List of Famous Spys

Reinhard Gehlen was a German lieutenant-general and intelligence officer. He was chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military intelligence service on the eastern front during World War II, spymaster of the CIA-affiliated anti-Communist Gehlen Organisation (1946–56) and the founding president of the Federal Intelligence Service of West Germany (1956–68) during the Cold War.

Oscar Carl Pfaus was a German immigrant who became an American citizen through military service. He had a succession of jobs before becoming involved in pro-Nazi organizations in Chicago in the early 1930s and becoming a full-time Nazi propagandist there. He was also active in New York.

Isabella Maria Boyd, best known as Belle Boyd, was a Confederate spy in the American Civil War. She operated from her father's hotel in Front Royal, Virginia, and provided valuable information to Confederate General Stonewall Jackson in 1862.

Zheng Pingru was a Chinese socialite and spy who gathered intelligence on the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. She was executed after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Ding Mocun, the security chief of the Japanese puppet government. Her life is believed to be the inspiration for Eileen Chang's novella Lust, Caution, which was later adapted into the eponymous 2007 film by Ang Lee.

Michael Whitney Straight was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, a member of the prominent Whitney family, and a confessed spy for the KGB.

Alger Hiss was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950. Before the trial Hiss was involved in the establishment of the United Nations, both as a U.S. State Department official and as a U.N. official. In later life he worked as a lecturer and author.

Yoshiko Kawashima was a Qing dynasty princess of Manchu descent. She was raised in Japan and served as a spy for the Japanese Kwantung Army and Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War. She is sometimes known in fiction under the pseudonym "Eastern Mata Hari". After the war, she was captured, tried, and executed as a traitor by the Nationalist government of the Republic of China. She was also a notable descendant of Hooge, eldest son of Hong Taiji.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is a Palestinian who worked undercover for Israel's internal security service Shin Bet from 1997 to 2007.

Tuncay Güney, code name "Ipek" (silk), is a Turkish citizen of Dönmeh Jewish origin who claims to have infiltrated the Turkish Gendarmerie's intelligence organization JITEM, Ergenekon, the Workers' Party, and the Gülen movement before being outed. He is subordinate to Mehmet Eymür, who was discharged from the National Intelligence Organization. The information Güney has gleaned on these organizations make him a key figure in the ongoing Ergenekon investigation. His statements form the backbone of the 2455-page Ergenekon indictment, which mentions him 492 times and labels him a suspect at large.

Pyotr Semyonovich Popov - was a major in the Soviet military intelligence apparatus (GRU). He was the first GRU officer to offer his services to the Central Intelligence Agency after World War II. Between 1953 and 1958, he provided the United States government with large amounts of information concerning military capabilities and espionage operations. Codenamed ATTIC, for most of his time with the CIA, Popov's case officer was George Kisevalter.