Espionage

He was a British intelligence agent who was the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s fictional spy James Bond. Sidney Reilly traveled the world on covert missions, but his womanizing, gambling, and lavish lifestyle were what made him a legend in the world of spycraft.

Sidney Reilly had escaped the clutches of the Soviet secret police before, but his mission wasn't complete. He would need to create a new alias for himself to return to Russia, even if it meant risking his entire career.

In 1945, American activists Morris and Lona Cohen provided the Soviet Union with a complete diagram and description of the atomic bomb, expediting the development of Russia’s own A-bomb and giving them a substantial advantage during the Cold War.

After the success of their atomic mission in 1945, Morris and Lona Cohen’s work was far from over and the USSR wanted more intel. The FBI, meanwhile, wanted them behind bars...

He was recruited by both Germany’s Abwehr and Britain’s MI6, cementing himself as one of World War II’s foremost double-agents. Promptly after Duško Popov started his life as a spy, he was given information that could have stopped Pearl Harbor.

While on assignment in America, he secured information that could have stopped Pearl Harbor—but his efforts were thwarted by the FBI’s politics of suspicion. As Duško Popov returned to Europe and his Nazi spymasters, he had to work harder than ever before to keep his cover intact—and ensure that D-Day happened.

In 1994, 43-year-old Jim Nicholson was a bona fide U.S. intelligence star. But a series of challenges in Jim’s personal life led him to sell top-secret U.S. intelligence secrets to the Russian spy service, the Service of the Russian Federation. His betrayal would put countless American lives at risk.

In July 1997, 46-year-old Jim Nicholson was admitted to the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan. Although he was locked up, Jim’s desire to work with the Russians was far from over. Even from behind bars, Jim was looking for ways to reach his contacts in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, without U.S. interference.

In 1943, 29-year-old Pearl Nicholson parachuted into France to lead a small band of resistance fighters in sabotaging the Nazi invasion. She was a member of the Special Operations Executive, a British spy network on the continent that operated at the height of World War II. Pearl's career would bring her to the brink of death as the Nazis closed in on the resistance.

In 1944, Pearl Nicholson lead her squad of resistance fighters into the Gitanes Forest in France to attack retreating Nazi units before they could reach Germany. Her successful sabotage missions would secure her place among the legends of British spy history.

Known as “Special Agent Fifi,” British agent Marie Chilver was a smart, beautiful woman—and an expert at coaxing secrets out of unsuspecting targets. In the midst of World War II, that was just the kind of person the newly formed Special Operations Executive needed.

“Agent Fifi” was a central part of Britain’s SOE training program during the 1940s, with new recruits having to take her test before they were released into the field. And Chilver’s tests were thorough.

Before he became President George Washington in 1789...he was the spymaster. The first spy agency was founded during the American Revolution by General Washington to gather intelligence on the British. The techniques developed by his "Culper Ring" laid the foundations for modern espionage.

His spy network would become America’s first official spy agency. But before the end of the Revolution, George Washington’s Culper Ring would need to use every espionage tactic in the book to capture the most notorious traitor in American history: General Benedict Arnold.

During the Cold War, Californian 20-something Christopher Boyce got a job at a defense plant. Before long, he and his drug dealer, Andrew Daulton Lee, had discovered just how easy it was to sell American secrets to the Soviet Union.

During the 1970s, California-bred spies Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee found themselves knee-deep in espionage for the Soviet Union. Two years and several hundred vodka shots later, the mistakes started to pile up... and the authorities started to catch on.

Advanced technology has fueled and sustained the CIA through the decades. From a luxury pen containing a microscopic camera, to the transmission of the first electronic messages, to clandestine radios and homing devices, the evolution of Spy Tech has been paramount to the success of Agency operations.

Ever since he was a young boy, Robert Hanssen had dreamed of being a spy like James Bond. In the 1970s, when Hanssen became an FBI agent in New York City, his dream came true. He betrayed the U.S. and volunteered to spy for the Soviet Union. In the years that followed, he became the most damaging spy in American history.

As cash and diamonds poured in from Russia and an FBI investigation circled him, the pressure of being the most damaging spy in U.S. history weighed on mild-mannered FBI agent Robert Hanssen. When the FBI finally caught Hanssen in 2001, he had earned almost $1.5 million dollars from the Russians.

Throughout the history of war, there is one type of soldier often overlooked: the homing pigeon. During wars in the 19th and 20th centuries, homing pigeons were used as messengers and spies, flying harrowing missions to deliver crucial—and sometimes life-saving—intel.

During the American Civil War, Elizabeth Van Lew lived among the enemy. She was a Union spy living in the capital of the Confederacy who organized prison breaks to bring captured Northern soldiers home.

After the end of the war, Elizabeth Van Lew was outed to her Confederate neighbors as a spy for the North. She spent the rest of her life paying the price for loyalty to the Union.

Led by a charismatic intelligence officer named Thomas Argyll Robertson, the Double Cross System recruited a ragtag team of hard-drinking, gambling double-agents to fight Nazis in World War Two—not with bombs or tanks, but disinformation.

In early 1944, with D-Day looming, the British and the Americans had a critical mission: mislead the Germans on when and where the liberation of Europe would begin. With careful deceptions, their network of spies helped turn the tide of World War Two.

In the early 1900s, Fritz Duquesne, a young Boer settler in South Africa, lost his mother and father to the brutal tactics of the invading British Army and their commander, Lord Horatio Kitchener. His vow to avenge his parents launched him on a lifelong journey of espionage and sabotage against the British Empire.

Even after killing Lord Horatio Kitchener in 1916, Fritz Duquesne's hatred of the British Empire still consumed him. During World War II, he turned to spying on Britain's main ally, eventually building one of the largest spy rings on American soil.

In the mid-1500s, Francis Walsingham witnessed fellow Protestants burned at the stake by order of Queen Mary I. When the queen died, Francis became her successor’s head of espionage, building an international spy network to protect Queen Elizabeth I and English Protestants at all costs.

As Queen Elizabeth I's head of espionage, Francis Walsingham thwarted assassinations and coups. He famously caught Elizabeth's bitter rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, who he executed for treason. But Francis’s constant vigilance took a heavy toll on his health and finances.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, hundreds of men from the Navajo Nation volunteered to protect their homeland. One of these men was Chester Nez, who was specially recruited to produce a top-secret code based on the Navajo language, and deploy it on the front lines.

The top-secret Navajo code used during the war in the Pacific had no written form, making it nearly impossible for the Japanese to break. But this also required each code-talker to memorize the entire code. If they died, the code died with them.

As a U.S. Navy Intelligence Analyst, Jonathan Jay Pollard provided over a million pages of classified information to Israel—then became the only American ever sentenced to life in prison for passing information to an ally.

In November 1985, after being interrogated by the Naval Investigative Service for mishandling top-secret documents, Jonathan Pollard sought asylum in the Israeli embassy. But he discovered that even amongst co-conspirators, loyalty can be tenuous.

Known as The Minnesota Mata Hari, Betty Pack was a seductive spy who used her charm as a weapon. From her debut during the Spanish Civil War to multiple clandestine missions during World War II, Betty used sex and wit in equal measure during her espionage career.

Amid the darkest days of World War II, British agent Betty Pack was a shining example of espionage. She used her considerable charm to seduce Nazi sympathizers and gain vital intelligence. While her methods were unorthodox, Betty herself knew that "wars were not won by respectable methods."

Growing up in the Soviet regime of the 1940s and ‘50s, Oleg Gordievsky loved his country but wanted it to be more progressive. Thinking he could help change it from the inside, he became a KGB agent — and when that didn’t work, he became a spy for Britain’s MI6.

Over a decade after becoming a double-agent for British MI6, Oleg Gordievsky’s life as a spy came crashing down. The KGB drugged and interrogated him — but before they could imprison him, Oleg and his British handlers attempted a daring escape through the Soviet countryside.

On the eve of the American Revolution, a young, idealistic Puritan volunteered to fight the British redcoats. And when General George Washington needed a spy to go behind enemy lines, only one man stepped up for the challenge: Nathan Hale.

In late September 1776, Nathan Hale was deep in British territory. He had successfully gathered intel for the American colonial army and was on his way back to base. But he was being hunted by a notorious British mercenary... and his life was about to be in jeopardy.

In the 6th century BCE, Chinese military general Sun Tzu wrote a guidebook on combat, believing that efficient and decisive warfare could restore the peace that endless wars destroyed. It became one of the most famous texts on warfare and espionage in human history.

At the height of WWII, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was deposed and imprisoned on a remote mountain summit. He had one hope for rescue: Adolf Hitler. Nazi paratroopers set out to extract Mussolini, knowing he would be executed if their mission was discovered.

Hitler's crack airborne team headed to save the deposed dictator Mussolini from certain death. The resulting raid became one of the most harrowing missions of the war.