We ’ve read about them in book and see them in motion picture all the time but is the the world of espionage and secret agents really as flashy and exciting as Ian Fleming would have us believe ? Well , perhaps not in all respects , but many genuine - life sentence spies have been tasked with missions that are just as dangerous as anything their fictional counterparts would tackle . And , unlike in the movies , when real spy are captured , they are n’t left unattended while some elaborated scheme ask a slow moving laser is assume to have taken care of their execution . Nevertheless , after reading about a few of these daring real - life spies , you might discover that a few of them have much more in common with James Bond than you might have carry .
12. Dušan Popov
A big source of inhalation for Ian Fleming and his undercover agent novels , Dušan Popov was a Serbian - born twofold agent who work for MI6 during World War II . In addition to charming exotic charwoman and go on dangerous commission , Popov became far-famed for warning the FBI as early as August 1941 that Japan was project an plan of attack on Pearl Harbor . Unfortunately , his word of advice go unheeded since FBI Director Edgar Hoover mistrusted him . Popov die in his dwelling house in France in 1981 at the years of 68 .
11. Tony Mendez
Even though Tony Mendez did n’t commonly go in the field himself , he was deal a master copy of disguise for crafting all the documents , costumes , and personas that his fellow spy would need to travel undetected behind opposition lines . His attainment were so impressive that he was capable to make an Asian man and a black CIA agent look like two average blank businessmen to avoid being suspected by Laos counter - intelligence operation .
Mendez most successful military operation is now also his most renowned thanks to the Oscar - winning cinematic treatment that Ben Affleck gave it in the 2012 filmArgo . In the late 1970 ’s he had the ingeniousness to come up with a fake motion-picture show production and use it as cover to help exfiltrate a mathematical group of American and Canadian ambassadorial surety from Iran .
10. Mata Hari
Margaretha Geertruide MacLeod was a Dutch alien dancer who went by the stage name Mata Hari . During World War I , the French Army recruited her as a spy , thinking that she would have many contacts from her day as a dancer and courtesan . She agreed to expend her seductive method to gather intelligence activity from German commanding ship’s officer , however , she was arrested by the French authorities in 1917 after they allegedly intercepted communication theory that identified her as a spy for the Germans . She was put behind bars , found guilty of espionage , and executed by give notice squad in Paris . Yet , Mata Hari ’s espionage natural process remain a matter of debate , chiefly because the evidence used against her was vague and circumstantial . But accord to many historian , she was likely a duple agentive role work for the Germans . An account of Mata Hari ’s living can be found in the biographyFemme Fatale : Love Lies , and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari .
9. Odette Hallowes
funnily enought , Odette Hallowes became an SOE agent purely by an accident . In 1942 , after mistakenly sending a post card offering her help to the war attempt to the haywire political science position , she was called in by the Special Forces of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry ( FANY ) and trained as an SOE agent . Later that same year , Hallowes was send to influence with the French in Nazi - occupied France . However , soon after reaching France , her and her supervisor , Peter Churchill , were captured by the Nazis . The pair bring off to obviate carrying out though thanks to some quick thinking on Hallowes part . She realise that if the Germans believe that Peter was the nephew of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and she his wife , they would be look upon as valuable bargaining chips that were not to be harm . Evidently , the architectural plan worked as both of them go the war . Hallowes by and by became the only live charwoman to be awarded with the George Cross — one of the gamy honors give in the UK .
8. Klaus Fuchs
A German atomic physicist who fled to Britain in 1933 after the Nazis get along to power , Klaus Fuchs worked on the top - secret British atomic turkey project , codenamed “ Tube Alloys . ” Shortly thereafter , he begin work for the Soviet military intelligence agency GRU before heading to the United States in 1943 to join the team of scientists working on the Manhattan Project . In 1949 , the Americans began suspect him of espionage . The next class he was arrested and put away after it became apparent that he was leaking information to the USSR . According to write up , Fuchs was motivated by anti - Nazi feeling and a complicated position of how best to reach postwar sense of balance . He was also order to have been an extremely pedantic and gentle serviceman who once drew a diagram of the working of a twisting - washer on a prison house laundry receipt to demonstrate its working to his fellow prisoners .
After spend 14 years locked up , Fuchs was released in 1959 and extradite to East Germany where he pass in 1988 . Though it ’s undecipherable how greatly Fuchs ’ espionage affect the Soviet atomic turkey labor , he did render American and British intelligence operation agencies with important information that helped peril other Soviet spy such as the American born Rosenbergs .
7. George Blake
Dutch assume George Blake began his career as a undercover agent during World War II . In 1950 , he infiltrate Seoul as a British agent but was captured by North Korean authorities and held captive for three geezerhood . During his time in prison , Blake became a communist and defect . Unaware of his modification of affectionateness , Britain receive Blake home as a hero when he was liberate in 1953 even though by that decimal point he had officially become a twofold broker . He handed over point of more than 40 MI6 agent to the Soviets , fundamentally destroy the intelligence operation government agency ’s connection of contacts in Eastern Europe .
Blake ’s espionage activities were n’t exposed until 1961 , after which he was doom to 42 age in prison house . However , after assist just five long time , he escaped and prison and fled to Moscow where he has purportedly been dwell ever since . In 2007 , Blake was awarded the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin .
6. Henri Dericourt
French pilot Henri Dericourt take flight France and join the Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) in Britain in 1942 . As an SOE agent , he was then sent back to France to arrange unavowed aircraft landings and transportation of other SOE agents . But after several British agents and French resistance hero were arrested by the Gestapo , the SOE get to suspect that there was a traitor in their midst . Whether Dericourt was actually the suspected dual agent remains a mystery to this daylight . Though he was check in 1946 , he was acquitted after two years and later died in a plane wreck in 1962 . However , since no consistence was recovered from the wreckage , there are some who trust that Dericourt faked his own decease and that he ’s really awake somewhere living a different biography under a different name .
5. Virginia Hall
Virginia Hall was an American volunteer shape in Paris when World War II smash out . After France ’s surrender , she escaped to Britain where she joined the Special Operative Executive ( SOE ) . Not long after , she was sent back to France and worked as a pressman for theNew York Postwhile she help to coordinate the action of the resistance in Vichy . Hall was allegedly regarded by the Germans as “ the most grave of all Allied spies ” and appear on the Gestapo ’s “ most want ” list as “ the limping gentlewoman ” — referring to the fact that she had shot herself in the fundament in 1932 , eventually result in her low-down leg being cut off and replaced with a prosthetic arm . She named her wooden pegleg Cuthbert , and used it to hide numerous documents over the line of her spy career .
When the war was over , Hall joined the CIA and work as an intelligence service factor until her retirement in 1966 . She died in 1982 at old age 76 .
4. Sidney Reilly
Nicknamed “ The Ace of Spades ” by his peer , Sidney Reilly is say to be one of the main source of inspiration for Ian Fleming ’s James Bond . It ’s thought that he was a undercover agent for as many as four country and , much like the celebrated fancied undercover agent , he was quite the Casanova and and liked to regale audiences with stories of his over-the-top lifespan . However , being that it was his Book of Job to be a passkey of lies and conjuration , exactly how many of his extravagant effort are really straight is a matter of dispute . What ’s not disputed , however , is that Reilly was a part of some of the most daring spy operation the public worldly concern has ever become aware of . In 1918 , he was famously regard in a British - backed plot to assassinate the Soviet leader Lenin and overthrow the Bolshevik governance . Though the game failed , Reilly surprisingly manage to get away but not without earn a Soviet government activity death sentence in absentia , which was finally carried out when he was captured after returning to avail overthrow the Soviet regimen in 1925 .
3. William Stephenson
Like Sidney Reilly , William Stephenson provided Ian Fleming with a lot on inspiration for his James Bond level . In fact , Fleming himself once wrote , “ James Bond is a highly glamourise version of a straight spy . The real thing is … William Stephenson . ”
Stephenson was a Canadian soldier , airman , businessman , inventor , spymaster , and the psyche of British news for the intact westerly cerebral hemisphere throughout World War II . His greatest achievement was found and running the spy training facility known as Camp X. It was there that he condition potential underground agents in field like “ assassination and elimination , ” earning the summer camp its cognomen as “ the shoal of mayhem and execution . ”
As head of the British Security Coordination , Stephenson pass British scientific secret to President Franklin D. Roosevelt which realise him a situation as one of the President ’s especial advisors and take to him contributing to the setup of what would subsequently become the CIA . Stephenson is also for the most part credited with changing American public opinion from a largely isolationistic stance to one of increasing funding regarding America ’s entry into World War II .
2. Oleg Penkovsky
When the U.S. discovered Russian projectile silo off the glide of Cuba , the Cold War heat up somewhat chop-chop . gratefully , the nuclear sales booth - off was de - escalated and we did n’t blow the satellite to smithereens , but things could have been much bad if the Americans never discover those weapon — and the only reasonableness they did was thanks to the work of Oleg Penkovsky .
Codenamed HERO , Penkovsky was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence activity who stay active in the field for decennium and risked his life countless times leaking secrets to both the Americans and the British . But because the CIA believed he was perpetually being watched , transmission of the sensitive materials proved exceedingly difficult . As it would fall out the CIA was plausibly right . After shining a brightness on the Cuban projectile situation , Penkovsky was apprehend by Soviet authorities , call into question , and shoot .
1. Richard Sorge
Richard Sorge was a German - birth Soviet undercover agent who became a passionate communist while recover from an accidental injury he sustained in World War I. During Wold War II , he operated out of Japan and supply the Soviets with critical entropy regarding the intentions of both Japan and Nazi Germany . From the intelligence operation gathered by Sorge , the Soviets learned that Japan was n’t planning an onrush on Russia , but the Germans were . It ’s even thought that he reported the impendent Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , although the content may have never actually reached the Allied force .
The information supply by Sorge was thought to be so worthful that he could have been almost single - handedly responsible for for halting the Nazis advance in 1941 . Which is probably why Ian Fleming refer to him as “ the human race whom I see as the most formidable spy in story . ” Sadly , when Sorge was captured by Japanese force , Stalin refused to secure his release , resulting in his execution in 1944 . 20 age later , in 1964 , Sorge was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union note , the high honorary statute title one can receive in the Soviet Union .
