AMAN / Unit 8200 / Spy games · History
The Radio Chatter That Exposed Moscow’s Secret Air War
Russian voices betrayed the Soviet pilots flying from Egypt. Israeli intelligence then helped prepare a fighter ambush over the Suez front.
SPY REGISTER / THE ARCHIVE
The Archive
Operations, double lives, stolen secrets and the people behind them.
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CIA / Cyber & technology · History
The CIA Built a Robot Dragonfly. A Breeze Could Blow Its Cover.
A miniature engine made its wings beat; a laser was meant to guide it. Crosswinds kept the Insectothopter out of the field.
AMAN / Unit 8200 / Cyber & technology · History
Israel Stole Egypt’s Radar. The Helicopter Almost Couldn’t Lift It.
A Soviet radar was worth taking home intact. In December 1969, Israeli commandos dismantled it in the dark and discovered their prize was dangerously heavy.
Europe / Spy games · History
Five embargoed gunboats slipped out of France on Christmas morning
A fictitious oil-service deal, hidden naval crews and refueling ships helped Israel take its paid-for boats out of Cherbourg in December 1969.
North Korea Seized an American Spy Ship With Its Secrets Still Aboard
The Pueblo’s crew tried to destroy the cryptographic equipment. The ship’s design made that desperate job harder.
CIA / Cyber & technology · History
The White House Retired the CIA’s 2,200-MPH Spy Plane After One Campaign
OXCART delivered nearly a mile of film on its first operational flight. Satellites and the Air Force’s Blackbird narrowed its future.
MI6 / Spy life · History
The MI6 Traitor Escaped a 42-Year Sentence on a Ladder Made With Knitting Needles
George Blake’s helpers got him over the wall, hid him and drove him toward East Germany beneath the seats of a family campervan.
Mossad / Spy games · History
Mossad recruited an Iraqi pilot—and landed his Soviet fighter in Israel
Munir Redfa's 1966 defection delivered a working MiG-21 to Israel. The United States borrowed it for secret tests at Area 51 two years later.
Mossad / Spy life · History
Mossad’s Champagne Spy Rode Into Egypt’s Military Bases
Wolfgang Lotz’s horses, gifts and supposed German military past opened doors for an Israeli agent in Cairo.
Member article
ASIO / Spy games · History
Kay Marshall took Moscow’s spy gadget to a rendezvous that never happened
Kay Marshall’s controlled recruitment exposed covert communications and forced Ivan Skripov out of Australia.
Shin Bet / Spy life · History
Israel’s Military Historian Had Invented His Own War Record
Israel Beer’s lawyer acknowledged the fabricated combat past after his arrest. The historian’s espionage conviction eventually brought a 15-year sentence.
Mossad Hunted a Missing Boy Across Three Continents
A child hidden under false identities became a mission for the spy chief who had captured Eichmann.
CIA / Spy games · History
The CIA Raided a Soviet Ice Station and Hooked Its Men Out of the Arctic
Operation COLDFEET recovered 150 pounds of documents, film and equipment. Getting the collectors home required a balloon, a line and a passing B-17.
NSA / Spy games · History
The Pentagon’s Plan to Frame Cuba for Terror in America
The Joint Chiefs approved proposals for manufactured attacks, a wrecked American ship and a fake airliner incident to build support for an invasion.
Janet Chisholm kept Penkovsky’s Moscow film pipeline moving
The Soviet colonel’s intelligence depended on an inside contact who collected his photographs, replenished supplies and heard his fears.
CIA / Cyber & technology · History
America’s Spy Satellite Dropped Its Secrets Into a Waiting Aircraft
CORONA photographed the Soviet Union from orbit. Reading the film required an extraordinary catch over the Pacific.
Mossad / Spy games · History
Mossad’s Eichmann capture opened a courtroom to the world
The 1960 operation in Argentina led to a diplomatic clash and a Jerusalem trial that put deportation records and survivor testimony before a global audience.
The U-2 pilot’s survival exposed Washington’s weather-flight story
Francis Gary Powers survived being shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960. His capture gave Moscow the evidence to unravel America’s cover account.
MI5 Had to Make an Atom Spy Confess to Protect Its Codebreaking Secret
Klaus Fuchs helped build the bomb and passed its secrets to Moscow. Catching him required turning intelligence into a prosecution.
MI6’s mole exposed the Berlin tunnel before it began listening
George Blake betrayed the joint CIA–MI6 operation during planning. The KGB protected him while Western analysts collected almost a year of Soviet traffic.
MI6 / Power & scandal · History
MI6’s Missing Frogman Exposed a Mission Eden Had Forbidden
Lionel Crabb vanished during a dive against Soviet warships in Portsmouth. The failed operation reached ministers more than two weeks later.
The BND’s founding bargain—and the past it carried into the Cold War
A new German intelligence service inherited Gehlen’s network, American sponsorship and personnel whose wartime records could not be wished away.
Opinion · The Editorial
CIA / Spy games · History
United Fruit Lost Its Land. Guatemala Lost Its President.
The banana company’s property dispute became entangled with Washington’s Cold War crusade. The CIA’s own record shows how far the intervention went.
ASIO / Spy games · History
Australia asked editors to keep the Petrovs’ whereabouts secret
The Petrovs’ 1954 defections exposed Soviet espionage. Protecting the couple brought questions about citizenship, publicity and voluntary national-security press notices.