Double agent

In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country whose official purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organization for the target organization.

Double agentry may be practiced by spies of the target organization who infiltrate the primary, controlling organization or may result from the turning (switching sides) of previously loyal agents of the controlling organization by the target. The threat of execution is the most common method of turning a captured agent (working for an intelligence service) into a double agent (working for a foreign intelligence service) or a double agent into a re-doubled agent. The double agent is unlike a defector, who is not considered an agent, as agents are posted to function for an intelligence service and defectors are not, although some consider that defectors have been agents de facto until they have defected.

Double agents are often used to transmit disinformation or to identify other agents as part of counter-espionage operations. They are often very trusted by the controlling organization since the target organization will give them true but useless, or even counterproductive, information to pass along. Later sent back to Lisbon to persuade Abwehr officer, George Sessler, to defect and worked undercover in Brazil.

!Roger Grosjean "Fido"

| French

|colspan="2" | Double-Cross System

|French Air Force pilot who worked for the British

!Christiaan Lindemans "King Kong"

| Dutch

| Abwehr (1944)

| SOE (1940-1944) Dutch resistance (1941-1944)

|

!Arthur Owens "Snow"

| Welsh

|colspan="2" | Double-Cross System

|

!Johann-Nielsen Jebsen "Jonny" "Artist"

| German

| Abwehr (1939-1941) MI6 (1941-1945)

| Abwehr (1941-1945)

| Anti-Nazi German intelligence officer and British double agent. Jebsen recruited Dušan Popov.

!Ivan Popov "LaLa" "Aesculap" "Dreadnought" "Hans"

| Serbian

| VOA (1939-1945) Abwehr (1940-1944) MI6 (1941-1945)

| Abwehr (1941-1945)

|Worked for the Yugoslavian agency VOA, as well as the British MI6 and the German Abwehr. Held the rank of Obersturmbannführer in the Gestapo. Brother of Dušan Popov.

!Dušan Popov "Duško" "Tricycle" "Ivan"

| Serbian

| VOA (1939-1945) Abwehr (1940-1941) MI6 (1940-1945)

| Abwehr (1941-1945)

|Worked for the Yugoslavian agency VOA, as well as the British MI6 and the German Abwehr. Held the rank of colonel in the British Army. Brother of Ivan Popov.

!John Herbert Neal Moe "Mutt and Jeff"

| Norwegian

|colspan="2" | Double-Cross System

!Tor Glad "Mutt and Jeff"

| Norwegian

|colspan="2" | Double-Cross System

!Juan Pujol García "Garbo"

| Spanish

|colspan="2" | Double-Cross System

|British double agent in German spy service; awarded both an MBE and an Iron Cross

!Johann Wenzel

| German

;Before 1942:

 Red Orchestra

;During 1942:

 Gestapo

;Before 1942:

 Nazi Germany

;During 1942:

 Soviet Union

|Member of Red Orchestra spy ring who, after being unmasked by the Gestapo in 1942, fed false information to the Soviet Union from August until his escape in November. Later joined the Belgian Resistance.

!William Sebold "Tramp"

| German U.S. citizen

| FBI (1939)

| Abwehr (1939)

|Coerced by the Abwehr into becoming a spy, exposed the Duquesne Spy Ring to the FBI.

!Larissa Swirski "Queen of Hearts"

| Russian Spanish

| Abwehr MI6 (1943-1945)

| Nazi Germany

|Recruited by the Nazis in Ceuta; changed alliances after learning about the concentration camps. Role in preventing the Nazis from taking Gibraltar.

| rowspan="14" | Cold War 1947 – 1991

!Aldrich Ames

| American

| KGB

| CIA (1957-1994)

|

!John Cairncross "Liszt"

| Scottish

| MGB  Cambridge Five

| MI5 (1941-1944)  GC&CS (1942-1943)  MI6 (1944-1945)

|

!Anthony Blunt "Johnson"

| English

| NKVD  Cambridge Five

| MI5

|

!Guy Burgess "Hicks"

| English

| MGB  Cambridge Five

| MI5 (1939-1941)  Foreign Office (1944-1956)

|

!Donald Maclean "Homer"

| English

| MGB  Cambridge Five

| MI5  MI6

|

!Kim Philby "Stanley"

| English  Born in India

| MGB  Cambridge Five

| MI6

|

!George Blake

| Dutch

| KGB

| MI6

|

!Oleg Gordievsky "Sunbeam" "Nocton" "Pimlico" "Ovation"

| Russian

| MI6 (1968-2008)

| KGB (1963-1985)

|Abducted in Moscow in 1985; escaped to the United Kingdom two months later.

!Sjam Kamaruzaman

| Indonesia

| Indonesia Communist Party

| Indonesian Army

|Head of the Indonesian Communist Party Special Bureau which was tasked to gathering information and intelligence and was the mastermind of 30th September Movement.

!Matei Pavel Haiducu

| Romanian

| DST (1981)

| DIE (1975-1982)

|Defected to France in 1981.

!Dmitri Polyakov

| Ukrainian

| FBI  CIA

| GRU

|Executed in 1988.

!Robert Hanssen

| American

| GRU

| FBI

|Worked for the FBI and sold information to the Soviet Union as a mole.

!Oleg Penkovskiy "Hero"

| Russian

| CIA  MI6

| GRU

|A colonel with GRU informed the U.K. and the U.S. about the Soviet emplacement of missiles in Cuba; executed by the Soviets in 1963.

!Stig Bergling

| Swedish

| GRU

| SÄPO

|Among other things, handed over the entire Swedish "FO-code", a top secret list of Sweden's defence establishments, coastal artillery fortifications and mobilization stores. Convicted in 1979 and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason.

|rowspan="1" | Basque conflict 1959 – 2011

!Mikel Lejarza "El Lobo"

| Basque

| CESID

| ETA

|

|rowspan="4" | Northern Ireland conflict 1968 – 1998

!Denis Donaldson

| Northern Irish

| MI5  PSNI

| Provisional IRA  Sinn Féin

|Assassinated at his cottage in County Donegal after being exposed by a Northern Ireland newspaper, The Derry Journal.

!"Kevin Fulton"

| Northern Irish

| Royal Irish Rangers  Int Corps

| Provisional IRA

!Freddie Scappaticci "Stakeknife"

| Irish

| FRU

| Provisional IRA  ISU

!Robert Nairac

| English  born in Mauritius

| British Army

| Provisional IRA

|Murdered by the Provisional IRA in County Louth in 1977.

| rowspan="5" |South African espionage in Zimbabwe and the Gukurahundi 1980 – 1987

!Matt Calloway

| Zimbabwean

| NIS

| CIO

!Philip Conjwayo

| Zimbabwean

South African citizen

| NIS

| CIO

!Geoffrey Price

| Zimbabwean

| NIS

| CIO

|

!"April Fool"

| American

| United States

| Iraq

|Allegedly, an American officer who provided false information to Saddam Hussein

! Iyman Faris

|  U.S. citizen

|  al-Qaeda

|  FBI

|

Re-doubled agent

A re-doubled agent is an agent who gets caught as a double agent and is forced to mislead the foreign intelligence service. F.M. Begoum describes the re-doubled agent as "one whose duplicity in doubling for another service has been detected by his original sponsor and who has been persuaded to reverse his affections again".

Vitaly Yurchenko

Triple agent

A triple agent is a spy who pretends to be a double agent for one side while they are truthfully a double agent for the other side. Unlike a re-doubled agent, who changes allegiance due to being compromised, a triple agent usually has always been loyal to their original side. It may also refer to a spy who works for three opposing sides, such that each side thinks the spy works for them alone.

Notable triple agents include:

Phạm Văn Đắc or Hoang A Nhac (Lai Teck)
Michael Goleniewski
Abdul Razak Hussein
Ibrahim Ismail
Humam Khalil
Katrina Leung
Yoong Siew Wah

Events in which double agents played an important role

Babington Plot
Battle of Lexington
Battle of Normandy
Camp Chapman attack
Cold War
Duquesne Spy Ring
Gukurahundi
Stormontgate
Vietnam War
War on terrorism
Yom Kippur War

References

External links

F. M. Begoum: Observations on the Double Agent

Re-doubled agent

Triple agent

Events in which double agents played an important role

See also

References

Further reading

External links