Espionage

Starting in the early 1940s, Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel orchestrated a top-secret operation to steal atomic bomb secrets from right under the nose of the FBI. While living in New York City, they then sold those secrets to the Soviet Union and turned the tide of the Cold War in favor of communism.

After Julius and Ethel sold atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union in 1945, American intelligence began a manhunt to find the traitors. As the FBI swarmed around them and their USSR contacts abandoned them, the Rosenberg’s made a critical mistake.

In January 1943, a parachutist landed in a snowy field in Nazi-occupied France. At first glance, he was a wealthy Frenchman visiting an old friend in Paris. Below the surface, he was a spy for the British Special Operations Executive. Below that, his true goals were even more mysterious. Henri Dericourt was such a prolific liar, even he could barely keep track of his own loyalties.

Paris, 1943. World War II was in full swing, and triple-agent Henri Déricourt was right in the middle of it. His mission: secure an Allied victory before his carefully-spun web of lies comes unraveled.

One of the most important figures in World War II wasn’t a military commander or a powerful statesman: he was a mathematician. From a secretive mansion 50 miles north of London, Alan Turing and his fellow cryptanalysts broke the codes that led the Allies to victory.

Traveling to America, he finds his loyalties pulled between his home country and their new ally. Once Alan Turing returns home in 1942, he must navigate the end of the war and learn to live in the society he saved from extinction.

During the Korean War in the 1950s, Chinese-born linguist Larry Wu-Tai Chin was hired by the US State Department to translate prisoner of war interrogations. Larry would use his new position to embark on the longest career of espionage in U.S. history.

Linguist. Spy. Slumlord. Sex offender. Larry Chin was a man of many hats. But after 33 years spying for the Chinese government in 1985, the FBI still couldn’t force him into the role of “convicted prisoner.”

He was a chronic underachiever - lazy, reckless, alcoholic, and barely hanging on to his desk job at the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1960s. But all of these flaws made Aldrich Ames perfectly suited for a new career: leaking state secrets to the KGB.

Despite his below-average job performance and his secret work as a Soviet spy, Rick Ames managed to keep his CIA position for years in the 1960s. In the hunt for their elusive mole, the Agency was battling against their own inefficiency and ineptitude.

In the 1700s, the Venetian State Inquisitors arrested anyone they deemed a security threat: Spies. Blasphemers. Gamblers. Social climbers. Anyone who upset the traditional order. All of these traits applied to Giacomo Girolamo Casanova.

After his arrest and prison break in 1757, Casanova’s run-ins with the Venetian Inquisition were only beginning. To get protection from Venice, Casanova need to win the favor of a more powerful government: France.

Held in a Korean POW camp in 1948, British intelligence agent George Blake converted to communism and was released back to England. He thus began a long career of spying on the British for the Soviets throughout the Cold War.

After being found out by the British government, George Blake's spy career was finally at an end. His punishment was likely far greater than he anticipated. But even today, some believe the spy escaped true justice.

Baltimore-born Virginia Hall only had one leg, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from joining the Allied war effort and fighting fascism. She arrived in Vichy France in 1941 to help Jews escape over the Pyrenees and sabotage the Nazis.

Successfully infiltrating Vichy France and establishing high-level diplomatic contacts for British intelligence was just the beginning of Virginia Hall's plan to fight the Nazis. But as she executed prison breaks, recruited sex-workers, and hid downed RAF pilots in her apartment, the Gestapo was closing in...

In 1969, American intelligence officer George Trofimoff agreed to provide copies of highly classified documents to the Soviet Union. Driven by a lust for wealth, he was willing to give up his adopted country's biggest secrets for the chance to live a life of luxury.

After moving to Florida in the 1990s, George Trofimoff thought he had left all traces of his espionage back in Europe. However, the FBI knew what he had done, and was determined to make him pay for it.

When France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940 and established the puppet regime known as Vichy France, former journalist and socialite Nancy Wake knew she couldn't sit around and do nothing. Using her social status as cover, she quickly joined the young French Resistance and smuggled escaped Allied soldiers and Jewish refugees out France and into Spain.

Now an SOE agent trained in cryptic radio messages and sabotage, Nancy Wake found herself parachuting back into France. Her mission: organize over 7,000 French Maquis scattered across France, arm them, and prepare them for the impending invasion of Europe by the Allies, D-Day.

Mark Felt, also known as “Deep Throat” was the most famous whistleblower in the definitive government scandal in United States history. Serving in the Federal Bureau of Investigations for over 30 years placed Felt in the ideal position to observe and divulge key information regarding President Richard Nixon’s abuse of presidential powers in the 1960s and 70s.

After secretly giving Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward information on Watergate in the late 1960s, Mark Felt struggled to balance his public life and his secret one. He knew that what he shared with Woodward would have a dramatic effect on the way American citizens saw their government. When Watergate ended, Felt's friendship with Woodward deteriorated. And for the rest of Felt's life he struggled with whether or not to come clean about being the infamous informant known as Deep Throat.

In 1930s England, plenty of young Cambridge men were communists during their University Days. But most of them dropped the left wing politics when they left school. Donald Maclean, along with the rest of the Cambridge Five, was the exception: however high he climbed in the ranks of the Foreign Service, his loyalty was with the Soviets.

As Donald Maclean climbed the ranks of the British Foreign Service in the wake of WWII, his ideological commitment to communism never wavered. But his ability to withstand the lies and secrets did, and he turned to alcohol to numb the pain. But when he drank, he talked... It was only a matter of time before MI6 caught on.

As the War for Independence waged on, American General Benedict Arnold struggled to cope with increasing financial debt and injury. He had taken massive loans to marry the beautiful Peggy Shippen, and received a bullet in the leg in battle. Feeling disrespected, Arnold, with the whisper of his loyalist wife in his ear, decides that perhaps he could spy for the British. And in the process, make enough money to pay off his debts.

With his new post at West Point, American turncoat Benedict Arnold plots to hand over the fort over to British general Henry Clinton. But Arnold's trust in the wrong people, and careless tradecraft, leads to his undoing. And the loss of his potentially lucrative payout.

After becoming disillusioned with his Muslim faith’s more radical aspects, former Danish criminal Morten Storm started working for Danish intelligence services—becoming one of the most valuable spies in the War on Terror.

Although he risked his life to catch some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, when push came to shove, Morten Storm knew the CIA didn’t have his back. So in late 2011, with enemies on all sides, Morten is forced to choose between his personal safety and sharing his story.

Russia. 1972. Explore why Vasili Mitrokhin switched from spying for the Soviet Union to spying on them, and how he secretly copied and smuggled thousands of documents right out from under the KGB’s nose.

After retiring from the KGB in 1984, Vasili Mitrokhin had a new challenge: escape the Soviet Union and expose some of the dark secrets the KGB was desperate to keep hidden.

A Chinese opera singer and a french diplomat fell in love in 1960s China—and to protect that love, Bernard Boursicot began spying for the Chinese government. But Shi Pei Pu had secrets of her own...

Willing to do anything for his lover, Shi Pei Pu, and their young son—Bernard Boursicot would even go as far as betraying his own country. But as the authorities closed in on them by the 1980s, Bernard realized he wasn’t the only one capable of betrayal.

From her experience as an exotic dancer in the early 1900s, Mata Hari was used to moving amongst powerful men and switching into whatever persona suited the situation. But when WWI struck Europe, her overtly sexual, international lifestyle started to look very suspicious to the French.

Shrewd and calculating, Walter Schellenberg wasted no time in climbing his way through the ranks to become the head of all foreign intelligence in Nazi Germany. His understanding of subterfuge and his relationships with some of the most dangerous men in the world boosted his ascent to the top.

He had the trust of the top Nazi powerbrokers but was also starting to doubt the Party’s ability to win its war. Walter Schellenberg needed to plan an exit strategy.

During the Cold War, East Germany’s state security service was the Ministry for State Security—later known as the Stasi. Their creative spy technologies would make them famous, inventing gadgets such as button and pen cameras.