’s a lot more coming, too.
Your Monday articles aren’t going anywhere – that battle rhythm holds. But I’m adding a Thursday piece starting this week, kicking off with a six-part investigative series. More on that below.
Podcasts and Live Sessions
Every week, I’ll be hosting a podcast and a live session where we dig into these stories together. No scripts. No talking points somebody sanitized for public consumption. I want to talk about this world the way it actually works.
I’m bringing in guests from across national security – government, military, intelligence, academia, and our communities. Some of these folks I’ve worked alongside for decades. They’ve been in the rooms. They’ve made the calls. And they don’t hold back.
Ask Me Anything
Once a month, I’ll open the floor for an AMA. You bring the questions. I’ll answer what I can, and when I can’t share something, I’ll tell you that straight up.
For Students and Young Professionals
I’m putting together something I wish existed when I was trying to break into this field – practical guides for students and young professionals who want careers in national security but don’t know where to start or who to ask.
For Parents and Teachers
I’m also building resources about online radicalization. I’m not trying to scare anyone. I spent years running our government’s countering violent extremism programs, and I saw firsthand how these influences find kids in ways most adults don’t notice until it’s too late.
I want to give you more than headlines. I want to give you something you can actually use.
The Collection
I’m also adding a weekly post about my espionage collection. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve built one of the largest private spy collections outside government archives – Cold War gadgets, declassified documents, tradecraft tools, pieces most people will never see up close. Each week, I’ll pull something out, tell you what it is, who used it, and why it matters. These posts will live under their own tab so you can dig through them anytime.
Coming Thursday: A New Series
Thursday I’m launching a six-part series called Behind the Mask: White Nationalism, Violent Extremism, and the Fight for America’s Future.
If you saw Patriot Front march through Nashville last month, or watched them show up at the March for Life in D.C. – you saw the surface. This series goes underneath.
I’m going after the white nationalist and Christian nationalist groups active in this country right now – how they organize, how they recruit, how they’re targeting our kids online, and how they connect to violent extremist networks stretching from St. Petersburg to Charlottesville. I’m also going to tell you what works to stop them.
I’ve spent most of my career countering the terrorism we expect – the kind that comes from overseas. But in recent years, watching these groups grow bolder, watching masked men march through American cities with shields and Confederate flags, I started feeling like I was looking at the 1960s through a modern lens. The radicalization patterns were familiar. The recruiting was familiar. The only thing that changed was the geography. So I did what I’ve always done – I applied the framework. And the domestic threat looks a lot like the international one in ways most Americans don’t realize.
That’s what this series is about. Part 1 drops Thursday. New installments will be coming your way every Monday and Thursday for the next three weeks.
I Need Your Help
Everything I just described takes time and money. The podcasts. The live sessions. The guides. This series. I’m doing this independently, and I want to keep it that way.
If this work matters to you, I’m asking you to become a paid subscriber. That’s how this stays alive and stays independent.
If you’ve been with me since the Code Name: Citizen days – thank you. And if you’re new here – welcome to the vault.
Lots more to come …
– Dexter
Dexter Ingram is a national security expert with more than 25 years of experience. At the Department of State, he served as Director of the Office of Countering Violent Extremism and Acting Director for the Office of the Special Envoy to Defeat ISIS. He is the author of “The Spy Archive: Hidden Lives, Secret Missions, and the History of Espionage.”