CURRENT ISSUE

November 2016

Features

A legendary counterintelligence agent reveals for the first time how he outwitted spies and terrorists in a thrilling 30-year career

David Wise; Illustrations by Roderick Mills

A mysterious package holds long-lost Civil War letters from a young soldier

The president promised peace with Indians—and covertly hatched the plot that provoked one of the bloodiest conflicts on the Plains

Peter Cozzens; Photographs by Bryan Schutmaat

Who were the daredevil reporters who faked their way into asylums, labored in sweatshops and raked the muck of early 20th-century America?

In wartime, the U.S. military depends on locals to navigate the language and culture. But what happens to those interpreters when we leave?

T.A Frail; Photographs by Erin Trieb

Reader responses to our September issue

The Editors

Phenomena

Curious George’s first flight to freedom

Phenomena

Looking at nature on a whole different spectrum

Phenomena

Beneath a mountain in Switzerland, the world’s longest shortcut

Phenomena

Researchers are no longer in the dark about bats’ amazing sense of hearing

Phenomena

After her storied close call at Pearl Harbor, her plane vanished. Has it been found?

Thomas Jefferson’s shocking affair with Sally Hemings was recognized years sooner than historians thought

America’s next saint may be tiny Sister Blandina, whose charity work for orphans and outlaws showed true grit

Your questions answered by our experts