NEW SERIES HOSTED BY THE EMMY® AND GOLDEN GLOBE® WINNING ACTOR TO PREMIERE SUNDAY, MARCH 22 AT 8PM ET/PT

NEW YORK – February 12, 2020 – Smithsonian Channel is set to investigate some of the most shocking and explosive cases of espionage over the last 50 years. SPY WARS WITH DAMIAN LEWIS features the incredible true stories of spy wars fought in the shadows, from the turbulent years of the Cold War to the Iran Hostage Crisis and the discovery of a complex web of sleeper agents living in the U.S. – a major inspiration for the plot of The Americans. Each episode of this new eight-part series sees host Damian Lewis revealing these remarkable tales of the secretive world of government intelligence, surveillance and international conspiracy plots with interviews from the experts and eyewitnesses that lived through them. SPY WARS WITH DAMIAN LEWIS premieres Sunday, March 22 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Smithsonian Channel.

The series premiere episode, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD, recounts the story of Oleg Gordievsky – a KGB agent who may have singlehandedly averted World War III. Posted to the Soviet embassy in London by the KGB, Gordievsky would become disenfranchised by the Soviet agenda and, in a shocking move, flipped to become a double agent for British intelligence MI6. What was to follow was a years-long effort by Gordievsky to pass Soviet intelligence to the British, all but preventing a nuclear Armageddon between the Soviet Union and the West.

Additional episode descriptions can be found here.

SPY WARS WITH DAMIAN LEWIS is executive produced by Chris Fouracre, Ian Lamarra, Paul Sommers and Gareth Lewis of Alaska TV for A&E Television Networks LLC. A+E International co-produced with Liz Soriano serving as executive producer. Charles Poe and David Royle serve as executive producers for Smithsonian Channel.