The Espionage Act of 1917
defined espionage as the notion of obtaining
or delivering information relating to national defense,
to a person who's not entitled to have it.
The act made espionage a crime punishable by death,
but there are always men and women willing to risk it,
for country, for honor, or maybe just for some quick cash.
Whether they infiltrated the enemy's ranks
or sweet-talked the details out of careless persons
who ignore all those loose lips sink ships posters,
these are the most notorious spies
with the most successful espionage missions in history,
ranked by the operations they disrupted,
the damage they dealt, and the odds stacked against them.
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Now for some spy s***.
These are the top 10 espionage missions in history.
Aldrich Ames is a 31-year CIA veteran
turned KGB double agent.
In 1994 he was arrested by the FBI
for spying for the Russians along with his wife,
Rosario Ames, who aided and abetted his espionage.
Following his arrest and guilty plea,
Ames revealed that he had compromised the identities
of CIA and FBI human sources,
leading some to be executed by the Soviet Union.
During a nearly year-long investigation into his subterfuge
and his subsequent trial, it was revealed that Ames
had been spying for the Soviets since 1985,
passing details about HUMINT sources,
clandestine operations against the USSR,
and providing classified information via dead drops
in exchange for millions of dollars.
It was, in fact, the Ames' lavish spending
that finally led to their downfall.
But by then, he had already nearly destroyed
the American intelligence program in Russia.
Ames is currently serving his life sentence,
while his wife, as part of a plea-bargain agreement,
served only five years and walked free.
Number nine, Virginia Hall,
otherwise known as The Limping Lady.
Virginia Hall was one of the most successful
espionage operatives of World War II,
earning not only the contempt of the Gestapo,
but the Distinguished Service Cross,
the only civilian woman to be so honored.
As a spy, she organized agent networks,
recruited the local population of occupied France
to run safe houses,
and aided in the escape of Allied prisoners of war.
Oh, and she did it all with a wooden leg named Cuthbert.
Known by the Nazis as The Limping Lady,
she was recruited by British spymaster Vera Atkins
to report on German troop movements,
and recruit members for the resistance in France.
Posturing as an American news reporter,
she encoded messages into news broadcasts
and passed encrypted missives to her contacts.
She signed up at the US Office of Strategic Service,
the predecessor to the CIA.
And in 1944, she organized missions to sabotage the Germans.
She is credited with more jailbreaks,
sabotage missions, and leaks of troop movements
than any other spy in France.
Number eight, Harriet Tubman.
Everyone knows that Harriet Tubman helped slaves
reach freedom through the Underground Railroad,
after her own escape in 1849.
When the Civil War broke out 11 years later,
she continued the fight
by becoming a spy for the Union Army.
Her time spent with the Underground Railroad
taught her to keep track of complex details and information,
scout transportation routes,
and arrange clandestine meetings.
She used these skills to build a spy ring,
mapping territory, routes, and waterways,
and collecting human intelligence
about Confederate movements and weaponry.
She was the first and only woman to organize
a military operation during the Civil War,
overseeing the transport of Union boats
through Confederate-mined territory,
based on intel she had collected.
During that same raid, she helped free 700 local slaves,
100 of whom would take up arms for the North.
Number seven, George Blake.
George Blake was recruited
to the Secret Intelligence Service,
otherwise known as MI6, during World War II.
During the Korean War,
he was taken prisoner by the Korean People's Army.
And during his three-year detention,
he became a communist and decided to betray his country.
In 1953, he returned to Britain a hero,
but secretly began his work as a double agent for the KGB,
wherein he would compromise anti-communist operations,
and reportedly betray over 40 MI6 agents
and dismantle MI6 operations in Eastern Europe.
In 1961, he was exposed by a Polish defector, arrested,
and sentenced to 42 years of imprisonment.
But in 1966, he broke out and fled to Moscow,
where he was awarded
the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin.
Number six, Agent 355.
There were several Patriot spy rings
that worked to overthrow British occupation
during the Revolutionary War.
But very few of these secret groups had women
who actively took part in the espionage.
The Culper Spy Ring, however,
is known mainly for a very unusual agent,
a spy known then and now only as 355,
the group's code number for the word woman.
The mystery woman's identity was kept secret
to protect herself and likely her family.
But her daring contributions to the American cause
have been remembered in history.
She took part in several counterintelligence missions,
including spy operations that resulted in the arrest
of Major John Andrew,
the head of England's intelligence operations in New York,
and the discovery of Benedict Arnold's treason.
Some historians guess that Agent 355 was likely a shopkeeper
or a merchant who learned information
about Red Coat military operations
from chatty British customers, and that she would then
divulge this information to George Washington himself.
Regardless of her methods,
Agent 355 made critical contributions
to the Revolutionary cause.
Number five, Rose Greenhow.
Confederate spy Rose Greenhow is credited with obtaining
critical intelligence about the Union's plans
to attack in Manassas, Virginia.
She established her spy network in Washington DC,
at the beginning of the Civil War, and it quickly proved
its worth when Greenhow uncovered details
about Union General Irvin McDowell's plans in 1861.
Greenhow spirited intelligence
to Confederate General Pierre GT Beauregard,
who requested extra troops when he met Union forces
at Bull Run on July 21st.
The Battle of Bull Run was the first major land battle
of the Civil War,
and as a result of Greenhow's intelligence,
the South was able to achieve a major victory
and launch their rebellion with momentum.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis himself
sent Greenhow a letter of appreciation after the battle.
Federal authorities were soon able to trace
Greenhow's activities, however,
and she was placed under house arrest
before an incarceration in the Old Capitol Prison.
After her release, she would continue to fight
for the Southern cause, until her death at sea
while transporting Confederate dispatches
aboard a British blockade runner.
Number four, Oleg Gordievsky.
Oleg Gordievsky has been given credit
for shifting the balance of power during the Cold War.
For 11 years he spied for MI6
while working as a high-ranking KGB officer in London.
In 1968, Gordievsky was a junior spy working abroad
for the KGB when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia.
He resolved himself to fight
the communist system from within.
In 1972, Gordievsky was recruited by MI6
after he was referred by a Czech spy
who had defected to Canada.
Over the next decade, Gordievsky would provide details
of current and former KGB operations,
as well as the KGB's attempts
to influence western elections.
He was exposed to Moscow by Aldrich Ames,
and managed to survive a KGB interrogation
despite being drugged.
MI6 managed to recover Gordievsky,
and smuggle him safely out of the country.
He is one of the highest-ranking KGB officers
ever to operate western espionage missions,
and for this he was sentenced by Soviet authorities
to death in absentia.
Number three, Francis Walsingham.
Most spies work in secret,
but Francis Walsingham served Queen Elizabeth I
with the badass title of Spymaster.
A staunch Protestant,
Walsingham served as Principal Secretary of State
for the Tudor queen, before joining her Privy Council,
where he devised an intricate spy network during her reign.
He uncovered what became known
as the Babington Plot of 1586,
which lead to the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,
the following year.
Encouraged by her supporters,
Anthony Babington wrote a letter to Mary concerning
the dispatch of Queen Elizabeth
during Mary's incarceration in England.
Mary's reply was intercepted by Walsingham
and Thomas Phelippes, who copied the letter
and forged a damning postscript to the end.
Walsingham used the copied letter
and the cipher text of the original
to convince Elizabeth that for as long as Mary lived,
she posed a threat to the Protestant throne.
Elizabeth reluctantly signed Mary's death warrant,
and she was beheaded on February 8th, 1587.
Elizabeth safely reigned until her own death in 1603.
Number two, Robert Hanssen.
Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen spied for Soviet
and Russian intelligence services from 1979 to 2001,
and remains one of the most damaging
double agents in American history.
His espionage activities included delivering
thousands of pages of classified material to Moscow,
revealing the identities of human sources and agents,
and details about America's nuclear operations.
One of his first acts as a Soviet spy was to expose
Dmitri Polyakov, a Soviet general and CIA informant,
who was then executed.
During his espionage tenure,
he would receive over $1.4 million in cash and diamonds
to betray his country.
The FBI discovered Hanssen's treachery,
and he was indicted on 21 counts of spying
for the Soviet Union and Russia.
He would finally plead guilty to 15 counts
of espionage and conspiracy,
in exchange for 15 consecutive life sentences in prison,
over the death penalty.
Number one, the Rosenbergs.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the first US citizens
to be convicted and executed
for espionage during peacetime,
after they were found guilty of delivering classified
information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
Julius was an engineer for the US Army Signal Corps,
and his wife Ethel worked there as a secretary.
In 1950, they were implicated by David Greenglass,
Ethel's younger brother, who worked at Los Alamos,
a secret atomic bomb laboratory in the States,
and who confessed to providing
classified intelligence to the Soviets.
The Los Angeles Times reported that not only
did the Rosenbergs do their best to give the Soviets
top atomic secrets from the Manhattan Project,
they succeeded in handing over top military data
on sonar and radar that was used by Moscow to shoot down
American planes in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
After a controversial trial and global speculation,
they were executed via electric chair on June 19th, 1953.
That's our list.
Leave us a comment and tell us who you think
were the most compelling espionage agents in history.