A spy is a person employed to watch others and collect information that is considered secret or confidential often of a military nature.
When Catherine di Medici was Queen of France, she kept a 'Flying Squadron' of 80 women who slept with powerful men to learn their secrets.
Sir Francis Walsingham (c. 1532 – April 6, 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from December 20, 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster." He tracked down supposed conspirators by employing informers, and intercepting correspondence. Walsingham was knighted December 1, 1577.
Walsingham's staff in England included the cryptographer Thomas Phelippes, who was an expert in deciphering letters and forgery, and Arthur Gregory, who was skilled at breaking and repairing seals without detection.
A decade and a half before he wrote Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe's thriving business collapsed and he was imprisoned for his debts. Robert Harley, the speaker of the House of Commons, secured his release in November 1703, on the condition that he agreed to become a secret agent and public propagandist for the government.
In 1707 Defoe was employed by the government as a propagandist and opinion former in Scotland during the manoeuvres for the 1707 union with England.
Agent 355 was the codename of a female American Revolution spy in British-occupied New York in 1778-1780. Her real name was never known, but one pregnant suspect was detained on the prison ship HMS Jersey and died after giving birth.
George Washington established the 'Contingency Fund for Foreign Intercourse', which funded spying operations in Europe. By 1793 it consumed 12% of the federal budget.
During the American Civil War, the future assassin of Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, worked as a Confederate secret agent. He met frequently with the heads of the Secret Service, Jacob Thompson and Clement Clay, in Montreal.
During World War I French intelligence captured German spy Peter Karpin, sent fake intelligence reports in his name and recouped all the money the spy was paid by his masters.The French used the funds to buy a new car for their department.. Peter Karpin was accidentally ran over in 1919 following the end of the war by the same vehicle.
Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida (Grietje) Zelle (August 7, 1876 - October 15, 1917). A Dutch-Frisian exotic dancer, she had relationships with both German and French officers during World War I and was the archetype of the seductive female spy.
On February 13, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her room at the Hotel Elysée Palace on the Champs Elysées in Paris. She was put on trial and found guilty of spying for Germany, and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad of the French Army on October 15, 1917.
British masterspy Sidney Reilly — played by Sam Neill in the TV series Reilly: Ace Of Spies — was executed by Soviet secret police in a forest near Moscow on November 5, 1925. In his last hours he wrote a diary on cigarette papers, highlighting Soviet interrogation techniques, which he had hoped to smuggle to British Intelligence.
In 1940, the Nazis sent twelves spies to Britain to pave the way for an invasion. However, the plan failed due to the ineptitude of the agents. None of them were that fluent in English and they lacked basic knowledge of British customs.
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| French spy captured during the Franco-Prussian War. |
When Catherine di Medici was Queen of France, she kept a 'Flying Squadron' of 80 women who slept with powerful men to learn their secrets.
Sir Francis Walsingham (c. 1532 – April 6, 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from December 20, 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster." He tracked down supposed conspirators by employing informers, and intercepting correspondence. Walsingham was knighted December 1, 1577.
Walsingham's staff in England included the cryptographer Thomas Phelippes, who was an expert in deciphering letters and forgery, and Arthur Gregory, who was skilled at breaking and repairing seals without detection.
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| Depiction of Sir Francis Walsingham |
A decade and a half before he wrote Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe's thriving business collapsed and he was imprisoned for his debts. Robert Harley, the speaker of the House of Commons, secured his release in November 1703, on the condition that he agreed to become a secret agent and public propagandist for the government.
In 1707 Defoe was employed by the government as a propagandist and opinion former in Scotland during the manoeuvres for the 1707 union with England.
Agent 355 was the codename of a female American Revolution spy in British-occupied New York in 1778-1780. Her real name was never known, but one pregnant suspect was detained on the prison ship HMS Jersey and died after giving birth.
George Washington established the 'Contingency Fund for Foreign Intercourse', which funded spying operations in Europe. By 1793 it consumed 12% of the federal budget.
During the American Civil War, the future assassin of Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, worked as a Confederate secret agent. He met frequently with the heads of the Secret Service, Jacob Thompson and Clement Clay, in Montreal.
During World War I French intelligence captured German spy Peter Karpin, sent fake intelligence reports in his name and recouped all the money the spy was paid by his masters.The French used the funds to buy a new car for their department.. Peter Karpin was accidentally ran over in 1919 following the end of the war by the same vehicle.
Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida (Grietje) Zelle (August 7, 1876 - October 15, 1917). A Dutch-Frisian exotic dancer, she had relationships with both German and French officers during World War I and was the archetype of the seductive female spy.
On February 13, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her room at the Hotel Elysée Palace on the Champs Elysées in Paris. She was put on trial and found guilty of spying for Germany, and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad of the French Army on October 15, 1917.
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| Mata Hari In Amsterdam, 1915 |
British masterspy Sidney Reilly — played by Sam Neill in the TV series Reilly: Ace Of Spies — was executed by Soviet secret police in a forest near Moscow on November 5, 1925. In his last hours he wrote a diary on cigarette papers, highlighting Soviet interrogation techniques, which he had hoped to smuggle to British Intelligence.
In 1940, the Nazis sent twelves spies to Britain to pave the way for an invasion. However, the plan failed due to the ineptitude of the agents. None of them were that fluent in English and they lacked basic knowledge of British customs.
42-year-old Mrs Dorothy Pamela O'Grady was the first woman spy to be condemned to death in Britain during World War II. O'Grady of Sandown, Isle of Wight was sentenced on seven charges — of making plans and cutting a military telephone — at Hampshire Assizes on December 17, 1940. While she was aiding the enemy her husband was risking his life in the fire brigade, fighting fires caused by the enemies his wife was helping. On appeal, O'Grady's sentence was cut to 14 years in prison.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) convicted 33 members of a German spy ring on January 2, 1942 in the largest espionage case in United States history. The German espionage network headed by Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne were convicted after a lengthy investigation by the FBI. Of those indicted, 19 pleaded guilty. The remaining 14 were brought to jury trial in Federal District Court, Brooklyn, New York and all were found guilty on December 13, 1941. On January 2, 1942, the group was sentenced to serve a total of over 300 years in prison.
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| The 33 convicted members of the Duquesne spy ring (FBI print). |
Safecracker Eddie Chapman was recruited as a spy by Nazi Germany while doing time in prison. Soon he was working for both sides – and engaged to women in different war zones. Despite the divided loyalties, Chapman may have saved London from many bombings.
The British secret agent Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944), was a descendant of Indian royalty. The first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France by the elite Special Operations Executive, she was captured and tortured by the Gestapo but revealed nothing. Khan escaped twice but was caught and executed at Dachau.
The most successful and feared allied spy of World War I, Virginia Hall, was an American woman with a prosthetic leg. She escaped France on foot through the Pyrenees mts, re-entered before D Day, and organized havoc behind the Nazi lines.
A Spanish double agent, Juan Pujol Garcia got medals for spying from both Nazi Germany and Britain. He ran a fake spy network in London for Germany and recruited 27 fictitious agents by which he provided them with fake intelligence during World War II.
Eric Erickson was a Swedish businessman who pretended to be devoted to the Nazis, but was really a spy for the American military. He made more than 30 trips to Germany between 1939-1945 and mapped out oil refineries that were later bombed. His family had disowned him for "supporting" Hitler.
After World War II, the Soviet Union presented a wooden replica of the Great Seal of the United States to Ambassador Averell Harriman who hung it in his office. Seven years later, a routine inspection revealed the gift contained a bugging device the Soviets had used to spy on the ambassador.
Harold ‘Kim' Philby, head of the Soviet section of the British Secret intelligence Service, was forced to resign over allegations that he helped two KGB moles escape. However, he was exonerated by the government. He then defected to the Soviet Union as he was a KGB double agent.
Philby admitted in Moscow on November 15, 1967 that he had spied for Russia for 30 years and said: "I would do it again tomorrow." He added that the Depression and the pre-war split in British socialism led him to devote his life to the "fight for communism."
Philby betrayed John le le Carré which is why he left spying to became a writer. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was partly inspired by him.
James Bond, the fictional British Secret Service agent, was created by journalist and author Ian Fleming and first appeared in the novel Casino Royale. He modeled the character of James Bond after Merlin Minshall, a man who worked for Fleming during World War II, as a spy.
The British Secret Service (James Bond's employer) really can issue a "license to kill". It's called a Class Seven authorization, and must be approved by the MI6 agent's superiors all the way up to the Foreign Minister.
Oleg Gordievsky was a KGB/MI6 double agent from 1974 to 1985. If he required MI6 rescue, he was to stand on a street corner in Moscow at 730pm on a Tuesday holding a safeway bag, wearing a grey cap. MI6 would acknowledge by walking past him eating a chocolate bar. MI6 monitored this street corner for the whole decade he was a double agent.
Shi Pei Pu (December 21, 1938 – June 30, 2009) was a Chinese opera singer and spy from Beijing. He masqueraded as a woman and used a 20 year long sexual affair with a French diplomat to steal intelligence. Pu even purchased a child and convinced the diplomat it was his.
James Bond, the fictional British Secret Service agent, was created by journalist and author Ian Fleming and first appeared in the novel Casino Royale. He modeled the character of James Bond after Merlin Minshall, a man who worked for Fleming during World War II, as a spy.
The British Secret Service (James Bond's employer) really can issue a "license to kill". It's called a Class Seven authorization, and must be approved by the MI6 agent's superiors all the way up to the Foreign Minister.
Oleg Gordievsky was a KGB/MI6 double agent from 1974 to 1985. If he required MI6 rescue, he was to stand on a street corner in Moscow at 730pm on a Tuesday holding a safeway bag, wearing a grey cap. MI6 would acknowledge by walking past him eating a chocolate bar. MI6 monitored this street corner for the whole decade he was a double agent.
Shi Pei Pu (December 21, 1938 – June 30, 2009) was a Chinese opera singer and spy from Beijing. He masqueraded as a woman and used a 20 year long sexual affair with a French diplomat to steal intelligence. Pu even purchased a child and convinced the diplomat it was his.
Robert Hanssen was a former FBI agent who spied for the Soviet Union and later, Russia, for over two decades. He is considered one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history, responsible for selling thousands of top-secret documents to Russian intelligence.
During his time as a spy, Hanssen received over $1.4 million in cash and diamonds from his Russian handlers. He was finally caught in 2001 after a long investigation by the FBI, which included the use of a former KGB agent named Viktor Cherkashin, who was paid $7 million to help catch Hanssen.
Hanssen was convicted of espionage and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The case raised serious concerns about the security of U.S. intelligence agencies and led to significant reforms in the FBI's counterintelligence programs.
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