Spies

From early days of biplanes to today's spy satellites, the spies in the sky have proved to be an enduring component of modern warfare.

In WWII, the U.S. stayed ahead of the Soviet Union in the race for atomic bombs, but the Soviets genius for espionage allowed them to acquire atomic secrets of their own.

Bletchley Park, an unassuming Victorian mansion 50 miles north of London, became the most potent deciphering center of WWII when its staff of code breakers cracked the Nazis' encrypting machine.

Born in the crucible of Israel's war of independence and honed in the struggle for survival against hostile neighbors, the Mossad intelligence service gained a reputation for ruthlessness.

See how the spectacular successes of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, like breaking the Enigma code during World War II, were offset by devastating failures such as its inability to detect superspy Kim Philby.

Learn about the history and reach of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoe Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security), the agency of the former Soviet Union responsible for state security from 1954 to 1991.

One of the former Soviet Union's greatest espionage operations ended in 1951 when two young English diplomats at the British Foreign Office were revealed to have spent a decade funneling secrets to the KGB.

Mata Hari, Sidney Reilly, Lawrence of Arabia, Cicero, Lonsdale, the Lucy Spy Ring: Take a look at just a few of the most daring and outrageous individual spy cases to have been publicized in the 20th century.

During World War II, German intelligence spread across the globe, operating throughout occupied and neutral Europe and even as far afield as the U.S. See how this formidable foe became totally compromised.

In addition to serving as a national police force, the FBI also handles violations of U.S. espionage laws by foreign agents. Probe the department's history from the G-man era to its role in a post-Cold War world.