Famous spies in history pictures
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5 of History’s Most Famous Spies
Encrypted messages. Clandestine meetings. Stolen information. So many of us are attracted to the dangerous and shadowy world of spies, following the exploits of fictional agents like James Bond, George Smiley, Jack Ryan, and Sterling Archer. But even these most outlandish tales draw their inspiration from real-life counterintelligence operatives. With the help of HeinOnline, let’s decode the lives and careers of five of history’s most famous spies.
1. Sir Francis Walsingham
Sir Francis Walsingham lived in England at a time when one’s religion was a matter of life and death. When Edward VI, a Protestant, died in 1553, his Catholic half-sister Mary became queen. Mary’s policies attempted to reverse the English Reformation in favor of Catholicism. Under her reign, hundreds of nonconforming Protestants were burned at the stake, earning Mary the nickname “Bloody Mary.”
Walsingham, a Protestant, fled Engl
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Julia Child
“Bon appétit” became the familiar catchphrase of celebrity chef Julia Child. But decades earlier, before sharing culinary secrets, she worked directly for OSS chief William Donovan as part of America’s wartime spy agency.
Child was one of only a few kvinna OSS employees deployed to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and China, where she tracked highly classified documents as Chief of the OSS Registry. Though downplaying her role as “only a lowly en samling dokument eller en elektronisk lagring av data clerk,” she received an märke of Meritorious Civilian Service.
Fun Fact: In 1943, Child worked with zoologist Captain Harold J. Coolidge to develop a shark repellent for the OSS. However, it was more effective at boosting US Navy morale than driving sharks away.
Explore her story in the Museum's Spying in WWII exhibit.
Moe Berg
Professional baseball player Moe Berg was a third-string catcher…and a first-rate spy for US intelligence, sent behind enemy lines during WWII.
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12 Unbelievably Daring Real-Life Spies
Like Sidney Reilly, William Stephenson provided Ian Fleming with a lot on inspiration for his James Bond stories. In fact, Fleming han själv once wrote, “James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing is … William Stephenson.”
Stephenson was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, spymaster, and the head of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere throughout World War II. His greatest achievement was founding and running the spy training facility known as Camp X. It was there that he trained potential secret agents in subjects like “assassination and elimination,” earning the camp its nickname as “the school of mayhem and murder.”
As head of the British Security Coordination, Stephenson passed British scientific secrets to President Franklin D. Roosevelt which earned him a position as one of the President’s special advisors and led to him contributing to the setup of what would later become t