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Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy. Any individual or spy ring, in the service of a government, company, criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law.
Industrial espionage, economic espionage, corporate spying, or corporate espionage is a form of espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of purely national security.
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
Cold War espionage describes the intelligence gathering activities during the Cold War between the Western allies and the Eastern Bloc. Both relied on a wide variety of military and civilian agencies in this pursuit.
The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service and later absorbed by the National Security Agency (NSA), that ran from February 1, 1943, until October 1, 1980. It was intended to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the US, the program continued during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was considered an enemy.
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, and a lieutenant of the GRU. He defected on September 5, 1945, three days after the end of World War II, with 109 documents on the USSR's espionage activities in the West. This forced Canada's Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (rezident) and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1974 to 1985. After being recalled to Moscow under suspicion, he was exfiltrated from the Soviet Union in July 1985 under a plan code-named Operation Pimlico. The Soviet Union subsequently sentenced him to death in absentia.
Operation Gold was a joint operation conducted by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British MI6 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1950s to tap into landline communication of the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin using a tunnel into the Soviet-occupied zone. This was a much more complex variation of the earlier Operation Silver project in Vienna.
George Blake was a spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the MGB while a prisoner during the Korean War. Discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London in 1966 and fled to the Soviet Union. He was not one of the Cambridge Five spies, although he associated with Donald Maclean and Kim Philby after reaching the Soviet Union.
Operation Ivy Bells was a joint United States Navy, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Security Agency (NSA) mission whose objective was to place wire taps on Soviet underwater communication lines during the Cold War.
As early as the 1920s, the Soviet Union, through its GRU, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB intelligence agencies, used Russian and foreign-born nationals, as well as Communists of American origin, to perform espionage activities in the United States, forming various spy rings. Particularly during the 1940s, some of these espionage networks had contact with various U.S. government agencies. These Soviet espionage networks illegally transmitted confidential information to Moscow, such as information on the development of the atomic bomb. Soviet spies also participated in propaganda and disinformation operations, known as active measures, and attempted to sabotage diplomatic relationships between the U.S. and its allies.
Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold War. Exactly what was given, and whether everyone on the list gave it, are still matters of some scholarly dispute. In some cases, some of the arrested suspects or government witnesses had given strong testimonies or confessions which they recanted later or said were fabricated. Their work constitutes the most publicly well-known and well-documented case of nuclear espionage in the history of nuclear weapons. At the same time, numerous nuclear scientists wanted to share the information with the world scientific community, but this proposal was firmly quashed by the United States government. It is worth noting that many scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project were deeply conflicted about the ethical implications of their work, and some were actively opposed to the use of nuclear weapons.
Russia–United Kingdom relations, also Anglo-Russian relations, are the bilateral relations between Russia and the United Kingdom. Formal ties between the courts started in 1553. Russia and Britain became allies against Napoleon in the early-19th century. They were enemies in the Crimean War of the 1850s, and rivals in the Great Game for control of central Asia in the latter half of the 19th century. They allied again in World Wars I and II, although the Russian Revolution of 1917 strained relations. The two countries were at sword's point during the Cold War (1947–1989). Russia's big business tycoons developed strong ties with London financial institutions in the 1990s after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
Oleg Adolfovich Lyalin was a Soviet agent who defected from the KGB. His defection led to the expulsion of 105 Soviet officials suspected as being Soviet spies from Britain on 25 September 1971.
The United States of America has conducted espionage against the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation.
The Consulate-General of Russia in San Francisco was a diplomatic mission in the 2790 Green Street building in Pacific Heights, San Francisco, California, United States. It was operated by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The building of the former consulate remains government property of Russia.
Russian espionage in the United States has occurred since at least the Cold War, and likely well before. According to the United States government, by 2007 it had reached Cold War levels.
Spying, as well as other intelligence assessment, has existed since ancient history. In the 1980s scholars characterized foreign intelligence as "the missing dimension" of historical scholarship." Since then a largely popular and scholarly literature has emerged. Special attention has been paid to World War II, as well as the Cold War era (1947–1989) that was a favorite for novelists and filmmakers.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
Operation Monopoly was a covert plan by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to build a tunnel underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., to gather secret intelligence in effect from 1977 until its public discovery in 2001.
References
- 1 2 Bennett, Gill (5 August 2014). Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy. Oxford University Press. p. 123.
- ↑ Walton, Calder. "Why Obama Was Smart to Kick Out Russian Spies". Politico.
- ↑ Trahair, R.C.S. Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. p. 220.
- ↑ Andrew, Christopher. "The Later Cold War". MI5 Security Service - History - Cold War.
