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Spies are more than Hollywood fiction

The game of espionage has been played since long before Ian Fleming brought us 007. They provide the world with an example of someone who can change society and their beliefs. Who have been the most successful for their countries or causes?

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
In 1942, Julius and Ethel became full members in the American Communist Party. By 1943, however, the Rosenbergs dropped out of the Communist Party to pursue Julius's espionage activities. The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and sentenced to death under Section 2 of the Espionage Act. The couple were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War. Judge Kaufman noted that he held them responsible not only for espionage but also for the deaths of the Korean War, since the information leaked to the Russians was believed to help them develop the A-bomb and stimulate Communist aggression in Korea. Their case has been at the center of the controversy over communism in the United States ever since. The pair are viewed as the heroes of the Cold War by some Americans as they made a sacrifice because they believed that a better world was possible and necessary. They refused to sign the loyalty oath and to lose their jobs like many people who were deemed communists. They were executed by the electric chair on June 19, 1953.

Omar Nasiri
Omar Nasiri is the pseudonym of a Moroccan spy who infiltrated al-Qaeda, attending training camps in Afghanistan and passing information to the UK and French intelligence services. He claims in an exclusive interview presented on the BBC's Newsnight programme on November 16, 2006 that the UK intelligence services were warned in the mid-1990s about the threat posed by al-Qaeda, but failed to act quickly enough. He also claims that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi deliberately gave interrogators acting on behalf of the US false information in order to encourage the USA to overthrow Saddam Hussein, thus allowing al-Qaeda to use Iraq as a jihadist base. He also claims to have provided pertinent information that could have been used to prevent al-Qaeda from ascending into power and causing 9/11 and is thus considered a hero.

Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Fuchs was a German-British theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian atomic bomb research (the Manhattan Project) to the USSR during and shortly after World War II. While at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first fission weapons and later, the early models of the hydrogen bomb, the first fusion weapon. He felt that the Soviet Union had the right to know what Great Britain and the United States were up to and by the time of his death, he had been awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit, the Order of Karl Marx and National Prize of East Germany.

Sidney Reilly
This Ukrainian, famously known as the Ace of Spies, was an adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard, the British Secret Service Bureau and later the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).He is alleged to have spied for at least four nations.. He is the basis of the famous James Bond films and Ian Fleming`s books. He was often able to move across borders under assumed aliases to steal secrets, plans and aircraft prototypes. He is most notably known for trying to stage a coup against the Russian Revolutionaries in 1917 and for trying to assassinate Vladimir Lenin. He was committed to bringing democracy and to eliminating threats. Today, many historians consider Reilly to be the first 20th-century super-spy. Much of what is thought to be known about him could be false, as Reilly was a master of deception, and most of his life is shrouded in legend.

Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale was a soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British. He is probably best remembered for his purported last words before being hanged: "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Hale has long been considered an American hero and, in 1985, he was officially designated the state hero of Connecticut. According to the standards of the time, spies were hanged as illegal combatants. On the morning of September 22, 1776, Hale was and hanged. He was 21 years old.

Pauline Cushman
On the outbreak of the American Civil War Cushman was asked to become a Union Army spy. In 1863 she toured Tennessee and after visiting the camp of General Braxton Bragg of the Confederate Army, she managed to discover his battle plans. Cushman was captured and sentenced to death. While waiting to be executed in Shelbyville, the Union Army captured the town and freed Cushman. Despite her narrow escape, Cushman agreed to carry out further spying missions behind the Confederate lines. She provided considerable information for General William Rosecrans and President Abraham Lincoln awarded her with an honorary major's commission. After the war Cushman toured the country dressed in uniform lecturing on her spying exploits. She is deemed a hero for trying to save United States from being divided.

Oleg Penkovsky
A member of the Communist Party, he took part in the invasion of Finland and by the end of the Second World War had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In April 1961 he began passing important information to his British contact in Moscow. Penkovsky revealed information about Soviet missile developments, nuclear plans, locations of military headquarters and the identities of KGB officers. This included evidence that Nikita Khrushchev had been making false claims about the number of nuclear missiles in the Soviet Union. Over a period of 14 months Penkovsky passed photographs of 5,000 secret papers to the CIA and MI6 who described him as one of the "best spy in history".

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