Pre-Cold War Spying

Wikipedia article has a 26-page history of espionage starting with ancient times.

Espionage and Covert Operations: A Global History by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicus is a 24 lecture Great Course series. CIA Review     Audio lectures   Print handbook

 BC: Histories of espionage often begin with references to spying in the Old Testament and ancient Greece and Rome.
400s BC: Sun Tzu's (Master Sun) Art of War (audiobook) discusses the "use of spies" in its last chapter, "use of spies." (I recommended watching this 7-minute commentary before continuing.) Master Sun claims not giving honors and spending money to gain "foreknowledge" of the enemy is the "height of inhumanity." A general who doesn't use spies "is no leader on men, no present help to his sovereign, no master of victory." Spies determine an army's ability to move. 
  • Master Sun describes five types of spies.
    1. Local spies: Employ local inhabitants with local knowledge
    2. Inward spies: Recruit enemy officials
    3. Converted spies: Find, bribe and treat well enemy spies turning them into double agents working for you. Converted spies help identify and employ local and inward spies. Converted spies provide information for creating successful deceptions promoted by doomed spies.
    4. Doomed spies: Practice open deceptions your spies report to the enemy. Former DCI Allan Dulles suggests these spies are "doomed" because the enemy will probably kill them when the deception because apparent.
    5. Surviving spies: Send spies to bring back information about the enemy
  • These spies work together create a" secret system no one can discover," called "divine manipulation of the threads."
  • These spies should have close contact with leaders.
  • These spies should be well rewarded. 
  • Spies must be used wisely, with benevolence and straightforwardness.
  • Analyze spy's reports carefully, aware that reports may be accidentally or intentionally misleading. 
  • If spies reveal information before the time is ripe, that spy and the person told must be put to death.
  • Videos about the whole Art of War, not just "use of spies": 1, 2, 
  • Wikipedia article provides a history, summary, and influence of this book.
1500s: English Queen Elizabeth I's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham (1532-1590) is recognized as the creator of modern spy tradecraft.
1565: Tsar Ivan the Terrible establishes the Oprichnina.

 1770s: Revolutionary War: The CIA claims the Founding Fathers of American Intelligence are:
  • John Jay, First Counterintelligence Chief
  • Benjamin Franklin, Master of Covert Action 
    • "Benjamin Franklin: Founding Father of Covert Action" CIA article
    • Lecture describing espionage activities. - Sponsored by International Spy Museum
  • George Washington, First American Intelligence Chief  and America's First Military Intelligence Officer. 
    • Video about George Washington spy letter setting up spy ring
    • Alexander Rose talks about Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring, 2007
    • Thomas B. Allan talks about his book George Washington, Spymaster, How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War, 2007 sponsored by C-Span.
    • CIA article: "Legend of Hercules Mulligan" is about a tailor who served the British in New York spied for Washington.
    • An important intelligence operation was the Culper, Long Island Spy Ring 
  • The Mechanics: "Paul Revere's midnight ride" CIA article
  • "Organization of Intelligence" The Second Continental Congress had three intelligence committees: The Secret Committee, Committee of Secret Correspondence, Committee of Spies. CIA article
  • "Committee of Secret Correspondence" CIA article 
  • Intelligence in the War of Independence is a CIA online book with short chapters on intelligence organization, operations, tradecraft, and personalities, i.e., Washington's intelligence officers, Paul Revere and the Mechanics, martyrs and heroes.
  • Cryptology in tha American Revolution NSA book
  • Former CIA officer Kenneth A. Diagler describes intelligence operations: the Culper Spy Ring compared to today's operations, Sam Adams as the Lenin of the American Revolution and his Sons of Liberty as an effective united front organization for propaganda and organizing Minuteman paramilitary companies, Committees of Safety monitoring British activity, the Mechanics intelligence organization in Boston, Franklin's covert action to win necessary French support, Washington's Intelligence skills: observations, analysis, elicitation, dis-information, debriefing, counterintelligence, propaganda, agent recruitment, strategic and tactical deception, intelligence contribution to the attack on Trenton, recruited agents to observe British, Washington's strategic deception leading to Yorktown. - Sponsored by The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center
  • Interview of Kenneth A. Diagler sponsored by International Spy Museum
  • Kenneth A. Diagler lecture on African-American intelligence dispatches during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars - Sponsored by International Spy Museum
  • Lecture sponsored by International Spy Museum, 2013
1800s: During the Peninsular War, the Duke of Wellington realized he was out numbered by Napolean's troops. Wellington turned to spying to acquire the "foreknowledge" needed to win. 
1825: June 25 Russia establishes Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery.

1861: American Civil War
1881: Russia establishes the Okhrana, Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order.

1917 December 20: Soviet Union establishes Cheka 

1921: Soviet Union secret services establishes "Special Office," first poison laboratory. 

1922 February 6: Soviet Union establishes GPU

1923 November 15: Soviet Union establishes OGPU 

1934: Soviet Union establishes NKVD

1936: Abkhaz Communist leader Nestor Lakoba is poisoned during dinner party with Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria.

1936 October: USSR begins the Great Purge. Three Moscow Trials lead to the exile or execution of "Old Bolsheviks" party leaders.
1937 June: GRU agent in America Juliet Stuart Poyntz disappears.

  • "Where is Juliet Stuart Poyntz?" Modern Monthly March 1938 article


 1937 September 4: NKVD assassinates NKVD agent Ignatz Reiss in Lausanne, Switzerland.

  • "Ignatz Reiss: In Memorium" by wife Elisa Reiss, September 1938 text
  • "Ignatz Reiss" self-published Gutenburg article contains quote in Whittaker Chamber's autobiography Witness. 

1937 September 22: Russian general Evgenii Miller is drugged and kidnapped in Paris. In 1939, he was shot.

1938 February 17: Head of Soviet Foreign Intelligence Service (INO) Abram Slutsky is poisoned by hydrogen cyanide or another poison.

1939 February 20: Soviet "Special Office" poison laboratory is renamed "Laboratory 1."

1939 June 26: President Roosevelt secretly gives the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Military Intelligence Division (MID), and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) exclusive responsibility for counterespionage. 

 1939 August 23: Germany and the Soviets sign Non-Aggression Pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact)

1939 September 1: Germany invades Poland and World War II begins.

1940 May 21: President Roosevelt authorizes FBI to conduct warrant-less electronic surveillance of persons suspected of subversion or espionage. Surveillance was limited to aliens insofar as possible.

 1940 June 5: "Delimitation Agreement" between the FBI, MID, and ONI specifies the division of labor between domestic intelligence work.

1940 June 28: The US Alien Registration Act ("Smith Act") criminalizes conspiracy to overthrow the goverment; requires resident aliens to register, report annually, and provide notification of address changes.

1940 August 20: KGB agent Ramon Mercader (photographs) assassinates Leon Trotsky (photographs) in Mexico.

1940 December 20: Famous Russian biologist Nikolai Koltsov is poisoned.

1941 February 10: Soviet intelligence officer Walter Krivitsky, who revealed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, is found dead of a gunshot in Washington hotel. Police claim suicide.

1941 May 5: Federal agents arrest Amtrog employee and KGB New York rezident Gaik Ovakimain for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

 1941 June 22: Germany invades Russia.

 1941 July 11: FDR establishes the Office of the Coordination of information (COI) which becomes the OSS the following year.
  • "COI came first" gives an extensive description of Wild Bill Donovan's wartime activities. CIA article
  • "The Forerunner of today's CIA" CIA article
  • "Gen. William J. Donovon heads the Office of Strategic Services" describes Donovan before and after the war. CIA article
1941 July 23: The US government allows Gaik Ovakimian to leave the country.

1941 September 25: KGB London rezident Anatoli Gorski informs Moscow that his agent reports London has decided to build an atomic bomb.

 1941 December 7: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. America enters the war.
  • "Pearl Harbor Spy" FBI article
  • "Impact of Pearl Harbor" CIA article
  • Crytology and the Winds Message controversy NSA book
  • "Pearl Harbor: Estimating Then and Now" CIA article
  • "From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt's America and the Origins of the Second World War" by David Reynolds, 2001 CIA review
  • Pearl Harbor revisited: Naval Communications 1924-1941 NSA book
  • "Japan, China, United States and the road to Pearl Harbor, 1937-1941" US State Department article
1941 December 25: Senior KGB Wassilli M. Zarubin arrives in San Francisco to replace New York ex-rezident Ovakimian.

1942 March 20: Military Intelligence Division's Special Branch begins producing daily "Magic Summaries" analyzing foreign diplomatic messages for the White House and senior military commanders.

1942 June 4: US Navy wins the Battle of Midway helped by their breaking the Japanese naval code.

  • "How cryptology helped the Navy turn the tide in the Pacific War." NSA article

1942 June 13: The COI becomes the OSS Office of Strategic Services and General William "Wild Bill" Donovan is appointed Director.
  • "... America's First Intelligence Agency" is a CIA online book describing the organization and its activities, e.g., intelligence operations, guerrilla campaigns in Europe and Asia, etc.  
  • "... Training in the forest" CIA article
  • "OSS's WWII Anti-Axis Propaganda" CIA article
  • "Secret Intelligence Branch" CIA article
  • "Memorandum for the President: OSS-NKVD liason" CIA article
  • "OSS escape and evasion map" CIA article
  • "Roderick Stephen Hall and the Brenner Pass assignment" CIA article
  • "Spy Girl Betty McIntosh turns 100 years old" CIA article
  • "Operation RYPE" CIA article
  • "OSS and the Italian partisans of WW II" CIA article
  • "Dutch resistence and the OSS" CIA article
  • "OSS operations in Norway: Skies and daggers" CIA article
  • "OSS and Project SAFEHAVEN: Tracking Nazi gold" CIA article
  • "Marlene Dietrich, Singing for the cause" CIA article 
  • "Julia Child and OSS recipe for shark repellent" CIA article
  • "Julia Child: Life before French cuisine" CIA article
  • "John Ford: war movies" CIA article
1942 June 30: In the US interagency divides signals and intelligence duties. Navy handles code-breaking. Army Signals Intelligence Service handles diplomatic and military traffic. FBI works clandestine radio communications.

1942 July 8: President Roosevelt bars all agencies except the FBI and the armed services from code-breaking activities. The services interpret this directive as authorization to deny signals intelligence to OSS.

1943 February 1: Army's Signal Security Agency (SSA) formally begins work on Russian diplomatic traffic in Project Venona.


1943 April 10: KGB New York rezident Vassilli M. Zarubin meets Communist Party United States of America (CPUSA) official Steve Nelson in Oakland to discuss espionage.

1943 May 15: Communist International (Comintern) resolves to disband.

1943 August 7: FBI receives an anonymous Russian letter naming Soviet intelligence officers in North America.
  • "Vasilli Zublin" FBI article contains photograph of letter.
1943 October 31: San Francisco KGB residency acknowledges the receipt of a new codebook.

 1943 November: At the Tehran Conference between FDR, Churchill, and Stalin, FDR resides in quarters inside the Soviet Embassy that are bugged.
  • "How 'Uncle Joe' bugged FDR" CIA article
  • "Tehran Conference, 1943" US State Department article
1944 June 1: Combined OSS and UK Jedburgh teams and Operational Groups prepare for the D-Day invasion with sabotage behind German lines.


  • "Surprise, Kill, Vanish: Legend of the Jedburghs" CIA article
  • "Fairbairn-Sykes OSS stiletto" CIA article
  • "Caltrops" CIA article


    • 1944 May 1: KGB changes the indicator system for its cables, leaving the one-time pad page numbers en clair.

     1944 June 6: D-Day Allied landing at Normandy
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