List of Famous Spys

Robert Philip Hanssen is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) double agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history." Hanssen is currently serving fifteen consecutive life sentences at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado.

Ravindra Kaushik was an Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agent who lived undercover in Pakistan before he was jailed and died.

Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.

Anthony Frederick Blunt, styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to 1979, was a leading British art historian who in 1964, after being offered immunity from prosecution, confessed to having been a spy for the Soviet Union.

Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, real name William August Fisher, was a Soviet intelligence officer. He adopted his alias when arrested on charges of conspiracy by the FBI in 1957.

David John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré, was a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His third novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works.

Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence was a British archaeologist, army-officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918) against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities.

Erich Gimpel was a German spy during World War II. Together with William Colepaugh, he took part in Operation Elster ("Magpie") an espionage mission to the United States in 1944, but was subsequently captured by the FBI in New York City.

Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and in the early stages of the Cold War. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviets.

Werner Teske was an East German Hauptmann (Captain) of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) who was executed for "planned treason" in June 1981.